Time Of Death

[Herlock Sholmes]

read.... long v codosch .. your just being ignorant

You cannot know that Mrs Long was wrong or lying for a fact.

[Michael W Richards]

We can establish one crucial point by Cadosche's statement....someone was alive in the neighboring yard at 5:20 and around a half an hour later a woman is found gutted in that yard. That he heard someone alive in the yard thudding against the fence must then mean that there was no dead woman there at the time. But she may have been on her way. That's enough to rule out Long and set an approximate TOD, and since it was a cool morning and all of Annies internal heat would be released due to her being opened up wide, that's why some medical opinion suggested an earlier death. I imagine that up until Annie Chapmans murder few if any medical officials would have presided over a victim outdoors in the cool morning air who had the flesh taken off her abdomen in flaps and her intestines drawn out.

I think expertise comes from experience...so, how could they possibly know how long it would take for the body to cool? The physical evidence therefore is secondary to Cadosches statement when it comes to establishing a tentative TOD.

[Herlock Sholmes]

We can establish one crucial point by Cadosche's statement....someone was alive in the neighboring yard at 5:20 and around a half an hour later a woman is found gutted in that yard. That he heard someone alive in the yard thudding against the fence must then mean that there was no dead woman there at the time. But she may have been on her way. That's enough to rule out Long and set an approximate TOD, and since it was a cool morning and all of Annies internal heat would be released due to her being opened up wide, that's why some medical opinion suggested an earlier death. I imagine that up until Annie Chapmans murder few if any medical officials would have presided over a victim outdoors in the cool morning air who had the flesh taken off her abdomen in flaps and her intestines drawn out.

I think expertise comes from experience...so, how could they possibly know how long it would take for the body to cool? The physical evidence therefore is secondary to Cadosches statement when it comes to establishing a tentative TOD.

I agree Michael. It’s far less likely that Richardson and Cadosch we’re lying or mistaken than it would have been for Phillips to have been wrong.

[Wickerman]

I agree Michael. It’s far less likely that Richardson and Cadosch we’re lying or mistaken than it would have been for Phillips to have been wrong.

Are you sure that's what you mean?
I thought Phillips was wrong.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Are you sure that's what you mean?https://forum.casebook.org/#
I thought Phillips was wrong.

You spotted the deliberate error then Wick. I was just checking who was paying attention.

Glad to see someone’s on the ball.

[FISHY1118]

Albert Cadosch It was then about twenty minutes past five, I should think. As I returned towards the back door I heard a voice say "No" just as I was going through the door. It was not in our yard, but I should think it came from the yard of No. 29. I,HOWEVER CANNOT SAY WHICH SIDE IT CAME FROM.

[FISHY1118]

The Police View: Dr. Phillips

" doubtful evidence points to some thing between 5:30 and 6: - but medical evidence says about 4 o'cl."


Home Office Files²⁷

DR PHILLIPS, T.O.D FOR THOSE TO PONDER

The official Scotland Yard position seems to have been to trust the opinions and evidence of two of its own. Inspector Chandler's evidence, taken at face value and without resorting to impugning the man, cast serious doubt on Richardson's truthfulness. This led to police suspicion against the market porter. How was it, exactly, that he did he not see the body if, as he said, he had sat on the steps? Was he lying? And if so, why? Chief Inspector Swanson's report of 19 October, 1888²⁸ tells us that the police, rather than seeing him as the crucial witness, saw him as a serious suspect.

"If the evidence of Dr. Phillips is correct as to time of death, it is difficult to understand how it was that Richardson did not see the body when he went into the yard at 4:45 a.m. but as his clothes were examined, the house searched and his statement taken in which there was not a shred of evidence, suspicion could not rest upon him, although police specially directed their attention to him."

The police were obviously depending upon Dr. Phillips' opinions and his standing as a reliable medical expert when directing the course of their investigations. To the detectives working on the Chapman murder, Dr. Phillips' estimated time of death made Long and Cadosch irrelevant.

This sentiment is also expressed in Swanson's report. After listing the actions of the police during the investigation, Swanson was forced to admit that "Up to the present the combined result of those inquiries did not supply the police with the slightest clue to the murderer" thus damning Mrs. Long's description of the man she had seen with no praise at all. Swanson continues, "Again if the evidence of Mrs. Long is correct that she saw the deceased at 5:30 a.m. then the evidence of Dr. Phillips as to probable time of death is incorrect. He was called and saw the body at 6:20 a.m. [sic] and he then gives it as his opinion that death occurred about two hours earlier, viz: 4:20 a.m. hence the evidence of Mrs. Long which appeared to be so important to the Coroner, must be looked upon with some amount of doubt, which is to be regretted."

This "doubt" apparently soon became the conviction that Mrs. Long's testimony was worthless. By the end of 1888, for example, Inspector Walter Andrews stated "The police are perfectly powerless, no one ever having seen the murderer except the victims." ²⁹ Sir Melville Macnaghten said very much the same thing in his 1894 "Memoranda", stating, "no one ever saw the Whitechapel murderer" , although in his draft copy he adds, "unless possibly it was the City P.C. who was a beat [sic] near Mitre Square."

It is now time to look at Dr. Phillips' opinions about the time of death of Annie Chapman, opinions that were supported by Scotland Yard. The doctor was called to number 29 Hanbury Street at 6:20 a.m. and arrived there at 6:30. He then immediately examined the body in situ and observed a couple of things important to us. He stated "the body was cold, except that there was a certain remaining heat, under the intestines, in the body." He also observed that "stiffness of the limbs was not marked, but it was commencing." At the post mortem, conducted at 2:00 that afternoon, he also observed that "the stomach contained a little food." It is doubtlessly from the first two observations that Dr. Phillips made his estimate of the time of death.

Chandler's report, dated on the day of the murder, said, "The Doctor pronounced life extinct and stated the woman had been dead at least two hours." ³⁰ Later at the inquest he responded to a question about the time of death of Annie Chapman by stating "I should say at least two hours, and probably more" but there was a caveat to this statement, which has been used to explain away Dr. Philips' estimation. The doctor added "but it is right to say that it was a fairly cold morning, and that the body would be more apt to cool rapidly from its having lost the greater portion of its blood." Does this disqualify Dr. Phillips' time frame for the murder? No, it doesn't. The doctor was merely stating the obvious and not changing his estimate of time of death.

Estimating time of death has been called more of an art form than an exact science. It is difficult, with what we have to work with, to know exactly what Dr. Phillips had observed and what exactly were the variables surrounding the death of Annie Chapman. A few things can be gleaned from pathology texts, such as the fact that rigor mortis generally begins two to four hours after death. Many things can affect the onset of rigor but generally the two to four hour period is consistently espoused in the literature. In the case of Annie Chapman, Dr. Phillips observed that rigor mortis had just begun when he examined the body at 6:30 that morning. This alone would explain his opinion that Chapman had been dead for at least two hours.

As I have said, however, several things can hasten or lengthen the time it takes rigor to appear. I have noticed that more than one author writing on the Chapman murder has misunderstood this fact. For some reason authors have confused the fact that subjecting the body to cold temperatures will not hasten rigor but instead will retard its onset, will in fact slow it down. It is correct to say, therefore, that the coldness of Chapman's body would cause a delay in the appearance of stiffening and thus point to a time greater than two hours for her time of death. This fact is apparently reflected in Dr. Phillips' inquest testimony.

Food in the stomach is also an interesting indicator of when Annie Chapman was murdered. Chapman had no money at 2:00 a.m. so in order for her to have eaten sometime after that she must have found a client and, rather than pay for her bed, bought food and then kept walking the streets. Also, it would seem that whoever sold her this food decided not to come forward when the police were diligently making inquiries about Annie's last four hours. This seems doubtful and we will have to stick to the facts as we know them. ³¹ We know that she was seen eating a baked potato at sometime between 1:30 and 1:45 a.m. This, presumably, was her last meal or at least we have no concrete evidence to suggest that she had eaten anything after this time. Dr. Phillips states that there was still some food in her stomach so her last meal was only partially digested at her time of death so how long does it take for a meal of potatoes to fully digest?

Dr. Robert Court, who contributed to a discussion about this issue on the Casebook: Jack the Ripperwebsite several years ago, asked colleagues in the pathology department this very question. His personal opinion was that it would take about an hour for a potato to be fully digested but was told that "a time of less than half-an-hour was realistic." One forensic pathologist that I talked to told me that a small meal of potatoes would be fully digested "in about an hour to an hour and a half," ³² while another told me "this small solid meal would take some time like 2 3 hours, 'let us say' to be digested." ³³ Here we have a range of between half an hour to three hours for Annie Chapman's meal to have become fully digested, which would suggest that as the food was only partially digested at death the range for estimated time of death falls somewhere after 1:30 to1:45 a.m., the last time we know she ate, and sometime before 4:30 a.m. or, the time offered by Dr. Phillips.

The final observation offered us by Dr. Phillips is the coldness of the body. In effect the doctor stated that the body was stone cold except for some "remaining heat" in the abdominal cavity underneath the intestines. It is to this observation which he added the caveat at the inquest that the body could have cooled faster because of the conditions. What he didn't do was suggest that this had caused him to reevaluate his estimated time of death. He certainly didn't offer any support for Mrs. Long and Albert Cadosch's testimonies.

Phillips' caveat was apparently stated in so offhand a manner that it didn't leave an impression on everyone. At least one jury member, the foreman, remarked aloud at the inquest that the time stated by Elizabeth Long as to when she had seen Annie Chapman alive was not consistent with the time of death stated by the doctor. The coroner answered sharply that "Dr. Phillips had since qualified his statement" ³⁴ or, "qualified it very much," according to the Daily News. This was not true, as the police opinion shows, and in contrast to Coroner Baxter's beliefs was a report in the Times which stated after Dr. Phillips had testified "Dr. Phillips's positive opinion that the woman had been dead quite two hours when he first saw the body at half-past 6, throws serious doubt upon the accuracy of at least two important witnesses, and considerably adds to the prevailing confusion." ³⁵ (emphasis mine)

It is interesting to note that there were contemporary medical men who shared Dr. Phillips' view. Dr. Bond, for example, wrote "In the four murders of which I have seen notes only, I cannot form a very definite opinion as to the time that had elapsed between the murder and the discovering of the body.... In Buck's Row, Hanbury Street, and Mitre Square three or four hours only could have elapsed." ³⁶ Not a ringing endorsement, but he doesn't say that it was within an hour either.

The unnamed writer for the Lancet is more interesting. He gave his opinion that "We confess to sharing Mr. Phillips' view that the coldness of the body and commencing rigidity pointed to a far longer interval between death and discovery than [5:30 a.m.]; but, as he remarked the almost total draining away of the blood, added to the exposure in the cold morning air, may have hastened the cooling down of the body." ³⁷

It should be noted that this writer also adds a caveat to the loss of heat in the body but, more importantly, still begins by supporting Dr. Phillips' opinion of a far longer period between death and discovery of the body. The caveat is added, as Phillips added his, to suggest that there was a possibilitythat they could be off on their calculations regarding the time it would take the body to become cold, not that they believed that they actually were off.

How long would it take for the heat of a human body to drain away almost completely? Certainly the time would be affected by the loss of blood. I was told "Remarks made regarding the body cooling faster in exsanguination are generally true. Disembowelment would hasten cooling significantly as well." ³⁸ But how fast and how significantly would this happen? We do have a contemporary comparison which can be made.

The murders of Annie Chapman and Catherine Eddowes were committed under similar conditions. Both bodies were found outside and with their clothing hiked up, although it is arguable that Eddowes was in a more open location and her body exposed more to the air. Both women were killed on nights with cool temperatures, although the night that Eddowes was murdered was a couple of degrees cooler. Both bodies had been extensively mutilated but Eddowes' more so. Both had lost a lot of blood.

In the Eddowes case the medical opinion is backed up by the impossibility of error. The victim was seen alive talking to her killer at 1.35 a.m. and then found dead at 1.45 a.m. We have Constable Watkins testimony that there was no body lying in Mitre Square at 1.30 and medical and police opinion that she was killed where she was found. We also have Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown's observations after he examined the body.

Dr. Brown stated that he was called to Mitre Square shortly after 2:00 a.m. and arrived there at around 2:20. By this time Catherine Eddowes had been dead for roughly forty minutes. Brown observed that "the body had been mutilated, and was quite warm - no rigor mortis." ³⁹ We can thus say that, after roughly forty minutes, a body with extensive mutilations that was found under cool outdoor conditions was examined and described as being "quite warm." How do we reconcile this with the idea that the body of Annie Chapman was found to be almost completely cold after only the passing of twenty more minutes? We can't. It is very difficult to believe that in under twenty minutes almost all body heat would have dissipated into the morning air. This would be the work of a couple of hours, not minutes. Again, that observation is more in line with Dr. Phillips' opinion as to the time of death of Annie Chapman.

We have "two households both alike in dignity" here. On the one hand Coroner Baxter and his three witnesses: Richardson, Cadosch and Long. On the other, the police with Dr. Phillips and, to a lesser extent, Inspector Chandler. From these witnesses two opinions were formed as to the time of death of Annie Chapman. The question is: which opinion is correct?

The coroner's witnesses are not without their problems. There are issues of credibility and truthfulness but, somehow, these issues are ignored and Richardson, Long and Cadosch have been given the benefit of the doubt. All three are believed, much like Elizabeth Prater is, because they are part of a storyline that would be weakened if any one of them was to be dismissed. Basically they form a house of cards which is pleasant to look at just so long as one doesn't wonder at the flimsy construction. From them we are given a time of death at around 5:30 a.m. and a description of the killer which matches no other description given. We are also left to wonder at a bloodstained murderer who has killed in daylight and then walked the streets which were already busy with human traffic. Jack the daring, self-confident and self-assured assassin.

The police witnesses, Dr. Phillips and Inspector Chandler, have not been given the benefit of their experience or expertise. This started when Coroner Baxter dismissed Chandler by stating, "He is really not the proper man to have been left in charge." ⁴⁰ This animosity continued when the coroner openly quarreled with Dr. Phillips over the amount of detailed medical testimony that should be given or withheld at the inquest. Baxter won that round but Phillips probably got his revenge by making sure that the Kelly inquest was taken out of Baxter's hands and placed in Dr. Macdonald's care. In the end Baxter's opinion, as a lawyer, was that Dr. Phillips' medical opinion was wrong. And so it goes today.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Albert Cadosch It was then about twenty minutes past five, I should think. As I returned towards the back door I heard a voice say "No" just as I was going through the door. It was not in our yard, but I should think it came from the yard of No. 29. I,HOWEVER CANNOT SAY WHICH SIDE IT CAME FROM.

This adds weight to the suggestion that Cadosch was being honest. If he was simply lying it’s likely that he’d have said that it definitely came from number 29. He was more confidant that the noise came from number 29 though. So we are left with 2 possibilities.

1. It came from number 25 where nothing happened.

or

2. It came from 29 where a woman was murdered.

Number 2 is overwhelmingly more likely than number one. We are simply talking likelihood’s here. Why are you so desperate to try and show that Cadosch was wrong? I yes...I remember.

[Herlock Sholmes]

The Police View: Dr. Phillips

" doubtful evidence points to some thing between 5:30 and 6: - but medical evidence says about 4 o'cl."


Home Office Files²⁷

DR PHILLIPS, T.O.D FOR THOSE TO PONDER

The official Scotland Yard position seems to have been to trust the opinions and evidence of two of its own. Inspector Chandler's evidence, taken at face value and without resorting to impugning the man, cast serious doubt on Richardson's truthfulness. This led to police suspicion against the market porter. How was it, exactly, that he did he not see the body if, as he said, he had sat on the steps? Was he lying? And if so, why? Chief Inspector Swanson's report of 19 October, 1888²⁸ tells us that the police, rather than seeing him as the crucial witness, saw him as a serious suspect.

"If the evidence of Dr. Phillips is correct as to time of death, it is difficult to understand how it was that Richardson did not see the body when he went into the yard at 4:45 a.m. but as his clothes were examined, the house searched and his statement taken in which there was not a shred of evidence, suspicion could not rest upon him, although police specially directed their attention to him."

The police were obviously depending upon Dr. Phillips' opinions and his standing as a reliable medical expert when directing the course of their investigations. To the detectives working on the Chapman murder, Dr. Phillips' estimated time of death made Long and Cadosch irrelevant.

This sentiment is also expressed in Swanson's report. After listing the actions of the police during the investigation, Swanson was forced to admit that "Up to the present the combined result of those inquiries did not supply the police with the slightest clue to the murderer" thus damning Mrs. Long's description of the man she had seen with no praise at all. Swanson continues, "Again if the evidence of Mrs. Long is correct that she saw the deceased at 5:30 a.m. then the evidence of Dr. Phillips as to probable time of death is incorrect. He was called and saw the body at 6:20 a.m. [sic] and he then gives it as his opinion that death occurred about two hours earlier, viz: 4:20 a.m. hence the evidence of Mrs. Long which appeared to be so important to the Coroner, must be looked upon with some amount of doubt, which is to be regretted."

This "doubt" apparently soon became the conviction that Mrs. Long's testimony was worthless. By the end of 1888, for example, Inspector Walter Andrews stated "The police are perfectly powerless, no one ever having seen the murderer except the victims." ²⁹ Sir Melville Macnaghten said very much the same thing in his 1894 "Memoranda", stating, "no one ever saw the Whitechapel murderer" , although in his draft copy he adds, "unless possibly it was the City P.C. who was a beat [sic] near Mitre Square."

It is now time to look at Dr. Phillips' opinions about the time of death of Annie Chapman, opinions that were supported by Scotland Yard. The doctor was called to number 29 Hanbury Street at 6:20 a.m. and arrived there at 6:30. He then immediately examined the body in situ and observed a couple of things important to us. He stated "the body was cold, except that there was a certain remaining heat, under the intestines, in the body." He also observed that "stiffness of the limbs was not marked, but it was commencing." At the post mortem, conducted at 2:00 that afternoon, he also observed that "the stomach contained a little food." It is doubtlessly from the first two observations that Dr. Phillips made his estimate of the time of death.

Chandler's report, dated on the day of the murder, said, "The Doctor pronounced life extinct and stated the woman had been dead at least two hours." ³⁰ Later at the inquest he responded to a question about the time of death of Annie Chapman by stating "I should say at least two hours, and probably more" but there was a caveat to this statement, which has been used to explain away Dr. Philips' estimation. The doctor added "but it is right to say that it was a fairly cold morning, and that the body would be more apt to cool rapidly from its having lost the greater portion of its blood." Does this disqualify Dr. Phillips' time frame for the murder? No, it doesn't. The doctor was merely stating the obvious and not changing his estimate of time of death.

Estimating time of death has been called more of an art form than an exact science. It is difficult, with what we have to work with, to know exactly what Dr. Phillips had observed and what exactly were the variables surrounding the death of Annie Chapman. A few things can be gleaned from pathology texts, such as the fact that rigor mortis generally begins two to four hours after death. Many things can affect the onset of rigor but generally the two to four hour period is consistently espoused in the literature. In the case of Annie Chapman, Dr. Phillips observed that rigor mortis had just begun when he examined the body at 6:30 that morning. This alone would explain his opinion that Chapman had been dead for at least two hours.

As I have said, however, several things can hasten or lengthen the time it takes rigor to appear. I have noticed that more than one author writing on the Chapman murder has misunderstood this fact. For some reason authors have confused the fact that subjecting the body to cold temperatures will not hasten rigor but instead will retard its onset, will in fact slow it down. It is correct to say, therefore, that the coldness of Chapman's body would cause a delay in the appearance of stiffening and thus point to a time greater than two hours for her time of death. This fact is apparently reflected in Dr. Phillips' inquest testimony.

Food in the stomach is also an interesting indicator of when Annie Chapman was murdered. Chapman had no money at 2:00 a.m. so in order for her to have eaten sometime after that she must have found a client and, rather than pay for her bed, bought food and then kept walking the streets. Also, it would seem that whoever sold her this food decided not to come forward when the police were diligently making inquiries about Annie's last four hours. This seems doubtful and we will have to stick to the facts as we know them. ³¹ We know that she was seen eating a baked potato at sometime between 1:30 and 1:45 a.m. This, presumably, was her last meal or at least we have no concrete evidence to suggest that she had eaten anything after this time. Dr. Phillips states that there was still some food in her stomach so her last meal was only partially digested at her time of death so how long does it take for a meal of potatoes to fully digest?

Dr. Robert Court, who contributed to a discussion about this issue on the Casebook: Jack the Ripperwebsite several years ago, asked colleagues in the pathology department this very question. His personal opinion was that it would take about an hour for a potato to be fully digested but was told that "a time of less than half-an-hour was realistic." One forensic pathologist that I talked to told me that a small meal of potatoes would be fully digested "in about an hour to an hour and a half," ³² while another told me "this small solid meal would take some time like 2 3 hours, 'let us say' to be digested." ³³ Here we have a range of between half an hour to three hours for Annie Chapman's meal to have become fully digested, which would suggest that as the food was only partially digested at death the range for estimated time of death falls somewhere after 1:30 to1:45 a.m., the last time we know she ate, and sometime before 4:30 a.m. or, the time offered by Dr. Phillips.

The final observation offered us by Dr. Phillips is the coldness of the body. In effect the doctor stated that the body was stone cold except for some "remaining heat" in the abdominal cavity underneath the intestines. It is to this observation which he added the caveat at the inquest that the body could have cooled faster because of the conditions. What he didn't do was suggest that this had caused him to reevaluate his estimated time of death. He certainly didn't offer any support for Mrs. Long and Albert Cadosch's testimonies.

Phillips' caveat was apparently stated in so offhand a manner that it didn't leave an impression on everyone. At least one jury member, the foreman, remarked aloud at the inquest that the time stated by Elizabeth Long as to when she had seen Annie Chapman alive was not consistent with the time of death stated by the doctor. The coroner answered sharply that "Dr. Phillips had since qualified his statement" ³⁴ or, "qualified it very much," according to the Daily News. This was not true, as the police opinion shows, and in contrast to Coroner Baxter's beliefs was a report in the Times which stated after Dr. Phillips had testified "Dr. Phillips's positive opinion that the woman had been dead quite two hours when he first saw the body at half-past 6, throws serious doubt upon the accuracy of at least two important witnesses, and considerably adds to the prevailing confusion." ³⁵ (emphasis mine)

It is interesting to note that there were contemporary medical men who shared Dr. Phillips' view. Dr. Bond, for example, wrote "In the four murders of which I have seen notes only, I cannot form a very definite opinion as to the time that had elapsed between the murder and the discovering of the body.... In Buck's Row, Hanbury Street, and Mitre Square three or four hours only could have elapsed." ³⁶ Not a ringing endorsement, but he doesn't say that it was within an hour either.

The unnamed writer for the Lancet is more interesting. He gave his opinion that "We confess to sharing Mr. Phillips' view that the coldness of the body and commencing rigidity pointed to a far longer interval between death and discovery than [5:30 a.m.]; but, as he remarked the almost total draining away of the blood, added to the exposure in the cold morning air, may have hastened the cooling down of the body." ³⁷

It should be noted that this writer also adds a caveat to the loss of heat in the body but, more importantly, still begins by supporting Dr. Phillips' opinion of a far longer period between death and discovery of the body. The caveat is added, as Phillips added his, to suggest that there was a possibilitythat they could be off on their calculations regarding the time it would take the body to become cold, not that they believed that they actually were off.

How long would it take for the heat of a human body to drain away almost completely? Certainly the time would be affected by the loss of blood. I was told "Remarks made regarding the body cooling faster in exsanguination are generally true. Disembowelment would hasten cooling significantly as well." ³⁸ But how fast and how significantly would this happen? We do have a contemporary comparison which can be made.

The murders of Annie Chapman and Catherine Eddowes were committed under similar conditions. Both bodies were found outside and with their clothing hiked up, although it is arguable that Eddowes was in a more open location and her body exposed more to the air. Both women were killed on nights with cool temperatures, although the night that Eddowes was murdered was a couple of degrees cooler. Both bodies had been extensively mutilated but Eddowes' more so. Both had lost a lot of blood.

In the Eddowes case the medical opinion is backed up by the impossibility of error. The victim was seen alive talking to her killer at 1.35 a.m. and then found dead at 1.45 a.m. We have Constable Watkins testimony that there was no body lying in Mitre Square at 1.30 and medical and police opinion that she was killed where she was found. We also have Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown's observations after he examined the body.

Dr. Brown stated that he was called to Mitre Square shortly after 2:00 a.m. and arrived there at around 2:20. By this time Catherine Eddowes had been dead for roughly forty minutes. Brown observed that "the body had been mutilated, and was quite warm - no rigor mortis." ³⁹ We can thus say that, after roughly forty minutes, a body with extensive mutilations that was found under cool outdoor conditions was examined and described as being "quite warm." How do we reconcile this with the idea that the body of Annie Chapman was found to be almost completely cold after only the passing of twenty more minutes? We can't. It is very difficult to believe that in under twenty minutes almost all body heat would have dissipated into the morning air. This would be the work of a couple of hours, not minutes. Again, that observation is more in line with Dr. Phillips' opinion as to the time of death of Annie Chapman.

We have "two households both alike in dignity" here. On the one hand Coroner Baxter and his three witnesses: Richardson, Cadosch and Long. On the other, the police with Dr. Phillips and, to a lesser extent, Inspector Chandler. From these witnesses two opinions were formed as to the time of death of Annie Chapman. The question is: which opinion is correct?

The coroner's witnesses are not without their problems. There are issues of credibility and truthfulness but, somehow, these issues are ignored and Richardson, Long and Cadosch have been given the benefit of the doubt. All three are believed, much like Elizabeth Prater is, because they are part of a storyline that would be weakened if any one of them was to be dismissed. Basically they form a house of cards which is pleasant to look at just so long as one doesn't wonder at the flimsy construction. From them we are given a time of death at around 5:30 a.m. and a description of the killer which matches no other description given. We are also left to wonder at a bloodstained murderer who has killed in daylight and then walked the streets which were already busy with human traffic. Jack the daring, self-confident and self-assured assassin.

The police witnesses, Dr. Phillips and Inspector Chandler, have not been given the benefit of their experience or expertise. This started when Coroner Baxter dismissed Chandler by stating, "He is really not the proper man to have been left in charge." ⁴⁰ This animosity continued when the coroner openly quarreled with Dr. Phillips over the amount of detailed medical testimony that should be given or withheld at the inquest. Baxter won that round but Phillips probably got his revenge by making sure that the Kelly inquest was taken out of Baxter's hands and placed in Dr. Macdonald's care. In the end Baxter's opinion, as a lawyer, was that Dr. Phillips' medical opinion was wrong. And so it goes today.

A pointless piece of cut and pasting here Fishy.

Please read carefully and try to understand:

None of us can know for anything like certain if Phillips was right or wrong based on how he made his judgment.

Just because the three previous TOD’s were accurate it does not follow that Phillip’s was correct too. This is fallacious thinking.

We know for a fact that TOD estimations at that time where little more than guesswork and were capable of being wildly inaccurate. This point is beyond debate because all modern forensic experts confirm it. So the fact that you alone dispute it is utterly irrelevant.

Looking into a yard and being aware that you can view the whole yard is not a great skill. It didn’t require scientific knowledge or experience. So it’s highly unlikely that someone could get this simple activity wrong. Therefore the overwhelming likelihood is that Richardson was correct and that Chapman wasn't there at 4.45.

I agree that we cannot say for certain that Cadosch or Long were definitely right or definitely wrong.

But if we assume the likelihood that Chapman wasn’t there at 4.45 and the fact that she was there at 6.00 then we have to conclude that the overwhelming likelihood is that she was killed somewhere between 4.50 and 5.55.

And so as we have Cadosch, who had no reason as far as we know to have lied, saying that he heard a noise against the fence at around 5.20.

We know that nothing happened in the yard of number 25 but a body was found in number 29 and so the likelihood was that this noise came from number 29 and not number 25.

And so to sum up the likelihood is that Chapman was killed around 5.20-5.25. No leaps of faith are required. This is entirely reasonable and likely imo.

[FISHY1118]

or this could also be correct , so ill post it again


Originally posted by FISHY1118 View Post
The Police View: Dr. Phillips

" doubtful evidence points to some thing between 5:30 and 6: - but medical evidence says about 4 o'cl."


Home Office Files²⁷
DR PHILLIPS, T.O.D FOR THOSE TO PONDER

The official Scotland Yard position seems to have been to trust the opinions and evidence of two of its own. Inspector Chandler's evidence, taken at face value and without resorting to impugning the man, cast serious doubt on Richardson's truthfulness. This led to police suspicion against the market porter. How was it, exactly, that he did he not see the body if, as he said, he had sat on the steps? Was he lying? And if so, why? Chief Inspector Swanson's report of 19 October, 1888²⁸tells us that the police, rather than seeing him as the crucial witness, saw him as a serious suspect.

"If the evidence of Dr. Phillips is correct as to time of death, it is difficult to understand how it was that Richardson did not see the body when he went into the yard at 4:45 a.m. but as his clothes were examined, the house searched and his statement taken in which there was not a shred of evidence, suspicion could not rest upon him, although police specially directed their attention to him."

The police were obviously depending upon Dr. Phillips' opinions and his standing as a reliable medical expert when directing the course of their investigations. To the detectives working on the Chapman murder, Dr. Phillips' estimated time of death made Long and Cadosch irrelevant.

This sentiment is also expressed in Swanson's report. After listing the actions of the police during the investigation, Swanson was forced to admit that "Up to the present the combined result of those inquiries did not supply the police with the slightest clue to the murderer" thus damning Mrs. Long's description of the man she had seen with no praise at all. Swanson continues, "Again if the evidence of Mrs. Long is correct that she saw the deceased at 5:30 a.m. then the evidence of Dr. Phillips as to probable time of death is incorrect. He was called and saw the body at 6:20 a.m. [sic] and he then gives it as his opinion that death occurred about two hours earlier, viz: 4:20 a.m. hence the evidence of Mrs. Long which appeared to be so important to the Coroner, must be looked upon with some amount of doubt, which is to be regretted."

This "doubt" apparently soon became the conviction that Mrs. Long's testimony was worthless. By the end of 1888, for example, Inspector Walter Andrews stated "The police are perfectly powerless, no one ever having seen the murderer except the victims." ²⁹ Sir Melville Macnaghten said very much the same thing in his 1894 "Memoranda", stating, "no one ever saw the Whitechapel murderer" , although in his draft copy he adds, "unless possibly it was the City P.C. who was a beat [sic] near Mitre Square."

It is now time to look at Dr. Phillips' opinions about the time of death of Annie Chapman, opinions that were supported by Scotland Yard. The doctor was called to number 29 Hanbury Street at 6:20 a.m. and arrived there at 6:30. He then immediately examined the body in situ and observed a couple of things important to us. He stated "the body was cold, except that there was a certain remaining heat, under the intestines, in the body." He also observed that "stiffness of the limbs was not marked, but it was commencing." At the post mortem, conducted at 2:00 that afternoon, he also observed that "the stomach contained a little food." It is doubtlessly from the first two observations that Dr. Phillips made his estimate of the time of death.

Chandler's report, dated on the day of the murder, said, "The Doctor pronounced life extinct and stated the woman had been dead at least two hours." ³⁰ Later at the inquest he responded to a question about the time of death of Annie Chapman by stating "I should say at least two hours, and probably more" but there was a caveat to this statement, which has been used to explain away Dr. Philips' estimation. The doctor added "but it is right to say that it was a fairly cold morning, and that the body would be more apt to cool rapidly from its having lost the greater portion of its blood." Does this disqualify Dr. Phillips' time frame for the murder? No, it doesn't. The doctor was merely stating the obvious and not changing his estimate of time of death.

Estimating time of death has been called more of an art form than an exact science. It is difficult, with what we have to work with, to know exactly what Dr. Phillips had observed and what exactly were the variables surrounding the death of Annie Chapman. A few things can be gleaned from pathology texts, such as the fact that rigor mortis generally begins two to four hours after death. Many things can affect the onset of rigor but generally the two to four hour period is consistently espoused in the literature. In the case of Annie Chapman, Dr. Phillips observed that rigor mortis had just begun when he examined the body at 6:30 that morning. This alone would explain his opinion that Chapman had been dead for at least two hours.

As I have said, however, several things can hasten or lengthen the time it takes rigorto appear. I have noticed that more than one author writing on the Chapman murder has misunderstood this fact. For some reason authors have confused the fact that subjecting the body to cold temperatures will not hasten rigor but instead will retard its onset, will in fact slow it down. It is correct to say, therefore, that the coldness of Chapman's body would cause a delay in the appearance of stiffening and thus point to a time greater than two hours for her time of death. This fact is apparently reflected in Dr. Phillips' inquest testimony.

Food in the stomach is also an interesting indicator of when Annie Chapman was murdered. Chapman had no money at 2:00 a.m. so in order for her to have eaten sometime after that she must have found a client and, rather than pay for her bed, bought food and then kept walking the streets. Also, it would seem that whoever sold her this food decided not to come forward when the police were diligently making inquiries about Annie's last four hours. This seems doubtful and we will have to stick to the facts as we know them. ³¹ We know that she was seen eating a baked potato at sometime between 1:30 and 1:45 a.m. This, presumably, was her last meal or at least we have no concrete evidence to suggest that she had eaten anything after this time. Dr. Phillips states that there was still some food in her stomach so her last meal was only partially digested at her time of death so how long does it take for a meal of potatoes to fully digest?

Dr. Robert Court, who contributed to a discussion about this issue on the Casebook: Jack the Ripperwebsite several years ago, asked colleagues in the pathology department this very question. His personal opinion was that it would take about an hour for a potato to be fully digested but was told that "a time of less than half-an-hour was realistic." One forensic pathologist that I talked to told me that a small meal of potatoes would be fully digested "in about an hour to an hour and a half," ³² while another told me "this small solid meal would take some time like 2 3 hours, 'let us say' to be digested." ³³ Here we have a range of between half an hour to three hours for Annie Chapman's meal to have become fully digested, which would suggest that as the food was only partially digested at death the range for estimated time of death falls somewhere after 1:30 to1:45 a.m., the last time we know she ate, and sometime before 4:30 a.m. or, the time offered by Dr. Phillips.

The final observation offered us by Dr. Phillips is the coldness of the body. In effect the doctor stated that the body was stone cold except for some "remaining heat" in the abdominal cavity underneath the intestines. It is to this observation which he added the caveat at the inquest that the body could have cooled faster because of the conditions. What he didn't do was suggest that this had caused him to reevaluate his estimated time of death. He certainly didn't offer any support for Mrs. Long and Albert Cadosch's testimonies.

Phillips' caveat was apparently stated in so offhand a manner that it didn't leave an impression on everyone. At least one jury member, the foreman, remarked aloud at the inquest that the time stated by Elizabeth Long as to when she had seen Annie Chapman alive was not consistent with the time of death stated by the doctor. The coroner answered sharply that "Dr. Phillips had since qualified his statement" ³⁴ or, "qualified it very much," according to the Daily News. This was not true, as the police opinion shows, and in contrast to Coroner Baxter's beliefs was a report in the Timeswhich stated after Dr. Phillips had testified "Dr. Phillips's positive opinion that the woman had been dead quite two hours when he first saw the body at half-past 6, throws serious doubt upon the accuracy of at least two important witnesses, and considerably adds to the prevailing confusion." ³⁵ (emphasis mine)

It is interesting to note that there were contemporary medical men who shared Dr. Phillips' view. Dr. Bond, for example, wrote "In the four murders of which I have seen notes only, I cannot form a very definite opinion as to the time that had elapsed between the murder and the discovering of the body.... In Buck's Row, Hanbury Street, and Mitre Square three or four hours only could have elapsed." ³⁶ Not a ringing endorsement, but he doesn't say that it was within an hour either.

The unnamed writer for the Lancet is more interesting. He gave his opinion that "We confess to sharing Mr. Phillips' view that the coldness of the body and commencing rigidity pointed to a far longer interval between death and discovery than [5:30 a.m.]; but, as he remarked the almost total draining away of the blood, added to the exposure in the cold morning air, may have hastened the cooling down of the body." ³⁷

It should be noted that this writer also adds a caveat to the loss of heat in the body but, more importantly, still begins by supporting Dr. Phillips' opinion of a far longer period between death and discovery of the body. The caveat is added, as Phillips added his, to suggest that there was a possibilitythat they could be off on their calculations regarding the time it would take the body to become cold, not that they believed that they actually were off.

How long would it take for the heat of a human body to drain away almost completely? Certainly the time would be affected by the loss of blood. I was told "Remarks made regarding the body cooling faster in exsanguination are generally true. Disembowelment would hasten cooling significantly as well." ³⁸ But how fast and how significantly would this happen? We do have a contemporary comparison which can be made.

The murders of Annie Chapman and Catherine Eddowes were committed under similar conditions. Both bodies were found outside and with their clothing hiked up, although it is arguable that Eddowes was in a more open location and her body exposed more to the air. Both women were killed on nights with cool temperatures, although the night that Eddowes was murdered was a couple of degrees cooler. Both bodies had been extensively mutilated but Eddowes' more so. Both had lost a lot of blood.

In the Eddowes case the medical opinion is backed up by the impossibility of error. The victim was seen alive talking to her killer at 1.35 a.m. and then found dead at 1.45 a.m. We have Constable Watkins testimony that there was no body lying in Mitre Square at 1.30 and medical and police opinion that she was killed where she was found. We also have Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown's observations after he examined the body.

Dr. Brown stated that he was called to Mitre Square shortly after 2:00 a.m. and arrived there at around 2:20. By this time Catherine Eddowes had been dead for roughly forty minutes. Brown observed that "the body had been mutilated, and was quite warm - no rigor mortis." ³⁹ We can thus say that, after roughly forty minutes, a body with extensive mutilations that was found under cool outdoor conditions was examined and described as being "quite warm." How do we reconcile this with the idea that the body of Annie Chapman was found to be almost completely cold after only the passing of twenty more minutes? We can't. It is very difficult to believe that in under twenty minutes almost all body heat would have dissipated into the morning air. This would be the work of a couple of hours, not minutes. Again, that observation is more in line with Dr. Phillips' opinion as to the time of death of Annie Chapman.

We have "two households both alike in dignity" here. On the one hand Coroner Baxter and his three witnesses: Richardson, Cadosch and Long. On the other, the police with Dr. Phillips and, to a lesser extent, Inspector Chandler. From these witnesses two opinions were formed as to the time of death of Annie Chapman. The question is: which opinion is correct?

The coroner's witnesses are not without their problems. There are issues of credibility and truthfulness but, somehow, these issues are ignored and Richardson, Long and Cadosch have been given the benefit of the doubt. All three are believed, much like Elizabeth Prater is, because they are part of a storyline that would be weakened if any one of them was to be dismissed. Basically they form a house of cards which is pleasant to look at just so long as one doesn't wonder at the flimsy construction. From them we are given a time of death at around 5:30 a.m. and a description of the killer which matches no other description given. We are also left to wonder at a bloodstained murderer who has killed in daylight and then walked the streets which were already busy with human traffic. Jack the daring, self-confident and self-assured assassin.

The police witnesses, Dr. Phillips and Inspector Chandler, have not been given the benefit of their experience or expertise. This started when Coroner Baxter dismissed Chandler by stating, "He is really not the proper man to have been left in charge." ⁴⁰This animosity continued when the coroner openly quarreled with Dr. Phillips over the amount of detailed medical testimony that should be given or withheld at the inquest. Baxter won that round but Phillips probably got his revenge by making sure that the Kelly inquest was taken out of Baxter's hands and placed in Dr. Macdonald's care. In the end Baxter's opinion, as a lawyer, was that Dr. Phillips' medical opinion was wrong. And so it goes today.
A

[Herlock Sholmes]

So now you’re the Chairman of the Wolf Vanderlinden Appreciation Society?

Its overwhelmingly likely that Annie was still alive at 4.45. The evidence points in that direction. The evidence that is logically less likely to be incorrect. The fact that a biased obsessive conspiracy theorist can’t see that is neither here nor there.

[FISHY1118]

Yes,.. why not.. he makes more sense of the evidence that you do . Medical Evidence,T.O.D. and witness statements, try interrupting them with more than one possibility in mind . But of course youve shown that you cant . Try as you may you just cant disprove a t.o.d theory that the evidence make a more than probable case for .

[Fisherman]

So now you’re the Chairman of the Wolf Vanderlinden Appreciation Society?

Its overwhelmingly likely that Annie was still alive at 4.45. The evidence points in that direction. The evidence that is logically less likely to be incorrect. The fact that a biased obsessive conspiracy theorist can’t see that is neither here nor there.

I´m afraid it is nowhere near "overwhelmingly likely" that Annie Chapman was alive at 4.45. Yes, there is witness testimony to that effect, but witness testimony is notoriously unreliable. Cadosh and Long contradicted each other, and both were dead certain about the timings, so we should in all probability rule at least one of them out. And Richardson was all over the place with his testimony and not only that - he may actually not have been able to see the body from his position the stairs, as has been shown some time back.
The counterpart is Phillips´testimony, and the factors he name are mutually corroborating each other - she would have been dead AT LEAST two hours and probably more (nota bene, that although Baxter misinterpreted the doctor and although the coroner has many a follower today, Phillips money was never on the elapsed time being half only of the MINIMUM he allowed for - but did not believe to be correct), and rigor had just about set in. And rigor was something the doctor knew was likely to occur no earlier than two hours after death, not least because chapman was found in conditions that would slow down its onset.

Taken together, these things cannot leave us with a picture where it is "overwhelmingly likely" that Phillips was totally out, I'm afraid. It can leave you personally with the idea that this was so, but rest assured that such a thing does not suffice to make it overwhelmingly likely to many others, me included. I would instead say that the possibility of Phillips being so dramatically wrong as it would take for you to be correct are miniscule.

For you to be correct, it would take that Phillips missed out on the temperature of the body and that rigor set in at a stage which would be very much out of the ordinary. And such things are not easily shoved aside.

[FISHY1118]

i sense a deja vu moment fisherman , ive been trying to convey this view via the Wolf Vanderlinden article, but to no avail.

So i suppose you might as well expect this in reply .'' Doctors back in those days can be wildly inaccurate and in determining t.o.d, guessing at best'' , something to a that effect.

[Herlock Sholmes]

i sense a deja vu moment fisherman , ive been trying to convey this view via the Wolf Vanderlinden article, but to no avail.

So i suppose you might as well expect this in reply .'' Doctors back in those days can be wildly inaccurate and in determining t.o.d, guessing at best'' , something to a that effect.

Probably because this was indisputably the case.