Same motive = same killer

[Trevor Marriott]

Dr Brown again " I should think the whole thing could have been done in five minutes."

Eddowes inquest took place on Oct 4/5th !

INTERVIEW WITH Dr BROWN which appeared on Oct 1st Star Newspaper The question asked of him was specific as highlighted

Q "How long would it have taken him (the killer) (my words) to mutilate the body as you found it?“

A "At least five minutes."

Note, no mention of organ removals !

"Ambiguites"
Question asked before the post mortem, or after?
Content might suggest before

"As you found it"
Found it as when post mortem carried out
Found it as when body found in Mitre square

It is interesting when trying to come to a decision regarding the above points is that The reporter interviewed other witnesses who appear to have been interviewed at the time adding more weight to the suggestion that Dr Brown made that statement before the post mortem.

Furthermore in the same article Dr Sequeira states a time of 3 mins, now no one back then or even today could do all of that in 3 mins, so he also must have been just referring to the murder and mutilations and not been aware of missing organs.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Sam Flynn]

Was he there? Did he see the victims and the exact work of the knife?

What goes around comes around. Of course there are differences, but we need to be a bit fair at times.

Totally different propositions. West was talking about how long it would take to slash open an abdomen, heave out the intestines and chop out a kidney, uterus and a section of colon. Having conducted thousands of autopsies, he was in a good position to know.

Tait, on the other hand, was offering a highly speculative opinion of the nature and quality of the wounds, not to mention the profession, psychology - and sex! - of the killer, without being involved in any of the autopsies. It's got "armchair sleuth" written all over it, and he'd have made a damned fine old-school ripperologist.

Think before you gloat

[Sam Flynn]

Eddowes inquest took place on Oct 4/5th !

INTERVIEW WITH Dr BROWN which appeared on Oct 1st Star Newspaper The question asked of him was specific as highlighted

Q "How long would it have taken him (the killer) (my words) to mutilate the body as you found it?“

A "At least five minutes."

Note, no mention of organ removals !

"Ambiguites"
Question asked before the post mortem, or after?
Content might suggest before

"As you found it"
Found it as when post mortem carried out
Found it as when body found in Mitre square

It is interesting when trying to come to a decision regarding the above points is that The reporter interviewed other witnesses who appear to have been interviewed at the time adding more weight to the suggestion that Dr Brown made that statement before the post mortem.

Furthermore in the same article Dr Sequeira states a time of 3 mins, now no one back then or even today could do all of that in 3 mins, so he also must have been just referring to the murder and mutilations and not been aware of missing organs.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Oh dear, there goes the thread!

[Joshua Rogan]

Eddowes inquest took place on Oct 4/5th !

INTERVIEW WITH Dr BROWN which appeared on Oct 1st Star Newspaper The question asked of him was specific as highlighted

Q "How long would it have taken him (the killer) (my words) to mutilate the body as you found it?“

A "At least five minutes."

Note, no mention of organ removals !

"Ambiguites"
Question asked before the post mortem, or after?
Content might suggest before

"As you found it"
Found it as when post mortem carried out
Found it as when body found in Mitre square

It is interesting when trying to come to a decision regarding the above points is that The reporter interviewed other witnesses who appear to have been interviewed at the time adding more weight to the suggestion that Dr Brown made that statement before the post mortem.

Furthermore in the same article Dr Sequeira states a time of 3 mins, now no one back then or even today could do all of that in 3 mins, so he also must have been just referring to the murder and mutilations and not been aware of missing organs.

It seems very likely that the Star interview published on the evening of 1st Oct was conducted after the doctors had performed their autopsy at around 14:30 on 30th Sept.

However, my quote was from the inquest, so whether the Star quote was obtained before or afrer the autopsy, Brown's time estimate didn't change.

[Fisherman]

Sam Flynn: Totally different propositions. West was talking about how long it would take to slash open an abdomen, heave out the intestines and chop out a kidney, uterus and a section of colon. Having conducted thousands of autopsies, he was in a good position to know.

But not knowing exactly how the cuts were made in Eddowes´ body, he was in a much worse position to know. So he had to go on that little there is in writing and guess the rest. And it IS a different proposition in this respect - West can not have had any way at all of knowing exactly how the bodies looked, because he has only second-hand, limited information. Tait, on the other hand, lived in the era, and he may have either seen for himself or been very fully and adequately informed about what there was to see.

Tait, on the other hand, was offering a highly speculative opinion of the nature and quality of the wounds, not to mention the profession, psychology - and sex! - of the killer, without being involved in any of the autopsies. It's got "armchair sleuth" written all over it, and he'd have made a damned fine old-school ripperologist.

I am only talking about the character of the wounds here, and I suggest we leave the rest aside. And as I say, Tait was the man close to the events in time and quite possibly in room to. West can not possibly be neither of it.

Think before you gloat.

Oh, Gareth, I only gloat when I am sure that I am right on something and when my opponent has made a spectacle of himself trying to deny it.

In this case, I am not sure that I am correct, I am making a point only that Tait will reasonably have had reasonable grounds for what he said. You are calling him an armchair sleuth and highly speculative.
And then you are calling West "respected" and you are treating his words as gospel.

The truth of the matter is that Tait was every bit as respected as West is ever going to be, and that both men spoke of the character of the wounds. From this you conclude that one of the respected medicos must not be trusted whereas the other one must be.

And one of them only was contemporary.

That´s not gloating, admittedly. But it IS flagrant hypocrisy and cherry-picking.

[Fisherman]

If he didn't actually examine the wounds, I don't give a damn HOW qualified he was.

But you DO give a damn about West, who was born half a century after the wounds could no longer BE examined. And you accept that he is giving a correct view of how long it would have taken the killer to eviscerate Eddowes.

Personally, I think that the more qualified a medico is, the more reason there will be to listen to his take on things, regardless what part of his profession he comments on. But we may differ on that point.

And I also think that the more willing somebody is to see both sides of a question, the more likely he is to get the full picture.

[Sam Flynn]

But not knowing exactly how the cuts were made in Eddowes´ body, he was in a much worse position to know.

No - West was commenting on the mechanics of slashing open a belly, shifting bits of guts out of the way, and cutting out three organs; a mechanical problem whose parameters have changed little for hundreds of millions of years (pre-human, animal guts having basically the same layout, in a physical sense, as ours). You don't need to examine the nature of the cuts to work that out. Besides, West would almost certainly have had access to Foster and Brown's drawings of the body, quite possibly the mortuary photographs and Brown's autopsy notes as well. Tait had none of these at his disposal.

Anyway, we shouldn't single out Eddowes. Tait had no hands-on experience of examining any of the other bodies, further underlining how speculative his pronouncements were about the skill and profession of the person responsible. Or persons responsible, as the case may well be; not having examined the wounds, Tait was in no position to comment on that, either.

Without actually seeing the wounds, Tait was making entirely speculative pronouncements about the quality of the wounds and the skill of the "motiveless, lunatic London butcher" whom he thought responsible.

[Sam Flynn]

But you DO give a damn about West, who was born half a century after the wounds could no longer BE examined.

It's an entirely different proposition, Fish; see my posts above. West was commenting on how long it would take to manually rip a belly open and cut out three organs - you or I could work that out, within reason, although I'd defer to the considered opinion of a man who had carried out literally thousands of autopsies on that front. (How many autopsies had Tait been involved in, I wonder?)

Tait, however, was claiming that he saw consistency in the nature of the wounds themselves and, from this, concluded that it was the same person responsible AND that he "must have been" a butcher. He could not possibly have made an informed decision on such matters without having examined all the wounds personally.

[Fisherman]

Sam Flynn: No - he was commenting on the mechanics of slashing open a belly, shifting bits of guts out of the way, and cutting out three organs; a mechanical problem whose parameters have changed little for hundreds of millions of years (pre-human, animal guts having basically the same layout, in a physical sense, as ours are).

Well, obviously. Then again, we know that the Ripper was said not to do things the way surgeons do. And we do not know where he placed his cuts and how many of them there were, und so weiter. So we don´t know what worth we can ascribe to West in this sense.
The point I´m trying to make, and that you obviously refuse to take on board, is that when we quote ONE medico and tell everybody that he is reliable and well respected, then we may need to accept that thay another reliable and well respected medico ALSO must be listened to. Otherwise, we are into cherry-picking, as I am trying to tell you.
We should NOT drag Taits ideas about lunatics and women killers into this discussion, but instead focus on the parts that he knew, just as we may rely upon West being knowledgeble about his profession. And when Lawson Tait says that from what he has seen, the two series should be regarded as one, and that the killer cut in a way that resembles how a London butcher would cut, we need to accept that this was his view, and it was in all probability based on a knowledge about the appearances of the wounds.

You don't need to examine the nature of the cuts to work that out.

I´m sorry, but I disagree very much about that. Of course the nature of the cuts will be crucial in determining how long they take to inflict! Where they are placed is equally crucial. How many they are is equally crucial. I)t should go without saying, really.

Besides, West would almost certainly have had access to Foster and Brown's drawings of the body, quite possibly the mortuary photographs and Brown's autopsy notes as well. Tait had none of these at his disposal.

I´m sorry, but you are only speculating here, in both directions. And I can tell you that there is no way of knowing the exact grounds for Taits verdict.

Anyway, we shouldn't single out Eddowes. Tait had no hands-on experience of examining any of the other bodies, further underlining how speculative his pronouncements were about the skill and profession of the person responsible. Or persons responsible, as the case may well be; not having examined the wounds, Tait was in no position to comment on that, either.

Tait PROBABLY had no such experience. It is not an established fact, I´m afraid. But the crucial point here is that I seriously doubt that West can have spoken to any of the contermporary medicos involved whereas Tait may well have, not least given his professed interest. And, of course, much as we cannot be 100 per cent certain that Tait never came close to a victim, we CAN be sure about that when it comes to West. Therefore we cannot know if he had gone "Oh, wait! I didn´t expect that!" if he HAD seen the victims - and he may therefore accordingly have had to change his take on things.
This too should go without saying. but sadly, I find I have to say it anyway.

Without actually seeing the wounds, Tait was making entirely speculative pronouncements the quality of the wound and the skill of the "motiveless, lunatic London butcher" whom he thought responsible.

"Entirely speculative" is your very own entirely speculative invention. We all know that by now, so my advice is not to flaunt it. Tait may well have been thoroughly and extensively informed about the exact nature of the wounds. End of story.

[Abby Normal]

Totally different propositions. West was talking about how long it would take to slash open an abdomen, heave out the intestines and chop out a kidney, uterus and a section of colon. Having conducted thousands of autopsies, he was in a good position to know.

Tait, on the other hand, was offering a highly speculative opinion of the nature and quality of the wounds, not to mention the profession, psychology - and sex! - of the killer, without being involved in any of the autopsies. It's got "armchair sleuth" written all over it, and he'd have made a damned fine old-school ripperologist.

Think before you gloat

Cmon Sam. He was eminently qualified to comment on the nature and quality of the wounds.
The other stuff he wasn’t so it doesn’t surprise me he jacked that part of it up.
I think your throwing the baby out with the bath water here.

[Michael W Richards]

I think Sam that you are correct about the value of first hand inspections, and that is why Ive always given Phillips opinions a nod over others.

[Fisherman]

I think Sam that you are correct about the value of first hand inspections, and that is why Ive always given Phillips opinions a nod over others.

Ah! Phillips, yes! I am a great admirer of him too. Gareth is less so, since he thinks that the doctor was wayyyy off the mark when opting for a TOD for Chapman.
And of course, Trevor thinks he was all about guesswork, like all other victorian medicos.

Tin helmet on!

[Sam Flynn]

Cmon Sam. He was eminently qualified to comment on the nature and quality of the wounds.

He didn't SEE them, though, so how could he? For instance, it would support his argument that it was the same torso killer if he could have demonstrated that the saw-marks were identical, assuming such a forensic technique was available back then, which I doubt. Bearing that in mind, how could even the local police or doctors have passed definitive judgement as to the authorship of the crimes? And, as we know, no saws were used at all in the non-torso murders, so how could anyone - then or now - be absolutely sure that the same hand was behind those murders, still less make grand pronouncements that, not only was it the same hand, but that it "must have been" the hand of a butcher?

Tait is demonstrably speculating on what the wounds were like and who inflicted them, based on no direct involvement in the examinations at all. He was evidently an avid follower of the cases, almost certainly from reading about them in the papers. However, when we consider that no empirical, qualitative data as to the appearance of the wounds appeared in any press reports*, Tait's speculations are pretty much useless.

(*the best we get are adjectives like "jagged" or "deep", which don't help much.)

[Sam Flynn]

Ah! Phillips, yes! I am a great admirer of him too. Gareth is less so, since he thinks that the doctor was wayyyy off the mark when opting for a TOD for Chapman.

My opinion in that regard has less to do with Phillips, than with a triangulation of the evidence provided by John Richardson, Elizabeth Long and Albert Cadoche.

Give me Doctors Phillips, Blackwell, Sequeira, Brown and Bond before Dr Tait any day of the week. At least the first five guys were actually there.

[Abby Normal]

He didn't SEE them, though, so how could he? For instance, it would support his argument that it was the same torso killer if he could have demonstrated that the saw-marks were identical, assuming such a forensic technique was available back then, which I doubt. Bearing that in mind, how could even the local police or doctors have passed definitive judgement as to the authorship of the crimes? And, as we know, no saws were used at all in the non-torso murders, so how could anyone - then or now - be absolutely sure that the same hand was behind those murders, still less make grand pronouncements that, not only was it the same hand, but that it "must have been" the hand of a butcher?

Tait is demonstrably speculating on what the wounds were like and who inflicted them, based on no direct involvement in the examinations at all. He was evidently an avid follower of the cases, almost certainly from reading about them in the papers. However, when we consider that no empirical, qualitative data as to the appearance of the wounds appeared in any press reports*, Tait's speculations are pretty much useless.

(*the best we get are adjectives like "jagged" or "deep", which don't help much.)

sam we all know you don't have to actually examine the wounds to comment on them and note the similarities. I'm assuming he could read.