Blood oozing

[John G]

It certainly wasn't lost on me. I posted a treatise a few years ago, and several others since, that argue that Lechmere's behavior only makes sense had he had access to a crystal ball. If we assume his desire was to avoid capture, only knowledge of the future would have led him to:

- WAIT for an unidentified man, on the spot where he'd supposedly just killed and disemboweled Nichols

- APPROACH that man, Robert Paul, even as Paul tried to avoid him and walk past

- TOUCH Paul's shoulder with a hand - confident it was free of blood - and ask Paul to "COME SEE THIS WOMAN"

- INSPECT the body of his alleged victim with Paul - confident that Paul did not have a match with which to reveal the fact that she'd been nearly decapitated and dissected

- REFUSE to touch the victim when Paul suggests that they move her even though this would give him a perfectly reasonable explanation for any blood that may have gotten on his clothing during said near decapitation and dissection

- GO WITH PAUL to find a PC to TELL about the woman he'd supposedly just killed even though he could have simply gone the other way, turned another direction at any point before they found said PC because Paul had absolutely no clue who he was, where he lived, where he worked

- TELL MIZEN that he thinks the woman is DEAD, confident he'll not take him BACK to the scene, use his lantern to inspect his person, or search for the KNIFE which was STILL ON HIM

- Pull Mizen aside and TELL MIZEN lies - out of poor Robert Paul's earshot - about another PC waiting at Buck's Row, confident that Paul won't think that odd in the least

And now...the grand plan has succeeded. He's supposedly just killed and eviscerated Nichols. He's managed to navigated his way out of the situation, albeit in the most inexplicable way one could possibly imagine. He's free. Mizen didn't ask his name. Paul didn't as his name. Paul speaks to Lloyd's and describes him only as 'a man'. He's unnamed. No description of him is given. And, to boot, Paul casts himself as the prime actor. He does the talking. He editorializes about what a 'great shame' the PCs reaction was upon being told the WOMAN WAS DEAD......... Mission accomplished, right? He's free to continue the murder spree that started - if we believe the theory - years earlier and would not conclude for decades. And what does he do?

- HE SHOWS AT THE INQUEST to TELL MORE LIES about PC Mizen.

Excellent post Patrick, which demonstrates how low the probability must be that Lechmere had anything to do with Nichols' murder.

[Sam Flynn]

And what does he do?

- HE SHOWS AT THE INQUEST to TELL MORE LIES about PC Mizen.

...and commits an even more daring and 'orrible murder whilst the Nichols inquest was still ongoing.

[David Orsam]

What Fisherman is up to

It was a very simple question I asked him:

"Given that PC Neil said in his sworn testimony that he saw blood oozing from the throat wound of Nichols could she quite easily, and very possibly, have been murdered 20 minutes before the time he saw this oozing?"

So why can’t Fisherman answer my question? Why does he keep persistently changing the unambiguous word "oozing" to some other, ambiguous, word such as "bleeding", "flowing" or "running"?

The answer is, of course, in the question but, on a deeper level, it all boils down to his short question and answer session with Payne James.

Fisherman asked Payne-James how long it would have taken for a person like Nichols to "stop bleeding completely". Payne-James answered that blood may continue to "flow" for up to seven minutes.

So it terms of "bleeding" and "flowing", Fisherman has the answer he wants. Seven minutes or thereabouts is the realistic time for bleeding and blood flow after death.

Sure, that time can sneak up a minute or two but much more than that, Fisherman tells us, is very unlikely, absurd even. 15 or 20 minutes? Well that's such a surprisingly long amount of time for bleeding or flowing that it can effectively be discounted.

So, what Fisherman thinks he has established is that if anyone saw Nichols bleeding, or with blood flowing from her neck, it realistically means that she was killed within the previous 10 minutes or so. Just at the time that Lechmere was found with the body! Fancy that. That is the clear evidence, we are told, of the forensic pathologist.

And if the blood was running? Well that is a suitably ambiguous word and close enough to be interpreted as bleeding or flowing.

But oozing? Oh dear. That is a real problem for Fisherman because Payne James said nothing in his answer about oozing. Fisherman can’t, therefore, talk with any confidence about oozing being over within 10 minutes because he has no supporting information from his pathologist on the point.

Yet, at the same time, he is faced with a clear statement by Dr Biggs that it is entirely possible that oozing after death can continue for up to 20 minutes.

"I think that, though it might seem unlikely for a significant quantity of blood to be flowing out of a body several minutes after death, it would certainly be possible for blood still to be dripping / oozing out of a body 20 mins later.”

You can’t get much clearer than that.

With nothing from Payne James to contradict this, all Fisherman can do is say that Biggs was making a "general observation" – so we don’t have to take into account what he said - whereas Payne James was talking about Nichols specifically so that we need to focus solely on what Payne James said about the timing of the blood.

But is he right to say even this? No, he is not as I will demonstrate

[Sam Flynn]

As for the abdominal damage done to Nichols, it was very severe, and it was said something like "all the vital organs were struck"

Where does Dr Llewellyn say that?

"I should think by someone who knew something of [anatomy], for whoever did it has attacked all the vital parts" - Lloyd's Weekly 2nd Sept; thereafter summarised in the Daily News and Woodford Times. Judging by the content, all three papers might well have used the same (press agency?) release as the basis for their articles.

The idea that "all" the vital parts were attacked is, of course, demonstrably untrue, otherwise we might have expected stabs to the heart and lungs, if not a puncture wound through the ear into the brain. This might be a case of journalistic licence, or simple hyperbole on Llewellyn's (vital) part. Whatever it is, it can't be seen as evidence that Nichols' innards were slashed to pieces.

[David Orsam]

Fisherman's Downfall

If we want to know what Dr Payne James thought happened to Mary Ann Nichols in respect of "post-mortem bleeding", we can turn to the famous TV documentary.

First we have the voiceover:

"Dr Payne James believes that the killer would not necessarily have had blood on his hands. Dr James has worked out that like the other victims Polly Nichols was strangled to death first. Without blood pressure there would have been no arterial spray. Polly Nichols’ killing was surprisingly bloodless."

At the same time, there is also a list on screen entitled:

"Forensic Pathology
Polly Nichols Murder"

Underneath of this heading is shown:

"Strangulation
Neck severed to the bone
Total of twelve injuries
Less extensive injuries compared to the other victims
2 minutes to kill
Dead before knife was used
No blood spray"

Then we have Dr Payne James in his own words on the murder of Nichols:

"I think there is always an assumption that somebody stabbed to death, there is going to be blood everywhere. I think it’s entirely possible that there wouldn’t necessarily be large amounts or indeed any blood necessarily obvious on that person...Although we know the carotid arteries were cut it would seem that that was after death so it may just leak out or dribble out or drain out around the contours of the neck in this case, over a period of minutes".

I am not a forensic pathologist nor an expert in mathematics or physics but it strikes me as obvious that if you have no arterial spray and no initial gushing of blood then all the blood that would have emerged from the body of Nichols had she not been strangled would remain in her body after strangulation and cut throat. If that same blood was leaking or dribbling or draining (or oozing) out of her body very slowly then it would surely take much, much, longer for the blood to "bleed out" to use an expression much loved of Fisherman (by which he appears to mean no more than "stop bleeding") than would otherwise have been the case, because so much more of it would have remained in the body.

The obvious question to have asked Dr Payne James therefore would have been this: When you speak of blood leaking or dribbling or draining out of the body, how long could or would this leaking/dribbling/draining have lasted?

Although Payne James refers to "minutes" in the documentary this is to contrast a situation where there was an immediate gushing or flowing of blood which would have caused the killer’s hands to be bloody.

What we want him to do is to quantify those minutes.

But that wasn’t Fisherman’s approach. The simple questioning was not for him.

His first question to Payne James was this:

"Just how quickly CAN a person with the kind of damage that Nichols had bleed out, if we have nothing that hinders the bloodflow, and if the victim is flat on level ground? Can a total desanguination take place in very few minutes in such a case?"

Payne-James' answer was "Yes".

So this questioning is based on the murder of a woman who has suffered "the kind of damage that Nichols had". Yet Fisherman only mentions two elements of this murder. Firstly, that there was nothing to hinder the bloodflow and secondly that the victim was on flat ground. Nothing is said about strangulation or anything else that is supposed to be unique to Nichols.

Now, pausing there, one wonders how Dr Biggs, when giving his answer about blood oozing to Trevor Marriott, in the context of the JTR murders generally, can possibly not have had in mind the murder of a woman lying on flat ground with nothing hindering the blood flow. So that when he said that blood oozing after death can certainly continue for 20 minutes, it would be astonishing if this could not be said to apply to the circumstances set out by Fisherman in his question to Payne James.

But it gets worse, much worse. For look at the final part of the question:

"Can a total desanguination take place in very few minutes in such a case?"

Desanguination means a massive loss of blood. So Fisherman was here asking Dr Payne James if, in the case of Nichols, there could be a massive loss of blood in a very few minutes. And Payne James said yes!

Now hold on a moment! Didn’t Payne James say that with Nichols having been strangled the blood may just leak out or dribble out or drain out around the contours of the neck in this case?

Yes he did!

Where is the desanguination, or massive blood loss, in this case? How can there be a massive loss of blood in a few minutes if, as a result of the strangulation, it is doing no more than leaking or dribbling out around the neck?

So am going to suggest that Fisherman has confused his expert by introducing the concept of desanguination into the equation which has now put into the expert’s mind the idea that there is actually a massive flow of blood out of the neck wound after the throat was cut, a different scenario to the one he offered in the TV documentary, and thus not applying directly to what he believed happened to Nichols.

And remember that Fisherman didn't do any more than ask him about a person "suffering the kind of damage Nichols had". He did NOT establish that this person had been strangled first. Instead he said that there was desanguination.

We can skip over the next embarrassing question and answer when the great "post mortem bleeding expert" was asked if he knew of any examples of total desanguination taking place in a few minutes and he said "No".

So we now come to what is supposed to be the question and answer which condemns Lechmere as the murderer of Mary Ann Nichols and thus identifies Jack the Ripper on the blood evidence. The question was this:

"Is it possible for such a person to bleed out completely and stop bleeding in three minutes? In five? In seven?"

The answer was this:

"I guess blood may continue to flow for up to this amount of time, but the shorter periods are more likely to be more realistic."

So Fisherman’s question was about "such a person", namely the person who has suffered from "total desanguination". We are not talking about blood leaking or dribbling or draining out of a neck wound. We are talking about someone with a cut throat suffering from massive blood loss.

Because that is what Mr Clever Fisherman who wanted to show his expert that he knew the meaning of a long medical word like "desanguination" has asked him.

Of course, the expression "bleed out" is not defined and is rather vague but let’s assume that the expert took it to mean that at the point of "bleeding out" the victim would stop bleeding. And let's ignore that dead people don't really bleed.

So he says (or rather guesses) that the bleeding would stop most likely after 3 minutes but it could go on for up to 7 minutes.

That is fine but it is, of course, in the context of a massive blood loss. What Payne James cannot be speaking about is the situation which he believed related to Polly Nichols because he thought she was strangled and that there was no massive blood loss, only a dribbling of the blood.

So how long can that dribbling or, let me see if I can find another word for that….oh, I know, oozing, last?

Payne James doesn’t tell us but Dr Biggs does deal with this subject. It can easily last for 20 minutes. That is a general answer for sure but one for which there is no reason to think it could not apply to Polly Nichols and nothing in Payne James’ answers to Fisherman suggests that it could not apply to her.

Fisherman is sunk. Nothing in the "blood evidence" points specifically to Lechmere. There was sufficient time for another individual to have murdered Polly Nichols before Lechmere turned into Bucks Row. By analysing Fisherman's questions to Payne James, and Payne James' answers carefully, we have saved a man from being framed for murder.

[Harry D]

It certainly wasn't lost on me. I posted a treatise a few years ago, and several others since, that argue that Lechmere's behavior only makes sense had he had access to a crystal ball. If we assume his desire was to avoid capture, only knowledge of the future would have led him to:

- WAIT for an unidentified man, on the spot where he'd supposedly just killed and disemboweled Nichols

- APPROACH that man, Robert Paul, even as Paul tried to avoid him and walk past

- TOUCH Paul's shoulder with a hand - confident it was free of blood - and ask Paul to "COME SEE THIS WOMAN"

- INSPECT the body of his alleged victim with Paul - confident that Paul did not have a match with which to reveal the fact that she'd been nearly decapitated and dissected

- REFUSE to touch the victim when Paul suggests that they move her even though this would give him a perfectly reasonable explanation for any blood that may have gotten on his clothing during said near decapitation and dissection

- GO WITH PAUL to find a PC to TELL about the woman he'd supposedly just killed even though he could have simply gone the other way, turned another direction at any point before they found said PC because Paul had absolutely no clue who he was, where he lived, where he worked

- TELL MIZEN that he thinks the woman is DEAD, confident he'll not take him BACK to the scene, use his lantern to inspect his person, or search for the KNIFE which was STILL ON HIM

- Pull Mizen aside and TELL MIZEN lies - out of poor Robert Paul's earshot - about another PC waiting at Buck's Row, confident that Paul won't think that odd in the least

And now...the grand plan has succeeded. He's supposedly just killed and eviscerated Nichols. He's managed to navigated his way out of the situation, albeit in the most inexplicable way one could possibly imagine. He's free. Mizen didn't ask his name. Paul didn't as his name. Paul speaks to Lloyd's and describes him only as 'a man'. He's unnamed. No description of him is given. And, to boot, Paul casts himself as the prime actor. He does the talking. He editorializes about what a 'great shame' the PCs reaction was upon being told the WOMAN WAS DEAD......... Mission accomplished, right? He's free to continue the murder spree that started - if we believe the theory - years earlier and would not conclude for decades. And what does he do?

- HE SHOWS AT THE INQUEST to TELL MORE LIES about PC Mizen.

If we want to know what Dr Payne James thought happened to Mary Ann Nichols in respect of "post-mortem bleeding", we can turn to the famous TV documentary.

First we have the voiceover:

"Dr Payne James believes that the killer would not necessarily have had blood on his hands. Dr James has worked out that like the other victims Polly Nichols was strangled to death first. Without blood pressure there would have been no arterial spray. Polly Nichols’ killing was surprisingly bloodless."

At the same time, there is also a list on screen entitled:

"Forensic Pathology
Polly Nichols Murder"

Underneath of this heading is shown:

"Strangulation
Neck severed to the bone
Total of twelve injuries
Less extensive injuries compared to the other victims
2 minutes to kill
Dead before knife was used
No blood spray"

Then we have Dr Payne James in his own words on the murder of Nichols:

"I think there is always an assumption that somebody stabbed to death, there is going to be blood everywhere. I think it’s entirely possible that there wouldn’t necessarily be large amounts or indeed any blood necessarily obvious on that person...Although we know the carotid arteries were cut it would seem that that was after death so it may just leak out or dribble out or drain out around the contours of the neck in this case, over a period of minutes".

I am not a forensic pathologist nor an expert in mathematics or physics but it strikes me as obvious that if you have no arterial spray and no initial gushing of blood then all the blood that would have emerged from the body of Nichols had she not been strangled would remain in her body after strangulation and cut throat. If that same blood was leaking or dribbling or draining (or oozing) out of her body very slowly then it would surely take much, much, longer for the blood to "bleed out" to use an expression much loved of Fisherman (by which he appears to mean no more than "stop bleeding") than would otherwise have been the case, because so much more of it would have remained in the body.

The obvious question to have asked Dr Payne James therefore would have been this: When you speak of blood leaking or dribbling or draining out of the body, how long could or would this leaking/dribbling/draining have lasted?

Although Payne James refers to "minutes" in the documentary this is to contrast a situation where there was an immediate gushing or flowing of blood which would have caused the killer’s hands to be bloody.

What we want him to do is to quantify those minutes.

But that wasn’t Fisherman’s approach. The simple questioning was not for him.

His first question to Payne James was this:

"Just how quickly CAN a person with the kind of damage that Nichols had bleed out, if we have nothing that hinders the bloodflow, and if the victim is flat on level ground? Can a total desanguination take place in very few minutes in such a case?"

Payne-James' answer was "Yes".

So this questioning is based on the murder of a woman who has suffered "the kind of damage that Nichols had". Yet Fisherman only mentions two elements of this murder. Firstly, that there was nothing to hinder the bloodflow and secondly that the victim was on flat ground. Nothing is said about strangulation or anything else that is supposed to be unique to Nichols.

Now, pausing there, one wonders how Dr Biggs, when giving his answer about blood oozing to Trevor Marriott, in the context of the JTR murders generally, can possibly not have had in mind the murder of a woman lying on flat ground with nothing hindering the blood flow. So that when he said that blood oozing after death can certainly continue for 20 minutes, it would be astonishing if this could not be said to apply to the circumstances set out by Fisherman in his question to Payne James.

But it gets worse, much worse. For look at the final part of the question:

"Can a total desanguination take place in very few minutes in such a case?"

Desanguination means a massive loss of blood. So Fisherman was here asking Dr Payne James if, in the case of Nichols, there could be a massive loss of blood in a very few minutes. And Payne James said yes!

Now hold on a moment! Didn’t Payne James say that with Nichols having been strangled the blood may just leak out or dribble out or drain out around the contours of the neck in this case?

Yes he did!

Where is the desanguination, or massive blood loss, in this case? How can there be a massive loss of blood in a few minutes if, as a result of the strangulation, it is doing no more than leaking or dribbling out around the neck?

So am going to suggest that Fisherman has confused his expert by introducing the concept of desanguination into the equation which has now put into the expert’s mind the idea that there is actually a massive flow of blood out of the neck wound after the throat was cut, a different scenario to the one he offered in the TV documentary, and thus not applying directly to what he believed happened to Nichols.

And remember that Fisherman didn't do any more than ask him about a person "suffering the kind of damage Nichols had". He did NOT establish that this person had been strangled first. Instead he said that there was desanguination.

We can skip over the next embarrassing question and answer when the great "post mortem bleeding expert" was asked if he knew of any examples of total desanguination taking place in a few minutes and he said "No".

So we now come to what is supposed to be the question and answer which condemns Lechmere as the murderer of Mary Ann Nichols and thus identifies Jack the Ripper on the blood evidence. The question was this:

"Is it possible for such a person to bleed out completely and stop bleeding in three minutes? In five? In seven?"

The answer was this:

"I guess blood may continue to flow for up to this amount of time, but the shorter periods are more likely to be more realistic."

So Fisherman’s question was about "such a person", namely the person who has suffered from "total desanguination". We are not talking about blood leaking or dribbling or draining out of a neck wound. We are talking about someone with a cut throat suffering from massive blood loss.

Because that is what Mr Clever Fisherman who wanted to show his expert that he knew the meaning of a long medical word like "desanguination" has asked him.

Of course, the expression "bleed out" is not defined and is rather vague but let’s assume that the expert took it to mean that at the point of "bleeding out" the victim would stop bleeding. And let's ignore that dead people don't really bleed.

So he says (or rather guesses) that the bleeding would stop most likely after 3 minutes but it could go on for up to 7 minutes.

That is fine but it is, of course, in the context of a massive blood loss. What Payne James cannot be speaking about is the situation which he believed related to Polly Nichols because he thought she was strangled and that there was no massive blood loss, only a dribbling of the blood.

So how long can that dribbling or, let me see if I can find another word for that….oh, I know, oozing, last?

Payne James doesn’t tell us but Dr Biggs does deal with this subject. It can easily last for 20 minutes. That is a general answer for sure but one for which there is no reason to think it could not apply to Polly Nichols and nothing in Payne James’ answers to Fisherman suggests that it could not apply to her.

Fisherman is sunk. Nothing in the "blood evidence" points specifically to Lechmere. There was sufficient time for another individual to have murdered Polly Nichols before Lechmere turned into Bucks Row. By analysing Fisherman's questions to Payne James, and Payne James' answers carefully, we have saved a man from being framed for murder.

Ooof! Talk about the old one-two!

[Elamarna]

If we want to know what Dr Payne James thought happened to Mary Ann Nichols in respect of "post-mortem bleeding", we can turn to the famous TV documentary.

First we have the voiceover:

"Dr Payne James believes that the killer would not necessarily have had blood on his hands. Dr James has worked out that like the other victims Polly Nichols was strangled to death first. Without blood pressure there would have been no arterial spray. Polly Nichols’ killing was surprisingly bloodless."

At the same time, there is also a list on screen entitled:

"Forensic Pathology
Polly Nichols Murder"

Underneath of this heading is shown:

"Strangulation
Neck severed to the bone
Total of twelve injuries
Less extensive injuries compared to the other victims
2 minutes to kill
Dead before knife was used
No blood spray"

Then we have Dr Payne James in his own words on the murder of Nichols:

"I think there is always an assumption that somebody stabbed to death, there is going to be blood everywhere. I think it’s entirely possible that there wouldn’t necessarily be large amounts or indeed any blood necessarily obvious on that person...Although we know the carotid arteries were cut it would seem that that was after death so it may just leak out or dribble out or drain out around the contours of the neck in this case, over a period of minutes".

I am not a forensic pathologist nor an expert in mathematics or physics but it strikes me as obvious that if you have no arterial spray and no initial gushing of blood then all the blood that would have emerged from the body of Nichols had she not been strangled would remain in her body after strangulation and cut throat. If that same blood was leaking or dribbling or draining (or oozing) out of her body very slowly then it would surely take much, much, longer for the blood to "bleed out" to use an expression much loved of Fisherman (by which he appears to mean no more than "stop bleeding") than would otherwise have been the case, because so much more of it would have remained in the body.

The obvious question to have asked Dr Payne James therefore would have been this: When you speak of blood leaking or dribbling or draining out of the body, how long could or would this leaking/dribbling/draining have lasted?

Although Payne James refers to "minutes" in the documentary this is to contrast a situation where there was an immediate gushing or flowing of blood which would have caused the killer’s hands to be bloody.

What we want him to do is to quantify those minutes.

But that wasn’t Fisherman’s approach. The simple questioning was not for him.

His first question to Payne James was this:

"Just how quickly CAN a person with the kind of damage that Nichols had bleed out, if we have nothing that hinders the bloodflow, and if the victim is flat on level ground? Can a total desanguination take place in very few minutes in such a case?"

Payne-James' answer was "Yes".

So this questioning is based on the murder of a woman who has suffered "the kind of damage that Nichols had". Yet Fisherman only mentions two elements of this murder. Firstly, that there was nothing to hinder the bloodflow and secondly that the victim was on flat ground. Nothing is said about strangulation or anything else that is supposed to be unique to Nichols.

Now, pausing there, one wonders how Dr Biggs, when giving his answer about blood oozing to Trevor Marriott, in the context of the JTR murders generally, can possibly not have had in mind the murder of a woman lying on flat ground with nothing hindering the blood flow. So that when he said that blood oozing after death can certainly continue for 20 minutes, it would be astonishing if this could not be said to apply to the circumstances set out by Fisherman in his question to Payne James.

But it gets worse, much worse. For look at the final part of the question:

"Can a total desanguination take place in very few minutes in such a case?"

Desanguination means a massive loss of blood. So Fisherman was here asking Dr Payne James if, in the case of Nichols, there could be a massive loss of blood in a very few minutes. And Payne James said yes!

Now hold on a moment! Didn’t Payne James say that with Nichols having been strangled the blood may just leak out or dribble out or drain out around the contours of the neck in this case?

Yes he did!

Where is the desanguination, or massive blood loss, in this case? How can there be a massive loss of blood in a few minutes if, as a result of the strangulation, it is doing no more than leaking or dribbling out around the neck?

So am going to suggest that Fisherman has confused his expert by introducing the concept of desanguination into the equation which has now put into the expert’s mind the idea that there is actually a massive flow of blood out of the neck wound after the throat was cut, a different scenario to the one he offered in the TV documentary, and thus not applying directly to what he believed happened to Nichols.

And remember that Fisherman didn't do any more than ask him about a person "suffering the kind of damage Nichols had". He did NOT establish that this person had been strangled first. Instead he said that there was desanguination.

We can skip over the next embarrassing question and answer when the great "post mortem bleeding expert" was asked if he knew of any examples of total desanguination taking place in a few minutes and he said "No".

So we now come to what is supposed to be the question and answer which condemns Lechmere as the murderer of Mary Ann Nichols and thus identifies Jack the Ripper on the blood evidence. The question was this:

"Is it possible for such a person to bleed out completely and stop bleeding in three minutes? In five? In seven?"

The answer was this:

"I guess blood may continue to flow for up to this amount of time, but the shorter periods are more likely to be more realistic."

So Fisherman’s question was about "such a person", namely the person who has suffered from "total desanguination". We are not talking about blood leaking or dribbling or draining out of a neck wound. We are talking about someone with a cut throat suffering from massive blood loss.

Because that is what Mr Clever Fisherman who wanted to show his expert that he knew the meaning of a long medical word like "desanguination" has asked him.

Of course, the expression "bleed out" is not defined and is rather vague but let’s assume that the expert took it to mean that at the point of "bleeding out" the victim would stop bleeding. And let's ignore that dead people don't really bleed.

So he says (or rather guesses) that the bleeding would stop most likely after 3 minutes but it could go on for up to 7 minutes.

That is fine but it is, of course, in the context of a massive blood loss. What Payne James cannot be speaking about is the situation which he believed related to Polly Nichols because he thought she was strangled and that there was no massive blood loss, only a dribbling of the blood.

So how long can that dribbling or, let me see if I can find another word for that….oh, I know, oozing, last?

Payne James doesn’t tell us but Dr Biggs does deal with this subject. It can easily last for 20 minutes. That is a general answer for sure but one for which there is no reason to think it could not apply to Polly Nichols and nothing in Payne James’ answers to Fisherman suggests that it could not apply to her.

Fisherman is sunk. Nothing in the "blood evidence" points specifically to Lechmere. There was sufficient time for another individual to have murdered Polly Nichols before Lechmere turned into Bucks Row. By analysing Fisherman's questions to Payne James, and Payne James' answers carefully, we have saved a man from being framed for murder.

Good post David .

Good points made.

Not sure if you bothered to read the exchanges this morning but maybe the most revealing one on the actual issues was as follows:

I repeated what Payne- said in the video and the reply was as follows:

You are making a complete idiot of yourself, Steve. Try not to.

Payne-James does not say that the blood WILL only leak and dribble out after death, he says that it MAY do so. And he speaks of a period of minutes, meaning that he is discussing the bloodflow on the whole - what happens with the blood in a case like the Nichols case, where all the major vessels in the neck are opened up.
Nota bene that Payne-James was quite aware that she had also had the abdomen extensively cut, and if that came first, then why would the blood fro the neck NOT simply dribble and leak .



And from a technical point of view Payne-James lower estimate for blood stopping is most likely to be correct in light of Nicholas wounds.

Of course that not only causes problems for Mizen seeing bleeding as Fisherman sees it, it also causes problems for Neil.

Not opinion. Medical fact.
There are others on the forum far better qualified on this issue than me. They will almost certainly agree with that.



Steve

[Elamarna]

Harry D

I could not agree more.

Good posts. Good points.


Steve

[David Orsam]

Not sure if you bothered to read the exchanges this morning but maybe the most revealing one on the actual issues was as follows:

I repeated what Payne- said in the video and the reply was as follows:

You are making a complete idiot of yourself, Steve. Try not to.

Payne-James does not say that the blood WILL only leak and dribble out after death, he says that it MAY do so. And he speaks of a period of minutes, meaning that he is discussing the bloodflow on the whole - what happens with the blood in a case like the Nichols case, where all the major vessels in the neck are opened up.
Nota bene that Payne-James was quite aware that she had also had the abdomen extensively cut, and if that came first, then why would the blood fro the neck NOT simply dribble and leak .

Yes I did see that exchange, Steve, but it didn't affect my thinking on the issue at all because it only needs to be a feasible possibility in Payne James' mind for there to have been no desanguination (or massive blood loss) over a few minutes in the case of Nichols's murder and Fisherman's entire point about Payne James' answers to his questions relating to the specific circumstances of the Nichols case is destroyed.

If Payne James's 7 minutes doesn't necessarily relate to the Nichols murder specifically then we can surely both rely on Dr Biggs that oozing can last 20 minutes and apply this to the Nichols case, especially as oozing is consistent with what Payne James believed could have happened with Nichols.

At the same time, and without prejudice to the above, I would want to draw Fisherman's attention to the wording of the voiceover in the documentary:

"Dr James has worked out that like the other victims Polly Nichols was strangled to death first. Without blood pressure there would have been no arterial spray. Polly Nichols’ killing was surprisingly bloodless."

I would want to ask him if this was yet ANOTHER mistake in the documentary.

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=David Orsam;415186]

If Payne James's 7 minutes doesn't necessarily relate to the Nichols murder specifically then we can surely both rely on Dr Biggs that oozing can last 20 minutes and apply this to the Nichols case, especially as oozing is consistent with what Payne James believed could have happened with Nichols.

Oh, dear. David, you can not "ask an expert". It makes you just as bad an historian as Fisherman is.

You must go the long way through all the sources just as Steve does.

No expert from our time can give any reliable "opinion" for a whole set of historical sources, it will be just an opinion.

Reliability and validity can only be established by source criticism.

[Elamarna]

Yes I did see that exchange, Steve, but it didn't affect my thinking on the issue at all because it only needs to be a feasible possibility in Payne James' mind for there to have been no desanguination (or massive blood loss) over a few minutes in the case of Nichols's murder and Fisherman's entire point about Payne James' answers to his questions relating to the specific circumstances of the Nichols case is destroyed.

If Payne James's 7 minutes doesn't necessarily relate to the Nichols murder specifically then we can surely both rely on Dr Biggs that oozing can last 20 minutes and apply this to the Nichols case, especially as oozing is consistent with what Payne James believed could have happened with Nichols.

At the same time, and without prejudice to the above, I would want to draw Fisherman's attention to the wording of the voiceover in the documentary:

"Dr James has worked out that like the other victims Polly Nichols was strangled to death first. Without blood pressure there would have been no arterial spray. Polly Nichols’ killing was surprisingly bloodless."

I would want to ask him if this was yet ANOTHER mistake in the documentary.

Yes David.

It was interesting that when I pointed out the words I used were the actual words used there was no real follow up response.
Your points are indeed clear.


Steve

[John G]

"I should think by someone who knew something of [anatomy], for whoever did it has attacked all the vital parts" - Lloyd's Weekly 2nd Sept; thereafter summarised in the Daily News and Woodford Times. Judging by the content, all three papers might well have used the same (press agency?) release as the basis for their articles.

The idea that "all" the vital parts were attacked is, of course, demonstrably untrue, otherwise we might have expected stabs to the heart and lungs, if not a puncture wound through the ear into the brain. This might be a case of journalistic licence, or simple hyperbole on Llewellyn's (vital) part. Whatever it is, it can't be seen as evidence that Nichols' innards were slashed to pieces.

Good points. And reference to "vital parts" is so incredibly vague as to be virtually meaningless.

[Elamarna]

Good points. And reference to "vital parts" is so incredibly vague as to be virtually meaningless.

Not virtually John. Just meaningless. It gives no information what so ever, and is backed by nothing said at the inquest.

Steve

[John G]

If we want to know what Dr Payne James thought happened to Mary Ann Nichols in respect of "post-mortem bleeding", we can turn to the famous TV documentary.

First we have the voiceover:

"Dr Payne James believes that the killer would not necessarily have had blood on his hands. Dr James has worked out that like the other victims Polly Nichols was strangled to death first. Without blood pressure there would have been no arterial spray. Polly Nichols’ killing was surprisingly bloodless."

At the same time, there is also a list on screen entitled:

"Forensic Pathology
Polly Nichols Murder"

Underneath of this heading is shown:

"Strangulation
Neck severed to the bone
Total of twelve injuries
Less extensive injuries compared to the other victims
2 minutes to kill
Dead before knife was used
No blood spray"

Then we have Dr Payne James in his own words on the murder of Nichols:

"I think there is always an assumption that somebody stabbed to death, there is going to be blood everywhere. I think it’s entirely possible that there wouldn’t necessarily be large amounts or indeed any blood necessarily obvious on that person...Although we know the carotid arteries were cut it would seem that that was after death so it may just leak out or dribble out or drain out around the contours of the neck in this case, over a period of minutes".

I am not a forensic pathologist nor an expert in mathematics or physics but it strikes me as obvious that if you have no arterial spray and no initial gushing of blood then all the blood that would have emerged from the body of Nichols had she not been strangled would remain in her body after strangulation and cut throat. If that same blood was leaking or dribbling or draining (or oozing) out of her body very slowly then it would surely take much, much, longer for the blood to "bleed out" to use an expression much loved of Fisherman (by which he appears to mean no more than "stop bleeding") than would otherwise have been the case, because so much more of it would have remained in the body.

The obvious question to have asked Dr Payne James therefore would have been this: When you speak of blood leaking or dribbling or draining out of the body, how long could or would this leaking/dribbling/draining have lasted?

Although Payne James refers to "minutes" in the documentary this is to contrast a situation where there was an immediate gushing or flowing of blood which would have caused the killer’s hands to be bloody.

What we want him to do is to quantify those minutes.

But that wasn’t Fisherman’s approach. The simple questioning was not for him.

His first question to Payne James was this:

"Just how quickly CAN a person with the kind of damage that Nichols had bleed out, if we have nothing that hinders the bloodflow, and if the victim is flat on level ground? Can a total desanguination take place in very few minutes in such a case?"

Payne-James' answer was "Yes".

So this questioning is based on the murder of a woman who has suffered "the kind of damage that Nichols had". Yet Fisherman only mentions two elements of this murder. Firstly, that there was nothing to hinder the bloodflow and secondly that the victim was on flat ground. Nothing is said about strangulation or anything else that is supposed to be unique to Nichols.

Now, pausing there, one wonders how Dr Biggs, when giving his answer about blood oozing to Trevor Marriott, in the context of the JTR murders generally, can possibly not have had in mind the murder of a woman lying on flat ground with nothing hindering the blood flow. So that when he said that blood oozing after death can certainly continue for 20 minutes, it would be astonishing if this could not be said to apply to the circumstances set out by Fisherman in his question to Payne James.

But it gets worse, much worse. For look at the final part of the question:

"Can a total desanguination take place in very few minutes in such a case?"

Desanguination means a massive loss of blood. So Fisherman was here asking Dr Payne James if, in the case of Nichols, there could be a massive loss of blood in a very few minutes. And Payne James said yes!

Now hold on a moment! Didn’t Payne James say that with Nichols having been strangled the blood may just leak out or dribble out or drain out around the contours of the neck in this case?

Yes he did!

Where is the desanguination, or massive blood loss, in this case? How can there be a massive loss of blood in a few minutes if, as a result of the strangulation, it is doing no more than leaking or dribbling out around the neck?

So am going to suggest that Fisherman has confused his expert by introducing the concept of desanguination into the equation which has now put into the expert’s mind the idea that there is actually a massive flow of blood out of the neck wound after the throat was cut, a different scenario to the one he offered in the TV documentary, and thus not applying directly to what he believed happened to Nichols.

And remember that Fisherman didn't do any more than ask him about a person "suffering the kind of damage Nichols had". He did NOT establish that this person had been strangled first. Instead he said that there was desanguination.

We can skip over the next embarrassing question and answer when the great "post mortem bleeding expert" was asked if he knew of any examples of total desanguination taking place in a few minutes and he said "No".

So we now come to what is supposed to be the question and answer which condemns Lechmere as the murderer of Mary Ann Nichols and thus identifies Jack the Ripper on the blood evidence. The question was this:

"Is it possible for such a person to bleed out completely and stop bleeding in three minutes? In five? In seven?"

The answer was this:

"I guess blood may continue to flow for up to this amount of time, but the shorter periods are more likely to be more realistic."

So Fisherman’s question was about "such a person", namely the person who has suffered from "total desanguination". We are not talking about blood leaking or dribbling or draining out of a neck wound. We are talking about someone with a cut throat suffering from massive blood loss.

Because that is what Mr Clever Fisherman who wanted to show his expert that he knew the meaning of a long medical word like "desanguination" has asked him.

Of course, the expression "bleed out" is not defined and is rather vague but let’s assume that the expert took it to mean that at the point of "bleeding out" the victim would stop bleeding. And let's ignore that dead people don't really bleed.

So he says (or rather guesses) that the bleeding would stop most likely after 3 minutes but it could go on for up to 7 minutes.

That is fine but it is, of course, in the context of a massive blood loss. What Payne James cannot be speaking about is the situation which he believed related to Polly Nichols because he thought she was strangled and that there was no massive blood loss, only a dribbling of the blood.

So how long can that dribbling or, let me see if I can find another word for that….oh, I know, oozing, last?

Payne James doesn’t tell us but Dr Biggs does deal with this subject. It can easily last for 20 minutes. That is a general answer for sure but one for which there is no reason to think it could not apply to Polly Nichols and nothing in Payne James’ answers to Fisherman suggests that it could not apply to her.

Fisherman is sunk. Nothing in the "blood evidence" points specifically to Lechmere. There was sufficient time for another individual to have murdered Polly Nichols before Lechmere turned into Bucks Row. By analysing Fisherman's questions to Payne James, and Payne James' answers carefully, we have saved a man from being framed for murder.

Some excellent points, David. And I still have no idea why Fisherman seems to prefer the sensationalist Star's version of what may have been said about blood flow to what was actually said under oath at the inquest.

[John G]

Not virtually John. Just meaningless. It gives no information what so ever, and is backed by nothing said at the inquest.

Steve

Highlighting the importance of discernment, Steve, when considering newspaper accounts of what may or may not have been said.