Research on Eyewitness Bias (Height)

[mklhawley]

Some on Casebook rely more upon eyewitness descriptions of men seen with the Whitechapel victims than others as possibly JTR, but most agree that the descriptions must be taken with a grain of salt (for numerous reasons). I am intrigued by what the experts say about eyewitness bias with regards to height. Not only do eyewitnesses make mistakes, but the pattern of mistake is to consistently underestimate height:

Adult Eyewitness Testimony: Current Trends and Developments by David F. Ross, J. Don Read, Michael P. Toglia (Cambridge University Press, 1994)

“Unfortunately, there are a few studies in the psychological literature which have assessed accuracy of memory for whole body information but those that have tend to suggest that memory for bodies, like that for many other forms of information, is susceptible to bias. …From a forensic perspective, however, it is perhaps of more interest to establish the effects of systematic biases on memory for body information. Flin and Shepherd’s study (1986) used a range of male targets varying in weight and height. Members of the public were asked for directions by one of these targets in a busy city center. Once the target had disappeared from view, the subjects were asked by a second confederate to estimate the target’s height and weight. Subjects tended to UNDERESTIMATE the height of the target. The greatest mean underestimate was 4.91 inches for the tallest target (78 inches). It is interesting that the one target for whom there was a mean overestimation of height (+ 1.05 inches) was the smallest target at 66 inches.”

The following is the eyewitness testimony of MJK’s possible killer:

"While standing under a street light on outside the Queen's Head Public House Hutchinson gets a good look at the man with Mary Jane Kelly. He has a pale complexion, a slight moustache turned up at the corners (changed to dark complexion and heavy moustache in the press reports), dark hair, dark eyes, and bushy eyebrows. He is, according to Hutchinson, of "Jewish appearance." The man is wearing a soft felt hat pulled down over his eyes, a long dark coat trimmed in astrakhan, a white collar with a black necktie fixed with a horseshoe pin. He wears dark spats over light button over boots. A massive gold chain is in his waistcoat with a large seal with a red stone hanging from it. He carries kid gloves in his right hand and a small package in his left. He is 5' 6" or 5' 7" tall and about 35 or 36 years old.”

So, if this eyewitness actually saw JTR, should we accept this as his height or should we add a few inches?

Sincerely,

Mike

[Jonathan H]

In 1965 the brilliant though polemical Tom Cullen argued that the Hutchinson description can be dismissed as a villain straight from the stage of cheap melodrama, a figure created by Anti-Semitism.

I agree, and would add that Abberline seems to fallen hook, line and sinker for this pantomime description of a 'Satanic' suspect [perhaps he thought this was Chapman, by 1903?] due to the amount of specific detail which Hutchinson went into -- but I think the latter did this to deflect unwanted attention from himself as Mary Kelly's potential killer.

[Chadwick]

Size is everything?

Some on Casebook rely more upon eyewitness descriptions of men seen with the Whitechapel victims than others as possibly JTR, but most agree that the descriptions must be taken with a grain of salt (for numerous reasons). I am intrigued by what the experts say about eyewitness bias with regards to height. Not only do eyewitnesses make mistakes, but the pattern of mistake is to consistently underestimate height:

Adult Eyewitness Testimony: Current Trends and Developments by David F. Ross, J. Don Read, Michael P. Toglia (Cambridge University Press, 1994)

“Unfortunately, there are a few studies in the psychological literature which have assessed accuracy of memory for whole body information but those that have tend to suggest that memory for bodies, like that for many other forms of information, is susceptible to bias. …From a forensic perspective, however, it is perhaps of more interest to establish the effects of systematic biases on memory for body information. Flin and Shepherd’s study (1986) used a range of male targets varying in weight and height. Members of the public were asked for directions by one of these targets in a busy city center. Once the target had disappeared from view, the subjects were asked by a second confederate to estimate the target’s height and weight. Subjects tended to UNDERESTIMATE the height of the target. The greatest mean underestimate was 4.91 inches for the tallest target (78 inches). It is interesting that the one target for whom there was a mean overestimation of height (+ 1.05 inches) was the smallest target at 66 inches.”

The following is the eyewitness testimony of MJK’s possible killer:

"While standing under a street light on outside the Queen's Head Public House Hutchinson gets a good look at the man with Mary Jane Kelly. He has a pale complexion, a slight moustache turned up at the corners (changed to dark complexion and heavy moustache in the press reports), dark hair, dark eyes, and bushy eyebrows. He is, according to Hutchinson, of "Jewish appearance." The man is wearing a soft felt hat pulled down over his eyes, a long dark coat trimmed in astrakhan, a white collar with a black necktie fixed with a horseshoe pin. He wears dark spats over light button over boots. A massive gold chain is in his waistcoat with a large seal with a red stone hanging from it. He carries kid gloves in his right hand and a small package in his left. He is 5' 6" or 5' 7" tall and about 35 or 36 years old.”

So, if this eyewitness actually saw JTR, should we accept this as his height or should we add a few inches?

Sincerely,

Mike

As I recall, this man had his head bent and Hutchinson had to look up under his hat to see his face. This could have obscured his true height.

One other factor, which sets this man apart is the "massive gold chain" and "large seal with a red stone hanging from it". This shows a personal level of wealth that your average fellow in Whitechapel would not have had. Even if he had purposely "dressed down", it seems it was impossible for this gentleman to keep from indulging in his touch of bling.

[The Good Michael]

A couple of things which may or may not be surmise on my part: First, we tend to think of ourselves as taller than we are. When we see others who are within a few inches of us, but taller, there's a tendency to think, especially if it's a one-time sighting, that we are about the same height. This has happened to me a few times that past week alone where I met someone, described them to others, and then met them again only to find that they were 3 inches taller than me. I think any more than that, and I have less illusion about my own height. I believe the same is true of someone who is a hair shorter. We may tend to think that the person is quite a bit shorter, and I think it's mainly a guy thing. If someone is quite a bit shorter, such as jockey-sized, we don't seem to elevate them nor make them any shorter. I don't know why this is though I might suggest it's an ego thing or has to do with alpha male stuff. Look, this is conjecture, but I'll have a go at seeing what others think. I believe it is only initial contact and not something that happens if spending other bits of time with a given person.

Cheers,

Mike

[Chadwick]

Honest Copper

In 1965 the brilliant though polemical Tom Cullen argued that the Hutchinson description can be dismissed as a villain straight from the stage of cheap melodrama, a figure created by Anti-Semitism.

I agree, and would add that Abberline seems to fallen hook, line and sinker for this pantomime description of a 'Satanic' suspect [perhaps he thought this was Chapman, by 1903?] due to the amount of specific detail which Hutchinson went into -- but I think the latter did this to deflect unwanted attention from himself as Mary Kelly's potential killer.

Hutchinson may not have been a sterling character and he may have had his head turned by all the press attention he got for what he saw. I tend to trust Abberline, however. He was there. He did the interview with this guy and had a much better feel for who Hutchinson was, than we do from this 120year distance.

I think what Hutchinson wanted was for the guy to leave so he could spend the night with Mary Kelly, getting in from the rain and the cold. He waited around, but then gave up when our suspect didn't leave the room.

I may be in the minority, but I tend to believe him and, Mike, I also think he was a little taller than he suggests.

[Jonathan H]

The drawback of the Abberline-was-there whilst we are stuck 120 years after-the-fact argument is that it can be strongly counter-argued that Anderson, Swanson, Littlechild and Macnaghten [in terms of his access to information] were also 'there'.

Yet they each favored competing suspects, none of whom resemble Hutchinson's Satanic Jew complete with horseshoe tiepin, except perhaps Tumblety in his affluence and flamboyant attire though even he, an Irish-American Gentile, was dressing down for his interview in 1889 and may have done the same on his admitted jaunts to the East End.

[mklhawley]

I am also intrigued not only by eyewitness bias but also the gender bias The Good Michael referred to. I wonder if all of the eyewinesses underestimated the height of the victims-to-be, thus, underestimated the John.

Mike

[Chadwick]

The drawback of the Abberline-was-there whilst we are stuck 120 years after-the-fact argument is that it can be strongly counter-argued that Anderson, Swanson, Littlechild and Macnaghten [in terms of his access to information] were also 'there'.

Yet they each favored competing suspects, none of whom resemble Hutchinson's Satanic Jew complete with horseshoe tiepin, except perhaps Tumblety in his affluence and flamboyant attire though even he, an Irish-American Gentile, was dressing down for his interview in 1889 and may have done the same on his admitted jaunts to the East End.

I so agree that all the individuals were investigating, but it was Abberline who interviewed Hutchinson -- not all those other guys. I'm sure he was able to get a feel for whether Hutchinson was just pulling his chain in order to keep suspicion off himself or not. Con men, which is what you are intimating, have a certain scent or attitude, about them which would have sent up red flags to an experienced investigator.

I'm just not sure where you get this "Satanic Jew" phrase? He never said that. He thought he may have been Jewish, but that assumption may have been influenced by a question Abberline asked or by the general suspicion coursing through Whitechapel at the time.

I witnessed an fatal crash on the Freeway once. I saw it happen from start to finish. It was horrible and very unnerving. When I read about it in the paper then next day, I was upset because I thought they had the vehicles reversed. I called the paper to try to correct them, but I had it backwards. My comprehension of the events were correct, the make of the cars involved and even the colors were right. I had somehow mentally reversed which car did what. My point being, of course, eye witnesses are notoriously unreliable.

So, Mike, it is entirely possible that the witinesses didn't judge the killer's height correctly.

I am still mulling over the "massive gold chain" statement. Gold is so much more common for the average person today, than it would have been in those days. It definitely would not have been a possession of a common tradesman, local madman and much of the rest of the people who were under suspicion at the time. The only one who is most likely to be being flaunting gold like that would be Tumblety. The garb of the man who was seen by Hutchinson WOULD have been "dressed down" for the likes of Tumblety!

A fellow in another thread brought up an interesting point, which no one else seems to have put forward -- that I know about, of course (many are the wise here). The Liverpool station could well have enlarged this whole theory of the killer having to be a local. It went to St. James Park. What were the train schedules in and out of that area during weekends? (Keep in mind that someone heard a person pass at 6 am the morning Mary Kelly was killed.) Could he have waited in her room until he knew he could catch a train?

Just thoughts. I am, after all, only a cadet in far more auspicious company.

Best to you,

~Chadwick

[DVV]

Hi all,

Mr Astrakhan is a joke. As tall as he was.

Amitiés,
David

[The Good Michael]

Mr Astrakhan is a joke. As tall as he was.

David,

Yes. The entire package may have been a joke, but was there a killer who Hutchinson saw, regardless of description? Maybe.

Mike

[Jonathan H]

To Chadwick

I see what you are saying about Abberline's veracity regarding Mr Astrakan, whom I was saying sounds like he stepped straight off a music hall stage as the evil Jew figure.

I am arguing that Abberline's taking Hutchinson seriously may have been superseded by later information -- years later -- about Druitt and Kosminski which was gathered unofficially because one was dead and the other mad.

In other words, Hutch's description of 1888 did not knock out these too-late suspects of 1891 just because they did not resemble Mr Astrakan -- in fact the reverse.

Intelligence about Druitt and Kosminski totally bypassed the field detectives, such as Abberline and Reid, which is why the latter both later scoffed at these alleged terrific suspects because senior police -- via Griffiths, Sims, and Anderson's memoirs -- made the demonstrably false claim that they were contemporaneous to the 1888 investigation.

That such a suspiciously vivid eyewitness description could be trumped later by suspects who looked nothing like him [except that Kosminski was Jewish] suggests, though does not prove, that senior police officials dismissed this figure as either not the murderer, or entirely made up.

They may have even thought that as far back as 1888 because Astrakan did not match 'Jack the Sailor'. After all, it is Lawende who is probably used by the police as their key witness to 'confront' Sadler in 1891 and Grainger in 1895, not Hutchinson [who may not have been available of course].

Yeah, I was a Cadet too, until I left the Boards for a while, and now I am a Constable? Perhaps its longevity.

[tnb]

To backtrack a little, it is also worth reading the following article which appeared in The Times last yr, written by David Canter with regard to the (then) potential retrial of Al-Megrahi, the supposed 'Lockerbie Bomber'. Of course, as events transpired Al-Megrahi did not eventually undergo a retrial, or an appeal, and I do not wish to ride into politically sensitive waters but to my mind I feel that the police would certainly have been rather pleased that potentially shaky ground was not tested. Whether that is purely coincidence is not for me to say...

It is perhaps interesting that Canter suggests that discoveries into the unreliablity of eyewitness testimony stretched back as far as 1909, which of course suggests there may have been rumbling doubts even as early as, for example, the time of the Grainger fiasco. Of course, Pizer probably could have told them all about it in 1888!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6889766.ece

Canter is essentially talking about 'false' details over time being mis-remembered to fill in the holes in what a witness spotted during the actual sighting, and when we are looking at ID parades occuring years after the initial event is important. What he suggests about police influence through informing the witness of the reason for their testimony is also interesting (ie Anderson's witness would have known that Sadler and/or Grainger, when presented with them, was considered by the police a potential 'Jack the Ripper', which will inevitably colour your opinion of anyone!)


With regard to height I have always felt it is one of the most subjective elements of any description. If someone is 4 foot 11 (I remain unashamedly metric) then 99 times or more out of a hundred a witness will describe them as 'small', and equally, if someone is 6 foot 7, 99 times out of a hundred or more people would describe them as 'tall'. However, take someone - like myself - of average height, and it is not so simple. I have spoken to people who have said 'you're quite tall' and I have spoken to people who have said 'you're about average height' and others who have said 'you're a bit short'. Build can make a difference - I am quite slight and this perhaps makes me appear shorter, as a solidly-built man of my height may well be taken to be a little taller, and of course more than anything it depends on not only the height of the person judging (and their perception of their own size) but also if the person being judged is standing next to anyone else (my wife, for example, is 6 inches shorter than me, which would make me appear taller than standing next to a friend of mine who is 6 foot 4).

It also depends on activity, as obviously stooping, or stretching to reach something, or a million other things may change perception of height (both ways, as one person may think someone stooping appears smaller than they would otherwise, while another may think 'if they are having to stoop they must actually be quite tall', or similarly one person may think 'they look tall stretched to their full height' while another may think 'they're having to stretch for that box of cereal on the shelf, they must be little').

Both these factors can be illustrated in looking at the testimony of Mrs Long in the Annie Chapman murder. I am not saying here that it is definite that the woman Long saw was or was note Chapman or that the man was or was not the killer; but either way it is a useful case study. Long reported that the man was 'a little taller than the deceased', which, given Chapman was only roughly five feet tall, seems to suggest a rather short man of five feet two or three, roughly. However she does not give any opinion of his height outright - this is merely an interpretation which the casual reader draws from her words. When we consider that Long also tells us how the couple were talking 'close against' the shutters, I think it quite likely (especially if this was a 'professional' conversation in what was seemingly a relatively busy area) that this was actually more like a huddle. In such a situation it is not inconceivable that the man, if he was more than two or three inches taller than the woman, may have bent down to her level. Would this make him appear an inch or two shorter at a casual glance? Possibly - and hey presto that would not take us far away from 'average' height.

As a lot of the eyewitness descriptions suggest a range a few inches either side of what we are led to believe was average height at the time, I do not think we can say any of them rule each other out, as to me they could all quite easily represent differing interpretations of the same height, which seems largely to have been average and therefore not as uniformly judged as 'very short' or 'very tall'.

[DVV]

David,

Yes. The entire package may have been a joke, but was there a killer who Hutchinson saw, regardless of description? Maybe.

Mike

Hi Mike,

Of course I can't flatly discard the possibility, but I have serious doubts.
Did Mary go out soliciting after the Blotchy episode ?
Why did nobody see her except Hutch ?
Her neighbours were coming and going, weren't they ?
Still nobody saw her after Blotchy, neither in the streets nor around or in a pub.
A woman who is soliciting has to be visible.

Amitiés,
David

[mklhawley]

It's interesting how this thread has taken two different directions. I want to comment upon the witness bias issue. tbn, your comment about people drooping their heads I believe is an important point in the JTR case. It certainly seems like human nature to droop your head into your overcoat if you are attempting to be inconspicuous (as JTR would have been doing).

Mike

[tnb]

Thank You Mike - it may seem a little detail but it is one that has been nagging at me for a while. Glad to know someone else can see my point, and that it may be some use.

To me a lot of the descriptions read like 'good guesses' - ie 'did you see a man madam?' 'well yes' 'what did he look like then' 'oh i don't know, i suppose about 30, dark hair, medium build'...you get the idea. I am not willing to dismiss them as easily as some people can but I do believe that their true worth is as vague outlines, not as the gospel truth. If someone passes you in the street (in the dark) and you guess thinking back that they had light brown hair and were aged 30-35 that is very useful to me but I am not going to discount a 27 year old with blonde hair on the basis of it, in fact the fact that it could fit your description I would see as potential confirmation, not potential discreditation as every little detail does not fit.

In fact one lengthy piece I have up my sleeve at the minute is an in-depth look at all the witness descriptions (not on the assumption they are all true, but that casting as wide a net as possible gives the biggest chance that some may be) which, in note form at least, comes to the conclusion that the vast majority of them are not nearly as different to each other as popular myth would have us believe. The idea of 'Jack' the master of disguise is appealing but actually irrelevant and unhelpful (Cornwell take note).


As for the thread taking 2 different directions, I think as soon as Hutchinson appears that seems to be almost inevitable!