Was John Richardson Jack the Ripper?

[Pandora]

By the way I was only joking when I said MY theory but I thought it was hilarious when you said to gut "this is my theory not yours" ha ha. Yes I did suggest the no heard was Mrs R in the yard but I doubt I'm the first. Credit is certainly due to Wolf for his dissertation most of all. I can't imagine you haven't read the dissertations or understand why you wouldn't read through the inquest and news reports and firstly read through the other Richardson threads if you are so interested in Richardson but if you had youd see he was a POI right off the bat

HI Rocky, I did give credit to Wolf for his dissertation in my OP. And yes, although people have discussed Richardson as a suspect in some threads, those threads are actually about him as a WITNESS, in so far as I can tell. I wanted to start a SUSPECT thread for him.

[Wickerman]

We donīt dismiss it. We look upon it as the second best suggestion.

And once again we are in agreement.

But Phillipsī estimation of the TOD for Annie Chapman must to my mind take precedence,....

Ok, but we remember how Phillips added the caveat due to the cool temperature that morning. I didn't think he added the caveat because of witness testimony.

And while we digest that, we ponder how it was considered odd that Annie Chapman was never seen after leaving the dosshouse. Reasonably, somebody should have seen her if she walked the streets up until 05.30-ish.

If you recall, Nichols had also not been seen for over an hour before her body was found. Had she been in the company of her killer?

Chapman, as you noted, had been missing, or not seen by anyone for several hours before her body was found.

Stride had been seen 2 hours before her death with a man, which could quite possibly be the same man seen by PC Smith minutes before her death.

Eddowes was obviously a sudden encounter, but Mary Kelly may have been in the company of her killer for some appreciable time also.

Maybe 'Jack' was not this "blitz killer" who jumped out of the shadows after all. Maybe he "courted" them, and entertained them with food and drink for hours before killing them?

[RockySullivan]

We are indeed stuck with the witness testimony, like it or not.
In this case the witness was Cadoche, and we have no forensic evidence to contest what he said.
So, on what basis do we dismiss it?

Isn't Philips TOD considered forensic evidence? And while longs statement contradicts Philips, cadosches doesn't, after all he only heard a no and bump against the fence, he didn't see annie and what he heard wasn't suspicious enough for him to invesrigate, he could have heard anyone in the yard, not necessarily Chapman or the ripper. And long was a streetwalker wasn't she? How reliable is her word, not saying she's a bad person but how much faith would you put her

[Fisherman]

We are indeed stuck with the witness testimony, like it or not.
In this case the witness was Cadoche, and we have no forensic evidence to contest what he said.
So, on what basis do we dismiss it?

We donīt dismiss it. We look upon it as the second best suggestion. But Phillipsī estimation of the TOD for Annie Chapman must to my mind take precedence, given how dramatically wrong he must have been to allow for the "witness" evidence. And while we digest that, we ponder how it was considered odd that Annie Chapman was never seen after leaving the dosshouse. Reasonably, somebody should have seen her if she walked the streets up until 05.30-ish.

[Wickerman]

In the end, we are stuck with the witnesses. But that does not mean that we need to trust them when there IS forensic evidence going against them.

We are indeed stuck with the witness testimony, like it or not.
In this case the witness was Cadoche, and we have no forensic evidence to contest what he said.
So, on what basis do we dismiss it?

[Fisherman]

Before forensics, can you imagine building a case without witness testimony?

Indeed - but sifting out the kosher evidence was never an easy thing. A dozen women or so in Millers Court were willing to testify that they had heard the "Oh, murder!" cry - at varying removes in time.
It was apparent that they were after their fifteen minutes of fame, nothing else.

In the end, we are stuck with the witnesses. But that does not mean that we need to trust them when there IS forensic evidence going against them.

A careful weighing needs to be done. And people define "careful" in many a way, sadly.

[RockySullivan]

Before forensics, can you imagine building a case without witness testimony?

All I'm saying is I don't want some ****** with a bad memory whose sure he saw me in the wrong place at the wrong time. You know how stupid people are in general

[Wickerman]

If you can rely on witness testimony...which i wouldn't

Before forensics, can you imagine building a case without witness testimony?

[RockySullivan]

Its ironic reading some of the comments that disparage opinions that are offered as "facts", but in the case of the Hanbury Street murder,...as has been stated here ad infintum, there is trustworthy evidence in the form of a witness who was next door in his yard at around 5:15am. Which means that for this Richardsoon premise to have any legs at all it is he who has to be with the woman who thuds against the fence after calling out "no" softly. That incident clearly establishes that a woman was alive and likely being subdued just before 5:30 in that yard. Which means if Richardson was on his step at around 4:45 there was no dead or dying woman there.

And Ive seen zero evidence that he wasnt there presented here. To make the Richardson premise work you will need to establish that he was actually in the yard 1/2 hour later than he says.

If you can rely on witness testimony...which i wouldn't

[Michael W Richards]

Its ironic reading some of the comments that disparage opinions that are offered as "facts", but in the case of the Hanbury Street murder,...as has been stated here ad infintum, there is trustworthy evidence in the form of a witness who was next door in his yard at around 5:15am. Which means that for this Richardsoon premise to have any legs at all it is he who has to be with the woman who thuds against the fence after calling out "no" softly. That incident clearly establishes that a woman was alive and likely being subdued just before 5:30 in that yard. Which means if Richardson was on his step at around 4:45 there was no dead or dying woman there.

And Ive seen zero evidence that he wasnt there presented here. To make the Richardson premise work you will need to establish that he was actually in the yard 1/2 hour later than he says.

[Fisherman]

Another approach is to focus on neither doctor nor witnesses, but the condition of the body and how bodies normally react in certain circumstances.

You then conduct your own research using the most up-to-date information you can find. After researching, you will be able to arrive at your own conclusions and you won't have to choose between doctor or witnesses.

Exactly so!

[curious]

If you take the TOD to 4:30 am or earlier then that discounts completely Albert Cadosch and Mrs Darrell's testimony. So, it is either go with Phillips' estimate and point the finger at Richardson because Annie's body would have had to have been present at 4:30 am by the latest, or discount Dr Phillips as having made a miscalculation and opt for a later death of about 5:30am in order to accommodate the two witnesses. You take your choice, therefore, and mine is to go with the slightly later time of death.

Another approach is to focus on neither doctor nor witnesses, but the condition of the body and how bodies normally react in certain circumstances.

You then conduct your own research using the most up-to-date information you can find. After researching, you will be able to arrive at your own conclusions and you won't have to choose between doctor or witnesses.

[Fisherman]

I assign no blame here. It makes me angry a little, I consider that the consequences of these views led to the victimization of innocent people who were not equipped to handle that kind of stress. In fact it's miraculous that they didn't get a false confession or three. But they had no way of knowing the truth. Doctors didn't know, wouldn't know for another 40 years. And doctors were the experts on this, and the doctors were wrong. And the doctors couldn't know they were wrong, they were in the infancy of psychiatry. At least they were trying, which is really all we can ask of them.

We know now that visibly aberrant serial killers are rare. It's never the guy raving in the street, it's always the "shy quiet guy next door who keeps to himself". It's almost code for a serial killer. So we know now that looking for a madman is 98% the exact wrong way to go. That we are more likely to find the killer in the neuro normative population, and we need to look there for our killer.

But damned if there isn't that 2%. And I can't swear Jack was in the 98%. I think he was, little clues lead me to believe that, but I can't be sure. No one can. So there is a 2% chance the cops were doing the exact right thing to do in order to capture this particular killer. As unlikely as it is, as much as logic and everything we know now says that Jack was cogent, there's a chance he was as nutty as a fruitcake. That he was in fact everything the cops feared he would be.

We might have finer tools, but without more data we certainly aren't more informed about this killer. Serial killers in general, yeah we know a lot. This serial killer, we have almost nothing. So even with our superior knowledge, we could be wrong and the cops could be right. Which is irritating, but unfortunately true.

Of course, when it comes to the details known by the victorian police, we will be at a loss in a comparison.
But it is not as if this loss cannot be made up for by other things. We know more on a general level, just as I said and as you seem to agree with, about what a serial killer is made up of. For example! So it is a question of getting up every morning to face a changed reality, where the odds of catching our man will never be the exact same from day to day.

And some day, we may find ourselves standing there with the solution in hand.

PS. He was amongst the 98 per cent, Errata. Time will prove it.

[Errata]

This is - at least to my mind - one of the most important matters to look at whan we ask ourselves wy the police did not catch the killer. And when we ponder it, it is important to note that one can be at fault in more than one respect.
One can be wrong in realtion to the truth.
And one can be wrong in relation to what society rules is the truth, on incomplete grounds.

The victorian police were, generally speaking, doing what they were supposed to do, and thinking along lines the were supposed to think along.
Itīs just that there was a lack of understanding what makes a serial killer tick, and a belief that anybody who would do what the Ripper did must be apparently mad.

A hundred years from now, we can be reasonably certain that those who follow us will laugh at how uniformed we were in 2016. But we at least have much finer tools to work with than the victorians did. We are, just as Errata says, much, much better equipped to cath the killer.

As for my suggestion that Lechmere was the killer, it is met by assertions that if he so very obviously presented a viable bid for the killers role, the police would never have missed him.
But all we have is clear pointers to how he was never even investigated. Which is totally in line with how I think the victorian police went about the hunt for the Ripper.

And Richardson? Well, he did say that he was there and he did say that he handled a knife, and the knife was fetched and examined. And then they decided not to follow the Richardson trail, in spite of how that trail was strewn with inconsistencies as regards the testimony he offered. The right decision, based on the wrong grounds.

I assign no blame here. It makes me angry a little, I consider that the consequences of these views led to the victimization of innocent people who were not equipped to handle that kind of stress. In fact it's miraculous that they didn't get a false confession or three. But they had no way of knowing the truth. Doctors didn't know, wouldn't know for another 40 years. And doctors were the experts on this, and the doctors were wrong. And the doctors couldn't know they were wrong, they were in the infancy of psychiatry. At least they were trying, which is really all we can ask of them.

We know now that visibly aberrant serial killers are rare. It's never the guy raving in the street, it's always the "shy quiet guy next door who keeps to himself". It's almost code for a serial killer. So we know now that looking for a madman is 98% the exact wrong way to go. That we are more likely to find the killer in the neuro normative population, and we need to look there for our killer.

But damned if there isn't that 2%. And I can't swear Jack was in the 98%. I think he was, little clues lead me to believe that, but I can't be sure. No one can. So there is a 2% chance the cops were doing the exact right thing to do in order to capture this particular killer. As unlikely as it is, as much as logic and everything we know now says that Jack was cogent, there's a chance he was as nutty as a fruitcake. That he was in fact everything the cops feared he would be.

We might have finer tools, but without more data we certainly aren't more informed about this killer. Serial killers in general, yeah we know a lot. This serial killer, we have almost nothing. So even with our superior knowledge, we could be wrong and the cops could be right. Which is irritating, but unfortunately true.

[Fisherman]

If you take the TOD to 4:30 am or earlier then that discounts completely Albert Cadosch and Mrs Darrell's testimony. So, it is either go with Phillips' estimate and point the finger at Richardson because Annie's body would have had to have been present at 4:30 am by the latest, or discount Dr Phillips as having made a miscalculation and opt for a later death of about 5:30am in order to accommodate the two witnesses. You take your choice, therefore, and mine is to go with the slightly later time of death.

I donīt object to that, Rosella - that is the exact same path most people take. However, what one should not do, is to misinterpret what Phillips said. He was very clearly not allowing for a TOD that fit Longs and Cadosches testimony, so if you want to believe in the witnesses, then you must opt for Phillips being totally off the mark - you need to believe that his best guess was wrong. And his best guess would have been perhaps somewhere around the three hour mark, going by what he said. So opting for three hours after have felt an almost completely cold body, the real time would according to your thoughts be less than an hour - a third of where Phillips wanted to place it.

Eddowes was checked for warmth by Brown some weeks later, after having lain in colder conditions and in a place more subjecter to wind. Forty minutes after her death, she was still "quite warm".

If you are going with the witnesses (and the contemporary police went with Phillips), you are siding with the majority of the posters out here. My guess is that there is virtually no chance that they are correct.

I just wanted to tell you why.

PS. Dont know if you have read "Considerable doubt and the death of Annie Chapman" by Wolf Vanderlinden? Itīs on the dissertations page on here. It makes for useful reading, no matter which side you are on.