Was John Richardson Jack the Ripper?

[Errata]

Interesting theory - so do you think she was already dead when he arrived at 4:45, and he lied about it because he didn't want to implicate himself?

I feel it necessary to point out for the sake of argument that the things we don't notice in our daily lives, things we should have noticed, are legion. There is a 75 year old hackberry tree in my front yard I didn't notice until a year ago. And I've lived here for five years. And it was a big enough deal that I wracked my brain trying to figure out if someone could transplant a tree that size. Because obviously I didn't just somehow fail to notice an enormous tree next to my garage. Except that's exactly what I did. I'm sure I saw it, but it didn't register.

Have you ever wondered how many people walk past a corpse before someone calls the cops? In New York City, it's a lot. And most of those people don't see the corpse. Or they think they didn't. Most people's brains dismissed the corpse as a homeless person of or a drunk before it ever made it into their conscious mind. Had they registered that person as dead, they likely would have said something. But they didn't.

Can a man sit down and try to trim his shoe next to a corpse without seeing it? I could, easily. I'm absent minded and somewhat notorious for not paying attention to her surroundings. If your mind is on something else, and there is at least some history of people being in that back yard... you see what you want to see. And even then you only see what your unconscious mind hasn't already filtered out as irrelevant. It's a very well known phenomenon. And it seems outlandish to think that you could be a foot away from a mutilated corpse and not notice, but people don't notice all the time. That's why it's rare that the first person to see a body in a trash can is the one to call the cops. The brain just edits it out for a lot of reasons, leaving a person able to throw out their trash while blissfully ignoring the body in the dumpster.

She might have been there, and he might not have seen her. It just depends on what he was thinking about at the time. The more lost in thought or irritated he was, the less likely he was going to register a corpse in yard.

[Pandora]

Hi Curious,

At the time of the Chapman inquest, likely Phillips' caveat is the reason the authorities accepted the timing of the witnesses.

However, all these years later, as we study the murders as a whole, we have the comparison of Katherine Eddowes, who was mutilated in the much the same way as Chapman and on a colder morning.

Eddowes was considerably smaller than Chapman, so she should have lost heat more quickly, but her body wasn't cold.

This indicates to me that Eddowes was examined closer to her time of death and that Annie was already dead by the time Cadoche and Mrs. Long were witnessing anything.

BTW. since William Henry Bury is my favorite suspect, it's a shame that I have to toss Mrs. Long's description since she saw a five foot tall woman and a man just barely taller.

I agree 100%, I think the comparison to Eddowes is compelling, in regards to time of death. I believe Annie was already dead by the time Cadosch & Mrs Long witnessed anything.

But that would mean, regardless of whether it was Amelia Richardson or not, the woman Mrs Long saw outside 29 Hanbury could not have been Annie. So whoever the man was with her, his height could easily be much taller than previously considered, since we cannot know the height of the mystery woman.

For the sake of argument, let's say she was 5'5", making the JtR suspect a more likely 5'7" or so. I wonder how tall Mrs Richardson was?

[Pandora]

Hi Errata,

I feel it necessary to point out for the sake of argument that the things we don't notice in our daily lives, things we should have noticed, are legion. There is a 75 year old hackberry tree in my front yard I didn't notice until a year ago. And I've lived here for five years. And it was a big enough deal that I wracked my brain trying to figure out if someone could transplant a tree that size. Because obviously I didn't just somehow fail to notice an enormous tree next to my garage. Except that's exactly what I did. I'm sure I saw it, but it didn't register.

Have you ever wondered how many people walk past a corpse before someone calls the cops? In New York City, it's a lot. And most of those people don't see the corpse. Or they think they didn't. Most people's brains dismissed the corpse as a homeless person of or a drunk before it ever made it into their conscious mind. Had they registered that person as dead, they likely would have said something. But they didn't.

Can a man sit down and try to trim his shoe next to a corpse without seeing it? I could, easily. I'm absent minded and somewhat notorious for not paying attention to her surroundings. If your mind is on something else, and there is at least some history of people being in that back yard... you see what you want to see. And even then you only see what your unconscious mind hasn't already filtered out as irrelevant. It's a very well known phenomenon. And it seems outlandish to think that you could be a foot away from a mutilated corpse and not notice, but people don't notice all the time. That's why it's rare that the first person to see a body in a trash can is the one to call the cops. The brain just edits it out for a lot of reasons, leaving a person able to throw out their trash while blissfully ignoring the body in the dumpster.

She might have been there, and he might not have seen her. It just depends on what he was thinking about at the time. The more lost in thought or irritated he was, the less likely he was going to register a corpse in yard.

I just find it hard to believe someone would not notice a body so close in proximity to where he sat. If Annie had only been strangled, then maybe. But she was cut open with both the smell of blood, organs & feces fresh in the air. And her legs "were drawn up" so she wasn't lying totally flat either.

[Pandora]

Seconded!

Hi Fisherman,

out of curiosity, since you agree she was dead by the time Cadosch & Long witnessed anything, and you back Cross as the killer of Chapman, do you think she was already dead in the yard when Richardson arrived at 4:45? And if so, what is your reasoning for why he either didn't see her, or lied about it?

[Fisherman]

Hi Fisherman,

out of curiosity, since you agree she was dead by the time Cadosch & Long witnessed anything, and you back Cross as the killer of Chapman, do you think she was already dead in the yard when Richardson arrived at 4:45? And if so, what is your reasoning for why he either didn't see her, or lied about it?

I donīt think he saw her and lied about it, to begin with.

I think Chapman was killed when Phillips suggested, more than two hours before he saw her. Make that three hours, and you arrive at 3.30. That is when I think she died, and it is in keeping with the overall schedule and the apparent decision on behalf of the killer to do his work in the dark. He would not have wanted to step out into the dawn on Hanbury Street, with people filling the street, market people, carters and all.

I donīt think Richardson can be trusted. I am anything but sure that he sat on the stairs and cut his boot. Nobody corroborated his visit there, and it may well be that he simply did not wish his mother to know that he had skipped it over.
Alternatively, he WAS in place, but to what extent he really sat on the stairs, I donīt know.
If he DID sit on the stairs, then the door will have swung back on itīs hinges (it closed itself) and stopped against his legs. Maybe that was enough to hide the body from sight in the relative darkness, and maybe there was no need to hide the body at all. Richardsons task was to look to the RIGHT, not to the left. He was to check the cellar door there, and had no reason whatsoever to look to his left. His body may well have been steeply angled to the right, more or less disallowing him to see to his far left.

If - if! - he sat on those stairs, then he did so in the rather eerie company of a cut-up woman, I feel convinced about that. As for how he would have smelled the body, it was A/ not exactly a quality of air comparable to the Alps in that yard, and B/ Richardson had apparently caught a cold, so his olī sniffer may have been way off target.

[Pandora]

I donīt think he saw her and lied about it, to begin with.

I think Chapman was killed when Phillips suggested, more than two hours before he saw her. Make that three hours, and you arrive at 3.30. That is when I think she died, and it is in keeping with the overall schedule and the apparent decision on behalf of the killer to do his work in the dark. He would not have wanted to step out into the dawn on Hanbury Street, with people filling the street, market people, carters and all.

I donīt think Richardson can be trusted. I am anything but sure that he sat on the stairs and cut his boot. Nobody corroborated his visit there, and it may well be that he simply did not wish his mother to know that he had skipped it over.
Alternatively, he WAS in place, but to what extent he really sat on the stairs, I donīt know.
If he DID sit on the stairs, then the door will have swung back on itīs hinges (it closed itself) and stopped against his legs. Maybe that was enough to hide the body from sight in the relative darkness, and maybe there was no need to hide the body at all. Richardsons task was to look to the RIGHT, not to the left. He was to check the cellar door there, and had no reason whatsoever to look to his left. His body may well have been steeply angled to the right, more or less disallowing him to see to his far left.

If - if! - he sat on those stairs, then he did so in the rather eerie company of a cut-up woman, I feel convinced about that. As for how he would have smelled the body, it was A/ not exactly a quality of air comparable to the Alps in that yard, and B/ Richardson had apparently caught a cold, so his olī sniffer may have been way off target.

Okay, let's say your scenario is correct, that either Richardson neglected to check the lock that morning, and later lied about it for fear of his mothers wrath, or just simply didn't see Annie because he had a cold, and was looking in the opposite direction.

How then do you then explain Cadosch & Long's testimonies?

[Wickerman]

... and there we are again - Pillips does NOT allow for Long and Cadosh to be correct. He says AT LEAST two hours, probably more - but it MAY be as little as two hours. That was how he exercised caution - by admitting that although the signs pointes away from it, it could nevertheless be that it was only two hours. And this was on account of the chilly morning.

Swanson recognizes all of this this by saying that if Phillips was correct, then Long was wrong. So he never thought Phillips said an hour only - he knew that TWO hours was the limit. Otherwise, BOTH Phillips and Long would have been right.

Have you ever heard a medico who - unchallenged - said "It MUST have been AT LEAST two hours, but I actually think (actively: present tense) that it will have been more. But to be fair, I donīt really think that it must have been two hours, I was just kiddinī".

Have you, Jon?

Dr. Phillips does not provide a lower estimate, because he cannot.

What he is saying in my view is:

'Given our conventional understanding of the time required for a body to cool after death "I should say at least two hours, probably more BUT, (with emphasis on the BUT) the morning was fairly cold, and the body would have become cold sooner (or cool rapidly) in consequence."'

The all important detail is the "BUT", followed by his caveat that the body would have "cooled sooner". Meaning, sooner than conventional wisdom would dictate, which led to the "two hours or more" previously mentioned.

I think Swanson was acknowledging that it couldn't be 45 minutes or so, per Mrs Long

[curious]

Annie's lung disease

Something I've wondered about for sometime but never seen discussed is whether Annie would not have been running a fever with the lung disease?

What little I have been able to find is that with tuberculosis the patient runs "a low-grade fever."

So, how would carrying a slight fever impact the cooling of her body?

[Wickerman]

Eddowes was considerably smaller than Chapman, so she should have lost heat more quickly, but her body wasn't cold.

Without knowing the ambient temperature and the body temperature from both the Eddowes & Chapman cases, there is no way to make this comparison.

What we have is:

Eddowes:
(the body)....was quite warm - no rigor mortis. The crime must have been committed within half an hour, or certainly within forty minutes from the time when I saw the body.

Chapman:
The body was cold, except that there was a certain remaining heat, under the intestines, in the body. Stiffness of the limbs was not marked, but it was commencing.

The expressions, "Quite warm" and "cold", may mean something when given by the same doctor, but when given by two different doctors we cannot hope to know the extent of the difference in meaning - fifteen or thirty minutes, more?, who knows?

The post-mortem/autopsy records should have noted both the ambient temp. and body temp. taken at the crime scene. With these we could have made some useful determination.

[Wickerman]

Something I've wondered about for sometime but never seen discussed is whether Annie would not have been running a fever with the lung disease?

What little I have been able to find is that with tuberculosis the patient runs "a low-grade fever."

So, how would carrying a slight fever impact the cooling of her body?

Absolutely, we know Chapman had been ill, a fever speeds up the onset of rigor, and extends the body temperature. Also, any physical stress just prior to death also impacts the onset of rigor in the same way as if she had a fever.

See if you can load up this book, A System of Legal Medicine, 1895.
Go to page 90, Cooling of the Body, and subsequent pages.

https://books.google.ca/books?id=afI0AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA91&lpg=PA91&dq=niederkorn+time+of+death&source=bl&ots=K4SxmIpkB6&sig=1tBsXRC4m_Qtv7bef3mf-0iGdWI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjz2fP01ebKAhUHpR4KHbU1BfoQ6AEIPjAI#v=onepage&q=niederkorn%20time%20of%20death&f=false

[Pandora]

Something I've wondered about for sometime but never seen discussed is whether Annie would not have been running a fever with the lung disease?

What little I have been able to find is that with tuberculosis the patient runs "a low-grade fever."

So, how would carrying a slight fever impact the cooling of her body?

Hi Curious,

good question, Chronic TB can result in a fever, and in particular night sweats, which if Annie was suffering from, could be another indicator that she was killed earlier, as she would have taken slightly longer to cool.

However, while a healthy body has a temperature of 37 degree's, a fever is considered for any temp 38 degree's or higher, and I am not sure Dr Phillips would have been equipped to determine such a small difference in temp without a thermometer. But that does not detract from the fact, that she may have stayed warm slightly longer, which had he taken into consideration, could have determined an even earlier time of death.

It certainly adds another argument against a later murder time.

[Wickerman]

A thermometer was part of the medical kit, it is used at the crime scene by the doctor in charge.

[RockySullivan]

I donīt think he saw her and lied about it, to begin with.

I think Chapman was killed when Phillips suggested, more than two hours before he saw her. Make that three hours, and you arrive at 3.30. That is when I think she died, and it is in keeping with the overall schedule and the apparent decision on behalf of the killer to do his work in the dark. He would not have wanted to step out into the dawn on Hanbury Street, with people filling the street, market people, carters and all.

I donīt think Richardson can be trusted. I am anything but sure that he sat on the stairs and cut his boot. Nobody corroborated his visit there, and it may well be that he simply did not wish his mother to know that he had skipped it over.
Alternatively, he WAS in place, but to what extent he really sat on the stairs, I donīt know.
If he DID sit on the stairs, then the door will have swung back on itīs hinges (it closed itself) and stopped against his legs. Maybe that was enough to hide the body from sight in the relative darkness, and maybe there was no need to hide the body at all. Richardsons task was to look to the RIGHT, not to the left. He was to check the cellar door there, and had no reason whatsoever to look to his left. His body may well have been steeply angled to the right, more or less disallowing him to see to his far left.

If - if! - he sat on those stairs, then he did so in the rather eerie company of a cut-up woman, I feel convinced about that. As for how he would have smelled the body, it was A/ not exactly a quality of air comparable to the Alps in that yard, and B/ Richardson had apparently caught a cold, so his olī sniffer may have been way off target.

Richardson sat with his feet on the ground, Chapman's head woulve been right at his feet where he was focused, the door wouldn't have obscured his view nor do I think he'd hold up open. He said it was light out and could see all around. I don't think there's anything to indicate his mother asked him to check the lock daily. Originally he said she wasn't aware of any theft, also it seemed like the cellar was Richardson workplace. It's strange that he would check a door that has a lock when Tyler would be there in an hour or two anyway

[Errata]

Something I've wondered about for sometime but never seen discussed is whether Annie would not have been running a fever with the lung disease?

What little I have been able to find is that with tuberculosis the patient runs "a low-grade fever."

So, how would carrying a slight fever impact the cooling of her body?

I might be wrong on this, I'm functioning on old data. But of course any infection is accompanied by a fever, a virus by a high fever. Something like lung disease, which is mostly structural, possibly. The faster you breathe the higher your temp goes. Not by a lot, but one or two degrees. On the other hand panting cools you, again not by a lot, but one or two degrees.

If she actually had TB and it was active, she would have had a fever. If it was in a dormant phase, and her lungs were compromised enough to make her breathe significantly harder, maybe a slight temperature. Otherwise she would not have a fever.

[harry]

Pandora,
At least you have raised an interesting supposition,that Chapman's lost time was spent in the yard of 29 Hanbury Street.I can well believe in the possibility.It to me would explain the sighting by Long,who I believe was telling the truth.