Lechmere The Psychopath

[Fisherman]

Sam Flynn: He doesn't say "all the vital parts in the knifed areas" though, and there is absolutely no evidence that so much as suggests that this is what he meant.

There are no realistic alternatives. I know, of course, that you have no wish at all to BE realistic (you only want to hide behind the lack of an exact mentioning of the abdominal organs), but there you are.
Making conclusions is part of the game - as is avoiding them.

On the contrary, it wasn't even apparent until the body was taken to the mortuary that Nichols' bowel was protruding. If the damage had been so extensive as to have impacted ALL the abdominal organs, it would almost certainly have been noticed in Buck's Row.

Under the undamaged clothes? You need to explain that very carefully. And be careful with those "almost certainlyīs" - itīs the kind of stuff Ben has taught me to try and avoid myself.

[Fisherman]

Don't be so saracstic.

I told you, I find it very, very difficult to read your posts when you do that, and I can't be the only one. At least the QUOTE facility keeps things nicely separated.

So much for the QUOTE bit. Any chance you can trim your posts, and resist the temptation to respond exhaustively/exhaustingly to every single line? I know this is an age of technological wonder, but the sheer number of atoms in your posts are making my laptop heavier and more difficult to carry.

I am always asking Steve to shorten his posts. I have little success with those efforts. I pointed out earlier that I left some of the material unanswered, to save space.
So maybe you should ask him to cut the length instead? I know he is on your side, but since he is the one most responsible you may perhaps be able to put yourself over that?

Precisely why do you only choose me to criticize over it, when I am not the worse man? (In this context, I mean - I am aware that I am categorically otherwise the worse man in all things ripper).

[Sam Flynn]

"Two or three inches from the left side was a wound running in a jagged manner. It was a very deep wound, and the tissues were cut through. There were several incisions running across the abdomen. On the right side there were also three or four similar cuts running downwards."

Similar. Meaning very deep too, if they WERE similar.

You've parsed that incorrectly. I'll break it up for you:

Statment 1: Two or three inches from the left side was a wound running in a jagged manner. It was a very deep wound and the tissues were cut through.

Statement 2: There were several incisions running across the abdomen.

Statement 3: On the right side there were also three or four similar cuts running downwards.

Now, the "similar cuts" description follows on from statement 2, not statement 1. Therefore, whilst we can conclude that the three or four wounds in statement 3 were similar to the wounds in statement 2, we know nothing about their depth, because Llewellyn doesn't tell us anything about the depth of the "cross-abdominal" wounds in statement 2.

And it has been long since established that the largest wound on Nichols ran from breastbone to pubes. Lots of places to hit the aorta

But it wasn't, otherwise the damage to the other organs and layers of tissue lying between the outer skin of the abdomen and the aorta would most certainly have been noted.

therefore the speculation that the aorta and/or the vena cava were damaged or severed is a very useful one.

No it isn't useful, because there is zero evidence to back it up.

[Sam Flynn]

I am always asking Steve to shorten his posts. I have little success with those efforts.

Fair enough, but at least Steve uses the quote function.

Precisely why do you only choose me to criticize over it, when I am not the worse man?

You've always done it, though, and you seem especially prone to to the "I must answer every single point in exhaustive detail" virus. There's really no need; if you targeted your responses more judiciously, you might get your points across more effectively.

Just trying to be helpful.

[Elamarna]

They seem to have been, going by what Llewellyn said, though.

The same response I see. Llewellyn did not say they were hit. So until it can be shown they were, they were not.

Because there was a medical report going into the details. And because he was to find the reason for the death, and he had done so and named it.

You cannot use a non existent report as evidence.

He did not name all the vessels that were cut - he said that all the major vessels were cut down to the spine. He was no more exact than that. Similarly, he said that all the vital organs had been hit, without naming them specifically. Can you see how that works?

There are 4 major vessels in the Neck. So it is clear what is meant
What is a vital organ? And no mention of the two major vessels.

Yes, and he reported the wounds to a degree that explained why the woman was dead.

Sorry he needs to back his view up.

The reason I mentioned the report from the outset was bacause you claimed that Llewellyn would be required to mention each and every organ that was damaged, each and every nich to each and every vessel and so on. That was never so - Llewellyn was required to outline what had killed the woman, and he supplemented his testimony with a report where the responsible parties could take part of every matter medico in explicit detail. That was common practice and remains so to this day.

However you have no idea what it contained and so cannot use it to back up any argument over wounds not mentioned at the inquest.

When a woman has had all the vessels in her neck severed, the examining medico may work from the suggestion that she was kind of unlikely to survive it. Llewellyn was reporting a case of deadly knife violence, and he added that the abdominal wounds to his mind came first and were deadly per se.

None of which change that there is no supporting evidence and the case presented is based on supposition.

So, yu see, what Llewellyn was effectively supposed to do - and what he indeed did - was to report that Polly Nichols had been subjected to sharp violence inflicted by some person or persons, and that this sharp violence had ended her life. Whether it ended as a result of the liver being cut, the neck being cut, the aorta being cut, the intestined being shredded or anything else would in all probability be hard to determine with any certainty. This is mirrored by how the coroner felt at ease to actually question Llewellyns idea that the abdomen came first. Realistically, the exact cut that killed her could not be determined with any real certainty - but it COULD be determined that sharp violence was the reason, and Llewellyn DID offer his view that the abdominal wounds came first and were lethal per se.

Again without evidence of the presumed abdomenial wounds it cannot be said if the actual cause of death could not be determined.

If the coroner had felt that Llewellyn was too inexact, I have the distinct feeling that he would press the doctor for moer information, but he never did - presumably because he felt that he would not get the answer he was looking for.
If you want your idea that Llewellyn should have detailed all the wounds sunk again, feel free - but I would be very happy of you desisted from it. It is becoming dreary and spaceconsuming to a degree that cannot be defended.

Seen this before, space consuming now, last time it was wasting bandwidth.
So ok for the many thousands of post supporting Lechmere but not so for any not doing so. If Admin wish me to shorten posts or any other changes they need only ask and I will of course happily comply.

Professional standards included establishing death and getting the body out of there, nothing else.
If her foot was cut inside her shoe, should he have noticed that at the scene?
If her armpit was pierced, but under the clothing, was it his duty to look for that wound before she was wheeled away?
What you are demanding, Steve, involves how Llewellyn should have had the body undressed and laid on the ground, and examined closely from every angle, turned over and lighted by a number of lanterns. Otherwise there may always be a hidden damage. And it was his duty to see ALL hidden damage as a professional, right?
Or was it just the abdomen he should have checked? Should he have lifted the clothing there, professionally sensing that it must have been cut?

Completely over the top. No other comment is needed.

You need to stop tarnishing Llewellyn and claiming that he "did not care". Itīs deeply insulting and totally unrealistic. Llewellyn did all he was supposed to do, and he probably did it exactly as he should do it, since nobody back then questioned him.
You do, though. And you do it in a totally weird way.

Please FISHERMAN; it is ok to tarnish, to use your word, Lechmere and to claim he was the killer, but wrong to question the ability and competence of Llewellyn.
Pot calling the kettle Black springs to mind

And we know that very large wounds to the abdomen existed. And we know that Llewellyn said that they were enough to kill.

The evidence shows the Neck wounds were fatal, no such evidence exists for any other wounds.

So we have TWO conglomerates of wounds, BOTH supposedly lethal. And we have the post-mortem doctor saying that the abdominal wounds came first.

No the Neck wounds were not supposedly lethal. They were

Why on earth would this combined information make us go "It was probably the neck wounds that killed her"? Can you explain that to me?

Simply they are the only lethal wounds backed by the evidence.

What known facts? That the neck was cut? Who the hell is "ignoring" that? Not me. Not Llewellyn,

Please, it is very clear what I am talking about.
The neck wounds are lethal - known facts. Any other wounds are presumption, there being no evidence to back them.

Would you tell Llewellyn that HE was ignoring the facts as he opted for the abdomen being cut first and lethally? Would you dismiss him? Throw him out of court? I believe you would, if you could.

No I would ask for his evidence to back up his stated view. And if he did so that would be it.

I left out a number of things, since I thought your post was too long. And with too long, I mean that you should definitely not have written some of the stuff you wrote.

Why should I not have written certain things? Can you please explain?
I do note what those items are you have not responded to interesting choice .


Steve

[Elamarna]

Not deep. VERY deep. It seems to be forgotten, that distinction.

But Llewellyn probably thought that cutting the omentum was cutting very deep.

Yeah, that must be it.

The same applies. What is very deep?

Steve

[Elamarna]

Letīs see here - you say that I cannot use Llewellyns report since it is not in existence.

... but you may conclude that Spratling did not know the term omentum, but it "surely" came from Llewellyn or his assistant and it is therefore proven that Spratling got the term at the post mortem (I doubt that he assisted there) or thereafter?

I really, really, really donīt think that is going to work, Steve. And even if it DID, it would not mean that since he used one term (that described how the belly wall was cut through), he was obliged to name all the rest that may or may not have been mentioned.

You need to drop this idea of yours. It has less traction than greased seals on ice.

Are you suggesting that a non medically trained person in 1888 would have used the word omentum? It is certainly not a commonly used word.
Are you suggesting that this report was written without input from Llewellyn or an assistant of his?
Are you suggesting the report was written in advance of the post mortem?
If so what leads you to this conclusion?

Steve

[Elamarna]

"Two or three inches from the left side was a wound running in a jagged manner. It was a very deep wound, and the tissues were cut through. There were several incisions running across the abdomen. On the right side there were also three or four similar cuts running downwards."

Similar. Meaning very deep too, if they WERE similar.

Sorry fish it says

"There were several incisions running across the abdomen. On the right side there were also three or four similar cuts running downwards."


So the downwards cuts are similar to those running across the abdomen; not the deep jagged one.


Steve


Update. See Gareth had already mentioned this. Sorry for duplication.

[Sam Flynn]

Similarly, he said that all the vital organs had been hit

No, he didn't. He said "vital parts" - no mention of organs at all.

[Fisherman]

Fair enough, but at least Steve uses the quote function.
You've always done it, though, and you seem especially prone to to the "I must answer every single point in exhaustive detail" virus. There's really no need; if you targeted your responses more judiciously, you might get your points across more effectively.

Just trying to be helpful.

... and avoiding to tell me why you target only me but not Steve? Who writes the longer posts of us?

I donīt know if youīve noticed, but there has been a long tradition of telling me "ha! You cannot answer my questions! You are running from them!" Rob Clack, Patrick S, David Orsam are a number of people using these tactics. And Steve, Iīm afraid.

That has to a large degree meant that I have taken care not to leave questions unanswered.

In the end, I was always hoping that debates out here would be less about the persons behind the posts and how they post, and more about the contents of the posts. I am all for people being more succinct and I am even more all for people not asking the same bloody questions over and over and over and over again.
If the questions "But would he not have run?", "Could he not have called himself Cross at work?" and "Do really nice family men like him do such dreadful things?", I am sure that half of my posting on these boards would have disappeared.

[Fisherman]

Sam Flynn: You've parsed that incorrectly. I'll break it up for you:

Statment 1: Two or three inches from the left side was a wound running in a jagged manner. It was a very deep wound and the tissues were cut through.

Statement 2: There were several incisions running across the abdomen.

Statement 3: On the right side there were also three or four similar cuts running downwards.

Now, the "similar cuts" description follows on from statement 2, not statement 1. Therefore, whilst we can conclude that the three or four wounds in statement 3 were similar to the wounds in statement 2, we know nothing about their depth, because Llewellyn doesn't tell us anything about the depth of the "cross-abdominal" wounds in statement 2.

Actually, he does. Letīs go over the testimony from the inquest again:

"These cuts must have been caused with a long-bladed knife, moderately sharp, and used with great violence. No blood at all was found on the breast either of the body or clothes. There were no injuries about the body till just about the lower part of the abdomen. Two or three inches from the left side was a wound running in a jagged manner. It was a very deep wound, and the tissues were cut through. There were several incisions running across the abdomen. On the right side there were also three or four similar cuts running downwards. All these had been caused by a knife, which had been used violently and been used downwards. The wounds were from left to right, and might have been done by a left-handed person. All the injuries had been done by the same instrument."

Now, I will be as pedagogical as I can.

ALL the injuries were made by the same instrument. Yes?

ALL the wounds on the abdomen had been caused by a knife, which had been used violently and been used downwards. Yes?

The knife that had been used was a long-bladed one. Yes?

So tell me: If you use a long-bladed knife on the stomach of a woman lying on her back, if you use it with violence and if you direct the blade downwards - will the wounds become deep or shallow wounds?

Just like Llewellyn does not say outright that the organs in the abdomen were damaged by the knife, he does not say outright that all of the cuts to the abdomen were deep.
And just as he never needed to say outright that the organs in the abdomen were damaged by the knife, since he made it clear that this was the case in his testimony anyway, he never needed to outright say that the cuts to the abdomen were all deep, since he made it clear in his testimony anyway.

But it wasn't, otherwise the damage to the other organs and layers of tissue lying between the outer skin of the abdomen and the aorta would most certainly have been noted.No it isn't useful, because there is zero evidence to back it up.

Which reminds me that you claimed that it would have been noted at the crime scene, unless I am mistaken: "If the damage had been so extensive as to have impacted ALL the abdominal organs, it would almost certainly have been noticed in Buck's Row."

You have so far not expanded on this odd point of yours.

As for noting damage, there was perhaps a yardlong cut, taking the damage together. If you think that such damage can be inflicted, and in a deep manner too as has been demonstrated very clearly, without any inner organ at all being tocuched, you may need to clarify how such a thing could have come about.
Od course organs were damaged by it. Of course this is what Llewellyn says when stating that the killer had hit all the vital parts (in the attacked areas, that is), showing that he had anatomical insights.

I find you are currently saying what you say on very unsound grounds. It does not bode well for your overall credibility.

[Fisherman]

The same response I see. Llewellyn did not say they were hit. So until it can be shown they were, they were not.



You cannot use a non existent report as evidence.



There are 4 major vessels in the Neck. So it is clear what is meant
What is a vital organ? And no mention of the two major vessels.


Sorry he needs to back his view up.



However you have no idea what it contained and so cannot use it to back up any argument over wounds not mentioned at the inquest.



None of which change that there is no supporting evidence and the case presented is based on supposition.



Again without evidence of the presumed abdomenial wounds it cannot be said if the actual cause of death could not be determined.



Seen this before, space consuming now, last time it was wasting bandwidth.
So ok for the many thousands of post supporting Lechmere but not so for any not doing so. If Admin wish me to shorten posts or any other changes they need only ask and I will of course happily comply.



Completely over the top. No other comment is needed.



Please FISHERMAN; it is ok to tarnish, to use your word, Lechmere and to claim he was the killer, but wrong to question the ability and competence of Llewellyn.
Pot calling the kettle Black springs to mind



The evidence shows the Neck wounds were fatal, no such evidence exists for any other wounds.



No the Neck wounds were not supposedly lethal. They were



Simply they are the only lethal wounds backed by the evidence.



Please, it is very clear what I am talking about.
The neck wounds are lethal - known facts. Any other wounds are presumption, there being no evidence to back them.



No I would ask for his evidence to back up his stated view. And if he did so that would be it.



Why should I not have written certain things? Can you please explain?
I do note what those items are you have not responded to interesting choice .


Steve

Gareth thinks I am giving you too long answers, and he wants me to cut down on the issues I choose to reply to.

He has no problems at all with YOUR posts,I believe he thinks they are commendable enough.

So I will accomodate him and look at just one of your ansers, this one:

"Completely over the top. No other comment is needed."

Iīm afraid a comment IS needed, and Iīm afraid I was not over the top at all. You were, when saying that Llewellyn should have checked for and found the abdominal wounds at the murder site.

I asked you if he was to order the undressing of the body there, since that would be the only way to find any hidden damage. Are you saying that he should have?

It is a fair enough question, and it is asked to save Llewellyn from what I find an unsavoury and totally uncalled for criticism, so I am going to demand an answer here. If you do not produce it, I will work from the presumption that you simply cannot do so without giving away that you should never had made the accusation in the first place.

The rest of your post was simply repetition from beginning to end, so I feel it merits no answer repetition. But the issue of Llewellyns duties and his competence certainly does!

[Fisherman]

The same applies. What is very deep?

Steve

Your tendency to avoid addmitting simple facts runs very deep.

Your criticism of Llewellyn runs very deep, and unfairly so.

A violent stab downwards into the abdomen of a woman on her back, that only travles the depth of the omentum is not very deep, and would never be so described by a medico.

Does that clarify things?

[Fisherman]

Elamarna: Are you suggesting that a non medically trained person in 1888 would have used the word omentum?

Since you are suggesting that Spratling could not have, yes, I am saying that a police officer who would have sat through numerous inquests into violent crime, who would have read medical reports in many, many cases and who would have spoken to a large number of doctors about cases involving violence would certainly stand a very good chance of being accustomed to using the word omentum.

It is certainly not a commonly used word.

Doing murder inquiries and spending your days researching violent crime is certainly not all that common either. And do not for a second think that a person like you, who will not admit that the wounds to Nichols abdomen went beyond the omentum since "it was not stated outright", have the scintilla of a chance to make me say "Yes, although Spratling dealt with violent crime in a daily basis, and although there is absolutely nothing to prevent hom from being aquainted with the word omentum, yes, letīs state it as a fact that the Nichols case was the first time ever he herd it and that he would never have used it before Llewellyn made his post-mortem".

Get a grip, man, get a grip!

Are you suggesting that this report was written without input from Llewellyn or an assistant of his?

We are not even discussing that issue. We are discussing whether Spratling could have known the existence of the word omentum or not. Wnich is an entirely different matter.

Are you suggesting the report was written in advance of the post mortem?
If so what leads you to this conclusion?

Once more, we are not discussing that at all. We are discussing your statment that the inclusion of the word omentum tells us that it must have come from Llewellyn or his assistant since Spratling could not have known the owrd himself, according to you.
We are furthermore discussing this on account of how you claim that since omentum must have been a word that Spratling picked up from Llewellyn or his assistant, it goes without saying that Spratling would also have named all the organs that were damaged if any organ at all had been damaged.
Your contention is that NO organ in the abdomen was damaged at all, and you base that contention on how you claim that we must have known if that had happened, becausee Spratling used the word omentum, and he would NEVER have been aquainted with it from his earlier carreer.

That, Steve, is the precise matter we are discussing. Trying to move the goalposts to Kuala Lumpur is not helpful at all, so you can give that a rest - it wonīt work anyway.

Hereīs the thing: Spratling may have known and used omentum on a daily basis. He may never have heard it before Llewellyn used the word in his report (because Spratling would not have been present at the post mortem, and so he could not have picked it up there). He may have gone "ome.. what?", for all I know and care.
The salient point, however, is that regardless of what applies, he may well have wanted to state the fact that the blade did not only pick little holes in the outer layers of skin and fat of Nichols - it actually travelled into the abdominal cavity. "The tissues were cut through", is what Llewellyn said, plus the wound was a very deep one.

How many doctors would call a wound, inflicted violently with a long-bladed knife thrust downwards into the abdomen of a woman on her back, but that only got as far as the omentum, a "very deep wound", Steve?

How many?

[Fisherman]

No, he didn't. He said "vital parts" - no mention of organs at all.

Vital to what, Gareth? Any guess? Vital for the ability to walk? To giggle? To eat? To whistle?

What do you think he meant, Gareth? Or do you have no idea, since he did not detail it himself?

Ironically, the word "vital" comes from latinīs "vita" - life. Vital means basically to support life. Maybe that helps?