Every minute counts

[Fiver]

So, Fiver, where does Paul say that he AND Lechmere pulled the clothing down, as you claim?

"The clothes were disarranged, and he helped to pull them down." - Robert Paul

This makes it clear that Paul claimed he was helping someone pull the clothing down. The only other conscious person present was Lechmere.

You started this thread by saying "One of the things I thought did not look right with such a proposition was that Nichols' clothing was pulled down over the wounds, and that was something the killer never did otherwise. But all in all, one must perhaps accept that the killer chose to do it in Bucks Row but nowhere else. Illogical? Absolutely. But possible? Yes."

According to Robert Paul's testimony, your theory that the killer pulled down Nichols' clothing is false. Unless you have switched theories and now think Robert Paul was the Ripper.

[JeffHamm]

Which is presumably why the forensic expert Thiblin made the statement that he had limited 'empirical data' on which to base his conjectures. Unless the Nazis, or some similar regime, conducted experiments on unwilling victims, any estimate about blood drainage times would be based on what might best be called "guess work."

There was one empirical study conducted on uninjured cadavers. 64 corpses were deliberately cut open to see how much blood would drain out, but as this involved cutting the thoracic aorta, it has little relevance to the point being discussed. Further, it measured volume, rather than time--but at least it shows there has been some experimentation.

Amount of postmortem bleeding: an experimental autopsy study - PubMed (nih.gov)

Yah, while interesting, without a heartbeat to force out quite a large volume at the start, hard to know how to use that. And there would be a host of other issues.

Still, very cool you found something approaching the topic. Hmmmm, I could imagine studies involving animals, that would then attempt to make some sort of correction to estimate human data. Perhaps there are studies out there?

One should never underestimate the weirdness of research. Someone somewhere will want to know.

- Jeff

[rjpalmer]

It has got me wondering if there are any papers on this, but I doubt it as I can't imagine how one could ever obtain such data with enough knowledge of when a cut was produced and how long it took that wound to eventually stop bleeding since, well, that requires the participant to die. They don't sign up for such studies.

Which is presumably why the forensic expert Thiblin made the statement that he had limited 'empirical data' on which to base his conjectures. Unless the Nazis, or some similar regime, conducted experiments on unwilling victims, any estimate about blood drainage times would be based on what might best be called "guess work."

There was one empirical study conducted on uninjured cadavers. 64 corpses were deliberately cut open to see how much blood would drain out, but as this involved cutting the thoracic aorta, it has little relevance to the point being discussed. Further, it measured volume, rather than time--but at least it shows there has been some experimentation.

Amount of postmortem bleeding: an experimental autopsy study - PubMed (nih.gov)

[JeffHamm]

Hi Fisherman,

Well, maybe someone can be decapitated and stop bleeding a minute later, but as Nichols was not decapitated that doesn't really apply here. And yes, I agree, clotting isn't going to stop the bleeding from a severed cartoid artery, that was just me mulling over ideas (if not very appropriate ones for this case, but we've both made that mistake).

Anyway, all I can say is that the probability distribution you're describing is the "logical inverse" of a cumulative one with respect to "not bleeding any more", meaning "after a cut everyone bleeds immediately, so 0% are not bleeding" then at some interval later (call that X) some percent stop bleeding, say 0.5% have stopped. Then another interval later and more have stopped bleeding, say we're at 1.05%, and so on, until we eventually get to the point where all cases (100%) have stopped bleeding. That means, the logical inverse cumulative probablity for bleeding starts at 100% and yes,I see what you mean, it then decreases until it reaches 0%. That decrease would be slowly at first, then it would tend to decrease more quickly, and then slow down again as we get into the range of rare long bleeders.

That's not the one that would be used, though, to compare the likelihood between the two theories. One uses the density function version, which is "what percent stop bleeding between 0 and X" and then what percent fall between X and 2X, and then between 2X and 3X, and so on. It's the same information, but it's not plotting the running totals (or in this case the running decrease), but rather the values between two successive multiples of your interval. It's the density function that is used to test questions like this (is Cross/Lechmere more or less likely than JtR as Other), not the cumulative distribution. The two distributions come from exactly the same data, they are just different ways to represent them, but the differences are fundamentally important with regards to making probabilistic inferences of this sort. I get where you're coming from, but inferentially speaking, the probabilities you're talking about are not the ones that you want.

And again, without us knowing what that density function looks like, there's no way for us to know which would be the more probable because it depends upon which side of the peak the two theories end up. But I am sure, that given how little of a time difference we're talking about, any difference in either direction is going to be so very small nobody would consider one more likely than the other in any real sense, only a purely mathematical one.

Anyway, I spend enough time at work lecturing on statistics that I'm not about to bore everyone here with it. I'll leave it to you to decide what you want to do with that though. It has got me wondering if there are any papers on this, but I doubt it as I can't imagine how one could ever obtain such data with enough knowledge of when a cut was produced and how long it took that wound to eventually stop bleeding since, well, that requires the participant to die. They don't sign up for such studies.

- Jeff

[Fisherman]

Hi Fisherman,

I don't really understand what you're getting at here? Sorry, not trying to be difficult just having a hard time getting my head around what you mean; given she's had her throat cut, I would think it very improbable that she would stop bleeding in 2 minutes, so I don't see how "bleeding in minute 2" is any less than bleeding in minute 1, so there will be a period of time where the probability of bleeding for the next minute does not really fall off.

By saying that minute 2 is equal to minute 1, you are denying the possibility that anybody could bleed out in a minute only, and that is something you should not do, Jeff. It has been recorded in decapitations and such, I believe. Of course, minute two is extremely likely to be a bleeding minute to - but not as likely as minute one. Down the line, the likelihood of being a bleeding minute tapers off minute by minute, and we have a law of nature in place: no minute is as likely or more likely to be a bleeding minute than any of the minutes that have passed before it in the bleeding process.
There is absolutely no way around this. It is a given.
Exemplifying with minute two is a bit misguiding, since we will have a varying degree of likelihood attaching to the various minutes, speaking theoretically (every bleeder will have his of her own predisposition, some are likely to bleed longer, some shorter, but they are all slaves under the same law: no minute is likelier to be a bleeding minute than the one/s before it), and minute two is the next most likely one to be a bleeding minute. Reasonabvly, it is an almost given bleeding minute - but only almost.
If we look at minute seven, it is a minute that the pathologists described as a less likely bleeding minute than minutes three and five, and so they believed that normally, a bleeding is less likely to go on at that stage. Once again, if this is true, then a killer active in a time that stretches the bleeding time window for Nichols into ten minutes or more is something the pathologists think is unlikelier than it is likely, to put it simple.

I do see how, at some point, the probability of sufficient clot forming to stop the bleeding (clotting as a process starts within seconds or minutes, but it doesn't stop the bleeding right away obviously, or we would have no need for bandages), or in very large wounds close to total blood loss occurs, will increase and how things like that would correspond to when "bleeding in the next minute" would start to drop, but either of those are going to be highly improbable for some amount of time I would think would equate to some number of minutes. So, within that time initial time range "if bleeding this minute the probability of bleeding in the next" will be, for all practical considerations 100%.

No clotting would stop the kind of bleeding Nichols had - when all the large vessels in the neck are cut, the blood that is over the cut will leave the body even if there is no underlying heartbeat or blood pressure. And no contraction will stop the blood in such a case, as per Jason Payne-James. The fact that every minute is a less likely bleeding minute is just that, a fact. With the kind of damage Nichols had, the bleeding could have been over in two or three minutes only, and so the ensuing minutes are less likely bleeding minutes, just as minute three is less likely a bleeding minute than minute two. Reasoning "Shhh, itīs probably all just the same" is very, very wrong. Laws of nature are unimpressed by such things.

As you say, we don't know how long Nichols bled for, and given the difference between the proposed hypotheses is generously given as only 1 minute, and probably much less, there's no way to say Cross/Lechmere is more likely than JtR as other because it seems to me it's not about the probability she'll still be bleeding in the next minute that is of importance, but the probability she was bleeding in the previous. And that will be 100% up until one gets to the point she's murdered, at which point it drops to 0%.

We must calculate backwards, though. Involving another killer means that we must involve more time, otherwise Lechmere must be the killer. Once we involve more time, we stretch the time gap more, and it was already stretched before we introduced the alternative killer. And yes, the added. inutes will be added minutes of previous bleeding, buyt that does not mean that they detract from the total amount. They add to it.

Hmmmm, I suppose if we knew the time when she stopped bleeding, and had reliable data with regards to the time line for bleeding in large throat wounds (ideally throat cutting combined with abdominal cutting, but I rather suspect there is no such data set, but I'm thinking ideals here), then one could reverse engineer a probability function to get some sort of estimate of the time of the initial wound, which is I think what you're trying to get at here? (again, sorry if I'm completely off base here).

I am not trying to establish any time for the cut to the throat as such, I am saying that going by what the pathologists said, that time points to Lechmere as the cutter, although they would not disallow another killer per se - only point out that it would be a less likely killer. Of course, one can dress it up in numbers:
If, as I suggest, everything took nine minutes from cutting to Mizen arriving at the murder scene and seeing the blood running, and if the neck was cut at 3.44, a minute before Paul arrived at the body, then if three to five minutes are the likelier suggestions as per the pathologists, those three to five minutes should have occurred at between 3.47 and 3.50, meaning that if Nichols had followed the advice of the pathologists, she should not even have bled as Neil arrived. The fact that she did and the fact that she also bled as Mizen arrived means that not only have we used up the suggested likely minutes, we have also added a few unlikely minutes. And if we were to fit in yeat another minute or two, then those would be even unlikelier. Meaning - well, you get it: an alternative killer is less likely than Lechmere, going on the blood timings.

Having sufficient familiarity with probability functions and using them to make estimations, though, makes me highly skeptical that such a function would be able to demonstrate any reliable difference between the two times we're discussing. In fact, in theory it could even result in the later time (i.e. JtR as other) being the more likely! I'm certainly not saying it would show that as I have no clue what that probability function looks like, but I do know it is possible. To demonstrate what I mean, if we somehow knew that a person's throat was cut and stopped bleeding at 1:00 o'clock. Then the probability of them having had their throat cut at 12:59 (1 minute prior) will be far far less than them having their throat cut at say 12:50 (10 minutes prior). The probability may indeed increase for some period of time prior until it then reaches the point where it starts to drop again. So which of the two hypotheses is more likely, Cross/Lechmere or JtR as Other, will depend upon the time she stopped bleeding, and whether those events fall on the increasing or decreasing side of that function. But regardless, the function is in all likelihood going to have a pretty wide spread, making the difference in probabilities between two times separated by less than a minute so small as to have no practical meaning.

Anyway, I realise I've digressed and gone on to a host of different ideas than the one you're presenting, sorry. But, in my defense, it just means that this has intrigued me and has peaked my curiosity, and for that, I thank you.

- Jeff

Depending on Nicholsī propensity to bleed - about which we know nothing - an alternative killer could be more or less likely, but never likelier than Lechmere. It is impossible. It is not until we move the window of likely bleeding time past the nine minute mark (or whichever mark actually applied, which may have been 8 or 10 minutes, of course) that an alternative killer can compete with Lechmere in this respect. Can we do that? I fail to see how and why we would.
Applied to your example, yes if a bleeding stops after what seems to be a minute of bleeding only, it suggests that somebody else may have done it earlier. But if it takes ten minutes ,then the pathologists would simply say that the bleeding has gone on for much longer than they would have expected. The minutes six to ten would have been unexpected, minute six not very much so, but minute ten significantly so. If that happens, it happens, and it probably does every now and then, given that Thiblin estimated the maximum time to perhaps ten to fifteen minutes.
But all of this means that the closer to the far mark we want to fit a cutter in, the less likely we are to be correct. No minute of bleeding can be as likely and expected as the minute before, the likelihood ALWAYS drops along the minutes, although it does not drop to levels where it becomes unlikely until after we are five minutes into the process. These five minutes are not minutes that we may look upon as minutes when there will always be a bleeding though, they are minutes when it is LIKELY that there can be a bleeding - but minute five is not as likely as minute one on account of that! Once again, this is a law if nature. If it was not like this, we would statistically need to find people who bled in minute three but not in minute two, or at the very least a bleeding that did not taper off but instead increased over the minutes only to then taper off after some time. But these bleedings will taper off over time, not increase.

[JeffHamm]

It goes a bit further that that, Jeff: Every minute of bleeding that is added to the total tally must always be a minute that is less likely to be a bleeding minute than the preceding minute/s.
It can be described as a law of nature, as I have pointed out already.

To say that Lechmere is no likelier than an alternative killer is something that we cannot do on a specific level, for the simnple reason that we do not know how long Nichols bled for. If she bled for twentyfive minute and if Mizen saw her after nine minutes, then we have a sixteen minute gap in which the killer may have operated.

However, what the pathologists agreed on is that once we pass the five minute border, we venture into a bleeding time that they thought a less likely one. So suggesting a bleeding time of twentyfive minutes is suggesting an unlikely thing, as per the pathologists. In actual fact, since they thought that a bleeding time of seven minutes was not as lilely as a shorter bleeding time, what is suggested is that if we have a bleeding of nine minutes as I suggest, then a tenth minutee should not be expected. It is unlikelier than a seized bleeding. An eleventh minute of bleeding is even unlikelier and so on.

So basically, what the pathologists say is that alternative killer must have worked in a gap of time that we should not expect to be present, because it is unlikely to have been there.

Now, unlikely things do happen. Even extremely unlikely things take place every now and then. But that doens not mean that a suggestion of an alternative killer becomes as likely as the suggestion that Lechmere did the cutting. It may have happened, but it is not as likely.

Thatīs what is suggested by the pathologists.

Hi Fisherman,

I don't really understand what you're getting at here? Sorry, not trying to be difficult just having a hard time getting my head around what you mean; given she's had her throat cut, I would think it very improbable that she would stop bleeding in 2 minutes, so I don't see how "bleeding in minute 2" is any less than bleeding in minute 1, so there will be a period of time where the probability of bleeding for the next minute does not really fall off. I do see how, at some point, the probability of sufficient clot forming to stop the bleeding (clotting as a process starts within seconds or minutes, but it doesn't stop the bleeding right away obviously, or we would have no need for bandages), or in very large wounds close to total blood loss occurs, will increase and how things like that would correspond to when "bleeding in the next minute" would start to drop, but either of those are going to be highly improbable for some amount of time I would think would equate to some number of minutes. So, within that time initial time range "if bleeding this minute the probability of bleeding in the next" will be, for all practical considerations 100%.

As you say, we don't know how long Nichols bled for, and given the difference between the proposed hypotheses is generously given as only 1 minute, and probably much less, there's no way to say Cross/Lechmere is more likely than JtR as other because it seems to me it's not about the probability she'll still be bleeding in the next minute that is of importance, but the probability she was bleeding in the previous. And that will be 100% up until one gets to the point she's murdered, at which point it drops to 0%.

Hmmmm, I suppose if we knew the time when she stopped bleeding, and had reliable data with regards to the time line for bleeding in large throat wounds (ideally throat cutting combined with abdominal cutting, but I rather suspect there is no such data set, but I'm thinking ideals here), then one could reverse engineer a probability function to get some sort of estimate of the time of the initial wound, which is I think what you're trying to get at here? (again, sorry if I'm completely off base here). Having sufficient familiarity with probability functions and using them to make estimations, though, makes me highly skeptical that such a function would be able to demonstrate any reliable difference between the two times we're discussing. In fact, in theory it could even result in the later time (i.e. JtR as other) being the more likely! I'm certainly not saying it would show that as I have no clue what that probability function looks like, but I do know it is possible. To demonstrate what I mean, if we somehow knew that a person's throat was cut and stopped bleeding at 1:00 o'clock. Then the probability of them having had their throat cut at 12:59 (1 minute prior) will be far far less than them having their throat cut at say 12:50 (10 minutes prior). The probability may indeed increase for some period of time prior until it then reaches the point where it starts to drop again. So which of the two hypotheses is more likely, Cross/Lechmere or JtR as Other, will depend upon the time she stopped bleeding, and whether those events fall on the increasing or decreasing side of that function. But regardless, the function is in all likelihood going to have a pretty wide spread, making the difference in probabilities between two times separated by less than a minute so small as to have no practical meaning.

Anyway, I realise I've digressed and gone on to a host of different ideas than the one you're presenting, sorry. But, in my defense, it just means that this has intrigued me and has peaked my curiosity, and for that, I thank you.

- Jeff

[Fisherman]

Hi Christer,

You're right. I met Abberline at the cleaners.

He was having a few alibis laundered.

Hope you're well.

Simon

Iīm quite well, thank you, Simon. And I believe you know as well as I do that many efforts were made, not least by dwellers in an area, to deny that they were infested with prostitution. If, de facto, as R J Palmer postulates, Nichols found a punter in Whitechapel Road and took him to Bucks Row, then that in itself is an example of how there was prostitution there, right? If, on the other hand, she entered the street with the intention to sleep rough, as some suggest, then it becomes totally logical that Lechmere may have found her on his route and done for her. I have no problems with either suggestion, itīs just that I do not think the killer was perhaps wary of the risks involved in looking for prey in streets where people were around in large gatherings, and so he may have taken advantage of the fewer prostitutes there were on the smaller, darker and less polulated streets, some of them looking for business, others walking them after having finished that business with punters from Whitechapel Road.

[Fisherman]

Nichols' clothing was pulled down by Robert Paul and Charles Lechmere, at least according to Paul.

"The clothes were disarranged, and he helped to pull them down." - Robert Paul

So, Fiver, where does Paul say that he AND Lechmere pulled the clothing down, as you claim?


Lechmere says he heard Paul when Paul was "about forty yards away". Average walking speed is about 1.4 meters per second, so that distance would be covered in 25 to 30 seconds. Possibly faster, since Paul was late for work.

And how do we know that Lechmere did not hear Paul as he was 130 yards away, entering Bucks Row? Because he said so himself?

"The man [Lechmere] walked with him to Montague-street, and there they saw a policeman. Not more than four minutes had elapsed from the time he first saw the woman." - Robert Paul

Paul said that all this took "not more than four minutes", which is not the same thing as "around four minutes". Paul does not appear to have had a watch and we have no idea how accurate Paul was at estimating time. Anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes is probably a reasonable guess.

No, it is not. And if you think that something took perhaps two minutes, you donīt say that it took no more than four minutes. And why does it appear to you that Paul did not have a watch? I mean, I donīt think he had one, but why wouold it appear to us as if he hadnīt? What is the indication that guides you?


Nothing I have read indicates Mizzen continued with waking up duties. Neither he, Lechmere, or Paul mention it. It would have been a severe dereliction of duty on Mizzen's part when he thought he had been summoned by another constable.

Then read again, because BOTH Paul and Mizen mentions it.

Far more reasonable would be that Mizzen, who thought he was summoned by another constable, would have taken half as long as it took Lechmere and Paul to reach him. That means a total elapsed time of 3 1/2 minutes to 8 minutes.

Since we know for a fact that Mizen continued his knocking up duty ("we" meaning those who read up about it), we can see that he was in no real hurry to get to Bucks Row. And that very clearly implicates that Lechmere may have played down the seriousness of the errand. I am fascinated to see that you have found a far limit of 8 minutes - that means that you must be certain of the minimum speed Mizen used, the time of the conversation with Lechmere and the knocking up. Me, I have been unable to find these figures, so I must ask you kindly to publish them on the thread for all of us to peruse. Thank you.

Mizen didn't say this at the Inquest. It was said by PC Neil, who arrived well before Mizen.

"I examined the body by the aid of my lamp, and noticed blood oozing from a wound in the throat." - PC Neil

"There was a pool of blood just where her neck was lying. It was running from the wound in her neck." - PC Neil

If you put your mind to it, you will find where Mizen commented on the bloodflow too. Promise!

We are not sure when Neil saw Nichols' body. It was probably only a minute or two after Lechemere and Paul had left Nichols body. It certainly wasn't 9 minutes, it probably wasn't even 5. Unfortunately, Neil uses the contradictory terms "running" and "oozing". If we go with the 3 to 7 minutes estimation, then "running" blood gives a time frame for Nichols throat being cut from 3 or 4 minutes before Robert Paul saw her body to the clearly impossible a minute after Paul left. "Oozing" blood would indicate that internal blood pressure had dropped and a significant amount of coagulation had started, which would make it wildly improbable that Lechmere killed Nichols.

Oh dear, oh dear. Who has suggested that Neil found the body nine minute after the carmen left it? Before you comment on these things, you must know what it is you comment on, Fiver. You say that Neil saw Nicholsī body probably onbly a minute or two after the carmen left it. Hereīs a luttle something for you to ponder:

The stretch from Brady Street to the murder site was around 130 yards. Walked in a quick pace, Paul would make it in a minute, just about.

The stretch from the murder site to the junction Bakers Row/Bucks Row, was nearly twice as long. Walked in a quick pace, it would take nearly twice as long, as you may understand. And that stretch was the stretch that Neil walked, from the junction Thomas Street/Bucks Row, doewn to the murder site. So if he was at the body one or two minutes after the carmen left, the three MUST have met on Bucks Row, arguably exchanging greetings and commenting on the weather...?
What we have, unless we reason that Neil and the carmen passed each other without noticing one another, is a situation where the carmen must have walked up to Bakers Row and turned the corner BEFORE NEIL ENTERED BUCKS ROW! Meaning that two minutes or so passed. THEN Neil entered Bucks Row and had a one and a half minute trek to the body (his trek is shorter since he entered Bucks Row from Thomas Street and not from Bakers Row).
This means that Neil cannot have been in place at the site any earlier than three and a half minute after the carmen left the body. And that is ONLY if he entered Bucks Row in direct combination, more or less, with when the carmen turned the corner of Bakes Row/Bucks Row.

Take it from me, once you read up on all of this and get it right, you will find a very intriguing matter. But that predisposes that you do not rush head over heels into matters before understanding them first!

PS. It was MIZEN, not Neil, who would have arrived at the body at approximately eight minutes after the carmen left, making it a bleeding up to that stage of nine minutes - if Lechmere cut the throat of Nichols a minute before Paul arrived outside Browns Stable Yard.

[Fisherman]

Hi Fisherman,

Not a problem. I'm not expecting anything actually, just looking at what we have and seeing what sort of ranges we can realistically narrow things down to and considering the subsequent implications of that. The kind of information we're discussing here would not in my view allow us to produce a sufficiently narrow time window to differentiate between the Cross/Lechmere hypothesis and the JtR as other hypothesis. As such, both hypotheses survive this test, leaving them on equal footing when considering this information, that's all. Perhaps I've misunderstood you, but you seem to be suggesting in your last statement that you believe this sort of data does narrow the time she was originally cut precise enough that an additional 30-60 seconds can be considered less likely? If I've misunderstood you, my apologies.

- Jeff

It goes a bit further that that, Jeff: Every minute of bleeding that is added to the total tally must always be a minute that is less likely to be a bleeding minute than the preceding minute/s.
It can be described as a law of nature, as I have pointed out already.

To say that Lechmere is no likelier than an alternative killer is something that we cannot do on a specific level, for the simnple reason that we do not know how long Nichols bled for. If she bled for twentyfive minute and if Mizen saw her after nine minutes, then we have a sixteen minute gap in which the killer may have operated.

However, what the pathologists agreed on is that once we pass the five minute border, we venture into a bleeding time that they thought a less likely one. So suggesting a bleeding time of twentyfive minutes is suggesting an unlikely thing, as per the pathologists. In actual fact, since they thought that a bleeding time of seven minutes was not as lilely as a shorter bleeding time, what is suggested is that if we have a bleeding of nine minutes as I suggest, then a tenth minutee should not be expected. It is unlikelier than a seized bleeding. An eleventh minute of bleeding is even unlikelier and so on.

So basically, what the pathologists say is that alternative killer must have worked in a gap of time that we should not expect to be present, because it is unlikely to have been there.

Now, unlikely things do happen. Even extremely unlikely things take place every now and then. But that doens not mean that a suggestion of an alternative killer becomes as likely as the suggestion that Lechmere did the cutting. It may have happened, but it is not as likely.

Thatīs what is suggested by the pathologists.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Christer,

You're right. I met Abberline at the cleaners.

He was having a few alibis laundered.

Hope you're well.

Simon

[Fiver]

One of the things I thought did not look right with such a proposition was that Nichols' clothing was pulled down over the wounds, and that was something the killer never did otherwise. But all in all, one must perhaps accept that the killer chose to do it in Bucks Row but nowhere else. Illogical? Absolutely. But possible? Yes.

Nichols' clothing was pulled down by Robert Paul and Charles Lechmere, at least according to Paul.

"The clothes were disarranged, and he helped to pull them down." - Robert Paul

In the book, I suggest that Nichols bled for a minimum of nine minutes. I am reasoning that Lechmere cut her throat as he first heard Robert Paul entering Bucks Row. After that, it took a minute for Paul to reach the murder spot.

Lechmere says he heard Paul when Paul was "about forty yards away". Average walking speed is about 1.4 meters per second, so that distance would be covered in 25 to 30 seconds. Possibly faster, since Paul was late for work.

Paul then says that his meeting Lechmere, examining Nichols and walking up to Mizen took around four minutes altogether. That means that we have five minutes elapsed at that stage.

"The man [Lechmere] walked with him to Montague-street, and there they saw a policeman. Not more than four minutes had elapsed from the time he first saw the woman." - Robert Paul

Paul said that all this took "not more than four minutes", which is not the same thing as "around four minutes". Paul does not appear to have had a watch and we have no idea how accurate Paul was at estimating time. Anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes is probably a reasonable guess.

Then there was a conversation between Lechmere and Mizen, after which Mizen tended to some of his waking up duties before he set out for Bucks Row.

Nothing I have read indicates Mizzen continued with waking up duties. Neither he, Lechmere, or Paul mention it. It would have been a severe dereliction of duty on Mizzen's part when he thought he had been summoned by another constable.

I reason that this would have added up to around the same amount of time, four minutes, and so the whole procedure before Mizen reached the murder site would have taken a total of nine minutes.
Of course, it may have taken eight minutes too. Or ten. But the nine minute suggestion will not be wildly wrong.

Far more reasonable would be that Mizzen, who thought he was summoned by another constable, would have taken half as long as it took Lechmere and Paul to reach him. That means a total elapsed time of 3 1/2 minutes to 8 minutes.

As Mizen arrived at the murder site, he said that the blood was still running from the neck, and that it had at this stage started to run into the gutter. He said the blood looked fresh and that it was partly coagulated in the pool.

Mizen didn't say this at the Inquest. It was said by PC Neil, who arrived well before Mizen.

"I examined the body by the aid of my lamp, and noticed blood oozing from a wound in the throat." - PC Neil

"There was a pool of blood just where her neck was lying. It was running from the wound in her neck." - PC Neil

We are not sure when Neil saw Nichols' body. It was probably only a minute or two after Lechemere and Paul had left Nichols body. It certainly wasn't 9 minutes, it probably wasn't even 5. Unfortunately, Neil uses the contradictory terms "running" and "oozing". If we go with the 3 to 7 minutes estimation, then "running" blood gives a time frame for Nichols throat being cut from 3 or 4 minutes before Robert Paul saw her body to the clearly impossible a minute after Paul left. "Oozing" blood would indicate that internal blood pressure had dropped and a significant amount of coagulation had started, which would make it wildly improbable that Lechmere killed Nichols.

[JeffHamm]

I am not saying that there may not have been 60 seconds for a killer to use, Jeff. Or 120. Or more. I am saying that we should not EXPECT there to have been and we should not put the tenth and eleventh and twelfth minute of bleeding on par with the first minutes. Any alternative killer would have to work in a window of time the pathologists would not have expected to be there - and that must be of interest to us.

Hi Fisherman,

Not a problem. I'm not expecting anything actually, just looking at what we have and seeing what sort of ranges we can realistically narrow things down to and considering the subsequent implications of that. The kind of information we're discussing here would not in my view allow us to produce a sufficiently narrow time window to differentiate between the Cross/Lechmere hypothesis and the JtR as other hypothesis. As such, both hypotheses survive this test, leaving them on equal footing when considering this information, that's all. Perhaps I've misunderstood you, but you seem to be suggesting in your last statement that you believe this sort of data does narrow the time she was originally cut precise enough that an additional 30-60 seconds can be considered less likely? If I've misunderstood you, my apologies.

- Jeff

[Fisherman]

surely if the neck had stopped bleeding/oozing by the time the cops arrived on the scene it would point away from lech no?

No, not as such. But it would make it much harder to build a case against him. It is only if the neck had not bled as Paul and Lechmere examined her that it would point away from Lechmere.

so any neck bleeding would place time of the attack closer to when lech was there. the way i see it the neck still oozing has to point more to lech than away.

Exactly. And it is a very easy equation: If she bled as Paul was there with Lechmere, it is bad news for the carman. If she bled as Neil arrived, it is significantly worse news for him. If she bled as Mizen first saw her, it is terrible news for Lechmere.

It should go without saying - but way goes without saying in Ripperland...?

[Fisherman]

"Bucks Row was one of many, many streets where prostitutes took their clients. The[y] did not teleport themselves to and fro these streets, they actually visited them. If they, after having finished the business with a client, would turn away any other offers before they were back on Whitechapel Road, I would be very surprised. Saving time and making money is what prostitution is about, the tighter the schedule the better."

Dang, Fish, I didn't think you would want to go there, but you did!

So, in this scenario, Polly was in the dark and lonely Buck's Row at 3.40ish a.m., because she had taken another man there and the transaction was 'concluded' only moments before Lechmere came along on what was his normal path to work?

Well, I can't argue with that one.

I think most people have always believed that was the case; they just differed over what this 'transaction' entailed.

Good luck and carry on.

Exactly, you canīt argue with that one. Although you would very much like to.

At 11 PM on the night leading up to the Nichols murder, Polly was seen in Whitechapel Road, likely soliciting. At 2.30, she met Emily Holland on that self same street. Whitechapel Road was always going to have people on it, as witnessed by for example John Neil. And so, when you walk it, people notice you and can testify about it. But nobody testifies about Polly Nichols in Whitechapel Road the minutes before she was found dead. And nobody testifies about Annie Chapmans whereabouts after she left the boarding house.
But you think they cannot have found business in the smaller roads, they MUST have been found by their killer in WHitechapel Road or Commercial Street.

So yes, I am going there as an obvious possibility, since it is supported by this evidence and since I think the killer would prioritize dark, empty back streets over well lit and populated ones.

[Fisherman]

Is it the case that a line drawn from the Pinchin Street arch through St Phillip’s church goes directly through 22, Doveton Street as Christer says?

The line we should be drawing should go FROM the arch TO 22 Doveton Street, in which case it passes over St Philips Church. And it is not as if it becomes irrelevant if the line passes an inch to the left or right of the church, it is nevertheless an amazing correlation.