Evidence of innocence

[Fisherman]

Yet again Christer has been misleading, Dr Biggs was contacted after Christer published his theory which included the medical evidence he seeks to rely on. In any event does it matter, the blood flow evidence which he seeks to rely on cannot be definitively answered. So his time stated is unsafe.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

He was contacted BEFORE the blood evidence was published in my book, and it is that evidence that is of importance. I have asked you before, and I donīt mind doing so again:
Go ask Dr Biggs if Payne Jamesīand Thiblins suggestion that the body of Polly Nichols would have been likely to bleed out in around 3-5 minutes is wrong. The pathologists also said that this was their best guess, whereas it could be that it took up to ten or perhps fifteen minutes before the bleeding stopped. Although such a long bleeding time would be much les expected, it would not be impossible per se.

THAT is what you should ask Biggs. Go ahead, what are you waiting for?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Correction: Anybody who disagress with me and who tampers with the facts to do so is wrong, and acting inappropriately.

The idea that I would regard anybody as dishonest for not agreeing with me on an overall scale is as wrong as it is rude.

But it IS the simple way out at times; we are proven wrong, we donīt like it, and so instead of admitting it, we paint the one who has proven us wrong out as mentally or morally deficient.

Itīs the oldest trick in the book.

I will make another post where I prove my point on at least one level when I have gone through and answered the other posts since yesterday evening.

You’re the one tampering Fish as you’re weird interpretations of the English language prove it. Or someone who leads someone to believe that Lechmere left the house at exactly 3.30 when he actually said “about 3.30.”

[Trevor Marriott]

You simply avoided the question about when you consulted your expert.

M.

Dr Biggs has been consulted many times over the past few years and has been asked to give his opinion on all the medical evidence both past and present in relation to both the WM and The Torsos and in particular the medical evidence Fish seeks to rely on with regards to blood flow and TOD.

So Fish is wrong I could not have consulted him before I knew what Fish`s medical evidence was in the first place.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Trevor Marriott]

He was contacted BEFORE the blood evidence was published in my book, and it is that evidence that is of importance. I have asked you before, and I donīt mind doing so again:
Go ask Dr Biggs if Payne Jamesīand Thiblins suggestion that the body of Polly Nichols would have been likely to bleed out in around 3-5 minutes is wrong. The pathologists also said that this was their best guess, whereas it could be that it took up to ten or perhps fifteen minutes before the bleeding stopped. Although such a long bleeding time would be much les expected, it would not be impossible per se.

THAT is what you should ask Biggs. Go ahead, what are you waiting for?

I have already asked that question and given you the answer and posted that answer, but you wont accept that answer !!!!!!!!!!!

In case you forgot Dr Biggs answer which clearly indicates there is no defintive answer as to how long a body would take to bleed out and this is dependent on many factors

The question I asked was
"How long it would approx take for her body to bleed out, if at all?

Dr Biggs reply

Your question sounds like it “should” be fairly simple to answer, but as always there are hidden complications. TV and movies usually show a cut throat leading to almost instantaneous collapse / death, but in reality it will take at least a short period of time for blood loss to become so great that it causes unconsciousness, followed by death after another additional period of time. Depending on the blood vessels severed, this will vary, but even in a worst (best?) case scenario, where the carotid arteries and jugular veins have all been cut open, it will still take many seconds or even several minutes for the accumulated blood pumped / leaked out to reach a level where it actually results in death. A victim could potentially survive for a surprising length of time with a cut throat, gradually bleeding to death. Also, the rate of bleeding slows as the blood pressure drops, so after an initial rush of blood there may be a relatively long period of collapsed survival, where a severely weakened or unconscious person clings on and on until the remaining blood necessary to prove fatal finally ebbs away.

However, other factors may prevail before a victim has had a chance to die from blood loss alone. For example, if the windpipe has also been cut open by the blade, there is the potential for blood to enter the airways and lungs, causing a more rapid death due to choking or “aspiration” (a bit like drowning, only with blood entering the lungs rather than water). A perhaps less-frequently talked about, but definitely relevant, factor is the process whereby air enters the circulation via open blood vessels. When a large neck vein is severed, especially in an upright person, air effectively gets “sucked” into the vein (blood is constantly in the process of being drawn back to the heart through the circulation, and gravity is also pulling it downwards if you are upright, creating a negative pressure in the neck veins that sucks air in as soon as there is a hole in the vessel wall). Once air has been drawn into the heart, it ceases to work very well as a pump – it is really good at pumping liquid, but cannot shift gas very well at all… so simply ends up “churning” the air within the heart, rather than pumping out any blood. This can lead to a very rapid collapse – within a few seconds, and certainly faster than you might expect due to blood loss alone. This phenomenon (cardiac air embolism) reveals itself at post-mortem examination in the form of a tell-tale “froth” of tiny bubbles within the right side of the heart, and we see this relatively frequently following stabbings and other incidents where injuries have resulted in damage to blood vessels in the neck and other areas.

So in summary, a person could feasibly last a surprisingly long time with a cut throat when considering blood loss alone as a potential cause of death, but there are other mechanisms that might cause death more quickly, including within a matter of seconds. This could potentially explain, for example, a scenario where “not enough” blood has been found at a crime scene, for example.


www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Herlock Sholmes]

Seems clear enough to me Trevor. And even if a shorter time is considered likelier it in no way precludes a longer time. Also of course if it’s considered possible that Paul disturbed Lechmere in his work then reason tells us that it’s entirely possible that Lechmere had disturbed the killer. The killer might have fled the scene seconds before Lechmere arrived. So the blood evidence doesn’t favour Lechmere over another killer. How can anything be simpler? The only difference with Lechmere is that we know his name.

[Herlock Sholmes]

. The pathologists also said that this was their best guess

To repeat…..guess.

[Herlock Sholmes]

. whereas it could be that it took up to ten or perhps fifteen minutes before the bleeding stopped

Clear as day

[Fisherman]

Now, letīs finish off for today by first pointing out that it seems Gary Barnett - a man born and bred with the British language, as fate will have it - agrees with me about what "it cannot have been far off the 3.45 mark" actually means. See post 5229.

After this, we will have a look at how the naysayers - in particularly Herlock - does his ripperology. We will focus on the matter of the evidential value of putting a suspect on a spot where a murder has been committed, or at least pointing out that there is a very high probability that the suspect will have been at or close to the spot at the relevant hours.

Herlock has argued that there is one thing only that promotes the suspect status of Charles Lechmere, namely the so called time gap. Conveniently, of course, he has the added that there IS no time gap, wherefore there is absolutely nothing that promotes a suspect status. Away goes Charles Lechmere!

This claim also comprises the fact that Lechmere was observed alone at the murder site of Polly Nichols at a remove in time that is entirely consistent with Lechmere being her killer. And it comprises how his route to work took him right past the killing area of Spitalfields. Neither of these facts should evoke suspicion, as per Herlock.

His explanation for why these geographical markers would not count as any reason to suspect Lechmere is that "he had a reason to be there".

If we take a look at how the police of today do their work, they actually use that exact phrase, but in a rather different context. When a stabbed murder victim is found at a defined geographical spot and no murderer is about to take responsibility for the demise, guess what the police will ask themselves?

Exacly - they will ask themselves "Who had a reason to be at that spot at the relevant time?"

So WHY do they ask this? Why do they not ask "Who did NOT have a reason to be there?" instead?

There are two reasons for this.

1. They want to establish who would have had a reason to be there so that they can seek out these people and try to get whatever information they may have about the case: Were they there? Did they see anything that could help explain what happened? And so on.

2. They - soundly - reason that the killer must have been in place, otherwise the dead person would still be alive. And so they will check whether or not any of the people who had reason to be there was also the killer.

In this latter context, we have another wording that is of interest. When the police interview people they know have been at or close to a murder site, and when the curious press are asking what they are doing, the police will nowadays say that they are speaking to the people who were at or close to the murder site in order to eliminate them from their enquiries. This very wording is of interest because it tells us that BEFORE they are eliminated, they are actually what is called persons of interest in the investigation. They are, in other words, potential killers until eliminated! And if the police can eliminate, say, nine out of ten of those who had a reason to be there, but not number ten, then that person will become the main suspect of the investigation, and remain so until evidence emerges that proves that he or she is innocent, including the option that the real killer is revealed or comes forward on his or her own account.

If no such evidence emerges, then it is the collected weight of the evidence that decides whether or not to take the guy or girl who had reason to be there to court.

Now, if we are to start claiming that a proven presence on one of the murder spots at the relevant hour, as we have in Lechmeres case, as well as a proven route to work that passes through the main killing fields, as we also have in Lechmeres case, has no evidential value at all or should not add to whatever suspicions there may be - and that IS what Herlock claims in Lechmeres case - we end up with a baffling conclusion:

It does actually not matter whether or not a suspect has proven geographical links to the murder spot/s in an investigation.

That is the only way one can read what Herlock says.

And this leads us to another, much more baffling insight:

If it does not matter what proven links a suspect has or has not to the murder site/s, then, in essence, there is no need to try and prove such a link on account of the police. And if there is no such need, then it follows that a suspect need fantastically not have been anywhere near the murder site/s. He or she is no more and no less likely to have been the killer regardless of what applies in this context!

This is an entirely new and fresh approach to police work and suspect viability assessments. And, of course, it is absolute, absolute nonsense of the worst possible kind.

Yes, the police will weigh in if a suspect had a reason to be at a murder spot or not. But it has nothing at all to do with whether or not that suspect is a better or worse suspect.
And reason to be in place is not an exonerating factor. It is first and foremost a reason to look further into somebody.

Last, but not least: When we compare how the various suspects score on the geographical factor, Charles Lechmere is as we are all, some of us joyfully, others painfully aware shitloads, country miles and lightyears ahead of any other suspect. And much as I realize how it would for that very reason be nice in some peopleīs eyes if Herlock was correct - it would put Lechmere, Feigenbaum, Bury, Kosminski, Kelly, Levy, Carroll, Clarence and, not least, Druitt on a perfectly equal footing in this matter - I am sorry but I must point out that although we are all free to fantasize as best we like to out here, we should not take the facts along on our flights of fancy. They stay on the ground, where they belong. Always.

Now, unless there is somebody who wants to join sides with Herlock on this, I am done here for some time.

[Fisherman]

I have already asked that question and given you the answer and posted that answer, but you wont accept that answer !!!!!!!!!!!

In case you forgot Dr Biggs answer which clearly indicates there is no defintive answer as to how long a body would take to bleed out and this is dependent on many factors

The question I asked was
"How long it would approx take for her body to bleed out, if at all?

Dr Biggs reply

Your question sounds like it “should” be fairly simple to answer, but as always there are hidden complications. TV and movies usually show a cut throat leading to almost instantaneous collapse / death, but in reality it will take at least a short period of time for blood loss to become so great that it causes unconsciousness, followed by death after another additional period of time. Depending on the blood vessels severed, this will vary, but even in a worst (best?) case scenario, where the carotid arteries and jugular veins have all been cut open, it will still take many seconds or even several minutes for the accumulated blood pumped / leaked out to reach a level where it actually results in death. A victim could potentially survive for a surprising length of time with a cut throat, gradually bleeding to death. Also, the rate of bleeding slows as the blood pressure drops, so after an initial rush of blood there may be a relatively long period of collapsed survival, where a severely weakened or unconscious person clings on and on until the remaining blood necessary to prove fatal finally ebbs away.

However, other factors may prevail before a victim has had a chance to die from blood loss alone. For example, if the windpipe has also been cut open by the blade, there is the potential for blood to enter the airways and lungs, causing a more rapid death due to choking or “aspiration” (a bit like drowning, only with blood entering the lungs rather than water). A perhaps less-frequently talked about, but definitely relevant, factor is the process whereby air enters the circulation via open blood vessels. When a large neck vein is severed, especially in an upright person, air effectively gets “sucked” into the vein (blood is constantly in the process of being drawn back to the heart through the circulation, and gravity is also pulling it downwards if you are upright, creating a negative pressure in the neck veins that sucks air in as soon as there is a hole in the vessel wall). Once air has been drawn into the heart, it ceases to work very well as a pump – it is really good at pumping liquid, but cannot shift gas very well at all… so simply ends up “churning” the air within the heart, rather than pumping out any blood. This can lead to a very rapid collapse – within a few seconds, and certainly faster than you might expect due to blood loss alone. This phenomenon (cardiac air embolism) reveals itself at post-mortem examination in the form of a tell-tale “froth” of tiny bubbles within the right side of the heart, and we see this relatively frequently following stabbings and other incidents where injuries have resulted in damage to blood vessels in the neck and other areas.

So in summary, a person could feasibly last a surprisingly long time with a cut throat when considering blood loss alone as a potential cause of death, but there are other mechanisms that might cause death more quickly, including within a matter of seconds. This could potentially explain, for example, a scenario where “not enough” blood has been found at a crime scene, for example.


www.trevormarriott.co.uk

I donīt see Biggs either agreeing or denying the proposal of Payne James and Thiblin here. Do you? It was NEVER relevant in this matter to establish how long a victim CAN bleed, the whole importance is how long a victim with the damage Nichols had is LIKELY to bleed. I was clear in the extreme about this in my book, for the simple reason that I was told by the pathologists that in many court cases where they said "the victim was likely to have bled for perhaps ten to fifteen minutes", the defence barrister would say "And if the victim could bleed for fiftenn minutes, then why could he not bleed for sixteen minutes? Or seventeen? Or twenty?", and they would have to answer that it could perhaps happen in extreme cases, although it was incredibly unexpected.
In this case, we cannot establish the borderline for how long Nichols COULD have bled, but we CAN ask the experts how long it is LIKELY that she will have bled, and that is precisely what I did.
But you seem quite the expert of failing to understand this. Of course.

[Fisherman]

And now I am gone. For real, and for some time.

[Aethelwulf]

Now, letīs finish off for today by first pointing out that it seems Gary Barnett - a man born and bred with the British language, as fate will have it - agrees with me about what "it cannot have been far off the 3.45 mark" actually means. See post 5229.

Herlock has argued that there is one thing only that promotes the suspect status of Charles Lechmere, namely the so called time gap.

Correct

[John Wheat]

And now I am gone. For real, and for some time.

Good.

[John Wheat]

Thank you in advance for providing the quotation where he says so.

I'm away from home at the moment. However I will dig out the relevant quotation when I'm back.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Now, letīs finish off for today by first pointing out that it seems Gary Barnett - a man born and bred with the British language, as fate will have it - agrees with me about what "it cannot have been far off the 3.45 mark" actually means. See post 5229.

After this, we will have a look at how the naysayers - in particularly Herlock - does his ripperology. We will focus on the matter of the evidential value of putting a suspect on a spot where a murder has been committed, or at least pointing out that there is a very high probability that the suspect will have been at or close to the spot at the relevant hours.

Herlock has argued that there is one thing only that promotes the suspect status of Charles Lechmere, namely the so called time gap. Conveniently, of course, he has the added that there IS no time gap, wherefore there is absolutely nothing that promotes a suspect status. Away goes Charles Lechmere!

This claim also comprises the fact that Lechmere was observed alone at the murder site of Polly Nichols at a remove in time that is entirely consistent with Lechmere being her killer. And it comprises how his route to work took him right past the killing area of Spitalfields. Neither of these facts should evoke suspicion, as per Herlock.

His explanation for why these geographical markers would not count as any reason to suspect Lechmere is that "he had a reason to be there".

If we take a look at how the police of today do their work, they actually use that exact phrase, but in a rather different context. When a stabbed murder victim is found at a defined geographical spot and no murderer is about to take responsibility for the demise, guess what the police will ask themselves?

Exacly - they will ask themselves "Who had a reason to be at that spot at the relevant time?"

So WHY do they ask this? Why do they not ask "Who did NOT have a reason to be there?" instead?

There are two reasons for this.

1. They want to establish who would have had a reason to be there so that they can seek out these people and try to get whatever information they may have about the case: Were they there? Did they see anything that could help explain what happened? And so on.

2. They - soundly - reason that the killer must have been in place, otherwise the dead person would still be alive. And so they will check whether or not any of the people who had reason to be there was also the killer.

In this latter context, we have another wording that is of interest. When the police interview people they know have been at or close to a murder site, and when the curious press are asking what they are doing, the police will nowadays say that they are speaking to the people who were at or close to the murder site in order to eliminate them from their enquiries. This very wording is of interest because it tells us that BEFORE they are eliminated, they are actually what is called persons of interest in the investigation. They are, in other words, potential killers until eliminated! And if the police can eliminate, say, nine out of ten of those who had a reason to be there, but not number ten, then that person will become the main suspect of the investigation, and remain so until evidence emerges that proves that he or she is innocent, including the option that the real killer is revealed or comes forward on his or her own account.

If no such evidence emerges, then it is the collected weight of the evidence that decides whether or not to take the guy or girl who had reason to be there to court.

Now, if we are to start claiming that a proven presence on one of the murder spots at the relevant hour, as we have in Lechmeres case, as well as a proven route to work that passes through the main killing fields, as we also have in Lechmeres case, has no evidential value at all or should not add to whatever suspicions there may be - and that IS what Herlock claims in Lechmeres case - we end up with a baffling conclusion:

It does actually not matter whether or not a suspect has proven geographical links to the murder spot/s in an investigation.

That is the only way one can read what Herlock says.

And this leads us to another, much more baffling insight:

If it does not matter what proven links a suspect has or has not to the murder site/s, then, in essence, there is no need to try and prove such a link on account of the police. And if there is no such need, then it follows that a suspect need fantastically not have been anywhere near the murder site/s. He or she is no more and no less likely to have been the killer regardless of what applies in this context!

This is an entirely new and fresh approach to police work and suspect viability assessments. And, of course, it is absolute, absolute nonsense of the worst possible kind.

Yes, the police will weigh in if a suspect had a reason to be at a murder spot or not. But it has nothing at all to do with whether or not that suspect is a better or worse suspect.
And reason to be in place is not an exonerating factor. It is first and foremost a reason to look further into somebody.

Last, but not least: When we compare how the various suspects score on the geographical factor, Charles Lechmere is as we are all, some of us joyfully, others painfully aware shitloads, country miles and lightyears ahead of any other suspect. And much as I realize how it would for that very reason be nice in some peopleīs eyes if Herlock was correct - it would put Lechmere, Feigenbaum, Bury, Kosminski, Kelly, Levy, Carroll, Clarence and, not least, Druitt on a perfectly equal footing in this matter - I am sorry but I must point out that although we are all free to fantasize as best we like to out here, we should not take the facts along on our flights of fancy. They stay on the ground, where they belong. Always.

Now, unless there is somebody who wants to join sides with Herlock on this, I am done here for some time.

No one would ever suggest that the person discovering a body and who, by definition, spent an unknown period of time alone with that body wouldn’t immediately become a person of interest that required further investigation. This doesn’t mean that Lechmere is automatically a better suspect than an unknown killer though. It simply means that in a list of pros and cons we can place in the pros column that we know for a fact that Lechmere was there. We are left with a choice between Lechmere and an unknown killer who we can’t name. Can we place another killer in Bucks Row? Yes. We can place a killer in Bucks Row and it didn’t have to be Lechmere.

Why is this point an issue? Because the fact that Lechmere was in Bucks Row is almost chanted like a football crowd shouting “3-0, 3-0,” it’s become a mantra. As I’ve said in other posts, John Richardson was alone at a crime scene. Like millions of others over the years Lechmere found the body. How many people over the years have found a body outdoors and then turned out to have been the killer? I’m not saying that it hasn’t happened but I’m guessing that it’s a vanishingly small minority.

So to have continued suspicion against this discoverer of a body we need further evidence of course. And we need evidence that’s definite. That can’t be one outcome amongst several. Evidence that can’t easily be explained away. So what do we get from Lechmere?

We get a manufactured gap of time where unknowns are stated as knowns and other explanations are sidelined in an attempt to skew the evidence in favour of guilt. Words like “about” are conveniently omitted when presenting the case for Lechmere’s guilt. Left out of books; left out of articles. Could anything point more clearly to an agenda? I don’t think so. The gap is gone because there’s no evidence that it ever existed in the first place. So how does this ‘help’ the case.

Then we have the blood evidence. David Orsam’s article plus Trevor’s contribution from Dr Biggs should have put this desperate attempt at shoehorning to bed but of course it still keeps being resurrected. And why? Desperation, that’s why. Longer bleeding out times are clearly possible. That’s all that we need to know. Even if shorter bleeding out times occur more frequently then this changes nothing. When given an average do we dismiss the outer parameters? Of course not. And even if we go with a shorter time them this certainly doesn’t preclude the killer fleeing the scene a matter of seconds before Lechmere arrived. Isn’t it strange that some proponents have absolutely no issue with the suggestion that Robert Paul might have interrupted the killer but for some reason it’s considered science fiction that Lechmere himself might have interrupted the killer. Strange that

So the ‘gap’ and the blood evidence go no way toward condemning Charles Lechmere. So what’s left in this nearly empty sack? A disputed conversation with Mizen which, at 133 years distance we have no definitive way of analysing accept to say that there could definitely be a very simple, very plausible, non-sinister explanation.

We have the fact that he used his step-fathers surname which, in terms of subterfuge or hiding his identity y is on a par with that scene in Monty Python’s Life Of Brian where The People’s Front Of Judea hide in a room by putting lampshades on their heads or sticking their heads under a chair!

Then there’s the geographical stuff. Over a tiny area it’s been found that Lechmere would have been familiar with the locations and had some familial links near to the sites. Someone fetch a rope! If the gap is a non-starter and the blood evidence doesn’t implicate Lechmere then what use is the geographical stuff apart from in a weird game of Ripperological join the dots.

And against this we have….

The strange idea of a man committing a murder at a spot around 20 minutes before he was expected at work. Now Fish is usually very keen to post examples from serial killer history to illustrate a point but we’re yet to see an example of another serial killer doing this. I’m not saying that this hasn’t been done but we’ve seen no example of this.

The strange idea of a guilty Lechmere refusing the very obvious chance of escape to await the arrival of Paul. The risk of which very obviously far, far outweigh the alternative. And again, we’ve seen no other example of a serial killer loitering at the scene of his crime and refusing the opportunity of fleeing. And this would have been a man almost undoubtedly with wet blood on his hands and possibly on his clothing. And then of course there’s the bloodied knife. Have we become so blasé about hearing the case for Lechmere’s guilty that we have becoming immune to the ludicrousness of this suggestion.

…..

There is nothing; and I mean absolutely nothing that Lechmere did that night that’s not entirely consistent with a man who simply found a body on his normal walk to work. To see him as guilty we have to assume to know the unknowable. We have narrow the meaning of an estimate to its lowest form. We have to distort the English language into definitions which don’t exist. We have to assume that we know what people were thinking 133 years ago when they left us with no specific explanation. In short we have to work far too hard to incriminate him. We have to continually view everything through the ‘Lechmere was guilty’ glasses.

We can’t prove Lechmere’s innocence. I’ve never claimed that we can. I’ve never stated that Lechmere couldn’t have left the house earlier (of course he could have) but why are proponents of Lechmere’s guilt so adamant in accepting leeway one way but not the other? I find it instructive. This is the problem that we know can occur when someone has a theory or a suspect. Everything is distorted by an assumption of guilt leading to everything been viewed as sinister. We should guard against the gross over-confidence that is being shown by some (not all of course) Nothing leads me to see Charles Lechmere as anything other than a man that found a body.

[Herlock Sholmes]

And now I am gone. For real, and for some time.

Deja vu.