Lets get Lechmere off the hook!

[Tom_Wescott]

"He assisted in removing the body. He noticed blood running from the throat to the gutter. There was only one pool; it was somewhat congealed".

Hi David. I think this fuller version, where he mentions the blood was congealing, makes more sense. Thain is basically describing what he saw and he used the word 'running' simply to describe the direction the blood was traveling (i.e. from throat to gutter) and was not attempting to get across that the wound was fresh and still pumping blood. The other press reports that leave out the word 'congealing' could on their own be taken to mean that the cut was fresh and actively flowing.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[David Orsam]

Thain is basically describing what he saw

Just to clarify, as I'm sure you were aware, it's the evidence of Mizen being quoted here.

[David Orsam]

If you or anyone else are not happy with the forensic experts opinion feel free to seek out another one

It's not that I'm unhappy with your expert's opinion (and, you might have noticed, Fisherman appears to be positively delighted with it), it's just that as a layman I don't fully understand what he is saying and would welcome some clarification. I also would have thought clarity would be helpful in the circumstances. But of course it's entirely up to you.

[David Orsam]

and that was a question Fish asked me to put to the expert !

It's not the question that is at issue, but the answer. Can a body, with the kind of damage Nichols suffered, bleed from a neck wound for more than twenty minutes? We don't actually know for certain because your expert's answer, taken literally, is that it will bleed for up to twenty minutes but not more than twenty minutes. Is that what he was intending to say? I guess we will never know.

[Cogidubnus]

Hi David

My inclination is to accept the possibility of residual oozing/bleeding up to 15/20 mins after death...I hasten to add I have no first-hand experience to back this up...but my recent email correspondence with two NHS respomdents does suggest it's a possibility

[Tom_Wescott]

Just to clarify, as I'm sure you were aware, it's the evidence of Mizen being quoted here.

Sorry, I still had Thain on the brain. Same difference, though. If the blood had been running long enough to be obviously congealing by the time Mizen saw it, then it wasn't fresh from the tap when Thain got there. And since Fisherman keeps driving it home how honest Mizen was, his word on the matter must be beyond question.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[martin wilson]

As Trevor said, his expert was not there, I remember having the same problem trying to establish a TOD for Elizabeth Stride based on the blood evidence and getting different opinions, I think essentially calling in expert opinion will invariably get the answer 'it depends......' because there are variables that affect the outcome, so I think a definitive answer is unlikely.
All the best.

[David Orsam]

Hi David

My inclination is to accept the possibility of residual oozing/bleeding up to 15/20 mins after death...I hasten to add I have no first-hand experience to back this up...but my recent email correspondence with two NHS respomdents does suggest it's a possibility

Hi Cogidubnus, yes that is what Trevor's expert says, and I obviously accept that. The question he was asked however was, in essence, can it go on for more than 20 minutes - and on that point there is some debate as to whether he was saying yes or no. Furthermore, his answer seemed to be qualified in two different respects, and it is not clear to me whether this would affect the timings (and mean that the residual oozing/bleeding would have stopped sooner in some circumstances). Trevor and Fisherman have provided their own interpretations of what the expert was intending to say but I would prefer to hear it from the expert himself.

[David Orsam]

As Trevor said, his expert was not there, I remember having the same problem trying to establish a TOD for Elizabeth Stride based on the blood evidence and getting different opinions, I think essentially calling in expert opinion will invariably get the answer 'it depends......' because there are variables that affect the outcome, so I think a definitive answer is unlikely.
All the best.

I'm not actually expecting to establish a precise time of death here for Nichols. What I'm wondering is if it is possible for a forensic pathologist to give a "not before" time of death based on continuing blood flow. In other words, if, at midnight, a forensic pathologist examines a dead body from which blood is still flowing from a neck wound, can that forensic pathologist tell the police "this person was definitely killed (or at least had their throat cut) after 11pm"?. Or can he/she do better and say after 11:30pm, or after 11:40pm? Can the police with confidence then focus only on suspects who don't have an alibi for this time period.

Also, while I have accepted that a forensic pathologist may not want to give answers in respect of the specifics of this case, I can't see why he or she would not be able to tell us in the hypothetical example of a woman of about 5 foot 3 inches who is strangled to death, then has her throat cut to the point of near decapitation and is then placed with her back to the ground and not moved, whether it would be possible in those hypothetical circumstances to say how long the blood would be expected to flow from the neck wound (and whether there is a maximum time beyond which such oozing would simply not be possible).

[martin wilson]

Hi David,

Do you mean oozing from the artery itself or running from the neck of the victim i.e still wet?
All the best.

[Trevor Marriott]

I'm not actually expecting to establish a precise time of death here for Nichols. What I'm wondering is if it is possible for a forensic pathologist to give a "not before" time of death based on continuing blood flow. In other words, if, at midnight, a forensic pathologist examines a dead body from which blood is still flowing from a neck wound, can that forensic pathologist tell the police "this person was definitely killed (or at least had their throat cut) after 11pm"?. Or can he/she do better and say after 11:30pm, or after 11:40pm? Can the police with confidence then focus only on suspects who don't have an alibi for this time period.

Also, while I have accepted that a forensic pathologist may not want to give answers in respect of the specifics of this case, I can't see why he or she would not be able to tell us in the hypothetical example of a woman of about 5 foot 3 inches who is strangled to death, then has her throat cut to the point of near decapitation and is then placed with her back to the ground and not moved, whether it would be possible in those hypothetical circumstances to say how long the blood would be expected to flow from the neck wound (and whether there is a maximum time beyond which such oozing would simply not be possible).

I have sent a further question to the expert but he has already said that time of death cannot be determined by looking at a wound or by calculating blood loss

This 20 minute issue is being blown up out of all proportion in my opinion. The fact is of what relevance is 20 mins in reality, in relation the murder, because we do not know the actual time of death so the murder could have taken place 40 mins before the body was found, and if that be the case then what the witness saw at the crime scene would likely to still be the same as if the victim had been murdered only 20 mins before.

Fish is trying to make a very tenuous link to Cross being the killer by simply relying on the witnesses who saw the body, and as we see they give varying accounts with regards to blood loss from the wound and blood around the body.

In two separate answers the expert has stated that blood can continue to seep out of the body for "sometime after death" and does mention up to twenty minutes. I dont think there is a way to pin "for sometime" to a specific time frame for reasons previously stated.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[martin wilson]

Hi all

Thanks Trevor, that's cleared that up.

I think Fish is going off Paul because if Cross was the killer, his evidence would be obviously unreliable.
Still, Bucks Row is an unlikely place to get your doss money, back to the Whitechapel Road, 3 or 4 minutes to Durward street (google maps) and 11 minutes from Doveton Street, so 15 minutes approx, give Fish's lad 5 minutes to meet Polly, and then in Bucks Row kill her and we get much closer to 3.45. given a 3.20 start that is, but logistics aside, how do we know what time he left if he was lying?
All the best.

[David Orsam]

Thanks Trevor, that's cleared that up.

Hold on, how has it cleared anything up? Trevor has simply given us his interpretation of what we have all already read from the expert. Why don't we wait for the expert to respond before coming to conclusions?

[David Orsam]

This 20 minute issue is being blown up out of all proportion in my opinion. The fact is of what relevance is 20 mins in reality, in relation the murder, because we do not know the actual time of death so the murder could have taken place 40 mins before the body was found, and if that be the case then what the witness saw at the crime scene would likely to still be the same as if the victim had been murdered only 20 mins before.

This paragraph is incomprehensible to me. If the expert says that blood can only flow from the neck wound of a motionless corpse for up to 20 minutes - and we know it was still flowing at 3:45 when PC Neil observed it doing so (or "oozing") - then how can you possibly say that the murder could have taken place 40 minutes before the body was found????? It doesn't make any sense to me, unless you are separating the time between strangulation and the cutting of the throat which seems unlikely in the extreme. I mean, this is the entire issue that I am trying to establish - can the blood run from a neck wound in these circumstances for 40 minutes?

[Robert]

I know nothing of these matters, but I would assume that gravity would influence the flow both in the obvious sense that blood would leave a body, and in the sense of where it left it from, i.e. Nichols's left artery was cut first, and blood would have started to issue from that side, but then her right side was cut too and, since the pavement sloped down to the gutter, we don't know whether blood would have issued in equal amounts from both arteries or whether the blood would tend to 'bunch up' and flow more from her right side than from her left. And then, maybe the state of nourishment of the body and state of the blood might have an effect? I don't know, but all we can tell the experts is that the neck was...(give Llewellyn's evidence)...with possibility but not certainty of strangulation....and see what they say.