AC and TOD

[Fisherman]

Fisherman

Fine. Believe what you want to believe.

I do, Chris. And I take it you believe what you want to believe - unless you claim you know it instead..?

The best,
Fisherman

[Chris]

Fisherman

Fine. Believe what you want to believe.

[Fisherman]

Chris:

That is what I have been trying to impress upon you all along.

Then Iīm afraid you have laboured unnecessarily, since Iīve known it all along.

In words of as few syllables as possible - people used to believe you could estimate time of death accurately using formulae like these, but now we know they involve large errors, even in normal circumstances when proper measurements are made.

Yes, there are built-in difficulties and - just like you have said before - even today specialists are sometimes baffled by their finds. If you feel that you have gone through very much trouble to impress this too on me, the same as above applies: You could have done something more useful of that time, since I know this too.

But it also applies that people go cold when they die.
And it also applies that they do so in a fairly regular manner.
And it also applies that even if Phillips got it a bit wrong on this parameter, he would reasonably not have gone as far astray as a TOD of 5.30 would involve.
And it also applies that even if temperature TOD establishment by means of touch is tricky business, Phillips STILL had many other parameters to go by.
And it also applies that he was a very seasoned man, with heaps of experience on each of these parameters.
And, finally, it also applies that he, in corroboration with the police, decided that Richardson spent his Saturday morning in that yard together with a corpse.

If you think he could have been wrong on all counts and that Chapman could have died 5.30, I am not specialist enough to decidedly establish that you must be wrong. But I do put my faith in Phillips, who WAS just such a specialist, albeit a late 19:th century one, and he would have sneered at the mere suggestion.

And thatīs perfectly enough for me to make my call.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Chris]

Here, my guess is that we should not expect a 1,5 degrees per hour fall at an even pace.

That is what I have been trying to impress upon you all along.

In words of as few syllables as possible - people used to believe you could estimate time of death accurately using formulae like these, but now we know they involve large errors, even in normal circumstances when proper measurements are made.

[Fisherman]

Another point (less directly related to the finer points of body temperatures):

As Iīve said before, is not Cadosch a bit too good to be true?

To improve on his testimony, heīd need to have a knifeblade shoved through one of the boards as Cadosche passed, or the woman crying out "Please no, Mr Ripper!".

The loo was at the far end of the small backyard of 27 Hanbury Street. This means that Cadosch had a march of, say, ten seconds to clear before he passed in through the backdoor of his house.

Does anybody think that the Ripper, if he was in the backyard of No 29, missed that Cadosch opened the door and went out, for the second time, to visit the loo?

Not really, eh? He would have noticed it. And then, he would equally have noticed when Cadosch opened the loo door and started to walk back to the house.
So what does the Ripper do? He stays completely silent during this process, up til the exact moment when Cadosch passes on the other side of the fence. At that stage, he letīs go of the freshly strangled Chapman and allows her to fall into the fence..?

Too good to be true. Not impossible, but very, very rich.

Both Long and Cadosch are much the same in this respect, to my mind.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

I would also like to point out that even when the outer surface of a body has taken on the surrounding temperature, that does not mean that the inner body temperature as such has done the same. The outer layer of the body works as an insulation, and the outer and inner temperature therefore differ.
Which of course means that much as the inner temperature will normally fall at a relatively predictable rate, the outer surface of the body will react to the exposition to the elements in another manner. Here, my guess is that we should not expect a 1,5 degrees per hour fall at an even pace.

And if we disagree, thatīs fine, Chris. I think that YOU may have misinterpreted what Phillips said and meant, so itīs no big deal.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

For once we agree. Even without doing any reading on the subject, you can work out for yourself how many hours it would take for the body to "take on the surrounding temperature" if it was cooling at a rate of (anything like) 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit Celsius per hour. Obviously you are wildly misintepreting what Phillips meant by "cold".

He meant that she was too cold to have been alive after 4.30, Chris. Thatīs the exact "interpretation" of what he said. Or, to say it differently, he meant that her temperature, taken together with all other indications, pointed unanimously to a TOD before that stage.

The best,
Fisherman

[Chris]

Suit yourself, Chris - the only absurd thing I can spot around here, is the notion that Chapman could have been killed at 5.30 and cooled off so as to take on the surrounding temperature in an hour only, but for the area under the intestines.

For once we agree. Even without doing any reading on the subject, you can work out for yourself how many hours it would take for the body to "take on the surrounding temperature" if it was cooling at a rate of (anything like) 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit Celsius per hour. Obviously you are wildly misintepreting what Phillips meant by "cold".

[Fisherman]

Wickerman:

Hi Christer.
Are you suggesting the property line has moved?
The distance between the steps and the fence remains the same, regardless how old the fence is.

If we can work from an assumption that nobody ever moves a fence three inches when they build a new one, Iīm with you. Otherwise not. It happens, you know. And it is therefore an element of uncertainty here.

Have you seen the two sketches from the IPN?
I will use these two sketches as a guide here.

Stewart published them in the first group of photo plates in the 'Ultimate', between pp.116-117.
Phillips is shown crouched over Chapman's body, her head is between the bottom step and the fence, so her body is extended out beyond the steps, in full view of anyone positioned on the steps or in the doorway.

Those are sketches, Jon. There are a number of sketches of the backyard, differing in how it is portrayed. There are sketches of a fence with lots of air between the boards, and sketches with no air at all between them.

I donīt think it is crucial to the question at hand whether two or three feet of her protruded beyond the stairs - if Richardson could miss the one thing, he could miss the other. But when you write that she was "in full view of anyone positioned on the steps or in the doorway", you are working from a perspective where there was no door.
But there WAS a door! And that door swung back at you when you opened it. That means that in order to gain a "full view" (supposedly meaning that you could see the whole body), you must first shove the door open totally. And even then, if the head was in the recess between fence and stairs, how on earth would you see it standing in the doorway? Thatīs right - you couldnīt.

The rest is a question of where Richardson was on a number of scales:

Did he only open the door much enough to be able to squeeze through, or did he swing it open fully?

Was all of Annie lying in front of the steps as you originally wrote, or was her body to some extent concealed between fence and stairs?

Did Richardson sit with his back in a 90 degree angle to the fence, or was his back turned on the fence, more or less?

Was it very dark, or was it reasonably light?

Did Richardson have a very good eyesight or was it poor?

Did Richardson focus his attention to the right only, so as to see the lock, or did he glance to his left?

I am nor saying that it would not be odd if he didnīt notice Chapman. I agree very much with Swanson on that point - he apparently DID miss her and it IS odd.
But since when can we say that odd things do not happen?

As far as I can tell, we cannot rule out that he DID miss Chapman. It COULD have happened.

Before Phillips gave his view on TOD, I would have said that the more probable thing would be that he should have seen the body. After Phillips gave his verdict, the odds change drastically, and my take is that we must accpet what Swanson accepted: That Richardson missed the body.

And in the end, since the boot cutting story is so strange, we must ALSO accept that there is every chance that Richardson made this up. Such things happen.

But bodies do not cool off as quick as the Long/Cadosch testimony implies, rigor does normally not set in sooner than two, three hours after death and the digestion is not speeded up by fanciful witnesses.

Thatīs why Iīm with the only professionally established testimony we have here, instead of with witnesses that either do not correspond or seem rather dodgy. Especially since the professional was such an experienced one, and since his timeframe needs to be more than halved to allow for Annie dying at 5.30.

All the best, Jon!
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Fisherman

You seem to have come pretty close to a reductio ad absurdum of Phillips's estimate yourself in your last post, so perhaps this is a good time for me to leave.

Suit yourself, Chris - the only absurd thing I can spot around here, is the notion that Chapman could have been killed at 5.30 and cooled off so as to take on the surrounding temperature in an hour only, but for the area under the intestines.

We are dealing with time levels here, to begin with; Phillips said that Annie had been dead no less than two hours, and if it had not been for Long and Cadosch, there would only be the need to explain why Richardson didnīt see the body. If Phillips had said that this could be due to him being a quarter of an hour or so wrong in his estimations, nobody would hold him responsible for having been way off. If Richardson was there 5.40 and Annie died 5.45, we would have a period of 1.45 for her to cool off and take on a beginning rigor - and that does not sound extremely implausible, perhaps.

Level two, however, the Long/Cadosch line, IS totally improbable. One hour only could not have been enough. One would have thought that Phillips could have drawn the line there, saying that Chapman could have been alive when Richardson sat on the step, but not when Long and Cadosch stepped into the action.
This never happens. Instead Phillips goes on to meet with the police and agree with them - and he would have been the driving force - that NEITHER Richardson NOR Long/Cadosh were playing their roles whilst Annie was still alive.
The man would thus have been certain that he had the medical leverage to establish this beyond doubt. And it would not have been a question of temperature only, but also of all the other factors a medico could lean against, the rigor, the digestion, the quality of the blood, the bruising, discolouration, the cut areas, mucous membranes, corneas of the eyes, whatever - it is all good and well to state that the medical science of the time thought that cooling off could be measured as a loss of one and a half degree per hour, but each medico was an individual, some of them more, some less experienced. And Phillips was arguably the perhaps most experienced medico in Britain in errands like these, very much respected and extremely knowledgeable. And he also had the opportunity to follow up on the physical deteroration of Chapmanīs corpse after the murder, checking if it all went to schedule.

So no, I donīt think for a second that Chapman could have died at 5.30, just as Phillips didnīt even think that she could have been dead at 4.45.

Thanks for the exchange,
Fisherman

[Digalittledeeperwatson]

Hullo all.

Amount of clothing Eddowes was wearing vs amount of clothing Chapman was wearing. The type of ground upon which they were on. Factors that have to be taken into consideration also. Not supporting either side currently.

[Wickerman]

Hi Jon!

The pic you kindly reproduced has a fence on it that was not there in 1888 - it is not the original, methinks. So we canīt judge from that.

Hi Christer.
Are you suggesting the property line has moved?
The distance between the steps and the fence remains the same, regardless how old the fence is.

Have you seen the two sketches from the IPN?
I will use these two sketches as a guide here.

Stewart published them in the first group of photo plates in the 'Ultimate', between pp.116-117.
Phillips is shown crouched over Chapman's body, her head is between the bottom step and the fence, so her body is extended out beyond the steps, in full view of anyone positioned on the steps or in the doorway.

So, she was lying in the recess between stairs and fence. Probably around two feet from the back wall with her ehad. And she was short, a mere five feet tall. Plus she had her legs drawn up, detracting further from the distance she would reach out past the stairs.

Only her head was between the last step (to be 2ft from the house wall, this would have to be so), and the fence.
And yes her legs were drawn up (knees bent), but that means that her knees were out further, her right knee would then be directly in front of anyone looking from the doorway.

But half - or more than half - hidden behind the stairs,

Only her head Christer.

[moonbegger]

I Know this is an old post , but then so is the argument ,

Dr. Brown stated that he was called to Mitre Square shortly after 2:00 a.m. and arrived there at around 2:20. By this time Catherine Eddowes had been dead for roughly forty minutes. Brown observed that "the body had been mutilated, and was quite warm - no rigor mortis." We can thus say that, after roughly forty minutes, a body with extensive mutilations that was found under cool outdoor conditions was examined and described as being "quite warm." How do we reconcile this with the idea that the body of Annie Chapman was found to be almost completely cold after only the passing of twenty more minutes? We can't. It is very difficult to believe that in under twenty minutes almost all body heat would have dissipated into the morning air. This would be the work of a couple of hours, not minutes. Again, that observation is more in line with Dr. Phillips' opinion as to the time of death of Annie Chapman.

moonbegger

[Chris]

Fisherman

You seem to have come pretty close to a reductio ad absurdum of Phillips's estimate yourself in your last post, so perhaps this is a good time for me to leave.

[Fisherman]

Hello Christer. Thanks.

Well. In looking over the vehemence of your posts, I have a flashback to the old Toppy threads. They were not worth it and neither is this.

An old professor once remarked to my class that you must always determine what is riding on an argument. And in the present case, nothing.

So, I do as my prof advised--I walk away.

Cheers.
LC

... without answering the questions I asked you about the Times article and Swansonīs stance.

Oh well - that is answer enough! Thanks for that, Lynn!

All the best,
Fisherman