AC and TOD

[Fisherman]

Fisherman

All this second-guessing of what Phillips may have thought in 1888 is a complete waste of time.

This subject is much better understood now than it was in Victorian times. Whatever Phillips may have thought then, we know now - if we can be bothered to acquaint ourselves with the facts - that he would not have been capable of estimating the time of death accurately.

Why don't you spend just a little time reading about the subject, so that you can see for yourself what the margin of error for his estimate would have been?

Surprising though it may sound, I have read a lot about the subject. Thanks anyway for the kind advice.
In spite of your misgivings, I think Phillips was very capable of feeling whether a body was cold or warm. It was not a question of choosing between 32 or 31 degrees Celsius - it was a question of a body that had gone quite cold. And if you care to take a look at the snippet on body temperature loss I posted earlier (incidentally, that is one of the things I have actually read), you will find a whole lot of interesting and useful information.
Phillips was absolutely certain that two hours was a minimum - otherwise, he would not have discarded the Richardson suggestion, which was actually one hour and fortyfive minutes away, timewise. One would have thought that Phillips would budge a little, but no - he was certain about the two hour verdict. And now you are telling me that this would have been useless and ridiculous, and that totally cold bodies can have been 37 degrees Celsius an hour before that.
Iīm sorry, Chris, but I donīt buy into that.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Christer.
A body would not fit between the steps and the fence, as we can see if we draw a circle about 6 inch forward of the steps (per Phillips) then we can see how open to view Chapman's body was.

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.

Letīs read Davis instead!

"Witness said the deceased was lying between the steps and the fence"

James Kent:

"He saw a woman lying in the yard by the side of the steps, between them and the partition"

Chandler:

"Her head was towards the back of the house, but it was some 2 ft from the wall"

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.

Now look what happens - we get an altogether different picture than the one you suggested. And that is of vital importance! If she had been lying as you suggested in your diagram, it would indeed be nigh on impossible to miss her. But half - or more than half - hidden behind the stairs, with a perhaps 45 degree angle of the door and Richardson perhaps sitting angled away from her? Now, thatīs a different story.
It still applies that it was strange that he did not see her. But Swanson accepted this, and he would have known how she lay and how much the door obstructed from view in different angles.

On your pic, the door is flung wide open. What happens if you open it to a fortyfive degree angle? Take a look!

Plus, lets not forget this, from the Star:
"On Saturday the sun rose at twenty-three minutes past five; for half an hour previously the light would be such as to render it difficult for any one to distinguish even near objects."

It was relatively dark, Jon. Do you have the saying "In darkness, all cats turn grey"? We have it here, and it is useful in this context. When we make sketches, we tend to see everything as if it was bright daylight, but it was the other way around. That would have helped Swanson decide whether Richardson could have missed Annie or not. And he was for the suggestion.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

The more i read Richardsons highly contradictory statements to both police and at the inquest the more i am inclined to believe that Richardson merely opened the yard door ever so slightly to check the padlock low to his right hand side , completely missing Annie's body on his left , being hidden by the half opened door ( check out James Mason's visit to 29 Hanbury street on you tube to get Richardson's obstructed view of the yard as the back door slowly opens ) He added the bit on about sitting on the steps days later .. filled with discrepancies .. a classic example of running without being chased !

moonbegger .

The possibility very much belongs to the equation, Moon!

The best,
Fisherman

[Chris]

It was not a question of choosing between 32 or 31 degrees Celsius - it was a question of a body that had gone quite cold.

The point is that the old standard assumption (inaccurate as it was) was that body temperature would initially drop by 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit per hour after death. On that basis the difference between 32 and 31 degrees Celsius alone would represent nearly an hour and a quarter's uncertainty - and that is without taking into account all the other sources of error.

Looking at it the other way round, on that basis Phillips's estimate that Chapman had been dead two hours or more when he saw her would translate to a body temperature of 35.3 degrees Celsius or less. So all your stuff about the body being "ice-cold" and so on is way out. Unless Phillips was completely clueless, what he must have meant by "cold, except that there was a certain remaining heat, under the intestines, in the body" was that it was a couple of degrees or so below normal body temperature.

[lynn cates]

Wiedersehen

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

[Fisherman]

The point is that the old standard assumption (inaccurate as it was) was that body temperature would initially drop by 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit per hour after death. On that basis the difference between 32 and 31 degrees Celsius alone would represent nearly an hour and a quarter's uncertainty - and that is without taking into account all the other sources of error.

Looking at it the other way round, on that basis Phillips's estimate that Chapman had been dead two hours or more when he saw her would translate to a body temperature of 35.3 degrees Celsius or less. So all your stuff about the body being "ice-cold" and so on is way out. Unless Phillips was completely clueless, what he must have meant by "cold, except that there was a certain remaining heat, under the intestines, in the body" was that it was a couple of degrees or so below normal body temperature.

Thanks for that, Chris. So what you are saying is that "cold" was warm, whereas "warm" was a bit warmer...? Or do you mean that the area in the abdomen was still normal body temperature, that is around 37 degrees Celsius, whereas the rest of the body was around, letīs see here, hmm, two hours, that would be three degrees ... ah, 34 degrees Celsius?

Then we have to make the assumption that the borderline between "cold" and "warm" went somewhere inbetween 34 and 37 degrees, right?
"The body was cold (around 34), except that there was a certain remaining heat (around 37), under the intestines, in the body."
Is that it?

And what about Eddowes? She was still "quite warm" 40 minutes after she died. Was that because she had only fallen from 37 to 36? If so, we can narrow down the borderline more - 36 is "warm" 34 is "cold", so 35 must be the crucial point where the metamorphosis took place?

And all of this, the doctors felt with their fingertips?

Of course, Chris, Chapman was not ice cold. Some warmth is stored in the body for many an hour, we know that. But I use the phrase somewhat metaphorically; we all say we are freezing cold at times, although we are not below zero. We are, though, at these times very cold to the touch, and that would have been what Phillips sensed in Chapman too. And he would have checked all over, knowing quite well where warmth is stored for the longest time and where vessels run close to the skin and so on. Iīd submit two things - that Chapman would have been much colder than Eddowes, described as "quite warm" 40 minutes after her death, and that I am going to read up very much on this subject. More, that is, than I have done so far, which is not little.

When we discuss all of this, it is also important to realize that Phillips did not go by body temperature only as he made his call. There were the factors of rigor mortis and the food digestion point to take into account too, both of which seemingly corroborated the time estimate the doctor gave. To this, other parameters should probably be added - the state of the blood, the appearance of the cut surfaces on the body; the overall impression of everything that lay before Phillips must have jointly led him to his conclusion. He would had seen thousands of dead bodies and the impact death had on them, and this would have been the best guide possible for him. And when he spoke of at least two hours, probably three or more, we need to find a crude mean value at, say two and a half hours. We are then asked to believe that he was an hour and a half off the mark?

I donīt think so. Haggling could scrape away some minutes I guess - but not sixty per cent of the time suggested!

All the best,
Fisherman

[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

[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.

[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

[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.

[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.

[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

[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

[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]

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