Richardson's View

[Herlock Sholmes]

We know that it did happen!


Chandler:

If Richardson were on the top of the steps he might not have seen the body. He told me he did not go down the steps.


Under oath Sir.. under oath!


The Baron

Richardson was under oath too when he said that he sat on the step. Why is that Chandler must be believed but Richardson must be lying?

[Fisherman]

A cursory glance at the cellar door from the top step, might have resulted in Richardson missing the body.
It's possible, but then the boot cutting exercise would have to be a lie, or at best, "borrowed" from a prior day.
It seems to be a lie to some extent regardless, as Richardson admits the knife wasn't sharp enough to do the job he had said it did.

So what's going on here? Why is Richardson putting himself "in the thick of it", by telling the rabbit/knife/stairs/boot story?
Why does he not just say he only glanced at the cellar from the top step, and therefore probably missed the body?
A plausible explanation might be; embarrassment - Richardson is too embarrassed to admit that he came within a few feet of the body, but did not notice it.
He needs a story that keeps him at the steps a while longer, and in a position from which he cannot possibly miss the body - the middle step - so that the world knows he wasn't the dunce that missed seeing a mutilated body, when in close proximity to it.

The Coroner closely questioned the inspector as to the visit of young Mr. Richardson to the backyard in Hanbury-street. Evidently Mr. Baxter had not been quite satisfied with the circumstances attending that visit, but from Inspector Chandler's tone and manner, he had himself apparently no doubt that this young man's evidence was reliable.

So Baxter determined Richardson's reliability as a witness, by reading the tone and manner of the inspector who questioned him.
Does that sound odd to you?

The whole sentece as such sounds odd to me. It produces a picture of Baxter doubting Richardson, and Chandler pushing the idea that Richardson was a truthful guy. But what Chandler was told deviates from what Baxter was told, and that opens up a gap that should never open up with truthful guys testifying.

[Fisherman]

No, you don't have to accept that this sighting was of Chapman. This story has several issues, after all. But the fact that - without even knowing what the evidence was - you declared that she was already dead by 5am shows that you are not open even to the possibility that she was still alive.

Openmindedness is a good thing when it keeps fruitful paths of investigation open, Joshua. When it allows for completely unlikely scenarios to take oxygen away from the investigations, it is a less good thing.

To a degree, there is a sort of comradery out here, in spite of all the disagreements we have. In a way, that´s good. But I have never endorsed the idea that anybody´s theory is as good as anybody´s else, other than on a very general level. Once we look into these ideas we will find that some of them are not very good and likely ideas. The idea that Annie Chapman would have exhibited four different kinds of medical deviations that allowed her body to react in a way that is in total opposition to how it should have reacted is one such idea. It originated with coroner Baxters desire to be able to make ends meet and be able to serve up some sort of "truth" that involved all of the witnesses being correct and the doctor supposedly allowing for Chapman having cooled down totally during her fall from an upright to a lying position. Baxter had to bend and distort and even lie to reach his aim, and I think he did the Ripper research field a great disservice when succumbing to this desire of his.

Now, I could tell you that my joke about dead people being served in a pub was nothing more than a diversion, meant to put a smile on your face. And it would be true to a degree. But when it comes to the question about whether I have a made up mind about the possibility that Long and Cadosch saw and heard Chapman, the answer is a thunderous yes; I am a hundred per cent certain that they never saw or heard Chapman alive.

Of course, that was 5.20-5.30, and so when we step back in time, the hundred per cent certainty that Chapman was dead tapers off alongside that process. Was she dead at 2 AM? I dont think so. 3 AM? Possibly, but not necessarily. 4 AM? Yes, I think she was dead at that stage, but I am not a hundred per cent. And so on. However, once we move to 5 AM, I would say that I have no doubt at all that she was dead. Whoever the people at the Ten Bells saw, it was not Annie Chapman drinking. You will be aware that Phillips said that he was convinced that Chapman had not had any strong alcohol for some hours before her death. If she had had a beer half an hour before she died, Phillips would have known. So this becomes yet another point where Chapmans body would supposedly have reacted medically in a way that is totally unexpected, if she was somehow able to spirit away (excuse the pun) any alcohol without any traces. Presumably, this very point will lie behind why the idea that she was partying at the Ten Bells at 5 Am never gained any traction.

So there you have it, Joshua. I´m happy to keep an open mind on most things, I consider it each and everybody´s duty to do so - but we are absolved from that duty when there is evidence enough to allow for it. In this case, I find there is. Those who disagree will call me hypocritical, those who agree will call the ones who call me hypocritical wrong. That´s how it goes and I am prepared to live with it. In the end, we must all make our own calls.

[harry]

The Baron.
What Chandler said was,"If he (Richardson ) were on the top step".Take note of the'if',it doesn't equate,or conflict, with the evidence of Richardson,or of anyone else.
Richardson's evidence is that he (Richardson) sat on the middle step.Richardson states it as fact .Chandler is offering a situation that isn't supported by evidence.
Now although Chandler may be correct, I doubt it as most of the body would have extended well beyond the door's edge,Richardson's evidence supports a line of vision that is well below a person standing at the yard entrance,and that supports Richardson's claim there was no body there.

[Kattrup]

Thanks Kattrup, but that doesn't answer my question.


The Baron

Ok. I thought it did, but perhaps I missed something.
never mind then

[The Baron]

There were two sets of stairs, or steps rather. One leading from the passageway down into the courtyard. And a second set leading from the courtyard into the cellar.

As Joshua Rogan's quote makes clear, and as Richardson himself made clear, Richardson did not go into the cellar or down the stairs leading into the cellar.

He sat down on the steps leading into the courtyard, from which place he could not have failed to see Chapman's body, had it been there. It was not.

Thanks Kattrup, but that doesn't answer my question.


The Baron

[Kattrup]

You like the third person record more than the first person's, huh Joshua?!

Good, so explain this from your quote:

He went to the top



The Baron

There were two sets of stairs, or steps rather. One leading from the passageway down into the courtyard. And a second set leading from the courtyard into the cellar.

As Joshua Rogan's quote makes clear, and as Richardson himself made clear, Richardson did not go into the cellar or down the stairs leading into the cellar.

He sat down on the steps leading into the courtyard, from which place he could not have failed to see Chapman's body, had it been there. It was not.

[The Baron]

And since we are at it Joshua, why did you ignore the possibility that Richardson may have stolen the rings from the woman?


Huh?


The Baron

[The Baron]

Or, as another paper recorded;

"Witness told him that he did not go to the bottom of the steps leading to the cellar. He went to the top, and looked down."

You like the third person record more than the first person's, huh Joshua?!

Good, so explain this from your quote:

He went to the top



The Baron

[Abby Normal]

No he wasn't instructed. He wasn't necessarily expected to check it by his mother. He only says he'd taken to looking in on the lock on market days on his way to work.

It wouldn't have bothered his mother a jot if he hadn't come that morning to check the padlock. Even less so if it didn't happen to be a market day.

bingo. I like the way your analytical mind works curious. again you are correct. as i posted earlier, if anything she probably would have been releived if her son had skipped checking the cellar that day.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

So what Chandler relied upon was that Richardson had only gone to the top of the steps, in which case it was very possible to miss out on Chapmans body.

A cursory glance at the cellar door from the top step, might have resulted in Richardson missing the body.
It's possible, but then the boot cutting exercise would have to be a lie, or at best, "borrowed" from a prior day.
It seems to be a lie to some extent regardless, as Richardson admits the knife wasn't sharp enough to do the job he had said it did.

So what's going on here? Why is Richardson putting himself "in the thick of it", by telling the rabbit/knife/stairs/boot story?
Why does he not just say he only glanced at the cellar from the top step, and therefore probably missed the body?
A plausible explanation might be; embarrassment - Richardson is too embarrassed to admit that he came within a few feet of the body, but did not notice it.
He needs a story that keeps him at the steps a while longer, and in a position from which he cannot possibly miss the body - the middle step - so that the world knows he wasn't the dunce that missed seeing a mutilated body, when in close proximity to it.

The Coroner closely questioned the inspector as to the visit of young Mr. Richardson to the backyard in Hanbury-street. Evidently Mr. Baxter had not been quite satisfied with the circumstances attending that visit, but from Inspector Chandler's tone and manner, he had himself apparently no doubt that this young man's evidence was reliable.

So Baxter determined Richardson's reliability as a witness, by reading the tone and manner of the inspector who questioned him.
Does that sound odd to you?

[Joshua Rogan]

Does "open minded" mean that I must accept that it was Chapman in the Ten Bells, or only that it can´t be proven either way - and that the police and papers worked from the assumption that she was not seen?

No, you don't have to accept that this sighting was of Chapman. This story has several issues, after all. But the fact that - without even knowing what the evidence was - you declared that she was already dead by 5am shows that you are not open even to the possibility that she was still alive.

[Fisherman]

Got it, Joshua:

"Later that day one of the bar staff at the Ten Bells pub, at the junction of Commercial Street and Church Street (today’s Fournier Street), told a journalist that a woman answering Annie Chapman's description had stopped in for a drink at around 5am, when a man in a "little skull cap" popped his head round the door and called her out. The veracity of this sighting is difficult to ascertain."

There is no hard evidence telling us that she was spotted alive after 1.35. Of course, many sightings will have been made of people who somewhat resembled her, the pub people will not have been the only ones, reasonable. There was a case with two killed girls in the US in the fifties or sixties, who had been dead for many weeks when they were found in thawing snow. During these weeks, they had been "sighted" in dozens of spots, all over America.

Does "open minded" mean that I must accept that it was Chapman in the Ten Bells, or only that it can´t be proven either way - and that the police and papers worked from the assumption that she was not seen?

[Joshua Rogan]

Who was the observer, Joshua? How credible was he or she? Chapman was dead at that time. Did they serve dead people in pubs back then?

So much for your open minded approach.

[Fisherman]

I've posted this before, but Chandler apparently gave every appearance of believing Richardson;

Daily News 14 Sept
"from Inspector Chandler's tone and manner, he had himself apparently no doubt that this young man's evidence was reliable"

Here´s a bit more flesh on the bones, same quotation:

"Inspector Chandler quietly doled out to the Coroner, sentence by sentence, an account of what he and the constables under his direction had done, Mr. Baxter writing it all down pretty much as it was dictated to him. A few questions were put to the inspector, especially with regard to the blood stains alleged to have been found on the neighbouring fences, as though somebody with blood upon him had been getting over. Both the inspector and afterwards Mr. Phillips, the divisional surgeon, expressed the belief that the marks observed were not blood stains, though to the untrained eye they might easily be taken for such. The Coroner closely questioned the inspector as to the visit of young Mr. Richardson to the backyard in Hanbury-street. Evidently Mr. Baxter had not been quite satisfied with the circumstances attending that visit, but from Inspector Chandler's tone and manner, he had himself apparently no doubt that this young man's evidence was reliable. The jury questioned the police-officer with the view of ascertaining whether it may have been possible that when Richardson went to the yard the body might have been laying there without his perceiving it. The inspector thought that it was very possible if he had only gone to the top of the steps. In that case, as the door opened outwards, it might have concealed the body behind it."

So what Chandler relied upon was that Richardson had only gone to the top of the steps, in which case it was very possible to miss out on Chapmans body.