Richardson's View

[Fisherman]

I wonder why I called you ‘gloating?’ Maybe it’s because there, in black and white, you were gloating. Now we’ve got that little mystery cleared up....

You called me gloating because you dislike being told that you are wrong. That, at least, is my take on things. That is probably why you speak of all those experts who supposedly pointed me out as being wrong and you as being correct, forgetting in the process that one must understand what an expert says before he or she can be used to oneīs advantage. And you must forgive me for pointing out that this was what your parade of experts amounted to; a sad line of people you misunderstood and misinterpreted, and - yes - gloated about. Which made the exercise so much sadder.

No expert is going to tell you that a body that has lost more or less all itīs warmth, that has onsetting rigor in cold conditions, that has well clotted blood around it and that has a stomach full of food that has been subjected to gastric acid for hours will only have been dead for between 45 minutes and an hour. Experts do not provide that kind of service, and there is a reason for it.

You don’t listen Fish. I’ve repeatedly said that almost anything is possible. Of course Richardson ‘could’ have been wrong or lying like any witness could.

Good. You are beginning to see some sense at long last.

Phillips on the other hand is touched with almost Papal Infallibility according to you.

Actually, no. Of course, if any medico of the era should be respected, Phillips is a good choice, given his experience. However, it is not Phillips I put my trust in, it is his findings. There WAS onsetting rigor in the limbs, it is not as if he thought that up for fun. There was only a little heat remaining, that was not an invention of his. The blood WAS well clotted, it is not as if he tricked us by stating this. And the food in Chapmans stomach WAS in a state that pointed to a longish time of digestion.
I do not put my trust in a person, I put my trust in medical science. You are the one who rely on a person, on amateur witness testimony, definitely not me!

To illustrate how distorting this debate can be I recall Trevor on the other thread saying something like ‘yes Phillips estimate was unreliable but I still back him over the witnesses!’ That’s the kind of logic that we have here.

I would appreciate if you responded to my points only. What Trevor says stands for him, not for me. The crux of the matter is that the feeling for warmth method IS unreliable, but not THAT unreliable. And regardless of how unreliable it is, there are three more parameters to lean against in the medical verdict, ALL of them pointing to an early death. How a flimsy witness like Richardson is supposed to compete with that is wayyyy beyond me.

I could respond to your points individually but its pointless. You want Phillips to be right so you simply stonewall.

No, Herlock, it is not as if Phillips verdict needs any support in the shape of me "wanting" it to be correct. There are too many corresponding factors for it NOT to be correct. And that is regardless of what I supposedly want or not. Itīs beyond such matters.

Iīll tell you what: I am a hundred per cent certain that Chapman was not seen or heard by either Cadosch or Long. I am very much inclined to think that she was in the yard at 4.45 too, but not as certain as I am about Long and Cadosch. I am nevertheless willing to accept a fifty/fifty decision between you and me. If you accept that it could be either or and that no side has the advantage, Iīll accept the same in my discussions with you, and so we can let this go.
Deal?

[Herlock Sholmes]

We have this:

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.

Chandler was in a better position to judge this than you


The Baron

Nice bit of selective quoting Baron. Desperate as ever.

The Telegraph records that as coming from The Jury but The Times is more specific and says The Foreman.

Chandler himself simply said that Richardson didn’t mention working on his boot. There’s a big difference.

~~~~

And as Richardson is described by some as ‘unreliable’ it’s said that he should be trusted over Richardson on whether he mentioned this or not. You’ve even tried using epilepsy as stick to beat him with even though it’s not certain that he suffered from it.

Inspector Chandler was a paragon of virtue though. Err......

[/QUOTE]. Joseph Chandler was demoted to Sergeant in 1892 as a consequence of being drunk on duty. [/CODE]

But it only counts when it comes to witnesses of course. I nearly forgot the rules.

[Joshua Rogan]

We have this:

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.


Chandler was in a better position to judge this than you

Daily News 14 Sept
"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."

[Fisherman]

And Phillips was doubted by the Coroner.

... who had no or little idea about medical science, but a great wish to make ends meet. That is the nature of a coronerīs work.

[Herlock Sholmes]

. Richardson was disbelieved by the police.

And Phillips was doubted by the Coroner.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Richardson was disbelieved by the police. He gave different versions of what he had done.

But he cannot have been wrong, he had no reason to lie, and his testimony trumps any medical evidence that is in disagreement with what he said.

That is your line of investigation, Herlock. Maybe you should let that sink in before you call me gloating and wawing an empty sack.

You need to sit down and think things over. In the best of worlds, it may save you further embarrasment.

I wonder why I called you ‘gloating?’ Maybe it’s because there, in black and white, you were gloating. Now we’ve got that little mystery cleared up....

You don’t listen Fish. I’ve repeatedly said that almost anything is possible. Of course Richardson ‘could’ have been wrong or lying like any witness could. Phillips on the other hand is touched with almost Papal Infallibility according to you. To illustrate how distorting this debate can be I recall Trevor on the other thread saying something like ‘yes Phillips estimate was unreliable but I still back him over the witnesses!’ That’s the kind of logic that we have here.

I could respond to your points individually but its pointless. You want Phillips to be right so you simply stonewall.

[Fisherman]

Fish, you lost this argument months ago over the space of around a week where you wriggled embarrassingly on the hook in the face of a Mount Everest of evidence showing the inaccuracy of TOD estimates. I seem to recall one expert using the phrase ‘wildly inaccurate.’ I also recall one expert, wasn’t it Jason Payne-Jones (the guy you used in your documentary?) saying that these methods shouldn’t be relied upon. But you kept wriggling and distorting and performing contortion after contortion in the face of expert testimony. So no, I don’t feel anything slipping away. I’m quite happy to let all of that expert opinion stand. I also seem to recall posters Elamarna and Sam (both of whom I believe have medical backgrounds) and others who all disagreed with you. But you are just desperate to have Phillips correct. I wonder why?

And so we are left, at best, with a doctors TOD which may or may not have been correct. And as we can’t go back in time to the crime scene I fail to see how this helps.

But we have witnesses (those people that are always unreliable according to Trevor) that we can evaluate. Three of them who all contradict the doctor and two who contradict each other by the hardly disastrous (in Victorian times) 15 minutes. Richardson has to be a moron who couldn’t deduce that a door might impede his view of a corpse and who opened a door, went down a couple of steps holding a door open and then sat on a step rigidly facing right. Or Cadosch hearing a ‘no’ from 20 yards away and mistaking it for 2 feet away. He then ‘imagines’ a noise against a fence, again a matter of less than 6 feet away. Either that or the noise was made by someone else that didn’t see the corpse or perhaps a particularly heavy and clumsy cat (or maybe it was the rabbit Baron?)

So no, I see nothing ‘slipping away.’ The reasoned, calm, common sense view is that the likelihood is that Annie wasn’t there at 4.45. Notice that I say likelihood btw.

So so you can continue your silly gloating whilst waiving your empty sack. I’m used to your methods by now Fish.

Richardson was disbelieved by the police. He gave different versions of what he had done.

But he cannot have been wrong, he had no reason to lie, and his testimony trumps any medical evidence that is in disagreement with what he said.

That is your line of investigation, Herlock. Maybe you should let that sink in before you call me gloating and wawing an empty sack.

You need to sit down and think things over. In the best of worlds, it may save you further embarrasment.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Cadosch does not have to be dismissed. He never saw or identified Chapman, so what he heard or thought he heard may have been anybody or anything. Itīs Long we should dismiss.

Can you feel it slipping through your fingers yet? No?

Fish, you lost this argument months ago over the space of around a week where you wriggled embarrassingly on the hook in the face of a Mount Everest of evidence showing the inaccuracy of TOD estimates. I seem to recall one expert using the phrase ‘wildly inaccurate.’ I also recall one expert, wasn’t it Jason Payne-Jones (the guy you used in your documentary?) saying that these methods shouldn’t be relied upon. But you kept wriggling and distorting and performing contortion after contortion in the face of expert testimony. So no, I don’t feel anything slipping away. I’m quite happy to let all of that expert opinion stand. I also seem to recall posters Elamarna and Sam (both of whom I believe have medical backgrounds) and others who all disagreed with you. But you are just desperate to have Phillips correct. I wonder why?

And so we are left, at best, with a doctors TOD which may or may not have been correct. And as we can’t go back in time to the crime scene I fail to see how this helps.

But we have witnesses (those people that are always unreliable according to Trevor) that we can evaluate. Three of them who all contradict the doctor and two who contradict each other by the hardly disastrous (in Victorian times) 15 minutes. Richardson has to be a moron who couldn’t deduce that a door might impede his view of a corpse and who opened a door, went down a couple of steps holding a door open and then sat on a step rigidly facing right. Or Cadosch hearing a ‘no’ from 20 yards away and mistaking it for 2 feet away. He then ‘imagines’ a noise against a fence, again a matter of less than 6 feet away. Either that or the noise was made by someone else that didn’t see the corpse or perhaps a particularly heavy and clumsy cat (or maybe it was the rabbit Baron?)

So no, I see nothing ‘slipping away.’ The reasoned, calm, common sense view is that the likelihood is that Annie wasn’t there at 4.45. Notice that I say likelihood btw.

So so you can continue your silly gloating whilst waiving your empty sack. I’m used to your methods by now Fish.

[Fisherman]

You have a point, Trevor:

From the net:

"Eyewitnesses statements often play a vital role in securing criminal convictions – police surveys show that eyewitness testimony is the main form of evidence in more than 20% of cases. But that doesn’t mean the evidence is always reliable.

In fact research shows that 75% of false convictions are caused by a inaccurate eyewitness statement. This means up to 100 innocent people could be wrongfully convicted each year of a violent or sexual crime in the UK because of these false eyewitnesses."
Link: https://theconversation.com/new-rese...itnesses-67663

and

"SUGGESTED LESSON PLAN
Eyewitness testimony is historically among the most convincing forms of evidence in criminal trials (e.g. Benton, Ross, Bradshaw, Thomas, & Bradshaw, 2006). Probably only a suspect’s signed confession can further convince a jury about that individual’s guilt. That iconic moment when a testifying witness points to the defendant as the perpetrator of the crime is iconic, and has been dramatized often on television and movies. It is easy to understand why it is so convincing. We trust our own perception and experience. “I’ll believe it when I see it” isn’t just a cliché, it is a statement of the most persuasive form of evidence we allow.

But being convincing isn’t the same as being accurate. Eyewitness testimony is more fallible than many people assume. The advent of DNA analysis in the late 1980s revolutionized forensic science, providing an unprecedented level of accuracy about the identity of actual perpetrators versus innocent people falsely accused of crime. DNA testing led to the review of many settled cases. According to the Innocence Project , 358 people who had been convicted and sentenced to death since 1989 have been exonerated through DNA evidence. Of these, 71% had been convicted through eyewitness misidentification and had served an average of 14 years in prison before exoneration. Of those false identifications, 41% involved cross-racial misidentifications (221 of the 358 people were African American). And 28% of the cases involved a false confession.

The claim that eyewitness testimony is reliable and accurate is testable, and the research is clear that eyewitness identification is vulnerable to distortion without the witness’s awareness. More specifically, the assumption that memory provides an accurate recording of experience, much like a video camera, is incorrect. Memory evolved to give us a personal sense of identity and to guide our actions. We are biased to notice and exaggerate some experiences and to minimize or overlook others. Memory is malleable.

Why the Myth Persists
So why, despite all the news about misidentifications and wrongful convictions, do people continue to put such profound faith in eyewitness testimony?

Several reasons are likely. First, in popular media and literatary depictions, detectives (for example, Sherlock Holmes) and witnesses possess highly detailed and accurate memories. Second, crimes and accidents are unusual, distinctive, often stressful, and even terrifying events, and people believe those events therefore should automatically be memorable. In fact, stress and terror can actually inhibit memory formation, and memories continue to be constructed after the originating event on the basis of information learned afterward. People underestimate how quickly forgetting can take place. Third, eyewitnesses are often sincere and confident, which makes them persuasive but not necessarily correct. Memory distortion often happens unconsciously. Witnesses truly believe their version of events, no matter how inaccurate they may be."
Link: https://www.psychologicalscience.org...-evidence.html

and

It’s human nature to report what we see and remember. Not surprisingly, criminal investigations and prosecutions have long relied upon the accounts of eyewitnesses. In adjudication, judges and juries have similarly long embraced self-assured reports of what was seen. This bubble of complacency has been burst in recent years, however, by two pointed facts: (i) postconviction DNA analyses reveal that eyewitnesses sometimes identify the wrong people, and (ii) the sciences of vision and memory indicate that wrongful conviction based on eyewitness testimony is likely a priori, given conditions of uncertainty, bias, and overconfidence. The NAS report on eyewitness identification (4) has led to practical reforms (25), but the larger message of the report is the promise of a long-overdue partnership between science and law. This is a case in which modern science is now having a profound influence over a critical matter of public policy, legal practice, and judicial standards, and in doing so brings our society to a place of greater justice.
Link: https://www.pnas.org/content/114/30/7758

The green underlined wording is my work, by the way. So are the purple ones.

[Trevor Marriott]

By NBFN

JR: By the Jury: My mother has heard me speak of people having been in the house. She has heard them herself.

Really?

Coroner: Did you ever know of strange women being found on the first-floor landing?
Mrs. R.: No.
Coroner: Your son had never spoken to you about it?
Mrs. R.: No.

Seems he lied about that too. Either that or Mrs. Richardson had a really bad memory.
Does this sound like someone suffering from poor memory?...

As per the quote above it appears that Richardson mentioned people. But Mrs Richardson was asked specifically about women. Isn’t it possible that she just went on the defensive when women were specifically mentioned with the association of immoral purposes?

In your later post you quote this:

WB: You always hear people going to the back-yard?
AR: Yes; people frequently do go through.
WB: People go there who have no business to do so?
AR: Yes; I daresay they do.

Here is Mrs Richardson admitted that people go through to the yard who have no business to do so.

If Chapman was loitering for the purposes of prostitution in that location, and at that later time of the morning, no one came forward to having seen her or any other female, bearing in mind that had she been so, as likely as not she would have propositioned almost every male that had a pulse who passed by and yet no one came forward having seen her or any other female soliciting.

On another point do you have any evidence to show that prostitutes were still plying their trade as late or as early as 5am?

I presume it would have been standard police procedure to ask if anyone was in that vicinity at 5am as it would be the case today, but I have seen no evidence to show that, so perhaps the police believed the TOD was as Phillips had stated.

I think you need to take a step back and be not so insistent that all the witness testimony you so doggedly rely on is safe to rely on.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[The Baron]

Unfortunately the main piece of inconvenient information that people are dismissing is the fact that Richardson said that - he could not have missed the body had it been there. That is the most relevant point. He knew exactly where the body was and how much floor space it took up and the position he took on the step and how light or dark it was and what areas of the yard he could or could not see. He had no reason to lie on that particular issue. And what do we have against this.

We have this:

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.


Chandler was in a better position to judge this than you



The Baron

[etenguy]

By NBFN

JR: By the Jury: My mother has heard me speak of people having been in the house. She has heard them herself.

Really?

Coroner: Did you ever know of strange women being found on the first-floor landing?
Mrs. R.: No.
Coroner: Your son had never spoken to you about it?
Mrs. R.: No.

Seems he lied about that too. Either that or Mrs. Richardson had a really bad memory.
Does this sound like someone suffering from poor memory?...

As per the quote above it appears that Richardson mentioned people. But Mrs Richardson was asked specifically about women. Isn’t it possible that she just went on the defensive when women were specifically mentioned with the association of immoral purposes?

In your later post you quote this:

WB: You always hear people going to the back-yard?
AR: Yes; people frequently do go through.
WB: People go there who have no business to do so?
AR: Yes; I daresay they do.

Here is Mrs Richardson admitted that people go through to the yard who have no business to do so.

You seem to have hit on a Richardson family trait.

[Herlock Sholmes]

By NBFN

JR: By the Jury: My mother has heard me speak of people having been in the house. She has heard them herself.

Really?

Coroner: Did you ever know of strange women being found on the first-floor landing?
Mrs. R.: No.
Coroner: Your son had never spoken to you about it?
Mrs. R.: No.

Seems he lied about that too. Either that or Mrs. Richardson had a really bad memory.
Does this sound like someone suffering from poor memory?...

As per the quote above it appears that Richardson mentioned people. But Mrs Richardson was asked specifically about women. Isn’t it possible that she just went on the defensive when women were specifically mentioned with the association of immoral purposes?

In your later post you quote this:

WB: You always hear people going to the back-yard?
AR: Yes; people frequently do go through.
WB: People go there who have no business to do so?
AR: Yes; I daresay they do.

Here is Mrs Richardson admitted that people go through to the yard who have no business to do so.

[Fisherman]

I have forgotten, Herlock, how do you explain away the onsetting rigor less than an hour after death? Was it some tropical ailment? It CAN happen, sort of?

And the food digestion? Maybe she had the gastric juices of a seagull? Or? It CAN happen?

And why is it that Phillips speaks of well clotted blood? Which he will have tested in situ? Is he frightened to be revealed by you as a toss-up medico, having no idea what he is doing? It CAN dry very quickly?

Why are all four parameters in sync with an early time of death when you know that she must have died at 5.30 at the earliest? And when you have proven me wrong, time and time again (ehrm ...)?

Why is it that these parameters are all in support of an early TOD? Is it ... you know ... well ... just coincidence?

[Fisherman]

Unfortunately the main piece of ‘inconvenient ‘ information that people are dismissing is the fact that Richardson said that - he could not have missed the body had it been there.

I donīt think anybody has dismissed that he said so, Herlock. The problem is another one - you diosmissing that he could have been wrong about it or that he may even have misiformed the police. Whow doubted the veracity of Ricardson on very fair grounds.
So you are wrong on this point.

That is the most relevant point.

Only if it is true, Iīm afraid. Otherwise it is the most irrelevant one.

He knew exactly where the body was and how much floor space it took up and the position he took on the step and how light or dark it was and what areas of the yard he could or could not see.

Yes, he did. After having looked at it, he would, sort of.

He had no reason to lie on that particular issue.

No particular reason? And people with no particular reason to lie, donīt do so? Ever? In high profile murder cases? And you KNOW that he felt he had no reason? Or is it a case of you not being able to identify any reason for him?

And what do we have against this. Disputed wording, rabbits and an unreliable TOD estimation.

Unreliable according to you. Not according to me. Nowhere near it.

And then, even worse we have the frankly desperate attempt to dismiss Cadosch. A sensible sounding and cautious witness. Is it likely that a word emanating from a couple of feet away could actually have come from yards away? We should dismiss all of this blather and say no of course it’s not. This was obviously Cadosch being over cautious when pressed. Then he heard a noise. ( Oh of course he was lying according to Fish) but if he wasn’t then will someone please - and I’ve asked this a few times - tell us what else it could have been if Annie was already dead?

Cadosch does not have to be dismissed. He never saw or identified Chapman, so what he heard or thought he heard may have been anybody or anything. Itīs Long we should dismiss.

Can you feel it slipping through your fingers yet? No?