Richardson's View

[etenguy]

hi herlock



i guess its possible, but he said this-"after cutting the leather off my boot I tied my boot up, and went out of the house into the market."

its only after the coroner makes him get the blunt knife he said he used, examined it and said it couldnt cut leather does richardson then admit he used the sharper one at the market.

to me it seems like he just dosnt want to admit he had the sharp knife on him the whole time. but again yes-it seems weird they would drop the whole thing even after they discovered the discrepency.

Hi Abby and Herlock

I agree with you Abby, he contradicts himself at the inquest and then brings a knife that he apparently didn't use instead of bringing the one he did use, which is what was asked for. It could be he was worried about bringing a sharp knife to the inquest or some other reason - but the fact that he appears to have lied at the inquest from discrepancies in his own statements means his credibility is in question.

I would add, his keeping a rabbit and feeding it before he goes to work does not cast any shade on his character.

[Kattrup]

There’s nothing odd about a man keeping a rabbit. I don’t know if he had kids for example?

Keeping a rabbit?...

Yes. Rabbits are kept as pets. Why do you think this strange?

Rabbits were not kept exclusively as pets, they were also kept for their meat. Richardson may have kept a rabbit for that purpose.

[barnflatwyngarde]

Unfortunately, there was no back wall, at least not one that could be clambered over. The yard of number 29 backed directly onto the wall of a factory.
There was an alley behind some of the other houses, but it ended at no.27, so he would have had to climb into Cadosche's yard to access it. Or perhaps clambered over the fence the other side and escaped thrrough that house. The police did check for any signs that the fences had been scaled though, and found none.

Hi Joshua, Thanks for this clarification.
I confess that I didn't know that the yard at 29 backed directly onto a factory wall.
I remember seeing an old photograph of the virtually demolished privy in the yard of 29 Hanbury Street and I didn't see that it backed on to a wall.

It is always a positive thing when perceptions are challenged, so, thanks again.

[Abby Normal]

The main issue about the knife appears to be when Richardson says that he used it to cut some leather from his boot but then, when he produces the knife and it’s not very sharp, he said that he’d had to get a sharper one at the market. Or words to that effect. I agree 100% that it appears to make no sense.

It so obviously makes no sense that I can’t help asking myself why no one pulled him up on this issue at the time? For eg: “Hold on, you said you’d used your knife to fix you shoe so why did you need another one at the market?”

Its an unmissable point.....no one mentions it.....so couldn’t the explanation be a simpler one. Some kind of reporting/transcription error? Maybe he’d said something like: “I cut some leather from my boot but I couldn’t cut enough off so I needed a sharper knife.” Isn’t it possible that at some point a few words or a sentence was omitted from the transcript which would have provided the explanation? Isn’t that more likely than everyone completely missing this anomaly?

So this would leave us with Richardson feeding his rabbit in his yard before he left for work. Then either, a) he puts the knife in his pocket intending to put it back in a drawer in the house but forgets to do so. Or b) he puts it into his pocket as he usually does but he doesn’t tell the police that he’s in the habit of carrying a knife.
As he walks to work his boot begins to hurt so realising that he has a knife on him he decides to try and fix his boot at number 29 rather than wait until he gets to the market.
He sits on the step and cuts some leather from his boot thinking that he’s done enough but as he continues his walk to work he finds that his boot is still hurting him so he borrows a sharper knife from a mate at the market.
When he relates this at the Inquest an error in transcription makes a very simple episode seem to make no sense.

What I think might also be worth mentioning is that Richardson wasn’t compelled to mention the knife to justify him sitting on the step. He could very easily have said “I sat on the step for a smoke of my pipe for 2 or 3 minutes.” But he mentions having a knife at a knife-related crime scene of his own volition. I’d say this adds to his believability. He mentioned using the knife on his boot because that’s exactly what he did.
I see zero reason to doubt Richardson when he said that he could not have missed the body had it been there.

hi herlock

Its an unmissable point.....no one mentions it.....so couldn’t the explanation be a simpler one. Some kind of reporting/transcription error? Maybe he’d said something like: “I cut some leather from my boot but I couldn’t cut enough off so I needed a sharper knife.” Isn’t it possible that at some point a few words or a sentence was omitted from the transcript which would have provided the explanation? Isn’t that more likely than everyone completely missing this anomaly?

i guess its possible, but he said this-"after cutting the leather off my boot I tied my boot up, and went out of the house into the market."

its only after the coroner makes him get the blunt knife he said he used, examined it and said it couldnt cut leather does richardson then admit he used the sharper one at the market.

to me it seems like he just dosnt want to admit he had the sharp knife on him the whole time. but again yes-it seems weird they would drop the whole thing even after they discovered the discrepency.

[Abby Normal]

The other side of that coin is; if the knife had been able to cut the leather, what happened to the piece of leather removed?
Does Richardson mention borrowing a sharper knife at the market, because he knows that no bit of leather can be found, at #29?



Because as explained in #324, JR doesn't need to mention the boot cutting exercise at all (the cellar check alone, would be adequate).
So why does he?

And why the discrepancy between this...

Have you ever seen strangers there? -Lots plenty of them.

At all hours? -Yes ; both men and women.

Have you asked what they were doing there? -Yes ; and I have turned them out.

The Coroner. -Do I understand you mean that they go there for an immoral purpose?

Witness. -Yes, sir ; I have caught them in the act.

And this...

Mrs. Richardson, recalled, stated in answer to the coroner, that she had seldom had anything stolen from the premises, notwithstanding the doors being left open or unlocked. She did miss ham once. She never had any suspicion that the yard was used at any time for immoral purposes.

Perhaps Richardson wasn't seen with the knife, but actually seen out the front, with the victim .... by Elizabeth Long.

hmm interesting. but would the ripper actually kill on his own doorstep? I think not.

while I agree richardson (and the other witness suspects like hutch, lech and bowyer) have red flags and are some of the least weak suspects , I think with richardson, he just was reluctant to admit he was at the scene of the crime with a sharp knife and got twisted up when pressed by the coroner.

In all likelihood he was there, chapman wasnt yet, and cadosch and long heard and saw chapman with the ripper.

so you think richardson was the ripper?

[Herlock Sholmes]

The main issue about the knife appears to be when Richardson says that he used it to cut some leather from his boot but then, when he produces the knife and it’s not very sharp, he said that he’d had to get a sharper one at the market. Or words to that effect. I agree 100% that it appears to make no sense.

It so obviously makes no sense that I can’t help asking myself why no one pulled him up on this issue at the time? For eg: “Hold on, you said you’d used your knife to fix you shoe so why did you need another one at the market?”

Its an unmissable point.....no one mentions it.....so couldn’t the explanation be a simpler one. Some kind of reporting/transcription error? Maybe he’d said something like: “I cut some leather from my boot but I couldn’t cut enough off so I needed a sharper knife.” Isn’t it possible that at some point a few words or a sentence was omitted from the transcript which would have provided the explanation? Isn’t that more likely than everyone completely missing this anomaly?

So this would leave us with Richardson feeding his rabbit in his yard before he left for work. Then either, a) he puts the knife in his pocket intending to put it back in a drawer in the house but forgets to do so. Or b) he puts it into his pocket as he usually does but he doesn’t tell the police that he’s in the habit of carrying a knife.
As he walks to work his boot begins to hurt so realising that he has a knife on him he decides to try and fix his boot at number 29 rather than wait until he gets to the market.
He sits on the step and cuts some leather from his boot thinking that he’s done enough but as he continues his walk to work he finds that his boot is still hurting him so he borrows a sharper knife from a mate at the market.
When he relates this at the Inquest an error in transcription makes a very simple episode seem to make no sense.

What I think might also be worth mentioning is that Richardson wasn’t compelled to mention the knife to justify him sitting on the step. He could very easily have said “I sat on the step for a smoke of my pipe for 2 or 3 minutes.” But he mentions having a knife at a knife-related crime scene of his own volition. I’d say this adds to his believability. He mentioned using the knife on his boot because that’s exactly what he did.
I see zero reason to doubt Richardson when he said that he could not have missed the body had it been there.

[Abby Normal]

Is anyone else experiencing problems accessing the witness statements on casebook? I can get to some but others are coming up as a 404 error. John Richardson is one of them so I only have the Sourcebook version which doesn’t go into the points about the knife as much as the other as far as I can recall?

yup. do a search instead-worked for me

[NotBlamedForNothing]

hi not
i agree the whole jr knife, rabbit story is rather odd. one thing i noticed. if the knife he had was unable to cut a piece of leather, would it have been able to cut up a carrot?

The other side of that coin is; if the knife had been able to cut the leather, what happened to the piece of leather removed?
Does Richardson mention borrowing a sharper knife at the market, because he knows that no bit of leather can be found, at #29?

Not, why do you think someone saw him there with the knife and who is it?

Because as explained in #324, JR doesn't need to mention the boot cutting exercise at all (the cellar check alone, would be adequate).
So why does he?

And why the discrepancy between this...

Have you ever seen strangers there? -Lots plenty of them.

At all hours? -Yes ; both men and women.

Have you asked what they were doing there? -Yes ; and I have turned them out.

The Coroner. -Do I understand you mean that they go there for an immoral purpose?

Witness. -Yes, sir ; I have caught them in the act.

And this...

Mrs. Richardson, recalled, stated in answer to the coroner, that she had seldom had anything stolen from the premises, notwithstanding the doors being left open or unlocked. She did miss ham once. She never had any suspicion that the yard was used at any time for immoral purposes.

Perhaps Richardson wasn't seen with the knife, but actually seen out the front, with the victim .... by Elizabeth Long.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Is anyone else experiencing problems accessing the witness statements on casebook? I can get to some but others are coming up as a 404 error. John Richardson is one of them so I only have the Sourcebook version which doesn’t go into the points about the knife as much as the other as far as I can recall?

[Chava]

Has anyone seen how Cadosch described the word 'no' he heard - as a shout or a scream or something else. At the inquest he simply said he heard a voice say no - not even whether it was a male or female voice.

Yep. My point exactly. It's certainly possible the voice he heard was Chapman. But it comes from 'the yard' of 29. Maybe. She would have been right by him at that moment. I can't believe he wouldn't have mentioned that. His evidence suggests he heard a voice from in the yard, not right beside the fence he is also right beside...

[Herlock Sholmes]

Re #379

I think it is NFN. He’s saying that no one checks the cellar when he doesn’t go.

Okay, so not even his mother, who we know does go into the cellar (she found his mildewed leather apron there).

She would have seen the cellar door when she got up and began work. Richardson went out of his way to check it And was the only person to do so.


I think you’re overcomplicating. It’s the whip thing all over again I think. He left the house to go to number 29. After he’d set out he found that his boot hurt too much to put up with so he waited until he got to number 29 because it’s a job done easier when sitting.

I'm simply pointing to the coincidence of discovering he needs to remove more leather from the shoe, and then discovering he had put the table knife in his pocket (which he normally does not do).

ok

Btw, the 'whip thing' is not an over-complication - it's an analysis. Not analysing the numbers available is negligent.

ok


I can’t see why it’s important.

You can't see why it's important to know how far open Richardson pushed the door?
I thought that was one of the big issues of this thread.

But as we can’t know which pocket he had the knife in we can’t make a judgment based on it.

Also, I'm raising the possibility that JR stood in the back doorway to observe the cellar padlock, but with knife in hand, and somebody has seen that. Hence all the odd claims. Here's another...

John Richardson (recalled) produced the knife - a much-worn dessert knife - with which he had cut his boot. He added that as it was not sharp enough he had borrowed another one at the market.

Did JR cut leather off his boot while sitting on the step - yes or no?
I can't work this out. Can you?

He said that he did.


There’s nothing odd about a man keeping a rabbit. I don’t know if he had kids for example?

Keeping a rabbit?...

Yes. Rabbits are kept as pets. Why do you think this strange?

JR: I had been feeding a rabbit with a carrot that I had cut up, and I put the knife in my pocket.

He does not say 'my rabbit', or 'our rabbit', he says 'a rabbit'. So does he own this rabbit?

It’s a reasonable assumption as he didn’t say “I fed Bill’s rabbit” or “I found a rabbit in the street and just happened to have some carrots.”


There really is is nothing odd about sitting on a foot high step. I have one in the garden that’s about the same and I occasionally sit on it to smoke my pipe and I’m 6 ft 2.

So am I, but the height of the step is not the main issue - rather it's the awkwardness of not having the door rest against his left thigh.
At the middle step, his thighs would be below the level of the bottom of the door, so the self-closing door would be continually bumping against his left arm.
Why do this when the left hand is needed to hold the boot or wield the knife?
He should have sat on the top step and used his thigh to keep the door in place, but he didn't (or so he says).
Was JR trying too hard to prove that he hadn't seen the body? If yes, why? Did he kill Chapman?

Or did he just push the door back to a position where it stayed in place. Then when he left all he had to do was to touch it past a certain position where it swung closed behind him?


But in the earlier post you said that someone did see him.

What did I then say to contradict that?

In the earlier post you stated as a fact that someone had seen him. That’s why Abby questioned it as I did. Then in the later post you said that someone might have seen him.


If someone had seen a man holding a knife standing on the backdoor step of a yard where a woman had been mutilated why didn’t they come forward? Especially as they would possibly have been able to tell the police “I’ve seen that man there before.”

Probably because no one did see him.

What incentive would they have to come forward? This person might prefer 'the quiet life'.

But what can we gain from your last statement? No one came forward so we have to assume the likeliest. That no one saw him.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Tge rabbit is the key to solve this whole problem.

Feeding a rabbit at 4 am or so ?!



The Baron

I struggle to know if you’re being serious or not? He feeds the rabbit before he goes to work rather than leave it all day without food. What’s strange or questionable about this?

Its little short of staggering that you’re trying to make an issue of feeding a rabbit in some bizarre attempt to discredit Richardson.

Get real Baron.

[Abby Normal]

Re #379

I think it is NFN. He’s saying that no one checks the cellar when he doesn’t go.

Okay, so not even his mother, who we know does go into the cellar (she found his mildewed leather apron there).


I think you’re overcomplicating. It’s the whip thing all over again I think. He left the house to go to number 29. After he’d set out he found that his boot hurt too much to put up with so he waited until he got to number 29 because it’s a job done easier when sitting.

I'm simply pointing to the coincidence of discovering he needs to remove more leather from the shoe, and then discovering he had put the table knife in his pocket (which he normally does not do).

Btw, the 'whip thing' is not an over-complication - it's an analysis. Not analysing the numbers available is negligent.


I can’t see why it’s important.

You can't see why it's important to know how far open Richardson pushed the door?
I thought that was one of the big issues of this thread.

Also, I'm raising the possibility that JR stood in the back doorway to observe the cellar padlock, but with knife in hand, and somebody has seen that. Hence all the odd claims. Here's another...

John Richardson (recalled) produced the knife - a much-worn dessert knife - with which he had cut his boot. He added that as it was not sharp enough he had borrowed another one at the market.

Did JR cut leather off his boot while sitting on the step - yes or no?
I can't work this out. Can you?


There’s nothing odd about a man keeping a rabbit. I don’t know if he had kids for example?

Keeping a rabbit?...

JR: I had been feeding a rabbit with a carrot that I had cut up, and I put the knife in my pocket.

He does not say 'my rabbit', or 'our rabbit', he says 'a rabbit'. So does he own this rabbit?


There really is is nothing odd about sitting on a foot high step. I have one in the garden that’s about the same and I occasionally sit on it to smoke my pipe and I’m 6 ft 2.

So am I, but the height of the step is not the main issue - rather it's the awkwardness of not having the door rest against his left thigh.
At the middle step, his thighs would be below the level of the bottom of the door, so the self-closing door would be continually bumping against his left arm.
Why do this when the left hand is needed to hold the boot or wield the knife?
He should have sat on the top step and used his thigh to keep the door in place, but he didn't (or so he says).
Was JR trying too hard to prove that he hadn't seen the body? If yes, why? Did he kill Chapman?


But in the earlier post you said that someone did see him.

What did I then say to contradict that?


If someone had seen a man holding a knife standing on the backdoor step of a yard where a woman had been mutilated why didn’t they come forward? Especially as they would possibly have been able to tell the police “I’ve seen that man there before.”

What incentive would they have to come forward? This person might prefer 'the quiet life'.

hi not
i agree the whole jr knife, rabbit story is rather odd. one thing i noticed. if the knife he had was unable to cut a piece of leather, would it have been able to cut up a carrot?

Not, why do you think someone saw him there with the knife and who is it?

[The Baron]

Tge rabbit is the key to solve this whole problem.

Feeding a rabbit at 4 am or so ?!



The Baron

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Re #379

I think it is NFN. He’s saying that no one checks the cellar when he doesn’t go.

Okay, so not even his mother, who we know does go into the cellar (she found his mildewed leather apron there).


I think you’re overcomplicating. It’s the whip thing all over again I think. He left the house to go to number 29. After he’d set out he found that his boot hurt too much to put up with so he waited until he got to number 29 because it’s a job done easier when sitting.

I'm simply pointing to the coincidence of discovering he needs to remove more leather from the shoe, and then discovering he had put the table knife in his pocket (which he normally does not do).

Btw, the 'whip thing' is not an over-complication - it's an analysis. Not analysing the numbers available is negligent.


I can’t see why it’s important.

You can't see why it's important to know how far open Richardson pushed the door?
I thought that was one of the big issues of this thread.

Also, I'm raising the possibility that JR stood in the back doorway to observe the cellar padlock, but with knife in hand, and somebody has seen that. Hence all the odd claims. Here's another...

John Richardson (recalled) produced the knife - a much-worn dessert knife - with which he had cut his boot. He added that as it was not sharp enough he had borrowed another one at the market.

Did JR cut leather off his boot while sitting on the step - yes or no?
I can't work this out. Can you?


There’s nothing odd about a man keeping a rabbit. I don’t know if he had kids for example?

Keeping a rabbit?...

JR: I had been feeding a rabbit with a carrot that I had cut up, and I put the knife in my pocket.

He does not say 'my rabbit', or 'our rabbit', he says 'a rabbit'. So does he own this rabbit?


There really is is nothing odd about sitting on a foot high step. I have one in the garden that’s about the same and I occasionally sit on it to smoke my pipe and I’m 6 ft 2.

So am I, but the height of the step is not the main issue - rather it's the awkwardness of not having the door rest against his left thigh.
At the middle step, his thighs would be below the level of the bottom of the door, so the self-closing door would be continually bumping against his left arm.
Why do this when the left hand is needed to hold the boot or wield the knife?
He should have sat on the top step and used his thigh to keep the door in place, but he didn't (or so he says).
Was JR trying too hard to prove that he hadn't seen the body? If yes, why? Did he kill Chapman?


But in the earlier post you said that someone did see him.

What did I then say to contradict that?


If someone had seen a man holding a knife standing on the backdoor step of a yard where a woman had been mutilated why didn’t they come forward? Especially as they would possibly have been able to tell the police “I’ve seen that man there before.”

What incentive would they have to come forward? This person might prefer 'the quiet life'.