Richardson's View

[Fisherman]

The weight is in favour of the witnesses.

Witnesses, especially in cases like the Ripper case, with nation-wide coverage, have been known to many times exaggerate. They are given to making mistakes, they sometimes look for those illusive fifteen minutes of fame, they are likely to misinterpret many things, they sometimes come forward with the hope of earning a few quid from the papers, etcetera.

Police surgeons are a different breed altogether, and just about all those fears we should always have about amateur witnesses are non-existant in their cases.

So no, the weight is ceratinly not in favour of the witnesses (who introduced incompatible stories in the first place) in my opinion. My take on it is that we can be certain that Cadosch and Long were wrong and pretty certain that Richardson was too.

Your trust in them is touching, but thatīs as nice as I can be. So Iīll abstain from the rest of my judgment.

[The Baron]

Funny how we should dismiss Dr. Phillips detailed and professional report in favour of a Jon in Wonderland story, with rabbits jumping from nowhere!



The Baron

[Herlock Sholmes]

Witnesses, especially in cases like the Ripper case, with nation-wide coverage, have been known to many times exaggerate. They are given to making mistakes, they sometimes look for those illusive fifteen minutes of fame, they are likely to misinterpret many things, they sometimes come forward with the hope of earning a few quid from the papers, etcetera.

Police surgeons are a different breed altogether, and just about all those fears we should always have about amateur witnesses are non-existant in their cases.

So no, the weight is ceratinly not in favour of the witnesses (who introduced incompatible stories in the first place) in my opinion. My take on it is that we can be certain that Cadosch and Long were wrong and pretty certain that Richardson was too.

Your trust in them is touching, but thatīs as nice as I can be. So Iīll abstain from the rest of my judgment.

A doctor using unreliable methods can be virtually dismissed as an irrelevance. His TOD estimation was a toss up. Just as likely to have been wrong or right and so worthless. Your faith in him is touching Fish.

Of course witnesses can lie but this is usually used as a ‘get out’ clause. There’s not a shred of evidence that Cadosch lied. And all we have on Richardson is the knife confusion and Chandler (who of cause cannot have been wrong)

Of course you can try to use Long and Cadosch to cancel each other out but what does it leave us?

They both lied - we have no evidence for this apart from each other and the unreliable TOD from Phillips. Wish thinking.

If only one of them lied - it’s still a later TOD and Richardson was right.

Or they were both truthful but there times were slightly out - all 3 witness fit, later TOD.

Richardson and Cadosch were right. Long possibly out with her time.

When John Richardson said that he couldn’t possibly have missed the body had it been there we have no valid reason to disbelieve him.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Funny how we should dismiss Dr. Phillips detailed and professional report in favour of a Jon in Wonderland story, with rabbits jumping from nowhere!



The Baron

You just can’t leave out the Bunnies can you Baron. The methods for ascertaining TOD were unreliable. That’s not my opinion Baron it’s the opinion of medical experts. Why do you find that so unbelievable? Because it’s not what you want to hear.

And so we have methods of judging TOD which we know are unreliable up against a man who simple had to
look into a yard and who wasn’t visually or spatially impaired and who, as far as we know, wasn’t a complete moron. And Cadosch who also was none of the above.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

When John Richardson said that he couldn’t possibly have missed the body had it been there we have no valid reason to disbelieve him.

Yes we do.

JR: I looked to see if the cellar door was all right, and, although I did not go down into the yard, I could see that it was all right. I saw the padlock in its proper place. The sole object I had in going there was to see whether the cellar was all right. When I come home at night I go down and try if the cellar is all right.

So at nighttime, Richardson cannot see the padlock from the doorstep, so he goes right to it to check it. Whereas at a quarter to five in the morning, he can supposedly clearly see the padlock by peeping around the corner from the top doorstep.
Would Richardson really walk from John St to Hanbury St every market morning, to check the cellar padlock, but stop a few steps short of the cellar door?
I find this very difficult to believe. Seems Richardson is keen for us to believe that he did not go into the yard that morning. Why might that be?
It is also questionable that Richardson could have got a good view of the the cellar padlock from the top step, as the cellar door seems to me to be flush with building's back wall...




JR: [... I] cut a piece of leather off my boot with an old table-knife, about five inches long. I kept the knife upstairs at John-street.

Where else would he keep a table knife, other than where he lives?

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

Really?
How many of these rabbits eating carrots, have had the carrot cut up for them with a good sharp knife, let alone a blunt broken table knife?

JR: After cutting the leather off my boot I tied my boot up, and went out of the house into the market.

So where is the piece of leather? (I could ask the same of the rabbit - was it's existence ascertained by the police?)

Daily Telegraph: He added that as it was not sharp enough he had borrowed another one at the market.

Seems he lied about cutting the leather on the step.

JR: I did not close the back door. It closed itself. I shut the front door.

I find it difficult to believe that Richardson would not have pushed the door wide open to get it out of the way of his (failed) boot cutting excise.
In that case, why would the door have closed itself?
If the door was pushed wide open (which I believe is a reasonable assumption), where would Richardson have to have stood to grab it, to pull it closed?
Well if Chapman had been killed in the dark (< 4:45), he would have to step where Annie's head was, otherwise on the ground between steps and fence.
The huge problem with the second scenario is of course; Jack must have killed in almost broad daylight.

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?...

Mrs. R.: On Thursday, Sept. 6, I found my son's leather apron in the cellar mildewed. He had not used it for a month. I took it and put it under the tap in the yard, and left it there. It was found there on Saturday morning by the police, who took charge of it. The apron had remained there from Thursday to Saturday.

JR: I saw the body two or three minutes before the doctor came. A man in the market told me of the murder, and I went to the adjourning yard, and saw it from there. The man's name is Thomas Pearman, and he told me there had been a murder in Hanbury-street, but he did not say that it was at my house.

Dr. Phillips: On Saturday last I was called by the police at 6.20 a.m. to 29, Hanbury-street, and arrived at half-past six.

So how did this Thomas Pearman at the market find out about the murder soon enough that Richardson was able to return to Hanbury St before Phillips arrived, which itself was only a little more than half an hour after the time of discovery?

[Fisherman]

A doctor using unreliable methods can be virtually dismissed as an irrelevance. His TOD estimation was a toss up. Just as likely to have been wrong or right and so worthless. Your faith in him is touching Fish.

And that is where you go wrong, as always. In order to rely on the three witnesses, you dub Phillips and his work unreliable and a toss-up, whereas it is common knowledge that a body as freshly dead as half an hour to an hour will not loose much if any temperature at all.

Weīve been over this before, though, and I consider it a waste of time to keep at it.

Of course witnesses can lie but this is usually used as a ‘get out’ clause. There’s not a shred of evidence that Cadosch lied. And all we have on Richardson is the knife confusion and Chandler (who of cause cannot have been wrong)

It is not about how we can prove that any one of them did. It is about how we KNOW that this is a factor that may play a role, and therefore it detracts from the overall veracity of witnesses as a group, whereas police surgeons do not have this flaw.

Of course you can try to use Long and Cadosch to cancel each other out but what does it leave us?

A very clear implication that neither of them saw or heard Chapman, and a very good reason to accept that she was killed at aproximately the same time as the other victims. In the shielding darkness of the early morning hours. Thatīs where it leaves us.

They both lied - we have no evidence for this apart from each other and the unreliable TOD from Phillips. Wish thinking.

Actually no, if I could have my wish, I would wish that nobody lied, misconstrued, misremembered or misinterpreted. Ever.

If only one of them lied - it’s still a later TOD and Richardson was right.

Whether they lied or got it wrong is immaterial. Chapman was neverthless long since dead when they made/claimed to have made their observations.

Or they were both truthful but there times were slightly out - all 3 witness fit, later TOD.

It was you (and Wynne Baxter) who introduced the concept of wishful thinking, not me.

Richardson and Cadosch were right. Long possibly out with her time.

Long possibly lying. Long possibly having seen another couple. Long not having seen Chapman at around 5.30.

When John Richardson said that he couldn’t possibly have missed the body had it been there we have no valid reason to disbelieve him.

You donīt think the verdict of a very experienced doctor who weighed together numerous factors before saying "NOT later than 4.30 and probably significantly earlier!" is a valid reason to disbelieve Richardson. I do. And thatīs something that willl not change, so you are going to have to live with it.
Heaps of experts all have said the same thing: feeling for warmth is an unreliable method.
I am no expert, but I agree with them.
I nevertheless think that the question should be posed like this: Is a highly experienced police surgeon who feels a woman who has seemingly been dead for less than an hour going to mistake her for somebody who has been dead numerous hours, thereby loosing almost all of her discernable body warmth? And is such a victim, dead for only between 45 minutes and an hour likely to develop rigor in that time? In cold conditions, and with a totally cut up body?
That is something entirely different from trying to tell a ten hour dead woman from a five hour dead woman by feeling for warmth. In such a case, the method is more or less useless.
Once again, I have explained all of this to your deaf ears before, and it would be wasting time to do it further times. You will just have to wait and see what happens as people look into the issue from a less closed mindset than the one that has prevailed for many a year within ripperology.
It takes time - and a better argument - to change these things.
I have both.

[etenguy]

A doctor using unreliable methods can be virtually dismissed as an irrelevance. His TOD estimation was a toss up. Just as likely to have been wrong or right and so worthless. Your faith in him is touching Fish.

I appreciate the above statement is made in the heat of debate, but the underlying issue is whether we should dismiss medical evidence in this case. It is absolutely true, beyond argument, that estimating time of death was not a precise science and prone to error. Though the closer to the time of death an estimate is made, the more likely it is to be more accurate. We have two medical estimates of time of death in this case - one at the scene based on the condition and temperature of the body - where it was estimated as about 2 hours or more earlier (so 4.30am or earlier). There was also an estimate to be made based on digestion of a meal of potatoes which Annie was known to have eaten at about 1.30-45am. The digestion of that meal suggested she had eaten two to three hours before death, this agrees roughly with the other time of death estimate. Two, admittedly not entirely reliable, estimates which support each other strengthens the medical estimate, in my view. It could still be incorrect, but the two methods corroborate each other in the same way as multiple witnesses corroborating each other provides more confidence in their stories.

Of course witnesses can lie but this is usually used as a ‘get out’ clause. There’s not a shred of evidence that Cadosch lied. And all we have on Richardson is the knife confusion and Chandler (who of cause cannot have been wrong)

We do not know what Cadosch and Long heard and saw - even accepting, as I do, that they were honest. They both had reason to know the time they made their observations. Of course they could have been wrong about the time (as they could about their observations). If we take them as being accurate, Long saw Annie alive after Cadosch heard a voice and crash against a fence. So whatever Cadosch heard it was not connected to the murder. If one or both are mistaken about the time, or Long saw someone who was similar looking to Annie, but not Annie (compare with the two witnesses generally disregarded as mistaken about seeing Mary Kelly hours after she died), we could argue that what Cadosch heard was connected to the murder, but we do not know. It is only when we add in Richardson's evidence that we start to get some confidence the witness evidence is more compelling than the medical evidence (IMHO). I do take your point that however confusing and contradictory Richardson's evidence is about everything he did that morning, he was clear there was no body in the yard when he was there. But his evidence is so contradictory, we have good reason to question everything he tells the inquest.

Which is more reliable, the medical evidence or the witness evidence, is difficult to conclude. For that reason I do not think we can be confident about when the murder took place.

[The Baron]

Chandler at the inquest:

"The back door opens outwards into the yard, and swung on the left hand to the palings where the body was. 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."



This is one of 3 points where Richardson contradicted himself.


+ what he told his mother and she denied.

+ that he cut the leather off his boot with a table-knife in the yard.


It is safe to dismiss his testimony as an indication of the TOD, not to mention the Epilepsy, absence seizures, and the Johny in Wonderland adventure!



The Baron

[Joshua Rogan]

Chandler at the inquest:

"The back door opens outwards into the yard, and swung on the left hand to the palings where the body was. 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."

Or, as the Daily News reported it;

"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."

This is one of 3 points where Richardson contradicted himself.

+ what he told his mother and she denied.

Just because Mrs Richardson denied seeing women in the house doesn't mean it was John who was lying. This is from Davis' testimony;

"[Coroner] Have you ever seen women in the passage? - Mrs. Richardson has said there have been. I have not seen them myself. "

She also seems to have been forgetful about the burglary, which she appears to have denied at first. When John said "She forgot. If you will ask her, you see that it is right." she was recalled and then mentioned it.

So, both times John contradicted his mother, he appears to have been correct.

[Fisherman]

I appreciate the above statement is made in the heat of debate, but the underlying issue is whether we should dismiss medical evidence in this case. It is absolutely true, beyond argument, that estimating time of death was not a precise science and prone to error. Though the closer to the time of death an estimate is made, the more likely it is to be more accurate. We have two medical estimates of time of death in this case - one at the scene based on the condition and temperature of the body - where it was estimated as about 2 hours or more earlier (so 4.30am or earlier). There was also an estimate to be made based on digestion of a meal of potatoes which Annie was known to have eaten at about 1.30-45am. The digestion of that meal suggested she had eaten two to three hours before death, this agrees roughly with the other time of death estimate. Two, admittedly not entirely reliable, estimates which support each other strengthens the medical estimate, in my view. It could still be incorrect, but the two methods corroborate each other in the same way as multiple witnesses corroborating each other provides more confidence in their stories.

You are very correct, etenguy - but you are not even half way there. The list of Phillipsīobservations involve four items, all of them pointing to the same conclusion:

1. Body heat: Body heat is discernible for up to four hours, when feeling for it by hand. Phillips said that there was some little remaining heat in the abdomen under the intestines, otherwise the body was cold. He postulated that Chapman would have been dead for at least two hours, and probably longer than so. Two hours takes us to around 4.30, and so this is why Phillips said that it was probably longer; he could only feel very little heat, and so he predisposed that the correct TOD would likely have to wander some way further back in time. If we use three hours, we can see how the body heat should have been running low, and so 3.30-ish seems a fair bid.

2. Food digestion: Just like you say, this factor points in the same direction as the body heat factor.

3. Rigor mortis: Rigor typically sets in earliest at around two hours after heat, but in cold conditions, it takes longer. So two hours was a true minimum as per Phillips, and three hours would be a better guess. Once again, we end up at 3.30-ish.

4. Clotting: Phillips said that the blood was "well clotted", not that it had only just clotted. For him to make this call, he must have touched the coagulated blood and felt that it was well dried up. It was not just a coagulated cover over fluid blood.

These parameters are all in direct conflict with a TOD at 5.30. Temperaturewise, we know that the initial 30-60 minutes after death normally do not involve any loss of body temperature. The temperature can even rise somewhat in connection with that period of time, before it starts to go down. Eddowes is an apt comparison; 40-45 minutes after death, she was still quite warm to the touch. The same goes for Nichols, who at Llewellyns arrival was quite warm but for the hands - that may always have been cold. And Llewellyn was there at 6.05-6.10 approximately, so we are looking at a fairly long time, not least if we want Nichols to have been cut way before Charles Lechmere arrived by her side ...

There is also the element of high profile cases producing faulty testimonies. I donīt know how many people professed to being Jack the Ripper, but they were MANY. Surely, we are not to believe all of them? Just because we cant prove them wrong?

Last, but not least, only one of the suggestions, the one of a small hour strike and the one of a strike at dawn, compares to the other cases, where it was always dark when the killer struck. That too is an important factor to consider.

The papers also remarked upon how it was odd that a well known character like Annie Chapman had not been spotted by anybody at all in the hours leading up to 5.30. It leaves us with roughly four hours when she would supposedly have walked the streets unseen and unheard of.

All in all, one can always choose to opt for believing in the witnesses and dismissing the medical evidence and disregarding the high profile case factor as well as the deviation from the killers ordinary schedule and the four hour invisibility factor. But one cannot mock the idea that Phillips was correct all along, and that Chapman was killed in the early morning hours. It is a very sound suggestion and one that should never have been abandoned by ripperology they way that has happened over the years. I salute your post, etenguy - but I want the full extent of the material speaking for an early TOD to get on the table

[NotBlamedForNothing]

3. Rigor mortis: Rigor typically sets in earliest at around two hours after heat, but in cold conditions, it takes longer. So two hours was a true minimum as per Phillips, and three hours would be a better guess. Once again, we end up at 3.30-ish.

Nice summary, but there is a problem with 3:30-ish; Mrs Richardson heard nothing around that time...

WB: Which room do you occupy?
AR: The first floor front, and my grandson slept in the same room on Friday night. I went to bed about half-past nine, and was very wakeful half the night. I was awake at three a.m., and only dozed after that.
WB: Did you hear any noise during the night?
AR: No.
...
WB: Did you ever see anyone in the passage?
AR: Yes, about a month ago I heard a man on the stairs. I called Thompson, and the man said he was waiting for market.
WB: At what time was this?
AR: Between half-past three and four o'clock. I could hear anyone going through the passage. I did not hear any one going through on Saturday morning.
WB: You heard no cries?
AR: None.
WB: Supposing a person had gone through at half-past three, would that have attracted your attention?
AR: Yes.
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.
WB: On Saturday morning you feel confident no one did go through?
AR: Yes; I should have heard the sound.
WB: They must have walked purposely quietly?
AR: Yes; or I should have heard them.


Another problem with 3:30 is the lack of light. It would have been almost completely dark then, would it not?
A bit of dawn light would have helped immensely.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Quote by NotBlamedForNothing


Yes we do.

JR: I looked to see if the cellar door was all right, and, although I did not go down into the yard, I could see that it was all right. I saw the padlock in its proper place. The sole object I had in going there was to see whether the cellar was all right. When I come home at night I go down and try if the cellar is all right.

So at nighttime, Richardson cannot see the padlock from the doorstep, so he goes right to it to check it. Whereas at a quarter to five in the morning, he can supposedly clearly see the padlock by peeping around the corner from the top doorstep.

Night time is dark - then it gets lighter. No mystery.

Would Richardson really walk from John St to Hanbury St every market morning, to check the cellar padlock, but stop a few steps short of the cellar door?

Yes.

I find this very difficult to believe.

Because you’re thinking like a conspiracy theorist.

Seems Richardson is keen for us to believe that he did not go into the yard that morning. Why might that be?

Because that’s what he did?

It is also questionable that Richardson could have got a good view of the the cellar padlock from the top step, as the cellar door seems to me to be flush with building's back wall...

No it’s not. No one else questioned this.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n742699[/ATTACH]


JR: [... I] cut a piece of leather off my boot with an old table-knife, about five inches long. I kept the knife upstairs at John-street.

Where else would he keep a table knife, other than where he lives?

That’s what he said?

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

Really?
How many of these rabbits eating carrots, have had the carrot cut up for them with a good sharp knife, let alone a blunt broken table knife?

Millions. Including Benji, the rabbit that I had when I was twelve. Rabbits definitely eat carrots NBFN unless you come from somewhere that has carnivorous rabbits that bring down an antelope to sustain themselves?

JR: After cutting the leather off my boot I tied my boot up, and went out of the house into the market.

So where is the piece of leather? (I could ask the same of the rabbit - was it's existence ascertained by the police?)

Doesnt appear like it unless it wasn’t mentioned. But I agree that they should have looked

Daily Telegraph: He added that as it was not sharp enough he had borrowed another one at the market.

Seems he lied about cutting the leather on the step.

Theres a discrepancy for which there might have been an explanation which has been lost in the transcription.

JR: I did not close the back door. It closed itself. I shut the front door.

I find it difficult to believe that Richardson would not have pushed the door wide open to get it out of the way of his (failed) boot cutting excise.
In that case, why would the door have closed itself?

The door might have stayed open at 90% (for eg) and swung shut with a tap from Richardson.

If the door was pushed wide open (which I believe is a reasonable assumption), where would Richardson have to have stood to grab it, to pull it closed?

On the edge (there’s probably a proper word for this part)

Well if Chapman had been killed in the dark (&lt; 4:45), he would have to step where Annie's head was, otherwise on the ground between steps and fence.

Why would he have had to step where Annie’s head was?

The huge problem with the second scenario is of course; Jack must have killed in almost broad daylight.

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?...

A misunderstanding.

Mrs. R.: On Thursday, Sept. 6, I found my son's leather apron in the cellar mildewed. He had not used it for a month. I took it and put it under the tap in the yard, and left it there. It was found there on Saturday morning by the police, who took charge of it. The apron had remained there from Thursday to Saturday.

JR: I saw the body two or three minutes before the doctor came. A man in the market told me of the murder, and I went to the adjourning yard, and saw it from there. The man's name is Thomas Pearman, and he told me there had been a murder in Hanbury-street, but he did not say that it was at my house.

Dr. Phillips: On Saturday last I was called by the police at 6.20 a.m. to 29, Hanbury-street, and arrived at half-past six.

So how did this Thomas Pearman at the market find out about the murder soon enough that Richardson was able to return to Hanbury St before Phillips arrived, which itself was only a little more than half an hour after the time of discovery?

Who knows? Rumours tend to spread like wildfire. This was major news. Pearlman might have heard in the street early on and made a beeline for Richardson because of the address.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Chandler at the inquest:

"The back door opens outwards into the yard, and swung on the left hand to the palings where the body was. 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."



This is one of 3 points where Richardson contradicted himself.


+ what he told his mother and she denied.

+ that he cut the leather off his boot with a table-knife in the yard.


It is safe to dismiss his testimony as an indication of the TOD, not to mention the Epilepsy, absence seizures, and the Johny in Wonderland adventure!



The Baron

And as Forum history has taught us it’s entirely safe and prudent to dismiss anything that you say.

[Herlock Sholmes]

A doctor using unreliable methods can be virtually dismissed as an irrelevance. His TOD estimation was a toss up. Just as likely to have been wrong or right and so worthless. Your faith in him is touching Fish.

And that is where you go wrong, as always. In order to rely on the three witnesses, you dub Phillips and his work unreliable and a toss-up, whereas it is common knowledge that a body as freshly dead as half an hour to an hour will not loose much if any temperature at all.

Weīve been over this before, though, and I consider it a waste of time to keep at it.

Of course witnesses can lie but this is usually used as a ‘get out’ clause. There’s not a shred of evidence that Cadosch lied. And all we have on Richardson is the knife confusion and Chandler (who of cause cannot have been wrong)

It is not about how we can prove that any one of them did. It is about how we KNOW that this is a factor that may play a role, and therefore it detracts from the overall veracity of witnesses as a group, whereas police surgeons do not have this flaw.

Of course you can try to use Long and Cadosch to cancel each other out but what does it leave us?

A very clear implication that neither of them saw or heard Chapman, and a very good reason to accept that she was killed at aproximately the same time as the other victims. In the shielding darkness of the early morning hours. Thatīs where it leaves us.

They both lied - we have no evidence for this apart from each other and the unreliable TOD from Phillips. Wish thinking.

Actually no, if I could have my wish, I would wish that nobody lied, misconstrued, misremembered or misinterpreted. Ever.

If only one of them lied - it’s still a later TOD and Richardson was right.

Whether they lied or got it wrong is immaterial. Chapman was neverthless long since dead when they made/claimed to have made their observations.

Or they were both truthful but there times were slightly out - all 3 witness fit, later TOD.

It was you (and Wynne Baxter) who introduced the concept of wishful thinking, not me.

Richardson and Cadosch were right. Long possibly out with her time.

Long possibly lying. Long possibly having seen another couple. Long not having seen Chapman at around 5.30.

When John Richardson said that he couldn’t possibly have missed the body had it been there we have no valid reason to disbelieve him.

You donīt think the verdict of a very experienced doctor who weighed together numerous factors before saying "NOT later than 4.30 and probably significantly earlier!" is a valid reason to disbelieve Richardson. I do. And thatīs something that willl not change, so you are going to have to live with it.
Heaps of experts all have said the same thing: feeling for warmth is an unreliable method.
I am no expert, but I agree with them.
I nevertheless think that the question should be posed like this: Is a highly experienced police surgeon who feels a woman who has seemingly been dead for less than an hour going to mistake her for somebody who has been dead numerous hours, thereby loosing almost all of her discernable body warmth? And is such a victim, dead for only between 45 minutes and an hour likely to develop rigor in that time? In cold conditions, and with a totally cut up body?
That is something entirely different from trying to tell a ten hour dead woman from a five hour dead woman by feeling for warmth. In such a case, the method is more or less useless.
Once again, I have explained all of this to your deaf ears before, and it would be wasting time to do it further times. You will just have to wait and see what happens as people look into the issue from a less closed mindset than the one that has prevailed for many a year within ripperology.
It takes time - and a better argument - to change these things.
I have both.

[Herlock Sholmes]

The above post was a messed up attempt to respond by me.

That there’s no point going over the medical arguments I couldn’t agree more. We went over this on the other thread and (as I was posting with the assistance of someone that really knows what he’s talking about) you were proven wrong. Over and over again with quote after quote and evidence piled upon evidence. The debate ended with you storming off to investigate, intending to return in a blaze of glory with refutations. Have you? Of course you haven’t because there are none. You are wrong.

Now, I’ve never said that Phillips couldn’t have gotten it right or that he was in any way incompetent. There were affecting circumstances which, at that time, he would have had no way of knowing could have affected his estimation. We have no way of validating his TOD because we weren’t there to verify anything. So we have a TOD which might or might not have been right or wrong. What possible use is that? We can’t evaluate it but we can evaluate witnesses because that’s all that we have. Witnesses say later TOD. Only a desperation for Phillips to have been correct would push someone to argue so strongly for something so inconclusive.

The fact of this ‘missing’ time of Chapmans is a complete red herring. This was a middle aged, east end prostitution that sadly very few people cared less about. This wasn’t Kim Kardashian disappearing from social media for a week. We don’t know where Annie was. So what?