Richardson's View

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

That's him! That's the man!

[Wickerman]

At the risk of repeating myself.

Star, 13th September 1888—

“Considerable doubt is being thrown on the evidence of John Richardson, who stated that he was almost on the exact spot where the body was found at a quarter to five on Saturday morning, and no signs of the murder were then apparent. It is now beginning to be believed that the woman was brought to the backyard in Hanbury Street some time earlier.”

I see not everyone is familiar with the Star and their tendency to stir controversy.

[Herlock Sholmes]

To be fair, I am not buying Richardson's testimony completely.


Richardson said:




Do we need a knife to feed a rabbit ?!

I used to have a rabbit when I was young and I can remember my dad cutting carrots into pieces.

Do rabbits usually have difficulties eating carrot?!

I don’t think that Richardson was suggesting that his rabbit used cutlery Baron.


How did Richardson know he will meet a rabbit, so that he took with him the knife which he usually doesn't carry ?!

I think it unlikely that Richardson expected to bump into a rabbit on the street. He fed the rabbit at home (his home not the rabbits) then put the knife in his pocket.

Where did he meet the rabbit exactly, near the yard?!

Where does a man usually go for a rendezvous with a rabbit? Maybe a Harehouse?

What happened to the rabbit?!

I’d hazard a guess though, I’m no zoologist, that he spent the rest of his days twitching his nose and eating various vegetables?

The Baron

Its yet another example of police incompetence that the rabbit wasn’t questioned further. Like Schwartz it’s suspicious that he was never called to the Inquest.

[DJA]

Murders In The Rue Morgue (1932) - (Crime, Drama, Horror, Mystery) [Edgar Allan Poe, Bela Lugosi] - video dailymotion

[Wickerman]

I donīt mind, Simon. It is perhaps the most useful post altogether on this thread.

Rush to Judgement perhaps?

It always pays the researcher to do a little investigating first, for instance note the date - 13th Sept.
We know from other published accounts that the Star reporter would leave an inquest before it had ended in order to meet the deadline for the afternoon press.

As this was the afternoon of the 13th, and it was Day 3 of the inquest, and Dr. Phillips was the last witness, and... his opinion on a time of death was given past half-way through his testimony, it is very likely the reporter missed this part of the doctor's testimony, if not his entire testimony.
The reporter had also not heard the testimony of Mrs. Long, nor that of Cadosche, who both only gave their evidence on 19th Sept.

The Star was jumping the gun, as they say. They published a conclusion before hearing all the evidence - but then again, this was only the Star, a paper for whom accuracy was never their call to fame.

[DJA]

The Three Stooges Dizzy Detectives E69 - video dailymotion

Bundified version

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

The Three Stooges Dizzy Detectives E69 - video dailymotion

Bundified version

Cheers Dave, I love you too...

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jon,

Accuracy was never the Star newspaper's call to fame?

If the Star had said Richardson's testimony had been gone over with a fine tooth comb and found to be 100% accurate, you'd be all over the story like a rash and crediting the newspaper for its fine reporting.

Simon

[Abby Normal]

It's rattling about in the far reaches of my recall. There was a story about the killings being an escaped Gorilla. Someone will have the details.

hahaha! are you thinking of the Poe story Murders in the Rue Morgue? that was an orangutan, a fictional story, and not related to the ripper!

wait... or is it???

[Wickerman]

Hi Jon,

Accuracy was never the Star newspaper's call to fame?

If the Star had said Richardson's testimony had been gone over with a fine tooth comb and found to be 100% accurate, you'd be all over the story like a rash and crediting the newspaper for its fine reporting.

Simon

Simon.

T.P. O'Connor learned very early that stroking the head of the authorities would not make them rich, but contesting the authorities at every opportunity, making them look fools, raising the anticipation of the public, can line their pockets admirably.
Why should they care if a few journalistic ethics are trodden under foot along the way.

[harry]

It appears the doubts about Richardson's honesty,is twofold.The papers of that day,and posters of today.Now the papers of that day did not disclose a reason for their doubts.They just published that statement,and it is now being toted that the doubts originated from the police,yet no police source can or has been cited.Sure Richhardson could have lied,every statement of his,and of anyone else,is either a truth or a falsehood,but equally Richardson told the truth."If it(the body) had been there I would have seen it"),or words to that effect,not only are truthfull because he (Richardson) claimed so,but are truthfull because it can be demonsrated he would.To claim that his gaze would be fixed in a direction away from the body,the whole time he was there,is rather fanciful,and would be so unusual, that it can safely be ignored.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

I think that it’s the most obvious explanation for why he didn’t mention doing his knife work.

I can’t recall anyone saying that they saw Richardson with a knife though?

I presume you mean 'did mention'.

A few details of JR's testimony are worth considering...

MA0913:

JR: I generally go [to #29] on marke[t] mornings.
WB: Why on market mornings?
JR: They are the mornings when I am out early.
WB: But who is to look after the cellar when it isn't a market morning? -Who is to look after it!
JR: It looks after itself.

Is that a reasonable answer?

JR: I opened it [the back door] and sat on the doorstep and cut a piece of leather off my boot with an old table- knife, about five inches long, which I brought from home. I had been cutting a bit of carrot with it, and brought it along in my left hand coat-pocket. I do not usually put it there, and suppose it must have been a mistake on my part on this occasion.

Note that the knife arrives at #29 in Richardson's left coat pocket.

WB: When did you determine to cut something off your boot?
JR: I had cut some off the previous day, and it hurt my foot, and I found after I left the house that it wanted a bit more to be cut off. 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.

Richardson leaves his house after carefully tending to the needs of some stray rabbit (he does not indicate that the rabbit is a pet), by cutting up a carrot for it.
He then accidently puts the knife in his pocket, rather than leaving it at home (presuming this is the location of the rabbit feeding exercise), and then while walking to #29 Hanbury, determines that more leather should come off one of his boots (I guess he had one foot bigger than the other).
Richardson must have realized between that moment - when finding that his foot still hurt in the boot - and reaching the back door, that he had an appropriate implement on him to use for the leather cutting - a blunt table knife.
This is because the cellar check and boot cutting are completed in a single operation - he does not stand at the door to check the cellar, then allow the door to close, and then, after some seconds or minute, decide to go back to the doorway and sit on the step.

Consider again that the knife arrives in Richardson's left coat pocket.
There would seem to be two possibilities, as of the moment Richardson reaches the back door.
Assume that Richardson goes to the back door with the intention to both check the cellar, and cut his boot while sitting on one of the steps.
Which of the following scenarios is then most likely?...

One: He sits on the step with the self-closing door pressing against his left side.
He then fumbles around in-between his left side and the door, to remove the knife from his coat pocket.
It is not hard to imagine that this would have resulted in the door being momentarily pushed wider than 90°.

But why wait until seated to remove the knife?

Two: Standing behind the closed door, Richardson removes the knife from coat pocket with his left hand, and transfers the knife to his right hand.
He then pushes the door open with his left hand, and holds it open while looking toward the cellar padlock.
With the knife in his right hand, he then sits down to tend to the boot.

All the while any bumps from his left elbow are going to result in the door swinging wider.
So what causes the door to swing closed of its own accord? Is it a spring, or is the door a little off the horizontal, resulting in gravity doing the work?
If the latter, then it could be supposed that once the door goes beyond 90° to the rear of the building, it would proceed to swing almost fully open.
Apparently not the latter though (and therefore a spring must have been installed), because...

JR: When I had cut the piece of leather off my boot I tied my boot up and went out of the house to the market. I did not close the back door ; it closes itself. I closed the front door.

So what all this indicates is that Richardson quite possibly stood briefly at the back door, with a knife in his hand.
Did someone see him at that time? Given the funny rabbit story, and his odd claim to have sat on the middle step, probably 'yes'.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

[...] it could be supposed that once the door goes beyond 90° to the rear of the building, it would proceed to swing almost fully open.

AC: As I returned towards the back door I heard a voice say "No" just as I was going through the door. It was not in our yard, but I should think it came from the yard of No. 29. I, however, cannot say on which side it came from. I went indoors, but returned to the yard about three or four minutes afterwards. While coming back I heard a sort of a fall against the fence which divides my yard from that of 29. It seemed as if something touched the fence suddenly.

Was it the door hitting the fence, when pushed fully open, rather than Annie falling against the fence, that Cadosch heard?
That might explain two things...

One: Why Cadosch cannot accurately locate the direction of the voice - because it was spoken from just inside #29, but with the back door partially open.
Fictional...

Jack: Will you come outside with me?
Annie: No

Two: Why Annie ends up lying 'neatly' on her back, rather than right up against the fence and on her side, ā la Liz Stride.

[Fisherman]

And when we assess it without assuming strange behaviour or that the witnesses were cretins then we can come to an opinion as to likelihood without having to resort to “well it’s not impossible that....”

Sigh. You really, really need to look at the mechanics behind what can be seen from the kind of vantage position that Richardson was in. The sooner the better. Itīs actually you who are doing the stretching when you seem to think that people can see around corners (of doorblades).

[Fisherman]

My guess is two-fold.
1 - The ongoing tendency for some to try turn a witness into a suspect.

Unless there is evidence suggesting that a witness should rightfully be a suspect, no such thing can be done. And if it is tried, it can be refuted. So it really should not pose any problem.