Annie's last meal

[Fleetwood Mac]

Hi Mac,

So if Dr Phillips was capable of making the distinction of the specific components of Strides stomach contents, and as you point out, "medical men of the day" could make this distinction, why didn't Dr Phillips just say 'potato' when describing Annie's stomach contents? I mean, that would have cleared up a whole lot of mess.

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Given the food options available to Annie: bread, potatoes, farinaceous edibles and so on; Dr Phillips would have known the food in Annie's stomach.

Why Dr Phillips did not describe the food at the post-mortem, there is no answer. Only Dr Phillips will know.

[Fleetwood Mac]

Hi Mac,

So if Dr Phillips was capable of making the distinction of the specific components of Strides stomach contents, and as you point out, "medical men of the day" could make this distinction, why didn't Dr Phillips just say 'potato' when describing Annie's stomach contents? I mean, that would have cleared up a whole lot of mess.

тттттт

Another point on this, Al.

Any proposal as to why Dr Phillips didn't mention the food in Annie's stomach is mere speculation.

Nobody thought it important, including the coroner who didn't press Dr Phillips on the specifics.

It could be speculated that Timothy Donovan was up early in the inquest. He mentioned potatoes. Between Dr Phillips and the coroner, the food in Annie's stomach had already been mentioned by Donovan and so they didn't deem it expedient to repeat the specifics, i.e. it was taken for granted by Dr Phillips and the coroner that everyone would know the food in question was potatoes given that Donovan had mentioned it.

The aforementioned is speculation, but it is as least as good as any other possibility.

It remains insufficient to make a claim of any substance, however, so I'll leave it at: only Dr Phillips knows why he didn't specify the food.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Another point on this, Al.

Any proposal as to why Dr Phillips didn't mention the food in Annie's stomach is mere speculation.

Nobody thought it important, including the coroner who didn't press Dr Phillips on the specifics.

It could be speculated that Timothy Donovan was up early in the inquest. He mentioned potatoes. Between Dr Phillips and the coroner, the food in Annie's stomach had already been mentioned by Donovan and so they didn't deem it expedient to repeat the specifics, i.e. it was taken for granted by Dr Phillips and the coroner that everyone would know the food in question was potatoes given that Donovan had mentioned it.

The aforementioned is speculation, but it is as least as good as any other possibility.

It remains insufficient to make a claim of any substance, however, so I'll leave it at: only Dr Phillips knows why he didn't specify the food.

I’ve never heard such desperate tosh. Oh yeah, I have.

Of all of the threads on here this one achieves the least. We can’t in any way and under any circumstances glean any information about Annie Chapman’s TOD from the contents of her stomach. It’s a non-starter.

Unless you can prove with absolute certainty that she didn’t eat again after she left the doss house (and you can’t) then that’s the end of it. Added to this if Eddowes could still have the remains of food in her stomach 5 hours after her last known meal then so could Annie 3Н hours later. And Catherine had less than 40 minutes available. It’s a desperate dead duck.

[Fleetwood Mac]

Unless you can prove with absolute certainty that she didn’t eat again after she left the doss house

There's a lot that can't be proven in this case.

The best we can say is which is most likely.

We have evidence of Annie eating at 1.45am but no evidence of her eating later. And then there are the practicalities mentioned in the OP: from where and why after 1.45am.

The other medical evidence: rigor 'commencing of the limbs', a cold body with warmth only under the intestines, Catherine's body by comparison.

That's not a bad case to say Annie didn't eat after 1.45am.

There's no use in saying "prove it" because nobody here is attempting to prove anything, nor can they "prove it", and in the event you use this as de rigueur discourse tool then there's not a great deal of point in you posting.

[Herlock Sholmes]

There's a lot that can't be proven in this case.

The best we can say is which is most likely.

We have evidence of Annie eating at 1.45am but no evidence of her eating later. And then there are the practicalities mentioned in the OP: from where and why after 1.45am.

The other medical evidence: rigor 'commencing of the limbs', a cold body with warmth only under the intestines, Catherine's body by comparison.

That's not a bad case to say Annie didn't eat after 1.45am.

There's no use in saying "prove it" because nobody here is attempting to prove anything, nor can they "prove it", and in the event you use this as de rigueur discourse tool then there's not a great deal of point in you posting.

It’s a non-existent case. There is no case that Annie didn’t eat after 1.45. There can never be a case that Annie didn’t eat after 1.45. It’s just as much an assumption to say that she didn’t eat than it would be to say that she did eat. Therefore it’s a non-starter.

Rigor can commence after 30 minutes and less. So the rigor point is a non-starter.

The cold is a non-starter as confirmed by every expert on the planet.

Annie cannot be compared to Catherine. Different people, different conditions.

There’s certainly a point in me posting as I have to keep rebutting your obsessive attempts to raise Dr. Phillips to sainthood. Have you contacted The Textbook of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology yet, or Simpson’s Forensic Medicine and informed them that they don’t know what they’re talking about and that they should check out the thoughts of a Victorian Doctor who, like you, knew more about the subject than they do.

[DJA]

[Herlock Sholmes]

And on the subject temperature and TOD - wasn’t Phillips an absolute magician in that purely by touch he could give a minimum TOD of 2 hours which you say couldn’t have been wrong by 40 or 50 minutes. Compare this to when medical examiner Claudine Ratcliff in 1994 examined the bodies of Ronald Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson. She checked the air temperature (unlike Gandalf Phillips) with a probe then made an incision into Nicole’s body and inserted the probe to take the temperature (unlike Gandalf Phillips). She also examined for rigor and livor mortis. And what was her minimum TOD estimate with the advantage 106 years of extra medical knowledge and the technology that she had to hand in 1994? 13 hours!!

Yet Gandalf Phillips simply by touch (or maybe he used his staff?) gave us 2 hours, which you claim couldn’t have been wrong by around 40 or 50 minutes. Yeah right

[Herlock Sholmes]

Another point on this, Al.

Any proposal as to why Dr Phillips didn't mention the food in Annie's stomach is mere speculation.

Nobody thought it important, including the coroner who didn't press Dr Phillips on the specifics.

It could be speculated that Timothy Donovan was up early in the inquest. He mentioned potatoes. Between Dr Phillips and the coroner, the food in Annie's stomach had already been mentioned by Donovan and so they didn't deem it expedient to repeat the specifics, i.e. it was taken for granted by Dr Phillips and the coroner that everyone would know the food in question was potatoes given that Donovan had mentioned it.

The aforementioned is speculation, but it is as least as good as any other possibility.

It remains insufficient to make a claim of any substance, however, so I'll leave it at: only Dr Phillips knows why he didn't specify the food.

Or, an even better reason, is that it's very difficult to identify food in the stomach of a dead person, especially if had been in that stomach for some time while the person was alive, due to the effect of the acids in the stomach.

Sure, it's not impossible because we know it's been done, but it's still very difficult. And that simple fact probably explains it.

[Herlock Sholmes]

There's a lot that can't be proven in this case.

The best we can say is which is most likely.

We have evidence of Annie eating at 1.45am but no evidence of her eating later. And then there are the practicalities mentioned in the OP: from where and why after 1.45am.

The other medical evidence: rigor 'commencing of the limbs', a cold body with warmth only under the intestines, Catherine's body by comparison.

That's not a bad case to say Annie didn't eat after 1.45am.

There's no use in saying "prove it" because nobody here is attempting to prove anything, nor can they "prove it", and in the event you use this as de rigueur discourse tool then there's not a great deal of point in you posting.

Hold on, we have no evidence of Catherine eating at all on either 29th or 30th September yet we know she must have done due to food being found in her stomach. While I'm at it, there's no evidence of either Stride or Kelly eating anything in the hours before they were murdered, yet the food in their stomachs prove they did. So absence of evidence is meaningless here. The fact that Annie was seen eating at 1.45 in no way means she couldn't have eaten other food, both before and after this time.

[Fleetwood Mac]

And on the subject temperature and TOD - wasn’t Phillips an absolute magician in that purely by touch he could give a minimum TOD of 2 hours which you say couldn’t have been wrong by 40 or 50 minutes. Compare this to when medical examiner Claudine Ratcliff in 1994 examined the bodies of Ronald Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson. She checked the air temperature (unlike Gandalf Phillips) with a probe then made an incision into Nicole’s body and inserted the probe to take the temperature (unlike Gandalf Phillips). She also examined for rigor and livor mortis. And what was her minimum TOD estimate with the advantage 106 years of extra medical knowledge and the technology that she had to hand in 1994? 13 hours!!

Yet Gandalf Phillips simply by touch (or maybe he used his staff?) gave us 2 hours, which you claim couldn’t have been wrong by around 40 or 50 minutes. Yeah right

I have absolutely no knowledge of the OJ Simpson case but here's a link from the Los Angeles Times:

Delay in Notifying Coroner Hurt Simpson Case Probe : Investigation: Efforts to pinpoint time of deaths were hampered, tough LAPD policy was violated. - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)

Pertinent sections as follows:

In all, records show, it was more than 10 hours between the time the bodies were discovered and the time Ratcliffe conducted those tests, including a liver temperature test.

Golden testified that he relied on Ratcliffe’s field observations and the contents of the victims’ stomachs to place the deaths within a three-hour “range.”

Indeed, Los Angeles Deputy Medical Examiner Irwin L. Golden testified at Simpson’s preliminary hearing in July that the murders were committed “somewhere between 9 (p.m.) and midnight,” and he admitted under cross-examination that the standard measurements upon which he based his decision would have been more accurate if taken sooner.

“The farther away you go from the time of death, the more inaccurate you become,” said Werner U. Spitz, former Wayne County, Mich., medical examiner and author of a widely used forensic pathology textbook.

It seems we have a situation here whereby Ratcliffe examined the bodies 10 hours after the bodies were discovered and gave a three-hour TOD time range. Furthermore, there is a belief among those United States forensic people that a longer PMI reduces the possibility of an accurate TOD and by extension a shorter PMI increases the chance of an accurate TOD. You may want to take note that those people do not hint at an accurate TOD range being impossible.

Highlights:

1) Your 'minimum 13 hours TOD estimate' is factually incorrect (assuming the Los Angeles Times is correct). The range given was 3 hours.
2) There was a 10 hour PMI interval; in your scenario Dr Phillips' equivalent was 1 hour.
3) Dr Phillips gave a time range of between 2 and 3 hours in a reasonably possible 4 hour range (2.30am to 6.30am). This means that Ratcliffe was being at least as precise as Dr Phillips with her 3 hour range given the 10 hour PMI.
4) Those people mentioned in the article, United States forensic pathologist types, certainly believe that it is possible to give an estimated TOD range with accuracy. Something that you have consistently argued against.
5) Those same people tell us that a shorter PMI means an estimated TOD is more likely to be accurate. Dr Phillips was involved with a very short PMI: 1 hour in the event your scenario is to be believed.

[FISHY1118]

Gee mac , don't tell me we have more modern day medical advice that agrees t.o.d estimate can be accurate from a Victorian dr ?.

[Herlock Sholmes]

“The farther away you go from the time of death, the more inaccurate you become,” said Werner U. Spitz, former Wayne County, Mich., medical examiner and author of a widely used forensic pathology textbook.[/I]
.

You didn’t think much of Spitz when I quoted him.

Werner Uri Spitz (1993), a German-American forensic pathologist, "reported that in temperate climate, under average condition, rigor becomes apparent within half an hour to an hour

[Herlock Sholmes]

Gee mac , don't tell me we have more modern day medical advice that agrees t.o.d estimate can be accurate from a Victorian dr ?.

No we don’t.

[Fleetwood Mac]

Gee mac , don't tell me we have more modern day medical advice that agrees t.o.d estimate can be accurate from a Victorian dr ?.

I think everyone knows this, Fishy, well, just about everyone.

[FISHY1118]

No we don’t.

Sure looks like it.