Blood spatter in the Tabram murder

[The Good Michael]

A knife can obviously be thrust with as little or as great a force as the wielder desires, and if s/he's stabbing more superficially, there is simply no way to determine blade-length.

Irrefutable. There's no way to tell if a pen knife, dagger, or broadsword made superficial nicks.

Mike

[Fisherman]

Ben:

"Quite possibly, yes, and this may account for the implication in the Home Office document that the bayonet idea had been revised. If, as you suggest, Reid or another senior investigator had reconsidered a previously held opinion that a bayonet was one of the weapons responsible, it wouldn't be surprising to find a mention of this in an official HO document such as the one we're discussing. As such, the precise wording - that a bayonet was "first" suspected - would tend to support your proposal that Reid came to a different conclusion upon considered reflection."

It is hard to tell whether Reid lay behind the Home Office annotation. Maybe he did and maybe he didnīt. My main misgivings attaching to the suggestion would be that if Reid WAS the source behind it, then the Home Office would arguably not speak abot a number of narrow wounds that could have been caused by a bayonet. There was only the one wound suggested as having been caused by a bayonet, and therefore, if the Home Office did lean against Reid to some extent, they apparently did not get the full and correct picture from him.

" While there will always be minor variations in style, length, manufacturer etc, all bayonets fall into the sword or spike variety, and the latter were not in use by the military in 1888. The sword type was specified in the Daily News, but as far as I'm aware, no other source attributed to Kileen the suggestion of a bayonet's involvement in the Tabram murder, and the Daily News were one of the worst newspapers for misreporting throughout the case. Thus, if the bayonet suggestion did not originate with Kileen, as I tend to suspect, there need not be an "either/or" choice between the good doctor and the HO document."

Taking a quick look on "victorian bayonets" on the net, one finds for example the 1855 Patt Lancaster bayonet, a sword bayonet apparently. The end ten inches or so of that one looks very much like a dagger to me. Moreover, one also finds the MK1 2nd type knife bayonet that also looks like a dagger. Then again, just like I said before, I see no reason at all to predispose that the bayonet must have been manufactired in Britain. And if we turn our eyers to the rest of the world, we can easily find very dagger-like bayonets from the era. Have a look, for example at the 12-inch bladed American knife bayonet here: http://www.carters.com.au/index.cfm/...-blade-marked/

This represents a weapon that no doctor would have been able to tell from a dagger, since it IS basically a dagger. Other examples of contemporary bayonets that would have caused daggerlike holes in a body are found at http://www.theauctioncentre.co.uk/ca...n=182&lot=0080 and at
http://www.carters.com.au/index.cfm/...saw-back-blad/ and at http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/4142019
There is no reason to exclude the possibility that any of these weapons could have been around in the East end in 1888.

The suggestion of a bayonet did not originate with Killeen himself, just like you say. It was suggested to him as a possibility, and that suggestion was a reasonable one, taking into account that Tabram had been seen in the company of soldiers the evening she died. Reasonably, if she had been killed by one of those soldiers, then one of the weapons you spek of, the sword bayonet or the pig-sticker, would have been used (unless the MK1 2nd type was in use).
I am not arguing against that. What I am arguing relates to the size of the wound in Tabrams chest - it was of a size that brought a heavy dagger OR a bayonet (like for example the american one mentioned above) to mind. It was thus a sizeable hole, and nothing like the 37 holes that made Killeen draw the conclusion that they had been caused by a blade so small that it would break in contact with the sternum.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Ben:

"it certainly doesn't result in a "somewhat precise estimate".

That depends on how clean the stab is, and wheter you can establish that it used the full length of the blade. In stabbings, the blade normally sinks in to itīs full length, and when the hilt or the hand hits the body, it causes bruising, just as when you punch somebody with your fist.
We do not have this on record, but it would arguably have been there.

The main pointer here, though, is that Tabram received 37 (!) stab wounds with the so called pocket-knife. And when you have 37 stabs to look at and compare, you will inevitably be able to establish very exactly what the balde looked like. The reasonable deduction to make, is that the blade would have sunk in to the same approximate depth time after time, the way it does during a stabbing and if nothing like bone or cartilage stops it, and after that, it would be a very easy task to describe the blade, narrowness, thickness, length and all.
And this is why Killeen was able to tell that the blade would not have been able to pierce Tabrams sternum - it was too smallish and to thin, as established by comparing the 37 wounds and measuring them.

"If a knife moves around within a wound, it becomes impossible to gauge any precise measurements as to width."

37 stabs will do the trick as regards the smaller blade. And when it comes to the dagger/bayonet, any wiggling or "moving around" would have been given away by the hole in the heart - the heart, as I am sure you will remebered, was examined by Killeen at the post-mortem, and described as perfectly healthy but pierced in one place. So Iīm afraid when it comes to the often suggested "wiggling" theory on that count, it holds no water.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Mike:

"There's no way to tell if a pen knife, dagger, or broadsword made superficial nicks."

The clear inference is that it was a smallish blade, Mike. Why else would he suggest that it would break in contact with the sternum? And we KNOW that the lung, the the stomach, the spleen etcetera were pierced. That means that the blade travelled some inches into the body. How would a sword bayonet do that, and STILL be described as a pocket-knife or a pen-knife, a weapon that would break in contact with the breast plate? It defies logic, Iīm afraid.

The best,
Fisherman

[DVV]

Un 1/4 d'heure avant sa mort, il était encore vivant...

Hi my bayonetist friends,

"His opinion was that one of the wounds was inflicted by some kind of dagger, and that all of them were caused during life."


Seems a bit hard to swallow, don't you think ?

But since He was Graduated from the Royal College, of course he was Right, and Martha was alive all along. Poor girl. She must be Rasputin's sister, with the Duc de Guise as one of her ancestors.

By the way, Killeen's "during life" makes Fisherman's "scavenger theory", which needs a second weapon at all costs, definitely unthinkable.

[DVV]

Hi Harry, you're just right. The link is ridiculous.

[The Good Michael]

Mike:

"There's no way to tell if a pen knife, dagger, or broadsword made superficial nicks."

How would a sword bayonet do that, and STILL be described as a pocket-knife or a pen-knife, a weapon that would break in contact with the breast plate? It defies logic, Iīm afraid.

How Fish? You can answer that question yourself. I know the answer, but you need to work for it. Welcome back you old fish filleting madman.

Mike

[Fisherman]

David:

"Seems a bit hard to swallow, don't you think ?"

No. I donīt. I think it is perfectly easy to understand Killeenīs view: The hole in the chest was deep and substantial, leaving the impression that it had been made by "some kind of dagger", or, as he also put it, some "long and strong instrument". A long-bladed dagger is a long and strong instrument. Incidentally, I believe that Killeen spoke of a dagger-pointed weapon, and that would owe to the knowledge that long and strong instruments that do not have a sharpish, pointed tip are unsuited to pierce breastbones.
Pointed daggers with long blades would thus fit the bill. So would pointed bayonets with long blades, resembling daggers.

What could be easier to swallow than that? We have it all laid out for us.

"But since He was Graduated from the Royal College, of course he was Right, and Martha was alive all along. Poor girl. She must be Rasputin's sister, with the Duc de Guise as one of her ancestors."

Oh, the satiric touch! You are welcome to it. Myself, I will try and be a bit more factual.
Killeen saw the body in situ. He thus also saw the amount of blood that had seeped out of the wounds. That would have helped him to establish if the wounds had been subjected to blood pressure as she lay stabbed on the landing. Furthermore, he carried out the post-mortem. And that would have meant that he knew whether the blood in the left lung, penetrated in five places, and the right lung, penetrated in two places, had been breathed into the air channels and such things.
After all, Killeen WAS a qualified surgeon, and he would know his way around things like these.

He regarded the blow to the heart as the coup-de-grace, and stated that it in itself would have been enough to kill Tabram. After that, she was finished. Before, though, she was alive. It does not mean conscious, necessarily - the blood effusion on her head may have meant "lights out" and explained the silence.

"Killeen's "during life" makes Fisherman's "scavenger theory", which needs a second weapon at all costs, definitely unthinkable."

Iīm sorry, but you need to read it again. That theory works from the assumption that she stayeed alive until the heart blow was delivered. And that, my friend, is EXACTLY what Killeen suggests.

So three wrongs out of three, David, Iīm afraid.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Mike:

" You can answer that question yourself."

I just did - it canīt be done. The stabs must have sunk AT LEAST two or three inches into her body to do the damage they did. And a sword bayonet or a sturdy dagger is given away at that stage, and NOT confused with a pocket knife.
Incidentally, two or three inches is a very good estimation of the length of an ordinary pocket-knife. And no such stab is described as having come from "some long, strong instrument".

More to the point: why would we need to distrust Killeen? Whatīs the allure? Certainly most stabbings leaving 39 wounds are made with ther same weapon, but why on earth would we question a qualified surgeon on a matter like this with no supporting evidence at all? Itīs a mystery to me, I have to say.

"Welcome back you old fish filleting madman."

Flattering wonīt get you anywhere.

The best,
Fisherman

[DVV]

Good morning Fish,

what I consider hard to swallow (beside the bayonet, of course) is Killeen's opinion that she wasn't dead after 38 stabs (just have a look at the list of organs that were stabbed).

As for your theory, ok, I stand corrected.
Your theory doesn't need the bayonet only, it needs all Killeen's conclusions to be true - which is worse.

Considering that all medics subsquently involved in the case proved to be mistaken and very uncertain in some of their opinions and conjectures, it's really too bad Killeen wasn't called to profile the killer after Miller's Court.

[Fisherman]

David:

"what I consider hard to swallow (beside the bayonet, of course) is Killeen's opinion that she wasn't dead after 38 stabs (just have a look at the list of organs that were stabbed)."

Then I suggest you do some reading up on subjects like this. History is filled with people who lived through horrific things, quite comaparable and worse to Tabrams ordeal. Search and thou shalt find!

Besides, I just provided a few medical pointers that Killeen had at hand and would have used. The lung thing is the same thing you do when somebody has drowned or been thrown into the water dead in order to fake a drowning - if no water is taken up by the air-channels, then we know that the victim was dead before he/she hit the water. Same thing with blood - if it is taken up by the airchannels, then the victim was alive after theose stabbings.

I am pretty certain there are many more medical checking points, unknown to laymen like you and me, that Killeen checked.

"Your theory doesn't need the bayonet only, it needs all Killeen's conclusions to be true - which is worse."

In a choice between him and an agitated poster on these boards, I am convinced I have made the logical call.

"Considering that all medics subsquently involved in the case proved to be mistaken and very uncertain in some of their opinionsand conjectures, it's really too bad Killeen wasn't called to profile the killer after Miller's Court."

That really deserves no answer. Itīs an unsubstantiated effort to paint Killeen out as the perhaps worst surgeon in London, and thus an absolute low-water mark.

The best,
Fisherman

[DVV]

Then I suggest you do some reading up on subjects like this. History is filled with people who lived through horrific things, quite comaparable and worse to Tabrams ordeal. Search and thou shalt find!

Search and thou shalt find much more who have died before the 38th stab, my dear.

"Your theory doesn't need the bayonet only, it needs all Killeen's conclusions to be true - which is worse."

In a choice between him and an agitated poster on these boards, I am convinced I have made the logical call.

Everything is logical with you, Fish, problem is that the very core of your theory is outlandish.
By your same steady logic, as opposed to my supposed agitation, you must be of opinion that Fleming did possess a great anatomical knowledge, for Phillips was surely more experienced than Killeen.

That really deserves no answer.

True. Because I'm right.

Itīs an unsubstantiated effort to paint Killeen out as the perhaps worst surgeon in London, and thus an absolute low-water mark.

It is not. I'm not saying he was a bad surgeon, this I don't know. What I know, is that he has been involved because he was he was just there, in the neighbourhood.
He was a young surgeon, not a forensic expert, and the case wasn't an ordinary one.

[Sally]

Killeen's relative youth has a great deal "to do with it", since he hadn't the real life experience that many of his medical contemporaries possessed.

Exactly so. I doubt anybody would dispute that Killeen was trained and educated - but as well as that may be, it is still no substitute for experience, which it is unlikely he had.

It is impossible to tell how many bayonet wounds the young Killeen would've seen in his rural Irish backwater home - as he died some 85 years ago, we shan't have the honour of asking him, so we'll just have to guess that it might not have been that many.

I'm sure he did his best. Nonetheless, he was a young and so almost certainly inexperienced doctor who ended up with the task. Whether he was right or wrong I leave to others to make their judgement - but it must be taken into account.

No pretending he was an expert.

[Ben]

Hi Fish,

There was only the one wound suggested as having been caused by a bayonet, and therefore, if the Home Office did lean against Reid to some extent, they apparently did not get the full and correct picture from him.

The only minor error they made is the assertion that "some" of the wounds were suspected as having been caused by a bayonet, whereas we know there was only one contentious wound in that regard. Macnaghten made the same error in 1894. The general observation, that the bayonet theory was later revised on account of the unmistakability of the wounds they create, still stands uncontested.

There is no reason to exclude the possibility that any of these weapons could have been around in the East end in 1888

But even less reason to think that any of them were, and this is the main problem I have with internet searches, "Google Imaging" and the like. They tell us next to nothing about the type of bayonets in mainstream circulation, and used by actual military men at the time. Unless Tumblety really was on a whore-hating, uterus-procuring mission from across the pond, I doubt very much that a "12-inch bladed American knife bayonet" could be found with any ease in the 1880s East End. Hence, I think it safe to assume that the HO were referring to the type of bayonet most commonly found in the possession of actual military men. The MK1 sword bayonet is the apparent candidate.

The main pointer here, though, is that Tabram received 37 (!) stab wounds with the so called pocket-knife. And when you have 37 stabs to look at and compare, you will inevitably be able to establish very exactly what the balde looked like.

But how can anyone determine the length of a knife in the absence of any knowledge as to how deeply it was thrust? And what if the knife tapered off to a point, as most of them do? If thrust in a superficial manner, there would be no indication as to whether a large or small knife was used, and the quantity of the stab wounds would have have nothing to do with it.

And when it comes to the dagger/bayonet, any wiggling or "moving around" would have been given away by the hole in the heart

I disagree, and would defer again to Hinton's observations in this case:

"What is often overlooked is that human skin is remarkably tough to pierce, once through this layer the flesh underneath offers far less resistance, this is the reason that victims of stabbings often have several minor wounds over the surface of their bodies."

He then talks about the difficulty in surmounting that first hurdle with an unwieldy long-bladed weapon.

All the best,
Ben

[DVV]

Absolutely, Ben.
In my opinion, the stab that pierced the chestbone may well have been a sort of coup de grâce, as Martha laid dying. Far more likely than the scavenger theory, if there was ever something absolutely different with that wound.