Blood spatter in the Tabram murder

[Sally]

Ah..

Only he knew the profile of the weapon which pierced the breastbone, and its penetrating depth.
All he has to be shown is a contemporary dagger-style bayonet, to conceed or reject it.

So you mean it could've been any one of a number of weapons. A range, in fact. Killeen didn't actually know with any certainty, he was guestimating?

Very good, I agree.

Nice pictures, by the way.

[Fisherman]

David:

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

Letīs get this correct, David! I am not saying that the 37 wounds would not kill Tabram. The reasonable thing to conclude is that she would drown in her own blood, filling the lungs, sooner or later. And as you would know, the bleeding was what was given as cause of death in her case, even though Killeen added that the sternum wound would in itself be enough to kill her. Presumably, it was a tough call to decide which of the two parameters was the lethal one in the end.

But Killeen never said - or meant - that the 37 smaller wounds would not lead to Tabramīs death! What he implicated was that this death did not occur until after the flurry of stabs had been delivered; she lived through it.
Which leads us to one important question: How long did it take to inflict the 37 wounds?

Well, I would say that if it was done in a rage, then the time we are looking at could well be as little as half a minute. One stab per second is not much of a pace if you are fired up and madly firing away. Of course, it may just as well have taken a minute, nobody can tell. But the main issue here is that the blood filling the lungs would not suffocate Tabram in that short a time. And apparently, Killeen did not think that any of the other wounds to liver, spleen, stomach etc. were enough to kill her outright, which sounds very logical to me. They are all nasty wounds, but they donīt kill you outright. Even the collected burden of them all is not enough to finish you off directly. It will take some time for you to die.

Ever heard of Frank Gusenberg, David? No? Let me tell you, then! Frank was one of the guys that was shot in Bugs Moranīs garage on St Valentines day 1929. The Saint Valentines day massacre, you know?
Well, Frank received 22 wounds from 14 bullets (meaning that some of the bullets passed clean through his body, and re-entered it elsewhere). He had been lined up against the wall, and together with his hoodlum friends, he was shot in the back first, and then additionally fired at as he lay on the floor. He received massive internal damage to a number of his internal organs, and he bled like a pig. The pictures are gruesome, with the garage floor covered in blood.
After the killers had finished their work, they left and it took the ambulance some substantial time to arrive, only to find Frank still alive and conscious. He was asked "who did this to you, Frank, who shot?" by a detective, and only answered "nobody shot", honouring the mafioso principles under which he had lived. He was still alive whern he reached the Alexian hospital in Chicago, but of course, the massive damage took itīs toll and killed him there, arguably at least a quarter of an hour after he had been shot.

Twentytwo bullet holes through his body, David, damaging the internal organs and leaving him looking like a Swiss cheese. And he "lived through it". Compared to that, Tabramīs surviving 37 small stabs to the trunk seems almost peaceful.
And there are many, many more examples out there of people who have stayed alive with horrific injuries for some substantial time.
Take, for example, the soldiers who were shot in the belly in the first world war. They knew that they would die from it, and they knew that it would take an extremely painful hour or two, sometimes much more, before they succumbed.

So you see, when you try to laugh Killeens suggestion off and speak of Rasputins sister, it brings the Danish author Robert Storm Pedersen to mind, and his sentence "it is a short warmth to wet your pants". It all falls flat on itīs nose, and we are left with the insight that you have misjudged things totally.
Killeen thus is redeemed in at least this respect, thankfully!

"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."

More of the same, apparently. Try and stay away from the swaggering and the sarcasms - you have been provided very good reason to do so by now.

"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."

Yes, he was involved because he was in the neighbourhood, just like any other physician was involved for the same reason in parallel cases. Iīm refresehd to hear that you have now moved from the position that he was unqualified for his job to the more sane stance that none of us can know how good a surgeon he was. That is sound.
You have earlier also said that if the Tabram case hade occurred in september, Killeen would not have been called upon. This is demonstrably wrong, since we know that the same procedure was used in for example the Stride case, where an apprentice, even, was sent first to the scene. You have in fact gone to very strange lengths to paint Killeen out as a bad quality man, laughing at his deductions to boot.

That wonīt do. It adds insult to unsubstantiation and skews the perspective. Unless this is your aim, it would be better to refrain from such things if you ask me.

The best,
Fisherman

[Wickerman]

So you mean it could've been any one of a number of weapons. A range, in fact. Killeen didn't actually know with any certainty, he was guestimating?

Very good, I agree.

Nice pictures, by the way.

Well, Ben mentions "weaponology", I think he means that Killeen had to have knowledge of military weapons to make an educated guess.
This is not the case.

A dagger-bayonet (as above) is only a knife (colloquially speaking). Just because we give different names to a blade makes no difference to the surgeon. He is only looking at a penetrating wound and his only responsibility is to describe the size of blade which made it.
It is up to others (police?) to apply knowledge of weapons to come up with a name for the blade.

"Dagger" is a style, it typically refers to symmetry, a double-sided blade, as opposed to a single-sided blade commonly called a knife.
Today we call them both "knives" but strictly speaking a knife has only one cutting side, whereas a dagger cuts on both sides.

Killeen could not rule out a "dagger-style" bayonet, because this bayonet is only a "dagger", which is what he described in the first place.
The implication here is that the large wound displayed internal cuts throughout its length on both sides as it penetrated the skin, breastbone, and heart. Whereas the smaller wounds only displayed cuts on one side, and they were not so deep, hence a "knife".

The important point really is that Killeen, in fact anyone with an eye for detail (ie; experience not required), noticed a difference between the size and shape, both internal & external, of that one singular chest wound, when compared with the other 38 smaller stab wounds.

Regards, Jon S.

[Fisherman]

Ben.

"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."

And thereīs the reason why warning bells should sound. It is not a "minor error" to my mind. It is a massive one, telling us that the Home Office had not gotten thing right.

"The general observation, that the bayonet theory was later revised on account of the unmistakability of the wounds they create, still stands uncontested."

In relation to the two general types of Brittish army bayonets, that would probably be correct. Not in relation to other bayonet types, though. But it does imply that we should be careful not to believe too firmly that a military man must have been responsible. Apparently, Reid believed otherwise on the 18th, though. One would love to have it elaborated upon, but alas ...!

"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."

Once again, I see no necessity to place a military man on the scene - if the "unmistakable" traits belonging to the common types of bayonets were not about, then the better guess would be that such a weapon was not responsible for the chest wound. All I am saying is that ANOTHER type of bayonet could STILL be responsible for it, quite possibly wielded by a non-military man. Equally, and statistically more credibly, it could have been a dagger. End of story.

"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"

If we have a large blade that was pocket-knife wide at the three last inches before the tip, and if this blade was only dipped into Tabram, stopping the force of the stab before it sunk any deeper than those inches, you may have a point. There are some problem with this theory, though.
The first one is of course that stabbings are normally (in 99,9 per cent of the cases, perhaps, I donīt know, but Iīd say that would be a fair guess) affairs where the knife is thrust into the body with great force, sinking into itīs full length.
The second one is that we do know that Killeen examined the heart at the slab. And since the stab through it was singular to his mind, I see every reason to beleive that he took a good, hard look at the imprint the blade had made. And if that imprint was the imprint of a weapon that was pocket-knife narrow and thin for the last three inches, while instead being a long, stron, sturdy weapon for the rest of itīs length, it would be game over.

I have also pointed out that the blow delivered together with a stab typically produces bruising where the hilt of the knife or the fist of the perpetrator hits the body. If there had been no such bruising around, Killeen would equally have had some food for thought.

The theory as such is thus a non-starter, as far as I can see. Moreover - why is it put forward? Why must it have been just the one weapon, when all the evidence points in the other direction, and when the physician in charge actually leaves us with no interpretation space. He was ever so adamant that it COULD NOT have been the same weapon. So, like I asked Mike erlier - whatīs the allure?

"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."

But what Hinton says here - and correct me if I am wrong - is that the perpetrator sometimes misjudge the toughness of the skin, meaning that delivered stabs are too hesitating to travel through the tough upper skin layers. Thus these stabs leave only minor wounds, shallow and not travelling through to the softer flesh layers underneath the skin.

But this does not apply in Tabramīs case! The stabs in her DID travel through the outer, tougher layers, and they DID sink into the flesh and internal organs underneath. There are no stabs recorded in her body that have been stopped before they reached into her underlying flesh. Not one. They all did, as far as we know. And it ought to be mentioned here that this would probably owe to a significant extent to the smallness of that blade. In accordance with Hintons observation, one must accept that the smaller a blade is, the easier it will overcome the toughness of the skin. A syringe will have no trouble at all passing through the skin, a pen-knife or a pocket-knife blade that is thin an narrow would meet little restistance in the same respect - but a sword bayonet, for example, would comparatively meet a much larger area of tough skin.

The best,
Fisherman

[Wickerman]

Comparison of a double-sided "dagger" blade (left) with a single-sided "knife" blade (right).



Example provided in a clay mold. In this case the knife blade (right) is larger than the dagger (left), but clear tapering of the blade on either side of centre is noticable in the dagger.

The knife example also shows a clear tapering at one side and a very rounded shape, or can be squared, on the opposite side.

These silhouette shapes carry deep into the body and are evident in any tissue or muscle which the blade makes contact with.

As you can see, no weaponry experience is required to observe the difference. Killeen only needs to measure the width, & slice open the muscle's to measure the depth.

Regards, Jon S.

[Wickerman]

One more example of the wound shape a single-sided blade makes.
Squared on one side, tapering on the other, therefore in this case not a dagger wound.



Regards, Jon S.

[Ben]

Hi Jon,

The suggestion of a dagger had nothing to do with the two-sides versus one-side distinction, or else Kileen would have specified as much. The only reason he suggested a dagger was because it qualified as a "long, strong instrument" of the type that could have caused such injury to the breastbone. Most clasp knives tapered off on both sides from a point at the end, so if Killeen's hope was to distinguish a dagger from a knife by studying the wounds, he would have been barking hopelessly up the wrong tree. A knife or dagger piercing flesh is obviously going to create a more ambiguous imprint than either weapon thrust into clay mould.

Again, measuring the depth is pointless in the absence of any knowledge of how far inside the body the blade was thrust.

All the best,
Ben

[Ben]

Fisherman,

“It is a massive one, telling us that the Home Office had not gotten thing right.”

But that particular detail, which police official Melville Macnaghten got equally wrong, doesn’t impact in the slightest on the more important observation in the HO document – that a bayonet was initially suspected but then rejected as the probable weapon. It doesn’t matter whether it was first thought to have inflicted one, some, or all of the wounds. The point is that it was ultimately considered to have inflicted NONE of them.

“The first one is of course that stabbings are normally (in 99,9 per cent of the cases, perhaps, I donīt know, but Iīd say that would be a fair guess) affairs where the knife is thrust into the body with great force, sinking into itīs full length.”

I’d be very surprised if that were the case, personally, but more to the point, we simply don’t know if the knife was “thrust into the body with great force”, or whether the fist of the perpetrator or hilt imprints were in evidence. If the knife was of the folding/pocket/clasp variety, there would have been no “hilt” to speak of. Killeen may well have examined the knife imprint on the heart, but we’re back to the same problem – if it was superficially wounded, there was no way for him to ascertain if an "ordinary knife" or the tip of a large knife/dagger was responsible. The trouble with the notion of a wound being “pocket knife narrow” is that it could be precisely the same width as the end of a much larger blade

“Pocket knife narrow” perfectly equates to “tip end of big knife narrow”.

“So, like I asked Mike erlier - whatīs the allure?”

Well, I would argue that a number of factors oblige us to treat the “two weapon” hypothesis with extreme caution. I’ve just outlined the first – an over-reliance on imprecise wound measurements can easily lead to faulty conclusions. Then there is the relative youth and inexperience of Killeen to consider. Finally, there is the sheer oddity of hacking away with one supposedly inferior knife, before deciding after 37 stabs that it just wasn’t doing the trick, and that the bigger knife – the one that he could have used so easily from the outset! – might be a better bet.

All the best,
Ben

[Wickerman]

Most clasp knives tapered of on both sides from a point at the end, so if Killeen's hope was to distinguish a dagger from a knife by studying the wounds...

Incorrect, besides, it is not the shape of the point with delineates the shape of the wound, it is the shape of the blade at its breadth or width.

Regards, Jon S.

[lynn cates]

this is the way we gauge the wound

Hello David. If the body were not washed then it should be clear which wounds bled profusely and which not. The former were ante mortem; the latter, if any, were post mortem.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

language

Hello Jon. Thanks for posting those. You are speaking my language.

Cheers.
LC

[DVV]

Killeen vaguely alluded to a "dagger" or a "sword bayonet" when Reid was looking for a soldier, and 125 years after, some are definitely convinced it WAS a bayonet.

O tempora ! O mores !

[Fisherman]

Ben:

"The suggestion of a dagger had nothing to do with the two-sides versus one-side distinction, or else Kileen would have specified as much."

But that was exactly what he did, was it not. He specifically spoke of one dagger and one knife. Daggers have two cutting edges, knives have one. I fail to see any probolem here.

"The only reason he suggested a dagger was because it qualified as a "long, strong instrument" of the type that could have caused such injury to the breastbone. "

But a knife can equally be long and strong, Ben. Hunting knives for example, are extremely sturdy and sometimes long too. Think of a bowie knife ā la Zeb Macahan and youīll see what I mean.

" A knife or dagger piercing flesh is obviously going to create a more ambiguous imprint than either weapon thrust into clay mould."

37 examples will do the trick. And as for the dagger, a breastplate will be infinitely more exact than any clay.

"It doesn’t matter whether it was first thought to have inflicted one, some, or all of the wounds."

It does have an impact, Iīm afraid, since it points the document out as obviously faulty. It detracts from the overall value one can ascribe to it.

"we simply don’t know if the knife was “thrust into the body with great force”, or whether the fist of the perpetrator or hilt imprints were in evidence."

As for the latter point, if these bruises were NOT present, then I think Killeen would have been the first to notice it and very possibly take it into account and comment on it. Not a single bruising out of 37 stab wounds would have been odd in the extreme.

As for the possibility that the perpetrator only used a small portion of his power, thus piercing the tougher outer skin, whilst only travelling some threee inches or so into the flesh, it would be a truly remarkable feature if he could foresee the exact amount of ressitance he was to meet at each of the 37 stabs and then govern the power so as to never sink in further than to a depth that was comparable to that of a pocket knife.

It is not feasible, simple as that, and taken together with the lack of bruising on the skin that would have followed, it presents us with an extremely strained suggestion that I would never for a moment buy into. Plus the 37 stabs were made by a one-edged knife, whereas the sternum wound was made by a TWO-EDGED dagger, remember.

"“Pocket knife narrow” perfectly equates to “tip end of big knife narrow”."

No, it does not. It does not even come close. Two inches down the blade - and thatīs a minimum for Tabramīs 37 wounds, they are completely different sizewise. And it was not a big knife - it was a big dagger, according to Killeen. Unless he was unable to distinguish between them (and his mentioning both types speaks against such a theory), that was what he was dealing with.

" a number of factors oblige us to treat the “two weapon” hypothesis with extreme caution."

The fact that Killeen asserted that the two blades could not have been the same, speaking of a pocket-knife and a long, strong dagger, means that we can be very certain that we need not worry apply any such caution.

"I’ve just outlined the first – an over-reliance on imprecise wound measurements can easily lead to faulty conclusions."

Yes. But a sound measuring process, an array of thirty-seven (37!) stabs to choose from, and a hole in Tabrams sternum, showing the exact shape of the weapon that produced it, means that we may safely rid ourselves of any misconceptions of any over-reliance in this case. And Reids remarks plus the papers notes goes to further show this.

"Then there is the relative youth and inexperience of Killeen to consider."

The youth we can establish - the relative inexperience is a guess only, although a fair one. Another guess would be that the man knew how to measure, millimeter for millimeter, and that he would have studied the material extremely closely before giving his view.

"Finally, there is the sheer oddity of hacking away with one supposedly inferior knife, before deciding after 37 stabs that it just wasn’t doing the trick, and that the bigger knife – the one that he could have used so easily from the outset! – might be a better bet."

Thatīs statistics, Ben, and I have learnt from your own good self many a time that general statistics do not apply in case-specific occurences like this. Another way to put it would be that it is a good idea to work from the assumption that just one weapon has been used in a stabbing frenzy - up to the point where the evidence tells us that this is not true. After that, if we cannot find any other thing to help us than rather a lame suggestion that Killeen would have been to young and inexperienced to read the evidence correctly, it is time to back down and move with the evidence.

I guess that the useful thing to do would be to find out how many young doctors go wrong and confuse long, strong daggers with pocket-knives if they have a good imprint of the latter in a breast-bone plate and 37 examples of the former in flesh, muscle and other human tissues. I do not think that such material can easily be found, but my own hunch is that any doctors who fail in this respect would be a rare specimen.

What do you think, Ben? More common than not?

All the best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

David:

"Killeen vaguely alluded to a "dagger" or a "sword bayonet" when Reid was looking for a soldier, and 125 years after, some are definitely convinced it WAS a bayonet. "

And who would those "some" be? What I argue is that it COULD have been a bayonet. I am in no way at all "convinced" that it must have been, but since there were bayonets around with the same general shape as a dagger, I think it would be sheer stupidity to rule out that a bayonet COULD have made the wound in Tabramīs chest.

Now, David, you explain to me how that suddenly turns into a conviction on my behalf that it MUST have been a bayonet. Or perhaps I do not belong to the "some" you speak of?

The best,
Fisherman

[DVV]

He specifically spoke of one dagger and one knife. Daggers have two cutting edges, knives have one. I fail to see any probolem here.
Fisherman

Hi Fish, do you think the wound was caused by "something" that had two cutting edges ? - and this wouldn't have been specified by Killeen ?