Blood spatter in the Tabram murder

[Fisherman]

Yes, Harry, a three-inch blade could inflict a five-inch wound. I have said as much before, and I have bolstered it with a scientific report saying as much. But a five inch wound made by a penknife will not have a doctor speaking about long and strong instruments.

Once again - but probably not for the last time - although it cannot be ruled out that Killeen made some sort of misjudgement in at least some aspect, it still remains that neither me or you, Harry, will offer any credible opposition to Killeen, considering the not irrelevant fact that none of us have seen the holes in Tabramīs body.

Killeen has the upper hand by any stretch, and his view had contemporary support in the papers, just as it remained unchallenged by any party. That speaks very clearly and unambiguosly about which stance is the sounder one in this affair. And anybody who challenges this, must be prepared to be looked upon as somebody who either has failed to understand this very basic truth, or who has other reasons to refuse to accept it.

Anybody is welcome to say that there was a chance that Killeen was wrong. Anybody is equally welcome to say that they have a hunch that this was in fact so. But nobody is welcome to say that the material speaks in favour of it, since that would be patently wrong. The material speaks in favour of two weapons, and that is not open to discussion, Iīm afraid.

The best,
Fisherman

[The Good Michael]

Anybody is welcome to say that there was a chance that Killeen was wrong. Anybody is equally welcome to say that they have a hunch that this was in fact so. But nobody is welcome to say that the material speaks in favour of it, since that would be patently wrong. The material speaks in favour of two weapons, and that is not open to discussion, Iīm afraid.

This is true and since there is only one opinion of the day, we must accept it as being accurate. Back to the Book of Mormon. Where's my knife? No the one with the 3 inch blade.

Mike

[Fisherman]

Well, to be a little more precise, since we have a view by an educated medico who performed the post-mortem and who was never challenged but instead supported by contemporary sources like newspapers, we must accept that this view has a lot more going for it than any contrary view, produced and designed in our own time by laymen who never got to see the damages.

So, much as we must NOT accept Killeens view as being accurate - and I fail to see any such demands having been raised - we need to accept that the suggestion that Killen got it right rests on much firmer ground than any suggestion that he got it wrong. The latter suggestion rests on no ground at all, come to think of it. Itīs best support is the insight that doctors sometimes get things wrong, and nothing else at all. If I am wrong about that, please tell me. I would love to think that all of the commotion the Killeen-scorners are making is grounded in more than so, but I suspect that this is what it amounts to. And that is thinner than the thinnest penknife imaginable. It will never find itīs way to my heart, I can guarantee you that much.

Where you own knife is, Mike, I cannot say. I have seen no edge at all in your reasoning, so it remains hidden to me.

The best,
Fisherman

[Qlder]

Just a thought about how Killeen's opined view may have transpired:

Once long ago on a Casebook board now defunct, I wrote a brief bit about how I imagined the bayonet or dagger for one and pen-knife for thirty-eight may have occured.
Plunging a dagger or bayonet through the sternum may well have got the attacker's preferred weapon stuck. (I think in the old post I refered to my own experience of this with a roast turkey.) To proceed, he then takes out his pen-knife to continue what he started. Perhaps finding that the smaller blade wasn't up to cutting up his victim as he wanted, he becomes frustrated and stabs rather wildly.
This is, of course, pure conjecture.
I also conjecture that there is a reasonable chance that Martha Tabram was a Ripper victim and that her murderer learned lessons from this attack that shifted his M.O.

(Apologies to all and sundry if this line of thought has been floated by others. I have not read all of this thread.)

[Fisherman]

Hi Qlder!

That theory has not been aired on this particular thread - but it has been discussed on other Tabram threads. The problem with the suggestion is that Killeen was adamant that Tabram lived throughout the 37 stabs, and he was equally adamant that the sternum stab would have been enough to kill. But
in the end, he opted for blood loss as the cause of death, meaning that he thought that Tabram was stabbed 37 (or 38) times first, lived through that ordeal as the stabs rained down over her, but eventually succumbed to the blood loss (and, one would expect, having her lungs filled with blood, suffocating her). If this was the case, then she was already dead when the heart was pierced. Arguably, the final stab to the sternum may just as well have been inflicted while she was still alive. The call must have been tough for Killeen to make.

But at any rate one must accept, I think, that the sternum stab was NOT the first.

The best,
Fisherman

[Wickerman]

Hi Harry.

The question in Tabram's killing is whether one weapon could have caused all wounds.

Please bear in mind Harry, this is 'our' question, not Killeen's. And the reason 'we' ask is because 'we' lack sufficient information of the details of these wounds.
'We' ask the question because 'we' lack information. Killeen had the information and he made his determinations based on all the necessary information.
As I mentioned elsewhere, "questions" are not "answers". Just because 'we' ask a question this does not mean that Killeen lacked information.

While we can accept that there was,in Tabram's case,a marked difference in appearance regarding the sternum wound.we do not know what that difference was.

Right Harry, so who did know? Killeen.
Therefore, who is the best informed person to judge?

When we examine other cases where a penknife has been named as the weapon used,and to have pierced the breastbone,into the heart,an opinion can be formed that a penknife could,whatever medical opinion states,have made all the wounds to Tabram.So my opinion is not based on what Kileen or anyne else said,but on the established power of a certain type of weapon.

This argument is not valid, the reason being, that you do not know the shape of the blade which is left in the breastbone, and we do not know the shape of the blade that went through Tabram's breastbone.
Whether Killeen "could" have confused the two depends largely on the shape of the wound in the bone, which neither of us can establish. Therefore there is no grounds for a debate on that issue.

Regards, Jon S.

[Qlder]

Thank you, Fisherman. Your reply is accepted and appreciated.
Regards

[The Good Michael]

If this was the case, then she was already dead when the heart was pierced. Arguably, the final stab to the sternum may just as well have been inflicted while she was still alive. The call must have been tough for Killeen to make.

No, this cannot be argued because according to you and Jon, if Killeen didn't specifically say this is how it happened, we would be unfairly jumping to conclusions and thereby, discrediting the good doctor's name.

Mike

[Fisherman]

IF this was the case, Mike, that is how I worded it. IF Tabram DID die by means of blood loss, as Killeen suggested, then the sternum wound WAS inflicted when she was dead.
That should not be too controversial a thing, should it?

And even the best of doctors could settle for a verdict of "couldnīt say". In fact, only bad doctors say that they know when they donīt.

How it would add up to discrediting Killeens name to recognize this, I donīt know. But I suspect that you are being ironic, here. Sort of?

The best, Mike!
Fisherman

[harry]

Fisherman,Jon,
Sorry to disapoint you but I have not shown a disposition to challenge my medical knowledge against Kileen's.I have made comparisons on the ability of different weapons to pierce the human body.I have given examples.The 10 August 1888 article in the Times,which is quoted much,has Kileen believing a dagger type weapon as piercing the sternum or chestbone,and that a weapon,a knife,was generally responsible for other wounds to Tabram. So Kileen's could have been wrong.Certain types of penknives can and have caused death by piercing the sternum and entering the heart,and these knives were available then.No one Jon,is trying to establish the shape of blade or wound,certainly not myself,I wonder why you mention it.It has no bearing on anything,as we do not know it's nature.

[Fisherman]

Harry:

"Sorry to disapoint you but I have not shown a disposition to challenge my medical knowledge against Kileen's.I have made comparisons on the ability of different weapons to pierce the human body.I have given examples.The 10 August 1888 article in the Times,which is quoted much,has Kileen believing a dagger type weapon as piercing the sternum or chestbone,and that a weapon,a knife,was generally responsible for other wounds to Tabram. So Kileen's could have been wrong.Certain types of penknives can and have caused death by piercing the sternum and entering the heart,and these knives were available then.No one Jon,is trying to establish the shape of blade or wound,certainly not myself,I wonder why you mention it.It has no bearing on anything,as we do not know it's nature.

Nobody, Harry, is saying that different weapons cannot pierce bone.

Nobody is contesting that one may find examples of penknives that have done so either.

It would be a stupid thing to do, since a little research would immediately show that such a position would have been untenable.

Therefore, neither Jon nor I ascribe to such a stance.

But the core of the matter here is that no person living in todayīs world could possibly know of what value such examples are in relation to the Tabram slaying. We cannot establish to what degree the examples you dig up, no matter how many they potentially are, make a good comparison with the weapons that killed Tabram.

And that owes to the fact that we do not have any measurements of the blades involved in George Yard. All we know is that a trained medico DID know what impression the two blades gave, after having examined them thoroughly, even to the extent that he cut the body of Tabram open and followed the trails in detail. We also know that this examination resulted in him giving the opinion that two different weapons had been used.

The criticism you choose to direct against this informed view, substantiated by the papers of the time and unchallenged by any contemporary part, is that you THINK that this MAY be wrong, because killers statistically, generally and normally use just the one weapon (but we know for certain that there are heaps of exceptions to that rule, just as we know that there is a totally open possibility in Tabramīs case that there were more than just the one killer).

The reason that you have no further points of accusation to direct against Killeens verdict, is a very simple one: you cannot tell what the wounds looked like. So, chances are that if you DID get the opportunity to take a look at them, you would have gone: "My word - those wounds were NOT done by the same weapon!" Is that not true, Harry? Equally, you may have said "Well, Iīm not sure. Maybe if the smaller weapon was wriggled a lot, and if it was a lot longer than the small stabs give away...? Then perhaps ...?"

What you would NOT have said would be "But those wounds all look the same!". For we know that they did not, from the Star, amongst other sources, that reported that the hole in the chest was MUCH larger and deeper than the other wounds. Much, Harry, not significantly, comparatively or slightly. Much. And that supports Killeenīs assertion very much. Itīs corroboration, whereas there is nothing at all to point away from Killeen and the Star being correct.

And so we end up at the same point again. Those who need to dismiss Killeen try to paint me and Jon out as someone who says that it is a fact that Killeen was right, and that his verdict cannot be challenged.

We donīt; at least I know that I donīt. Challenge away as much as you like, Harry, by all means. Find as many examples as you like of bone pierced by different types of weapons. Speak as loudly as you wish about how doctors may be wrong. Find as many young doctors as you can, of whom it can be shown that they made mistakes. Research away!

It will not matter a bit, though. Itīs not until you find a contemporary source that tells us that Killeen may have been wrong and substantiates this assumption, itīs not until you can establish the exact measures of the two blades whose tracks Killeen measured, itīs not until you establish what the entrance holes in Tabramīs body looked like, that you can produce a RELEVANT criticism towards Killeen and his findings. Up til that time, you are trying to draw conclusions about a specific case, grounded in specifics attaching to completely OTHER cases and OTHER weapons, conclusions that thus may or may not be relevant. In short, you are guessing, hunching, perhaps hoping.

Canīt you see that such a thing is utterly useless?

The best,
Fisherman

[DVV]

Hi Fish

Nobody, Harry, is saying that different weapons cannot pierce bone.

Except Killeen. Should I quote him ?

It will not matter a bit, though.

It does, due to Dr Killeen's testimony.

[The Good Michael]

And even the best of doctors could settle for a verdict of "couldnīt say". In fact, only bad doctors say that they know when they donīt.

Wow, Fish! You have spent umpteen pages telling us that Killeen's word is all we have to go on and that because of no other testimony, we should accept it for now. Now you say the best doctors don't know the answers. Where does Killeen fit in? Rhetorical question obviously, because you have just admitted his testimony is flawed at best. Or were you being sarcastic?

Mike

[Ben]

Hi Fisherman,

Glad you were able to revise your decision to “bow out”, but I really don’t see the point in regurgitating at length what Jon took two posts to write. If you really subscribe to the mantra that a modern commentator cannot challenge a professional opinion if it was uncontested at the time, then I guess you must be in favour of Stride being a ripper victim. Every police official of any seniority accepted Stride as a ripper victim, but you cheerfully reject the conclusion of the contemporary professionals, preferring your own opinion.

Unless you’ve stopped doing that recently, I cannot take seriously your advice to accept Kileen’s opinion at face value on the grounds I wasn’t “there” to contest his otherwise uncontested opinion.

I will continue to believe that Kileen was most probably in error, just as you believe the police were all in error on the Stride issue. Had he based his judgment on something rather more compelling than his perception that an unspecified “long, strong” instrument must have been required for the sternum wound, I’d be more inclined to accept it. As it happens, however, I don’t need to look at the wounds directly to know full well that it is impossible to distinguish a strong knife thrust superficially from a weaker knife thrust forcefully. Had there been anything more substantial behind the very implausible two-weapon hypothesis, he would definitely have specified as much.

You say that his opinion was uncontested at the time, which obviously wasn’t quite the case. He clearly endorsed the suggested “bayonet” as a possibility for one of the weapons, and equally clearly, that weapon was later considered an improbable candidate for any of the wounds. But Kileen hardly deserves 40 lashes for this. He was a very young, inexperienced doctor with no demonstrable experience in weaponry. So no, it’s not the case that there is “no contemporary sources or voices giving (me) any support at all”. Moreover, it seems to be you and Jon alone that insist so doggedly on the two-knife scenario.

until you can establish the exact measures of the two blades

Which Kileen did not, and could not.

“Once again - but probably not for the last time - although it cannot be ruled out that Killeen made some sort of misjudgement in at least some aspect”

“Probably not for the last time”…? No, probably for the last time, actually, now that you’ve made your point, and now that it’s completely clear that people disagree with you. Of course, if you repeat yourself again, as you’ve expressed your intention to, I’ll just go straight back to my earlier rebuttal. The fact that yours and Jon’s arguments regarding knife sidedness and heart penetration didn’t convince many people, doesn’t mean that repetition overkill is a brilliant strategy when plan C – “they were professional and there at the time!” – is inevitably resorted to. You make exactly the same point in the next five or so posts after mine.

If there are “heaps” of exceptions to the rule that serial killers, or stabbers in general, use one knife and not two, there are considerably more “heaps” of exceptions to the rule that doctors don’t make mistakes. The sheer implausibility of the suggestion that the killer decided at the last moment to use the “better” knife, which he could have used from the outset, is already "firm" ground on which to base the far more logical, far more probable “one knife” scenario.

All the best,
Ben

[Fisherman]

Mike:

"Wow, Fish! You have spent umpteen pages telling us that Killeen's word is all we have to go on and that because of no other testimony, we should accept it for now. Now you say the best doctors don't know the answers. Where does Killeen fit in? Rhetorical question obviously, because you have just admitted his testimony is flawed at best. Or were you being sarcastic?"

You see, Mike, this is the precise reason WHY I have spent umpteen pages discussing this: You repeatedly fail to understand. And YOU have spent umpteen posts, professionally avoiding the points, reading my posts in a very strange manner and ironizing over things, so you have a fine track record yourself in this discipline, methinks.

Letīs do it again, then!

Can doctors be wrong?
Answer: Yes, they can.

Could Killeen make mistakes?
Answer: Yes he could.

Do doctors NORMALLY make mistakes?
Answer: No, they donīt.

Does this mean that we should work from the premise that Killeen was more likely to be right than wrong?
Answer: Yes, it does.

Look at it this way, Mike:

Letīs assume we have a case on hand where a victim has been stabbed to death with more than one stab.

Letīs further assume that we let a layman look at the stabs. Letīs say that this layman comes up with the suggestion - silly sod - that two weapons have been used.

Where would that put us? Would it be a fifty/fifty chance that the layman was correct?
That, my friend, would depend ON THE WOUNDS! If the layman has observed a combination of very small round wounds and one colossal wound, squareshaped, then it stands to reason to say that the layman would arguably be correct in his estimation.

Are we agreed thus far?

If we instead have some small, round wounds, and one wound that is slightly bigger, slightly less round and giving the impression that somebody had wiggled a weapon in it, then the chances that the laymans assessment was correct is much inferior. There would be every reason to challenge him and point to the possibility of just the one weapon. I take it you agree?

So the wounds and their apparition will be the decisive factor here, but it remains that even a layman would stand some sort of chance to make the right call.

Be that as it may, but I suggest that we form a theory that works from the presumption that a layman instead would - averagewise - stand a fifty/fifty chance of getting a decision like this correct.

So letīs see what happens when we add the known factors from the Tabram case:

If we change the layman for a trained medico, in what direction will the probabilities travel? I would say that they would move towards a statistic probability that is very much higher that the doctor is correct. If you do not accept this, then you are saying that it will not matter if we use a trained medico or not to make the call. But I donīt think you would say that, would you?

Next: We let the medico make a post-mortem of the victim. He will thus be able to cut up the body and examine each and every stab in detail, measure each depth, each width of the stabs, assess what type of entrance wound they produced (for example if they were one-edged or double-edged). All of these things he may do, thus double-checking if his initial suspicion of two weapons pan out at the slab.
Would such a thing add to the credibility that he was correct, or will it detract from it? I suggest that the former generally applies here. Do you agree?

Moving on, if we have nobody who contests the doctorīs assertion, although we know that we have police officials who ALSO got to take a look at the wounds - would THAT add to or detract from the reliability of the doctors verdict? Once again, I say option 1 applies. What do you say?

Finally, if we have newspaper reporters that have ALSO seen the wounds, saying that one wound differs MUCH from the others, being reported as MUCH the largest and deepest of the wounds, does this tell us that the doctor would probably have been wrong, or would it speak of a potential and quite credible corroboration of the doctorīs assessment? In this case, Iīd say that the latter choice would be the wisest one to opt for. But if you are of another meaning, please tell me so!

Now, all of this is not some sort of religious outburst, aimed at telling you that Killeen was born a faultless saint and the future for all forensically interested medicos. He was a human being, and human beings sometimes make mistakes and misjudge things. In his life, he would have made calls that were sometimes good and other times less good.

But that does not change the outcome of a sound weighing of the circumstances here at all, other than by conjecture. And we donīt wish to introduce that here, I take it?

Now, Mike, you tell me where I am wrong. And you tell me where you are right! If you only need me to recognize that doctorīs may be wrong, I have already done so. If you need me to accept that Killeen was PROBABLY wrong, you have a lousy argument. Plus it would be introducing that conjecture that we donīt want around here. It would be fiction, and we all prefer facts, donīt we?

The best,
Fisherman