Blood spatter in the Tabram murder

[Fisherman]

Jon:

"Killeen, as with all doctors have no need of weaponry experience, it is not their duty to identify the weapon, merely to establish the size & shape or the blade which made the wounds. It is the responsibility of the police to do the rest.

Likewise, it is not necessary for any doctor to have 'violent death' experience with respect to an autopsy. The medical procedure is the same whether the cause of death is natural or unnatural."

All very true, Jon! I was only making the point that if one feels compelled to allow for one unsubstantiated element, one would also need to keep an open mind to possibilities that are equally unsubstantiable, although they do not favour one´s thinking ...

The best,
Fisherman

[DVV]

Thanks for your reply, Fish, very interesting points to discuss. (Un)fortunately, my chérie is coming and I have to clean the house, aaargh. I'll be back as soon as possible.

[harry]

Fisherman,
A professional surgeon.Kileen? I can only remember him being referred to as Dr T.R.Kileen.Perhaps the Star reporter was guessing,perhas he was lying.The information that he was in a position to observe holes in Tabram's body is sadly non existant.No need to rephrase anything.Kileen himself refers to a knife as being,in a general way,a possible weapon in most of the injuries.I go one further and state a knife could have been used in all of the injuries,and,unless there is something about Tabram's Sternum that sets it apart from others,I have shown that the brestbone can be pierced with a penknife.Why not hers?
Sally,
Not only Kileen but Jon's and Fisherman's as well.

[Fisherman]

Harry:

"A professional surgeon.Kileen? I can only remember him being referred to as Dr T.R.Kileen."

Killeen was a licenciate of the Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland. He graduated in 1885. The following year, he became a licenciate of the Kings and Queens College of Physicians, also situated in Ireland.

Besides, do you really think they would let a doctor, uneducated in surgery, do the post-mortem of a murder victim?

"Perhaps the Star reporter was guessing,perhas he was lying."

... and perhaps he was telling the truth. One has to say, though, that IF he was guessing or lying, Harry, he must have been clairvoyant - for he made his "guess" or produced that "lie" in time to make it for the November 8th edition of his paper, whereas Killeen did not go on stage at the inquest until the 9:th.

So IF he was "guessing" or "lying" - how come he settled for the sternum wound being "certainly much the largest and deepest" of any of the wounds?

Don´t you think, Harry, that the combined information from the Star and the inquest instead makes for a very clear corroboration? I know I do.

"I have shown that the brestbone can be pierced with a penknife."

The crux of the matter, though, is that you can not show that the particular Tabram penknife could have done the job. And if you think that any penknife could, you need to think again. It lies in the strength of the blade. A large penknife with a solid Solingen steel penknife can perhaps do the job, but how large was the penknife that stabbed Tabram?

Exactly, Harry - you don´t know.

Killeen had a fairly good idea, at the very least. And if the knife was shoved all the way in in only one of the 37 stabs, then it is quite probable that he knew EXACTLY what it looked like.

The best,
Fisherman

[Sally]

Doctor Killeen

A professional surgeon.Kileen? I can only remember him being referred to as Dr T.R.Kileen

According to himself, Killeen was a doctor, a local physician. A G.P.

Killeen was a licenciate of the Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland. He graduated in 1885. The following year, he became a licenciate of the Kings and Queens College of Physicians, also situated in Ireland.

Really, this isn't hard. Killeen was a DOCTOR. There is no evidence, none, to suggest that he had some sort of special surgeon training that made him uniquely or specially able to determine the exact sort of weapon or weapons used to inflict the injuries on Tabram. He guessed. An educated guess, but a guess in context, which was allied to the search for a pair of naughty soldiers. Taking his opinion out of context is misleading.

The terms 'Doctor' 'Physician' and 'Surgeon' are fairly generic and interchangeable at this date in any case - so yet again, we should not read too much into a reporter citing him as a 'professional surgeon' - broadly true, yes, but not as it's being read here. As a local DOCTOR would Killeen have undertaken minor operations? Yes. As a medical student, would Killeen have studied anatomy? Yes. As a recent graduate, would Killeen have had time to become a professional surgeon? No.

If he had been a specialist surgeon with specialist weaponry knowledge, I guess he would have spent his career living and working somewhere other than some backwater in County Clare.

[Fisherman]

Sally:

"There is no evidence, none, to suggest that he had some sort of special surgeon training that made him uniquely or specially able to determine the exact sort of weapon or weapons used to inflict the injuries on Tabram."

No evidence? You mean that it does not count that he graduated as a licentiate of the Royal college of surgeons?

That would not mean that he had an education that concerned itself with surgery? No?

And the fact that he did the autopsy on Tabram points more to him being a specialist in ear- and noserelated issues, I take it?

Just like you say, it is not hard. Once you try and put some effort into it, that is.

I am sure that you are correct in your estimation that his education was never solely focused on the forthcoming death of Marta Tabram. Educations as such are rarely as clairvoyant as that. A better guess would be that Killeen was GENERALLY educated in matters involving the different aspects of surgery.

"He guessed."

No, Sally, he did not "guess". It was not a lottery, and trying to make it look like that is unbecoming for anybody who has the very least of interests in representing historical matters in a correct manner. I can go along with the term "opined" as long as we do not loose track of the fact that his opinions were informed opinions made by a professional, but claiming that he was just guessing away is nothing but poor taste and flagrant ignorance. You want to stay away from such things.

The best,
Fisherman

[Sally]

Fisherman - misrepresentation, again. I can't be bothered to respond to such silliness - for the last time, I'm not remotely claiming that Killeen wasn't an educated man. Inexperienced, yes, but not uneducated. Anyone with the wit to look at his Wiki entry can find that out. And yes, in his capacity as general practitioner, as I've already said, he would doubtless have entered into minor surgery. None of which makes him any more qualified to judge than any other doctor, and given his inexperience, perhaps less than some. Now I'm bored with playing ping pong over whether I'm saying Killeen didn't have a clue, I'm not, so I'm not playing any more.

Moving on.

Killeen did not know which, or how many weapons were used to any greater extent than that it could have been a knife or a dagger - hardly precise - and that more than weapoon could have been used. Not was, could have been. He made qualified statements, not definitive ones. You understand the distinction, right? Therefore yes, he was guessing. I did not, and will not suggest that is was a wild guess out of nowhere, so desist in your attempts to infer that I have.

Killeen made his estimation in the context of a general belief at the time that two soldiers may have been responsible for Tabram's death. He had to consider, therefore, whether the injuries on Tabram allowed for that possibility. Taking his opinion out of context is very clever etc, but it means nothing

Killeen could not have formed an opinion on whether Tabram was a Ripper victim, and nor could anybody else at the time, because there was no Jack at that point so far as anybody knew - he had yet to enter the public consciousness. If he had been, if Killeen had been asked a different set of questions - for example 'Dr Killeen, in your professional opinion, was the murderer interested in the lady's private parts?' I think we'd be having a different discussion now.

He, and his contemporaries involved in the Tabram case, did not have the hindsight available to later commentators, like Abberline for example, who, twist and turn it as you will, did think that Tabram was a Ripper victim.

[Ben]

Hi Fisherman,

“…and it STILL applies that the better proposition is that Killeen was wrong? And that applies because you say so?”

No, not because I say so, but because the two knife scenario – the one that supposedly involved 37 stabs with a inferior knife followed by one stab with a better knife that could have been used from the get-go – just isn’t very logical. The wounds may well have been different, yes, but that is because a weapon can cause very different wounds depending on the way it’s used to thrust, stab, slash etc.

“There was never any "perhaps it could have been just the one weapon" or any "I am slightly uncertain, but..."…”

Yes, there was. That’s precisely what there was – uncertainty. Had it been otherwise, he wouldn’t have said “I don’t think” that just one weapon was used. But that’s just what he did say, and this equates perfectly to “I am slightly uncertain, but” or “perhaps it could have been just the one weapon”.

“The POSSIBILITY as such should be brought forward, analyzed - and buried under ten feet of soil until any evidence at all could be produced. And we´ve done that now, so let´s be for real and move on.”

No, how about you move on? I’m going to keep discussing the contention that Tabram was killed by a single weapon, like most stab victims, for as long as people keep quibbling with me, and especially – especially – if people think that endlessly repeated rebuttals of the points I’ve already dismissed is going to encourage me to change my mind. If you want to move on, I’m not stopping you. Move onto another argument. I don’t need to have seen the wounds to know that Kileen’s assessment was wholly concerned with the length and strength of the weapon, not “shape”, or else he’d have said so. I don’t need to be a doctor to know that a weapon can be used in different ways, and if I were a doctor, it wouldn’t necessarily be to my advantage in order to establish such a basic reality.

“you may need to think twice before you criticize me for pointing out that the statistical outcome in 37-fold stabbing involved bruising”

Generalized bruising yes, but not bruises that act as some convenient barometer for assessing the length of a knife (?!).

“Is it not true that you don´t have an idea at all how much weaponry Killeen had seen? Is it not equally true that you do not know how many violent deaths he had seen?"

Based on his age and obvious inexperience, the superior guess is that Kileen had little knowledge of weaponry, and had examined few, if any violent deaths. Of course, if you have any evidence to the contrary…

Abberline most definitely considered Tabram a ripper victim, as accepted as fact by Philip Sugden. He considered Klosowski to have been the ripper, and considered it “extremely remarkable” that he “occupied a lodging in George Yard, Whitechapel Road, where the first murder was committed”. If he didn’t think Tabram was a ripper victim, the coincidence wouldn’t be remarkable at all, let alone “extremely” so. "First murder" obviously meant first of Jack the Ripper’s, otherwise his Klosowski musings are utterly nonsensical.

All the best,
Ben

[Fisherman]

Sally:

"Fisherman - misrepresentation, again. I can't be bothered to respond to such silliness - for the last time, I'm not remotely claiming that Killeen wasn't an educated man."

Who said you were? I am simply adversed to your suggestion that Killeen needed to resort to guesswork, just as I am baffled that you try to reduce his education to something that did not include qualified surgery insights. Clearly it did. Not that he needed any such insights to measure and compare wounds!

"Killeen did not know which, or how many weapons were used to any greater extent than that it could have been a knife or a dagger"

Who cried "misrepresentation"? He was VERY adamant that the weapon that inflicted the minor stabs would have been a knife, and that the one that pierced the sternum was a daggerlike weapon.

I am fully aware, Sally, that you want to play down Killeens qualifications as much as possible, just as you need to try and point his information out as muddled and unclear. It is crystal clear, and that is not strange - transparent things always are.

" Therefore yes, he was guessing."

Repeating falsities does not turn them into them truths, I´m afraid. A guess is what you resort to when you don´t know because the information at hand is lacking to an extent that hinders you from offering an informed opinion. And we know that this was never the case.
When you have established that one weapon could not inflict the wound/s made by another weapon, when you have stated that the wounds that these weapons caused do not correspond, when you have had the opportunity to examine all of the wounds, measuring and comparing them, then you are not guessing, you are offering a very informed opinion from a very professional view if you are a doctor, trained in surgery.

I will be very clear, Sally.

Killeen saw the wounds and examined them professionally, therefore he did not guess - he gave an informed opinion.
You, on the other hand, could not give an informed opinion even if you tried. You do not have the adequate education for it. Moreover, you have not seen the wounds. You do not know if the sternum hole was twice, three times, four times or fourteen times as large at the entrance as the smaller stabs. You know effectively nothing about the depth of the different holes in Tabram. Therefore, YOU are the one guessing away.

You see, that is what tells you apart from Killeen. Informed/uninformed, professional/unprofessional, opining/guessing, experienced/unexperienced. No matter what parameters we look at, you fall VERY short of Killeen throughout.

Now, can we keep this in mind the next time you feel the urge to discuss what tells professionaly formed opinions and wild guesses apart? It would facilitate a serious discussion.

"He, and his contemporaries involved in the Tabram case, did not have the hindsight available to later commentators, like Abberline for example, who, twist and turn it as you will, did think that Tabram was a Ripper victim."

Sally, you THINK that this was so. You probably WANT to think this too. Wish it, sort of. The snag is that it is not proven at all. I´m sorry for your sake, I really am, but there you go.

Interesting, though, that you try to peddle the view that Killeen was wrong, and then accuse ME for twisting and turning things...

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Ben:
"No, not because I say so, but because the two knife scenario – the one that supposedly involved 37 stabs with a inferior knife followed by one stab with a better knife that could have been used from the get-go – just isn’t very logical."

Then it follows that every time a doctor says that two weapons have been used, he will most probably be wrong, at least at long as we do not have any full information to tell us that he is right? Is that a correct reading of your stance? Yes?

"Had it been otherwise, he wouldn’t have said “I don’t think” that just one weapon was used."

He could just as easily have said "I think a dagger was used at one of the stabs and a knife at the others". That too would have him "thinking", and thinking was what he was called upon to do.
He could have been asked "Do you think this was an affair of just the one weapon?" and answered "No, I don´t think that at all", and still he would be "thinking". He could have been asked "Who thinks that two weapons were used?" and raised his hand. Thinking. And probably good thinking too.

So no, he said what he "thought" about it, and he did so in the careful wordings called for at an inquest - and he put it beyond questioning by adding that weapon number one COULD NOT (impossible, could not be done, did not tally with the laws of nature etc.) have made the sternum wound.

By the way, did you notice that the coroner thanked Killeen for the "careful" way in which he gave his testimony? Guess why? Perhaps he was happy that Killeen had not outright condemn a soldier? Or perhaps because he had not shouted "dagger" or "knife" or "bayonet", instead opting for wording it with more caution?

"I don’t need to have seen the wounds to know that Kileen’s assessment was wholly concerned with the length and strength of the weapon, not “shape”, or else he’d have said so."

I did not know I was up against such superiority, Ben. Myself, I don´t know this, since there was never any information sufficient enough offered to enable that knowledge. I guess one sometimes have to live with shortcomings like this ...

"Generalized bruising yes, but not bruises that act as some convenient barometer for assessing the length of a knife (?!)."

The length of THE BLADE, Ben, not the knife. It´s quite easy, really. If the bruising is there, as it will be in any normal stabbing affair, then you know that the fist or the hilt hit the body, and therefore the blade was shoved in to it´s full length. Then you compare all of the 37 holes, you detract for compression, you make leeway for the fact that different types of tissues are involved, and you come up with a length estimation that will be very much to the point, so to speak. It´s anything but rocket science. And it would have been in the post-mortem report, mind you!

"Based on his age and obvious inexperience, the superior guess is that Kileen had little knowledge of weaponry"

How about "based on the general propensity of doctors to know their work, the superior guess is that Killeen was correct"?

"Abberline most definitely considered Tabram a ripper victim, as accepted as fact by Philip Sugden."

I´m sorry, Ben, but Sugden is no guarantee in any manner. He actually disagrees with you on a number of points. Is he correct in saying that Chapman was the probable killer? Does that put things beyond dispute? I would not think so.

"He (Abberline) considered Klosowski to have been the ripper"

Yes he did promote that possibility (maybe he had read Sugden ...?)

"... and considered it “extremely remarkable” that he “occupied a lodging in George Yard, Whitechapel Road, where the first murder was committed”

Yes he did that too!

"If he didn’t think Tabram was a ripper victim, the coincidence wouldn’t be remarkable at all."

But what if he agreed with his contemporaries that Tabram was POTENTIALLY a Ripper victim? What other stance could they reasonably have had? What if the general view of the police was that there was a group of unfortunates who had been killed by means of knife, thus forming a sequence of killings that may or may not have been perpetrated by the Ripper?

In that case, he could well have reasoned "Not that I think that Tabram, the first murder in that group, was killed by the Ripper, but the fact that Chapman actually lived in George Yard for a period is still an extremely odd coincidence".

Equally he may have thought "Tabram must have been a Ripper victim, and it is very remarkable that Chapman lived in George Yard". Of course, if Chapman had NOT been in George Yard at some stage and was still the Ripper, it would have been even more remarkable, would it not?

We don´t know, Ben. Both interpretations are quite viable, I´m afraid.

The best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

Hi Fisherman,

“Then it follows that every time a doctor says that two weapons have been used, he will most probably be wrong, at least at long as we do not have any full information to tell us that he is right?”

No, it doesn’t. It depends entirely on the reason given, in each case, for the two-weapon hypothesis. If the reason was sufficient to establish for certain that two weapons had been used, then we simply have to accept that a decidedly rare phenomenon occurred. Unfortunately, this is sorely lacking in Tabram’s case.

“He could have been asked "Do you think this was an affair of just the one weapon?" and answered "No, I don´t think that at all". Still he would be "thinking".”

Exactly, he’d been offering his opinion only, not “asserting” something as fact, and not being “adamant” about it either. It all boils down to “thinking”.

“…and he put it beyond questioning by adding that weapon number one COULD NOT (impossible, could not be done, did not tally with the laws of nature etc”

It could not have created the sternum wound if “weapon number one” was a penknife, but here again, he was offering opinion only. He was certainly not declaring it “impossible” that one weapon only was responsible.

“Did you notice that the coroner thanked Killeen for the "careful" way in which he gave his testimony? Guess why?”

Because the evidence did not allow for any concrete conclusion, and caution was therefore necessary.

“The length of THE BLADE, Ben, not the knife. It´s quite easy, really. If the bruising is there…”

If my auntie had bollocks she’d be my uncle, remember? Even I'm getting bored of having to wheel that analogy out! You’re relying very heavily on a highly speculative “if” in the absence of any evidential support for such bruising. There is absolutely no evidence of any bruising in the shape of a “hilt” that would have gauged the length of the blade, and if the offending weapon was a pocket knife, there would have been no “hilt” to speak of. In any case, unless the knife blows were so forceful that the whole of the blade and some of the handle entered the body (which is ludicrous), there was little chance of the fist hitting the body with each knife blow. Don’t keep saying “it would have been in the post-mortem report”. You don’t know that at all. That’s the “lost report” argument again.

“How about "based on the general propensity of doctors to know their work, the superior guess is that Killeen was correct"?”

But the "work" in this case was less concerned with medical knowledge and more concerned with weaponry, and there is no “general propensity” of inexperienced doctors towards making correct judgments on matters concerned with the latter area of study.

“He actually disagrees with you on a number of points.”

On matters of opinion, yes. But he regards it as a fact, as I do, that Abberline considered Tabram a ripper victim, because it is. Abberline could no more prove her a ripper victim than any of us can today, but he clearly included her amongst his likely victims, or else his comments regarding Klosowski make no sense at all. If he didn’t think Tabram was a ripper victim, it would not be “extremely remarkable” that Klosowski lived lodged near George Yard. It would mean that he lived near a murder that he didn’t commit, which would be a pointless thing to observe, and wholly removed from Abberline’s actual observation. He was citing the Klosowski-George Yard connection in support of his theory that Klosowski was the ripper, rendering it indisputable that he considered her a ripper victim.

Sugden never said that “Chapman was the probable killer”, incidentally, and it’s quite clear from his book that he doesn’t believe that to be the case either.

All the best,
Ben

[Sally]

Sigh..

Sally, you THINK that this was so. You probably WANT to think this too. Wish it, sort of. The snag is that it is not proven at all. I´m sorry for your sake, I really am, but there you go.

Interesting, though, that you try to peddle the view that Killeen was wrong, and then accuse ME for twisting and turning things...

Fisherman, you THINK you are right. You probably WANT to think this too. Wish it, sort of. The snag is that it is not proven at all. I'm sorry for your sake, I really am, but there you go.

By the way, I'm not 'peddling' anything. I have no particularly strong feelings about Tabram - yes, I'm more inclined to believe that she was a Ripper victim than not, but I'm open to possibilities. What I do object to is the constant over-egging of Killeen's pudding.

If Ifs and Buts were candied nuts, Killeen would have had the answer in his pocket - but they're not, and he didn't.

Once more (with feeling) he made qualified statements, not definitve ones. This means that he was guessing. Estimation, Speculating, call it what you will. Essentially it's the same thing.

Now I think somebody else can argue with you for a while. Enough already.

[Wickerman]

No amount of waffling can change the fact that Killeen was the only professional who's opinion mattered. And, Killeen determined two types of blade had been used on Tabram.
Not two weapons, there could have been three, or four, but simply that two types of blade were evident.
One type, short and flat similar to a pocket-knife, the other long and strong, similar to a dagger.

It's not Killeen's responsibility to identify the weapons, only how many different types of blade, and he did his job.
History records that Tabram was murdered using two types of blade, ie; two weapons.
Whether there was one man with a clasp-knife, or two, or even three, is open to debate, but only one with a dagger-type.

Regards, Jon S.

[harry]

As Sally pointed out,It is the quality and quantity of experience one has,that determines an ability to give professional opinion.Kileen practised as a GP.Not exceptional that a GP can perform an autopsy.Their training alone would give the neccessary knowledge.All GP's would,in the course of their dealing with injuries,gain knowledge of the way those injuries occured,do not they ask,"and how did you do this".Kileen could not ask the victim.He had to voice an opinion,and no one is contending that he was wrong on all counts.Just on one,that one weapon could not have inflicted all injuries.I ha ve never claimed that all penknives would penetrate the sternum.What I have done is post details of actual cases in which a weapon has pierced the sternum into the heart..In those cases the weapon was produced in court.Medical evidence was that the weapon produced,a penknife,could have been responsible,and that is the most that can be said.I doubt any doctor today,declaring on a wound in the abscence of the weapon that made it,and face d with such injuries as on Tabram,would be so emphatic on two weapons being employed.

[Wickerman]

As Sally pointed out,It is the quality and quantity of experience one has,that determines an ability to give professional opinion.Kileen practised as a GP.Not exceptional that a GP can perform an autopsy.

Harry.
Killeen only "took a position" in General Practice, he was not trained "to be a GP", he was trained in surgery, medicine & Obstetrics.
There was no college training for GP's in the 19th century, all those who chose to go into private practice were trained as surgeon's.
I think Sally is confusing our modern GP with the 19th century private practice.

The Medical Act of 1886 confirmed that graduates had to be educated in surgery, medicine and obstetrics and so the Conjoint Board between the Royal College of Surgeons and the Royal College of Physicians came into existence.

The graduates received Licentiates in these three subjects.

http://www.rcsi.ie/index.jsp?a=635&n=156&p=109

Knife wounds in muscle are very evident, the slicing of the tissue is readily noticable & measurable. As a surgeon Killeen only needed the basic abilities to dissect the muscle and measure the width & depth of the various wounds.
Now, how many qualifications and years of experience would be necessary for a surgeon to accomplish that basic task?

Killeen was amply qualified to determine the nature & size, width & depth of any wounds on Tabram.
What would have meaning is if we had a surgeon on here who could give a professional opinion that Killeen couldn't have been qualified enough, but of course, that will not happen.
These arguments are the purview of the medically untrained layperson who only choose to cast aspersions against those who were qualified.

Its not like we have not seen this approach before, time & time again...

Regards, Jon S.