Lechmere Continuation Thread

[harry]

As one poster says,let's look at it the other way round.Let's start by considering that Cross told the truth.That Nichols was lying there dead or dying when he arrived. What disproves that evidence?

[Columbo]

Hi Columbo
Ive often wondered if the ripper didn't come across her as she was dozing on the sidewalk of bucks row.

That's entirely possible! It definitely would save Jack time. Never dawned on me she might already have been asleep.

Columbo

[Columbo]

As one poster says,let's look at it the other way round.Let's start by considering that Cross told the truth.That Nichols was lying there dead or dying when he arrived. What disproves that evidence?

Nothing. Cross could've just come upon her like he said. But that's no fun!

Columbo

[Columbo]

Didn't Dr Blackwell say it was 01:16 by his watch when he arrived at Dutfield's Yard, not 01:10 ?
Meaning it took 6 minutes for him to dress and get to the scene of crime. As it's just about the same distance as Dr Llewellyn had to cover to Buck's Row, this seems a reasonable estimate for him too.

Nice, I can accept that.

Columbo

[Abby Normal]

Hey Baby,

That's entirely possible! It definitely would save Jack time. Never dawned on me she might already have been asleep.

Columbo

Baby? First of all I'm am a middle aged man. Second of all. Lol. I'll take it!


I've often wondered what Polly was doing after she talked to her friend. There's a lot of time (uh oh there's that word again)from when she talked to to her and when her body was found. Methinks she might have meandered drunkenly down whitechapel road, found no new punters, and stumbled about into bucks row where she reclined up against the wall on the sidewalk and dozed off.

You can guess the rest.

[Columbo]

Baby? First of all I'm am a middle aged man. Second of all. Lol. I'll take it!


I've often wondered what Polly was doing after she talked to her friend. There's a lot of time (uh oh there's that word again)from when she talked to to her and when her body was found. Methinks she might have meandered drunkenly down whitechapel road, found no new punters, and stumbled about into bucks row where she reclined up against the wall on the sidewalk and dozed off.

You can guess the rest.

Stupid spell-check! never use a tablet to respond to a forum!

Columbo

[drstrange169]

When Christer writes his abusive posts I tend to skip through them, so I missed this,

>>I have not cut away any relevant passages. Dusty has. End of. <<

Since his post #23 is a testament to his scissor-wielding, this statement is indisputably a lie. One I have asked Christer to explain several times, but to date has avoided.


>>(And you donīt want me to cut and paste your effort in the discipline, Dusty, since it is extremly embarrasing for you).<<

Since I know, unequivocally, that I have committed no deliberate wrong, why would I be embarrassed?

As to me not wanting to talk about your fictitious allegations, I'm afraid that's indisputably another of your dishonest distortions.

Here's what I wrote waaay back in Post #40 when you first started disrupting this thread with your abusive behaviour,

"I'm happy to discuss anything. It seems to be you who is leaving an ever-lengthening list of subjects you won't discuss openly. When you are ready."

And it’s not just me, poster David Orsam has called you out for your “mendacious” behaviour in responding to him.

You keep making snide remarks, but when you are called out, like the issue of entrance’s to Broad Street (post # 38), you go missing in action. Why is that?

You want to talk about me, stop threatening and start a thread, but please DON’T do it on this thread, you have unanswered questions you've run away from here and I don’t think you should use this as yet another excuse to avoid answering them.

[Billiou]

Some editions might have been published in England but just to add that in the context of oozing out of the skin, I can see that if this was some form of excessive oozing from the skin then I suppose you could describe it as oozing profusely because the skin isn't meant to ooze, so any form of inordinate oozing out of the pores would be profuse. But when referring to blood oozing out of a body I don't think it can ooze profusely unless it's coming out of multiple holes in the body. Oozing is, by definition, to leak out slowly or to trickle out. So really, John, I do think that Neil's statement is clear cut.

And we should consider all the "blood evidence" given at the Inquest:
The Times:
PC Niel: “he examined the body and saw blood oozing from a wound in the throat.”
Dr Llewellyn: “ There was very little blood round the neck”

The Star:
PC Mizen: “He assisted in removing the body. He noticed blood running from the throat to the gutter.”

The Evening Post:
Dr Llewellyn: “There was a very small pool of blood in the pathway, which had trickled from the wound in the throat, not more than would fill two wine glasses, or half a pint at the outside.”
Inspector Helston: “The only part of her garments saturated with blood was the back of the neck of the dress and ulster, which had absorbed a great deal of blood.”
PC Neil: “When he saw the body he turned on his light and saw that blood was oozing from her throat.”
PC Mizen: “and afterwards assisted to remove the body. Blood was running from her neck.”

The Daily Telegraph:
PC Neil: “I examined the body by the aid of my lamp, and noticed blood oozing from a wound in the throat.”... “The Coroner: Did you notice any blood where she was found?
Witness: There was a pool of blood just where her neck was lying. It was running from the wound in her neck.”

Morning Advertiser:
Dr Llewellyn: “He had called the attention of the police to the smallness of the quantity of blood on the spot where he saw the body”
PC Mizen: “I assisted to remove the body. The blood appeared fresh, and was still running from the neck of the woman.”

So when I read them all I take it that:
1) There was a small amount oozing from her neck
2) When she was moved this caused more blood to run from her neck onto the footpath
3) After removal of the body Dr LLewellyn described the quantity of blood that had come from the body as a small amount, half a pint at the outside.
4) Most of the blood lost had gone beneath the body and had been soaked up by her clothes.

[drstrange169]

The problem of when Dr. Llewellyn saw the body has been solved!

Very close to four o'clock.

Coroner Baxter summation states,

" Even if Paul were mistaken in the movement of the chest, Neil found her right arm still warm, and even Dr. Llewellyn, who saw the body about a quarter of an hour afterwards ..."
(The Times 24 September)

Unlike us, Baxter had access to all the available information. Whether he meant a quarter of an hour after Paul or Neil is not so clear. I read it as Neil, but he could have meant Paul.

[John G]

Some editions might have been published in England but just to add that in the context of oozing out of the skin, I can see that if this was some form of excessive oozing from the skin then I suppose you could describe it as oozing profusely because the skin isn't meant to ooze, so any form of inordinate oozing out of the pores would be profuse. But when referring to blood oozing out of a body I don't think it can ooze profusely unless it's coming out of multiple holes in the body. Oozing is, by definition, to leak out slowly or to trickle out. So really, John, I do think that Neil's statement is clear cut.

Hello David,

Yes, although we cannot know whether PC Neil was using the word in its literary sense, or whether he properly understood the dictionary definition, I think you're correct. Based upon Dr Biggs' assessment, that would indicate that the victim had been killed at least 20 minutes prior to PC Neil's arrival on the scene, so probably before 3:25.

[Fisherman]

Billiou:

And we should consider all the "blood evidence" given at the Inquest:

Yes - ALL of it!

So when I read them all I take it that:
1) There was a small amount oozing from her neck
2) When she was moved this caused more blood to run from her neck onto the footpath
3) After removal of the body Dr LLewellyn described the quantity of blood that had come from the body as a small amount, half a pint at the outside.
4) Most of the blood lost had gone beneath the body and had been soaked up by her clothes.

Just as you point out, there are papers reporting the blood Mizen saw as coming from the neck when he helped lifting her. I believe this is a misreporting on behalf of a number of papers, and that the one paper who gave the full picture - the Echo - is the only one that got it right:

"Police-constable George Myzen, 55 H, said that on Friday morning, at twenty minutes past four, he was at the corner of Hanbury-street, Baker's-row, when a man, who looked like a carman, said, "You are wanted in Buck's-row." Witness now knew the man to be named Cross, and he was a carman. Witness asked him what was the matter, and Cross replied, "A policeman wants you; there is a woman lying there." Witness went there, and saw Constable Neil, who sent him to the station for the ambulance.

The Coroner - Was there anyone else there then? - No one at all, Sir. There was blood running from the throat towards the gutter."


Can you see what happens here? Mizen speaks about how he arrived at the murder site and how Neil told him to go for an ambulance. At that exact remove in time, the coroner steps in and asks him if there was anyone with Neil when Mizen first arrived. And Mizen answers:
"No one at all, Sir. There was blood running from the throat towards the gutter."

This is exactly how I think the inquest went down - but other papers have left out how the coroner asked this question at this exact stage of the proceedings, and they arrive at "I was sent to fetch an ambulance to put her on. The blood was running from the neck".

Now, why would we accept that the Echo was correct? Well, because we ALSO have the Star commenting on the matter, like this:

"Witness went to the spot, found Policeman Neil there, and by his instruction witness went for the ambulance. He assisted in removing the body. He noticed blood running from the throat to the gutter. There was only one pool; it was somewhat congealed."


Once again, the coroners question is left out, disrupting the sequence of events. But Mizen says that he noticed blood running towards the gutter, and that the pool under the neck was "somewhat congealed".

That means that the blood had started congealing, something that becomes visible after 3-4 minutes.

It was not "very congealed", it was not "fully congealed" - it was somewhat congealed.

And we know from Thain that as the body was wheeled away, the blood had transformed into a large clot of blood. It was not somewhat congealed at that stage, it was a massive clot, which is exactly what was to be expected, given the time that had passed.

Also consider how Mizen points out that the blood was running towards the gutter. I donīt think he would have made that remark to the coroner and inquest if the blood seeped out as he lifted the body. But is is a very reasonable comment to make if you are commenting on the state of affairs when you first look at the body - such information could help the coroner and inquest to establish that the death was close in time, whereas speaking about how there was blood coming out as you lifted the body into the ambulance was of no value at all to the inquest.
Nor do I think that there would have been enough blood seeping out to run for the gutter at that stage - Nichols had been lying down for about half an hour with a humongous hole in her neck. Just as Jason Payne-James says, with that kind of opening and with all vessels severed in the neck, it is a question of minutes only before the blood has emptied out.

That is the first thing I think you may have missed out on. The other one is Helsonīs assertion that most of the blood had seeped into the clothing. It had not - it had, as per Llewellyn, instead seeped into the abdominal cavity. Some of it would have been soaked up by the ulster, as shown by how Thain got his hands bloodied when lifting Nichols onto the ambulance, but the bulk of it was inside the abdomen, for the simple reason that it was cut first. The blood in the ulster would - as far as I am concerned - have come from the abdominal cuts.

This is why there was not an almighty pool of blood under her neck. It had a two-inch wide cut in it, and there was nothing to stop the flow, so there should have been such a pool if the neck was cut first.
Many observers commented on the baffling lack of blood. But there was a reason!

This is my explanation to the blood conundrum. There are those who will say that there are MORE papers reporting it as if Mizen saw the blood running twenty, thirty minutes after the cutting was done. But keep in mid that each of these papers lack the all-important question from the coroner, explaining when Mizen spoke of the blood.

[Fisherman]

...Fisherman is really trying to argue on the basis of Dr Llewellyn's evidence that ONLY Lechmere could have done it.

When I leave a thread, I open an opportunity for people to have their say without me stepping in and questioning their suggestions.

Such an opportunity should not be misused in favour of lying about me.

I have never tried to argue that Llewellyns evidence tells us that only Lechmere could be the killer. I have instead said that there must always be room for doubt, and that another killer may have been there before Lechmere.
I do think that the evidence allows for only a short window of opportunity for an alternative killer - IF LLEWELLYNS AND JASON PAYNE-JAMES SUGGESTIONS ARE APPLICABLE!!! But they need not be, since there can always be deviations in these matters.

That is what I have said.

To have you claiming that I would have said that I am trying to argue on basis of Llewellyns evidence that only Lechmere could have done it is therefore patently untrue.

[John G]

There is clearly contradictory blood evidence, however, I think the following conclusions can be made: if blood was observed gushing from the neck relatively profusely that could suggest that blood is still being forced through the arteries at pressure-as a consequence of ventricular contractions- in which case the victim would still be technically alive. However, as Dr Biggs implies there would still be post mortem pressure in the arteries, but after, say, 20 minutes "the flow of blood is likely to have slowed to a trickle by this time as pressure inside the vessels would have dissipated and the volume of blood remaining available to leak out would become very little." (Marriott, 2013).

It is possible that blood could continue to seep out of the veins "under the influence of gravity" (ibid), as this is not dependent on a beating heart, for a period of several minutes. However, once again after, say, 20 minutes "This is likely to be minimal (almost negligible) in nature, as the majority of the blood that could come out would have done so much sooner". (Ibid, the emphasis is mine.)

[Fisherman]

There is clearly contradictory blood evidence, however, I think the following conclusions can be made: if blood was observed gushing from the neck relatively profusely that could suggest that blood is still being forced through the arteries at pressure-as a consequence of ventricular contractions- in which case the victim would still be technically alive. However, as Dr Biggs implies there would still be post mortem pressure in the arteries, but after, say, 20 minutes "the flow of blood is likely to have slowed to a trickle by this time as pressure inside the vessels would have dissipated and the volume of blood remaining available to leak out would become very little." (Marriott, 2013).

It is possible that blood could continue to seep out of the veins "under the influence of gravity" (ibid), as this is not dependent on a beating heart, for a period of several minutes. However, once again after, say, 20 minutes "This is likely to be minimal (almost negligible) in nature, as the majority of the blood that could come out would have done so much sooner". (Ibid, the emphasis is mine.)

Was there ever a decapitation that resulted in twenty minutes of bleeding? Nope, there was not, and the reason is a simple one - when all the vessels in the neck are severed, the blood will leave the body in around a minuteīs time or less. This, at least, is what I have been told by Jason Payne-James.

Polly Nichols was also "decapitated", at least when it comes to the vessels - each and every one of the major vessels of the neck were severed. After that, she ended up in a position where the gaping wound would be very close to the lowest part of the body. In all probablity, the heart had stopped beating as the neck was cut - there were no signs of any blood jet, as there should have been otherwise.
This means that the blood left the body with little or no underlying pressure. I am quite convinced that neither Neil nor Mizen saw blood running out under heart pressure.
When the neck of a dead person is cut, there will be a little pressure left, but that pressure will have left Nichols via the damage done to the blood vessels in the abdomen. So basically, the blood poured out the way it would poor out of an open bottle. And Jason Payne-James says that it would be a matter of a few minutes only, three or five minutes being a better suggestion than seven.

There is no reason at all why this process would be prolonged.

Biggsī participation in the discussion was always an unlucky one, since Trevor seems to have fed him all the wrong questions agains a backdrop of lacking information. Biggs spoke of how he had seen car crash victims bleed long after they died, but that is not all that strange - it will be goverend mainly by the appearance and size of the wounds and the position the body ends up in.
Imagine a crash where the victim dies as a result of severe trauma to the head, where the body ends in a sitting position and where the only open wound is on the lower leg, and where that wound is pressed closed by wreckage parts. In such a situation, very little blood will seep out over a very long time. If the wound had been to the neck, much less blood would have seeped out, owing to gravity.

Biggs also spoke of vessel contractionas a possible hindrance to the blood, and that sounded interesting - until I spke to Paune-James who asserted me tnat there can be no such cntraction when both the outer and inner artery is cut. Once again, if there could, we would have decapitations where the victims did not bleed. We donīt.

This is the kind of thing Biggs spoke of, and much as it is true, it has no bearing at all on Nichols, who was basically - like I said - like an opened up bottle.

[David Orsam]

When I leave a thread, I open an opportunity for people to have their say without me stepping in and questioning their suggestions.

Such an opportunity should not be misused in favour of lying about me.

I have never tried to argue that Llewellyns evidence tells us that only Lechmere could be the killer. I have instead said that there must always be room for doubt, and that another killer may have been there before Lechmere.
I do think that the evidence allows for only a short window of opportunity for an alternative killer - IF LLEWELLYNS AND JASON PAYNE-JAMES SUGGESTIONS ARE APPLICABLE!!! But they need not be, since there can always be deviations in these matters.

That is what I have said.

To have you claiming that I would have said that I am trying to argue on basis of Llewellyns evidence that only Lechmere could have done it is therefore patently untrue.

You are obviously not familiar with your own arguments Fisherman.

You have told us that Dr Llewellyn examined the body of Nichols at 4:10am and pronounced that death had taken place no more than 30 minutes prior to this, i.e. that the murder occurred no earlier than 3:40am.

Equally you have stated that Cross left his house at 3:30am and would have taken 7 minutes to reach Bucks Row so that he must have arrived at Bucks Row at 3:37.

Well, if Lechmere was in Bucks Row at 3.37 and Nichols was murdered at or after 3.40 either Lechmere was the murderer or he witnessed the murder take place. As he clearly did not witness the murder then, by your own argument, he must have been the murderer and there is no possibility of anyone else having murdered Nichols.

That is why I carefully stated that "Fisherman is really trying to argue on the basis of Dr Llewellyn's evidence that ONLY Lechmere could have done it."

That statement is patently true.

But perhaps you now want to amend some of your claims about the timings set out above?