Lechmere Continuation Thread

[Fisherman]

Hi John,

What's your objection of him as a suspect? I'm interested in your opinion.

Columbo

Itīs simple. John favours Bury, and I have told him that Bury can never be as good a suspect as somebody who was actually found at the murder spot. Bury belongs to the class of suspects the police start looking at when they have cleared the ones who were there, and if they cannot clear the ones who were there, men like Bury will never be of interest to the police.
Since that, John has taken every opportunity to criticize Lechmere as a suspect, without telling us why.

It really does not get any more factual than that.

[Fisherman]

Well if what you're saying is correct, then yes I would object to mixing and matching statements from newspaper reports. I will have to go back and verify for myself since i'm not as schooled with the newspapers.

As Fisherman pointed out it would be foolish to do so since we have the information at hand but nonetheless it'll be educational to read.

Columbo

Actually, we should not use material from just the two sources - we should use three: The Echo, The Star and the Morning Advertiser.

What we should do is to look for any mentioning of the composition of the blood as such; which paper has something to say about the appearance of the blood when Mixen looked at it. We should, for the moment, set aside the question about WHEN Mizen looked at the blood and just ask ourselves whether the information that is given on the various papers allow for making an educated guess about the remove in time when it was seen - early or late.

Dusty wants to forbid this, for the siple reason that he knows very well that every time any paper has something to say about the blood during Mizens observation, what is said supports the view that Mizen saw the blood on the occasion when he first met Neil in Bucks Row.

The Star tells us that Mizen found the blood to be running from the neck wound into the pool, and that it was somewhat congealed. Here is what was written:
He noticed blood running from the throat to the gutter. There was only one pool; it was somewhat congealed.

Question number one: Why was the blood only somewhat congealed if Nichols had been dead for half an hour? Blood congeals competely in around seven minutes.
Question number two: The blood ran "from the throat to the gutter", and there was only one pool of it. So tell me, did the PC:s manage to direct the blood that supposedly leaked out of the neck wound when they lifted Nichols onto the ambulance into that small pool? I find the suggestion amazing.

The much better suggestion is that the blood was only somewhat congealed because it had only had four to six minutes to congeal - because that is when the blood will be somewhat congealed. After half an hour, it will long since be fully congealed, just as Thain described it: "A large clot of blood".

Now, letīs move on to the Morning Advertiser:
"The blood appeared fresh, and was still running from the neck of the woman."

So, the blood appeared fresh. What tells fresh blod from old blood? The colour, mainly - fresh blood is oxygenated and light in colour, while old blood is darker, due to a lack of oxygen in the blood.

And it was "still running" from Nicholsī neck. Mizen does not say it commenced to bleed as he lifted her. He says it was "still running" when he saw it. That infers that the bloodflow had not yet come to a stop - it was still running.

Those who believe that Mizen spoke of Nichols bleeding half an hour after death, speak for a version where she stopped bleeding a short time after she was cut, but when she was lifted onto the ambulance, she commenced bleeding again, due to causes of gravity.

And that blood looked fresh, and it ended up in the small pool under her neck, and that pool had ot had time to fully congeal - it was only somewhat congealed.

Which is the more likely version?

I find it is on print in the Echo, where the reporter managed to take down the real order of events, when the coroner backtracked Mizen, asking him about whether Neil was was with somebody as he met him. And where Mizen says "No one at all, Sir. There was blood running from the throat towards the gutter."

If we merge the three papers together, creating a combined answer from Mizens side, we get this:
There was no one at all with Neil at that stage, Sir. There was blood, appearing fresh, still running from the throat towards the gutter, where it ended up in a pool that had congealed somewhat when I saw it.

This is what nobody who dislikes the Lechmere theory want to see. Itīs very understandable, since it very clearly implicates Charles Lechmere as the killer.

And still, these exact descriptions of the blood appearance is what the reporters heard and reported, unless they made it up.

Is there any reporter at all who says that there was a little dark blood trickling from the neck wound when Nichols was lifted onto the ambulance?
No.
Does somebody write that the blood dripped down into the congealed pool of blood under her neck?
No.
Does any paper at all in any shape or form say that "as they lifted her onto the ambulance, the blood started running"?
No.

Once we add a bit of logic to the material, we can see what happened.

But if we are hellbent on denying anything that can implicate Lechmere we change that logic for a ban to produce material from more than one newspaper in this particular errand.

Guess why, Columbo.

[David Orsam]

Question number one: Why was the blood only somewhat congealed if Nichols had been dead for half an hour? Blood congeals competely in around seven minutes.

Sorry Fisherman but this doesn't make any sense at all.

If there was blood running from Nichols into a pool, as Mizen says, that pool could not possibly be completely congealed could it? It doesn't matter how long Nichols had been dead.

The whole issue at stake is how long blood can run or ooze from a dead body. But we haven't properly resolved this. If it's 20 minutes or half an hour then the fact that blood congeals completely after seven minutes is irrelevant bearing in mind that it was still coming out of the body (and therefore must have been fresh) when Mizen saw it. So we have fresh blood running into a pool which at the time Mizen saw it would be mixture fresh, partly and fully congealed blood making that pool "somewhat congealed". Isn't that right?

[Columbo]

Actually, we should not use material from just the two sources - we should use three: The Echo, The Star and the Morning Advertiser.

What we should do is to look for any mentioning of the composition of the blood as such; which paper has something to say about the appearance of the blood when Mixen looked at it. We should, for the moment, set aside the question about WHEN Mizen looked at the blood and just ask ourselves whether the information that is given on the various papers allow for making an educated guess about the remove in time when it was seen - early or late.

Dusty wants to forbid this, for the siple reason that he knows very well that every time any paper has something to say about the blood during Mizens observation, what is said supports the view that Mizen saw the blood on the occasion when he first met Neil in Bucks Row.

The Star tells us that Mizen found the blood to be running from the neck wound into the pool, and that it was somewhat congealed. Here is what was written:
He noticed blood running from the throat to the gutter. There was only one pool; it was somewhat congealed.

Question number one: Why was the blood only somewhat congealed if Nichols had been dead for half an hour? Blood congeals competely in around seven minutes.
Question number two: The blood ran "from the throat to the gutter", and there was only one pool of it. So tell me, did the PC:s manage to direct the blood that supposedly leaked out of the neck wound when they lifted Nichols onto the ambulance into that small pool? I find the suggestion amazing.

The much better suggestion is that the blood was only somewhat congealed because it had only had four to six minutes to congeal - because that is when the blood will be somewhat congealed. After half an hour, it will long since be fully congealed, just as Thain described it: "A large clot of blood".

Now, letīs move on to the Morning Advertiser:
"The blood appeared fresh, and was still running from the neck of the woman."

So, the blood appeared fresh. What tells fresh blod from old blood? The colour, mainly - fresh blood is oxygenated and light in colour, while old blood is darker, due to a lack of oxygen in the blood.

And it was "still running" from Nicholsī neck. Mizen does not say it commenced to bleed as he lifted her. He says it was "still running" when he saw it. That infers that the bloodflow had not yet come to a stop - it was still running.

Those who believe that Mizen spoke of Nichols bleeding half an hour after death, speak for a version where she stopped bleeding a short time after she was cut, but when she was lifted onto the ambulance, she commenced bleeding again, due to causes of gravity.

And that blood looked fresh, and it ended up in the small pool under her neck, and that pool had ot had time to fully congeal - it was only somewhat congealed.

Which is the more likely version?

I find it is on print in the Echo, where the reporter managed to take down the real order of events, when the coroner backtracked Mizen, asking him about whether Neil was was with somebody as he met him. And where Mizen says "No one at all, Sir. There was blood running from the throat towards the gutter."

If we merge the three papers together, creating a combined answer from Mizens side, we get this:
There was no one at all with Neil at that stage, Sir. There was blood, appearing fresh, still running from the throat towards the gutter, where it ended up in a pool that had congealed somewhat when I saw it.

This is what nobody who dislikes the Lechmere theory want to see. Itīs very understandable, since it very clearly implicates Charles Lechmere as the killer.

And still, these exact descriptions of the blood appearance is what the reporters heard and reported, unless they made it up.

Is there any reporter at all who says that there was a little dark blood trickling from the neck wound when Nichols was lifted onto the ambulance?
No.
Does somebody write that the blood dripped down into the congealed pool of blood under her neck?
No.
Does any paper at all in any shape or form say that "as they lifted her onto the ambulance, the blood started running"?
No.

Once we add a bit of logic to the material, we can see what happened.

But if we are hellbent on denying anything that can implicate Lechmere we change that logic for a ban to produce material from more than one newspaper in this particular errand.

Guess why, Columbo.

Investigators do a similar comparison with eyewitness testimony to create a scenario for a crime, so I can understand the reasoning if that's what we're trying to accomplish.

But if we're talking about creating eyewitness testimony from various sources based on one person's perspective, I would strongly object to that, even if it is from newspapers. All that does is muddy the waters and can hurt that person's case.

I have yet to read the papers as I mentioned. Just my opinion.

Columbo

[John G]

According to Dr Biggs, in respect of Nichols, "if the body were lying motionless on the ground with significant open neck wounds then I would imagine that at least a few hundred millimetres (and probably considerably more) could flow out passively, and that this would happen in the initial couple of minutes...it is also possible that a continued slow trickle could go on for many minutes after death if the wound/gravity conditions were right, ending up with a few litres of blood being present in extreme circumstances." (Marriott, 2013).

[Columbo]

Itīs simple. John favours Bury, and I have told him that Bury can never be as good a suspect as somebody who was actually found at the murder spot. Bury belongs to the class of suspects the police start looking at when they have cleared the ones who were there, and if they cannot clear the ones who were there, men like Bury will never be of interest to the police.
Since that, John has taken every opportunity to criticize Lechmere as a suspect, without telling us why.

It really does not get any more factual than that.

That's right. I forgot he's a Bury advocate. I'm more interested in specific reasons against Lechmere/Cross. I read some of the Bury threads again and that is a really bizarre situation.

Columbo

[Abby Normal]

we don't know if Nichols was already dead when her throat was cut do we? that would be a big factor in terms of blood loss, amount of time for bleeding and amount of congealing, would it not?

[Columbo]

According to Dr Biggs, in respect of Nichols, "if the body were lying motionless on the ground with significant open neck wounds then I would imagine that at least a few hundred millimetres (and probably considerably more) could flow out passively, and that this would happen in the initial couple of minutes...it is also possible that a continued slow trickle could go on for many minutes after death if the wound/gravity conditions were right, ending up with a few litres of blood being present in extreme circumstances." (Marriott, 2013).

But it's not mentioned if he's taking the abdominal wounds into his account, because you now have blood building up in the opposite direction of the neck wound and that would certainly slow down the amount of blood coming out of the neck. Not to mention the abdominal wounds themselves would have bled slightly as well as secondary viens within the abdomen itself.

I mention this because I believe those factors would appear to shorten the time of death estimate and in effect strengthen the timeframe put forth by Fisherman.

Columbo

[Columbo]

we don't know if Nichols was already dead when her throat was cut do we? that would be a big factor in terms of blood loss, amount of time for bleeding and amount of congealing, would it not?

I don't think she was but she was probably unconcious which would've slowed her heart rate. That definitely would've slowed down the flow. I'm sure the first cut into the artery would've gushed forth for a second or so. After that it would've slowed down considerably.

Columbo

[Fisherman]

David Orsam: Sorry Fisherman but this doesn't make any sense at all.

So you are sorry? How touching! Thank you!

If there was blood running from Nichols into a pool, as Mizen says, that pool could not possibly be completely congealed could it? It doesn't matter how long Nichols had been dead.

True. But according to Payne-James, there would not be any running blood for half an hour or so, which would be requried to move Mizens observation to the stage when Nichols was put on the ambulance and carried off. And at that stage, when Mrs Greens son washes the blood away, it had turned onto a large clot of blood. It was not a wet pool with some little congealed blood in it.

The whole issue at stake is how long blood can run or ooze from a dead body.

No, the whole issue is how long blood can run or ooze (Neil said both, by the way) from different bodies with different levels of damage.

But we haven't properly resolved this.

We? Jason Payne-James said that three or five minutes were better suggestions than seven. He also said that a decapitated person will bleed out completely in a minute or less.
Once again, we are speaking of probabilitites. And once again, that offers a perfect possibility for you to do your defense lawyer thing again. There is little I can do about that. I am not saying that she could not bleed for 20-30 minutes. But I am saying that it would be completely unexpected if the blood could flow freely from the neck, and as far as we know, it could. The much better suggestion is therefore that she would not bleed for 20-30 minutes.
Instead of trying to show off verbally out here, I would recommend that you delved into the issue and spoke to specialists, the way I have done.

If it's 20 minutes or half an hour then the fact that blood congeals completely after seven minutes is irrelevant bearing in mind that it was still coming out of the body (and therefore must have been fresh) when Mizen saw it.

The blood must not be fresh when running, Iīm afraid. There was blood coming from a severed surface of the Pinchin Street torso, presumably when it was moved. That blood was not fresh, it would have been smelly and dark. And if you think it proves that you can actively bleed for days on end, no, you cannot. But stale blood can be left in a liquid (but NOT fresh) state for a very long time if the surrounding conditions allow for it.

So we have fresh blood running into a pool which at the time Mizen saw it would be mixture fresh, partly and fully congealed blood making that pool "somewhat congealed". Isn't that right?

Yes, that is right. And it was when he first met Neil he saw it. Twenty minutes later, even if we suggest that blood had been running all the time, the pool would have been heavily congealed, not somewhat congealed. And with thirty minutes of bleeding, why would there only be a very small pool of blood?

[John G]

But it's not mentioned if he's taking the abdominal wounds into his account, because you now have blood building up in the opposite direction of the neck wound and that would certainly slow down the amount of blood coming out of the neck. Not to mention the abdominal wounds themselves would have bled slightly as well as secondary viens within the abdomen itself.

I mention this because I believe those factors would appear to shorten the time of death estimate and in effect strengthen the timeframe put forth by Fisherman.

Columbo

Hi Colombo,

Trevor Marriott: "Would the wounds in the stomach contribute to how long it took for her [Nichols] to bleed out?"

Dr Biggs: " Severe abdominal wounds would 'contribute' to the rapidity of bleeding to death, but this effect could range from almost negligible (if the neck wounds were so bad that death would have been very quick and the abdominal wounds didn't hit anything major) to be very great (if the neck wounds miraculously missed all the major vessels, and the abdominal wounds pranged something big."(Marriott, 2013).

[Fisherman]

we don't know if Nichols was already dead when her throat was cut do we? that would be a big factor in terms of blood loss, amount of time for bleeding and amount of congealing, would it not?

We actually do know that this was what Llewellyn suggested - he believed that he damage to the abdomen came forst, and was enough to kill.
As such, we should expect that the blood coming from the neck wound would be a small amount of blood, if Nichols had been killed by the abdominal damage. There would be no jet of blood from the neck in such a case, and the blood would not pump out or gush out from the neck wound. It would instead run rather peacefully for as long as there was any blood left that had a reason of gravity to leave the body. The blood collected in the abdominal cavity would reasonably stay there if it was closer to the ground than the arch of her neck.The body would therefore not be drained of blood, but the examining medico would find a lot of it in the abdominal cavity. The blood leaking out via the neck wound woulf predominantly come from the chest area, I believe.

[Fisherman]

Hi Colombo,

Trevor Marriott: "Would the wounds in the stomach contribute to how long it took for her [Nichols] to bleed out?"

Dr Biggs: " Severe abdominal wounds would 'contribute' to the rapidity of bleeding to death, but this effect could range from almost negligible (if the neck wounds were so bad that death would have been very quick and the abdominal wounds didn't hit anything major) to be very great (if the neck wounds miraculously missed all the major vessels, and the abdominal wounds pranged something big."(Marriott, 2013).

This is typical of the Biggs material - all totally correct, but why on earth would we speculate in a possibility that the neck wounds miraculously missed all the major vessels? We know full well that NO major vessel was spared, they were all severed completely.
This is why I am very reluctant to invest too much in Trevor and what he puts forth.

[John Wheat]

Hi John,

What's your objection of him as a suspect? I'm interested in your opinion.

Columbo

To Colombo

My opinion on Lechmere as a suspect is that he is a non starter. He found a body so what? Someone had to. As at least one other poster has pointed the Ripper would not need much time to abscond from the scene, so this bullshit about Lechmere being found with a body is exactly that bullshit. Fans of the Lechmere theory often blither on about him using another name but the problem with that is one we don't know why he used that name there could be any number of reasons and two that name could easily be traced to him anyway.

Cheers John

[Columbo]

To Colombo

My opinion on Lechmere as a suspect is that he is a non starter. He found a body so what? Someone had to. As at least one other poster has pointed the Ripper would not need much time to abscond from the scene, so this bullshit about Lechmere being found with a body is exactly that bullshit. Fans of the Lechmere theory often blither on about him using another name but the problem with that is one we don't know why he used that name there could be any number of reasons and two that name could easily be traced to him anyway.

Cheers John

Good enough. Thanks.

Columbo