Chapman’s death.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Im sorry Fish but you are plumbing new depths here. Please give this up. You must know that the argument was lost by you long ago. How much more proper, sourced and verified, evidence from experts do I need to produce? How many more word changes and examples of the twisting of logic, reason and science to suit can you keep coming up with? Your posts might make Fishy and The Baron happy but anyone reading this with an unbiased outlook cannot fail to see that this isn’t even close. It’s not actually worth debating. It’s beyond obvious.

[Lipsky]

Assumed you always did when conversing with the fish people here.

Colorblind.

It's a fish-y debate, ain't it?

[Herlock Sholmes]

It’s not a debate anymore. It’s my facts against his fantasy.

It was over long ago. He just won’t admit it.

[DJA]

But fish is cloning himself.

Two of 'em now

[Fisherman]

To avoid confusion my responses to Fish will be in blue.

I´m afraid you will have to do more than write in blue to avoid confusion. Much, much more.

[Fisherman]

I am not going to read it in its entirety- I don't have to



This is the typical cop out. A way of not responding to unpleasant facts that destroy your weird and unsupported beliefs.


Unpleasant? Yes!!! Facts?
[/CODE]


Once again (is it the nineteenth or the twentieth time now?): Phillips did NOT establish the time of death!!!



It's hard to believe that someone can misunderstand English in such a way, even a non-native speaker.



I wrote that it's not possible to feel a cold body and then "accurately and reliably estimate the time of death"

Estimations can be made, and many of them will be completely safe and reliable. Feeling for warmth is a manner to establish not the TOD but to exclude the impossible. Like for example that somebody will turn cold in one hour only. Your by now very stale idea that all matters coupled to the method went into the trash bin long ago.
[HTML]
You have decided to change my word "estimate" to a completely different word, "establish". Thus, with three exclamation marks and a capital letter, you say "Phillips did NOT establish the time of death!!!" Why? Because you always change words to try and suit your argument. I have already complained about this. Why can't you stick with the words I use?



I just did. It did nothing at all to help you. Did you notice that?

Even more amazing is that you go on to use quotation marks to falsely quote me and write "Of course, saying that a person has been dead for at least to hours is NOT "accurately and reliably establishing the time of death"! How has my word "estimating" again become "establishing"?

Okay, then it IS accurately and reliably establishing a minimum space of time since death. Keep in mind that a cold body will indicate 4-6 hours since death, so Phillips was very generous - although not generous enough to be unrealistic.

If you don't think that Dr Phillips was giving an estimate of the time of death, which he so obviously was, it's really difficult to know how to continue with you. His estimate of time of death was that murder had occurred at about or before 4.30am (although he qualified that by accepting that it could have been later due to certain factors). That was is his estimate. It's clear and undeniable. No-one in this discussion, least of all me, has been talking about him establishing the time of death.

You have spoke a whole lot about establishing the TOD, but I am perfectly happy to deal with "estimating" instead. Its good to ee that you recognize what the process is about.

[Fisherman]

People who have grown cold have been dead for many hours, medicos normally cite that they have been gone for 4-6 hours.



It's hard to know what you mean by "grown cold", but do you have any evidence showing this of modern medicos?

I just posted the material from the net: We are warm to the touch for three hours after death and we feel cold from around 4-6 hours after death. After 24 hours, our bodies have taken on the ambient temperature all the way through.

I doubt it because modern medicos no longer estimate time of death based on feeling body temperature and would never conclude that someone has been dead 4-6 hours based on nothing more than the fact that the body feels cold to the touch. If they do make an estimate from temperature they will use a complicated formula based on exact rectal temperature readings and air temperature, not on the basis of "grown cold".

Don't be daft. Cold is cold, and any medico would know today too that people who feel cold to the touch have been dead for four hours or more. It is another matter that we have more exact methods to judge by and therefore employ them. But you may be familiar with how a medico - or your mother, even - will be able to feel your forehead and easily see that you have a fever. it is a raised temperature of very few degrees that takes care of that.

Or do you mean Victorian medicos? Do you even have evidence of THAT? I doubt it and, in any case, they didn't know what they were talking about because the science wasn't up to scratch. But let me remind you of some evidence which you decided to simply ignore:

More stupidity, and more evasion and desperate efforts to run away. The victorian medico knew quite well what he was talking about and there was an empirical basis for what they did in terms of feeling for warmth.

From the Times of 6 March 1861 reporting proceedings at Mansion House Police Court regarding a charge of assisting in the suicide of Thomas Richards by Sarah Rose Ferry:

"Mr Robert Fowler, surgeon, Bishopsgate-street, said on Friday afternoon, his assistant, who had been called to see the deceased, returned with an empty bottle which had a strong smell of prussic acid. Witness went and saw deceased. The body was cold, and the deceased appeared to have been dead about an hour."

Do you have anything to say about this? I thought not.

Oh, but I do: It is wrong. Bodies that have not been dead for more than an hour are not cold. End of.

The problem YOU have is to explain to me why the body would have dropped many degrees in temperature in an hour when we know full well that no such things happen. I´d be interested to see the source - the one above leads nowhere, but once I get it, I will be able to see where it has gone wrong.
What I can offer is that prussic acid and nitrate poisoning are much the same, suffocating from within. And it is written about the process that it involves "Clinical signs difficulty breathing, muscular weakness, below normal body temperature, loss of coordination, blue coloration of the mucous membranes, and brown discoloration of the blood." So there is reason to think that this kind of poisoning - something that Chapman was never subjected to - may lower body temperature, which could perhaps have contributed to the verdict. But overall, I find it hard to believe in as dramatic a drop as is hinted at here.

Do NOT skip over supplying the source!!



She had started to develop rigor. Rigor normally sets in between 2-4 hours after death.



We've been all over this. 2-4 hours is an average only which means that it can easily occur outside that range. I've already noted the variables that can accelerate rigor and they apply to Chapman. The experts say loud and clear that the time of onset of rigor should not be relied upon to estimate time of death. That includes Payne James, Fisherman. Remember him? The guy whose conclusions are so shocking to you that you can barely mention his name but if you do, you just ignore everything he has said on the subject!

Yes, it is the average, an average that dovetailed with the two hours and probably more that Phillips spoke of.

Why do you think "I can barely name Jason Payne-James? Here you are: Jason Payne-James Jason Payne-James Jason Payne-James Jason Payne-James Jason Payne-JamesJason Payne-James Jason Payne-James Jason Payne-James Jason Payne-James Jason Payne-James Jason Payne-James Jason Payne-James. An eminent professional and a very nice man, whose findings are not at odds with what I say. That's only you pretending again.

[Fisherman]

General response:



Fisherman, I asked you to provide some source material or evidence to support your bizarre ramblings and you have failed to do it. I know why. It's because you are making all of this up, hoping to wing it, without any knowledge of the subject. I'm not going to reply to every silly and unsupported point you make (although at least you are not still jabbering on about paper bags!). Instead, I'm now going to explain the subject to you and the rest of the Forum with expert sources. If you disagree, you need to provide expert source material in response or, otherwise, keep quiet.

Dr Seddon-Smith is quite right to say that people are cold about 10-20 minutes after death and that the skin cools very rapidly once circulation ceases. So how then to explain that some bodies feel warm more 20 minutes after death? If we consult an expert in forensic pathology, the answer is easy. This is from Knight's Forensic Pathology (2016), the 'Knight' in question being the renowned pathologist Professor Bernard Knight:

"When death occurs, heat transfer within the body through the circulation ceases. Metabolic heat production, occurring mainly in the muscles and liver, does not cease uniformly and some heat generation continues for a variable time. As soon as the supply of warmed blood ceases with cardiac arrest, the skin surface immediately begins to lose heat. The rate is variable because of clothing, posture and shielding against the supporting surface and, of course, the environmental temperature. "

So let's look at that. Heat transfer within the body through circulation ceases upon death and "the skin surface immediately begins to lose heat". One can't provide an exact time for the heat to be completely lost because the rate is variable and depends on a variety of factors. A clothed body will retain warmth longer than a naked one. A body in a warm room will retain heat longer than one outdoors. A body outdoors in warm weather will retain heat longer than one in cold weather. But within 10-20 minutes after death the effects of the absence of heat transfer through the skin can be felt and the skin is cooling rapidly.

However, despite death, there is still possible internal heat production, mainly in the muscles and the liver, so the body can be generating heat from within (known as the 'core'). As the surface heat is lost, heat can be transferred to the surface from the core by conduction. So it's possible to feel warmth at the surface for some time after death even though the skin has lost all its original warmth. If, however, per Payne James, a person is suffering from emaciation and loss of muscle bulk, the heat being generated from the core will be much less and may not warm the surface at all.

Fisherman refers to a supposed rate of cooling of 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit an hour. This is a nineteenth century formula (specifically in respect of the core temperature or, otherwise, the rectal temperature) based on an 1887 theory by Frederick Womack which has long been known to be wrong. Hence, this is again from Knight's Forensic Pathology:

"In spite of the great volume of research and publications already mentioned, accuracy in estimating the time since death from temperature remains elusive. The old rule-of-thumb was that temperature fell at about 1.5degF/h, something under 1degC/h. Another rule of thumb was that the fall in degC from 37degC, plus three (to arbitrarily allow for the plateau), was equal to the time since death in hours. The only confidence that one could place in these methods was that they were almost always wrong, and that, if the answer happened to be correct, it was by chance rather than science!"

And this is from 'Corpse: Nature, Forensics, And the Struggle to Pinpoint Time of Death" by Jessica Snyder Sachs (2002):

"Seemingly overnight [in 1887], forensic doctors across Europe and the Americas embraced the idea that they could calculate post-mortem interval with pinpoint accuracy. Dropping Womack's own rather complex mathematics, they settled on the deceptively simple formula still used by many pathologists today: that of adding one hour since death for every 1.5 degree drop below normal body temperature. Over the next century, this misleading bit of arithmetic would send countless murder investigations down cold trails, set free an unknown number of killers, and conceivably spell life imprisonment - even death – for a comparable number of innocents."

As it happens, it is has long been known that a dead body can actually get warmer after death than it was in life! It's a recognised phenomenon.

It's also the case that a living person's body can feel cold. Especially someone on the brink of death. In that case, if it's not one of those random bodies that gets warmer after death, it's probably going to remain cold after death. The conclusions you can draw from feeling a cold body after death are very limited. Fisherman seems to think that because one body might be warm 45 minutes, or an hour, after death, this means that every single body must be warm an hour after death! That's his whole argument. But it's in no way as simple as that. There are so many variables to take account of and, by the 45 minute stage, per Seddon-Smith, the skin has long lost all its heat and the only heat actually being generated from within the body is from (mainly) the muscles and liver, thus potentially making the skin feel warm through conduction. So if one person has relatively healthy muscles and liver they might well feel warmer at the surface much longer after death than someone who was already weakened due to more heat being generated within the dead body.

What cannot be said with any certainty is how long every single person will take to feel cold. I have referred three times now to a doctor at a meeting of the Surgical Society of Ireland who had noted that a dead body can feel as cold after one hour as other dead bodies do after six hours. Fisherman has remained silent about it (pretending he hasn't read it!). He hasn't challenged it. There is no exact science about the process.

Without any evidence at all, and contrary to the evidence of the Surgical Society of Ireland, Fisherman tells us that it is "impossible" for a body that has been dead for an hour to be cold! This is a joke. Not only is that based on a false assumption of the rate of cooling but he is confusing the temperature of the core (the rectal temperature) with the temperature of the body surface (the skin). As we've seen, he seems to magically think that it's possible to feel the core temperature through the skin. Of course it isn't. For there to be heat at the body surface after one hour, in circumstances where a body is lying in the open air on a cool night, is entirely dependent on heat being generated within the core and then being conducted to the surface. But, as Seddon Smith has stated (and Fisherman accepts), the skin is insulated from the core so it's not straightforward and with all the different variables involved, especially if the muscles and liver are not generating much heat after death, the remaining heat in the core will not always reach the surface.

The notion of estimating time of death through placing the back of one's hand on a dead body (which was loved of Victorian medicos and, it seems, Dr Phillips himself) has long since been abandoned. In 'Human Body Decomposition' by Jarvis Hayman and Marc Oxenham (2016) it is stated: "it is interesting to note that Bauman (1880) recognized the inaccuracy of using the then customary method of gauging the temperature of the skin of a body by using the back of the hand" Nevertheless, Knight says it can be done as a useful first manoeuvre when at the scene of death and, in the process, suggests "sliding a hand under the body where it is in contact with the supporting surface". I would have thought that this is what Dr Phillips did with Chapman and found some warmth on he lower back which he attributed to coming from the intestines. In Chapman's case the intestines were, unusually, exposed. I wouldn't have thought that Phillips would have slipped his hand into the intestines to feel the warmth but I suppose he might have done. Either way, it shows that simply checking "the left side" of the body (which is what the Morning Advertiser says Phillips did, and which Fisherman seems to accept) was not sufficient because that excludes the middle of the body. In this case, there was warmth in the centre so that Chapman's body was not "all cold" or "stone cold".

Finally, I see that Fisherman wants us to believe that Dr Phillips had carried out "thousands" of examinations at scenes of death and was, in effect, a one man walking research team, conducting a series of personal experiments until he had built up a bank of knowledge of estimating time of death that was far superior to any of his peers and perhaps even better than forensic pathology experts today! It's absolutely ridiculous. How many times in his career does Fisherman think Dr Phillips had been called out to a person who was lying murdered in the open, especially a person in an advanced state of a serious illness, and had arrived at the scene within a short time of that murder? It wouldn't surprise me if it was the first time he had ever done it. It was a very rare occurrence. His estimate of at least two hours was probably something he had been taught at medical school in the 1850s. He obviously wasn't aware of ALL the variables that can affect (and increase) the rate of cooling of a body as listed by Payne James in Simpson's modern forensics textbook.

I don't think anything more need be said. All the top forensic experts agree that you can't reliably estimate time of death by temperature (or for that matter by rigor and digestion). It's perfectly possible from a modern forensics perspective that Chapman could have been murdered at around 5.30am (and we don't even need Phillips' own admission of this to assist us in this respect) so that the best evidence of time of death is going to come from witness evidence. Simple. And. Sorted.

That's a long, rambling post, so I isolated one of your whoppers:

"Dr Seddon-Smith is quite right to say that people are cold about 10-20 minutes after death and that the skin cools very rapidly once circulation ceases. So how then to explain that some bodies feel warm more 20 minutes after death? If we consult an expert in forensic pathology, the answer is easy. This is from Knight's Forensic Pathology (2016), the 'Knight' in question being the renowned pathologist Professor Bernard Knight:

"When death occurs, heat transfer within the body through the circulation ceases. Metabolic heat production, occurring mainly in the muscles and liver, does not cease uniformly and some heat generation continues for a variable time. As soon as the supply of warmed blood ceases with cardiac arrest, the skin surface immediately begins to lose heat. The rate is variable because of clothing, posture and shielding against the supporting surface and, of course, the environmental temperature. "

This is the exact same thing that Seddon-Smith refers to, and that has no place in this discussion. It is about the SKIN and not about the body core warmth - as always, when you try to understand what you will fail to comprehend. But rest assured, I will explain it to you!

Look at this passage first: "Metabolic heat production, occurring mainly in the muscles and liver, does not cease uniformly and some heat generation continues for a variable time."

Do you recognize this from what I have told you before? No? Okay, if I say that it is about a chemical process? Still not? Well, then I won't prolong the suffering - it is about the plateau that I have spoken of: heat generation continues for a veritable time. And that time is inbetween half an hour and an hour.

Nevertheless, since the skin is insulated from the body core (surely you remember having been told that? A dozen times?), all the warmth therein will not keep the skin itself from getting cold. Remember what Seddon-Smith taught us? Exactly: the skin itself will cool off very quickly after death, in a matter of ten to twenty minutes it will have turned cold.

And in spite of that, medicos can feel body warmth for a period of three hours after death! Wowza! Are they, like...magic? Yes, Herlock, so you beleive, but actually, it is a lot more simple. Have you ever consumed a bread roll? A nice, warm one, fresh from the bakery? You HAVE? Oh, goody! Have you perhaps also noticed that the rolls will grow cold from the surface and inwards, instead of growing cold from the inside and out? You see, tight isn the same thing that will happen to you when you die. You will grow cold at the skin first. But since you have an insulated outer layer, the outside will cool off quicker than the inside. In fact, although the outside (skin) becomes quite cold in less than twenty minutes, the inside will retain the full body temperature it had from the beginning as that happens to the skin. And then, magically, if you press your fingers agains the skin, the underlying warmth will be conducted up towards your fingers! And the more vessels there are and the bigger these vessels are and the closer to the surface they are, the easier it will be to feel the warmth from underneath the cold skin.

Now, is that a concept that you can grasp? Or is it beyond you? Please let me know!

[Fisherman]

One thing that we can learn from what has been established is that the average time for the temperature drop in a dead body is somewhere around 1-1,5 degrees Celsius per hour.

No, you have said it but that doesn't mean it has been "established". In fact, we know from experts who know what they are talking about that it is actually wrong.

"From Explore Forensics. All sites report roughly the exact same, though, so you can have one new site per day if you wish:

"Although body temperature can vary between us as human beings, the average body temperature is around 37oC (or 98 Fahrenheit). Measuring Temperature

Some people have varying temperatures as a result of variances in their metabolism: the higher the rate of metabolism the higher the temperature and likewise the lower the rate of metabolism the lower the body temperature.


The temperature will vary in certain areas of the human body as well. For example the temperature in the mouth will be 37oC (or 98 oC Fahrenheit) but underneath the armpit the temperature reading will be around 36.4 °C (97.6 °C Fahrenheit). Temperatures can also be taken using the tympanic method (from the ear).

By far the most accurate reading of a body temperature is the one that can be taken rectally. Although is not the most pleasant of ways in which to read someone's temperature it is the most accurate in relation to the body's core temperature and for this reason it is normally the most used method of determining the temperature of the decease when they are examined at the scene of a crime.

At The Crime Scene

At the scene of a crime the pathologist, who will be charged with initially examining the body in its discovered post mortem condition, will take the body's temperature in any way appropriate. This can be under the arm, in the ear or rectally because - as we have already mentioned - this is the most accurate reading.

Finding out the temperature of the body while it is still in situ is an important piece of information; one that can be used to give the officers at the scene a rough idea as to how long the deceased has been dead.

The usual equation is:

37oC - 1.5 oC

This formula equates to the body temperature (37oC), which loses 1.5oC (34.7 Fahrenheit) per hour until the temperature of the body is that of the environment around it; known as the ambient temperature. This ambient temperature - depending on how low it is - may take minutes or hours to be reached and this is a good indicator as to how long a body has been in situ. Additionally it is worth noting that a body's temperature will drop much more slowly if the body has been exposed to extreme cold; such as being left outdoors, submerged in water or icy conditions."

So tell me, why is this - and every other site this side of the Rocky Mountains - "actually wrong"? Please note the last passage:"Additionally it is worth noting that a body's temperature will drop much more slowly if the body has been exposed to extreme cold; such as being left outdoors, submerged in water or icy conditions."

Tell me, how does it feel to be stripped naked like this? How does it feel to be proven utterly wrong? To be revealed as a charlatan? Is it painful? Because I really think it MUST be. We reap what we sow, Herlock, and its reaping time for you. Read. Digest. And DO try to understand! I have NEVER seen anybody so entrenched in his faulty thinking since I began posting here, and that is not saying a little. Of all the bad ones, you are the worst. Enjoy.

The rest of your "reasoning" will reasonably be more horseshite, so I will run from your good and valid criticism (Hahahahahaaaaa!!!) once again. I can only stomach so much.

Not if you want to persist in claiming that the rate of cooling I and the rest of the world are championing, then you need to find examples of cooling rates where the temperature will be taken down to around 32 degrees Celsius or less (which takes around four hours to reach, and which represents the first stages of a body feeling cold) in ONE SINGLE HOUR! It means that you need to find an "expert" (ho-hum) who speaks for an initial cooling rate (there first hour, when many don't cool at all, remember) of an almighty five degrees celsius.

Bring it - or shut up! Its wayyy overdue now. You are misrepresenting facts and science to an abominable degree and you should be expelled from any serious discussion for it. Instead, however, I will rake you over the coals for it. It won't be comfortable ride. Now stop lying (I don't hesitate to point out as a lie that a 1,5 degree cooling rate during the first few hours after death would be wrong in any way, it is an established fact) and see some sense!

[John G]

This is an interesting article on assessing time of death: https://coronertalk.com/28 The article notes that the current formula for heat loss is 1.5 degrees per hour. However..." Unfortunately, it's not quite that straightforward. The 1.5 degree per hour factor varies, depending on the environment surrounding the body, the size of the corpse, clothing, and other factors. For example, a body in a temperate room will lose heat much more slowly than will one in an icy, flowing stream...the key is that the corpse will lose or gain heat until it reaches equilibrium with its environment."

Regarding Chapman, she'd been ill, was emaciated, and had been left partially clothed in a cold environment. All of these factors would have impacted on the heat loss equation.

[The Baron]

This formula equates to the body temperature (37oC), which loses 1.5oC (34.7 Fahrenheit) per hour until the temperature of the body is that of the environment around it; known as the ambient temperature. This ambient temperature - depending on how low it is - may take minutes or hours to be reached and this is a good indicator as to how long a body has been in situ. Additionally it is worth noting that a body's temperature will drop much more slowly if the body has been exposed to extreme cold; such as being left outdoors, submerged in water or icy conditions."

So tell me, why is this - and every other site this side of the Rocky Mountains - "actually wrong"? Please note the last passage:"Additionally it is worth noting that a body's temperature will drop much more slowly if the body has been exposed to extreme cold; such as being left outdoors, submerged in water or icy conditions."

Tell me, how does it feel to be stripped naked like this? How does it feel to be proven utterly wrong? To be revealed as a charlatan? Is it painful? Because I really think it MUST be. We reap what we sow, Herlock, and its reaping time for you. Read. Digest. And DO try to understand! I have NEVER seen anybody so entrenched in his faulty thinking since I began posting here, and that is not saying a little. Of all the bad ones, you are the worst. Enjoy.

Devastating!!

I assure you he will not be able to sleep tonight.

Truth hurts deeply


The Baron

[Fisherman]

This is an interesting article on assessing time of death: https://coronertalk.com/28 The article notes that the current formula for heat loss is 1.5 degrees per hour. However..." Unfortunately, it's not quite that straightforward. The 1.5 degree per hour factor varies, depending on the environment surrounding the body, the size of the corpse, clothing, and other factors. For example, a body in a temperate room will lose heat much more slowly than will one in an icy, flowing stream...the key is that the corpse will lose or gain heat until it reaches equilibrium with its environment."

Regarding Chapman, she'd been ill, was emaciated, and had been left partially clothed in a cold environment. All of these factors would have impacted on the heat loss equation.

Yes, John, there will be variations - but NOT large ones. And you may have noticed what it said in the source I provided; "Additionally it is worth noting that a body's temperature will drop much more slowly if the body has been exposed to extreme cold; such as being left outdoors, submerged in water or icy conditions." Why this is so, I don´t know, I can only reiterate it. But I will look for the answer!

The thing to REALLY keep in mind here, though, is that Herlock had the audacity - or the utter ignorance - to claim that the 1,5 degrees drop ratio was "actually wrong"! He accused me of using faulty material, probably based on the prussic acid poisoning case he cited. That case is an absolute anomaly if true, but I suspect it cannot BE true. And it applies that prussic acid will lower the body temperature, so the example is an extremely dubious one to cite in the first place.

However, just as you agree, the normal ratio is one of a 1,5 degree celsius drop per hour. And I will NOT stand by somebody as gloriously ignorant as Herlock claiming the opposite. We are not out here to disinform and make a complete mockery of the facts, and I will make that very obvious for as long as it takes.

[John G]

Okay, this is a complex issue so I'll highlight some of the problems. Firstly, when assessing time of death by body temperature we need to know our starting point. Thus, Sarum, Webster, and Kathirgamatamby, 1956 carried out a study on 41 executed prisoners. They found that the rectal temperature ranges were between 97.8 and 100.8 degrees Fahrenheit, with a mean average of 99.6. Thus, the lowest temperature was almost 2 degrees below average, which means that if you assumed this individual had an average body temperature whilst still alive, then your time of death estimate would be out by about 2 hours!

According to the source I quoted, chronic illness may lower initial body temperature. Chapman had been ill, so her starting point may have been at the lower end of the range, possibly below 97.8 (although women generally tend to have a higher body temperature than men, which could, if course, impact on the equation.

Next, we have to consider how rapidly body temperature would fall from the stating point. The chronically ill and emaciated (both these factors may have applied to Chapman) tend to lose heat more rapidly. If the corpse was unclothed or in contact with a cold surface, such as concrete, heat loss will be greater: see the reference I quoted in my earlier post. Blood loss, as Dr Phillips pointed out, would also result in quicker heat loss.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Devastating!!

I assure you he will not be able to sleep tonight.

Truth hurts deeply


The Baron

Next post

[Fisherman]

Here is a very interesting page: https://www.swisswuff.ch/calculators/todeszeit.php

It demonstrates the Henssge method of establishing time of death, and allows crude calculations of the TOD. A number of factors are filled in, and then it calculates the LIKELY time of death.

I added the approximate factors adhering to the Chapman case, such as the temperature of nine degrees zero (well established) and I used the body temperature 32 degrees (because that is the approximate temperature that will be reached from the given 37,2 degrees temperature used as a starting point for the procedure if we allow for four hours of cooling - which is the minimum time period resulting in the body feeling cold to the touch). Finally, I made the guess that Chapman can have weighed around 45 kilograms when she died.

A number of factors are uncertain, but what is not uncertain is that these parameters gave the result of 4,0 hours having passed since death!

I then reasoned that it could have perhaps been only two hours, and I therefore tried that timing instead, reasoning that the temperature had only sunk 2 x 1,5 degrees = 3 degrees, giving us 34.2 degrees, and I cut Chapmans weigh down to a skeletal 30 kilograms, all to make Herlock happy. That resulted in a two hour time.

I then reasoned that Phillips may have had numb fingers, and gave the temperature 35 degrees, plus I cut Chapman down to twenty kilograms and lowered the ambient temperature to 5 degrees zero. TOD? Heureka, Herlock. THAT is how we reach exactly one hour!!

A little fiddling is thus all that is needed, and Herlock can have his dream!