Chapman’s death.

[Herlock Sholmes]

.

But I am saying that these four words and that thump were all awfully convenient and totally in sync with how a victorian playwright would be likely to depict things. Which is why I tend to favour a wish for those fifteen minutes of fame over simple mistakes.

Or awfully convenient coming from a yard where a murder took place?

We have a conspiracy of either lying or imbecilic witnesses versus a Doctor with skills that he couldn’t possibly have possessed. All we need is a Tardis and our fantasy is complete.

[Fisherman]

Or awfully convenient coming from a yard where a murder took place?

We have a conspiracy of either lying or imbecilic witnesses versus a Doctor with skills that he couldn’t possibly have possessed. All we need is a Tardis and our fantasy is complete.

No, that is patently untrue. Phillips would be very capable of recognizing when a body was cold to the touch. Not only he, but every other qualified doctor in the victorian era could do that. And since the body was cold, we can factor the parameters into the Henssge method and we will get a TOD that must have been very far away from one hour.

Now, if you would be so kind as to provide the source for your cited case of prussic acid poisoning, plus explaining to us how a body could grow cold to the touch in an hour or less?

PS. Two witnesses claiming things that never happened must of course not be any conspiracy at all. So we need to strike that off the protocol.

[Herlock Sholmes]

All models for estimating TOD based on body temperature ARE unreliable, etenguy! That is absolutely true, and I would not say anything else. There is no way that we can hope that any of these models can point out a TOD with exactitude.

However, this is the exact reason they methods are only used as guidelines pointing out SPACES OF TIME, within which something will be placed. For example, Phillips was not able to say when Chapman died, and he did not claim that he could do so. He basically said that it could have been as little as two hours before his examination. It could also have been three hours before. Or four hours before.

He knew quite well that the methods at hand were unreliable. He knew it far better than you and I do, on account of his vast experience. He knew that all he could do was to look at the parameters; temperature, body weight, body clothing, exposure, type of ground the victim lay on and so on, and from that make his best GUESS, and that guess landed him somewhere around three or four hours, but just because he knew that the method is unreliable, he qualified himself by saying that it could be that it was as little as two hours only.

It could however NOT be LESS than two hours, let alone one hour only. That would not be in accordance with the laws of physics, and when he said maximum two hours, that was NOT in any way, shape or form unreliable. It was based on his knowledge that it takes many hours for a body to grow cold, and that is not something that can be altered. It will work in all cases and with all people.

This is the whole problem and it has been the whole problem throughout the discussion we have been having: The overall uncertainty that must always be there when we try to find a TOD using algor mortis has been transferred by those who want Chapman to have died at 5.30 to an area of the algor mortis field where no uncertainty at all exists.

It is uncertain whether a vaguely warm body has been dead for two or three hours.

But it is not in any way uncertain to say that a body that is cold to the touch has been dead for many hours!

As I said before, the first example is one where we are asked to say whether a gray color contains more black or white paint.

The second example is trying to tell black from white. And that IS easy.

There is therefore no problem involved here, and frankly there never WAS. The Yard quickly understood that, but since Baxter had misinformed the press about Phillips´ qualification, there has ever since been a faulty assumption that Phillips may have been wrong. He actually cannot have been wrong. There is not a chance that he was wrong.

If he had been asked "At what exact time did Chapman die?" he would have been at a colossal risk to get things wrong, and the more exact a time he presented, the more he would be claiming to do things no medico can do.

But he COULD tell us which factors we were dealing with, what we had to go on when TRYING to understand what had happened, and one of this factors was that Chapmans body was cold to the touch. And we only grow cold to the touch after 4-6 hours! Now, Phillips knew that there was some remaining heat inside the abdominal cavity (a heat he would NOT have detected if she had not been cut open), and he was willing to accept that it had been cold at the site. And nobody knew what kind of influence it would have if a body was cut open like in a butchers shop, having bled out completely. To Phillips, this meant that he was willing to propose that she had cooled off very much quicker than normally, and so he offered two hours as an extreme.

Had he waited three weeks, he would have gotten an example to extrapolate from: it turned out that cool temperatures and extensive bloodloss did not have much of an influence at all when Eddowes died. What Phillips was unaware of was that there is an initial plateau of between half an hour and an hour after death when the temperature does not drop at all, and so Eddowes was "quite warm" to the touch 45 minutes after having been slain. Similarly, if Chapman had been dead an hour only, she would have been warm too.

There is uncertainty in the methods. But that uncertainty does not come into play here.

If we look at it like an onion, where the outer layers represent uncertainty, Phillips had peeled those players away when he said two hours at the least. It is also obvious from the Eddowes case that he had peeled away more layers than he would actually have needed to.

If we could refrain in the future from speaking about the uncertainty in temperature gauging dead bodies, we will get a sounder debate.

My responses in blue.

However, this is the exact reason they methods are only used as guidelines pointing out SPACES OF TIME, within which something will be placed. For example, Phillips was not able to say when Chapman died, and he did not claim that he could do so. He basically said that it could have been as little as two hours before his examination. It could also have been three hours before. Or four hours before.

He knew quite well that the methods at hand were unreliable. He knew it far better than you and I do, on account of his vast experience


That is not true. For example, Phillips didn't know and couldn't possibly know (because it wasn't known to medical science in 1888) that an emaciated body in ill health would cool more rapidly than an average body. This is a modern discovery?


Do you or do you not agree with the Payne James book in which it is stated: "lack of muscle bulk allows a body to cool faster"? Please say yes or no. You've never mentioned it at all despite it being an absolutely crucial factor in the time of death. Dr Phillips didn't know this and it provides a complete answer as to why Chapman cooled faster than an "average" dead body.


It could however NOT be LESS than two hours, let alone one hour only. That would not be in accordance with the laws of physics, and when he said maximum two hours, that was NOT in any way, shape or form unreliable.


The so-called "laws of physics" do not in any way rule out a body being cold after an hour and, you should take note, that even today, medical science doesn't fully understand the cooling process of a dead body. There isn't a "law of physics" that can be applied to it because different bodies are known to cool at different rates in different circumstances. A complex human body cannot be compared to a plastic bag or bread roll and it's a joke that you think it can.


If Dr Phillips had said "maximum two hours" (which, of course, he didn't quite say because he qualified his opinion) it would have been unreliable which is why the official guidelines for forensic pathologists in the UK from the Forensic Science Regulator (as supported by the Royal College of Pathologists) state that any pathologist estimating time of death to an investigator must "make clear the estimate is only an estimate and the accuracy cannot be determined" and that the pathologist "must explain that the death could have occurred outside the estimated period and, perhaps, a significant period outside it".


Dr Phillips, who wasn't even a pathologist, should, therefor,e have expressly told the coroner that the accuracy of his estimate was undetermined and that the death of Chapman could have occurred a significant period outside of his estimated period. And that's guidance for pathologists TODAY with an extra 130 years of knowledge of forensic pathology!!

[Herlock Sholmes]

Like Henssge? Experts agree that temperature gauging is fraught with uncertainty. I also agree that this is so. But no expert would agree that a body can grow cold to the touch in one hour only. What experts say in THAT case is that it will take 4-6 hours, normally, for a body to grow cold. And by that they mean cold to the touch, because it will take a full day or two before the body really has lost all its warmth.

THAT is where you should listen to the experts! And then explain to me how Chapman managed to grow all cold in an hour or less, when we know that Eddowes followed the exact pattern the experts speak of: we will retain out full temperature for up to an hour after death, depending on a chemical process that oxygenates our blood.
It is a factor, by the way, that was weighed in by Henssge when he developed his method.

And when we factor in what we KNOW about the case and employ the Henssge method, we find that it had Chapman dying around 2.30 (if we use the Celsius scale) or 3.30 (doing it the Fahrenheit way).

Could it have been 3.45? Yes, because there is uncertainty and many factors to weigh in.

Could it have been 5.30? Not a chance in the world, etenguy. No, njet, nej, non, nein.

My response in blue.

"But no expert would agree that a body can grow cold to the touch in one hour only".


This is a false statement for which you've never provided any evidence. Holding this unfounded and inaccurate belief is why you keep getting everything wrong.


Phillips HIMSELF accepted that Chapman could have been murdered earlier then he estimated and the experienced Coroner believed it too, assigning a possible time of death of 5.30, knowing that Chapman felt cold at 6.30.


I provided you with an "expert" from the Surgical Society of Ireland from the Dublin Medical Press of 23 April 1856 who said 'it was a remarkable fact that one body would be as cold within an hour after death as another would be at the end of six." You've never even acknowledged this, let alone explain it.

I gave you the prussic acid reference in #514 as being the Times of 6 March 1861. This was where the surgeon said "The body was cold, and the deceased appeared to have been dead about an hour".

This is no surprise because there are plenty of cases where someone STILL ALIVE (but dying) has been categorized as being "cold" to the touch. How much more possible is this for someone after death?

Why don't you listen to the words of an "expert": "The skin is insulated from the core and it grows cold much quicker than the core....We KNOW that the skin WILL grow cold in no more than 20 minutes". Who said that? You did! I'm quoting your own words there Fisherman from #606.

Your daft way around this was to think that a medic can magically feel "through" the skin to warmth of the core. That's how ridiculous your answers have become. When I asked you for evidence you went silent. It's not possible. I've already explained to you at some length why some bodies will still feel warm for a few hours after death but it seems you didn't bother to read any of it.

[Herlock Sholmes]

No, not at all. We can use Henssge, because we don't need a rectal thermometer, we need a temperature. And that temperature is easy to establish. She was cold to the touch, and we grow cold to the touch in the span of 4-6 hours after death. After 4 hours, if we use the Fahrenheit scale, we will have had a drop in temperature of 4x1,5 degrees, the equivalent of 4x0,8 degrees Celsius, meaning that we should drop down from 37,2 degrees to 34 degrees Celsius within the body. It is of course possible that we should drop down 6x0,8 degrees instead, taking us down to 32,4 degrees Celsius. But I am allowing for the most forgiving suggestion (which means I am not even opting for the mean value, I am giving away as much as I can to the naysayers).

And with this most forgiving scenario, we STILL get a TOD removed 3 hours in time!

If we were to use the Celsius scale and the maximum of six hours, it would point to her having been dead for perhaps twice that time. So we are looking for something inbetween 3 to 6 hours of death. What is not even remotely in sight is a one hour perspective. We have to shave away between 66,6 and 80 per cent plus to get there.

And why would we try to get there? Its La-La-land. All parameters are already in sync with each other and within the normal range of developments, plus we arrive at a night time murder if we DON´T try to bend and distort the medical evidence.

It very clearly is a no-brainer, and it has been so for 131 years now. It took the Yard all of five minutes to realize it, but look at ripperology. Lagging 131 years behind!

My response in blue


We can use Henssge, because we don't need a rectal thermometer, we need a temperature. And that temperature is easy to establish


What a joke. The online Hnssge calculator you linked to yourself requires "Rectal body temperature" to be entered!!! So you do need the rectal body temperature. And in the case of Chapman that temperature is IMPOSSIBLE to establish.

You can't do it based on skin temperature (about which all we know is that it was cold in part and warm in part) because skin temperature and rectal body temperature can be very different.

All you keep doing is selecting a rectal temperature based on what one would expect three hours after the death of an average person and then, surprise surprise getting an answer that Chapman died 3 hours earlier. What can you possibly think you are achieving by that?

I already showed you how Henssge can produce an answer that Chapman died at 5.30 but you've ignored it.



we grow cold to the touch in the span of 4-6 hours after death.

As we've discussed before, and I thought you understood, this is the average time for growing "stone cold". Chapman wasn't stone cold.

[etenguy]

I have read the posts since my last post, including Fisherman's response (thank you) to my post about the reliability of Phillip's time of death.

It seems we have some agreement while some differences remain.

All posters (I believe) are in agreement that temperature based estimates of time of death are unreliable.

What remains contentious is what unreliable means.
If I have understood Fisherman correctly, he suggests that temperature based estimates of time of death can be used nevertheless to provide an approximate period within which we can have some confidence of the time of death falling within but not a precise time of death.

The guidance from the Royal College of Pathologists is more cautious than this and states that under controlled conditions (within a temperature controlled laboratory for example) estimates of time of death can be calculated within a 95% confidence range (this is not the same as saying that there is a 95% probability the time of death will be within the range calculated). This also requires good and accurate measurements. They go on to state that the time of death may be a significant period either side of that range (imagine the tails of a probability curve). So even with good measurement and controlled conditions there is room for statistically significant error.

Fisherman's other point - that a body could not cool to the point of the skin feeling cold to the touch within 1 hour of death - is a different point. This suggests, in my reading, that there is a minimum time required for the skin of a body to cool to feeling cold to the touch (which logically must be true, though that minimum may differ for different people and in different conditions). And that 1 hour is insufficient time to allow this to happen. Herlock, I think, believes that in certain conditions this time can be relatively short, perhaps within half an hour, and such conditions might apply in the case of Annie Chapman's corpse. I will try to find some reliable expert opinion which might help us come to a conclusion.

[Herlock Sholmes]

No, that is patently untrue. Phillips would be very capable of recognizing when a body was cold to the touch. Not only he, but every other qualified doctor in the victorian era could do that. And since the body was cold, we can factor the parameters into the Henssge method and we will get a TOD that must have been very far away from one hour.

Now, if you would be so kind as to provide the source for your cited case of prussic acid poisoning, plus explaining to us how a body could grow cold to the touch in an hour or less?

PS. Two witnesses claiming things that never happened must of course not be any conspiracy at all. So we need to strike that off the protocol.

My response in blue

Now, if you would be so kind as to provide the source for your cited case of prussic acid poisoning,


I gave the source in #514 when I posted the quote! Then I repeated it in #641.


plus explaining to us how a body could grow cold to the touch in an hour or less?


I explained this already in my long post of #642 and then again in long post #662. You don't appear to have read these posts with any care. I'm not repeating it all again.

[Fisherman]

Herlock: I do not have access to the Times of the 6th of March 1861. Could you please post the whole article?

As for answers to the rest of your posts, they will be involved in my post to etenguy.

[Fisherman]

I have read the posts since my last post, including Fisherman's response (thank you) to my post about the reliability of Phillip's time of death.

It seems we have some agreement while some differences remain.

All posters (I believe) are in agreement that temperature based estimates of time of death are unreliable.

If not, then we SHOULD be!

What remains contentious is what unreliable means.

Not really. What remains to establish is whether unreliability must be part of any conclusions made by a victorian doctor in the field of algor mortis. I think we all know what unreliability means as such.

If I have understood Fisherman correctly, he suggests that temperature based estimates of time of death can be used nevertheless to provide an approximate period within which we can have some confidence of the time of death falling within but not a precise time of death.

This is exactly what we are told by those mastering the field - since we can never establish exact TOD:s, we should not try to do so. However, algor mortis is used to divide the time up in periods that will involve occurrences in the process. Ergo, when Phillips said no less than two hours, he ruled out a later death - it belonged to the period BEYOND two hours, but he would not be so presumptuous as to claim that he could say exactly where in time it had taken place. So we have a division of the time after death, and the dividing border is at two hours, and the TOD will belong to the time space BEFORE reaching the two hour mark.

The guidance from the Royal College of Pathologists is more cautious than this and states that under controlled conditions (within a temperature controlled laboratory for example) estimates of time of death can be calculated within a 95% confidence range (this is not the same as saying that there is a 95% probability the time of death will be within the range calculated). This also requires good and accurate measurements. They go on to state that the time of death may be a significant period either side of that range (imagine the tails of a probability curve). So even with good measurement and controlled conditions there is room for statistically significant error.

But NOT one of demanding a 100 per cent alteration in a case few hours from death! And that is the point I am making over and over again. To begin with, a 95 per cent confidence range will of course be an incredibly much better bet than the 5 per cent left over to begin with, but we should also factor in that Phillips worked from TWO parameters, algor mortis and rigor mortis. And they dovetailed! Rigor will normally not be noticeable until after two hours, and Chapman had commencing rigor.
Herlock has an inherent problem to deal with since he wants things two ways - he wants the body to have cooled off extremely quickly AND he wants a very quick onset of rigor. What he seemingly does not realize is that the quicker the body cools off (and it can only cool off so quick - in fact, Chapman should not have cooled off at all since there is a plateau retaining the body heat for between half an hour and an hour), the LESS likely it becomes that rigor will set in early. A sure-fire way to slow down the process would be to put a corpse out on the open street in cold conditions - the way Chapman was subjected to precisely this.
In the end, what the RCoP is saying is what we have already agreed on - if somebody gives a TOD, then there is a chance it will be significantly wrong. What they do NOT say is that when a medico examines a body where he can feel even inside that body for warmth, and says that the body is cold to the touch, he is likely to have misfelt that. It is a quite specific case we are dealing with!

We have the favorable matter of Phillips having checked the abdominal cavity of Chapman for warmth, and he found a certain remaining heat under the intestines. That very clearly points out that there WAS warmth and that Phillips had access to parts of the body that a medico normally will NOT have access to when feeling for warmth by way of using his hands. There was a smorgasbord of opportunities, and I dare say that the fewest bodies will have offered so extensive options to get it right as Chapman did!
Herlock speaks of how the Morning Advertiser says that Phillips felt the left side for warmth, and adds that he should have felt the MIDDLE for warmth too. I think we can safely rule out that Phillips missed secret pockets of warmth, hidden in the places he did not check. He would of course first and foremost check the areas that he KNEW would give away the body warmth - if it was there. It is not as if would have missed out on every area with an abundance of shallowly placed blood vessels, instead opting for the tips of the toes and fingers! The man knew exactly where whatever body warmth there was could easiest and most reliably be picked up on, simple as that. He had huge experience and he could draw one the work of thousands of medicos and researchers.

Fisherman's other point - that a body could not cool to the point of the skin feeling cold to the touch within 1 hour of death - is a different point.

Indeed it is - and one fraught with misunderstanding on Herlocks behalf.

This suggests, in my reading, that there is a minimum time required for the skin of a body to cool to feeling cold to the touch (which logically must be true, though that minimum may differ for different people and in different conditions). And that 1 hour is insufficient time to allow this to happen. Herlock, I think, believes that in certain conditions this time can be relatively short, perhaps within half an hour, and such conditions might apply in the case of Annie Chapman's corpse.

Herlock goes further that that, I'm afraid. He tells us that a GP called Seddon-Smith in a letters to the editor-space has answered a person who asked about when a person went cold after death, that this will be a matter of NO MORE THAN 20 MINUTES! Because that is what Seddon-Smith points to. He said in his answer that the skin is insulated from the core of the body, and therefore it WILL grow cold to the touch in no more than 20 minutes.
I have tried as best as I can to tell Herlock that this, if true and meaningful, would mean that all medicos would always deem all bodies they checked cold to the touch after twenty (or even ten!) minutes, but to no avail whatsoever.
The skin DOES grow cold faster that the core, but that does not disenable a medico to feel for warmth! In fact, the period after death when medicos will be able to feel body warmth runs up to 3 hours! It is not until between 4 and 6 hours that the stage is reached when a medico will say that the body is cold to the touch (and even then, there will of course be lots of warmth in the core, but at that stage it will not be detectable to a probing medico hand.
Herlock in this context also makes the point that some people will feel cold to the touch even in life, and yes, not least smokers will have blood circulation problems leading to cold skin and extremities.
But that is not the issue at hand! The issue at hand is whether a medico would be able to tell that there is underlying warmth nevertheless, in spite of the skin being cold. No, says Herlock; if the skin is cold, the medico will say that the body is cold.
I say the contrary: a medico will feel for underlying warmth in areas where he knows he is able to feel it, REGARDLESS if the person felt has cold skin or not. If it was not so, and if all people grew cold skin in no more than twenty minutes, then we must accept that every single person - Dr Brown, who examined Eddowes included - that has ever said about a person who has been dead for twenty minutes or more that the person is warm to the touch is a phantasist or a liar. And frankly, that would make a total mockery of things!

I will try to find some reliable expert opinion which might help us come to a conclusion.

If you can find one that Herlock, you and I all agree on, I will be amazed. And preferably, it should be one that explains why Eddowes was "quite warm" and Chapman "cold to the touch" after what seems to have been comparable periods of time, and where Eddowes rested in a cooler place, more subjected to the winds - and had nothing that even resembled any rigor at all. Also note how Frederick Foster denoted some of the blood on the ground "fluid blood" and some "clotted blood". It would have been the polar opposite of what Phillips was faced with in Hanbury Street!

If we shoehorn away all we can, I am sure that some drastic haggling can be offered in order to nibble away at the time deposit in Chapmans case. But why would we do that? Why not accept that we need to work from a probable scenario of her being more of a common person than of a sorceress?

[etenguy]

Back again.

To begin with, a 95 per cent confidence range will of course be an incredibly much better bet than the 5 per cent left over to begin with

Apologies, I have not used precise terminology which may have been confusing. The term I think is normally used is a 95% confidence interval. I compounded this by suggesting you imagine a probability curve, when I should have said normal distribution curve.

There may only be a small percentage of data points within that confidence interval and the majority of data points outside of it (and vice versa is also possible). It simply tells us how confident we can be that the mean average data point is within that interval.

I may have led you to think I meant probability, in which case your statement would be correct.

If you can find one that Herlock, you and I all agree on, I will be amazed. And preferably, it should be one that explains why Eddowes was "quite warm" and Chapman "cold to the touch" after what seems to have been comparable periods of time, and where Eddowes rested in a cooler place, more subjected to the winds - and had nothing that even resembled any rigor at all. Also note how Frederick Foster denoted some of the blood on the ground "fluid blood" and some "clotted blood". It would have been the polar opposite of what Phillips was faced with in Hanbury Street!

If we shoehorn away all we can, I am sure that some drastic haggling can be offered in order to nibble away at the time deposit in Chapmans case. But why would we do that? Why not accept that we need to work from a probable scenario of her being more of a common person than of a sorceress?

I am struggling to find good information about skin temperature, largely rectal temperatures have been studied, at least in the papers I have read so far. I shall continue to try, but you may be right that this is a fool's errand. And indeed, any useful explanation would need to explain the variability you high-light.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I have read the posts since my last post, including Fisherman's response (thank you) to my post about the reliability of Phillip's time of death.

It seems we have some agreement while some differences remain.

All posters (I believe) are in agreement that temperature based estimates of time of death are unreliable.

What remains contentious is what unreliable means.
If I have understood Fisherman correctly, he suggests that temperature based estimates of time of death can be used nevertheless to provide an approximate period within which we can have some confidence of the time of death falling within but not a precise time of death.

The guidance from the Royal College of Pathologists is more cautious than this and states that under controlled conditions (within a temperature controlled laboratory for example) estimates of time of death can be calculated within a 95% confidence range (this is not the same as saying that there is a 95% probability the time of death will be within the range calculated). This also requires good and accurate measurements. They go on to state that the time of death may be a significant period either side of that range (imagine the tails of a probability curve). So even with good measurement and controlled conditions there is room for statistically significant error.

Fisherman's other point - that a body could not cool to the point of the skin feeling cold to the touch within 1 hour of death - is a different point. This suggests, in my reading, that there is a minimum time required for the skin of a body to cool to feeling cold to the touch (which logically must be true, though that minimum may differ for different people and in different conditions). And that 1 hour is insufficient time to allow this to happen. Herlock, I think, believes that in certain conditions this time can be relatively short, perhaps within half an hour, and such conditions might apply in the case of Annie Chapman's corpse. I will try to find some reliable expert opinion which might help us come to a conclusion.

This suggests, in my reading, that there is a minimum time required for the skin of a body to cool to feeling cold to the touch (which logically must be true, though that minimum may differ for different people and in different conditions).


Yes, but of course it's only logically true if the body feels warm at the time of death. There are plenty of reports of doctors informing coroners that people who were alive felt cold shortly before they died. So there need not even be a minimum time.

The notion that you can tell how long a person has been dead from touch is so unreliable, not to mention subjective, that it's not even considered by expert pathologists and there aren't any scientific papers on it. It was known more that 150 years ago that a person dead for an hour can feel just as cold as a person dead for six hours (and I've given a reliable source) so there really wasn't much more to say.

Fisherman hasn't provided a single source of any description which says that a body cold to the touch must have been dead more than an hour. He's literally just made this up sitting by his computer.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Herlock: I do not have access to the Times of the 6th of March 1861. Could you please post the whole article?

As for answers to the rest of your posts, they will be involved in my post to etenguy.

Herlock: I do not have access to the Times of the 6th of March 1861. Could you please post the whole article?


There seem to be some technical problems accessing the Times archive this afternoon but it doesn't matter because the same information (in what appears to be a far more detailed report) is found in The Standard of 6 March 1861. The full report of the proceedings is too long to post, falling over two columns, but here is the relevant evidence of the surgeon, Robert Fowler. If you want the full article, it's available on the BNA.

You will see in the report that Fowler states in his evidence, 'The body was cold...' and, later, 'The deceased appeared to have been dead about an hour.'





You haven't actually "answered" my posts. You've basically ignored what I said and responded to something that you thought was easier to respond to by etenguy, simply repeating the unsupported nonsense that you have been saying all along, with no expert support whatsoever, thus confusing the entire debate with your uninformed layman's opinion.

[Herlock Sholmes]

If you can find one that Herlock, you and I all agree on, I will be amazed. And preferably, it should be one that explains why Eddowes was "quite warm" and Chapman "cold to the touch" after what seems to have been comparable periods of time, and where Eddowes rested in a cooler place, more subjected to the winds - and had nothing that even resembled any rigor at all. Also note how Frederick Foster denoted some of the blood on the ground "fluid blood" and some "clotted blood". It would have been the polar opposite of what Phillips was faced with in Hanbury Street!

If we shoehorn away all we can, I am sure that some drastic haggling can be offered in order to nibble away at the time deposit in Chapmans case. But why would we do that? Why not accept that we need to work from a probable scenario of her being more of a common person than of a sorceress?

My responses in blue

To begin with, a 95 per cent confidence range will of course be an incredibly much better bet than the 5 per cent left over to begin with


We need to be careful here before we start to have Fisherman telling us that Dr Phillips' estimate was in a 95 per cent confidence range!

The 95% confidence limit claimed on behalf of the Hessnge method is a modern calculation based on rectal temperature and had nothing to do with the way that Phillips made his own estimation in 1888.

In any case, the Hessnge method MUST fail if applied to Chapman because it doesn't factor in one of the variables which experts like Payne James tell us will affect the rate of cooling, namely the muscle bulk of the deceased. As Chapman was in an advanced stage of a wasting disease, and was seriously undernourished, the Hessnge method cannot possibly be applied to Chapman, even if we had accurate measurements such as rectal temperature, weight, ambient temperature (at 6.30am on 8 Sept 1888) etc. This is a reason why the Hessnge method is not regarded as sufficiently reliable to estimate an accurate time of death. It does not and cannot incorporate all the possible variables.


but we should also factor in that Phillips worked from TWO parameters, algor mortis and rigor mortis. And they dovetailed! Rigor will normally not be noticeable until after two hours, and Chapman had commencing rigor.


Phillips never said he factored anything into his estimate about rigor mortis (and his qualification to the coroner suggests it wasn't in his mind) but if you want to make an assumption and factor THAT in, then you also need to factor in that Chapman was in an advanced state of a wasting disease and was seriously undernourished, which, the experts tell us (but unknown to Phillips in 1888), will accelerate BOTH the rate of cooling and the rate of onset of rigor.

Fisherman just never acknowledges this. He can't acknowledge it because it destroys everything he has been saying.


And preferably, it should be one that explains why Eddowes was "quite warm" and Chapman "cold to the touch"


Leaving aside that Chapman was examined an hour after death, while for Eddowes it was 45 minutes, I've already provided an explanation for this, based on what the experts tell us, namely that different people under different conditions will exhibit different rates of cooling and, in the case of Chapman, her wasting disease along with her emaciated and undernourished state at the time of her death provides all the explanation you can possibly need. I've probably made this point to you about 20 times now, Fisherman, but you've ignored it each time as if it didn't exist.


These facts won’t go away by you sticking your fingers in your ears and repeating the same nonsense that I’ve rebutted numerous times.

[etenguy]

My responses in blue

To begin with, a 95 per cent confidence range will of course be an incredibly much better bet than the 5 per cent left over to begin with

[COLOR=#0000FF]We need to be careful here before we start to have Fisherman telling us that Dr Phillips' estimate was in a 95 per cent confidence range!

Hi Herlock - my bad for using imprecise terminology. The 95% confidence interval only tells us our confidence that the mean average data point is in the interval - I think Fisherman, and perhaps yourself also, thought I meant a 95% probability which is absolutely not the case. I will be more specific in future posts, this thread is confusing enough already without loose language.

[Fisherman]

As usual, Herlock employs his all out aggressive tactics, and fails to take a real look at the facts of the matter. Most of what he says is aimed at shooting down what I say, and to that end, no means is too lowly to use.

A little sense would be recommendable. A good start would be to take a look at how etenguy, who does not take what I say as gospel (nor should he do so), soundly acknowledges that we have quite an enigma to solve if we want Chapman to have been dead for an hour only. While, of course, Herlock claims that he has "rebutted" my take many times already, and claims that I have my fingers in my ears.

Claiming that I have been rebutted - THAT is getting caught with your own fingers in your ears, Herlock.

I would like to see the article you refer to, so a link would be welcome, regardless where it leads. It is either a case of the body NOT being cold, or a case of prussic acid being somehow magically able to lower body temperatures many degrees - in which case the matter is not applicable in the Chapman discussion in the first place. So let's put this misconception of yours to sleep.

As for the Eddowes/Chapman discussion, yes different people WILL cool in different ways, but as always - not THAT different! You are crying for the moon, and you think it is as easy to just say "people differ", but that won't do. Least of all when we know that Eddowes lay in colder conditions and in a way that subjected her more to the elements.
If we drop two soccer balls from a height of five yards, they WILL bounce to different heights. But it will not be a case of one bouncing three yards and the other three inches! You oversimplify, and you trip yourself up rather badly along the way. That wish you have for Chapman to have grown cold along a schedule that is incredibly different to what we can see in Mitre Square carries with itself an extreme cooling off process that will mean that whatever rigor she developed would have been totally delayed. Rigor is conducted by body heat, and so to develop it quickly, a body HAS to be warm and conduct it efficiently. If Chapman grew colder than an arctic iceberg in two minutes flat, she would be the unlikeliest person in the northern hemisphere to develop rigor quickly.

And no, not factoring in a muscle ratio will not open up a door to a possibility to shave 66,6 per cent off the time Chapman had been dead according to Henssge.

The one solution you can suggest is that Chapman was really, really warm - but that Phillips mistook her body for a really, really cold one. Anyone who believes that is welcome to make a case for the possibility of it happening.

Its all very easy, and its way past time to admit that.