Chapman’s death.

[Trevor Marriott]

I agree, Herlock. The 1.5-4 hour period for the onset of rigor is the average, so I assume plenty of patients fall outside this average.

Here's an example of extremely accelerated rigor mortis in a patient, in account of having suffered too much weight loss (she weighed only 41kg). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5721493/

No two patients/Victims are the same, the conditions of the bodies, will vary, as will the locations, and the climate etc, so many difference so there is no point in posters keep posting examples of the onset of rigor mortis to compare with Chapman.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[John G]

I'm not going to go over all the arguments we've already had about rigor. This discussion actually started with rigor around 20 August and then, after Fish lost that one, moved to body cooling about a week later. The experts are quite perfectly clear that rigor can commence within half an hour and can be accelerated by a cut throat or sudden hemorrhage and by a wasting disease, both of which apply to Chapman. Trevor's expert has speculated that rigor "may" take longer in a malnourished body but has said nothing about a victim with a cut throat and/or wasting disease which makes it of little value in applying to Chapman.

I remind everyone that Trevor's expert also stated: "How long rigor mortis takes to develop varies greatly from person to person, and perhaps more importantly the assessment of how stiff someone is also varies from person to person!" He also said, "there are circumstances in which rigor mortis can be observed sooner after death. If somebody has an illness or fever, this can speed up the rate of onset by exhausting the cellular supply of energy more quickly than usual, for example. Specifically within the context of “trauma”, if there has been a period of extreme exertion immediately prior to death (e.g. running / fighting for your life) then you can see how cellular energy stores may have been depleted prior to death, resulting in more rapid onset of rigor mortis".

So it's no good some people cherry picking bits they like from Dr Biggs while ignoring those bits they don't like.

I agree, Herlock. The 1.5-4 hour period for the onset of rigor is the average, so I assume plenty of patients fall outside this average.

Here's an example of extremely accelerated rigor mortis in a patient, in account of having suffered too much weight loss (she weighed only 41kg). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5721493/

[JeffHamm]

The torturous logic that enables one to adamantly agree with the fact the technique is so unreliable as to be unsafe and then adamantly claim that it does not follow that the result should not be relied upon beggars belief.

Yes, it does beggar belief Jeff but it is also fascinating to analyze. How does Fish manage to conclude that a technique which he openly accepts is unreliable, unsafe and useless is not, in fact, always unreliable, unsafe and useless?

It's a very simple two-step process of magic tricks.


1. He pretends that, in the case of Chapman, Dr Phillips was not estimating the time of death.

2. He pretends that a "cold" body cannot be mistaken for a "warm" body by an experienced medic, and that a body can't feel "cold" to an experienced medic until at least two hours after death.


What he's saying, in effect, is that there is an exception to the rule that the technique is useless. For Fish, where a body feels "cold" to a medic, that medic CAN draw one entirely reliable, safe and useful conclusion, namely that the body has been dead for at least two hours. He's worked it all out by himself with no need for expert assistance or source material.

There is of course a complex third limb to the argument whereby a medic has to be assigned magic powers to detect the underlying core warmth of a dead body and is, therefore, able to overcome the impossible hurdle of being able to distinguish between a "cold" and "warm" body by touch or, to use his new word, palpation.

That's how he does it. The deep and fundamental flaws in his argument, however, must be obvious to everyone by now.

Hi Herlock,

With Fisherman the theory drives the data, though he doesn't acknowledge that, it is evident from his behaviour. Unfortunately, the impact is the other way round, the evidence drives the theory. In many ways, Fisherman's "Cross/Lechmere" theory has some good points. He's looking at someone who is known to have been in the vicinity of one of the victims (Nichols), and is local so would have a good idea of the area, and so forth, and is also someone who, as far as we know, received relatively little attention from the police (which could explain why he was never caught). He's noted that Chapman's murder site is on a route he might take on his way to work, so that was interesting. And all of that's actually a good starting point for the hypothesis that "Might Cross/Lechmere have been JtR?" Once the evidence is looked at to test that hypothesis, though, it conflicts with it at every turn (I'm not going to rehash all the arguments people have put forth again, they can be found in various threads). Rather than conclude the research was successful (in that it a) came up with a plausible hypothesis, b) put that hypothesis to the test by examining the data and c) produced a well supported conclusion that Cross/Lechmere was not JtR, Fisherman continues to discard the evidence, or distort it, because he does not view it as a hypothesis to be tested, it is truth. And since it is true, the data/evidence must therefore be wrong. This is, unfortunately, a common error in reasoning, not only with respect to JtR but a lot of other issues in everyday life.

It's also why he sees a link between a study that measures ability to detect differences in temperature as being relevant at all. First, knowing that A is warmer than B doesn't tell you either the temperature of A nor B, nor does it even tell you how many degrees apart A and B are, it only gives you a relative ranking. Let's say, for example, You touch A then B and conclude A was the warmer. (and let's say that they were 4 degrees between them). Now you touch C and D, and note that D was warmer than C. And they may differ by 4 degrees as well. And if I asked which pair differed by the most, if A and B were 28 and 24 degrees, but C and D were 10 and 14, people are most likely going to say that the 2nd pair had the greater temperature difference (our perceptions of differences tend to be non-linear - though I don't know for sure about perceived warmth so I'm going out on a limb here, but a fairly safe one. Other than length, I can't think of anything we perceive that follows a strictly linear relationship).

Of course, all of that is a distraction, because if one wants to have any hope of estimating ToD based upon temperature readings it has to be a core reading, and it has to include exact numbers with respect to air termperature, body mass, and so forth, none of which Dr. Phillips had. So even if he had a device that gave him the exact skin temperature, it would still be just as useless with respect to making a ToD estimation. He won't acknowledge that, though, because he needs the ToD to be before 4:00, because Cross/Lechmere's work required him to be at work by 4:00. And while he could hypothesize that Cross/Lechmere had the day off, he then is left without an explanation for why he appears to have been heading to work (since that's part of his evidence - Chapman is enroute to work, etc), which means he has to modify it to "well, he was familiar with that area because he normally went to work that way", which is far less convincing, and again, the threads unravel, and the sewing kit must come out. Stitch over the hole created by the witness testimonies, and his theory is safe to wear another day.

Nothing will get him to admit that he's wrong because, in his mind, he knows the truth. I have no idea what the truth is, but I do know what the evidence seems to suggest. I also know the evidence we have is not without error, hence I think at best we can draw tentative conclusions. What I look for, basically, is after we draw those tentative conclusions for each of the murders, which ones seem consistently to be drawn? Those ones, are probably the ones as close to the truth as we are likely to get based upon the current evidence set we have to work with.

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

jealous nasty sore loser , well done baron, about time too

This comment coming from someone that called me an idiot in a previous post?! Luckily I did not report you because I’m not a baby or a Troll.

What planet are you living on Fishy? Does your eyesight fail whenever you see posts that you don’t like?

Phillips can now very safely be dismissed. The evidence that he simply could not have accurately predicted the TOD is so overwhelming as to not require further discussion. Even Trevor accepts this fact.

So it’s difficult to see where you get loser from when all posters apart from you, Fish, The Baron and PS, agree with me. And three of that 4 have a definite need for an earlier TOD and are biased. So I’d say that’s a pretty resounding defeat for you and your pals.

Try sticking to facts and evidence without resorting to childishness.

It’s noticeable to all that you have, for the fourth time, typically avoided an inconvenient question so I’ll ask it again:

Why is it that, despite all of the evidence, you are convinced of Phillips superhuman power to do something that he couldn’t possibly have done, I.e. accurately predict Chapman’s TOD? And yet when it comes to the much simpler task of looking around a deciding that she was definitely killed where she was found, then Phillips becomes incompetent? Can you explain this convenient piece of cherry-picking Fishy??

[FISHY1118]

Disproven nonsense.

Idiotic post.

What a waste of space.

jealous nasty sore loser , well done baron, about time too