Was John Richardson A Reliable Witness?

[JeffHamm]

You make a good point and in comparison Dr`s Brown and Sequeria in Mitre Square made an estimation which proved to be almost spot on.

Now I know that guess work in estimating TOD in modern day murders is frowned upon, but a guess is a guess. sometimes a person guesses right sometimes not

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Yes, but the problem with guesses is that anybody can guess anything, it's about the most unsafe type of information there is, pretty much by definition, because even an outright lie tells you something, just not what the liar wants you to know!

And we don't know that the thump was the point of putting Annie to the ground, that's just one hypothesis. It could be at anypoint, even during the mutilations as well, presumably. Cadosche didn't look over the fence, so we don't know what he would have seen in progress at that time. It could even have been JtR sitting back against the fence, resting upon completion, just before leaving, for example.

- Jeff

[Kattrup]

What is obvious here is that Cadosh is saying that the sound he heard was similar to that of a packing case falling against the fence, a sound he was familiar with. The packing cases were basically wooden boxes. A wooden box falling against a fence does not sound anything like a human body doing so. It produces sort of a sudden knock, and nothing more. A body produces a soft thud, and a fall against a fence will involve either a sloping sound as the body slides down in contact with the fence or - if the body bounces off the fence - there will be first the thud and then a crash as the body lands on the ground. Cadosh took care to point out that there was no other sound, no rustling of clothes etcetera.

Hi Fisherman, certainly interesting statements but the significance of the noise in my opinion is that is shows someone in the yard engaged in some physical activity.
Whether it was the body falling and knocking something over, which then made the noise, or the killer moving around the body and knocking something over, or the fight during strangulation knocking something over - the point is that something was going on, someone was there.

[Trevor Marriott]

Yes, but the problem with guesses is that anybody can guess anything, it's about the most unsafe type of information there is, pretty much by definition, because even an outright lie tells you something, just not what the liar wants you to know!

And we don't know that the thump was the point of putting Annie to the ground, that's just one hypothesis. It could be at anypoint, even during the mutilations as well, presumably. Cadosche didn't look over the fence, so we don't know what he would have seen in progress at that time. It could even have been JtR sitting back against the fence, resting upon completion, just before leaving, for example.

- Jeff

I realize that guesswork is hit and miss, but when you make a guess sometimes you guess right, so is it right to dismiss Phillips because he made a guess, when two other doctors in another murder also made guesses and were almost spot on, and in the case of Chapman the other witness testimony is questionable?

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[Herlock Sholmes]

I realize that guesswork is hit and miss, but when you make a guess sometimes you guess right, so is it right to dismiss Phillips because he made a guess, when two other doctors in another murder also made guesses and were almost spot on, and in the case of Chapman the other witness testimony is questionable?

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If Phillips TOD estimation was little more than guesswork then of course he could have been right or wrong. I’ve certainly never said that he couldn’t have gotten it right. The problem is that we have no way of judging how likely he was of being right or wrong. All we know is that he certainly could have been wrong so we have no way of evaluating him except for by witnesses.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Letīs have a closer look, once again, at what Cadosch said. Here is his testimony, from the Daily News:

Albert Cadosch, carpenter, testified that he lived at 27 Hanbury street, next door to the house at the back of which the deceased was found. On that morning he got up about a quarter past five and went into the back yard. As he was returning into the house he heard a voice quite near. He could not be sure that it came from the yard of No. 29. Three or four minutes the witness was again in the yard of the house in which he lived, and heard "a sort of fall" against the fence. He did not look to see what it was.

The Coroner - Had you heard any previous noise? - No, sir.

Did you then leave the house? - Yes, sir, to go to work. It was about two minutes after half past five.

At that time in the morning do you often hear people in these yards? - Now and then. They make packing cases at 29, and I sometimes hear them.

The Foreman - Had you not the curiosity to look over the palings when you heard the fall?

The Witness - Well, now and then a packing case falls against the palings, and I did not think that there was anything wrong.

And this is the Morning Advertiser:

Adolphus Caposch (sic), carpenter, lodging next door to 29, Hanbury street, said - About a quarter past five o'clock in the morning of the 8th inst., I was in the yard. I returned in about five minutes, and heard a voice close to me, but I could not say on which side, or in which yard, say "No." I went in and came back into the yard in three or four minutes, and then I heard a sort of fall against the fence which divides the yard from No. 29.

What sort of noise was it? - Well, as if something had touched the fence suddenly. The voice I heard appeared to come from the yard of No. 29. I did not look to see who it was. Afterwards I left the house on my way to my work, and I saw by the clock it was about half past five o'clock. Do you often hear people in these yards? - Not often, but sometimes I do.

By a Juror - I told the police the same day, within an hour and a half of hearing of the murder. The fence is about five or six feet high. Next door there is a packing case maker's, and I did not think it strange to hear the fall against the fence.

The Coroner - Did you see a man or woman in the street? - No; I only saw workmen passing by to their work.

What is obvious here is that Cadosh is saying that the sound he heard was similar to that of a packing case falling against the fence, a sound he was familiar with. The packing cases were basically wooden boxes. A wooden box falling against a fence does not sound anything like a human body doing so. It produces sort of a sudden knock, and nothing more. A body produces a soft thud, and a fall against a fence will involve either a sloping sound as the body slides down in contact with the fence or - if the body bounces off the fence - there will be first the thud and then a crash as the body lands on the ground. Cadosh took care to point out that there was no other sound, no rustling of clothes etcetera.

So IF Albert Cadosh was not simply fishing for fifteen minutes of fame (which remains a possibility), then whatever he was describing seems not to have been the sound of a person falling against the fence, does it? It is more of a sudden knock, something that "touched the fence suddenly", as he puts it himself.

Another interesting matter is how in the Morning Advertiser clipping, Cadosh first says:
I returned in about five minutes, and heard a voice close to me, but I could not say on which side, or in which yard, say "No."

This is clear evidence that he could not tell which side it came from. Funnily, he thereafter says:
The voice I heard appeared to come from the yard of No. 29.

This is an example of how his testimony looks weak, and there is little doubt that a barrister would have picked up on such things if he wanted to dig holes in Cadoshes story. And although the thread question alludes to Richardson, I think we can say that Cadosh was not a very reliable witness. Going from uncertainty to near certainty in ten seconds flat does not promote any real confidence in my book.

Of course, I remain by my stance that whatever Cadosh heard if he indeed DID hear anything at all, it could not have been Chapman being killed. Phillips would never have been that wrong, and he had more than one parameter to work from.

Itīs good to see that there are other posters who realize that.

Of course we have to evaluate witnesses. I can’t think of a more honest sounding, reasonable witness in the entire case than Albert Cadosch but, for some reason, his caution about the word “no” appears to be held against him. He appears to get points knocked off for being reasonable. How does that work? He felt that the noise came from number 29 but he wasn’t prepared to state it for certain even though he knew that a woman had been killed in that yard.

Cadosch wasn’t saying that the noise sounded like a packing case. What he was saying was that hearing noises from the yard of number 29 wasn’t unusual due to the packing case business and that sometimes packing cases fell against the fence. The problem is though that he says that he definitely heard a noise and it definitely came from the yard of number 29. According to Phillips Annie was already dead at that time and so, obviously, the noise couldn’t have been anything else and so we are left having to accuse Cadosch of lying on no evidence. In fact his caution over the word ‘no’ points to an honest witness. With no one to contradict him at that time of the morning there was nothing to have prevented him from 100% confidence or even exaggeration.

Cadosch is an entirely believable witness.

[Trevor Marriott]

If Phillips TOD estimation was little more than guesswork then of course he could have been right or wrong. I’ve certainly never said that he couldn’t have gotten it right. The problem is that we have no way of judging how likely he was of being right or wrong. All we know is that he certainly could have been wrong so we have no way of evaluating him except for by witnesses.

and their testimony is all over the place !!!!!!

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[Elamarna]

I realize that guesswork is hit and miss, but when you make a guess sometimes you guess right, so is it right to dismiss Phillips because he made a guess, when two other doctors in another murder also made guesses and were almost spot on, and in the case of Chapman the other witness testimony is questionable?

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The issue, of course, is were the cases you speak of, I assume Eddowes and Stride, but you could include Nichols, based solely on medical knowledge,( if so, I and probably every modern forensic pathologists would love to know the method) or was the fact that POLICE OFFICERS, rather than public, were able to say that the body was not there a set time before influential in the estimate given.
We really cannot know the answer conclusively, but it seems probable that it would be taken into account.

For Chapman, we do not have that.

Steve

[chameleon1]

Im still curious how Dr Phillips pronounced a corpse that had been dead for only 1 hour,..... to 2 hours probably more. hmmmmm

And that from 5.30 to 5.45 the killer was mutilation and removing organs in broad daylight, and yet this seems perfectly acceptable to many Ripperoligist [ if cadosche is to be believed of course ], But i For one see a few obvious obstacles with this theory.

[Michael W Richards]

By his own admission he could not be sure which side the ''no'' came from, there for we cant be sure 100 per cent sure that it came from no 29 . As for the sound of something hitting the fence, yes that part he was sure about, but that was some time after the no was it not, so one should be careful as to conclude that the two were at all related.

Cadosche mentioned hearing things from that yard before...so, how unsure about which yard was he really? We have evidence that says prostitute business was conducted in that particular yard before, and that vagrants had slept back there. Any stories you are aware of for the yard on the other side of him? And he specifically mentions the thud against the fence between him and 29. Likely that the "no" and the thud were by the same party? Yep. So what...that party switched backyards between 5:10 and 5:20? Nope.

[chameleon1]

What we have is the FACT that Albert Codosch by his own admission could not say for sure where the ''No'' came from ,simple as that , its just as likely the no and the thud were unrelated ..... yep

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

What we have is the FACT that Albert Codosch by his own admission could not say for sure where the ''No'' came from ,simple as that , its just as likely the no and the thud were unrelated ..... yep

Applying that same logic to the OP though, there is the FACT that Richardson saw no body, most plausibly because it wasn't there.
In my humblest of opinions, I don't think there is an issue with Phillips' TOD, it's just that when taken in with the other peripheral evidence, it leaves room for doubt. It doesn't mean he was 100% wrong, maybe if on the morning he knew of Cadosch and Richardson's statements this might have factored into his thinking? Who knows?
The noisy fence' isn't disputed, any noise likely had a human cause one way or another, and given the time it's not beyond reason to think this may be relevant to the murder?
In this case, there are far more debatable circumstances than Cadosch' testimony. Just how relevant is this fence noise? It doesn't change much, Richardson's statement is far more troublesome for anyone who feels Annie was there at 5am.
Of course, if she was killed somewhere else, and dumped in the yard........

[Fisherman]

Hi Fisherman, certainly interesting statements but the significance of the noise in my opinion is that is shows someone in the yard engaged in some physical activity.
Whether it was the body falling and knocking something over, which then made the noise, or the killer moving around the body and knocking something over, or the fight during strangulation knocking something over - the point is that something was going on, someone was there.

Hello, my learned Danish friend!

I would like to point out that much as you have a lot going for yourself in this post of yours, it is actually not a proven thing that someone was in the yard - not even if Cadosh DID hear what he said he heard. It could have been an animal or perhaps some object that fell against the partition wall, by for example a gust of wind.
But the point you are making is an overall good one - if there was a sound, it must not have been the sound of Chapman falling against the fence. Indeed, the wording as such speaks against such a conclusion, at least to my mind - I would have wanted adjoining sounds, like the rustle of clothing, a slumping sound along the fence, a scuffle or something like that. But all we have is one (1) sound, "as if something suddenly touched the wall".

[Herlock Sholmes]

and their testimony is all over the place !!!!!!

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

A massive exaggeration.

There are no grounds to question Cadosch as a witness.

[Fisherman]

Of course we have to evaluate witnesses. I can’t think of a more honest sounding, reasonable witness in the entire case than Albert Cadosch but, for some reason, his caution about the word “no” appears to be held against him. He appears to get points knocked off for being reasonable. How does that work? He felt that the noise came from number 29 but he wasn’t prepared to state it for certain even though he knew that a woman had been killed in that yard.

Cadosch wasn’t saying that the noise sounded like a packing case. What he was saying was that hearing noises from the yard of number 29 wasn’t unusual due to the packing case business and that sometimes packing cases fell against the fence. The problem is though that he says that he definitely heard a noise and it definitely came from the yard of number 29. According to Phillips Annie was already dead at that time and so, obviously, the noise couldn’t have been anything else and so we are left having to accuse Cadosch of lying on no evidence. In fact his caution over the word ‘no’ points to an honest witness. With no one to contradict him at that time of the morning there was nothing to have prevented him from 100% confidence or even exaggeration.

Cadosch is an entirely believable witness.

Beginning from the end, no, Cadosh is not an entirely reliable witness. We certainly canīt tell, and there are things speaking for the contrary opinion.

You are correct that Cadosh did. not say that the sound reminded him of a packing case. But he DID say that he did not take much notice of it, since he was used to the sound of packing cases against the fence. And per se, if the sound had differed, he SHOULD have taken notice of it, so what he practically says is that the sound did not differ much from that kind of sound.

You feel he has points deducted for "being reasonable". Iīm afraid that is how it goes - if you say one thing one second and another one the next, you compromise your credibility. It can of course boild down to him not wanting to be too sure (your version), but it may equally be that he told porkies and forgot to keep track of what he had said (the version any barrister would use).

There is one question I would like you to answer for me:

Cadosh said that the sound he heard sounded as if "something had touched the fence suddenly". How does that translate into a knowledge that whatever touched the fance had actually fallen against it? There was no further sound, no crash against the ground, no rustle of clothing etcetera. So why does Cadosh say that a sounbd that could have been produced by an elbow knocked on the fence, by somebody throwing something at the fence, by a blind cat running into the fence etcetera, sounded as if something actually fell against it?

Where does that insight enter the equation?

[Fisherman]

Im still curious how Dr Phillips pronounced a corpse that had been dead for only 1 hour,..... to 2 hours probably more. hmmmmm

And that from 5.30 to 5.45 the killer was mutilation and removing organs in broad daylight, and yet this seems perfectly acceptable to many Ripperoligist [ if cadosche is to be believed of course ], But i For one see a few obvious obstacles with this theory.

Plus rigor had set in, yes. We need to have a very curious combination of medical circumstances ruling the day to believe Phillips was monumentally off. Some like to think so, and they rest their case on how three witnesses cannot be wrong. But they can. And they WERE, at least to a degree. Cadosh and Long cannot be made to jibe chronologically, for example. And they were absolutely certain of their respective timings.

Swanson says it is a pity that Longs information muyst be looked upon with skepticism. He does not even mention Cadosh. Make of that what you will.