John Richardson

[Doctored Whatsit]

Hi Doc,

Harriett Hardiman [Hardyman, Hardman], living at 29, Hanbury-street, catsmeat saleswoman, the occupier of the ground-floor front room, stated: I went to bed on Friday night at half-past ten. My son sleeps in the same room. I did not wake during the night. I was awakened by the trampling through the passage at about six o'clock. My son was asleep, and I told him to go to the back as I thought there was a fire. He returned and said that a woman had been killed in the yard. I did not go out of my room. I have often heard people going through the passage into the yard, but never got up to look who they were.

My impression is that when witnesses say they heard nothing they mean they had not "noticed anything at all suspicious". Look at Bucks Row. Nobody heard anything but we know that Paul and Lechmere walked down the street, as well as Neil on his beat. There would be no reason for her to mention James as his visits were a regular morning event. Besides, I doubt that she would have wanted to place him at a murder scene.

Cheers, George

Hi George,

You mean she lied on oath, or that he collected everything and wandered in and out without waking her? If he called between about 4. 45 am and 5. 45 am, he was a necessary witness. The police made extensive enquiries of the occupants of no. 29. There was every reason to mention him!

[Fleetwood Mac]

The coroner only told Richardson to fetch his knife because after Richardson had said that it wasn’t sharp enough.

Which isn't true.

This was Richardson's sole statement on the knife prior to being asked to retrieve it:

The yard door was shut. I opened it and sat on the doorstep, and cut a piece of leather off my boot with an old table-knife, about five inches long. I kept the knife upstairs at John-street. I had been feeding a rabbit with a carrot that I had cut up, and I put the knife in my pocket. I do not usually carry it there. After cutting the leather off my boot I tied my boot up, and went out of the house into the market. I did not close the back door. It closed itself. I shut the front door.

It seems you're arguing from a position involving an exchange that didn't actually happen, which would explain your inability to grasp the glaring inconsistency.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

Looking at someone for your speculated 4-5 seconds would be generally regarded as staring. "I did not take much notice of them" would indicate more of a glance. Since the later is what she testified, I think this point can be awarded to Trevor.

For 8., we're talking about identification, not clock times. The fact that she initially said that she did "not think she could identify the couple" and then "identified the body of Chapman as that of the woman whom she saw in Hanbury-street" also awards this point to Trevor.

You will recall that it is recorded that when Packer was taken to the mortuary he was deliberately shown the wrong body and stated that it wasn't the woman (Stride) that he saw, and then correctly identified Stride. Jeff makes a very good point in raising the possibility that perhaps Long wasn't given the opportunity to mis-identify Chapman.

Cheers, George

Hello George,

I wouldn’t have called it much of a stretch of the imagination to suggest that Long wouldn’t just have seen the couple when she was alongside them. As she was walking along she would have seen the couple up ahead. She could have seen them up ahead say 30 yards away and so would have them in her eye-line for longer than 4-5 seconds. Thats not to say that she was scrutinising them of course but as she approached and passed I’d still suggest that she could have seen Long’s face for 4 or 5 seconds or longer but I can’t state this as a certainty of course. It might only have been that she saw her face for a couple of seconds as you suggest.

I’d concede the point as a 50-50 George. Sadly we don’t have her police statement which might have given us more details.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Which isn't true.

This was Richardson's sole statement on the knife prior to being asked to retrieve it:

The yard door was shut. I opened it and sat on the doorstep, and cut a piece of leather off my boot with an old table-knife, about five inches long. I kept the knife upstairs at John-street. I had been feeding a rabbit with a carrot that I had cut up, and I put the knife in my pocket. I do not usually carry it there. After cutting the leather off my boot I tied my boot up, and went out of the house into the market. I did not close the back door. It closed itself. I shut the front door.

It seems you're arguing from a position involving an exchange that didn't actually happen, which would explain your inability to grasp the glaring inconsistency.

Well done You’ve spotted an incorrect bit of typing from me. I haven’t a clue why I typed that I can only suggest that I did it in haste but my previous posts should make it abundantly clear that I’d never mentioned this before. I posted it though, I should have checked first. That’s another example of me admitted it when I make an error. I just wish that ‘some’ others would adopt the same approach to debate.

What I meant to say was…

You said…

. Richardson is told to get the knife and he then changes his tune, i.e. 'it was not sharp enough

He didn’t ‘change his tune’ because he had no reason to mention the sharpness of the knife. The coroner wasn’t interested in the success or otherwise of his boot repairing exercise and he certainly wasn’t interested in the second knife. He didn’t mention the sharpness of the knife because no one had questioned its sharpness. It can’t be clearer.

[Herlock Sholmes]

We should put this desperate knife nonsense to bed.

Inquest interview Part One

[Coroner] Did you go into the yard? - No, the yard door was shut. I opened it and sat on the doorstep, and cut a piece of leather off my boot with an old table-knife, about five inches long. I kept the knife upstairs at John-street. I had been feeding a rabbit with a carrot that I had cut up, and I put the knife in my pocket. I do not usually carry it there. After cutting the leather off my boot I tied my boot up, and went out of the house into the market. I did not close the back door. It closed itself. I shut the front door.

Inquest interview Part Two

produced the knife - a much-worn dessert knife - with which he had cut his boot. He added that as it was not sharp enough he had borrowed another one at the market

…..

So we can see from these two parts, taken before and after he was sent to fetch his knife, that it can’t fairly be said that he changed his story. He didn’t mention the second knife because he had absolutely no reason to. Firstly the coroner hadn’t seen the knife yet so he couldn’t possibly have known what comments the coroner might or might not have made about it and, secondly, the second knife wasn’t relevant to the inquest because it was never at number 29. And thirdly, he had absolutely no way of knowing that the coroner was going to ask him to fetch the knife. So very obviously Richardson only mentioned the second knife after the comment by the coroner. So there was no ‘suspicious’ changing of his story.

…..

Then we have the point about Richardson saying that he cut leather from his boot and then mentioning that it wasn’t sharp enough. On the face of it this appears a little strange but there a few points that need to be made on this.

We don’t have a verbatim report and so a missing sentence or a missing word or two can significantly change the meaning of a sentence.

Richardson said “…it was not sharp enough…” This doesn’t have to mean that it wasn’t sharp enough to cut a piece of leather. It could easily have meant, and almost certainly did, that ‘it was not sharp enough’ to do a sufficiently thorough job. This makes sense.

If the ‘suspicious’ interpretation is applied then not only do we have to accept that Richardson was saying something as nonsensical as, in effect, ‘I cut a piece of leather from my boot but I couldn’t cut a piece of leather from my boot” but we have to accept that neither the coroner nor any member of the jury picked him up on this piece of gibberish. No one said “hold on Mr. Richardson how could the knife have been both ‘not sharp’ enough’ and ‘sharp enough?’” The fact that no one did pull him up on this should confirm that he never said this or meant anything like this. If the coroner was at all suspicious why did he never ask him to produce the second knife (which was sharper and a more plausible possible murder weapon) if it wasn’t because nothing that Richardson had said had given him the slightest cause for concern?

Then we have to ask ourselves why he would have told a pointless lie? When the apparent bluntness of the knife was mentioned he could have just said ‘well it was only a minor repair and i thought it was good enough at the time.” Neither the coroner nor the police could have recreated the repair after all. The lie suggestion just doesn’t hold water whichever way we look at it. It’s a created mystery where no mystery exists.

It might be suggested that Richardson could have been a bit dim but we can’t assume that an experienced Coroner was so stupid and so incompetent that he missed an obvious discrepancy concerning a knife at an inquest on a knife murder and where the witness in question was actually at the scene! Because there was none.

……

It seems pretty clear on what occurred. John Richardson told the coroner that he’d cut some leather from his boot (which was all that was relevant to his questioning at that inquest) but he’d found that he couldn’t cut enough off or do a sufficiently good job so he decided to complete the job at the market using a sharper and probably longer knife. The coroner sent him for the knife that he’d used at number 29 and then pointed out that it looked somewhat blunt to which Richardson informed him that he’d had to complete the job using a sharper one at the market.

We don’t need to imply stupidity, incompetence or that Richardson should have responded to a question that he hadn’t been asked in the first place. We just have to look at a very obvious, natural explanation. The only possibility that we have to consider is that in a trial transcript which certainly wasn’t verbatim that a single sentence or even half a sentence might have been omitted which would have made the obvious very clear.

[Joshua Rogan]

You will recall that it is recorded that when Packer was taken to the mortuary he was deliberately shown the wrong body and stated that it wasn't the woman (Stride) that he saw, and then correctly identified Stride. Jeff makes a very good point in raising the possibility that perhaps Long wasn't given the opportunity to mis-identify Chapman.

Packer was deliberately taken to the wrong mortuary, which somewhat gives the game away.

[Joshua Rogan]

At the Kelly inquest the coroner asked Maxwell to describe Kelly's clothing because he was trying to discredit her. To his chagrin, she got the description right. Had Baxter done the same thing it would have added legitimacy to Long's testimony. I find it surprising that the coroner missed that opportunity.

I think you're imputing too much meaning into the coroner's question. Maxwell had already correctly described Kelly's clothing in her police statement, so Macdonald would have known what her answer was going to be before he asked the question.

[GBinOz]

I think you're imputing too much meaning into the coroner's question. Maxwell had already correctly described Kelly's clothing in her police statement, so Macdonald would have known what her answer was going to be before he asked the question.

Hi Joshua,

With Packer, did he know which mortuary the body was being stored?

If Macdonald knew the answer, why was he asking the question? Is there a record of Maxwell describing Kelly's clothing in her police statement that we can reference? If there is, was he trying to test her consistency?

Cheers, George

[GBinOz]

Hello George,

I wouldn’t have called it much of a stretch of the imagination to suggest that Long wouldn’t just have seen the couple when she was alongside them. As she was walking along she would have seen the couple up ahead. She could have seen them up ahead say 30 yards away and so would have them in her eye-line for longer than 4-5 seconds. Thats not to say that she was scrutinising them of course but as she approached and passed I’d still suggest that she could have seen Long’s face for 4 or 5 seconds or longer but I can’t state this as a certainty of course. It might only have been that she saw her face for a couple of seconds as you suggest.

I’d concede the point as a 50-50 George. Sadly we don’t have her police statement which might have given us more details.

Not so fast my friend. You have Long scanning this couple like something out of a Predator movie. Long said there were lots of couples on the street "at that time of the morning", to the surprise of the coroner. She also said that they were not doing anything to attract attention. They were one of many couples that she saw every day. Nothing exceptional, nothing to warrant her attention. Only someone to note after she found out that there was someone to note.

Cheers, George

[DJA]

Mrs. Elizabeth Long said: I live in Church-row, Whitechapel, and my husband, James Long, is a cart minder. On Saturday, Sept. 8, about half past five o'clock in the morning, I was passing down Hanbury-street, from home, on my way to Spitalfields Market. I knew the time, because I heard the brewer's clock strike half-past five just before I got to the street. I passed 29, Hanbury-street. On the right-hand side, the same side as the house, I saw a man and a woman standing on the pavement talking. The man's back was turned towards Brick-lane, and the woman's was towards the market. They were standing only a few yards nearer Brick-lane from 29, Hanbury-street. I saw the woman's face. Have seen the deceased in the mortuary, and I am sure the woman that I saw in Hanbury-street was the deceased. I did not see the man's face, but I noticed that he was dark. He was wearing a brown low-crowned felt hat. I think he had on a dark coat, though I am not certain. By the look of him he seemed to me a man over forty years of age. He appeared to me to be a little taller than the deceased.
[Coroner] Did he look like a working man, or what? - He looked like a foreigner.
[Coroner] Did he look like a dock labourer, or a workman, or what? - I should say he looked like what I should call shabby-genteel.
[Coroner] Were they talking loudly? - They were talking pretty loudly. I overheard him say to her "Will you?" and she replied, "Yes." That is all I heard, and I heard this as I passed. I left them standing there, and I did not look back, so I cannot say where they went to.
[Coroner] Did they appear to be sober? - I saw nothing to indicate that either of them was the worse for drink.
Was it not an unusual thing to see a man and a woman standing there talking? - Oh no. I see lots of them standing there in the morning.
[Coroner] At that hour of the day? - Yes; that is why I did not take much notice of them.
[Coroner] You are certain about the time? - Quite.
[Coroner] What time did you leave home? - I got out about five o'clock, and I reached the Spitalfields Market a few minutes after half-past five.
The Foreman of the jury: What brewer's clock did you hear strike half-past five? - The brewer's in Brick-lane.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Not so fast my friend. You have Long scanning this couple like something out of a Predator movie. Long said there were lots of couples on the street "at that time of the morning", to the surprise of the coroner. She also said that they were not doing anything to attract attention. They were one of many couples that she saw every day. Nothing exceptional, nothing to warrant her attention. Only someone to note after she found out that there was someone to note.

Cheers, George

I’m not saying that she focused on them for ages George, just that most people look face front when walking so it’s not beyond the realms that she saw her for a very few seconds as she approached and passed. I’m not suggesting that she would certainly have seen her for any great length of time though. I guess that another point that might be worth mentioning is that some people are just more observant than others. 2 or 3 seconds might be enough for some but not for others to make an accurate ID. There’s certainly a possibility that she might just have seen a woman who looked similar to Chapman and she subconsciously ‘filled in the gaps’ when she saw Chapman in the mortuary though. So my personal assessment of that particular point would have been 50-50. And 50-50 is my overall assessment of Long. I just don’t think that we have enough to push it much either way. But I certainly wouldn’t simply eliminate her as a witness, I wouldn’t rely on her as a certainty, but I’d definitely keep her in mind as a possible.

[Trevor Marriott]

Packer was deliberately taken to the wrong mortuary, which somewhat gives the game away.

Longs ID at the mortuary was the equivelant of a direct confrontation carried out in some criminal cases up unitl 2003 when viper ID parades were first used.

Because of the implications and to be fair to the person in custody these direct confrontations ID were frowned upon for obvious reasons and fraught with danger and without any corroborating evidence were of no real evidential value

So her mortuary ID cannot be relied upon and at the risk of upsetting Herlock I have to the word unsafe testimony again

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Abby Normal]

We should put this desperate knife nonsense to bed.

Inquest interview Part One

[Coroner] Did you go into the yard? - No, the yard door was shut. I opened it and sat on the doorstep, and cut a piece of leather off my boot with an old table-knife, about five inches long. I kept the knife upstairs at John-street. I had been feeding a rabbit with a carrot that I had cut up, and I put the knife in my pocket. I do not usually carry it there. After cutting the leather off my boot I tied my boot up, and went out of the house into the market. I did not close the back door. It closed itself. I shut the front door.

Inquest interview Part Two

produced the knife - a much-worn dessert knife - with which he had cut his boot. He added that as it was not sharp enough he had borrowed another one at the market

…..

So we can see from these two parts, taken before and after he was sent to fetch his knife, that it can’t fairly be said that he changed his story. He didn’t mention the second knife because he had absolutely no reason to. Firstly the coroner hadn’t seen the knife yet so he couldn’t possibly have known what comments the coroner might or might not have made about it and, secondly, the second knife wasn’t relevant to the inquest because it was never at number 29. And thirdly, he had absolutely no way of knowing that the coroner was going to ask him to fetch the knife. So very obviously Richardson only mentioned the second knife after the comment by the coroner. So there was no ‘suspicious’ changing of his story.

…..

Then we have the point about Richardson saying that he cut leather from his boot and then mentioning that it wasn’t sharp enough. On the face of it this appears a little strange but there a few points that need to be made on this.

We don’t have a verbatim report and so a missing sentence or a missing word or two can significantly change the meaning of a sentence.

Richardson said “…it was not sharp enough…” This doesn’t have to mean that it wasn’t sharp enough to cut a piece of leather. It could easily have meant, and almost certainly did, that ‘it was not sharp enough’ to do a sufficiently thorough job. This makes sense.

If the ‘suspicious’ interpretation is applied then not only do we have to accept that Richardson was saying something as nonsensical as, in effect, ‘I cut a piece of leather from my boot but I couldn’t cut a piece of leather from my boot” but we have to accept that neither the coroner nor any member of the jury picked him up on this piece of gibberish. No one said “hold on Mr. Richardson how could the knife have been both ‘not sharp’ enough’ and ‘sharp enough?’” The fact that no one did pull him up on this should confirm that he never said this or meant anything like this. If the coroner was at all suspicious why did he never ask him to produce the second knife (which was sharper and a more plausible possible murder weapon) if it wasn’t because nothing that Richardson had said had given him the slightest cause for concern?

Then we have to ask ourselves why he would have told a pointless lie? When the apparent bluntness of the knife was mentioned he could have just said ‘well it was only a minor repair and i thought it was good enough at the time.” Neither the coroner nor the police could have recreated the repair after all. The lie suggestion just doesn’t hold water whichever way we look at it. It’s a created mystery where no mystery exists.

It might be suggested that Richardson could have been a bit dim but we can’t assume that an experienced Coroner was so stupid and so incompetent that he missed an obvious discrepancy concerning a knife at an inquest on a knife murder and where the witness in question was actually at the scene! Because there was none.

……

It seems pretty clear on what occurred. John Richardson told the coroner that he’d cut some leather from his boot (which was all that was relevant to his questioning at that inquest) but he’d found that he couldn’t cut enough off or do a sufficiently good job so he decided to complete the job at the market using a sharper and probably longer knife. The coroner sent him for the knife that he’d used at number 29 and then pointed out that it looked somewhat blunt to which Richardson informed him that he’d had to complete the job using a sharper one at the market.

We don’t need to imply stupidity, incompetence or that Richardson should have responded to a question that he hadn’t been asked in the first place. We just have to look at a very obvious, natural explanation. The only possibility that we have to consider is that in a trial transcript which certainly wasn’t verbatim that a single sentence or even half a sentence might have been omitted which would have made the obvious very clear.

good post herlock
after all this back and forth on richardson, im actually more inclined to beleive he didnt see chapmans body, because it wasnt there yet, the witnesses were correct and that he probably wasnt the ripper either, due to all yours, Jeffs, wicks, joshuas and Doc stellar research and analysis. special shout out to the doc on his astute observance of the front door being left wide open (after richardson said it was closed) as a clue that it was left open as the ripper quickly made his exit, which of course is more corroberation for the other three witnesses being correct on TOD. great job my friend.

[Herlock Sholmes]

good post herlock
after all this back and forth on richardson, im actually more inclined to beleive he didnt see chapmans body, because it wasnt there yet, the witnesses were correct and that he probably wasnt the ripper either, due to all yours, Jeffs, wicks, joshuas and Doc stellar research and analysis. special shout out to the doc on his astute observance of the front door being left wide open (after richardson said it was closed) as a clue that it was left open as the ripper quickly made his exit, which of course is more corroberation for the other three witnesses being correct on TOD. great job my friend.

Cheers Abby

[Wickerman]

...

If Macdonald knew the answer, why was he asking the question?...

Hi George.

For what it's worth, the coroner uses the witnesses police statement as a prompt with which to question the witness.
Police statements are not made under oath, the reply of the witness to the coroner is under oath. Therein, we have the difference.