John Richardson

[Wickerman]

It's not 'the article', Jon.

There are a whole raft of studies out there that by virtue of analysis of witness statements, have concluded that those statements are often unreliable.

Let's have it right, lots of studies, lots of empirical data.

But, the articles are concerned with recollection of events and unreliability due to the mechanism of the human mind, as opposed to those times when the witnesses got it right.

We know that two women attacked by Peter Sutcliffe gave outstanding photofits and so nobody is suggesting witness statements are worthless.

Albert in particular, however, was susceptible to an erroneous recollection because he had no reason to analyse what was going on around him.

When all the studies are done, do they really tell us anything we don't already know?

As you know Trevor will not use or consider witness statements that conflict with his theory.
His 'label' for them is something like Untrustworthy, you say nobody is suggesting witness statements are worthless.
What does it matter which label is used if the end result is the same - he doesn't use them, and will not listen to those who do?

[Wickerman]

This is classic theorising based on some preconceived idea, just running it through your mind divorced from that which actually happens, rather than look at what human beings actually do; in this instance serial killers.

It is highly unusual for a serial killer to murder at a location such as 29 Hanbury Street in daylight.

Whatever you have come up with in your mind, completely divorced from experience, it is unlikely that Jack murdered at that time of the morning in that location.

The reason being, serial killers very rarely do that. You can theorise until the cows come home but that is the reality of the situation. And, human experience counts for far more than a few people on a message board attempting to conjure up the unlikely.

To be frank, in this post you say a lot that is no more than pie in the sky with no substance behind it.

I think you're more of a speculator than I am, Jon, which is fine; but it is undoubtedly the case that your speculation does not compete with the experience of serial killers such as Jack.

Tell me, how usual is it for a killer to rip open the abdomen and pull the intestines out and throw them?
Would you call it "usual", "unusual", or "highly unusual"?
What do statistics tell you?

[Wickerman]

I really do not know what you are getting at, especially by your last sentence, as there is no conflict between what I wrote and what you cited from the inquest record.

I asked you two straightforward questions about whether you agree with the two statements that I invented something.

I suspect you are another person looking for a binary answer, either yes or no.
I'd like you to see the difference.

In my last sentence of the post I referred to digestion. This is what you commented on in the second quote.

In the second quote, you wrote:
"….at about the time people started to get up, and still to have food in her stomach 3 3/4 hours after eating nothing more than potato.“

I was responding to the last few words - "after eating nothing more than a potato".
The truth is, we do not know if she ate anything after she left the lodginghouse about 1:50.

I mentioned Googling other foods because there are foods which digest in a shorter time than a potato, particularly dairy & some carbs, that she 'could' have ate within that time window. She could have had another potato with those other foods before she was murdered, but those other foods had digested before her murder.
This is why I was pointing out your, "after eating nothing more than a potato", is strictly speaking not correct, it's an assumption, not a fact. You are assuming she ate nothing else.
Also, I notice the actual quote from the D.T. reads: "the stomach contained a meal of food", without mentioning anything specific; ie what foods?
So, once again you words are not correct.

Therefore, what you wrote does not match the press accounts, so unless you came up with it yourself, why is it different?
Did you invent it?



Now, as for the first quote.

“Chapman has to have been wandering about for about 3 3/4 hours without being seen by anyone, to choose to go into the back yard of a house, the habits of whose occupants she was presumably familiar with,”

I notice you added a caveat in post 6524, that only applies to the first part.

Your caveat reads:
"I meant that no-one had come forward to say that they had seen her, and I suggest that that is how most readers understood what I wrote.

When I wrote that five people had seen Nichols in the space of 4 1/2 hours, it was hardly necessary for me to qualify that by adding that other people may have seen her but not reported having seen her, and that therefore the figure of five is entirely unreliable".

I don't know what most readers thought.
When you write "without being seen by anyone", it means precisely that - no-one saw her.
It doesn't mean people may have seen her but no-one reported seeing her, which is what your caveat seems to mean.

As with Phillips and his caveat, your caveat has changed the whole meaning of your initial quote.
From...
“Chapman has to have been wandering about for about 3 3/4 hours without being seen by anyone,.."
To...
“Chapman has to have been wandering about for about 3 3/4 hours without being reported as seen by anyone,..


So, in post 6540, you asked:

"I asked you two straightforward questions about whether you agree with the two statements that I invented something".

In both cases you have come up with interpretations that differs slightly to what we read in the press.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Arguably, one of the best, or better known, witnesses was Lawende.

He did not come forward to tell police what he saw. They discovered him on a house-to-house inquiry following the murder - pure chance.

He is the only witness we know of who was sequestered away in a hotel for his own protection. Possibly a reflection of his concern for his life, could be why he chose not to come forward in the first place.

Because he was worried about possible revenge by a Jewish sailor with a fair moustache.

But seriously, why was Long not given protection from the 40 + dark foreigner, or Schwartz from the broad-shouldered ruffian, or Hutchinson from the rich Jew with the expensive watch?

[Wickerman]

In addition to what Wickerman said, I'll add that we don't know whether she had food with her when she left at 1:50.

Witnesses don't always come forward. It could be that he didn't want to bother, and it could be that he thought that he might be suspected. It's also possible that he didn't know who she was, and so didn't make the connection when Chapman's death hit the papers.

I'll concede your 3rd point, provided that she was killed very soon after she went out. If she was killed at 3:30 or later, she was probably seen. Unless she decided soon after she went out to go to sleep somewhere, maybe somewhere like 29 Hanbury Street. Note that i said "like", by which I mean it could have been a different location, but with a similar backyard.

Arguably, one of the best, or better known, witnesses was Lawende. He did not come forward to tell police what he saw. They discovered him on a house-to-house inquiry following the murder - pure chance.
He is the only witness we know of who was sequestered away in a hotel for his own protection. Possibly a reflection of his concern for his life, could be why he chose not to come forward in the first place.
Yet, Packer seems to have tried to avoid involvement by initially claiming, "I saw nothing, no-one suspicious", but he gets judged for it.

This is something Trevor may have encountered, a witness changing their story.
Does that make the witness unreliable, or can you still use him at an inquest?

[Wickerman]

I know what binary means, not why - per force - it applies.

There's no obligation to either use witness statements, or not to. Clearly not all witness statements are valid, which doesn't mean none are.

Nor do you get the ultimate say - no one does - over that distinction.

In fact, by saying ' You can use any of it' you're making my point. That's not binary. Binary would be 'either use all the statement or none of it'.

So we're in agreement, it's not a binary thing. Maybe you don't understand the word?

If you use one sentence of a five sentence statement - have you used it, or not?
Yes or no?
To make the selection easier, if you used one sentence, but say you did not use it, would that be lying?

Whether whole or part has no bearing on the fact you either used it, or you didn't.
It's a clear 'yes' or 'no' answer, which is binary.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

She’d been to the pub. How can you read that and then claim that she’d brought beer to lodging house?

She sent one of the lodgers for a pint of beer

(Testimony of John Evans)

[Herlock Sholmes]

I don't want to fall out with you over these potatoes, Lewis!

I re-read the evidence and we know she brought beer to the lodging house and, unless she found potato(es) there, potato(es), which she may have eaten in the kitchen.

There is no evidence that she had anything other than potatoes and beer and no reason to suppose that having obviously used her visit to the lodging house to eat and drink there, she took any food with her.

Coroner] Was she the worse for drink when you saw her last? - She had had enough; of that I am certain. She walked straight. Generally on Saturdays she was the worse for drink. She was very sociable in the kitchen. I said to her, "You can find money for your beer, and you can't find money for your bed." She said she had been only to the top of the street - where there is a public-house.

She’d been to the pub. How can you read that and then claim that she’d brought beer to lodging house?

Also, can you point to the evidence that tells us that she couldn’t have taken some of her potatoes away with her? Or that she didn’t.

Also, as we have no idea of her movements after she left the lodging house can you provide proof that she didn’t have anything else to eat? And no, I’m not interested in “well I don’t think that she would have.” Id like factual proof.

[Wickerman]

That is exactly the point I have been making.

There is not so much as a hint in any of his spoken or written comments on the case over the years that he suspected a Jewish person or a Polish person of having committed the murders.

And during all that time, he never so much as hinted that anyone had ever been positively and formally identified as the murderer.

Instead, during that time he stated that the police had failed to identify the murderer.

What does that tell you about his definitely ascertained fact?

It was Bull$*t

[Wickerman]

While you are considering your response, may I add that the claim that what I wrote (see below) about whether Chapman was seen by anyone was 'factually incorrect' is actually yet another exercise in hair-splitting:

Chapman has to have been wandering about for about 3 3/4 hours without being seen by anyone ...

It is obvious - is it not - that I did not mean that she had suddenly acquired the ability to make herself invisible to others.

I meant that no-one had come forward to say that they had seen her, and I suggest that that is how most readers understood what I wrote.

When I wrote that five people had seen Nichols in the space of 4 1/2 hours, it was hardly necessary for me to qualify that by adding that other people may have seen her but not reported having seen her, and that therefore the figure of five is entirely unreliable.

I was stating the evidence.

OK, I can't say as I interpret your intended meaning from the quote ascribed to you. If you were to ask me 'what did I mean?', I likely wouldn't have worded it as you do in those last couple of lines.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

We have no way of knowing if she took food with her, and if she had done so, it wouldn't necessarily have been potatoes. Her reason for going out wasto find a customer, but that doesn't mean that that's all she did while she was out.

I don't want to fall out with you over these potatoes, Lewis!

I re-read the evidence and we know she brought beer to the lodging house and, unless she found potato(es) there, potato(es), which she may have eaten in the kitchen.

There is no evidence that she had anything other than potatoes and beer and no reason to suppose that having obviously used her visit to the lodging house to eat and drink there, she took any food with her.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

Of all the things that we've debated about the Chapman murder, I would have thought that we could at least agree that there were 3 witnesses. Or 4 if you want to count Phillips, but certainly not less than 3.

Hi Lewis,

You would think so wouldn’t you? I think it illustrates a mindset though. Everything focused on finding ways of dismissing those pesky witnesses.

[Lewis C]

You even manipulate the number of witnesses.

There are three witnesses who all point strongly to a later ToD and who require an embarrassing campaign of distortion, babyish logic and a deliberate distortion of the language to manufacture a false case for dismissing them.

You should try assessing witnesses before simply using the ‘witnesses can be mistaken,’ line to dismiss them.. Truisms prove nothing.

Hi Herlock,

Of all the things that we've debated about the Chapman murder, I would have thought that we could at least agree that there were 3 witnesses. Or 4 if you want to count Phillips, but certainly not less than 3.

[Herlock Sholmes]

We have no way of knowing if she took food with her, and if she had done so, it wouldn't necessarily have been potatoes. Her reason for going out wasto find a customer, but that doesn't mean that that's all she did while she was out.

Exactly Lewis. But clearly PI and Fleetwood were there. How can you discus the case sensibly when you are up against this kind of thinking?

[Herlock Sholmes]

No, but I am suggesting that the evidence suggests that she brought her potatoes to the lodging house to eat them there, ate her potatoes at the lodging house, and then went out to find a customer, minus her potatoes.

And you are inventing things again.

The evidence suggests no such thing.

We haven’t a single clue where she got her potatoes from.

We haven’t any evidence that tells us that she finished all of her potatoes at the lodging house.

Are you going for some kind of record?