John Richardson

[Trevor Marriott]

Trevor, why do you think I'm saying I have no faith in Phillips? It's not what I'm saying at all.

I'm simply wondering why he used the word "under". It's his word.

What did he mean by it?

because you were saying that you belived he didnt do what he said he did!!!!!!!!!!

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Trevor Marriott]

This was in 1994. And yet we have posters on here claiming that a Doctor in 1888 could do better simply by touching a corpse and noting a little stiffness. It’s an embarrassment to the subject.

Its not when you have unsafe witness testimony in support of a later time of death

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Herlock Sholmes]

Going off your posts for a few weeks now, I highly doubt it.

You’re really suggesting that I’m not English?

Id suggest that no one on here would call Steve Blomer a liar? Let’s wait until he posts again because around 4 or 5 years ago I met up with him for a drink in the Ten Bells (Steve used to live in London) where we talked for around 2 hours. Ask him if he thought that, for an American, I did a very good Black Country accent? And when Steve confirms that I’m English will I get an apology? No, not your style is it? Admitting when you’re wrong.

Or perhaps you could ask Gary Barnett? Because I went to see a play about Catherine Eddowes (in Stourbridge in the West Midlands - where I’ve lived all of my life) and sent him a programme. ‘Bilston Kate’ not getting a run on Broadway.

You really are showing yourself up badly.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I'm starting to think Meety is on these boards because he's actually a psychopath. His massive ego and sense of self importance certainly wouldn't be amiss. What's the bet that in real life he wouldn't say boo to an ant.

I get that impression too Wulf.

[Herlock Sholmes]

because you were saying that you belived he didnt do what he said he did!!!!!!!!!!

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

No, Trevor, that's not what I'm doing at all. The whole point is that I'm trying to work out what he was saying he did!

I'm suggesting that it's not clear what he meant when he said that there was heat under the intestines because one would naturally expect him to say there was heat in the intestines.

Tell me that you at least understand that.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Its not when you have unsafe witness testimony in support of a later time of death

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

The witnesses are irrelevant on this point Trevor. If it was impossible to tie down a TOD in 1994 with all the advancements in medical knowledge and technology available then how the hell could a Victorian Doctor have done it.

Try to understand what you’re claiming. You’re claiming an impossibility!

[GBinOz]

No, Trevor, that's not what I'm doing at all. The whole point is that I'm trying to work out what he was saying he did!

I'm suggesting that it's not clear what he meant when he said that there was heat under the intestines because one would naturally expect him to say there was heat in the intestines.

Tell me that you at least understand that.

Hi Herlock,

I do not intend to be drawn into the slanging match that is taking place at present, so I am not trying to score points when I say that it never occurred to me that Phillips was talking about the intestines that had been removed from the body. I think it common sense that he was talking about the intestines that remained within the abdominal cavity, and Christer was making that stipulation to Thiblin. As can be seen from Phillip's comments on Stride, "body still warm, face warm, hands cold, legs quite warm", doctors of the time had a checklist for the crime scene. Phillips, probably for the first time, had the additional opportunity to add an internal temperature level, albeit only by touch. I will again express my astonishment regarding the doctor's reluctance to utilise thermometers. I can only think that old habits, methods and opinions die hard. I recall my grandfather scorning DE safety razors on the basis that he had a perfectly good straight razor.

Intestines are tubular in nature, but I assume that you are not proposing that he may have cut the intestine to feel inside, but rather questioning why he hadn't plunged his hand into the intestinal coils. My suggestion is that by slipping his hand under the intestinal coils he is availing himself of the deepest internal temperature possible at the crime scene, once again limited by the fact that is was only by feel. The word used at the inquest was "under". I don't see any reason to expect that he meant "in". Can you clarify exactly what you mean in that regard?

It should be noted that Chandler's notes from the crime scene record that "The Doctor pronounced life extinct and stated the woman had been dead at least two hours." The additional information provided to the coroner, the "and probably more" and the qualification, was deduced by Phillips at or after the post mortem, separately from the original pronouncement.

Police surgeons were called to provide an estimate of the time of death, and did not consider their task to be to provide too much detail to what they considered to be the great unwashed. They did their best with what they had available, and there is no doubt that their estimates were inaccurate, but to what degree. The estimates for the three other C5 outdoor murders were not at all inaccurate. Karyo Magellan's study of Victorian Medico-Legal autopsies led him to state that he found them to be rather more impressive than is generally believed.

Cheers, George

[GBinOz]

Against or claiming “it was a fix your honour!”

You
Fishy
Possibly George (but if George came to feel that he was wrong, he’d admit it)

Yes, but first I would have to feel that I am right. There is no right or wrong, only opinions. I have noticed recently that Lynn Cates has changed his opinion, from agreeing with mine to agreeing with yours. I applaud the fact that he has kept reviewing his opinion in order to change it. There may come a time when I also change my opinion, but not today.

Cheers, George

[GBinOz]

And do you know who also has the ability to reason and the ability to understand English? I’ll tell you.

I suppose that I am Old School. I was taught that good manners cost nothing, to respect other people and their opinions and to refrain from being intolerably smug or insufferably rude. Were I not, I might have unleashed a blistering attack, complete with expletives, on a supercilious poll designed solely to dispute a word meaning and attempt to impugn the language skill of other posters. Phillips didn't mention the word Caveat. Wynne Baxter didn't either, and he was a solicitor, so knew it to be a word used in legal application. He contented himself with using "qualified".

Has the poll achieved anything other than to create division and inhibit productive discussion?

[Dickere]

I suppose that I am Old School. I was taught that good manners cost nothing, to respect other people and their opinions and to refrain from being intolerably smug or insufferably rude. Were I not, I might have unleashed a blistering attack, complete with expletives, on a supercilious poll designed solely to dispute a word meaning and attempt to impugn the language skill of other posters. Phillips didn't mention the word Caveat. Wynne Baxter didn't either, and he was a solicitor, so knew it to be a word used in legal application. He contented himself with using "qualified".

Has the poll achieved anything other than to create division and inhibit productive discussion?

It's increased the usage of some lesser known emojis too.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

I do not intend to be drawn into the slanging match that is taking place at present, so I am not trying to score points when I say that it never occurred to me that Phillips was talking about the intestines that had been removed from the body. I think it common sense that he was talking about the intestines that remained within the abdominal cavity, and Christer was making that stipulation to Thiblin. As can be seen from Phillip's comments on Stride, "body still warm, face warm, hands cold, legs quite warm", doctors of the time had a checklist for the crime scene. Phillips, probably for the first time, had the additional opportunity to add an internal temperature level, albeit only by touch. I will again express my astonishment regarding the doctor's reluctance to utilise thermometers. I can only think that old habits, methods and opinions die hard. I recall my grandfather scorning DE safety razors on the basis that he had a perfectly good straight razor.

Intestines are tubular in nature, but I assume that you are not proposing that he may have cut the intestine to feel inside, but rather questioning why he hadn't plunged his hand into the intestinal coils. My suggestion is that by slipping his hand under the intestinal coils he is availing himself of the deepest internal temperature possible at the crime scene, once again limited by the fact that is was only by feel. The word used at the inquest was "under". I don't see any reason to expect that he meant "in". Can you clarify exactly what you mean in that regard?

It should be noted that Chandler's notes from the crime scene record that "The Doctor pronounced life extinct and stated the woman had been dead at least two hours." The additional information provided to the coroner, the "and probably more" and the qualification, was deduced by Phillips at or after the post mortem, separately from the original pronouncement.

Police surgeons were called to provide an estimate of the time of death, and did not consider their task to be to provide too much detail to what they considered to be the great unwashed. They did their best with what they had available, and there is no doubt that their estimates were inaccurate, but to what degree. The estimates for the three other C5 outdoor murders were not at all inaccurate. Karyo Magellan's study of Victorian Medico-Legal autopsies led him to state that he found them to be rather more impressive than is generally believed.

Cheers, George

Hi George,

I think you've misunderstood me. I'm not suggesting Dr Phillips was talking about the intestines which had been removed from the body.

As I said in #2296, if I may take the liberty of quoting myself:

“For me, what he might have been conveying was that he felt the outside of Annie's back, under her clothes, around her spine, and, at the position where the intestines are, he could feel warmth on the body.”

When I said "where the intestines are" I meant those remaining in the body, which, I'm suggesting as a possibility, the doctor assumed was the cause of the heat on her lower back (i.e. on her skin).

What I'm asking you, and the other members of the board who don't agree with my interpretation, is why you think Phillips expressed himself by referring to heat "under the intestines". If, as you suggest, he was talking about touching the intestines in the internal cavity with his hand, why didn't he simply say that the intestines were warm? (i.e. "The body was cold but the intestines were warm" or "The body was cold except that there was certain heat in the intestines".) Why did he refer to the heat "under" the intestines?

Surely no one can be saying that they don't understand the difference between heat being found "under" something and heat being found "in" or "on" that something?

Let me put it this way. If the intestines themselves were warm and the doctor felt the warm intestines, what is the word "under" attempting to convey? Why did he use it? I think that needs some explanation from someone if its believed that he found the intestines to be warm.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Yes, but first I would have to feel that I am right. There is no right or wrong, only opinions. I have noticed recently that Lynn Cates has changed his opinion, from agreeing with mine to agreeing with yours. I applaud the fact that he has kept reviewing his opinion in order to change it. There may come a time when I also change my opinion, but not today.

Cheers, George

And no one could fault that position.

Where has Lynn Cates changed his opinion George? According to the members list he hasn’t visited the site since before I joined?

[Herlock Sholmes]

I suppose that I am Old School. I was taught that good manners cost nothing, to respect other people and their opinions and to refrain from being intolerably smug or insufferably rude. Were I not, I might have unleashed a blistering attack, complete with expletives, on a supercilious poll designed solely to dispute a word meaning and attempt to impugn the language skill of other posters. Phillips didn't mention the word Caveat. Wynne Baxter didn't either, and he was a solicitor, so knew it to be a word used in legal application. He contented himself with using "qualified".

Has the poll achieved anything other than to create division and inhibit productive discussion?

Sorry George but you appear only to see fault in myself whilst ignoring it in other posters. I’ve had a poster saying that I was on drugs, deliberately calling me by another username, saying that my posts were ‘shite,’ and who is now even trying to tell me that I’m lying about my country of origin! I know that you have a lot of respect for Jeff (as do I) so you might note that even he felt the need to post his poem (which I can assure you wasn’t directed at myself George)

I also don’t see how a poll can be ‘supercilious?’ It was simply a poll to gauge opinion on a disputed subject. That the result of the poll is totally one-sided is simply a result of 16 posters arriving at an opinion (many of whom either haven’t posted on this thread or have only posted very few times) A poll doesn’t ‘prove’ anything apart from the majority of opinion but surely it’s good grace to accept the validity of the result rather than to cry foul?

‘Intolerably smug or insufferably rude” is your opinion….fine. I don’t see any great rudeness especially in the face of such rudeness and an absolute tsunami of bias and deliberate attempts to manipulate evidence simply to try and win an argument. For page after page after page on here George we have had certain posters, adult posters, trying to claim that a Victorian Doctor could achieve a level of accuracy in his TOD estimate that couldn’t be achieved today with all of the advances in science and the improvements in technology. A Victorian Doctor feels a body for temperature with his hand, notes a bit of stiffening and gives an estimate range that some posters are saying couldn’t have been out by 50 minutes or so!!! This is what I and others have been up against George. This point can’t be stressed enough especially when these posters try to claim some kind of moral high ground. Opinions can be disputed but FACTS shouldn’t be. Most have now finally accepted this FACT but one poster still won’t and continues to deride (blind-eyed by yourself apparently I’m afraid George) We’ve had Fishy saying that we should give Phillips some kind of benefit of the doubt! We’ve had Harry saying that we should accept Phillips out of courtesy! We’ve had Trevor saying that whilst Phillips estimation was unreliable he still goes with it! If I’ve got frustrated in this argument and that it’s shown then I make no excuses or much of an apology on this point George. I believe that you’ve tried to stay within reason but others simply haven’t. They have formed an opinion (on whatever grounds) and are willing to defend it at whatever cost to reason or evidence. If my pointing this out draws criticism from you then it’s a price I’ll have to pay.

[The Macdonald Triad]

I suppose that I am Old School. I was taught that good manners cost nothing, to respect other people and their opinions and to refrain from being intolerably smug or insufferably rude. Were I not, I might have unleashed a blistering attack, complete with expletives, on a supercilious poll designed solely to dispute a word meaning and attempt to impugn the language skill of other posters. Phillips didn't mention the word Caveat. Wynne Baxter didn't either, and he was a solicitor, so knew it to be a word used in legal application. He contented himself with using "qualified".

Has the poll achieved anything other than to create division and inhibit productive discussion?

You definitely have more restraint than most. I've watched these ad hominem/non sequitur attacks for weeks. Attack the person not the argument crap and I have to say the whole caveat thing was sheer ass hattery. If it wasn't for this post about my favorite suspect Richardson I would have never logged back in after years on hiatus.

[The Macdonald Triad]

And no one could fault that position.

Where has Lynn Cates changed his opinion George? According to the members list he hasn’t visited the site since before I joined?

He's probably on another account, Detective.