John Richardson

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Hands up anyone who has changed their point of view on this issue as a result of this thread?

I see what your getting at Joshua.

Actually, although I've not radically changed my point of view, there's certainly more to it that perhaps seen at first. The Rigor Mortis and the stomach contents are worthy of a musing. I think any time frame from about 4am onwards is justifiable one way or another. Does that have any great impact on anything for me? Not particularly. Still none the wiser as to who was responsible. Maybe Richardson was totally wrong? Doesn't rule anything in or out. Unless he's the suspect? Maybe then...

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

With a copy of a newspaper sold only in the Uk. In front of a tv with a UK programme on. Check the TV guide……it’s still on now.

And you’re a troll. Nothing more nothing less. Pathetic.

Nobody lies about being from Walsall...

[Herlock Sholmes]

Nobody lies about being from Walsall...

[GBinOz]

Echo: 10 Sep 1888:
On Saturday the sun rose at twenty-three minutes past five; for half an hour previously the light would be such as to render it difficult for anyone to distinguish even near objects.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Herlock, I can't explain this in simpler terms. The doctor was specific.

Sorry George but with all due respect, in your #2397 you didn't answer my question as to whether my interpretation in that hypothetical scenario would be a reasonable one (although you have now).

Furthermore, while you told me that "warmth under the intestines" is an internal measurement which would not be available from my hypothetical body, you also told me you don't have "anything resembling" a medical qualification, that you were responding as a layman and giving me your take on the subject as a laymen "inexpert as it may be".

But in the space of 24 hours your knowledge seems to have improved to the extent that you are now telling me that "there is no ambiguity" at all in the expression "warmth under the intestines" and that there is "not the slightest chance" that it could mean the area of the body under the intestines.

So I've googled the phrases "warmth under the intestines" and "heat under the intestines" and also searched for them on the British Newspaper Archive, but the only results which come back relate to what Dr Phillips said in September 1888.

Given, therefore, that we find Dr Phillips apparently being the only known person in the history of the world to report heat under the intestines at a murder scene how can we really know what he meant?

I also can't understand why he didn't tell the coroner that he found heat in the intestines. Surely that's where all the heat would have been produced. Isn't that what he would have been feeling for if he stuck his hands into Annie's exposed body? Why would he only have felt the floor of the internal cavity for heat, but not the intestines themselves?

Or is it your view that he did feel the intestines but didn't report to the coroner what he found (i.e. hot or cold)?

[Doctored Whatsit]

Echo: 10 Sep 1888:
On Saturday the sun rose at twenty-three minutes past five; for half an hour previously the light would be such as to render it difficult for anyone to distinguish even near objects.

Hi George,

The Echo may well have printed that quote, but it is not accurate. Daylight is quite reasonable about 30 mins before sunrise - certainly good enough to identify a body inches from your feet. Dawn isn't like switching a light on and off.

Every time someone suggests that it was too dark for Richardson to have seen the body, they are suggesting that it was sufficiently light even earlier for JtR to murder Chapman swiftly, silently and effectively, and complete his mutilations. Too dark for Richardson but when it was even darker, there was sufficient light for JtR. This seems very doubtful to me!

[Herlock Sholmes]

Richardson said that it was getting light and was light enough to see. If that wasn’t the case why did no one at the time pick up on this lie? The Police were all Londoners after all, as was the coroner, as was the jury.

[GBinOz]

Hi George,

The Echo may well have printed that quote, but it is not accurate. Daylight is quite reasonable about 30 mins before sunrise - certainly good enough to identify a body inches from your feet. Dawn isn't like switching a light on and off.

Every time someone suggests that it was too dark for Richardson to have seen the body, they are suggesting that it was sufficiently light even earlier for JtR to murder Chapman swiftly, silently and effectively, and complete his mutilations. Too dark for Richardson but when it was even darker, there was sufficient light for JtR. This seems very doubtful to me!

Hi Doc,

I posted the quote without comment. I am well aware of the mechanics of sunrise, but this is from the time. I recall someone else commenting that the pollution in London at that time that produced the London fogs may have also affected the light levels. It's just another piece for the jigsaw.

Cheers, George

[GBinOz]

Sorry George but with all due respect, in your #2397 you didn't answer my question as to whether my interpretation in that hypothetical scenario would be a reasonable one (although you have now).

Furthermore, while you told me that "warmth under the intestines" is an internal measurement which would not be available from my hypothetical body, you also told me you don't have "anything resembling" a medical qualification, that you were responding as a layman and giving me your take on the subject as a laymen "inexpert as it may be".

But in the space of 24 hours your knowledge seems to have improved to the extent that you are now telling me that "there is no ambiguity" at all in the expression "warmth under the intestines" and that there is "not the slightest chance" that it could mean the area of the body under the intestines.

So I've googled the phrases "warmth under the intestines" and "heat under the intestines" and also searched for them on the British Newspaper Archive, but the only results which come back relate to what Dr Phillips said in September 1888.

Given, therefore, that we find Dr Phillips apparently being the only known person in the history of the world to report heat under the intestines at a murder scene how can we really know what he meant?

I also can't understand why he didn't tell the coroner that he found heat in the intestines. Surely that's where all the heat would have been produced. Isn't that what he would have been feeling for if he stuck his hands into Annie's exposed body? Why would he only have felt the floor of the internal cavity for heat, but not the intestines themselves?

Or is it your view that he did feel the intestines but didn't report to the coroner what he found (i.e. hot or cold)?

I don't know what else to tell you. Everything I said I thought was common knowledge. If it were as confusing as you say, why didn't the coroner or the jury ask for clarification.

Can someone else clarify this for Herlock, as I seem to be failing the task?

[rjpalmer]

But in the space of 24 hours your knowledge seems to have improved to the extent that you are now telling me that "there is no ambiguity" at all in the expression "warmth under the intestines" and that there is "not the slightest chance" that it could mean the area of the body under the intestines.

Hi Herlock,

sorry for jumping in, but for the sake of argument, let's say he was feeling the actual intestines. How much "remaining heat" would he be expected to feel?

Do people imagine that this is something that would be taught in medical school? Or that even a police surgeon would have much opportunity to test and study this? That there was a ready supply of dead, ripped-open people who had been dead for one hour, two hours, three hours, etc., and had been sprawled outside in different ambient air temperatures, so Phillips could gain experience in judging such matters?

Under the rules of the Anatomy Act, medical students are not dissecting people who have been dead less than 24 hours. Even post-mortem examinations were seldom conducted until after 24 hours. Where was Phillips supposed to have gained these amazing powers of estimating the appropriate intestinal warmth under these specific conditions?

Physician or no physician, how could it have been anything but a very rough educated guess about whether what he was feeling was appropriate or not? A medical degree doesn't make one a magician.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I don't know what else to tell you. Everything I said I thought was common knowledge. If it were as confusing as you say, why didn't the coroner or the jury ask for clarification.

Can someone else clarify this for Herlock, as I seem to be failing the task?

Okay George, let me try something different and I'll be interested in your views. I want to modify my argument as to what Dr Phillips might have done.

Firstly, a reminder of how the Daily Telegraph reported the evidence of Dr Phillips.

"The body was cold, except that there was a certain remaining heat, under the intestines, in the body".

For the purpose of my argument, we need to assume that this is exactly what Dr Phillips said, with that punctuation, to the exclusion of all the other reports which are slightly different (although noting that the Daily News report says "under the intestine", singular).

In other words, to rephrase it slightly, the doctor said that there was a certain remaining heat in the body, under the intestines.

Now let's look at this definition of the large intestine:

"The large intestine includes the colon, rectum and anus. It’s all one, long tube that continues from the small intestine as food nears the end of its journey through your digestive system."

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/healt...arge-intestine

So, in order to test for warmth of the large intestine itself (which, remember, anatomically and medically speaking, includes the rectum and anus), why could Dr Phillips not simply have stuck his finger up Chapman's anus, into the rectum, to see whether there was any heat there?

After all, with a thermometer, that is the standard test for finding heat in the body's core, i.e. you stick it up the anus into the rectum.

Would that not have been far less messy than sticking his hand inside the exposed mutilated body? Would it not have produced the same result, i.e. a finding of warmth under the intestines?

And might not Dr Phillips, to avoid having to say at a public inquest "I stuck my finger up her arse and it was warm" express himself in am more polite way by simply noting "heat under the intestines"?

Are we able to say that he definitely did not do this?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

sorry for jumping in, but for the sake of argument, let's say he was feeling the actual intestines. How much "remaining heat" would he be expected to feel?

Do people imagine that this is something that would be taught in medical school? Or that even a police surgeon would have much opportunity to test and study this? That there was a ready supply of dead, ripped-open people who had been dead for one hour, two hours, three hours, etc., and had been sprawled outside in different ambient air temperatures, so Phillips could gain experience in judging such matters?

Under the rules of the Anatomy Act, medical students are not dissecting people who have been dead less than 24 hours. Even post-mortem examinations were seldom conducted until after 24 hours. Where was Phillips supposed to have gained these amazing powers of estimating the appropriate intestinal warmth under these specific conditions?

Physician or no physician, how could it have been anything but a very rough educated guess about whether what he was feeling was appropriate or not? A medical degree doesn't make one a magician.

Hi Roger,

I agree with you entirely although I wouldn't want to deny that testing the insides for warmth might have been a known procedure during a post-mortem.

One thing we can say for certain is that it wasn't (and still isn't) standard procedure for a medical examiner at a crime scene to feel any of the insides of a dead body, either for heat or any other reason.

That's obvious because 99.999% of dead bodies examined by doctors in situ at crime scenes aren't mutilated, so that there isn't an opportunity.

So we have a situation whereby, if he stuck his hand inside Chapman's abdominal cavity at the crime scene, Dr Phillips would have been doing something that wasn't normally done and something we can say with some degree of certainty he had never done before in his career.

But okay, perhaps he spotted an opportunity to test for warmth inside the body that wouldn't normally have been available to him due to the extensive mutilations which opened up the abdominal cavity.

The question I have is: at what point during his examination did he do it?

I mean, we know that a portion of Chapman's intestines and a flap of the stomach wall had been thrown over her shoulder so that, if one of the first things he did was to plunge his hand into the abdominal cavity, wouldn't his hand have been literally covered in blood, gore and ****?

What does he then do for the rest of the examination? Does he have water and a rag to clean his hand? Because he says he searched the yard (even though that wasn't his job) and found certain articles which he presumably wouldn't have wanted to smear with blood and **** if he touched them.

As I've mentioned, such an examination wouldn't be normal so that he wouldn't have anticipated being covered in the victim's faeces at the crime scene.

If he waited until the end of his examination to take the plunge, might that not push the time he did so closer to 7am, making a 2 hour PMI closer to 5am than 4.30?

But, really, I'm now thinking it would a lot simpler if what actually happened is that Phillips checked up the anus but didn't want to say this in so many words at the inquest, because it's a bit rude, so came up with an unusual formulation.

This has the advantage of explaining why he used the word "under" - because if he stuck his hand into Chapman's body I can't understand for the life of me why he wouldn't have reported the heat OF the intestines, not the heat under them.

It also explains why he didn't report the heat of the kidneys and the liver to the coroner.

I don't say I'm definitely right on this but I find it hard to believe that we can say that it's 100% certain that Phillips stuck his hand inside Chapman's abdominal cavity to test for warmth at the crime scene.

[Dickere]

Hi George,

The Echo may well have printed that quote, but it is not accurate. Daylight is quite reasonable about 30 mins before sunrise - certainly good enough to identify a body inches from your feet. Dawn isn't like switching a light on and off.

Every time someone suggests that it was too dark for Richardson to have seen the body, they are suggesting that it was sufficiently light even earlier for JtR to murder Chapman swiftly, silently and effectively, and complete his mutilations. Too dark for Richardson but when it was even darker, there was sufficient light for JtR. This seems very doubtful to me!

This one must come down to whether it was a clear morning or not. Proper clear skies allowing for brightness prior to sunrise are uncommon in this country.

Normally we have cloud cover so it isn't all that bright even after sunrise time. What was that morning like ?

Regardless, it wasn't pitch dark. I find it impossible to believe you would not see a body a few feet away from you unless it was.

[Fleetwood Mac]

Indeed Mac , Probably the two most significant and Important post of this entire thread. 1st Fishermans #2180 and GBinOz #1320.

Proof that a modern day medical expert supporting that phillipps may have been correct with his t.o.d estimate. Also modern day experts showing that witnesses can be incorrect . Which imo is what the uncertain ,ambiguious contradictory evidence suggest.


Thanks to both those guys for their research.

There can surely be no doubt now as the t.o.d regarding the chapman murder is yet to be determine.

Fishy,

I would go farther and suggest that the evidence, reasonably assessed, points towards an earlier TOD.

And, I don't think we need modern day experts to show that witnesses can be mistaken. The holes in their statements are there for all to see: Richardson misleading the coroner with his knife tale; Long and Cadosch contradicting one another; Long didn't get take a great deal of notice of the couple nor saw where they went; Cadosch merely stated he heard noises at a time the place is coming alive. Leaving Dr Phillips aside, they do not present a compelling case.

Discussing this with Sherlock is futile. He'll swerve question after question, and when he does reply it's obfuscation. It appears to me he has taken a side and is arguing for that side at all costs. That's why he appears to me to be an American. That's not a slight on the United States. I've visited the country a few times and been made to feel welcome. Mind you, I have only been to the Southern states and so I don't know what they're like in the North. It's a country with a fascinating political history, and for anyone who is a fan of boxing and music it is a country that has given pleasure to a lot of people (who live outside of that country). Having said that, it is a feature of a section of the United States population that they love taking a side and arguing for that side like fanatics. The sort of people who state Liberalism is a disease and refer to Republicans as repubtards. I put it down to the fact there are more of them and so it follows they're going to have a larger lunatic fringe than most other countries. That minority of the United States population are childish and Sherlock displays all of the same signs.

At the same time, we probably don't want this to get into message board bullying. Sherlock waltzes 'round insinuating people are idiots and by extension he's willing to take a bit back, but you (general you as opposed to you specifically) just don't know what is going on in people's mind.

What is much more interesting is that a 5.30am TOD appears to be the consensus among those who know the case and the source documents inside out. I find that baffling and difficult to get my nut around.

[rjpalmer]

Hi Roger,

I agree with you entirely although I wouldn't want to deny that testing the insides for warmth might have been a known procedure during a post-mortem.

I don't find this very likely. Due to certain technicalities of the Medical Witness Act, post-mortems were very seldom held within 24 hours of death, and the deceased's personal physician or most recent physician (if they had one) was to conduct the autopsy rather than the police surgeon. Some of the Whitechapel victims were the acceptation rather than the rule. Dave O'Flaherty and his co-authors discussed this at considerable length in an article in The Ripperologist.

Further, deaths where intestinal warmth would have been relevant must have been extremely rare. How many people are disemboweled and left in the open air in a given year?

Of course, all of this is outside of the point you are making.

Cheers.