John Richardson

[Fleetwood Mac]

The official time of "sun rise", is well after the time the sun starts to brighten the sky. His visit was something like 30 minutes prior to official sun rise, so there would be light in the sky.

You're far too invested in your later TOD, Jeff, to the point that you simply cannot consider anything that goes against the theory you're wedded to. It pays to stop, think, leave the theories to one side; and employ an open mind.

You or anyone else can try out what's it like at quarter five in the morning on the 8th September in an area where there isn't artificial light nearby. Add in that Annie lay with a building blocking one side, and there may not have been as much light as you would like to believe.

Instead of assuming the light, try it out for yourself, that was the point of my post as opposed to going 'round the houses arguing about John Richardson. You may learn something by virtue of experience.

I can tell you for a fact that it is pitch-black in areas blocked by buildings when there isn't artificial light nearby. Having said that, I don't know where the nearest light source was in relation to John Richardson and I don't claim to know.

[A P Tomlinson]

Hello AP,

Although no diagram can be totally accurate of course (given that we can’t know exactly how Richardson was sitting at the time) the one that you’ve illustrates the sheer unlikeliness of him missing the body. Thanks for posting it. For me, the chances are so remote to safely be placed in the ‘to be ignored’ section. We also have to consider the position of the door as he descended the steps and how wide he would have been forced to have opened it.

Richardson was fully aware that the door was there and that doors aren’t transparent and he knew the exactly location of the body and how much floor space it took up as he’d seen the body in situ from a neighbours yard. He was asked specifically by the police if he could have missed it and he was adamant that he couldn’t have (despite the fact that it wouldn’t have incriminated him if he’d admitted that he might have missed it.) He had no reason to lie. His testimony is strong.

Phillips ToD was arrived at using methods that we know are unreliable and that even today with our advanced knowledge extreme caution would be required. Body temperature is especially unreliable even using equipment and Phillips only used his hands (David Barrat’s book The Temperature of Death is excellent on this. He uses real cases to illustrate those problems - and which makes the book enjoyable to read) Phillips also mentions stiffness, and rigor is notoriously unreliable. He also mentions that there was a small amount of food in the stomach but we don’t know if this fact was taken into consideration. Assessing ToD via digestion is only potentially possible if we are 100% certain when the victim last ate and this isn’t the case with Chapman (we only have her last recorded meal) Also digestion can be affected by various things like lung diseases for example, which Chapman suffered from) So, competent professional as he undoubtedly was, his estimate has to be viewed in light of these unreliable factors. He also added a caveat allowing for a more rapid cooling which could allow for a later ToD. A suggestion of more rapid cooling is only applicable if a later time is considered even though he strongly favoured 4.30 or before (it’s worth noting that he doesn’t say how much before 4.30 though) So Phillips estimation is no impediment to an earlier or later ToD.

So what we have left is three witnesses. We know that witnesses can be mistaken or even lie at times but they are usually honest. So what are the chances of all three witnesses in this case being wrong? A man sitting on a step with his left boot a foot from where a mutilated corpse lay and he didn’t see it despite him saying that he couldn’t possibly have missed it. A man in the next yard minding his own business and using the loo who first hears the word ‘no’ (see dispute about what he meant about being uncertain) and then a noise against the fence of which he was 100% certain. Then to top it off we have Long (who of course might have been mistaken) but what are the chances of her seeing a woman (who she identified as Chapman - so a Chapman lookalike) talking to a man just a very few feet from number 29 at just that time? The odds must be fairly huge that all three of these witnesses were wrong.

Reason, evidence and common sense tell us that a later ToD is overwhelmingly the most likely to have been the case.

I once again dared to pester my Mrs, (20 year trauma nurse in a busy City Centre A&E) who has dealt with all manner of stabbings, bleeding and the odd DOA, and has attended a number of Major Incidents in that capacity.(I'm underplaying the *$&£ she has had to deal with...)

I made her some lovely noodles, and quietly approached the subject of Body Temp post mortem... she told me pretty much what I already knew, that the drop is a curve not a line, and is impacted by many factors.
Normally the body starts to lose temperature slowly over the first hour by only a few degrees then drops at an escalting rate. In the case of Chapman, factors such as major loss of the insides of the body and the abdominal cavity being open to the cool morning air would quickly reduce the temperature. Because the way the curve of temperature loss starts slow then dips, an external factor adding to the coldness would mean the examining Doctor may effectively add up to an extra hour or so (that first slow drop off) to the time of death. (The body would effectively bypass a large part of the slow drop, and move quicker through the curve.)
This is less likely to be an issue these days as such factors would be taken into account and the individual organs would be idependently checked and measured using far more accurate equipment.
Her guess was that a proper autopsy of that time may have used a rectal thermometre to determine body temp, and that would be drastically effected by the open abdominal cavity and various missing viscera.

Her final point before telling me to go away was that if he was guessing based on the feel of the skin in those conditions, he might just as well be "casting runes" but she was a nurse for twenty years... therefore she has little to no respect for consultant surgeons.

Bagster-Philips TOD cannot be relied upon.
And using it to discredit a number of witnesses who come very close to corroborating a time line needs better evidence to support such discrepancy.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I once again dared to pester my Mrs, (20 year trauma nurse in a busy City Centre A&E) who has dealt with all manner of stabbings, bleeding and the odd DOA, and has attended a number of Major Incidents in that capacity.(I'm underplaying the *$&£ she has had to deal with...)

I made her some lovely noodles, and quietly approached the subject of Body Temp post mortem... she told me pretty much what I already knew, that the drop is a curve not a line, and is impacted by many factors.
Normally the body starts to lose temperature slowly over the first hour by only a few degrees then drops at an escalting rate. In the case of Chapman, factors such as major loss of the insides of the body and the abdominal cavity being open to the cool morning air would quickly reduce the temperature. Because the way the curve of temperature loss starts slow then dips, an external factor adding to the coldness would mean the examining Doctor may effectively add up to an extra hour or so (that first slow drop off) to the time of death. (The body would effectively bypass a large part of the slow drop, and move quicker through the curve.)
This is less likely to be an issue these days as such factors would be taken into account and the individual organs would be idependently checked and measured using far more accurate equipment.
Her guess was that a proper autopsy of that time may have used a rectal thermometre to determine body temp, and that would be drastically effected by the open abdominal cavity and various missing viscera.

Her final point before telling me to go away was that if he was guessing based on the feel of the skin in those conditions, he might just as well be "casting runes" but she was a nurse for twenty years... therefore she has little to no respect for consultant surgeons.

Bagster-Philips TOD cannot be relied upon.
And using it to discredit a number of witnesses who come very close to corroborating a time line needs better evidence to support such discrepancy.

Thank Mrs T for that. Previously I’ve posted quote after quote after quote from numerous Forensic experts (including those updating standard texts on the subject like Jason Payne-James who appeared in The Missing Evidence) and they all tell us, without a single exception, how unreliable ToD estimation can be. How much more so 135 years ago? And yet we get some posters on here who feel that their gut instincts are more valid. Or that we should go with Phillips 4.30 simply because he was a competent Doctor! You couldn’t really make it up but it serves to illustrate how some people will fixate on a conclusion and then jump through hoops to reinforce it.

[The Rookie Detective]

Thank Mrs T for that. Previously I’ve posted quote after quote after quote from numerous Forensic experts (including those updating standard texts on the subject like Jason Payne-James who appeared in The Missing Evidence) and they all tell us, without a single exception, how unreliable ToD estimation can be. How much more so 135 years ago? And yet we get some posters on here who feel that their gut instincts are more valid. Or that we should go with Phillips 4.30 simply because he was a competent Doctor! You couldn’t really make it up but it serves to illustrate how some people will fixate on a conclusion and then jump through hoops to reinforce it.

I concur with your thoughts on this particular murder Herlock.

I think that of all the canonical murders; Chapman's is arguably the least complex to create a relatively accurate timeline of events.

While there is a chance of an earlier TOD, I cannot see the reasoning behind why an earlier time is pushed.

Am I correct in my assumption that an earlier TOD favors certain suspects and is the underlying reason why 3 witnesses are disregarded in favor of a clinician?

The reality is that TOD in THOSE circumstances is extremely difficult to get right and the scope for error vastly outweighs the evidence of 3 individual witnesses.


RD

[JeffHamm]

You're far too invested in your later TOD, Jeff, to the point that you simply cannot consider anything that goes against the theory you're wedded to. It pays to stop, think, leave the theories to one side; and employ an open mind.

You or anyone else can try out what's it like at quarter five in the morning on the 8th September in an area where there isn't artificial light nearby. Add in that Annie lay with a building blocking one side, and there may not have been as much light as you would like to believe.

Instead of assuming the light, try it out for yourself, that was the point of my post as opposed to going 'round the houses arguing about John Richardson. You may learn something by virtue of experience.

I can tell you for a fact that it is pitch-black in areas blocked by buildings when there isn't artificial light nearby. Having said that, I don't know where the nearest light source was in relation to John Richardson and I don't claim to know.

You've completely misread my posts if you think I'm wedded to the later ToD. At no point have I ever said that the later ToD was a proven fact, and I have always indicated that the information we have is sufficient to make that claim. What I have been saying is that, of the two options, the current information we have favors the later ToD theory - meaning it is the more probable situation, but that doesn't mean it is the proven case. There's a difference, critically, it means I accept that an earlier ToD is possible, it is still less probable than a later ToD.

I grew up in areas that you describe. I am aware of how dark it can be at all hours of the night. As per the information on Casebook here, it was a bright morning on Sept 8th, so while the moon was in a "waxing crescent" phase that morning (around 4-5% of light of a full moon). While sunrise on that date was 5:25 am, official dawn was at 4:50 am ("official dawn" is when the sun reaches 18 degrees below the horizon - however, light starts to appear roughly an hour before sunrise). In other words, given it was a clear morning, with little cloud, a bit of moon, and light would have started at roughly 4:25ish, your assumptions that it was pitch dark are manifestly incorrect, and suggest that perhaps you may wish to check your own potential biases for an earlier ToD at the door.

As I've said, multiple times, an earlier ToD cannot be excluded, however, the information we have makes it the less probable option, and of the two explanations, the later ToD is the more supported of the two. But sometimes less probable events do occur, so we cannot exclude the possibility that all three witnesses, despite the fact their testimonies all point to a singular common explanation (that Annie was alive after 5:00 am, and probably killed somewhere around 5:20-5:25 or 5:30 type thing), it is not impossible that the information they provide is not actually related to the case, and it is simply a coincidence that their erroneous information corresponds (once you factor in the margins of error associated with witness testimony of course, as any objective researcher is obliged to do).

Moreover, if we do consider the idea that the 3 witnesses are just coincidently all lining up despite the fact their testimonies do not actually contradict each other (they don't, I know people sometimes say they do, but they don't - the error associated with the testimonies more than account for the minor discrepancies in time that are stated), nor does the time they converge on contradict Dr. Phillips ToD estimate (again, once one properly factors in the known margins of error associated with such predictions), then all we have left is Dr. Phillips estimate, which in turn still does not give us sufficient reason to discard the later ToD either.

There is nothing in the information we have that ever allows us to discard a later ToD, so we always are left with the situation of where either option is possible. On the other hand, if any of the witnesses are correct, then that information would indeed exclude the earlier ToD. Problem is, we cannot know for certain which of the witnesses is correct, if any, as such, we consider all possible combinations and so forth, and it simply is the case that the later ToD ends up being the more probable.

Furthermore, while it is good to scrutinize the witness testimony, when it comes right down to it, there is nothing about Richardson's statements that indicates he's lying or seeking attention, although that card often gets played in order to just make his testimony go away. The whole notion that he's making up the boot repair story in order to assert the body wasn't there requires him to be a special kind of stupid. He has to decide the best way to indicate his confidence that Annie wasn't there is to fabricate a story where he has a knife with him, when all he has to do is say "Because when I checked the lock I could see where the body was found, and she wasn't there". That's it, that's all he had to say if he was going to "lie" to seek his moment of fame, and that isn't a particularly complicated notion to come up with. In fact, it is what he is more or less saying, and he tells us how he was able to be sure, because he sat on the steps with his feet on the flags.

I entertain the possibility that perhaps it is possible that he did so while the door leaned against him, and somehow that was such that he couldn't see the body, and somehow when he both removed his boot, and put it back on, he never noticed her corpse, and so forth, only because George has provided a news report that just might possibly indicate the police tried, and succeeded, in recreating such a series of events. Given the unreliability of press reports, however, I do not consider that sufficiently strong evidence against Richardson's assertion that Annie wasn't there - but I keep the door open on that possibility (sorry, couldn't resist the pun there ).

As for the light issue, it's not an issue, but if you wish to continue to grasp that straw, that is your decision to make.

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

I concur with your thoughts on this particular murder Herlock.

I think that of all the canonical murders; Chapman's is arguably the least complex to create a relatively accurate timeline of events.

While there is a chance of an earlier TOD, I cannot see the reasoning behind why an earlier time is pushed.

Am I correct in my assumption that an earlier TOD favors certain suspects and is the underlying reason why 3 witnesses are disregarded in favor of a clinician?

The reality is that TOD in THOSE circumstances is extremely difficult to get right and the scope for error vastly outweighs the evidence of 3 individual witnesses.


RD

No one can say that an earlier ToD is impossible. Just because Doctors used unreliable methods it doesn’t mean that they couldn’t get it right of course. But Phillips did have his caveat which shows that he accepted the possibility of a later one even though he favoured earlier.

The arguments for an earlier ToD come from a range of reasons - an exaggerated opinion of a Victorian Doctors ability to accurately estimate ToD - a belief that the killer wouldn’t have killed that late and as it was becoming light - the fact that it would have been later than the other murders.

As you say, the witness testimony easily outweighs the Doctor (even though the Doctor accepted that the murder could of occurred post 4.30 no matter how much he favoured that time or earlier) Fisherman favours a later ToD because it’s unlikely that Cross would have killed whilst he was working. Fishy supports the Knight/Sickert theory (believe it or not) so it’s difficult to see people carrying a corpse from a coach to the yard in daylight so he favours earlier. George favours an earlier ToD because that’s how he personally evaluates the evidence and not to support a theory. Fleetwood likewise as I don’t believe that he is forming his opinion to prop up a theory. Trevor also favours an earlier ToD but also not to prop up a theory, I think that for him it’s more down to the likelihood of the killer killing at that time.

Obviously I disagree with all of them as does Jeff, Doc, AP, Lewis C, Abby and as did Phillip Sugden

[Herlock Sholmes]

You're far too invested in your later TOD, Jeff, to the point that you simply cannot consider anything that goes against the theory you're wedded to. It pays to stop, think, leave the theories to one side; and employ an open mind.

You or anyone else can try out what's it like at quarter five in the morning on the 8th September in an area where there isn't artificial light nearby. Add in that Annie lay with a building blocking one side, and there may not have been as much light as you would like to believe.

Instead of assuming the light, try it out for yourself, that was the point of my post as opposed to going 'round the houses arguing about John Richardson. You may learn something by virtue of experience.

I can tell you for a fact that it is pitch-black in areas blocked by buildings when there isn't artificial light nearby. Having said that, I don't know where the nearest light source was in relation to John Richardson and I don't claim to know.

Unbelievable irony.

Jeff is probably the least biased poster on here. It’s you who are wedded to this nonsense. You are deliberately blind to the evidence which tells us, as near to a certainty as possible, that Annie Chapman was killed at around 5.30.

To suggest that Richardson could have missed a corpse is a joke. And it’s a ‘brilliant’ deduction to say that it was too dark for him to have seen it and yet 2 hours earlier it was light enough for the killer to remove organs.

[Doctored Whatsit]

You're far too invested in your later TOD, Jeff, to the point that you simply cannot consider anything that goes against the theory you're wedded to. It pays to stop, think, leave the theories to one side; and employ an open mind.

You or anyone else can try out what's it like at quarter five in the morning on the 8th September in an area where there isn't artificial light nearby. Add in that Annie lay with a building blocking one side, and there may not have been as much light as you would like to believe.

Instead of assuming the light, try it out for yourself, that was the point of my post as opposed to going 'round the houses arguing about John Richardson. You may learn something by virtue of experience.

I can tell you for a fact that it is pitch-black in areas blocked by buildings when there isn't artificial light nearby. Having said that, I don't know where the nearest light source was in relation to John Richardson and I don't claim to know.

The concept of suggesting that it was so dark at 4. 45 am that morning that Richardson missed seeing the body has a major flaw.

If we are going to suggest that it was so dark that Richardson was unable to see a body stretched out beside him, 6 - 9 inches from his boot, how do we suppose JtR managed to silently and efficiently slit her throat and eviscerate her, when it would have been even darker?

Oooops snap!

[Herlock Sholmes]

And isn’t it great when we hear people repeating what Chandler said at the inquest on the 13th September in an attempt to portray him as untrustworthy:

[Coroner] Did he say anything about cutting his boot? - No.


Yet in The Telegraph, September 10th, we get:

‘Richardson sat down on the steps to cut a piece of leather from his boot.’

Can anyone believe that Richardson invented his boot repair story, withheld it from Chandler on the 8th, then blabbed it to the Press on the 10th?

[Herlock Sholmes]

The concept of suggesting that it was so dark at 4. 45 am that morning that Richardson missed seeing the body has a major flaw.

If we are going to suggest that it was so dark that Richardson was unable to see a body stretched out beside him, 6 - 9 inches from his boot, how do we suppose JtR managed to silently and efficiently slit her throat and eviscerate her, when it would have been even darker?

Oooops snap!

And remove organs.

It’s nonsense Doc. Richardson was transparently telling the truth. It’s a wonder that some people don’t injure themselves with all the contortions that are being done. I just can’t understand why? I see why with Fisherman and Fishy but not with others. Three witnesses…all wrong….no chance.

[Hair Bear]

I hope this picture uploads okay. I can't find the post where I nicked the image from (sorry), but they had the door wide open, whereas the door was spring loaded to shut. I have edited it so that this might represent better what I mean. So the argument against Richardson is that he couldn't see the body because the door was awkwardly closed against him (top pic). I would say, however, that to first sit in that position you would naturally first stand upright where your feet are to be placed (as in picture two). I tried it myself, and any other way is just far too unnatural. So for me, the only way he is missing her is if it is too dark, but if that is the case, how can he see that the lock on the cellar is okay? If it's too pitch-black, how is it that he attempts to cut his boot, and how does he walk through the passageway if it is jet black? How did the Ripper and Annie open the back door if they couldn't see the handle? There has to be SOME light.

[Lewis C]

You've completely misread my posts if you think I'm wedded to the later ToD. At no point have I ever said that the later ToD was a proven fact, and I have always indicated that the information we have is sufficient to make that claim. What I have been saying is that, of the two options, the current information we have favors the later ToD theory - meaning it is the more probable situation, but that doesn't mean it is the proven case. There's a difference, critically, it means I accept that an earlier ToD is possible, it is still less probable than a later ToD.

I grew up in areas that you describe. I am aware of how dark it can be at all hours of the night. As per the information on Casebook here, it was a bright morning on Sept 8th, so while the moon was in a "waxing crescent" phase that morning (around 4-5% of light of a full moon). While sunrise on that date was 5:25 am, official dawn was at 4:50 am ("official dawn" is when the sun reaches 18 degrees below the horizon - however, light starts to appear roughly an hour before sunrise). In other words, given it was a clear morning, with little cloud, a bit of moon, and light would have started at roughly 4:25ish, your assumptions that it was pitch dark are manifestly incorrect, and suggest that perhaps you may wish to check your own potential biases for an earlier ToD at the door.

One other point is that FM's suggestion won't help us here, or at least, not many of us. The suggestion was that one do the experiment oneself by going out at 4:50 on September 8th. Even if you select the right date, dawn is at different times in different places depending on one's latitude, whether or not one has daylight savings time, and whether one lives in the eastern or western part of one's time zone. The experiment might work for those who live in London, but not for the rest of us. I see no reason to take any approach other than to refer to the Casebook page that you mentioned.

[JeffHamm]

You've completely misread my posts if you think I'm wedded to the later ToD. At no point have I ever said that the later ToD was a proven fact, and I have always indicated that the information we have is sufficient to make that claim. What I have been saying is that, of the two options, the current information we have favors the later ToD theory - meaning it is the more probable situation, but that doesn't mean it is the proven case. There's a difference, critically, it means I accept that an earlier ToD is possible, it is still less probable than a later ToD.

...

- Jeff

Ooops! In the 2nd line of my post 4520 above, where it reads "...and I have always indicated that the information we have is sufficient to make that claim."

That should, of course, read insufficient!

I've bolded the offending word here to ensure it is clear which word of the previous wording makes unclear what I was saying.

I would also be surprised if I've not made other such errors, but hopefully the gist of the post as a whole will make it apparent that they are errors of transcribing my thoughts rather than my actual thoughts.

- Jeff

[Lewis C]

Hi Abby ,No i dont think Richardson or Cadosch had anything to do with the murder . My opinion all along has been that each of their testimonies raises much doubt and uncertainty as the t.o.d of Chapman , throw Mrs Long into the mix and makes it even more unsure as to the t.o.d fixed at 5.30am

It sounds like you're saying here that the case for a later TOD is weaker with Long's testimony than it would be without it. How could that be? Even if Long were the most worthless witness ever, that would just mean that she adds nothing to the case for a later TOD. She couldn't subtract from it.

[Lewis C]

This, (assuming my Chromebook plays fair) is an image taken from Lemmino's Youtube video. (I was quite surprised that I couldn't find a still mock-up of this, overlaid on one of the old photos via Google)
It doesn't bring any great new revelations to the debate, but one thing that channel always does to a high standard is the graphic depictions. (If you haven't seen it, its worth watching just for some of the graphics and 3D stuff)

This one shows Richardson's seated position in relation to the size and shape of the yard, and how (un)likely it would have been for him to miss seeing a body who's head is essentially between the fence and the stair. That door would not block his view.
Dawn was before 5.00 am that morning, so it would be just starting to get light. He would need to be able to see what he was doing to faff about with his boot.

I'm sure this has been noted already, but if Philips is estimating his ETD based on the victims Body Temp, then having a substantial amount of the stuff that holds the heat and keeps the body warm after death being scattered about the yard... and the insides exposed... on a "cool morning" will cause the body temp to drop faster and give a far colder reading than one might get from the same victim left intact... probably skewing a standard measurement of body temp toward an earlier death?
Didn't he say something to that effect himself?

Chapman and Hanbury St is really not my wheelhouse, but these elements don't seem too complicated. If Richardson didn't see anything 15 minutes or so before Cadosch heard the bang against the fence etc... and Philips accepted that his estimate could have been off due to, (for want of a better term...) environmental circumstances. What is the rationaloe for them being mistaken/unreliable/dishonest, unless the finger is beng pointed at Richardson himself. In which case I can see an argument for him becoming a suspect.
But I don't think Philips wildly differing ETD, especially with his own caveat that it may be off, is enough to cast pretty much all the wintesses testimonies into doubt.

Edit to add: I should have probably done that on my proper computer and scaled it up a bit first.

I really like that video, and others by Lemmino. If anyone thinks that there's another general Ripper video on Youtube that's as good or better than the Lemmino one, I'd be interested in hearing about it.