John Richardson

[Trevor Marriott]

All that we know is that he was a very few feet from the fence. He was honest and cautious enough to admit that he couldn’t be certain about the ‘no’ even though his first impression was certainly that it came from number 29. Then apparently in that same conversation that same person threw caution to the wind or lied.

Do you accept the possibility that he told the truth and was correct?

We cant accept that he told the 100% truth because there is the conflict between Chandler and himslef, and the conflict between Phillips and his estimated time of death. But that doesnt mean he told a deliberate lie.

My own personal belief is that he missed seeing the body and he genuinely believed that it was not there at the same time he was because his main reason for going to the yard was to check the lock on the cellar which he did by throwing open the door and standing on the step briefley looking to his right.

The cutting of the boot story is suspicious

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Herlock Sholmes]

We cant accept that he told the 100% truth because there is the conflict between Chandler and himslef, and the conflict between Phillips and his estimated time of death. But that doesnt mean he told a deliberate lie.

My own personal belief is that he missed seeing the body and he genuinely believed that it was not there at the same time he was because his main reason for going to the yard was to check the lock on the cellar which he did by throwing open the door and standing on the step briefley looking to his right.

The cutting of the boot story is suspicious

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

The cutting of the boot story is entirely reasonable and makes perfect sense. How is Richardson in conflict with Chandler?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi George,

I've recently just done my lectures on memory, and we cover encoding, storage, and retrieval issues. It's a fascinating area of research in psychology, both from a basic research perspective (just trying to figure out how it works; memory in "the lab") and also from an applied perspective (such as eye witness testimony; memory in "the wild").

There's a lot of research that suggests far more gets encoded than it may appear, with some going so far as to say that virtually everything we experience, whether attended or not, gets encoded and that the main problem of failures of memory is at the retrieval end coupled with the issue of alteration of stored memories. I tend to think that's a bit on the extreme side as I do not believe any aspect of human cognition is an "infallible process", and therefore there will be encoding errors as well. The main point, though, is that information can be encoded, and stored, but still be nonretrievable.

Ebbinghaus, who is considered the founder of modern memory research, performed his research in the 1800's. What he would do is memorize a list of 30 nonwords, constructed as consonant-vowel-consonant clusters (i.e. JIX) that did not sound like real words. This was to avoid already existing memory structures from language, etc, to get involve and complicate things. Anyway, he would go through the list until he could recall it twice through without mistakes and record how many times it required him to do so. Then, he would wait some interval, which might be a few minutes, or it might be many days (I think a month was his longest). Then, he would try and recall the list again. He might not remember a single one on his first attempt. However, he found that even after a month, he required fewer repeats to reach the same twice through correct level of performance. Let's say it took him 25 attempts the 2nd time, for a savings of 5 (or 5/30, ~16.7%). Plotting savings over time, he found the initial decrease to be rapid, approaching an asymptote that was not zero (so never "lost" completely).

Estimating how much has been encoded and stored produces different values depending upon how one tests memory. Recall tests tend to produce the lowest estimates, recognition tests tend to suggest more information has been encoded and stored, and if you use what's called an "implicit test" of memory, there's evidence for even more information to have been encoded and stored (Ebbinghaus' savings measure tends to suggest even more has been encoded and stored, but it is such a time consuming procedure to implement it is not used as often).

There are ways to improve recall performance, though. Through the repeated recalling of an event, it is common for details not recalled in the first instance to be recalled in subsequent retellings. The notion is that stored information that was not retrieved the first time gets a boost from the reactivation of the memory, and so on the next iteration more details emerge. The danger, though, is that with each retelling and activation of the memory the stored information is put at risk of being contaminated, and false details get implanted. Elizabeth Loftus has examined these "false memories" over many years in the context of eye-witness testimony, and they are a very real problem.

The thing is, if we examine things like Richardson's testimony, which appears to show increasing detail, we cannot know for certain if these details are reflective of an improvement in his testimony due to successful reactivation of the memory bringing out true details, or if they are false memories that have somehow become implanted during his retellings.

One thing we do need to consider, though, is what would be the source of the false details? Normally, they have to be inserted, sometimes inadvertently due to the way they are questioned (more likely "in the wild"), or in the lab, deliberately inserted by the questioner (more likely "in the lab"). For example, in some of Loftus' studies, people watch a short vide of a car accident. When later being questioned, if they are asked "Did you see the broken headlight?", a far greater percentage of people will respond "yes" than if they are asked "Did you see a broken headlight?" (I've bolded the critical wording difference). Because there was no broken headlight in the video, all yes responses are false details. When then asked to recount what they saw, people who responded yes during the interview will recount the event including seeing a broken headlight.

Her research has shown that false memories can be for more than just details like that, though, and she's done some studies where the create false memories where the person remembers seeing Bugs Bunny at Disney Land (which, of course, is impossible as Bugs Bunny is not a Disney character).

But, if Richardson's "cutting his boot" is a false memory, we have to ask where that could have come from, and personally, I can't see that being deliberately or inadvertently inserted by some external source. Rather, it looks far more like a true detail that emerges from the repeated retelling of an event.

With Long's testimony, which obviously could indeed be a misidentification, also needs to be examined. While she might indeed be mistaken, and saw someone other than Annie, we still have as evidence the fact that she did identify Annie as the woman she saw. We can question that, but we cannot dismiss the fact that she may really have seen Annie, and that's why she was able to identify her in the morgue. We do run into the issue that her stated time of this sighting is 5:30, which conflicts with Cadoch's testimony as his testimony indicates Annie is already dead by 5:30, and probably went into the backyard around 5:20ish and was murdered around 5:25ish. If so, she could not have been spotted at 5:30 outside the front of Hanbury. This conflict, however, is open to examination with regards to how detrimental it is with regards to her statement. We know that she based her 5:30 time by hearing the chimes of the Brewer's Clock. We do not know the basis for Cadoch's stated times, although he later indicates he passed the Spittlefield's clock on his way to work and it read 5:32, which fits with his earlier stated times. Now, if Cadoch based all his times from that one clock reading, then the conflict in times may be nothing more than the typical "clock sync" problem of the day. If we were there, we could go check the two clocks to determine how in or out of sync they are relative to each other. Sadly we can't do that, so we can never rule out a clock sync problem. The other problem might be a simple false memory, she recalls the chime but falsely remembers it as the 5:30 rather than 5:15 chime. Having misrecalled it during her first retelling, it now distorts her memory and she subsequently recalls the 5:30 chime. Again, we can never rule that out either.

I'm not saying those make her testimony "reliable", they don't. Rather, it means we cannot simply rule out her testimony because the conflicts with other testimony (i.e. the time) could easily reflect memory error or even simply clock-sync errors. Of course, she also could simply be mistaken in her identification as well, but in the end we have her correctly identifying Annie in the morgue.

Basically, as with all eye-witness testimony, there are questions and issues of accuracy. Eye-witness testimony is fraught with problems like this, and modern investigations spend a lot of time trying to find objective confirmation of the details within an eye-witness's statement, and when that can't be found, those details are held "in limbo", with both "true/false" options to be considered.

Which, I think, most of us are doing. Yes, it's possible the eye-witness details are false sometimes. At issue is how many have to be false such that all of the information given by all three witnesses should be dismissed.

To me, Long is the least critical of the witnesses, while Richardson and Cadoch's statements alone are sufficient to suggest a murder in the vicinity of 5:25ish, and I find it difficult to see how Richardson's statement could include false memories about his boot repair, and I don't see it as a problem that this detail appears not to have been mentioned the first time he spoke to the police at the scene. Similarly Cadoch's statement, initially sounding like one visit to the loo gets clarified as two trips, which again is the type of clarification that emerges through questioning.

And also, because these witnesses point to a ToD that falls within the margin of error that the medical opinion produces, their testimony is consistent with the expert opinion.

All of the information we have is associated with sources of error, but despite that, all converge on a common solution. That suggests a common truth, namely that Annie was murdered probably sometime around 5:25. It's not proof of that, and I cannot emphasize that enough, but the alternative (murdered prior to Richardson's visit) require far more improbable events to be accepted as errors than the simple memory/detail errors that the 5:25 hypothesis requires, at least in my view.

- Jeff

The hat is doffed again Jeff.

All that technical stuff about memory is what I was about to say before you beat me to it of course.

[Trevor Marriott]

The cutting of the boot story is entirely reasonable and makes perfect sense. How is Richardson in conflict with Chandler?

Because of the different account and the cutting of the boot which has caused the conflict cannot be proven as has been said considering phillips collected up items that were close tp the body it seems no excess leather was found to corroborate his account.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Herlock Sholmes]

Because of the different account and the cutting of the boot which has caused the conflict cannot be proven as has been said considering phillips collected up items that were close tp the body it seems no excess leather was found to corroborate his account.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

There was no different account with Chandler.

Why would Phillips have picked up a tiny piece of rubber? How could that possibly have been relevant.

[harry]

Memory is not infallible,nor is it constant,The reason I trust Chandler is because I am of the opinion that he would have entered details of his involvement in writing,something the normal public is unlikely to have done.So the accuracy of Chandler's testimony can be viewed as the more reliable.
If Long's normal practice was to be at or near a certain location at 5.30am,then it might be she was testifying to that practice.Like the doctors,there could have been an error of plus or minus,and while some posters would like that error to be in favour of her having seen Chapman at 5.15,an error could have resulted in seeing another woman at 5.45.That is if Long's memory is associated with the chimes of the church clock,which appears to have chimed the quarter hour.

[GBinOz]

C'mon Trevor, Dr Brown gave his opinion of a time of death at the inquest, so after the autopsy.
He doesn't say what his thinking was the moment he arrived at the scene.

Hi Jon,

Can you be sure of that?

Chandler's report (Ref. MEPO 3/140, ff. 9-11), dated on the day of the murder, said, "The Doctor pronounced life extinct and stated the woman had been dead at least two hours." Later at the inquest he responded to a question about the time of death of Annie Chapman by stating "I should say at least two hours, and probably more" but there was a caveat to this statement, which has been used to explain away Dr. Philips' estimation.

This doesn't prove that all doctors formulated an estimate at the scene, but it seems that the possibility cannot be excluded.

The "and probably more" and the caveat were both additions which, IMO shows that they are related.

Best regards, George

[JeffHamm]

Memory is not infallible,nor is it constant,The reason I trust Chandler is because I am of the opinion that he would have entered details of his involvement in writing,something the normal public is unlikely to have done.So the accuracy of Chandler's testimony can be viewed as the more reliable.
If Long's normal practice was to be at or near a certain location at 5.30am,then it might be she was testifying to that practice.Like the doctors,there could have been an error of plus or minus,and while some posters would like that error to be in favour of her having seen Chapman at 5.15,an error could have resulted in seeing another woman at 5.45.That is if Long's memory is associated with the chimes of the church clock,which appears to have chimed the quarter hour.

Hi harry,

Fair point, and I agree, Long may have seen someone at 5:45, in which case her identification of Annie at the morgue we have to then conclude was also another error. We have no evidence that her identification was in error though, only the possibility. Moreover, given her error in time, if she made one (remember, she based her time on a different clock than Cadoch, and we know the clocks were not synchronized and could easily be out by 15 minutes - that's documented and has been referred to in other posts) spans a time which does not require us to assume she's made another error as well (the identification), we have two hypotheses, one that require 1 error only, and the alternative which requires that same error but in the other direction plus another.

If we go with her time was right, and only the error in identification, then we have to assume Cadoch was in error in not seeing the couple outside when he left for work, nor seeing Long. That too is possible.

As I say, of the 3 witnesses, Long's is the only one that really requires consideration of any error, as Richardson and Cadoch produce no conflicts between them, so even if we decide that we are unsure of how to deal with Long, the only real impact is that we are unsure of what to make of her description of JtR. But really, even that is no great loss as she only sees him from the back anyway.

Again, to "prove" she is unreliable it has to be shown that the "correction required" is so outside the range of probable errors that it is sufficiently unlikely to have been the case. Her timing is what causes the main conflict with Cadoch, but it is by such a small amount we cannot draw that conclusion, and therefore we do not have proof her testimony must be invalid even if it contains some errors in the details.

Just to be absolutely clear here, I'm not saying it proves she is correct, or that we shouldn't consider the possibility she was mistaken in her identification because we can never know that one way or the other. What I am saying is that her testimony cannot really be said to produce conflict with Cadoche because the error ranges associated with those statements are wide enough that it remains reasonably possible she really did see Annie outside Hanbury Street and Cadoch later hears Annie and JtR in the backyard. And if that is the true sequence, it is entirely consistent with Richardson's testimony, that Annie was not dead when he visited earlier, and lost his legging spring while fixing his boot, and then closing the door when he left. And it is consistent wtih Davis finding the door open upon his arrival when he finds Annie's body. It is also consistent with the error associated with estimates of ToD, making that hypothesis entirely consistent with all of the testimonies, once their margins of error are taken into account. As such, it is the best working hypothesis - no it is not proven, it can't be anymore, but that is the best hypothesis we have as it fits all the data.

- Jeff

[FISHY1118]

That’s up to you Fishy of course but this issue for me is a certainty. The fence simply couldn’t have had all of those gaps without anyone mentioning it or questioning it as part of any investigation. And why would one reporter point out one gap if there were loads of gaps?

There were many things that went unmentioned during the investigation, that doesnt mean they werent so or happened .

His report might have preceded the sketckers by a day, whos knows .We cant say for sure how he came by that information and how he interpreted it, in that way its not important. Im simply just pointing out the fact we have two types of evidence that leads to an inconclusive account of the gaps.

In this case were there gaps all along the fence or were there just one? . I believe the issue of certainty is neither one way or the other ,but i know where my money would be .

[GBinOz]

Hi George,

I've recently just done my lectures on memory, and we cover encoding, storage, and retrieval issues. It's a fascinating area of research in psychology, both from a basic research perspective (just trying to figure out how it works; memory in "the lab") and also from an applied perspective (such as eye witness testimony; memory in "the wild").

There's a lot of research that suggests far more gets encoded than it may appear, with some going so far as to say that virtually everything we experience, whether attended or not, gets encoded and that the main problem of failures of memory is at the retrieval end coupled with the issue of alteration of stored memories. I tend to think that's a bit on the extreme side as I do not believe any aspect of human cognition is an "infallible process", and therefore there will be encoding errors as well. The main point, though, is that information can be encoded, and stored, but still be nonretrievable.

Ebbinghaus, who is considered the founder of modern memory research, performed his research in the 1800's. What he would do is memorize a list of 30 nonwords, constructed as consonant-vowel-consonant clusters (i.e. JIX) that did not sound like real words. This was to avoid already existing memory structures from language, etc, to get involve and complicate things. Anyway, he would go through the list until he could recall it twice through without mistakes and record how many times it required him to do so. Then, he would wait some interval, which might be a few minutes, or it might be many days (I think a month was his longest). Then, he would try and recall the list again. He might not remember a single one on his first attempt. However, he found that even after a month, he required fewer repeats to reach the same twice through correct level of performance. Let's say it took him 25 attempts the 2nd time, for a savings of 5 (or 5/30, ~16.7%). Plotting savings over time, he found the initial decrease to be rapid, approaching an asymptote that was not zero (so never "lost" completely).

Estimating how much has been encoded and stored produces different values depending upon how one tests memory. Recall tests tend to produce the lowest estimates, recognition tests tend to suggest more information has been encoded and stored, and if you use what's called an "implicit test" of memory, there's evidence for even more information to have been encoded and stored (Ebbinghaus' savings measure tends to suggest even more has been encoded and stored, but it is such a time consuming procedure to implement it is not used as often).

There are ways to improve recall performance, though. Through the repeated recalling of an event, it is common for details not recalled in the first instance to be recalled in subsequent retellings. The notion is that stored information that was not retrieved the first time gets a boost from the reactivation of the memory, and so on the next iteration more details emerge. The danger, though, is that with each retelling and activation of the memory the stored information is put at risk of being contaminated, and false details get implanted. Elizabeth Loftus has examined these "false memories" over many years in the context of eye-witness testimony, and they are a very real problem.

The thing is, if we examine things like Richardson's testimony, which appears to show increasing detail, we cannot know for certain if these details are reflective of an improvement in his testimony due to successful reactivation of the memory bringing out true details, or if they are false memories that have somehow become implanted during his retellings.

One thing we do need to consider, though, is what would be the source of the false details? Normally, they have to be inserted, sometimes inadvertently due to the way they are questioned (more likely "in the wild"), or in the lab, deliberately inserted by the questioner (more likely "in the lab"). For example, in some of Loftus' studies, people watch a short vide of a car accident. When later being questioned, if they are asked "Did you see the broken headlight?", a far greater percentage of people will respond "yes" than if they are asked "Did you see a broken headlight?" (I've bolded the critical wording difference). Because there was no broken headlight in the video, all yes responses are false details. When then asked to recount what they saw, people who responded yes during the interview will recount the event including seeing a broken headlight.

Her research has shown that false memories can be for more than just details like that, though, and she's done some studies where the create false memories where the person remembers seeing Bugs Bunny at Disney Land (which, of course, is impossible as Bugs Bunny is not a Disney character).

But, if Richardson's "cutting his boot" is a false memory, we have to ask where that could have come from, and personally, I can't see that being deliberately or inadvertently inserted by some external source. Rather, it looks far more like a true detail that emerges from the repeated retelling of an event.

With Long's testimony, which obviously could indeed be a misidentification, also needs to be examined. While she might indeed be mistaken, and saw someone other than Annie, we still have as evidence the fact that she did identify Annie as the woman she saw. We can question that, but we cannot dismiss the fact that she may really have seen Annie, and that's why she was able to identify her in the morgue. We do run into the issue that her stated time of this sighting is 5:30, which conflicts with Cadoch's testimony as his testimony indicates Annie is already dead by 5:30, and probably went into the backyard around 5:20ish and was murdered around 5:25ish. If so, she could not have been spotted at 5:30 outside the front of Hanbury. This conflict, however, is open to examination with regards to how detrimental it is with regards to her statement. We know that she based her 5:30 time by hearing the chimes of the Brewer's Clock. We do not know the basis for Cadoch's stated times, although he later indicates he passed the Spittlefield's clock on his way to work and it read 5:32, which fits with his earlier stated times. Now, if Cadoch based all his times from that one clock reading, then the conflict in times may be nothing more than the typical "clock sync" problem of the day. If we were there, we could go check the two clocks to determine how in or out of sync they are relative to each other. Sadly we can't do that, so we can never rule out a clock sync problem. The other problem might be a simple false memory, she recalls the chime but falsely remembers it as the 5:30 rather than 5:15 chime. Having misrecalled it during her first retelling, it now distorts her memory and she subsequently recalls the 5:30 chime. Again, we can never rule that out either.

I'm not saying those make her testimony "reliable", they don't. Rather, it means we cannot simply rule out her testimony because the conflicts with other testimony (i.e. the time) could easily reflect memory error or even simply clock-sync errors. Of course, she also could simply be mistaken in her identification as well, but in the end we have her correctly identifying Annie in the morgue.

Basically, as with all eye-witness testimony, there are questions and issues of accuracy. Eye-witness testimony is fraught with problems like this, and modern investigations spend a lot of time trying to find objective confirmation of the details within an eye-witness's statement, and when that can't be found, those details are held "in limbo", with both "true/false" options to be considered.

Which, I think, most of us are doing. Yes, it's possible the eye-witness details are false sometimes. At issue is how many have to be false such that all of the information given by all three witnesses should be dismissed.

To me, Long is the least critical of the witnesses, while Richardson and Cadoch's statements alone are sufficient to suggest a murder in the vicinity of 5:25ish, and I find it difficult to see how Richardson's statement could include false memories about his boot repair, and I don't see it as a problem that this detail appears not to have been mentioned the first time he spoke to the police at the scene. Similarly Cadoch's statement, initially sounding like one visit to the loo gets clarified as two trips, which again is the type of clarification that emerges through questioning.

And also, because these witnesses point to a ToD that falls within the margin of error that the medical opinion produces, their testimony is consistent with the expert opinion.

All of the information we have is associated with sources of error, but despite that, all converge on a common solution. That suggests a common truth, namely that Annie was murdered probably sometime around 5:25. It's not proof of that, and I cannot emphasize that enough, but the alternative (murdered prior to Richardson's visit) require far more improbable events to be accepted as errors than the simple memory/detail errors that the 5:25 hypothesis requires, at least in my view.

- Jeff

Hi Jeff,

Thank you for your very informative post. I watched a video some years ago where subjects were shown photographs in which some details had been obscured, and it was found that when they recalled their memories their brains had actually filled in the missing details.

I like your "headlight" and Disney examples but, regrettably, I differ in interpretation again when applying those examples to the witnesses.

With Long, I see her as wondering whether the random woman that she took no notice of could possibly have been the murder victim. After three days she has sufficiently convinced herself of that possibility to prompt her to contact the police. Then she is committed to her belief and, like the headlight, sees what she thinks she should be seeing.

With Cadosch, I think of the times when I have been watching television or reading while I'm thinking about something else, as he was, and then realising that I have no idea of the plot of the TV movie or what I had just read. Cadosch finds out that there was a murder next door to where he was walking and thinking about his job. He was ill and had no reason to be noting anything that was happening next door, but wonders, shouldn't I have heard something when I was right there. I have heard voices and cases falling against the fence before, was that this morning?

Richardson's retelling of his story continued for two days before the boot cutting was introduced. Were listeners asking if, with his routine of opening the door just enough to see the lock, he may have missed the body? Then there is the boot repair from the day before, and the boot repair at the market afterwards waiting to be slipped into a memory gap to relieve his anxiety as to whether he could have actually missed the body, a possibility which he persistently denied so he would look foolish were he proved incorrect.

Along with my assessment of the witness and medical evidence, including the analyse of the stomach contents, I am weighing the likelihood of a JtR murder in daylight with a potential audience and a witness that he allows to come within feet of him on two occasions without fleeing. Our life experiences contribute to our scepticism when listening to stories that witnesses would have us believe, so perhaps on that basis I am more likely to accept that witnesses may adjust the truth, unconsciously or otherwise.

Best regards, George

[Wickerman]

Hi Jon,

Can you be sure of that?

Chandler's report (Ref. MEPO 3/140, ff. 9-11), dated on the day of the murder, said, "The Doctor pronounced life extinct and stated the woman had been dead at least two hours." Later at the inquest he responded to a question about the time of death of Annie Chapman by stating "I should say at least two hours, and probably more" but there was a caveat to this statement, which has been used to explain away Dr. Philips' estimation.

This doesn't prove that all doctors formulated an estimate at the scene, but it seems that the possibility cannot be excluded.

The "and probably more" and the caveat were both additions which, IMO shows that they are related.

Best regards, George

Thankyou George.

I see it, Ultimate, pg.50., thanks for pointing that out.

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff,

Thank you for your very informative post. I watched a video some years ago where subjects were shown photographs in which some details had been obscured, and it was found that when they recalled their memories their brains had actually filled in the missing details.

I like your "headlight" and Disney examples but, regrettably, I differ in interpretation again when applying those examples to the witnesses.

With Long, I see her as wondering whether the random woman that she took no notice of could possibly have been the murder victim. After three days she has sufficiently convinced herself of that possibility to prompt her to contact the police. Then she is committed to her belief and, like the headlight, sees what she thinks she should be seeing.

With Cadosch, I think of the times when I have been watching television or reading while I'm thinking about something else, as he was, and then realising that I have no idea of the plot of the TV movie or what I had just read. Cadosch finds out that there was a murder next door to where he was walking and thinking about his job. He was ill and had no reason to be noting anything that was happening next door, but wonders, shouldn't I have heard something when I was right there. I have heard voices and cases falling against the fence before, was that this morning?

Richardson's retelling of his story continued for two days before the boot cutting was introduced. Were listeners asking if, with his routine of opening the door just enough to see the lock, he may have missed the body? Then there is the boot repair from the day before, and the boot repair at the market afterwards waiting to be slipped into a memory gap to relieve his anxiety as to whether he could have actually missed the body, a possibility which he persistently denied so he would look foolish were he proved incorrect.

Along with my assessment of the witness and medical evidence, including the analyse of the stomach contents, I am weighing the likelihood of a JtR murder in daylight with a potential audience and a witness that he allows to come within feet of him on two occasions without fleeing. Our life experiences contribute to our scepticism when listening to stories that witnesses would have us believe, so perhaps on that basis I am more likely to accept that witnesses may adjust the truth, unconsciously or otherwise.

Best regards, George

No problem George. That's the thing with insufficient information, one has to draw inferences, and there's no way of knowing if one has drawn the correct ones. Obviously, we differ. Personally, when confronted with two explanations, one that accounts for the data as given (including error ranges), and another that requires data to be wrong, I prefer the first. We have no way of knowing if the data is right or wrong, all we have is a very plausible account if the data is correct, with any conflicts accounted for by reasonable error margins, and as that tells a very consistent story, including some odd bits like the leggings spring and the open door, etc, I see that as the most satisfying account. At the same time, I fully accept that it is not proven and could be incorrect. I'm not actually concerned about Long as I don't see her exclusion as fundamentally changing the story, so if her identification is in error for the reasons you suggest, I don't see that as changing anything. I also don't see any reason to think Richardson's boot fixing story is untrue, particularly given his legging spring was found at the scene (a pretty unlikely coincidence if he made up that story; which I also think is an extremely improbable story to make up given the obvious consequences of saying you had a knife with you at the location). I also don't see how he could have missed the body, though I realise there are those that accept that as a reasonable possibility. I see no reason to need to invent memories for Cadoch, and his disinterest in the ongoings next door seem pretty typical, particularly given his illness and need to get to work. Also, given I do not see a 5:25ish ToD as inconsistent with the medical opinion, I end up seeing nothing in the statements that really point to that hypothesis being in need of rejection. All other explanations require "negating" evidence by stating it is wrong despite there being nothing to justify that except for the possibility it could be wrong. And all the witnesses have to be dismissed without any real justification other than they could be wrong. I only see that as an alternative that needs to be kept in mind, but still take 2nd place to the hypothesis that does not require dismissing the evidence as being wrong given that, in my opinion, it doesn't conflict in the first place.

Basically, in my view, erroneous data should produce conflicts that cannot be explained by measurement error. Without that, there is no indication the evidence is false.

- Jeff

[Fleetwood Mac]

On Richardson:

The exchange with Chandler does not compromise his statement in my view, although I understand the alternative argument.

In the event we accept he was at the door, then I give him the benefit of the doubt in terms of being able to see Annie's body. Richardson said he was sure Annie's body was not there, inferring he could see into that part of the yard. At the inquest James Kent stated: on going through the passage, standing on the top of the back door steps, I saw a woman lying in the yard. Obviously Kent knows there is a body there and so he's looking for it, nevertheless Kent did see Annie's body from the top of the steps.

The problem, and its a monumental problem, lies in Richardson injecting the borrowed knife into his statement/s.

Richardson stated this: I cut a piece of leather off my boot with an old table-knife. He misleads the coroner by going home to get the knife that he states cut his boot, only to say it wasn't that knife when challenged. This compromises the validity of his entire statement.

In the end, on the borrowed knife tale alone, he would have been discredited in any court of law and his entire statement disregarded. Taking all of the aspects of his statement into account, this witness cannot be deemed to be credible.

[FISHY1118]

On Richardson:

The exchange with Chandler does not compromise his statement in my view, although I understand the alternative argument.

In the event we accept he was at the door, then I give him the benefit of the doubt in terms of being able to see Annie's body. Richardson said he was sure Annie's body was not there, inferring he could see into that part of the yard. At the inquest James Kent stated: on going through the passage, standing on the top of the back door steps, I saw a woman lying in the yard. Obviously Kent knows there is a body there and so he's looking for it, nevertheless Kent did see Annie's body from the top of the steps.

The problem, and its a monumental problem, lies in Richardson injecting the borrowed knife into his statement/s.

Richardson stated this: I cut a piece of leather off my boot with an old table-knife. He misleads the coroner by going home to get the knife that he states cut his boot, only to say it wasn't that knife when challenged. This compromises the validity of his entire statement.

In the end, on the borrowed knife tale alone, he would have been discredited in any court of law and his entire statement disregarded. Taking all of the aspects of his statement into account, this witness cannot be deemed to be credible.

Question .If thats the case, should Richardson be accepted as unreliable with his evidence as Dr Phillips is with his.? Just a yes or no will do .

[DJA]

Maybea