John Richardson

[Fleetwood Mac]

With regards to Annie, or any of the JtR cases, we don't know the environmental temperature (though I did find the average low temperature for Sept. in 1900 London was 10C (the daily low would be the important value given the times of the murders), or 50F. If the comment that it was a cool morning means it was below average, then perhaps it was closer to 5C that morning.

We know the temperature in Whitechapel for each day/case.

The low on September 8th, 1888 was 9C.

Usually, the coldest part of the day, including the early hours of the morning, is just after sunrise.

Sunrise on September 8th, 1888 was 5.25am.

So, around 5.30am it will have been 9C, a touch warmer when Dr Phillips arrives and a touch warmer between 3am to 5am.

[JeffHamm]

We know the temperature in Whitechapel for each day/case.

The low on September 8th, 1888 was 9C.

Usually, the coldest part of the day, including the early hours of the morning, is just after sunrise.

Sunrise on September 8th, 1888 was 5.25am.

So, around 5.30am it will have been 9C, a touch warmer when Dr Phillips arrives and a touch warmer between 3am to 5am.

Excellent, I hadn't seen that the temperatures were known for the days of the murder, although I think I must have at some point as I had it in my head it was around 10C, and when I found the info for 1900, I thought maybe someone had found a similar record and had mentioned a monthly average. But 9C makes sense. Thanks for that. Where did you get that information? Are the temperatures for all the JtR murders listed somewhere?

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

And after thinking about it, I think the initial slow change in rectal temperatures makes sense now that I think about it. The rate of cooling is based upon the difference between the area and the surrounding area, so cooling on the surface will be rapid, and that draws heat away from the core. But a rectal temperature is measuring the core, and it will cool slowly until the heat being drawn off from the more surface areas cools the body from outside to in. This means the heat will leave the internal region slowly at first, then increase as the surrounding body itself loses heat, resulting in an increase rate of heat loss until it reaches a steady state of loss.

If that's the case, then there's probably a relationship between the environment temperature and the person's body mass that relates to how long that initial slow period lasts. Sadly, I've only been able to get the data from 6 of their cases (they have a database of 85, but only show 6 figures to illustrate a point), so unless that relationship is really strong and reliable, which is unlikely, it's not going to be easy to determine. And even if it looks good, it's too small a sample to know if it generalizes to other cases. Still worth looking, just not worth getting too excited or disappointed after seeing what's there.

- Jeff

[Fleetwood Mac]

Excellent, I hadn't seen that the temperatures were known for the days of the murder, although I think I must have at some point as I had it in my head it was around 10C, and when I found the info for 1900, I thought maybe someone had found a similar record and had mentioned a monthly average. But 9C makes sense. Thanks for that. Where did you get that information? Are the temperatures for all the JtR murders listed somewhere?

- Jeff

They're on this site, Jeff.

A quick google, something like: "casebook, temperatures on the day of the murders", will bring the link up for you.

[GBinOz]

Excellent, I hadn't seen that the temperatures were known for the days of the murder, although I think I must have at some point as I had it in my head it was around 10C, and when I found the info for 1900, I thought maybe someone had found a similar record and had mentioned a monthly average. But 9C makes sense. Thanks for that. Where did you get that information? Are the temperatures for all the JtR murders listed somewhere?

- Jeff

They're here Jeff:

https://www.casebook.org/victorian_london/weather.html

Best regards, George

[JeffHamm]

They're on this site, Jeff.

A quick google, something like: "casebook, temperatures on the day of the murders", will bring the link up for you.

Thanks.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

They're here Jeff:

https://www.casebook.org/victorian_london/weather.html

Best regards, George

Thanks George. Go figure, it's on the site. It lists the low as 46.3F for Chapman, which translates to 7.94C, or 8C. 50F would be 10C, and if that's the average for Sept, 46.3 would be a bit on the chillier side (particularly as that's the low, and most of the day when people are up and about it's warmer).

Anyway, not sure what can be done with that given we don't have an actual body temperature reading to work with, or even if one was taken. I agree it seems reasonable to consider one might have been, but there's no indication of it having been done. I tend to find it hard to believe that a Victorian doctor would take a rectal temperature reading at the crime scene and I note Dr. L with Nichols seems to have done very little at the crime scene, so I don't see any evidence that doing so would be common practice. If he did take a reading it would likely be at the morgue, but I can't recall if he went there right away or showed up hours later to do the autopsy.

- Jeff

[GBinOz]

Daily News 5 Nov 1888:Inquest:
Dr Brown: The witness, continuing his evidence, said - A post mortem examination was made in the mortuary in Sunday afternoon. Rigor mortis was strongly marked, but the body was not quite cold.
Times 5 Nov 1888: Inquest: A post mortem examination was made at 2:30 on Sunday afternoon. The temperature of the room was 55 deg. Rigor mortis was well marked.

The throat cuts and evisceration of Chapman and Eddowes were made by the same man and were close to identical. Phillips testified that Chapman's body was cold except for some residual warmth under the intestines. The so called caveat concerned the cold ambient temperature, but the ambient temperature was slightly colder for Eddowes than for Chapman. This is nothing to do with the reliability or otherwise of medical PMI's. It is to do with the bodies of two women being similarly mutilated and left in similar positions, one not quite cold after 13 hours and the other, cold, except that there was a certain remaining heat, under the intestines, we are being asked to believe, after one hour. Even allowing for an increase in ambient temperature after Eddowes was taken to the shed that was being used as a mortuary, there is no way to countenance this magnitude of this difference under any form of logic or common sense. This is not a statistical study or a treatise on medical history. This is a direct comparison between two murders from the same time period by the same man using the same M.O. and the same signature. This points to Phillips under estimating his PMI, with his "probably more" being accurate, and the murder likely occurring between 2 and 3AM, when Amelia Richardson was asleep.

Cheers, George

[Trevor Marriott]

It’s a pity that we have no police record of any interview with the residents. Only a few of them ‘might’ have gone out that morning (it could have been as little as 3 or 4 possibles but we have no way of getting an accurate figure) If the police had questioned and eliminated them then we would have the door being left open after Richardson left and before he arrived.

Does anyone know if the inhabitants have been researched more closely to see who might have been too old or too young to have been ‘possibles’ for leaving the door open?

Wouldn’t a non-resident have been more likely to have done that?

[Coroner] Were the front and back doors always left open? - Yes, you can open the front and back doors of any of the houses about there. They are all let out in rooms. People are coming in or going out all the night.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[GBinOz]

Thanks George. Go figure, it's on the site. It lists the low as 46.3F for Chapman, which translates to 7.94C, or 8C. 50F would be 10C, and if that's the average for Sept, 46.3 would be a bit on the chillier side (particularly as that's the low, and most of the day when people are up and about it's warmer).

Anyway, not sure what can be done with that given we don't have an actual body temperature reading to work with, or even if one was taken. I agree it seems reasonable to consider one might have been, but there's no indication of it having been done. I tend to find it hard to believe that a Victorian doctor would take a rectal temperature reading at the crime scene and I note Dr. L with Nichols seems to have done very little at the crime scene, so I don't see any evidence that doing so would be common practice. If he did take a reading it would likely be at the morgue, but I can't recall if he went there right away or showed up hours later to do the autopsy.

- Jeff

Hi Jeff,

Dr Brown stating an ambient temperature for the mortuary indicates to me that perhaps thermometers were more in use at the time than is being anticipated here. While I have the greatest respect for your work and will be voting in favour of your receiving the aforementioned award, I am unable to accept the magnitude of the error being proposed for two so similar circumstances. I now firmly believe that it is a case of the unreliability of the memories of the witnesses. I have been thinking about how much risk Richardson incurred by admitting to being in possession of a knife at the crime scene. How likely could it have been for him to be suspected of cutting a woman's throat and disembowelling her with a dessert knife that would have lost the battle with a piece of cheddar stored in a fridge. As soon as he presented the knife it was labelled as "a very ineffective weapon". Being the owner of a set of Victorian dessert knives I can say that I wouldn't even attempt to cut leather with them as all I could achieve would be a quite nasty series of friction burns. Anyway, all just my opinion, but as Herlock says, the right one.

Best regards, George

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

I don't know if the police did a head count, but Amelia Richardson testified at the inquest:
When I went down all the tenants were in the house except Mr. Thompson and Mr. Davies.

Amelia testified that she was awake, but for dozing, from 3 AM, and didn't hear anyone in the passage. She was very insistent that she would have heard anyone if they had been there, but she didn't mention John's visit. It is highly likely that James Hardiman called at his mother's shop to pick up supplies for his cat's meat street vendor business, but Amelia didn't mention him either. It is very improbable he would have sourced his cat's meat elsewhere, so he may have left the door open. She didn't hear Jack and Annie either but, while you disagree, they may have been there prior to 3AM when she was asleep.

It is clear that the passage and yard were used by many other than the residents. Just speculating, a vagrant may have opened the back door and involuntarily let out a "NO" at the sight he saw. Cadosch testified he was in his doorway when this occurred, so the door would have been closing on his back making the source of the word difficult to place. The vagrant takes a minute or to to recover his composure, and decides to rob the body, taking her rings and rifling her pockets, leaving what he didn't want at her feet. Cadosch returns and the vagrant moves over to the fence to avoid being seen and makes the bump noise, and is relieved when Cadosch doesn't look over the fence. After Cadosch goes inside for the second time the vagrant departs, leaving the front door open in his haste.

Cheers, George

Hello George,

I wouldn’t disagree with any of that. It would have been worth knowing the results of the police’s questioning though to see if any of the residents had left the premises between 4.45 and 6.00. But, as you say, it couldn’t have proven anything as it could have been an unknown but innocent person, but it would have been slightly in favour of the door being left open by the killer imo. It’s a point that we can get no further forward with.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Daily News 5 Nov 1888:Inquest:
Dr Brown: The witness, continuing his evidence, said - A post mortem examination was made in the mortuary in Sunday afternoon. Rigor mortis was strongly marked, but the body was not quite cold.
Times 5 Nov 1888: Inquest: A post mortem examination was made at 2:30 on Sunday afternoon. The temperature of the room was 55 deg. Rigor mortis was well marked.

The throat cuts and evisceration of Chapman and Eddowes were made by the same man and were close to identical. Phillips testified that Chapman's body was cold except for some residual warmth under the intestines. The so called caveat concerned the cold ambient temperature, but the ambient temperature was slightly colder for Eddowes than for Chapman. This is nothing to do with the reliability or otherwise of medical PMI's. It is to do with the bodies of two women being similarly mutilated and left in similar positions, one not quite cold after 13 hours and the other, cold, except that there was a certain remaining heat, under the intestines, we are being asked to believe, after one hour. Even allowing for an increase in ambient temperature after Eddowes was taken to the shed that was being used as a mortuary, there is no way to countenance this magnitude of this difference under any form of logic or common sense. This is not a statistical study or a treatise on medical history. This is a direct comparison between two murders from the same time period by the same man using the same M.O. and the same signature. This points to Phillips under estimating his PMI, with his "probably more" being accurate, and the murder likely occurring between 2 and 3AM, when Amelia Richardson was asleep.

Cheers, George

If there’s one thing that we can say is certain George is that there can only be one interpretation of Phillips caveat. He can’t have meant ‘ but probably more but because of the conditions at the time probably more.’ So he was clearly applying the caveat to the ‘2 hours’ part. And this is exactly how the coroner interpreted it:

“ It is true that Dr. Phillips thinks that when he saw the body at 6.30 the deceased had been dead at least two hours, but he admits that the coldness of the morning and the great loss of blood may affect his opinion; and if the evidence of the other witnesses be correct, Dr. Phillips has miscalculated the effect of those forces.”

Sorry George but I fail to see how this obvious fact can be disputed.

[Aethelwulf]

The skill factor would not be an issue if the killer did not remove the organs but simply murdered and mutilated Chapman, and not forgetting the time factor Phillips said it would have taken him a min of 15 mins to carry out all that was suggested the killer did. can we really believe that the killer would spend that length of time with a victim at that time of the morning when people were moving about.

and if we are talking about an earlier time of death and the suggestion that the killer removed the organs then i have to ask how was the killer able to see feel, touch, grip. and remove organs from a blood filled abdomen in total darkness?

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

surely the rogue mortician's game was a profitable one so where are the other examples apart from JtR victims? Are there any or did he just confine himself to these?

[Fleetwood Mac]

Thanks.

- Jeff

No bother, Jeff.

[Fleetwood Mac]

Go figure, it's on the site. It lists the low as 46.3F for Chapman, which translates to 7.94C, or 8C.

- Jeff

It doesn't.

You're looking at London as a whole.

Look father down and you'll find Whitechapel.