John Richardson

[A P Tomlinson]

It was no guess.

It was based on the commencement of the onset of rigor mortis and the coldness of the body.

There was still some food in the deceased's stomach.

The best evidence is that she last ate about 3 hours 40 minutes before 5:30 AM and that she ate nothing other than potato.

There seems to be general agreement that potato can be expected to remain in the stomach for about one hour.

That suggests that Chapman was killed at some time before 3:00 AM and certainly not as late as 5.30 AM.

OK, so you genuinely believe thatonset of rigor and temp were accurate, and reliable? No point explaining again why they weren't because it's never going to sink in.

So... potatoes...

1) Witness resumed: Deceased went down in the kitchen, and I did not see her again until half-past one or a quarter to two on Saturday morning. At that time I was sitting in the office, which faces the front door. She went into the kitchen. I sent the watchman's wife, who was in the office with me, downstairs to ask her husband about the bed. Deceased came upstairs to the office and said, "I have not sufficient money for my bed. Don't let it. I shan't be long before I am in."
[Coroner] How much was it? - Eightpence for the night. The bed she occupied, No. 29, was the one that she usually occupied. Deceased was then eating potatoes, and went out. She stood in the door two or three minutes, and then repeated, "Never mind, Tim; I shall soon be back. Don't let the bed." It was then about ten minutes to two a.m. She left the house, going in the direction of Brushfield-street. John Evans, the watchman, saw her leave the house. I did not see her again.

So, she arrived back at between 1.30, and 1.45. Went into the kitchen. So she started the meal no earlier than just after 1.30. And be honest... probably a few minutes later. We don;t know for certain whether she was eating a baked potato and took it with her, so we'll agree that she probably finsihed and left at maybe just after 1.45
(Please note that I'm not insisiting on using the most extreme possibilities such as that she arrived back at 1.45 and didn;t finish eating till 10 or 15 minutes later or that she may have taken the food with her making it last longer...)


2) (Source below.) Gastrointestinal tract contents. Although commonly referred to as stomach contents, this also includes digested and undigested matter within the entire body. The presence of food particles in the stomach and upper small intestine provides still another source of information to the pathologist regarding time of death. From an investigator's point of view, the presence of food on the table may offer some assistance if the victim maintained a routine eating time. When and what the deceased ate for his last meal is important information for the pathologist who will do the autopsy.

Various ingested food materials remain within the stomach for variable periods of time, depending on the nature and size of the meal. It has been determined through extensive research that under ordinary circumstances the stomach empties its contents four to 6 hours after a meal. If the stomach, at autopsy, is found to be filled with food, and digestion of the contents not extensive, it is reasonable to assume that death followed shortly after the meal. If the stomach is entirely empty, death probably took place at least 4 to 6 hours after the last meal. If the small intestine is also empty, the probability is that death took place at least 12 or more hours after the last meal. In certain cases the medical examiner will be able to determine the type of food, which still remains in the stomach, if matched with the last known meal. This can help establish a time period.

When the small intestine is removed annd yanked out, if it is still in the process of digesting it is likely to deposit (again, not stating that it WILL, but just that its likely to have ) anything at either end to its closest opening. In this case it would be into the horrendous mess of what remains of her lower intestinal area.
I hope that you are not going to try and suggest that Philips was able to examine the stomach itself?

So the stomach would be empty, with the small intestine still containing food up to around 4 hours after the last meal, which we can put at around 1.45.
So add 4 hours to 1.45 and you get... (well you get 4.30...) but science tells us... 5.45 would be the point where the stomach would be empty.
(Later if she either took a little longer than I described to eat her meal, or took any part of it with her)

Even with the application of modern science to Philips' observations, the 4.30 is still only a possibility (which it always WAS, just incredibly unlikely). And remains unsupported by any corroborating evidence.
A modern autopsy would also have measured the food in the intestine and probably been able to to determine if any of the food found in the cavity was from the stomach or detritus from the removal of the intestine.

But the next step is, you go find a source that says 3 hours rather than 4, and point out that potatoes is a small light meal, and I reply that while potatoes are meagre they are not light and since we do';t know how much she ate, it's only conjecture that it would have all gone by 5.30.

The fact that you continue to believe that Philips' estimate is reliable is the point where I'm now done.
If you can't get past 135 years of scientific advancement and actually believe that without any medical instruments without recording the body temp either on the skin or the core, or using prolonged measuring of variation times of temp, lividty and rigor that this man can pluck a Time of Death out of the air by the back of his hand... There is not point banging my head against a brick wall any longer.
You have decided what you want to believe, and that is that Victorian science is better than modern science. Because as I have tried to explain, no modern doctor would even begin to state a time of death with the certainty and surety of Doctors like Philips and Brown with the information they had available.
Brown should have changed his first name to Derren with his mentalism trick of "...30 minutes, certainly 40 minutes." No science known to man has ever come close to these feats of miraculous endeavour.
But... some people believe Derren Brown is actually a mind reader, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

[A P Tomlinson]

I think it was accepted, perhaps reluctantly...

You may recall (or may not?) the summary by the coroner.

It is not unusual to find inaccuracy in such details, but this variation is not very great or very important. She was found dead about six o'clock. She was not in the yard when Richardson was there at 4.50 a.m. She was talking outside the house at half-past five when Mrs. Long passed them. Cadosh says it was about 5.20 when he was in the backyard of the adjoining house, and heard a voice say "No," and three or four minutes afterwards a fall against the fence; but if he is out of his reckoning but a quarter of an hour, the discrepancy in the evidence of fact vanishes, and he may be mistaken, for he admits that he did not get up till a quarter past five, and that it was after the half-hour when he passed Spitalfields clock. 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. But many minutes after Mrs. Long passed the man and woman cannot have elapsed before the deceased became a mutilated corpse in the yard of 29, Hanbury-street, close by where she was last seen by any witness.

Sorry, yeah... I know. That was me being rhetorical... apologies.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

OK, so you genuinely believe thatonset of rigor and temp were accurate, and reliable? No point explaining again why they weren't because it's never going to sink in.

I hope that you are not going to try and suggest that Philips was able to examine the stomach itself?

The fact that you continue to believe that Philips' estimate is reliable is the point where I'm now done.

There is not point banging my head against a brick wall any longer.

You have decided what you want to believe, and that is that Victorian science is better than modern science.

I honestly do not think that any of your comments quoted above are appropriate responses to the points I made.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Please see my replies below.


Originally posted by Herlock Sholmes View Post
There was more than ample time for Eddowes and the man to have parted company just after Lawende and co passed and for her to have walked through Mitre Square where she met her killer coming the other way.


Eddowes had her hand on the man's chest.

Irrelevant…she might have known him. People know people. It’s not weird.

It is therefore unlikely that they parted company moments later.

Absolute rubbish. It’s neither likely nor unlikely. You weren’t there. We have zero way of knowing or deducing. You are simply trying to manipulate evidence.

The idea that instead of going with the man to Mitre Square, she walked there alone, is farfetched.

Utterly pathetic. This wasn’t the 12 year old daughter of the Duke of Devonshire. These women walked those dangerous streets every day of the week. To suggest that she wouldn’t have entered Mitre Square is not only sexist but it’s nonsense.


Cadosch corroborates the fact that Annie died at around 5.30.


Cadoche cannot 'corroborate' her time of death as having occurred at 5.30 a.m.

He did not see her.

He heard a noise that couldn’t have been anything else.

He did not see her murderer.

Really? I never knew that. Thanks for the info.

It is not a proven fact that Chapman died at 5.30 a.m.

It is overwhelmingly likely. You say it isn’t. That’s fine. Someone had to be wrong. And it’s you.

Long is dismissed simply because she is inconvenient to those dogmatically committed to an earlier ToD. She is no more or less reliable a witness that Lawende. And yet who dismisses Lawende?


Swanson considered Lawende's evidence to be much more reliable than Long's.

And you hold Swanson in such high regard……when it suits you.

Long did not see the couple standing in front of number 29,

More nitpicking.

“I passed 29, Hanbury-street. On the right-hand side, the same side as the house, I saw a man and a woman standing on the pavement talking. The man's back was turned towards Brick-lane, and the woman's was towards the market. They were standing only a few yards nearer Brick-lane from 29, Hanbury-street“

A few yards. But I’d suggest that we would be on safe ground to say that they were closer to number 29 than Eddowes was to the corner in Mitre Square.

did not see them enter number 29,

No one saw Eddowes go into Mitre Square so I can’t think why you bothered making that point?

and the conversation she overheard did not even suggest they were thinking of entering number 29.

I know weird isn’t it. You’d think that one of would have said out loud “I know, why don’t we remove our persons to yonder number 29 to partake in a bit of how’s-your-father?” Could you come up with any sillier points?

These facts are surely more inconvenient to those dogmatically committed to a later time of death than those who favour an earlier one.

Are you kidding?

[A P Tomlinson]

I honestly do not think that any of your comments quoted above are appropriate responses to the points I made.

And that's why we're done.
You have yet to show one piece of evidence to support a 4.30 time, instead prefering to stretch out the ludicrous inability of Dr Philips' methods as a measure for Time of Death.`

[Herlock Sholmes]

Ok, I’m off to the pub. I’m sick to the back teeth of responding to childish nonsense. I’ll leave you to it. I feel like waving the white flag.

Dr. Phillips clearly wasn’t aware that a ‘more rapid cooling’ took the ToD later rather than earlier. Perhaps he couldn’t understand English either. It’s surprising though for a man who was 100+ years ahead of his time when it came to estimating ToD

John Richardson clearly told a totally pointless lie but denied doing something that would have absolutely proved what he was trying to prove in the first place. That make sense.

And of course a horrifically mutilated corpse with entrails strewn over her shoulder could have remained hidden in the three foot gap behind a door you could have ridden a motorbike under and where her feet would have protruded 2 or 3 feet from the end of the door with her knees sprayed outwards. Why would anyone think this unlikely.

And of course it’s reasonable to say that two people were in conflict when we don’t have one of those peoples version.

And obviously either Albert Cadosch was hallucinating or else a blind man was blundering around in the yard of number 29 talking to himself and bumping into fences.

And clearly Joseph Lawende can reliably identify a woman from across the street at night, after he’d emerged from a club and was walking past paying little attention. But Elizabeth Long passing right next to a woman in broad daylight clearly can’t be trusted.

A few pints of bitter await. I might get more sense talking to the jukebox or the quiz machine.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Irrelevant… Absolute rubbish... Utterly pathetic. ... More nitpicking... Could you come up with any sillier points?


(Herlock Shomes, # 5824)


You are going to have to treat other posters' comments more respectfully than that if you expect to receive a response to your comments.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

It is being insinuated that there is something less than scrupulous about my quoting or citing certain opinions recorded by Swanson.

I have never questioned the credibility of comments recorded by Anderson or Swanson during the period in which the Whitechapel murders were committed.

It is the comments made by them decades later whose credibility I am questioning.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

And that's why we're done.
You have yet to show one piece of evidence to support a 4.30 time, instead prefering to stretch out the ludicrous inability of Dr Philips' methods as a measure for Time of Death.`

On the contrary, the reason we are 'done' is that your comments, which I quoted in # 5823 above, are obviously inappropriate responses to the points I had made.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Irrelevant… Absolute rubbish... Utterly pathetic. ... More nitpicking... Could you come up with any sillier points?


(Herlock Shomes, # 5824)


You are going to have to treat other posters' comments more respectfully than that if you expect to receive a response to your comments.

I omitted:

You are simply trying to manipulate evidence.

(Herlock Shomes, # 5824)


These kinds of personal remarks are not acceptable.

[Fleetwood Mac]

Oh my goodness, FM has already thrown the towel in

The towel is in the air, Jon, not quite out on the canvass.

What we have here is a lot of going 'round the houses, putting across the same points, and in my opinion none of it gets to the crux of the matter.

I have asked the following question:

At least two hours and probably more but possibly less than at least two hours

Is that a logical statement in the English language?

I have no appetite for going 'round the same rhetoric ad nauseam, which is where we got to. In that respect: 'the towel is thrown in', in your words.

Perhaps you're the man to answer the question? Is it a logical statement and why?

[JeffHamm]

The towel is in the air, Jon, not quite out on the canvass.

What we have here is a lot of going 'round the houses, putting across the same points, and in my opinion none of it gets to the crux of the matter.

I have asked the following question:

At least two hours and probably more but possibly less than at least two hours

Is that a logical statement in the English language?

I have no appetite for going 'round the same rhetoric ad nauseam, which is where we got to. In that respect: 'the towel is thrown in', in your words.

Perhaps you're the man to answer the question? Is it a logical statement and why?

Hi FM,

It's not the typical way of phrasing things when one is giving an opinion of which they are not fully confident, which is probably why it sounds strange to you. I have previously suggested things like "My weather calculations predict rain, but I wouldn't bet on it" as an example of how people say such things fairly often (the addition of "I wouldn't bet on it" is conveying the same thing as your more awkward presentation).

Generally, things like "I think my team will win, but I could be wrong", would be an example of a less awkward presentation. Or, I estimated the ToD based upon a temperature decline equation to be 2 hours or longer, but I had to make some guesses about how to factor in the cold morning temperature and the loss of blood, so I could have overestimated the interval, would be another. The latter being the gist of Dr. Phillip's statement.

It only sounds strange because you choose to present it strangely. In short, the problem is not that Dr. Phillips indicating that he accepts his calculations could be wrong is illogical, rather it is your choice of presentation.

- Jeff

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Deleted

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

According to the coroner, Phillips said the murder weapon was

at least five to six inches in length - probably more

If he had added a qualification, would his detractors be arguing that he meant less than five inches?

[Fleetwood Mac]

Hi FM,

It's not the typical way of phrasing things when one is giving an opinion of which they are not fully confident, which is probably why it sounds strange to you. I have previously suggested things like "My weather calculations predict rain, but I wouldn't bet on it" as an example of how people say such things fairly often (the addition of "I wouldn't bet on it" is conveying the same thing as your more awkward presentation).

Generally, things like "I think my team will win, but I could be wrong", would be an example of a less awkward presentation. Or, I estimated the ToD based upon a temperature decline equation to be 2 hours or longer, but I had to make some guesses about how to factor in the cold morning temperature and the loss of blood, so I could have overestimated the interval, would be another. The latter being the gist of Dr. Phillip's statement.

It only sounds strange because you choose to present it strangely. In short, the problem is not that Dr. Phillips indicating that he accepts his calculations could be wrong is illogical, rather it is your choice of presentation.

- Jeff

The only part of your post which even remotely considers my question is this: "you choose to present it strangely".

This is what I'm asking: at least two hours and probably more but possibly less than at least two hours. Is this a logical statement?

In what way am I 'presenting it strangely'?

What else can you and a few more mean?

He clearly stated: "at least two hours".

He clearly stated: "and probably more".

You have concluded that he believed: "but due to the fairly cold morning as late as 5.30 in the morning".

Which is, in effect, claiming that Dr Phillips meant: "at least two hours and probably more but possibly less than at least two hours".

I reckon it speaks volumes, Jeff, that the best reply you can come up with is: "you have presented it strangely".