John Richardson

[Ms Diddles]

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?

Hi P.I.!

No but if he said something like "at least five to six inches; but considering the shape of the wound possibly less" that would be a more equivalent phrase and we would inevitably be debating it in the same manner as we are debating t.o.d. now.

[Fleetwood Mac]

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?

The answer is a resounding yes, because that is exactly what they are suggesting with Dr Phillips' TOD.

What they are saying is not necessarily less than five inches but could be less than five inches.

And, stating: "at least two hours and probably more but possibly less than at least two hours", is an extraordinarily verbose way of saying: "I have no idea".

In that event, why didn't he just say: "not a clue, any time between my arrival and when Annie was last seen".

[Fleetwood Mac]

Hi P.I.!

No but if he said something like "at least five to six inches; but considering the shape of the wound possibly less" that would be a more equivalent phrase and we would inevitably be debating it in the same manner as we are debating t.o.d. now.

It wouldn't be an equivalent statement, Ms Diddles.

The reason being that Dr Phillips didn't say: "and possibly less" in relation to the TOD. You and a few more of have concluded that, erroneously I might add.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Hi P.I.!

No but if he said something like "at least five to six inches; but considering the shape of the wound possibly less" that would be a more equivalent phrase and we would inevitably be debating it in the same manner as we are debating t.o.d. now.

Hi Mr D!

How can your rephrasing of his estimate of the length of the murder weapon be a more equivalent phrase when you have omitted probably more, which Phillips used both times, and introduced the words possibly less, which he did not use either time?

[Wickerman]

...
If he had taken an axila measurement he would have stated it, he would have given the precise temperature, because it would have shown how clever and good at his job he was, not to mention that information being fairly useful at an inquest into the circumstances surrounding her death. He would have used that measurement to defend his position when challenged! Because it would have been EVIDENCE.
He certainly won't have used his thermometre for a rectal check on core temp at the crime scene, and didn't seem concerned to do even check the temperature at the autopsy. If he had tried an oral check for core temp on a victim that had been all but decapitated, he should have been struck off.

Nothing supports or corroborates his ToD, and he was using badly flawed methodolgy and may as well have rolled a dice and said "That..."

While you are, or were, on the subject, have you read Phillips's post-mortem of Alice McKenzie?
It's in the Ultimate, by Evans & Skinner, there's a pdf online for those who do not have the book.

It runs for 5 pages, very detailed. Interestingly, although he refers to taking temperatures, he records no number, only uses words like; "moderate", "warm", "cold". It kind of pulls the rug out from under those of us who think he used the thermometer, though I'm wondering if he intentionally chose to use adjectives in place of numbers?
Or was it only a reflection of a casual approach to the death of a prostitute, as opposed to someone of status?
Walter Dew writes that he knew Dr Phillips, that he was held in high regard, highly skilled.

"I knew Dr. Phillips well. He lived in Spital Square, close to Commercial Street Police Station, and had been the local divisional surgeon for a great many years.

He was a character. An elderly man, he was ultra-old-fashioned both in his personal appearance and his dress. He used to look for all the world as though he had stepped out of a century-old painting. His manners were charming; he was immensely popular both with the police and the public, and he was highly skilled."
I Caught Crippen, The Hunt of Jack the Ripper, Dew, 1938.

[Wickerman]

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?

Why can't you deal with what Dr Phillips actually said (or was attributed with), instead of making up your own distorted version?
What was truly understood by Phillips's words was repeated by the coroner in his summary, and again confirmed by the writer in the Lancet.
That is two professional & contemporary opinions devoid of bias.

Yet you still ignore what Phillips meant, in favour of what?
Any phrase you can piece together to avoid admitting you were wrong to believe in the early death?

[The Rookie Detective]

Hi George, sorry for my delayed response to your post regarding Richardson as a potential suspect rather than being regarded as a witness of any value.

I personally think that the entire Richardson story is unreliable, not in terms of it's authenticity, but in that his story is saturated, clouded and nonsensical.

He's a pointless witness because he's a perfect case of "show and tell"

He seemingly tells us everything without actually revealing or showing us anything.

This is evidenced by the fact that this particular thread has become trapped in a continuum with no end in sight, and achieved virtually nothing in the process.


Richardson himself would have been proud of all the attention no doubt.


Cadosh and Long are the only 2 valuable witnesses, especially Cadosh who heard an audible "No" and later the sound of something (someone) hitting the fence.

The fact that a woman is later found murdered and mutilated on the opposite side of the fence is far too much of a coincidence.


Cadosh IF HE WAS TRUTHFUL almost certainly heard the moment that the killer was attacking Chapman.

The "No" that he heard was from Chapman...and this occurred AFTER Long saw them standing outside the front of the residence.

Long stated she heard the clock chime, but the time via an audible source is unreliable compared to someone who LOOKS at a large clock on the side of a large church.


IF Long was 15 minutes out and got her chimes wrong, then the murder would have been committed sometime between 5.15am - 5.35am.

The killer would have escaped via another exit point other than back through the front of the residence.
There's no way that the killer would have walked BACK into Hanbury Street AFTER the murder. I believe that the killer exited the scene just as Cadosh went back through the back door of 27 Hanbury Street.


But as for Richardson, his entire witness account is just a big distraction.


His only relevance is IF he was in fact the killer.


But it just doesn't fit right with me and I can't believe that he would murder someone on his own doorstep.


Killing Chapman in his own backyard would be too much for even the most astute of serial killers.


In other words, Richardson is a waste of time because even if he lied and wasn't even there, it changes nothing because Long and Cadosh are more reliable IMO.


RD

[Wickerman]

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?

That doesn't work, you can't have a "probably less" when the trace of the blade into the organs measures 5-6 inches. The instrument MUST be 5-6 inches, or more. There can be no less.

Try another example.

[Wickerman]

Hi P.I.!

No but if he said something like "at least five to six inches; but considering the shape of the wound possibly less" that would be a more equivalent phrase and we would inevitably be debating it in the same manner as we are debating t.o.d. now.

The depth of a stab wound was measured by inserting a steel rod to the extent (depth) of the wound. The deepest example they find establishes the minimum length of the blade. They do the same today. Any stab wounds of lesser depth may be only due to the instrument not being inserted to it's maximum.
Which means there can be no question of minimum, or maximum, there can only be a minimum.

A maximum depth of 5-6 inches equals the minimum length of the blade.

[GBinOz]

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

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.

Hi Jon,

It appears that you may have forgotten to highlight the coroner's caveat?

Cheers, George

[Lewis C]

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?

We would have to see the qualifier to know what it means. But that analogy doesn't really fit here anyway, because I don't think that anyone is saying that Phillips' view was that Chapman had been dead for less than 2 hours. My view, and I think Herlock's view also, is that Phillips thought that Chapman at been dead for at least 2 hours, but was open to the possibility that she had been dead for less than 2 hours.

[GBinOz]

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

From Phillip's autopsy report on Annie Chapman:
"The stomach contained little food, but there was not any sign of fluid.".

[JeffHamm]

Deleted

Hi PI,

Nobody disputes that Dr. Phillip's gave as his estimate for the ToD as being at least 2 hours prior to his arrival at 6:30, and that he thought 2 hours was a starting point in that estimate. The probably more is just an indication of "more time", not "more hours". Time is a continuous dimension, which we refer to in various units to describe the quantity of time. Apart from technical papers, say a research paper where one might refer to 2 hours as 120 minutes if the calculations being performed are based upon some rate per minute type thing, then one will refer to time intervals in things like hours and minutes. Dr. Phillips does not give an amount for his "probably more", so we cannot infer any upper limit to his estimate. For all we know, he might respond to your 3 hour suggestion as "oh, no, that's too much more", or he might also have said "possibly as long as that, but not much more", or even "yes, it could easily be 3 hours too". He's not clear on that point.

However, estimation of the ToD was based upon trying to work backwards from the temperature of the body at the time of discovery (or at whatever point one takes the body temperature), and then comparing it with the temperature of the body at the actual time of death. One then estimates how much time has passed in order for a body to have cooled by the difference in the body temperature at the time of the death (the starting temperature) and the body temperature at the time of measuring it using a mathematical equation that models the change in temperature over time for a human body. One also has to know the environmental temperature, because obviously, if a body were found in a room that is body temperature, the body will not cool at all, but remain at a stable temperature. Moreover, the body will only cool to the point it reaches the room (or environmental temperature) temperature, at which point it stops cooling. Also, the rate a body cools slows down as the difference in its temperature the environment decreases (so it cools rapidly at first, and slows as time passes). To make it even more complicated, sometimes, but not always, the body will heat up following death before eventually starting to cool. There is no way of knowing if this has, or has not happened in a specific case unless, of course, one has been taking temperature readings from the moment of death and tracking it over time.

The body temperatures referred to above are not the temperature of the skin. Rather, they refer to the internal core body temperature, taken rectally. And the equations one uses are derived from having measured intact bodies, and finding the equation that, in general, minimizes the error of the predicted ToD (it's not going to get each and every case exactly right, rather, it will provide an estimated value around which the individual cases vary, which refers to the margin of error).

When faced with a mutilated body, like Chapman's, there is a big problem. The body is not longer intact, and the internal body cavity is now exposed to the colder environment. This means the internal core temperature will drop more rapidly than the equation models (the equations are based upon the cooling profile of intact bodies).

Nowhere does Dr. Phillip's ever mention taking a rectal temperature measurement with a thermometer. He only describes the temperature state of the body using subjective terms of cold, and "residual heat" and so forth. Given his statements, he may very well have based his estimation not on any equations inputting temperature etc but simply based upon feeling the surface temperature of the skin. If that is what he did, then his opinion, no matter how confident he may have been in it, is not worth considering at all.

It has, however, often been mentioned that it seems improbable that Dr. Phillips would not have taken an actual body temperature reading. To use an equation to estimate the ToD, he would, also have to have recorded the outside temperature, although again, we only have him stating subjective descriptions of that as well.

We do know that there were people looking over the fence from next door at the time the crime scene was being examined. Richardson, for example, was there. We know the body was removed somewhere around 7:00, giving Dr. Phillip's 30 minutes to perform his entire crime scene examination (including writing down his observations of the state of the body, it's placement, where blood was seen, her items arranged at her feet, and so forth). It seem improbable to me that, in front of a onlooking crowd, that Dr. Phillips would insert a thermometer into Annie's rectum in order to take temperature reading. This seems to me to be something that might be considered improper to the onlooking public, and one might expect to see at least some mentioning of "outraged the poor woman" in the press. Of course, the press might just not have covered such things, so it's more something to keep in mind rather than any sort of definitive proof.

What it means, however, is that we seriously do have to consider the possibility that Dr. Phillip's estimate was based upon simply feeling the body. And if this possibility is what actually happened, then his estimate is useless. I would like to point out that the concerns about the witnesses are based upon this very same argument "Because they might have got things wrong, that means the earlier ToD is supported - which of course is ludicrous, because might have got things wrong doesn't preclude them having gotten it right, it only means we cannot be sure if they did get it right. Furthermore, if the witnesses got it wrong, that does not "lend support to the earlier ToD", it only means that the evidence against it would reduce, which is not the same thing. For the same reason, if Dr. Phillip's did just touch the body and make his estimate that way, then his estimated 2+ hours is meaningless, but that doesn't mean a later ToD is supported, only that Dr. Phillip's estimate isn't evidence against it in any way, shape, or form.

But what if he did take body temperature readings, which we do not know for sure he did, but remains a possibility we have to consider. And let's also presume he took the environmental temperature as well. I would like to point out, these attentions to detail seem out of character for doctor's at the scene of the crime; we have to recall that Nichol's abdominal mutilations were not spotted at her crime scene, and again there was only around 30 minutes between Dr. Phillip's arrival and the removal of the body to the mortuary, so there's only so much he could do. Those points aside, though, we do have to consider the possibility he actually took an objective core body temperature reading, and an objective temperature reading of the environment.

The estimation of the time period that has passed requires him to guess at Annie's body temperature at the time she died. It's not the same for everyone. There are a range of temperatures that reflect normal healthy people, and Annie's body temperature would be somewhere in that normal range. The normal range varies with age, but tends to be considered somewhere between 97 and 99F, with 98.6 generally considered the "typical" value (which would suggest a left skewed distribution, in which case the median body temperature would be less than 98.6 as the median for left skewed distributions falls below the mean/average). Dr. Phillips would have used 98.6 as his guess as to Annie's body temperature at the time of her death, but we have to consider the range, because she's an individual case. If her actual body temperature was less than 98.6, which is more likely than it being higher, means he's already going to overestimate the time interval for this specific case. Of course, there is also the possibility that her temperature was higher, in which case the calculated interval will underestimate the true interval.

The most important parameter one has to guess is the cooling rate. And very small errors in that parameter will translate to quite large errors in the estimated ToD interval. Dr. Phillips cannot use the cooling rate from the medical literature at the time because the core body temperature for a disembowled body will cool much faster than an intact one, which the medical literature at the time would have based things on. Moreover, liquids retain heat well, so the loss of blood means the body will cool more quickly as well (as he notes in his caveat).

There are other complications as well. Bodies in a room, for example, will generally cool more slowly than a body outside, even if the temperatures are the same. The reason being is that outside there are more breezes, while inside the air is still. A breeze wicks away heat surrounding the body, resulting in it cooling slightly faster. There tends to be more breezes in the morning than the middle of the night due to the rising of the air temperature associated with the change in the environmental temperature resulting in slight air currents, but of course that's far from a universal truth! Just one of the things that affects the accuracy of ToD estimations and has to be factored in to reduce the error associated with the estimation.

So basically, faced with Annie's situation, Dr. Phillips, if he even took a core body temperature reading at the crime scene, and also recorded the environmental temperature at the time, has to use an estimated body temperature during life (which is likely to be slightly on the high side, overestimating the interval since death), and he has to guess at how the cooling rate will have changed due to the mutilations and loss of blood.

Having made his assumptions, to the best of his ability, he then performs his calculation, and gets something like 2 hours.

But that estimate will be associated with a range of values that reflect the error of the estimate, which has to be larger than the error of estimate based upon intact bodies because he's also had to guess at the cooling rate.

The error of the estimate today, using far more sophisticated models (equations) of how bodies cool over time is still +-3 hours.

So when Dr. Phillips estimates 2 hours, we have to consider from -1 hours to +5 hours as the range of times in which the actual death occurred. Now, clearly we can dismiss her death being after the time of discovery (but note, that is using witness based information to help zero in on the actual ToD that the calculations produce).

The other extreme would be a ToD at 3 hours prior to 4:30, so 1:30am, but we know that Annie was still alive up to around 1:45am as she was at the doss house around then, so we can further reduce the medical based time window based upon witness information.

What that means, is that the medical estimate, trimming the two ends, indicates that Annie died sometime after 1:45am, and sometime before her discovery at 6:00am. An actual time of death, anywhere in that time window, is considered consistent with his estimate.

Moreover, given the fact that he has to base his estimate on a number of modifications to the equation, the error of estimate for his particular ToD estimation will be larger than +-3 hours; but that really doesn't matter too much given we still trim that window based upon the witnesses who tell us she was alive at 1:45ish, and dead by 6:00. It would, however, mean that which side of 4:30 would be preferred becomes more equally distributed.

Anyway, given all of the above, Dr. Phillips caveat, which refers to factors which would influence the accuracy of estimating the ToD based upon temperature, it is clear he is simply acknowledging that he may have underestimated the increased cooling rate for a body in Annie's condition (and so overestimated the interval since death). And he's absolutely right to do so, and it reflects his professionalism.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

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".

No, it is what he means, it's just a strange way to present it. He does mean "I estimated 2 hours, probably longer, but I may have overestimated it", it's just strange to present such a clear intention using your phrase "and possibly less than at least two hours". It's a very clumsy construction, and it is the clumsiness that makes it sound odd, rather than the gist of what he's saying being odd.

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

I’m just wondering if, looking at things generously, some might be misunderstanding a point. You never know.

“……the body would be more apt to cool rapidly from its having lost the greater portion of its blood.”

Does anyone think that this, as a medical statement, is ambiguous in any way?