John Richardson

[Herlock Sholmes]

You've said this quite a few times and I haven't responded to it.

You have replied to my posts where I have stated this:

"At least two hours and probably more but due to the fairly cold morning I cannot be certain on nor quantify that probably more". A perfectly reasonable statement in the English language.

So, you know exactly what I'm saying, you know I'm not suggesting "probably more and probably more".

Yet you choose to claim that.

Two reasons:

1) This is what you do, in just about every discussion on every subject. You magic things out of thin air because you cannot reasonably discuss that which is put in front of you.

2) You know: "at least two hours and probably more but possibly less than at least two hours", is ridiculous; and so your only response is to make up something equally ridiculous and assign it to the person you're replying to. The fact the person you're replying is demonstrably not saying such a thing, doesn't matter to you.

If you think that I’m interested in your analysis of me or my reasons for posting you’re sadly mistaken. Especially coming from a man who once brilliantly deduced that I was American and then spent three pages on here telling me that I was wrong when I told you that I was English. So spare me you’re ‘analysis.’

Your interpretation is clearly nonsense. As Baxter knew and as everyone on this Forum apart from you PI, and Fishy know.

Desperate stuff. Embarrassing stuff. Par for the course.

[Doctored Whatsit]

I think you need to pay more attention to Jeff's post.

You have been making this strange claim for some considerable time, and I assume you are referring to Jeff's most recent post, where I did not notice him concluding that Phillips said or meant "at least two hours and probably more, but possibly less than two hours."

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

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.

Do you really think that the police should have been looking for a dark, foreign-looking, man in his forties?

[Herlock Sholmes]

I think you need to pay more attention to Jeff's post.

All of his post but especially this bit:

“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).”

[Wickerman]

...
I'm a little surprised that there's no reference to a temperature being taken at autopsy.

In general at all the autopsies?
Yes, but was it necessary, because the doctor is not present to argue his conclusions, he is only there to provide a professional opinion, not how he arrived at that opinion.
At a trial he may need to be more precise because he can be challenged, but an inquest only requires his conclusions.

Though given how it wasn't recorded at the SoC, and how long it was between observations, it would have needed to be known in situ, and checked periodically for the rate of decline to give a better way to work backward to when it started. So I suppose it would have been a pointless endeavour anyway. Although it would have given people more to argue over....

I agree, though on McKenzie's post-mortem record Phillips does observe the temperature of the air at the crime scene, but only recorded as "moderate".

I wonder, if it is already established when the murder took place, as with McKenzie, he did not require himself to follow procedures so exactly?

With Chapman, there was a genuine question of 'time of death', yet if we look at the accepted procedures known at the time, not too different than today. We see in order to use body temperature as a means of measure, we need precise times. First, the air at the crime scene, then second, two examples of body temperature, before the body is removed. The math is then applied, but we have no mention of these required temperature measurements, but we must accept we have no surviving examples of a post-mortem from any of the victims.

Conversely, you mention not taking a temp. via the mouth, yet I would have thought that was the most accessible and acceptable spot to take a temperature when you are at the crime scene, even if the throat has been cut.
Virchow writes that the brain & anal locations are best suited because they are the most solid body mass to retain accurate body temperatures, in most cases.
Though, these can only be made at the post-mortem, which can be many hours after the murder, and the ambient temperatures surrounding the body have fluctuated up and down in the intervening hours. I think Stride's autopsy was about 38 hours following the murder, Eddowes about 13 hours later, you cannot determine a time of death after so many hours have passed. I wonder why the need unless it's just for record purposes, incase they discover drugs or some other time dependent substance.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

You have been making this strange claim for some considerable time, and I assume you are referring to Jeff's most recent post, where I did not notice him concluding that Phillips said or meant "at least two hours and probably more, but possibly less than two hours."

If Phillips did not mean possibly less than two hours, then why cite his qualification of his estimate in support of the argument that his examination of Chapman took place about an hour after she was murdered?

[Doctored Whatsit]

If Phillips did not mean possibly less than two hours, then why cite his qualification of his estimate in support of the argument that his examination of Chapman took place about an hour after she was murdered?

Sorry, I don't understand. I am just saying repeatedly that Phillips gave a ToD, and then admitted that it could be wrong. Is that not correct?

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Sorry, I don't understand. I am just saying repeatedly that Phillips gave a ToD, and then admitted that it could be wrong. Is that not correct?

That is correct.

But he did not concede that his examination could have taken place one hour after death.

Why, then, is his qualification of his estimate considered so important?

[Herlock Sholmes]

That is correct.

But he did not concede that his examination could have taken place one hour after death.

Why, then, is his qualification of his estimate considered so important?

He conceded that his estimation could have taken place less than 2 hours after death.

[Doctored Whatsit]

That is correct.

But he did not concede that his examination could have taken place one hour after death.

Why, then, is his qualification of his estimate considered so important?

Different people will reach different conclusions, as always. I have said previously that he chose not to offer a revised estimate, which is unfortunate for all of us, because that might have prevented this entire discussion!

Once he qualified his ToD, and did not offer an alternative, then he allowed the witness evidence to be considered seriously. This surprises me because he was a very experienced person, and would surely have realised this would happen. So if he really didn't think the witness evidence should be treated seriously, why did he not give a revised ToD, and make his opinion clear to the Coroner? I find his silence rather strange, and unexpected. His qualification demanded a second ToD estimate to clarify his opinion, and we didn't get it.

Anyway, as fascinating as this is, it's bedtime, goodnight!

[Fleetwood Mac]

The importance behind claiming 'Dr Phillips stated he could have been wrong when giving his TOD range' is that it is an attempt to claim Dr Phillips wasn't firm in his belief of 'at least two hours and probably more'. From there, it is used to negate the likelihood of an earlier TOD.

The question put to Dr Phillips was not 'could you be wrong?', rather it was: 'how long had the deceased been dead when you saw her?'. Whether or not Dr Phillips 'could have been wrong' was irrelevant given that we can all be wrong in any and every situation.

Of course Dr Phillips could have been wrong, of course Dr Phillips knew he could have been wrong. There are no absolute truths in this world and Dr Phillips was an educated man who would have known that.

In the context of this discussion, however, there is a big difference between Dr Phillips knowing he could have been wrong and Dr Phillips stating he could have been wrong in that sentence. The reason being, it manipulates his firm belief of 'at least two hours' into something entirely different and far more whimsical and more easily brushed aside.

[Wickerman]

You know what a caveat is, and you know Phillips provided his caveat.
You also know why a caveat is offered in any statement, so you know Phillips thought his reply to the coroner's question required a caveat.
So, why the question?

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Why would Phillips have amended his original estimate, the one he told Chandler, by adding his qualification?

It is not as though he was not aware of the coldness of the environment and loss of blood when he made his original assessment.

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff,

In reply to your # 5848: I did suggest that probably more referred to whole numbers, but I think you may have gathered from the fact that I cited his estimate of the length of the weapon, again using probably more, that I had changed my mind.

As far as I can see, in your long discussion about temperature, you did not mention rigor mortis.

No, I didn't mention rigor mortis, so you didn't miss seeing it.

According to Phillips, it had just commenced, was not marked, and affected more than one limb.

Yes. But rigor mortis is even worse an estimation marker than internal core body temperature. Temperature based calculations can, at least, be performed with objective measures of temperature (doesn't mean Phillips collected those objective measures of course, but there are reasons for us to consider the possibility that he did).

While we know his conclusion is that rigor was commencing in the limbs, we do not know on what basis he came to that conclusion. Did he test one limb, and use that as a general indication of the others (because, if it was just commencing, it might be he detected stiffness in one limb and knowing that rigor does not follow a uniform pattern, figure that not detecting it in another just means it hasn't quite reached that stage in that limb yet).

The processes that lead to rigor mortis begin at the moment of death, so technically rigor mortis commences at the time of death, although that is obviously not how one would speak of it (but given the tendency lately for people to ignore how people speak, and to apply pedantic definitions, then if it was just commencing Dr. Phillips could be arguing she was killed only moments before his arrival - this, to me, is a good example of why such approaches to testimony are unhelpful, but I digress).

Full rigor, not just commencing, can arise in under 2 hours, and it can be delayed by quite some time as well. Moreover, unlike temperature, there is no objective measure of it (I believe there was one group working on trying to come up with one, based upon how much force was required to bend a limb, or something like that? But even if so, there certainly wasn't such a measure even thought of at the time).

So rigor mortis is always a subjective judgement. Obviously, in full rigor, there will not be any variation in those subjective judgements. On the other hand, he does not it was "not marked" and "just commencing", so we know that to Dr. Phillips whatever limb he tested must have felt a bit stiff to him. It's those early judgements where medical opinion is likely to vary a great deal, and another doctor might have felt it was not yet stiff. We do have to consider that, because subjective judgements of weak signals (which this is) are highly variable between even experts.

If Dr. Phillips is highly sensitive to detecting rigor mortis onset, then that would mean he's likely to detect it earlier in its progression. If he's simply liberal in his judgements, he may be more prone to say he's detected it than another doctor who may be more conservative.

Whether or not the stiffness that Dr. Phillips reports was rigor mortis or not would require tracking it over time. If that stiffness did not start to increase until a few hours later, for example, than the stiffness he detected was not the onset of rigor mortis. What I mean is, how "stiff" a limb is to move can reflect things like stiffness of the person's joints or tendons in general. Human bodies are not built to industry standards, and people vary on these dimensions as well, meaning at the time of death itself, one persons limbs can feel stiffer than another's. Without having tracked over time the progression of the stiffness, we cannot be sure that what Dr. Phillips reports as a "not marked" stiffness was actually rigor mortis. All we know is that he felt her limbs were slightly more stiff to move than is typical, which may or may not mean it was rigor mortis. Obviously it might be rigor mortis, we can't say it wasn't (nor am I suggesting that), but it would be an error on our part to unquestionably accept that what he detected was rigor mortis. He doesn't report tracking it over time, and so we do not know if that observation progressed as it should if it was rigor mortis.

If it did increase over time, as rigor mortis would, given the case-by-case variability in the progression of rigor mortis (much like the case-by-case variation in how the core temperature cools), his observation does not preclude either of the times under question.

Below I've shown the data from a study that tracked the time post mortem until "full rigor" was achieved. It is not a very large sample size, but it's illustrative. Note that 50% of cases reached full rigor by 5 hours post mortem. Around 12-13% of cases reach full rigor by 3 hours post mortem. This is the time for "full rigor mortis", though, so clearly rigor mortis onset must start well before reaching "full rigor" (barring the very rare cases where there is "instant rigor mortis", none of which appear in this data set, reflecting how uncommon it is and the small sample size). If rigor (in just about 1.7% of cases) can reach completion in 2 hours, and in 50% it is reached in just under 5 hours (it's 53% by 5 hours in this data set), then rigor mortis must have commenced before 2 hours in the first cases, and it's highly likely that it would be detectable before 2 hours even in the 5 hour cases. Unfortunately, I've been unable to find any proper studies regarding either the "inter-rater reliability" for the onset of the rigor mortis or the time course of onset detection, but given the below variability in reaching full rigor mortis, if one were to use the average time (5 hours 41 minutes) to reach full rigor as the estimate for the ToD, then the range of error here would be from 3.41 minutes over estimation out to 7 hours 29 minutes under estimation, but over 50% of the estimations would be over estimations (because the median time for full rigor mortis is just under 5 hours).

The variability of the onset of rigor is likely to follow a similar pattern, although I caution viewing that statement as anything other than a hypothesis given at the moment I do not actually have any such data to work with.

These observations dispose of the theory that the signs of rigor mortis had been caused by cadaveric spasm.

I believe those are rare, so that does weigh against them. However, without being positive that Dr. Phillips tested and detected stiffness in multiple limbs, as opposed to detecting stiffness in only one limb and therefore concluding that rigor mortis was progressing in all of them (which, of course, it would be even if one can't detect it yet), means it remains a slight possibility that cannot be disposed of quite so quickly.

Given it's rarity, though, weighs against it as "the explanation". I don't know enough about them to know under what circumstances death has to occur to increase their probability though. If Annie's murder is a situation that makes them more probable, then they may be rare overall because deaths like Annie's are rare.

Phillips' estimate of two hours was a standard estimate which has not changed in 135 years since.

How could it? That's what he said at the inquest. (and what do you mean by a "standard estimate"? I don't understand what you're getting at there).

It is not carved in stone, but it is a reasonable estimate.

It's an entirely reasonable estimate, and I hope I didn't give the impression it wasn't. Personally, given the circumstances, I think he's done a really good job of it even if she was killed at 5:25-5:30ish. It would mean he got to within an hour of the actual ToD (presuming here the later ToD), which is very good. In some studies, being within 1 hour is coded as "being correct" because of how inaccurate these estimates are.

There is no evidence that Chapman ate anything after eating a potato at 1.50 a.m., and yet there was food in her stomach at death.

There's no evidence she didn't eat anything either, because her actions between leaving the doss house alive and being found dead are unknown. Moreover, there was only small amounts of food found still in the stomach, which are never identified as potatoes. If that residual food stuff was anything other than potatoes it would constitute evidence she at something else.

Furthermore, gastric emptying (emptying of the stomach), isn't like cleaning out a bathtub. The stomach will work out the bulk of the food, but some will remain behind for long periods of time. Given the information we have, there is nothing about finding traces of some food in her stomach that indicates she must have been killed prior to 4:30. One could argue, in fact, that given there wasn't more material found in her stomach, and given it wasn't identified as potatoes, more rather than less time must have passed.

The problem with either of those lines of argument, though, always comes down to the fact that we cannot be sure of the last time she ate something. We know she was eating potatoes around 1:45ish, but we cannot be sure that was the last time she ate.

For example, we see something similar in Kelly's murder, where the remains of an identifiable meal was found in her stomach contents (fish and potatoes). We have nothing that tells us when she ate that meal. There is no testimony by anyone anywhere about seeing her eating that meal. But, clearly she did. And given it was identifiable as fish and potatoes, it seems probable that Kelly was killed closer to her last meal than Annie was (but again, it's only probable given the amount of variation in such things).

Cooked potato is very digestible and there is general agreement that it should have left the stomach after about an hour.

The remains of food in her stomach are not identified as potatoes though, that's our assumption because it is the only thing that we have recorded that she ate. We do not know what she did after leaving the doss house, so we cannot be sure that what was found was even related to the potatoes she at at 1:45ish.

I believe, and I could be mistaken on this, that the potatoes were baked potatoes? If so, the skin of a jacket potato takes longer to digest than the internal portion, and so the unidentified material very easily could be the remains of the potato skins.

Regardless, emptying the stomach does not mean completely devoid of any food material. That's not how it works. Small amounts of food will remain in the stomach for long periods of time.

Like Eddowes, she had been drinking, and like Eddowes, she had her intestines thrown over her right shoulder.

Weather conditions were similar.

It seems both had been strangled.

Eddowes was examined about 42 minutes after death, was still warm and rigor mortis had not yet commenced.

Eddowes and Chapman are two different specific cases and drawing inferences from one to the other is to base inferences on anecdotal information - this is simply not the way it is done due to the high probability of drawing the incorrect conclusion when one does so. There are many factors that differ between the cases, for example. Eddowes appears to have been wearing more clothing than Chapman, which would slow down the cooling. Furthermore, we're again dealing with subjective descriptions of temperature, which are only at best (and this is being generous) related to objective measures. A while back I posted an article that looked at the relationship between witnesses subjective descriptive terms (i.e. warm/cool/cold; tall/short; thin/fat/large; etc) and actual objective measurements. In the end, there was little to no usable information to be drawn from the subjective terms because people's use of them is highly individualistic. This also applies to experts. So while it may be hard to accept, the common sense approach to witness statement evaluation is simply what we resort to when we don't understand how witness statements work.

It is possible that potato remained in Chapman's stomach for three and three-quarter hours, that rigor mortis set in after about an hour, and that her body cooled unusually quickly.

But it is unlikely.

Actually, none of those things are unlikely at all, certainly not so unlikely that they constitute reason to exclude the later ToD, either alone or even in combination.

Medical evidence like this is not an exact science. It produces ranges of times, and those ranges are in the order of multiple hours. They are not useless, of course, but they cannot, and should not, be viewed with an undue level of precision.

Dr. Phillips estimate of a ToD around 4:30 is, in fact, an impressively good estimate even if Annie were killed at 5:25-5:30. He's done a very good job if that is the case. Obviously, if she was killed at 4:30 he's done even better, but the point is, that his estimate is an equally very good one whether she was killed at 3:30 or 5:30, and his estimate cannot be viewed as inconsistent with the ToD one would infer from the witness statements.

There is, therefore, no conflict to resolve between the witnesses and Dr. Phillips, and to say there is is to be wrong. That's not a debatable point, that's just how this sort of information works. To be clear, just because there is no conflict does not guarantee the ToD must be 5:25-5:30ish, and that's not what I'm saying. I am just saying that Dr. Phillips estimation and the witnesses are not in conflict, and so arguments based upon pitting Dr. Phillips against the witnesses are flawed (basically, they are wrong, there is no conflict).

- Jeff

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

You know what a caveat is, and you know Phillips provided his caveat.
You also know why a caveat is offered in any statement, so you know Phillips thought his reply to the coroner's question required a caveat.
So, why the question?

I refer you to # 5878.

Why would Phillips think his reply to the coroner's question required a caveat, when he did not think of the caveat when giving his opinion to Chandler?