Witness Testimony: Albert Cadosche

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

But now you say that it wasn't your intention to suggest that nobody coming forth implies she wasn't seen.

So why did you include such things if, as you now claim, you recognize that nobody coming forth does not mean she wasn't alive?

I argued that it is unlikely that Chapman

may have wandered about for three and a half hours without anyone noticing her and reporting having seen her

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

In a period of time that is a complete blank the suggestions that Annie might or might not have eaten are of equal value

The suggestion that you made, that Chapman may have slept outside next to a friend who offered her food, which she then ate, is not of equal value to the suggestion that, being broke and desperate for money, and, having just eaten, her sole aim was, as she had said, to earn enough money to pay for a bed for the rest of the night, and that she was murdered before she could eat again.

No such friend ever came forward.

[Wickerman]

Well if that is correct it just proves my point about the unreliability of newspaper reports do you have a copy of that official telegram? If it is not now in existence we can only discuss the conflicting newspaper reports

As for proving your point, I would say not.
Your view appears to be that none are reliable, that we can't trust any press report.
Yet, one of them is correct, and you are dismissing it along with all the incorrect ones.
It only takes a bit of work, collating all the variations, understanding just how many original reports were published, then which newspapers copied each other.
We can narrow it down, until we end up with one example that fits the requirements.

As opposed to your approach of throwing them all out and replacing the report with some speculation of your own.

Do you know what a telegram from 1888 actually looks like, would you be able to judge, or even accept it as factual?

[rjpalmer]

Being broke at 1.50 a.m. would make it unlikely.

Hello P.I. -- A small, but relevant point. You constantly refer to Chapman as being "broke." Can I ask: what is your source for this?

The last person to see her at the lodging house was John Evans, the deputy.

Here are two accounts of his deposition:



And:




Do you concede that there is an important distinction between "not having sufficient money" and being entirely "broke"?

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Hello P.I. -- A small, but relevant point. You constantly refer to Chapman as being "broke." Can I ask: what is your source for this?

Do you concede that there is an important distinction between "not having sufficient money" and being entirely "broke"?

I did write that she was almost broke because she may have had something left.

As I pointed out, the amount of money given to her by her sister would have just about covered the cost of the potatoes and beer she bought.

I suggest that had she had rather more than that then she would have been able to afford something rather more substantial than potatoes.

It may be that she intended to put whatever was left towards the cost of her bed.

She must have been almost broke.

[Herlock Sholmes]

No food was found on her person.


There wouldn’t have been if she’d eaten it.



Why did the friend not come forward?

Two obvious reasons come to mind. If the friend was a prostitute or even just someone from the same social class there was a reluctance to trust or to get involved with the police. Also that person would naturally have understood that her ‘evidence’ would have been little more than background and wouldn’t have been any use in identifying the killer. So what incentive would she have had for coming forward?

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Two obvious reasons come to mind. If the friend was a prostitute or even just someone from the same social class there was a reluctance to trust or to get involved with the police. Also that person would naturally have understood that her ‘evidence’ would have been little more than background and wouldn’t have been any use in identifying the killer. So what incentive would she have had for coming forward?

You wrote:

it wouldn’t have been at all unusual for her to have had some item of food on her person.


but there is no evidence to support what you wrote.


You say she may have eaten the food on her person.

That is very convenient.


You then come up with an excuse as to why a friend of hers would not have come forward, based on her class.

Yet there were witnesses who testified at the inquests of the victims, and they were not exactly members of the aristocracy.

Neither of your arguments is valid.

[Trevor Marriott]

As for proving your point, I would say not.
Your view appears to be that none are reliable, that we can't trust any press report.
Yet, one of them is correct, and you are dismissing it along with all the incorrect ones.
It only takes a bit of work, collating all the variations, understanding just how many original reports were published, then which newspapers copied each other.
We can narrow it down, until we end up with one example that fits the requirements.

And how do you that the one you finish up with is the correct version?

As opposed to your approach of throwing them all out and replacing the report with some speculation of your own.

Where am I speculating I originally asked if there was any corroboration to the newspaper reports. The purpose of asking that question may have been a pointer to the actual TOD

Do you know what a telegram from 1888 actually looks like, would you be able to judge, or even accept it as factual?

Well when you produce what you believe to be the telegram I might accept it as being factual

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[rjpalmer]

It may be that she intended to put whatever was left towards the cost of her bed.

She must have been almost broke.

Excellent. So, you concede that she wasn't broke, but she may well have had some money left?

How did you make your calculations? We are only told that she came back with "potatoes." That could mean two, it could mean three or more. We don't have sufficient data to know for certain. So, from the outset, our calculations cannot be precise.

But let's make a go of it. Let's believe her story about receiving 5d from her sister in Vauxhall. There is a fair amount of data showing that a pint of beer could be had for 2d. I have an article from 1884 that states one could get a baked potato in a pub for a halfpenny. If she bought three potatoes and a pint of beer earlier, that comes to 3 1/2d.

Leaving her 1 1/2d which would be "insufficient" for her bed. This can only be a rough estimate, however.

According an 1886 article, "a military man's complaint," one could get a small meal for 1 1/2 d --bread and cheese. One can find other prices for food in 1888 if one looks. So not impossible that she had another small meal.

Meanwhile, bear in mind that while Dr. Phillips said he found a 'little food' in her stomach, Wynne Baxter at summation described it as a 'meal.' One account even states a "full meal." Seeing that her stomach was cut in half--some over the left shoulder and some over the right shoulder--the conditions weren't exactly ideal.

Somewhat oddly, while the medicos in the Kelly and Mylett case described the exact nature of the food found in the victim's stomach, we get no such description in Chapman's cases, so we are left blundering around in the dark.

Based on the data posted by Jeff Hamm on another thread--based on 500 cases of food found in the stomach during post-mortems and the great variation in amount and time it had spent in the stomach--I would suggest the 'potato' argument is hopelessly inconclusive and needs to be abandoned.

Was it even potatoes that Phillips found? How long does it take a potato skin to make its way out of the stomach? What was found in the small intestine?

We don't know. We don't know. We don't know. There is no use in pretending we know more than we actually do know, and then arguing forward from a position of ignorance, is there?

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Excellent. So, you concede that she wasn't broke, but she may well have had some money left?

There is a fair amount of data showing that a pint of beer could be had for 2d.

Do you concede that she was almost broke?

I read that a beer cost about 3 1/2 pence, but it could have been less.

Why would Chapman have spent the very little she had left on potatoes when she had already eaten?

If you think the whole subject is irrelevant, why do I have to concede that she may have had tuppence left rather than zeropence in order to earn a commendation from you?

[Wickerman]

Well when you produce what you believe to be the telegram I might accept it as being factual

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

My point was to query if you are qualified to judge?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Again, when I present an argument, you try to discredit it by claiming that it is an incorrect assumption.

I have never assumed that the clocks were all reading the same time.

As for your further claim that I am assuming that JtR would have washed his hands rather than simply wipe them on her clothes, I suggest you take up your objections to supposed assumptions with Wolf Vanderlinden.


There is one more interesting observation. If you believe that the killer murdered Annie Chapman at 5:30 that morning, you have to wonder at his bloodstained appearance as he walked the bustling streets on a market morning. I don't mean that he would be covered in blood but certainly his hands would have been bloody and merely wiping them would not make them clean. He took a huge and seemingly unnecessary risk since there was a water tap just feet away from him in the backyard at Hanbury Street. A tap which he didn't use. Perhaps he was afraid that the sound of flowing water might draw attention. There was, however, a convenient pan of water lying just underneath the tap and all he had to do was to dip his hands into the pan. He didn't do this either. Why? Perhaps it was because he didn't see the tap or the pan in the complete darkness that enveloped the yard at about, oh, let us say 3:30 to 4:30 a.m.? A time consistent with Dr. Phillips' opinion on the time of death.

https://www.casebook.org/dissertations/rn-doubt.html

That is just one of many arguments in favour of an earlier time of death.

They are not, as you make them out to be, mere assumptions.

That’s exactly what they are.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

That’s exactly what they are.

They are not assumptions.

They are logical arguments, based on evidence, unlike the arguments you put forward.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I think I have found a great example of where people (especially before wrist watches were commonly available) had different perceptions of time. I was reading an entry on another thread, (When and how was it made public that Eddowes gave the fake name Mary Ann Kelly?)

When I saw the press article from

Casebook: Jack the Ripper - Pall Mall Gazette - 11 October 1888

Police constable Roberts deposed that on Sunday night, at ten minutes to nine, before the murder, the deceased was lying on the footway in High-street, Aldgate, drunk, and surrounded by a crowd of people. He set her up against the shutters and she fell down again. He obtained assistance and conveyed her to he Bishopsgate police-station, when she was asked what her name was. She replied, "Nothing!" She was then wearing an apron which he identified as the one produced, a portion of which was found on the body and another portion in Goulston-street after the murder.

P.C. Bifield said he remembered the deceased being brought into the station on the Saturday night at about quarter to nine o'clock, drunk. She remained at the station until one o'clock in the morning and gave her name as being Mary Ann Kelly, of Fashion-street. Deceased told him she had been hopping in Kent.

These are the reports from two Police Officers. The arresting Officer PC Roberts states that Eddowes was drunk on the pavement at ten minutes to nine and PC Bifield at the station states that he remembers Eddowes being brought into the station at about quarter to nine!

Now bearing in mind Eddowes has to be conveyed to the police station drunk clearly the times are well out. Possible by 15-20 minutes. The actual day is described as either Saturday or Sunday

There is only one arrest of the drunken Eddowes. There is a large discrepancy of times. These mistakes may have been made by the officers or the press. However what this tells us is that there are mistakes in the reported times, by witnesses, officers, the press etc.

It still happened. We must try to be less worrying about trying to get times spot on. We will never achieve this.

Yes times are important but more important when investigating a period where there are question marks over exact timings is what people actually witnessed. If we were to start looking at the precise time when Eddowes was actually arrested and taken to the police station then we would start to pull that apart to no real end.

Lets look at what we have with Chapman disregarding exact timing, see if we have leads as a result of this and see where we go

Lets also look at other possibilities with different suggested times and lets see where the various routes take us

NW

Excellent point NW. Note the complete lack of response on this point from those who find it close to impossible to allow for a margin for error on timings. Those that think that it’s somehow manipulating the evidence to make this elementary allowance.

[Herlock Sholmes]

The suggestion that you made, that Chapman may have slept outside next to a friend who offered her food, which she then ate, is not of equal value to the suggestion that, being broke and desperate for money, and, having just eaten, her sole aim was, as she had said, to earn enough money to pay for a bed for the rest of the night, and that she was murdered before she could eat again.

No such friend ever came forward.

No response required. This is way paste a joke.