Witness Testimony: Albert Cadosche

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Lawende and Levy differed by three or four minutes simply on how long it took them to actually get out of the pub from a base time of getting up to leave at 1.30.

I don't think it's fair to compare the police activity at Mitre Square, knowing their behaviour at the scene would be questioned in court and times would be important to keep track of ...

I do not know where you get that discrepancy between Lawende's and Levy's evidence from.

And you think it was possible for the police to keep track of times by means of something like the post office clock?

[JeffHamm]

Which is not a reflection of the article/research. This is what they conclude:

Previous research has suggested that humans may have superior visual memory, and that hearing words associated with sounds -- rather than hearing the sounds alone -- may aid memory. Bigelow and Poremba's study builds upon those findings by confirming that, indeed, we remember less of what we hear, regardless of whether sounds are linked to words.

The point is, and was, 'remember less of what we hear'.

You actually have to look at the research methods in order to understand the conclusions they present. Memory research is a bit complicated I'm afraid, and the aspects of it being investigated in these studies are not related to Cadosche's situation.

The other studies you mentioned are of more relevance, the work by Loftus and others, but as I've mentioned before, we can't really assess the testimonies without actually knowing what the interview questions were, or what news/conversations (if any) Cadosche was involved in. For all we know he was simply told there was "a murder next door this morning", and he immediately recalled hearing people talking in the yard next door and that something bumped the fence. Or, on the other extreme, he got into long and extensive conversations about it, was told all sorts of details, read the paper, etc, and from that built up an entirely false memory as he tried and tried to recall if he noticed anything when he went to the loo. Obviously, neither of those violate the principles of the universe, so either is possible. We have no information to indicate which of those is the more close to the actual situation that occurred, and if I were forced to guess, I would say the "truth" is somehwere between those two extremes.

Anyway, you're on the wrong track with these recent studies. They don't test the aspects of memory that would apply here.

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

We have a quote on here from an expert who said that you’d be lucky to find a clock less than ten minutes out in Victorian London.

(HS)



Here are the timings for the Mitre Square murder:

At 1.28, Harvey was in Church Passage.
He saw no-one.

At 1.30, Watkins saw no-one in Mitre Square.

At 1.35, Lawende saw the couple in Church Passage.
According to Levy, it was at about 1.34.

At 1.40, Harvey was in Church Passage.
He saw no-one.

At 1.44, Watkins found the body in Mitre Square.
He called on the watchman Morris.
According to Morris, that was at about 1:45.

At 1.55, Inspector Collard, at Bishopsgate Police Station, received news of the murder.
He dispatched a constable to Gordon Brown, informing him of the murder.
He himself proceeded to Mitre Square.

Shortly after 2:00 AM Dr Brown was informed of the murder.

Dr Sequeira said that he arrived in Mitre Square at 1:55.

At 2.02 or 2.03, Inspector Collard arrived in Mitre Square, where he saw Dr Seqeira with the body.
He said that Dr Brown arrived shortly afterwards.
Dr Brown said that he arrived at about 2:20.


They do not support the claim made by your expert.

No one is suggesting that times couldn’t match up at times. Someone of them would have taken the same clock as their original source. But that aside, would you claim that modern day clocks couldn’t be 5 or 6 minutes out? Or that modern clocks are all synchronised? If the answer to those two questions are ‘no,’ and they certainly should be ‘no,’ then I fail to see why you or anyone else should refuse to allow a similar margin for error in clocks and watches in a late Victorian slum?

This really shouldn’t require discussion PI.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Lawende gave a much more detailed description of the man than any Long gave.

In particular, he described the jacket worn by the man, whereas Long was uncertain of the colour of the man's coat.

She did not actually give any description of the woman in her testimony, as it is recorded.

Lawende could hardly have estimated the colours of the man's cap, cap peak, neckerchief, jacket, and moustache, if he had paid almost no attention.

And yet according to the criteria applied by the modern day police force he was less reliable than Long. You’ll have to take that one up with the police force.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Aye, 'like two things'.

That's what the qualified people are telling you. As said, human memory doesn't work in the way you're assuming. The articles are there for you to read.

When you accept without question actual, across-the-board, forensic expertise (without claiming to know better) then perhaps I’ll read those pointless exercises in theoretical tedium.

[Herlock Sholmes]

You have it the wrong way round.

You are told by the witnesses that their times contradict one another. That is pointed out to you and your reply is: "you make it sound.....".

No, nobody is making it sound like anything except you.

You're the one manipulating what has been left to us.

Anyone who claims that it’s somehow far-fetched to make a reasonable allowance in margins for error in timings and for poorly synchronised clocks doesn’t deserve to have an opinion. They should simply shut up.

All that your doing is bending over backwards to dishonestly try and demonise witnesses because you’ve dogmatically decided that Doctor Phillips was 135 years ahead of his time. Your comments reek of desperation and bias. Chapman was killed at around 5.25/5.30. To say that the evidence points to earlier is the definition of cluelessness.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Yes, if there is conflicting evidence the coroner will & does draw attention to it.
Here coroner Baxter admits a discrepancy of approx. 15 minutes is not of any real significance.

Baxter may have been a bit too determined to create a coherent timeline of events

[GBinOz]

The other studies you mentioned are of more relevance, the work by Loftus and others, but as I've mentioned before, we can't really assess the testimonies without actually knowing what the interview questions were, or what news/conversations (if any) Cadosche was involved in. For all we know he was simply told there was "a murder next door this morning", and he immediately recalled hearing people talking in the yard next door and that something bumped the fence. Or, on the other extreme, he got into long and extensive conversations about it, was told all sorts of details, read the paper, etc, and from that built up an entirely false memory as he tried and tried to recall if he noticed anything when he went to the loo. Obviously, neither of those violate the principles of the universe, so either is possible. We have no information to indicate which of those is the more close to the actual situation that occurred, and if I were forced to guess, I would say the "truth" is somewhere between those two extremes.

- Jeff

Hi Jeff,

I think that we both acknowledge that most of our discussions on Jack are heavily interspersed with guesses and speculation. My conjecture on Cadosch is that he may have built some false memories based on what he read in the news media, and what he thought might reasonably have happened, rather than his conversations with police..

To illustrate I'll use the example of
Lloyd's Weekly News 9 Sep:
An important statement, throwing considerable light on a point hitherto surrounded with some uncertainty - the time the crime was committed in Buck's-row, or the body deposited there - was made on Thursday by Mrs. Harriet Lilley, who lives two doors from the spot where the deceased was discovered. Mrs. Lilley said: I slept in the front of the house, and could hear everything that occurred in the street. On that Thursday night I was somehow very restless. Well, I heard something I mentioned to my husband in the morning. It was a painful moan - two or three faint gasps - and then it passed away. It was dark, but a luggage train went by as I heard the sounds. There was, too, a sound as of whispers underneath the window. I distinctly heard voices, but cannot say what was said - it was too faint. I then woke my husband, and said to him, "I don't know what possesses me, but I cannot sleep to-night." Mrs. Lilley added that as soon as she heard of the murder she came to the conclusion that the voices she heard were in some way connected with it.

Mrs Lilley said she heard whispers, too faint to determine what was said, then a moan and gasps - pretty much as would be expected would have happened. But she heard these faint sounds over the noise of a passing freight train. As with other witnesses, the news of a murder immediately produces a connection to that event, on the basis of they were there so they must have witnessed something.

Anyway, I have had an interest in the nature of memory since the 1960's, and include in my deliberations the possibility that what Albert testified to hearing may, or may not, have been related to the murder. It is interesting when reading the Lloyd's account, the number of people who, having learned of the murder, remembered suspicious activity. As you say, we can't be certain either way, but can still retain the right to speculate and agree to disagree.

Best regards, George

[Wickerman]

I did not see the man's face, but I noticed that he was dark.

(Elizabeth Long)

The first known reference to the phrase "tall, dark and handsome" can be found in "The Story of Hester Malpas" published in The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal, 1833.

In that expression, dark seems always to have referred to hair colour.

Note that a witness to the escape of the assailant of Ada Wilson described him as a fair young man and Ada herself said that he had a fair moustache.

Ok, I wasn't sure just the way you worded it.
You're right of course, dark, fair, are hair colours, which must be a misnomer if ever there was one.

The form the police use for describing a suspect gives alternates for Complexion: Fair, Dark or Fresh.

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff,

I think that we both acknowledge that most of our discussions on Jack are heavily interspersed with guesses and speculation. My conjecture on Cadosch is that he may have built some false memories based on what he read in the news media, and what he thought might reasonably have happened, rather than his conversations with police..

To illustrate I'll use the example of
Lloyd's Weekly News 9 Sep:
An important statement, throwing considerable light on a point hitherto surrounded with some uncertainty - the time the crime was committed in Buck's-row, or the body deposited there - was made on Thursday by Mrs. Harriet Lilley, who lives two doors from the spot where the deceased was discovered. Mrs. Lilley said: I slept in the front of the house, and could hear everything that occurred in the street. On that Thursday night I was somehow very restless. Well, I heard something I mentioned to my husband in the morning. It was a painful moan - two or three faint gasps - and then it passed away. It was dark, but a luggage train went by as I heard the sounds. There was, too, a sound as of whispers underneath the window. I distinctly heard voices, but cannot say what was said - it was too faint. I then woke my husband, and said to him, "I don't know what possesses me, but I cannot sleep to-night." Mrs. Lilley added that as soon as she heard of the murder she came to the conclusion that the voices she heard were in some way connected with it.

Mrs Lilley said she heard whispers, too faint to determine what was said, then a moan and gasps - pretty much as would be expected would have happened. But she heard these faint sounds over the noise of a passing freight train. As with other witnesses, the news of a murder immediately produces a connection to that event, on the basis of they were there so they must have witnessed something.

Anyway, I have had an interest in the nature of memory since the 1960's, and include in my deliberations the possibility that what Albert testified to hearing may, or may not, have been related to the murder. It is interesting when reading the Lloyd's account, the number of people who, having learned of the murder, remembered suspicious activity. As you say, we can't be certain either way, but can still retain the right to speculate and agree to disagree.

Best regards, George

Hi George,

Oh, there's nothing wrong with speculating provided one recognizes that is what one is doing! In our conversations, I think we both make a point of indicating when and how we venture into such things.

I think, though, that the example of Lilley above might work a bit against your point though. What she describes is how upon hearing of the murder she made an "inference" that the voices she heard were related to the murder - not that she read of the murder and then suddenly remembered "hearing voices" - the latter could reflect a false memory formation, or of course it could also just be that hearing of the murder cued a valid memory (even if her inference about it was wrong).

However, nobody disputes that a witness may make an incorrect inference in thinking that things they recall are related to the crime when, in fact, they are not. With Lilley, syncing her voices to the time of the crime is not easily done since we don't actually have a very good idea of the time of the Nichols murder. With Cadosche, however, we're not syncing the time so much as the location (his sounds come from the same location as the crime; and at a time that it makes the murder having been committed long before that time all but inconceivable). The only way for Cadosche to have heard sounds at that time and for them not to have been crime related is in the off chance that the voices came from elsewhere. The police did investigate the neighbors yard looking at stains, which were determined not to be bloodstains as originally thought, and it seems highly implausible that they did not question them about their activities that morning. If any of them were outside one would expect that information to have come to light. Sure, it's possible people withheld it, or the police didn't ask, but to me the most natural line of speculation is simply the police made their inquiries, and nobody was out in the yard at that time, cutting down the possible alternative sources for voices at that hour. We have to then speculate the voices came from another yard, and that somehow the aucustics were such that Cadosche just happens to think they probably came from #29. Moreover, we have to add in the speculation that a packing case (or something else) also coincidently shifts just as he returns from the loo - meaning we have to speculate that two sound sources (voices, and a shifting packing case), both coincidently result in him hearing sounds as if they came from #29 even though nobody else in the area was located who was awake at that time in the backyards, and even though there's no obvious source for the packing crate to suddenly shift position into the fence (nor are any packing crates described as being in the vicinity of the body when the body and the items around her are listed).

Cadosche went to the police because he too made the inference that the sounds he heard could be related to the crime (as did Lilley), but that doesn't mean that hearing of the murder "created" his memory for the sounds. it just means that hearing of the murder may have led him to the decision that having heard people in the yard that morning, and later a bump on the fence, that perhaps the police ought to know that. It wouldn't be a leap for him to make that connection. It's not a huge leap for Lilley either, given I believe she indicates she heard voices not all that long before Nichols was found.

I have an interest in memory as well. One of the areas I conduct research in is the formation of simple memories (generally we test recognition of random words that were previously presented for study, some which people are told to remember and some they are told they can forget, and we examine the impact upon the memory trace strength that those instructions have - those sorts of studies, though, aren't going to provide much with regards to witness recollections or testimony reliability as the entire context is quite different and memory in these studies is recognition memory rather than recall, etc).

- Jeff

[Wickerman]

As said, 'appeal to authority' and a fallacious argument.

Baxter's opinion is no more qualified than yours, mine or the fella in the pub having a beer with his dog.

It might have escaped your attention, but the Coroner's decision is final.
The police submit evidence in order to influence his decision one way, or the other.
As the Coroner takes in all the evidence, which includes testimony not captured by the inquest recorder, or the various press in attendance, he knows far more than we do.
There is no opinion superior to that of the coroner at his own inquest.

[rjpalmer]

My conjecture on Cadosch is that he may have built some false memories based on what he read in the news media, and what he thought might reasonably have happened, rather than his conversations with police..

To illustrate I'll use the example of
Lloyd's Weekly News 9 Sep:

Hi George.

It might be useful to return to the nuts & the bolts of what we are up against.

Unlike some of the other witnesses, Cadosch was never at the crime scene. He left for work before the murder was discovered and was gone all day.

According to his deposition at the inquest (see the Daily Telegraph, for instance) he first gave his account to the police when he returned home that night (Saturday, September 8th).

The Lloyd's piece did not appear until the following day, the 9th, so it is difficult to see how it could have influenced his statement, and if his initial statement varied greatly from his later statements, would the police have trusted him and used him?

Further, I think I am right in saying that Lloyd's was the only major London paper that printed a Sunday edition. The other dailies were shut down for the Sabbath, so there was no media blitz that could have warped Cadosch's thinking.

On Monday, when the murder was reported in depth, Cadosch's account was widely reported. So it appears as though he was among the first to be interviewed, long before the story truly had "wings."

Personally, I'm not seeing how his account could have been distorted by the media.

Cheers.

[Wickerman]

Baxter may have been a bit too determined to create a coherent timeline of events

Yes, this was the quote I was thinking about:

"It is not unusual to find inaccuracy in such details, but this variation is not very great or very important."

This was his conclusion after considering the following evidence:

"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."

The meaning of the caveat offered by Phillips is explained by Baxter:

"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."

Considering the confusion of testimony coroner Baxter made perfect sense of the evidence bought before him.

[GBinOz]

Hi George.

It might be useful to return to the nuts & the bolts of what we are up against.

Unlike some of the other witnesses, Cadosch was never at the crime scene. He left for work before the murder was discovered and was gone all day.

According to his deposition at the inquest (see the Daily Telegraph, for instance) he first gave his account to the police when he returned home that night (Saturday, September 8th).

The Lloyd's piece did not appear until the following day, the 9th, so it is difficult to see how it could have influenced his statement, and if his initial statement varied greatly from his later statements, would the police have trusted him and used him?

Further, I think I am right in saying that Lloyd's was the only major London paper that printed a Sunday edition. The other dailies were shut down for the Sabbath, so there was no media blitz that could have warped Cadosch's thinking.

On Monday, when the murder was reported in depth, Cadosch's account was widely reported. So it appears as though he was among the first to be interviewed, long before the story truly had "wings."

Personally, I'm not seeing how his account could have been distorted by the media.

Cheers.

Hi RJ,

Here is the link to The Star published Sat Sep 8, 1888.

https://www.casebook.org/press_reports/star/s880908.html

While Richardson left to go to work before the murder was discovered at around 6am, The Star on the 8th is reporting an interview with Richardson who stated that he was told about the murder at 6.20am. While Cadosch stated that he went to the police after work, we don't know when he was told, or read about, what happened at #29 that morning. Cadosch's account was reported in Lloyd's on the 9th, so it is possible that he spoke to Lloyd's just before or just after he spoke to the police. Both The Star on the 8th and Lloyd's on the 9th contained highly descriptive in depth reports of the circumstances surrounding the murder and reports of suspicious behaviour by perceived suspects. Cadosch's initial account was just about exactly what would be expected to have happened according to the press report (conversation, protest, scuffle, heavy fall against the fence), and was in variance with his inquest testimony (single word, no scuffle, a "sort of a fall against the fence" "as if something touched the fence suddenly") where he said that he didn't hear anything out of the ordinary.

When I deliberate on witnesses I look at how closely their inquest testimony matches their initial story, whether their story is credible, and are there alternate explanations for their witnessed observations. But that is only part of the puzzle. For instance, I find it odd that the only person to report seeing Annie in the four hours that she was missing was a woman to whom she was a complete stranger. There was one report of her being seen in a pub but that was found to be without basis. All the factors together, to me, form a preponderance of evidence and my probability scale is presently just slightly off level.

Cheers, George

[Fiver]

Lawende gave a much more detailed description of the man than any Long gave.

In particular, he described the jacket worn by the man, whereas Long was uncertain of the colour of the man's coat.

She did not actually give any description of the woman in her testimony, as it is recorded.

Lawende could hardly have estimated the colours of the man's cap, cap peak, neckerchief, jacket, and moustache, if he had paid almost no attention.

More detailed either means Lawende had particularly good night vision and well above average memory or it means that Lawende's memory did more filling in the blanks than other witnesses.

Levy didn't claim to have noticed as much, but he disagreed with Lawende about the man's height. It's quite possible that Levy was right.