Witness Testimony: Albert Cadosche

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

He meant the cooler morning could have accelerated the onset of rigor, so a body found dead after 30 mins might be in a state of rigor that reflects the standard 2 hours, not 30 minutes.
This is what I think he meant, it's a further complication because the opposite is true.
Cold delays the onset of rigor, so that after 30 minutes no rigor should be perceptible.

That is the point I made in #314, and which I made months ago on another thread.

All that being said, her body began to show signs of rigor mortis within the first hour of her death, which suggested to Phillips's knowledge of the current literature means she must have died about 2 hours before he first saw her.

You are making an assumption - are you not?

[Lewis C]

You are not going by the evidence, which is that she went to a particular place indoors to eat and drink and then went out with the sole intention of finding a customer and returning.

You are speculating that she ate again later, when the evidence suggests otherwise.

Again, the preponderance of opinion cited online is that rigor mortis would appear after two hours or even longer.

One hour is also cited as possible, but not less.

You have cited doctors according to whom it is possible for it to set in after half an hour.

But most of the estimates you cite are 1-2 hours or 2-4 hours.

That does not make one hour or, still less, less than a hour, likely.

Phillips' estimate is a fair one.

There's no evidence about whether or not she ate when she was out. To say that she ate while she was out would be speculating, and to say that she didn't eat while she was out would be speculating. Just because her purpose in going out was to find a customer doesn't mean that she didn't so anything besides that while she was out.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

There's no evidence about whether or not she ate when she was out. To say that she ate while she was out would be speculating, and to say that she didn't eat while she was out would be speculating. Just because her purpose in going out was to find a customer doesn't mean that she didn't so anything besides that while she was out.

We have a sighting of her eating and drinking indoors, and then going out for an entirely different purpose, intending to return as soon as she had acquired the money for a bed.

That suggests no intention - quite apart from the means - of acquiring more food.

There is no sighting of her acquiring any food, let alone eating it, afterwards.

The evidence suggests she did not eat after going out.

That is not speculation!

[Lewis C]

We have a sighting of her eating and drinking indoors, and then going out for an entirely different purpose, intending to return as soon as she had acquired the money for a bed.

That suggests no intention - quite apart from the means - of acquiring more food.

There is no sighting of her acquiring any food, let alone eating it, afterwards.

The evidence suggests she did not eat after going out.

That is not speculation!

To eat, she wouldn't necessarily have b=needed to acquire more food, and people's intentions often change. There's no evidence for what she did while she was out, so we don't know what she did. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

[JeffHamm]

We have a sighting of her eating and drinking indoors, and then going out for an entirely different purpose, intending to return as soon as she had acquired the money for a bed.

That suggests no intention - quite apart from the means - of acquiring more food.

There is no sighting of her acquiring any food, let alone eating it, afterwards.

The evidence suggests she did not eat after going out.

That is not speculation!

The evidence does not suggest she did not eat after going out.

The evidence suggests she ate potatoes before going out (unless, as per the theme of this thread, the witness's memory for that is wrong).

The evidence indicates some food was found in her stomach at autopsy (unless, as per the theme of this thread, the witness's memory is wrong and they're remembering a different autopsy they did - ok, I'm being a bit tongue in check here, I just finished 7 days of exam marking, my head is a bit out of sort - sorry).

The evidence does not tell us that the food found in her stomach was potatoes.

Some have argued potatoes eaten at the Doss House should not be found in her stomach if she was killed at 5:25. - Let's accept this as true (it's not, but hey, as I said, my head is a bit out of sorts).

Since the evidence doesn't tell us the food is potatoes that was found in her stomach at autopsy, that means it could be anything. Therefore, given the chances of anything being potatoes is small, the odds would favour the food being "not potatoes".

So doesn't that mean the evidence actually favours the idea she must have eaten something after the potatoes? (or, the idea that finding some unidentifiable food in the stomach many hours after ingestion of even fairly easily digestiable foodstuffs, like potatoes, isn't really as improbable as you make it out to be is simply wrong - as the research I've posted, and referred to many times, on this issue has shown?)

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

I have no intention of moving on.

I do not accept that Phillips' estimate was unreliable.

That is for you yet to prove.

Then you’re simply disputing the expertise of the worlds authorities on the subject PI. The men and women who write the standard textbooks on the subject. Perhaps you should inform them of their errors?

[Trevor Marriott]

Furthermore, according to K.S. Narayan Reddy, author of 'Essentials of Forensic Medicine', "In death from diseases causing great exhaustion and wasting e.g. cholera, typhoid, tuberculosis and cancer and in violent deaths as by cut throats, firearms or electrocution, the onset of rigor is early and duration is short"

(HS)


The stiffness of the limbs was then well-marked.

(Dr Phillips on the state of rigor mortis about nine hours after first noting rigor mortis.)


That suggests that Chapman's tuberculosis and violent death by having her throat cut did not influence the timing of the onset of her rigor mortis.

I will again repost what Dr Biggs states on the subject of rigor mortis which I think is very relevant to the TOD of Chapman

"if the victim is a malnourished, slight, alcoholic female then rigor mortis may be less pronounced than might be expected, and so detection of rigor mortis in such an individual may indicate a longer time has elapsed since death.)

The last part specifically applies to Chapman and is an accurate description of how she was described by Dr Phillips when he carried out the original post-mortem.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Herlock Sholmes]

You are not going by the evidence, which is that she went to a particular place indoors to eat and drink and then went out with the sole intention of finding a customer and returning.

You are speculating that she ate again later, when the evidence suggests otherwise.

Again, the preponderance of opinion cited online is that rigor mortis would appear after two hours or even longer.

One hour is also cited as possible, but not less.

You have cited doctors according to whom it is possible for it to set in after half an hour.

But most of the estimates you cite are 1-2 hours or 2-4 hours.

That does not make one hour or, still less, less than a hour, likely.

Phillips' estimate is a fair one.

I am going by the evidence PI. I’m going by the evidence exactly. We have a gap which I’m hoping that you accept? That gap is a complete absence of knowledge. Neither you nor I nor anyone can say what Annie did or did not or might have or might not have done during that period. But what you’re trying to do is to put yourself into Annie’s shoes but with your own modern day thinking and sensibilities. What I mean by that is that you can’t know how she would have been thinking or how she would have acted. None of us can because none of us are dirt-poor, malnourished, possibly alcoholic, homeless, permanently desperate Victorian prostitutes. Certainly she ate in the doss house kitchen but what we have to bear in mind is that these women didn’t know where the next meal was coming from.

As an hypothetical example, go to a shop and buy a sandwich then offer it to a homeless person. Then repeat it hundreds or even thousands of times. How many times do you think that one of those homeless people is going to say: “no thanks, someone gave me a sandwich which I ate an hour ago”? I’d suggest that none of them would say it. Every single one would accept the food when offered eagerly because, like Annie, they wouldn’t know where the next meal was coming from either.

Annie was undernourished and had eaten some potatoes so hardly a substantial meal. So how can you or I know that she didn’t have a crust of bread on her for example. (Catherine Eddowes had tea and sugar on her because these women had to carry and wear everything that they owned.) And after trudging around unsuccessfully looking for a client she stood in a doorway to eat it. How can you know that she didn’t bump into a friend in a similar position but a friend with some item of food which she shared with her Annie. These women did have friends PI. They showed concern for each other; empathy. There are numerous ways that Annie could have come into some item of food. And to add to the mix we know that certain illnesses can slow down digestion. Lung diseases are one…which Annie suffered from.

Two to four hours is an average range PI. Average means that there will be some higher and some lower. Would you call Annie’s corpse an average one? Even Baxter accepted that a more rapid cooling than he’d estimated could have occurred due to the state of the body.

You can dispute the ToD but I’m afraid that you’re wasting your time trying to do it on forensics PI. All experts will tell you the same. And finally, no one has suggested that Phillips estimation wasn’t a fair one. He was clearly a competent man. And no one has ever said that he couldn’t get an estimation correct. But we really should be accepting by now that we cannot rely on Phillips 4.30 or earlier ToD. Without the witnesses we would have no reason to challenge his estimation. But the experts remind us clearly of his fallibility and then, into the mix, we throw three entirely unconnected witnesses, seeing and hearing entirely different things, with absolutely no reason for dishonesty. This tips the balance massively in favour of a later ToD.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I will again repost what Dr Biggs states on the subject of rigor mortis which I think is very relevant to the TOD of Chapman

"if the victim is a malnourished, slight, alcoholic female then rigor mortis may be less pronounced than might be expected, and so detection of rigor mortis in such an individual may indicate a longer time has elapsed since death.)

The last part specifically applies to Chapman and is an accurate description of how she was described by Dr Phillips when he carried out the original post-mortem.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

And I’ll say again Trevor……MAY.

[Fleetwood Mac]

You misinterpret my post. I in no way disagreed with the research, or the conclusions the authors present in their papers.

I disagree with your notion that this research addresses the issue at hand.

It doesn't because you are similarly misinterpreting the research papers, as I pointed out.

The papers you are mentioning would be more suitable to issues that George has mentioned, such as his suggestion that maybe Cadosche has misrecalled the sound of a packing case hitting the fence rather than the sound of a human; or the suggestion that Long has misrecalled the quarter past chime as being the half hour chime. You are presenting it as if Cadosche has misrecalled hearing sounds at all, which is not what the research is testing. Even these suggestions, though, are debatable as these studies are testing recognition memory and not recall memory, and the two are not identical.

- Jeff

Nowhere did I state that Albert did not hear any sounds. You're making that up.

It's another fallacious argument, straw man fallacy:

The critic sets up a straw man or scarecrow and attacks that straw man instead. Critics usually attack another weaker position than the speaker's so that their own position may seem stronger.

I said our memory for sound is weak when compared with our memory for the visual. What Albert heard in terms of the recollection versus the event, is open to debate, it could be several things; and given that we do not have a video of the event, it's mere speculation.

My only point was to state that our memory for sound isn't great. That is supported by research undertaken by qualified people.

You say you do not disagree with the research and the conclusion. It follows that there is room for doubt in terms of Albert's recollection, given that the qualified people tell you: Bigelow and Poremba's study builds upon those findings by confirming that, indeed, we remember less of what we hear.

[Trevor Marriott]

And I’ll say again Trevor……MAY.

But that is no different to Phillips TOD in which he uses a similar term to suggest he may have been wrong !!!!!!!!!! a term which you are using to prop up a later TOD

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Fleetwood Mac]

The evidence does not suggest she did not eat after going out.

The evidence suggests she ate potatoes before going out (unless, as per the theme of this thread, the witness's memory for that is wrong).

The evidence indicates some food was found in her stomach at autopsy (unless, as per the theme of this thread, the witness's memory is wrong and they're remembering a different autopsy they did - ok, I'm being a bit tongue in check here, I just finished 7 days of exam marking, my head is a bit out of sort - sorry).

The evidence does not tell us that the food found in her stomach was potatoes.

Some have argued potatoes eaten at the Doss House should not be found in her stomach if she was killed at 5:25. - Let's accept this as true (it's not, but hey, as I said, my head is a bit out of sorts).

Since the evidence doesn't tell us the food is potatoes that was found in her stomach at autopsy, that means it could be anything. Therefore, given the chances of anything being potatoes is small, the odds would favour the food being "not potatoes".

So doesn't that mean the evidence actually favours the idea she must have eaten something after the potatoes? (or, the idea that finding some unidentifiable food in the stomach many hours after ingestion of even fairly easily digestiable foodstuffs, like potatoes, isn't really as improbable as you make it out to be is simply wrong - as the research I've posted, and referred to many times, on this issue has shown?)

- Jeff

This is another fallacious argument.

The either-or fallacy.

An either-or fallacy occurs when someone claims there are only two possible options or sides in an argument when there are actually more. This is a manipulative method that attempts to coerce others into accepting the speaker's viewpoint as legitimate.

Actually, the evidence in relation to Annie's stomach contents does not support either of the contentions in your post. What you have done here is employed the 'either-or' fallacy in a manipulative attempt to strengthen your pretty weak argument.

The evidence is this:

1) We know Annie ate potatoes around a quarter to two.
2) We know potatoes is easily digested food.
3) Annie had partially digested food in her stomach.

That evidence suggests that Annie was dead earlier than half four in the morning, i.e. some time between a quarter two in the morning and the time it took for that food to become partially digested.

According to pathologists quoted on other threads, it should have been prior to a quarter to four in the morning, with the most probable conclusion being around half three in the morning. That is based on the evidence we have at our disposal, which is:

1) Knowing what Annie ate and when.
2) Pathologist information on digesting potatoes.

Take note: this post is concerned with evidence, as opposed to "we just don't know what happened".

As I stated previously: "we just don't know" is another fallacious argument.

Appeal to ignorance fallacy:

The foundation of any logical argument is at least one credible, logical source to support it. You use a logical fallacy when you support your claim with an illogical source or fail to provide a source. One such logical fallacy relies on the lack of any evidence that disproves the claim. This fallacy is known as the appeal to ignorance fallacy and it is an attempt to shift the burden of proof elsewhere.

It is not a credible argument in a reasonable discussion.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

The evidence does not suggest she did not eat after going out.

If no-one had seen her eating at the lodging house, would you say that it is as likely that she ate after leaving the lodging house as it is that she ate at the lodging house?

Therefore, given the chances of anything being potatoes is small, the odds would favour the food being "not potatoes".

I cannot see the logic in that statement.

So doesn't that mean the evidence actually favours the idea she must have eaten something after the potatoes?

No.

There is evidence that she ate potatoes at the lodging house, that she had beer brought there to drink it, that when she left the house she was almost broke, and that she left with the twin purpose of earning money and coming straight back.

All of those pieces of evidence suggest that the eating was done at the lodging house and not afterwards.

The fact that it cannot be proven that she ate afterwards is not evidence.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Then you’re simply disputing the expertise of the worlds authorities on the subject PI. The men and women who write the standard textbooks on the subject. Perhaps you should inform them of their errors?

Those experts did not examine Annie Chapman's body.

They cannot override Phillips' estimate.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

I am going by the evidence PI.

Almost everything you wrote in that post was speculation, HS.