Chapman & Rigor

[How Brown]

On another thread, Adam Went made the remark that rigor can begin to set in after 10-15 minutes. I just saw a reference that likewise mentioned a rather brief time for it to begin to emerge: 10 minutes. It wasn't from a medical encyclopedia, but from a source in which the comment was simply made in response to a query.

One of the mysteries ( to some who feel Chapman's time of death is a possible mistake as established by Dr. Phillips ) of Hanbury Street is not necessarily the who, but the when.


Links for rigor.
http://www.deathreference.com/Py-Se/Rigor-Mortis-and-Other-Postmortem-Changes.html

Any opinions based on medical study from Forums members ?

[Adam Went]

I won't use Wikipedia for this one, but this article might be of interest as well....plus it was written by a PHD:

http://chemistry.about.com/cs/biochemistry/a/aa061903a.htm

"Rigor mortis can be used to help estimate time of death. The onset of rigor mortis may range from 10 minutes to several hours, depending on factors including temperature (rapid cooling of a body can inhibit rigor mortis, but it occurs upon thawing)."

Cheers,
Adam.

[Magpie]

It would be interesting to know if diet or nutritiional deficiencies can affect rigor mortis too.

Didn't Phillips also record that decomposition of the skin had already started to take place too? I seem to remember that from somewhere.

[Nemo]

As a medical man, wouldn't he have taken the cold into consideration and discounted the possibility that Chapman had been killed a short time earlier?

His opinion regarding the onset may also have been affected by his consideration of the digestion of food in Chapman's stomach, as apparently she had been seen eating a few hours earlier

I don't think the estimate was only half an hour out, as he seems to be saying that death must have occurred at least 2 hours earlier and probably longer - effectively denying that the murder could have occured between 5am and 5:45am

[How Brown]

Thanks Mag,AW, and Nemo for the replies.

Is it possible that one of us might be able to find a case with a similar scenario ? A murder and the early signs of rigor ? I think it would be worthwhile to keep an eye out for a reference to a murder where rigor began to set in within a 15 minute to 35 minute time frame.

[How Brown]

Nemo:

I almost forgot to add this....it might be irrelevant....but maybe its of use.

Look at the way in which the Mylett murder was dealt with by officials ( Anderson contra Brownfield ). Is this an example of the disparity in medical determination at that time or a reflection of personal views held by those in charge ?

I hear what you're saying about the food in Chapman's stomach.

[Nemo]

I think it's a bit of both Howard

It would have been better for the medicos to get together and come to some consensus of opinion

Separately, the egos of the doctors may have played a part

After reading Wolf's article, I can't see how Dr Phillips was at fault really

He seems to have given a learned estimate based on the evidence and his experience/training

..and that opinion states that she died over 2 hours previous

(Long must not have seen the Ripper, but she may have seen the woman who entered the yard and exclaimed "No!" upon finding the body???

Cadosche appears not to have known from where the sound came from, so the man and woman seen by Long may be the source of the sound, but not in the yard of 29 - and nothing to do with finding the body)

[Magpie]

As a medical man, wouldn't he have taken the cold into consideration and discounted the possibility that Chapman had been killed a short time earlier?



Dr. Phillips did make allowances for both the coldness of the morning and the more rapid cooling effect of evisceration and blood loss during his testimony. To precisely what degree that factored into his estimation is hard to say.

[Adam Went]

Dr. Phillips was only human. We seem to think he was just some sort of robotic, un-emotional machine that could not make an error. He would have been, and by his own statements was, quite appalled by what he saw in the yard of 29 Hanbury Street, worse than anything he had previously encountered, and he would have been quite thrown by it - to then expect him to be able to immediately give an accurate estimate of the time of death, under those circumstances, makes little sense.

As I've said in previous posts, if the man and the woman Mrs. Long saw really wasn't Jack and his victim:
A.) Why did Mrs. Long identify the body in the mortuary? She got a good look at the woman, but not the man.
B.) Why didn't the man, woman or both come forward to the police, knowing they were the people Mrs. Long had seen, to clear their names and stop any speculation?

How, I'll keep an eye out for any other cases I come across where this happened....

Cheers,
Adam.

[Mike Richards]

Hello folks,

"Thus, in forensic medical practice, the presence of rigor is a poor determinant of the time of death. Once established, the duration of rigor ranges from 18 to 36 hours."

Thats from http://www.answers.com/topic/rigor-mortis

Now, wikipedia says.."In humans it commences after about 3 hours, reaches maximum stiffness after 12 hours, and gradually dissipates until approximately 72 hours (3 days) after death."

Chemistry.com says... "The onset of rigor mortis may range from 10 minutes to several hours, depending on factors including temperature (rapid cooling of a body can inhibit rigor mortis, but it occurs upon thawing). Maximum stiffness is reached around 12-24 hours post mortem".


There is an excellent paper on the subject from http://www.dundee.ac.uk/forensicmedicine/notes/timedeath.pdf and in it is the accepted formula or for estimating the time of death.

What is apparent is that a contemporary medic could easily determine if Rigor had begun, but not how long it had been since its first onset or at what stage it had progressed to. Many hours can pass without any easily discernible change to the tissue or limbs.

Best regards

[Debra Arif]

Dr. Phillips was only human.

Not only human but practicing at a time when maybe there were other theories about rigor?
LVP medical texts have tables about the timing of full rigor,sometimes complete at 2 hours after death in case studies. They did factor in circumstances as Magpie and Nemo have rightly said, but rapid (sometimes instant) rigor was noted but mostly attributed in cases where fatigue before death was a factor, but not always.
I don't know if helps, or anyone even cares, but they had theories and case studies to work by even back then.

[Adam Went]

Debra:

Good point. Dr. Phillips had been around long enough to have probably seen quite a change in these medical textbooks.....the ones that he studied early on might not necessarily have had the same material as the ones being published by the 1880's.

Having said that, atleast they had advanced beyond some of the methods doctors recommended in the middle ages, like during the Black Death. Half of them probably killed the victims quicker!

Cheers,
Adam.

[Debra Arif]

Debra:

Good point. Dr. Phillips had been around long enough to have probably seen quite a change in these medical textbooks.....the ones that he studied early on might not necessarily have had the same material as the ones being published by the 1880's.

Having said that, atleast they had advanced beyond some of the methods doctors recommended in the middle ages, like during the Black Death. Half of them probably killed the victims quicker!

Cheers,
Adam.

Adam, I am meaning texts in the late 1880's. But it is a good point there, did the LVP doctor keep up with modern thinking after they qualified?

Forensically, LVP medics weren't that far away from modern day thinking.They didn't have DNA or the ability to determine human from mammilian blood granted...and they were a bit slow with fingerprinting but apart from that, all modern concepts of forensic science are very much in evidence in the texts aimed at LVP medics.

[Adam Went]

Hi Debra,

Well I know that nurses and those equipped with a first aid certificate are required these days to do a refresher course in order to have their licenses/certificates renewed every few years, so there's no choice but to keep up to date....having said that, I would strongly doubt that any such system was enforced in the Victorian era. So that being the case, I guess it was up to the individual doctor to keep themselves updated on the latest inventions and what not. You're definitely right about their texts, though!

Cheers,
Adam.

[String]

Rapid cooling of the body was mentioned as a factor.
I think this might have played an important role as this was Autumn, the middle of the night and she would have been lying on a very cold stone surface with the clothes askew. I wonder has the effect of alcohol, if indeed it has an effect, in the bloodstream been factored in?

[Bob Hinton]

http://www.deathreference.com/Py-Se/Rigor-Mortis-and-Other-Postmortem-Changes.html[/URL]



I followed that link and was amazed to read that cold can cause rigor to form more quickly. I have never heard of that before and believe that the opposite is correct.

[Adam Went]

Does alcohol in the bloodstream not increase and maintain the heat of the body for longer, or is that just a myth? I've had that debate elsewhere before....

Cheers,
Adam.

[Cris Malone]

Was there alcohol in Annie's bloodstream? Once again, we go back to Dr. Phillips, who determined that Annie had not ingested spirits in the immediate hours leading to her death.

We should consider that the prime source for Phillips' conclusion as to the time of Annie Chapman's death was body temperature. He placed his hand into her body cavity to determine that. We should remember that the circustances in Kate Eddowes' death were much alike but the medicos determined the time much closer to the discovery... as the witnesses in Chapman's murder would suggest... but Chapman's body had cooled much more.

Would her condition suggest that she was killed within an hour of her discovery? The police were willing to stand by Phillips' testimony. Were they wrong?... or are we left with uncertain witnesses?