"Considerable Doubt"- Wolf Vanderlinden

[Howard Brown]

IMHO, a very good article.

Please take the time to read it and share your views on this piece.

Ripper Notes
April 2005
Issue 22
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http://books.google.com/books?id=iLrcb2nZqToC&pg=PA5&lpg=PA5&dq=considerable+doubt+and+the+death+of+annie+chapman&source=bl&ots=ZdCq_S7SjZ&sig=4C-IbCE2kQOWvh_b_4tFYkTbdjw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=LblOT9jHDpCd0gHixY2zAg&sqi=2&ved=0CEAQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=considerable%20doubt%20and%20the%20death%20of%20annie%20chapman&f=false

[Belinda]

It is very good. It makes a strong case for Elizabeth Long being mistaken.It's made me rethink things. Was poor Annie lying there undiscovered for several hours before she was found?

[Robert Linford]

Food for thought.

[Scott Nelson]

John Richardson testified that there was no way he could have missed seeing the body had it been lying there.

[Belinda]

That's the tricky bit.Richardson was there at 4.45am, it's not impossible that he made a mistake and Dr Bagster Phillips believed Annie had been dead at least two hours.

Somebody has to be wrong?

[Howard Brown]

One puzzling aspect found within witness testimony was what John Richardson didn't say, as brought up in this excerpt from The Times, September 14, 1888 :

[Paul Butler]

A very good article indeed, but I'm still confused about what Richardson actually did, or didn't do, or said he did. I'm even more confused by his mother's statement that "...he can see from the steps." Which steps?

There were two sets of steps at the back of No. 29. One set that led to the yard from the back door, and another that led from the yard down to the cellar door.

Contemporary illustrations show an awning above the cellar steps which would have prevented any view of the cellar door without going down to the yard. Even if that awning wasn't there, you'd have to go down at least one step, probably two, from the back door to be able to get a view down the cellar steps and see a door in the back wall of the house surely?

I don't see how Richardson could possibly have avoided going into the yard if his story about checking the lock has any truth to it at all. If he was lying, he was taking a very silly risk with his story indeed.

regards to all.

Paul

[Robert Linford]

Hi Paul

I'm assuming Chandler did his own experiments with the steps, and had it out with Richardson if he found a discrepancy.

If Richardson was sitting on the steps, he might possibly have failed to see Annie, but surely he couldn't have failed to smell her. Her intestines would have been a few inches from him.

[Paul Butler]

Hi Robert.

If you look at the most recent photo of those back steps you can still see the line of the awning, which comes quite close to the level of the steps. Whether Richardson was sitting or standing he couldn't possibly have seen to the bottom of the cellar steps if that awning was present in 1888, which contemporary illustrations say it was.

I'm assuming the cellar lock was a padlock, as no other type of lock can be checked visually from a distance, and the bottom of the cellar steps, certainly six feet or more down, would have been fairly dark in the early morning light. Nothing Richardson says makes a lot of sense when you think about it.

He was lying alright, presumably to get in on the act as did many others.

regards,

Paul

[Belinda]

Whitechappel in those days probably didn't smell very pleasant anyway. That may have disguised the smell but does a recently dead body have much of a smell?
I wonder about Richardson's story it doesn't quite seem to add up?

[Paul Kearney A.K.A. NEMO]

I think it's most important to consider whether the doctor would have made such a marked error in judging the time of death

Richardson changed his story somewhat and in reading Wolf's article you can comprehend how Cadosche and Long encouraged the assumption that the death occurred when Cadosche was in the yard

I tend more toward the doctor being correct and the attack having occurred at least an hour earlier

[Howard Brown]

Neems:

I think that the following can be easily overlooked during our examination or re-examination of what Cadosch testified to.
That being, if the word "No" was heard by Cadosch as he was on his way back to his room...then that means the killer began to throttle Chapman after the killer heard Cadosch in the yard.
I have always had a problem with that.
Unless, of course, the killer was deaf....IMHO.

Likewise, the change in Richardson's original statement found in a later statement ( in another paper and at the Inquest ) might have been made in a self serving gesture. First, he doesn't go into the yard or sit on the steps and later on, he's sitting on the step and all of a sudden he remembers the part about taking leather off his shoe.

If it was too dark to have seen a murdered Chapman at the time he claims he was on the step, it seems to me that it might have occurred to him that it was likewise too dark to play around with a knife and his shoe.



Lotta food for thought in the article...

[Belinda]

I agree with you both. I wonder if Richardson was there at all? That last minute addition about cutting the boot leather and as you say How in the dark it's not quite right.

I'd go with the expert opinion over Richardson who may not have been as vigilant about checking the yard as he claimed.

[Robert Linford]

Logically I suppose there was no need for Richardson to check the padlock at all - either it was intact, or it was broken and everything worth stealing was gone already. Perhaps his mum wanted him to check the lock, he forgot, and then he lied because he was more frightened of his mum than he was of being put in the frame for a murder. Actually though I don't see why his mum couldn't check the lock for herself at some point before going to bed. Why did it have to be checked in the middle of the night?

[Howard Brown]

Bob,Belinda...

I can understand Richardson's interest in the shed. A lot of people swing by their parent's homes en route to work or elsewhere to check in on them.