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A new film from the House of Lechmere on the anniversary of the death of Annie Chapman.
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Due to her advanced TB,Chapman's body temperature could have been as low as 32C when murdered.
Joshua Rogan and I have posted a link to the research on casebook several times. -
Part of John Richardson's Inquest testimony.
Coroner: Did you go into the yard? - No, the yard door was shut. I opened it and sat on the doorstep, and cut a piece of leather off my boot with an old table-knife, about five inches long.
Coroner: Was it light? - It was getting light, but I could see all over the place.
Coroner: Did you notice whether there was any object outside? - I could not have failed to notice the deceased had she been lying there then. I saw the body two or three minutes before the doctor came. I was then in the adjoining yard. Thomas Pierman had told me about the murder in the market. When I was on the doorstep I saw that the padlock on the cellar door was in its proper place.
Coroner: Did you sit on the top step? - No, on the middle step; my feet were on the flags of the yard.
Coroner: You must have been quite close to where the deceased was found? - Yes, I must have seen her.
Bold emphasis mine. Annie Chapman's body was not there at 4:45. It's not even debatable.Comment
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Elizabeth Long's sighting around 5.30am was likely of Chapman and the Ripper.
Puts Jack's height at the same as the author of GSG,around 5'3".Comment
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But Robert - you are believing Richardson. The police were sceptical about his testimony. They regarded it as being debatable even if you, in 2021 fo not. And go out at 4.45 am as I did this morning and see how light it is.Comment
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So... Elizabeth Long's supposed sighting allows modern 'Ripperologists' to determine that the culprit was 5 feet 3 inches tall, that also being the height of the inscriber of the Goulston Street graffiti.
Amazing.
And based on the good Doctor, Bagster Phillips's, post mortem we know that Annie Chapman had advanced TB.Comment
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They believed Dr Phillips. They were wrong.
Nothing has been put forward to say he lied or got the days wrong.
I don't think they had Daylight Saving Time in 1888. And according to Richardson it was getting light. Enough light to see all over the place.Comment
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Whatever people think about Chapman's time of death, I think what really shouldn't be in dispute is that in scientific terms the margin of error for an estimate based on a simple impression of temperature by touch would have been huge. It should also be borne in mind that at that time, people (including the police) didn't appreciate how large the margin of error would be.Comment
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They obviously did have real practical experience with dead bodies which enabled them to guess the time of death based on temperature to a fair degree of accuracy. And it was not just temperature, it was digestion of food and the onset of rigor mortis. The median correlation of these factors. And the temperature was the differential between internal and external temperature.
And the margin of error was between one hour and two or two and a half hours. Not between, say six hours and ten hours.
Simply, the police tended to disbelieve these witnesses - having interviewed and assessed their reliability. A luxury modern 'expert Ripperologists' are unable to avail themselves of.Comment
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Sunrise was at 5.25 amComment
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This is what Phillips said about his estimate of time of death at the inquest:Originally posted by Edward Stow View Post
"[Coroner] How long had the deceased been dead when you saw her? - I should say at least two hours, and probably more; but it is right to say that it was a fairly cold morning, and that the body would be more apt to cool rapidly from its having lost the greater portion of its blood."
Given that he made no actual measurement of either the temperature of the body or the ambient temperature, I think your claim about the margin of error is over-optimistic. But even if you were right, an estimate that she had been dead "at least two hours", with a margin of error of up to two and a half hours, wouldn't tell us anything.
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It would tell us it didn't happen at 5.30.
As I said in the film, I am ambivalent about when it was. We actually can't know for sure whether the doctor was more or less accurate or whether the witnesses were correct.
There are many issues with this case that have to fall into this 'uncertain' category. Yet many modern 'Ripperologists' feel compelled to be definitive about these issues.
The timing of Annie Chapman's death is one such issue where modern opinion is often categorical about a matter that it cannot possibly be categorical about - that Annie Chapman must have died at about 5.30 and the three witnesses cannot possibly have been wrong. And categorically contrary to contemporary opinion. Which is why I chose that topic to talk about.Comment
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Another example is that the person Sarah Lewis claimed to have seen on Dorset Street must have been Hutchison. This is commonly stated as if it were an established fact, yet no contemporary news or police report made the connection - at a time when all sorts of connections were being made. Which kind of implies that it wasn't believed to be the case that Sarah Lewis did see Hutchinson.
Other examples aren't hard to find.Comment
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I'm saying that if Phillips estimated death had taken place at least two hours before he saw the body, and the if the margin of error of his estimate was up to two and a half hours - which is what you claimed - then the estimate tells us nothing. Taking into account the margin of error, the estimate would be consistent with her having died up to half an hour after he saw the body.Originally posted by Edward Stow View PostComment
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I don't think so based on the digestion of her last meal.Comment
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