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** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
Archive through August 28, 1999
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Victims: Specific Victims:
Annie Chapman:
Archive through August 28, 1999
Author: Jon Smyth
Sunday, 20 June 1999 - 06:29 pm |        | Wolf
I guess the question is 'what was an aperture ?'
- a knot of wood missing out of a plank ?.
- a piece of wood broken away ?.
- a whole plank missing ?.
A complete plank might not be described as an 'aperture'
Also, I understand crowds were flocking to the scene to gain any vantage point they could, even being charged a few pence to view the yard. Which makes me wonder if this 'aperture' had not been created for financial gain by some neighbour following the murder.
The first step I think is to determine the origin of the story.
Regards, Jon |
Author: Ashling
Monday, 21 June 1999 - 02:04 am | | Hi JON, RABBI, VIPER & WOLF: Great discussion.
As I’ve lamented before - Tully didn’t footnote ... Perhaps someone aboard knows how to query him direct via e-mail or snail mail ... He spoke at Cloak & Dagger a while back.
I’m looking to buy the paperback, but have already returned the library copy of Prisoner 1167 - So I can’t refer to the page mentioned by Wolf above. I did make a copy of bits for further study that puzzled me. The following excerpts are from Appendix B: Points to Ponder --- #6. At what time did Annie Chapman die?
3rd Paragraph: “ ... All the evidence about the *hole in the fence makes it quite clear that whilst he would probably have needed to go right up to the fence, and looked down, in order to see the body, from where he actually stood he was bound to have seen anyone moving about close to the recess."
12th Paragraph: “On Richardson’s own admission, he was not at the house ‘more than two minutes at the most’. Later, when he viewed the body from *No. 27 through the hole in the fence, he had all the time in the world, it was broad daylight, and the door was flung wide open.”
*The Bold Face Type is mine ---
1. The aperture has now become a hole.
2. Is there documentation to back up Tully’s statement in paragraph 12 that John Richardson (who, in partial darkness, sat on the back steps of No. 29 to trim his boot) - Later went (or was taken by the police?) - next door to No. 27 Hanbury to view the body through the fence? And if so, why??
Thanks.
Take care,
Janice |
Author: Ashling
Monday, 21 June 1999 - 02:10 am | | Oops ... for those without a copy of Prisoner 1167 -- the "he" referred to in "3rd paragraph" of my last post - is Albert Cadosch.
Janice |
Author: Guy Hatton
Monday, 21 June 1999 - 02:54 am | | Janice -
You might like to consider my critique of Tully's Points to Ponder on the Prisoner 1167 board from a while back. He seems very eager to discredit Richardson's and Cadosch's testimony for no apparent reason, in a way which appears to ignore the reality of the size and layout of the murder scene. The photographic evidence referred to appears here on the Victims/Annie Chapman pages, as I recall.
All the Best
Guy |
Author: Ashling
Monday, 21 June 1999 - 07:15 am | | Hi GUY: Thanks for the reminder. I read your well thought out critique, along with hundreds of other posts -- as part of my "schooling" before I began posting here. The welter of names & details were nearly overwhelming ... The realization dawned that my previous JtR knowledge was only the tip of the stiletto.
Re-reading posts like yours, of the "more facts -- less fantasy, please" type is now helping me to analyse the facts.
Gotta run (work beckons) - I can't give your post the full attention it deserves right now. Just a few things I want to mention -
1. The photo of No. 29 Hanbury in Rumbelow's Complete Casebook is lighter shaded than the one on the Victims site here. In Rumbelow's you can clearly see the distance between the bottom of the steps & the beginning of the fence. The door doesn't appear to quite touch the fence. So, IMHO the recess is wider than your estimate & narrower than Tully's.
2. Both door & fence are wooden - the 1888 orginals most likely rotted away & were replaced - perhaps more than once. We've no proof the old fence line exactly matched the placement of the fence in these modern photos.
3. I believe Tully's reason for discrediting witnesses was because 28 year old James Kelly didn't match Mrs. Long's sighting of a 40 year old man. If Richardson trimmed his boot alongside an already dead Annie Chapman --- Cadosch couldn't have heard Annie being killed --- and the woman Mrs. Long saw couldn't have been Annie, ergo the man with that woman wasn't JtR.
Hope to discuss this further with all of y'all.
Take care,
Janice |
Author: Guy Hatton
Monday, 21 June 1999 - 09:54 am | | Janice -
Thank you for your kind words. I'll look at my various copies of the photo again to check what you say - it may be that I underestimated the width, but I think it is nonetheless clear that the door could not swing back flat against the wall as Jim Tully suggests. Your point about the door and fencing is absolutely correct - the chances of the same wooden door and fencing surviving for 80 years or more are virtually nil. The door is not such a problem - any replacement door would need to be the same size (to a very close tolerance) to fit the opening from the passage, but the fence is less easily defined. As you rightly say, the "original" 1888 fence-line need not have been retained. The best we can do, perhaps, is to start from an assumption that no drastic revision of the height of the fence took place in the interim, while accepting the possibilty that we may be deceiving ourselves. However, Cadosch appears to have been sure that he heard voices from the yard, but could not (or at least,did not) see anything, which further points to a relatively high fence being in place at the time.
Incidentally, I would still like to know who took the photograph, and when. I believe that Colin Wilson tells of visiting and photographing the site in or around 1960. Does this picture come from him?
To return briefly to Tully - I too think the most likely explanation for his onslaught on Richardson, Long and Cadosch's testimony is that the description given does not match Kelly, and this resort to (as I see it) historical revisionism is uncharacteristic of his book in general, and one of its weakest points. It is, by and large, a well-presented, informative work which however falls a little short of convincing me of its central thesis (much as Bruce Paley's Simple Truth). I would recommend both to anybody, though!
All the Best
Guy |
Author: Wolf
Monday, 21 June 1999 - 06:04 pm | | Hello Guy, Ashling et all, I have been meaning to post my Annie Chapman, time of death essay but have not got around to it yet (tonight for sure). As for the backyard of No. 29, there is an earlier photo of the backyard in Peter Fisher's An Illustrated Guide to JTR, page 42. Now granted the photograph has been enlarged length wise inorder to fit the layout of the book but it clearly shows that there was room enough for the backdoor to swing back against the wall of the house. The door itself seems to be exactly the same one as in the later picture but the fence is further away from the doorway. So Tully was right.
Wolf. |
Author: Alex Chisholm
Monday, 21 June 1999 - 08:23 pm | | Hi All
I'm afraid I can't help with the origin of Tully's observations on the fence, but the claim that Cadosch's testimony on 19 Sept. 'seems to have come as something of a surprise' to the police is not supported by the bulk of evidence.
The Daily Telegraph of 10 Sept. reported the following:
" About twenty-five minutes past five Albert Cadosch, living at No. 31, the next house on the left hand side, entered the yard adjoining that of No. 29. He states that he heard some talking on the other side of the palings, and he distinguished the word "No." There was then, he fancied, a slight scuffle, with the noise of something falling, but he took no notice, thinking that it was from his neighbours."
Cadosch's Inquest testimony, reported in the Daily Telegraph of 20th Sept. included the following:
"I informed the police the same night after I returned from my work.
The Foreman: What height are the palings? - About 5 ft. 6 in. to 6 ft. high.
And you had not the curiosity to look over? - No, I had not.
It is not usual to hear thumps against the palings? - They are packing-case makers, and now and then there is a great case goes up against the palings. I was thinking about my work, and not that there was anything the matter, otherwise most likely I would have been curious enough to look over.
The Foreman of the Jury: It's a pity you did not."
John Richardson's testimony, reported in Telegraph 13 Sept., included:
"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."
Differing versions of the height and condition of the fence include the Star of 8 Sept:
"The yard is a small one, square in shape, with a 4 ft. fence on either side. The fence is old and rotten."
The Telegraph of 11 Sept. carried John Davies' testimony that:
"The yard is separated from the next premises on both sides by close wooden fencing, about 5 ft. 6 in. high....From the steps to the fence is about 3 ft."
As for the condition of the fence, Inspector Chandler's evidence (Telegraph 14th Sept.) included the following exchange:
"Are the palings strongly erected? - No; to the contrary.
Could they support the weight of a man getting over them? - No doubt they might.
Is there any evidence of anybody having got over them? - No. Some of them in the adjoining yard have been broken since. They were not broken then...
...The back door opens outwards into the yard, and swung on the left hand to the palings where the body was."
The enterprise of neighbours was reported in the Times, 10 Sept. as follows:
"During the whole of Saturday and yesterday a large crowd congregated in front of the house in Hanbury-street, and the neighbours on either side did much business by making a small charge to persons who were willing to pay it to view from windows the yard in which the murder was committed."
I realise this will be old news to many here, but it may be of use to some.
Best Wishes
alex |
Author: Wolf
Tuesday, 22 June 1999 - 12:54 am | | This is a continuation of a discussion that appears on the Mary Kelly; was Mary Kelly a Ripper victim part 2, board. In that discussion I brought up the fact that determining the time of death using modern pathology will tend to refute the time of death givin in the Mary Kelly murder. However, it also tends to validate the time of death given in the Annie Chapman murder.
First off, in regards to the death of Mary Kelly, I have already written a long explanantion about determining the time of death using modern science. Anyone who wants a more in-depth look at this is free to read the already mentioned Kelly board dated June 5th, however I will give a brief synopsis.
Algo and rigor mortis are two of the more important signs used to determin the time of death. Algor mortis is the cooling of the body and rigor mortis is the stiffening of the muscles. Amount of digestion, if you know when the victim had eaten last, and level of putrification are also used but putrification is not relevant here.
The most accurate way to determine the time of death is using algor, cooling of the body but only when taking into account the surroundings and condition of the body. A body will cool to the temperature of it's surroundings in about 40 hours but that will change if the body is outside versus inside, for instance, or the amount of blood lost. Body temperatures must be taken internally therefor rectal or liver temperatures are taken, even then, "The rule of thumb of a body cooling at a rate of 1 and a half degrees F. per hour is only consistant with about 50% of the cases",(Medicolegal Investigation of Death. second ed. W.U. Spitz M.D. and R.S. Fisher M.D.) again external forces will affect the rate.
As for the temperatures taken from Annie Chapman's body, there were none. Victorian doctors didn't take the temperatures of bodies, either internally or externally and based their rather useless comments on touch alone. Dr. Phillips doesn't seem to mention Chapman's body temperature at all, but we can imagine that because of the cool temperature of the morning, the fact that her skirt was hiked up to her lower abdomen and the great amount of blood loss, her body was probably cool to the touch. Without an internal temperature, this, the most important method of determining time of death was compromised. It is up to the amount of rigor mortis present in the body to determine when Annie Chapman was killed not by the warmth of a body determined by mere touch.
Rigor mortis usuakky begins 2-4 hours after death and is complete approximately 12 hours later. (Ibid) Dr. Bond stated in his report to Anderson dealing with the Mary Kelly murder, that: "Rigor mortis had set in but increased during the process of the examination. From this it is difficult to say to any degree of certainty the exact time that had elapsed since death as the period varies from 6 to 12 hours befor rigidity sets in." This statement couldn't be more wrong if he added that it all depended on the amount of pixie dust that the Fairies sprinkled on the body. Yes, many factors will modify the time that rigor sets in, but in the case of Mary Kelly, not up to 12 hours. With Annie Chapman, Dr. Phillips stated that at 6:30 a.m., "The stiffness of the limbs was not marked but was evidently commencing."
What are we to make of this? If rigor will usually begin 2-4 hours after death and we take Dr. Phillips observations into account, we are looking at a time of death roughly between 2:30 and 4:30 a.m. and this fits in with the time of death given by Phillips: "He should say that the deceased had been dead at least 2 hoursand probably more when he first saw her but it was right to mention that it was a fairly cool morning and that the body would be apt to cool rapidly from it's having lost a great quantity of blood."
Philip Sugden argues in his Complete History of JTR, that this statement by Dr. Phillips points towards the doctors time of death as "being far from conclusive." (The Complete History of JTR. Philip Sugden. pg. 98.) He goes on to point out the factors that would have increased the rapid cooling of the body and concludes that "Annie was killed after not before 4:30." (Ibid) (Other authors such as Donald Rumbelow and William Beadle use this same argument) This might be true if we are only taking body temperature into account, but as I have already mentioned, the evidence of the body temperature has been compromised and you therefor have to rely on rigor mortis which Sugden and the others ignore.
"Since the process (rigor mortis) is chemical in nature it's onset will be delayed by a rapid cooling of the body." (Medicolegal Investigation of Death. Spitz. Fisher.) So Sugden and the others are right about a degree of rapid cooling of the body but fail to understand that this would delay the onset of rigor mortis, not increase it from 2-4 hours to only 1 hour.
So, what we have is a body that was experiencing the onset of rigor mortis somewhere in the middle of the time scale, 3 hours, (it would take something like refrigeration to rapidly cool the body enough to go over the 4 hour time frame.) However, this would have changed if Annie Chapman had been running a high fever when she died. "The original onset of rigidity is hastened by the presence of high fever or convulsions or extreme muscle activity in the period prior to death." (Ibid) So a time of death of around 4:30 a.m., or earlier, could be appropriate. (Annie had told Amelia Palmer, Timothy Donovan and William Stevens that she was sick and had been to the hosptal and she was taking those pills that were found next to her body.)
Dr. Phillips testified at Annie Chapman's inquest that death had occured at least 2 hours before he had examined the body, that's pretty straight foreward and all the medical facts seem to back him up, but we have a problem. What do we do with the evidence of John Richardson who checked on the back yard of No.29 at around 4:45 and even sat on the back steps but who saw nothing. What about Elizabeth Long (or Darrell) who claimed to have seen Annie Chapman talking to a man in front of No. 29 at 5:30. And what about Albert Cadosch who stated that he had heard two people talking in the back yard of No.29, then a bump against the fence as if something falling on it, this was a little before 5:30.
For some reason, although the police trusted Dr. Phillips estimated time of death, coroner Bazter tended to believe the witnesses and so has almost everybody else who has studied the Ripper murders. We are now left with the rather bizarre position that in the case of Mary Kelly, the horribly wrong estimated time of death is considered correct and the eyewitnesses who saw her alive on the morning of the 9th must be mistaken or lying and thus shunted aside; while with the Annie Chapman murder, the eyewitnesses must be correct and Dr. Phillips's medically correct estimated time of death must be wrong! Why? because most people are set in their ways when thinking about the murders and evidence tends to be weighed against rock solid preconcieved notions. Mary Kelly could not have been killed at around 10:00 a.m. and Mrs. Long and her description of the man in his 40's talking to Chapman can't be wrong, after all, anyone who purposes a suspect who is older than the 25 to 35 year old age limit of most serial killers, needs Mrs. Long.
In the end we are left with this, the last person to have seen Annie Chapman alive, besides the killer, was John Evans, Crossingham's night watchman, who saw her off the lodging house premises at about 1:35 a.m. She was murdered at around 4:30 or a little earlier, and her body was found by John Davis, somewhere between 5:45 and 6:00 a.m. In larger terms it means that if you discount Elizabeth Stride as a Ripper victim and you believe a medically correct time of death for Mary Kelly to be around 10:00 a.m., then you are left with only one positive sighting of Jack the Ripper, Joseph Lawende's, and a lot of so called evidence has to be thrown away. All of a sudden, what little we know about the Whitechapel murders gets even smaller and people aren't gonna like to believe that.
Wolf. |
Author: Guy Hatton
Tuesday, 22 June 1999 - 04:13 am | | Wolf -
Interesting point about the fence - if there's any way you could scan the photo and post it here, I'd be very interested to see it. At first sight, it seems unlikely that a fence would be moved like that - it would, after all be intended to mark the boundary between one person's property and another's - but I suppose it is possible. Do you know how much earlier the photo was taken? As I've asked before, does anybody know the origin (and hence date) of the "classic" backyard photo? How does the scene compare to the yard as seen in "The London Nobody Knows", which we know dates from 1967? And Jim, if you're out there - when did your visit take place? I'd hate to think I was falsely accusing anyone of misremembering (or worse) the layout of the yard.
Regards
Guy |
Author: RLeen
Tuesday, 22 June 1999 - 05:45 am | | Hello All,
First of all sorry, it was Wilson and Odell, thank you all who refrained from metaphorically putting the boot in.
Secondly, the illustration v the picture (in Rumbelow). Actually they both look mighty similar, though there are some superficial differences such as arched lintels on the windows not shown in the sketch. However, the main point of contention that 29 Hanbury St. had two doorways is actually incorrect. A quick perusal of The Complete JTR showed that there was one entrance into the close. Yes, there was another doorway....which belonged to the premises of Brill the hairdresser. Therefore, if there was no shop located there in 1888, only one doorway would be shown on the contemporary sketch.
So does this show that the sketch can in any way be considered accurate? Well I still don't know but I am starting to favour the notion that it is and thus the fencing detail is accurate. A statement supported by The Telegraph of 11 Sept;
"The yard is separated from the next premises on both sides by close wooden fencing, about 5 ft. 6 in. high....From the steps to the fence is about 3 ft."
Note the "close wooden fencing", is this perhaps indicative that the seperatrix was not one unbroken solid plane.
I could go on but Wolf's last posting has brought on the need for a lie down! Suffice to say I shall think of some rotten rebuttal.
Thanking you for your consideration
Rabbi Leen |
Author: Wolf
Tuesday, 22 June 1999 - 01:12 pm | | Greetings all. First off, Guy, I can't scan the picture, sorry, but I can add that it includes a sort of wooden awning over the door. This awning is missing from the more well known photo so it pre-dates it. While looking through my JTR library, I found a third photograph of the back yard in Peter Underwood's JTR, One Hundred Years of Mystery. Unfortunately, this photo is cropped in such a way that the top of the doorway is missing as is the right hand side with the fencing.
Looking foreward to your thoughts, Rabbi Leen, I know they will be instructive.
Wolf. |
Author: Jon Smyth
Tuesday, 22 June 1999 - 05:42 pm | | Rabbi, good-day to you, sir
You may wish to avail yourself of the Chapman inquest, or what remains as printed in the Daily Telegraph, Sept 13.
Amelia Richardson describes the house, tenents & use of the various room's.
'On the ground floor there are two rooms. Mrs Hardman occupies them with her son, aged sixteen. She uses the front room as a cats meat shop'
Also as to the fence:
The Foreman asked Cadosch 'What height are the palings?'
Cadosch: 'About 5ft 6in to 6ft'.
Foreman: 'And you had not the curiosity to look over?'
Cadosch: 'no, I had not'
No mention of looking through, or seeing through or being able to see through.
Nothing conclusive, admitadly, but what IS in this god-forsaken case.!!!
Regards, Jon |
Author: Christopher George
Tuesday, 22 June 1999 - 11:34 pm | | Hi, Rabbi Leen:
To follow up on Jon Smyth's post, I have seen the fence at 29 Hanbury Street rendered in three different ways by contemporary artists. I have not seen the Wilson and Odell book but I think the sketch that you are referring to is possibly the one that appeared in "The Penny Illustrated" of Sepember 15, 1888. This shows a ratty looking fence with boards of different heights, that definitely looks see-through--you can see the horizontal beams on the other side of the fence on which the boards are mailed. The sketches in the "Illustrated Police News" of Sepember 22 and September 29 render the same fence quite differently. The earlier of the two again has boards of uneven height but close together so you cannot see through. The September 29 fence shown in the close-up of Dr. Phillips bending over Annie Chapman's body is quite different again, with wider, close together boards that are of the same height and absolutely straight across the top, such that there is a piece of molding running along the fence at the top! This latter picture is also the one that Viper mentioned in his recent post in which I remarked that the fence looks all of four feet high. Of course, this cannot be, but it appears so since we are looking from a lower height at the bent form of Dr. Phillips examining the corpse.
I think these differences in the sketches show that it is hazardous to trust the artists' renditions. The sketches can be useful to give pointers to the factual situation but should probably not be trusted at face value. They are probably more trustworthy if the features in the sketch can be verified in some other way. I think in the case of the sketch of the back yard in "The Penny Illustrated" this was probably the case of an artist doing a rush job for the next edition and not taking much care except to render a "fence" of any kind. It is only we intrepid "tecs" turning up these 111 years later who are intent on analyzing every little nuance, particularly because, infuriatingly, so much of the evidence in the case is missing!
Chris George |
Author: RLeen
Wednesday, 23 June 1999 - 11:54 am | | Hello All,
What a fascinating batch of exchanges! Nothing further to add, other than my usual capernoited brand of inference and implication. And again it is to the illustration, and accuracy thereof, to which I return.
The theory that it was quickly turned out for reproduction in some penny dreadful is certainly very plausible. But, and you probably expected that, the fence depicted seems too laboured for such a scenario. Would it not be the case that the artist would simply draw an oblong shaped object punctuated with lines and cross-hatched, to represent solidity, if he or she was on a deadline?
Well quite simply I don't know. It is the case that I was once indecisive, now I'm not so sure. Perhaps someone can point me in the right direction.
Thanking you for your consideration.
Rabbi Leen |
Author: Christopher George
Wednesday, 23 June 1999 - 02:09 pm | | Hi, Rabbi Leen:
I think the illustrators in "The Penny Illustrated" and "The Illustrated Police News" did a number of things to cut corners and save them time and of course some of this may also have been artistic choice. Another example, getting away from the fence example, since we might all agree we have fenced with this topic long enough (ha ha) is brickwork. No doubt most of these buildings at the murder sites were constructed of brick but the artist was not going to sit down and draw every brick. So you see them getting round this with a bit of hatchwork to represent bricks and wavy lines on the rest of the wall. This might imply that the wall was stucco with brick underneath, but in all probability it was simply the artist trying to save time and the wall was all brick with no stucco. Look at the sketches of Miller's Court to see what I am talking about.
The question of brickwork versus, say, wooden construction is interesting in the case of the International Workingmen's Educational Club at 44 Berner Street which ran alongside the north side of Dutfield's Yard, where Elizabeth Stride was murdered on the morning of September 30, 1888. "The Jack the Ripper A to Z" states categorically that the building that housed the club was a "two story wooden building" and yet the photograph with the cartwheel in "A to Z" apparently shows a three-story brick building, and the sketch in the "Illustrated Police News" of the outside of the club appears to show the same three-story building, not a two story building at all. So it would seem that the authors of "A to Z" are wrong. Again, whether it is stuccoed brick is hard to tell from the illustration and from the photograph, the latter of which was taken at a distance, from the intersection of Fairclough Street south of the former club. The sketches showing the finding of Stride's body show parallel vertical lines on the side of the club, which may either denote brick on the wall of the club -- or wood, if we are to believe Begg et al. in the "A to Z." Yer takes yer picks --
Chris George |
Author: Caz
Wednesday, 23 June 1999 - 07:03 pm | | Of course, if our Jack turned out to be an accomplished artist, not to mention freelance illustrator of various contemporary periodicals, he would have drawn fences with as much artistic licence as he chose to suit his purpose, instead of sitting on the fence letting someone else do the job with more accuracy. He could even have produced deliberately unflattering likenesses of victims, such as the one of Lizzie Stride in the A-Z.
Just a thought.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Christopher George
Thursday, 24 June 1999 - 07:26 am | | Hi, all:
A kind correspondent has pointed out to me that the International Workingmen's Educational Club was at 40 Berner Street NOT at 44 Berner Street as I erroneously stated in my last post. I apologize for the mistake. Witness Matthew Packer resided at 44 Berner Street.
Chris George |
Author: Ian Millar
Saturday, 28 August 1999 - 06:48 am | | Hi, I'm new to all this internet stuff so 'scuse the lack of sophistication but here's some info..
I'm a distant relative of annie chapman and my mother knows all sorts of interesting stuff about her (ie where she's buried - I don't know if thats a secret or what etc) and is often asked questions by authors about her life etc. If i can help then e-mail me at IAN_MILLAR00@HOTMAIL.COM
and i'll try and help. I'll get her TRUE birthdate and post it here in a few days - if I can find my way back here ha ha |
Author: ChrisGeorge
Saturday, 28 August 1999 - 09:12 am | | Hello, Ian:
Welcome! Great to have you here. I am interested to know that you are a distant relative to Annie Chapman. We would be glad to hear any information that you may have about Annie Chapman to add to our own knowledge.
Thanks
Chris George |
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