A Suspect In The Murder Of Annie Chapman - John Richardson
It’s unlikely that you will hear of John Richardson or Elizabeth Long on any of the Whitechapel murder tours on offer in London.
I do include him in my tour.
I think the way that the testimony of both John Richardson and Elizabeth Long was analysed at the time of the Whitechapel murders and the way it is presented by modern-day investigators of the Jack the Ripper case is worth thinking about.
This is especially true since the use of DNA and studies in forensic psychology have shown the dangers of accepting eyewitness testimony without subjecting it to intense scrutiny.
In this post, I want to subject the evidence John Richardson and Elizabeth Long presented to scrutiny.
On September 8, 1888, Annie Chapman’s body was discovered in the yard behind 29 Hanbury Street at 6 am.
Around 7 am, the son of the landlady at 29, John Richardson, told the police that he had been to the yard earlier that morning on his way to work at Spitalfield’s Market.
He said he didn’t enter the yard. He just stood in the doorway and looked to see that the padlock on the cellar door was secure.
He said at that time, Annie wasn’t lying there.
He said that was at a quarter to five.
Four days later on Wednesday, September 12 - day two of the inquest, The Daily Telegraph reported:
Richardson: I assist my mother in her business. I went to 29 Hanbury Street between 4,45 a.m. and 4.50 a.m. on Saturday last. I went to see if the cellar was all secure, as some while ago there was a robbery there of some tools. I have been accustomed to going on market mornings since the cellar was broken in.
Coroner: Was the front door open?
Richardson: No, it was closed. I lifted the latch and went through the passage to the yard door.
Coroner: Did you go into the yard?
Richardson: No, the yard door was shut. I opened it . . .
Richardson was repeating what he had told the police on the morning of the murder.
Four days later, on the second day of the inquest, he was asked, “Did you go into the yard?” He answered “No”. Confirming what he had said on the morning of the murder.
The jury was, of course, taken to inspect the murder site. They would have seen that the yard door hinged on the left and opened into the yard.
A member of the jury asked how John Richardson could know Annie’s body wasn’t there because the door would have concealed that part of the yard.
He claimed he cut a piece of leather off his boot.
“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. I kept the knife upstairs at John-street. I had been feeding a rabbit with a carrot that I had cut up, and I put the knife in my pocket. I do not usually carry it there. After cutting the leather off my boot I tied my boot up, and went out of the house into the market.”
On the next day of the inquest, Thursday, September 13, The Daily Telegraph reports:
Coroner: Did you see John Richardson?
Inspector Chandler: I saw him about a quarter to seven o'clock. He told me he had been to the house that morning about a quarter to five. He said he came to the back door and looked down to the cellar, to see if all was right, and then went away to his work.
Coroner: “Did he say anything about cutting his boot?”
Inspector Chandler: No.
Did he forget to mention it that morning?
Or did he invent that story about sitting on the step to explain how he could see the part of the yard where Annie was discovered?
Coroner: Did he say that he was sure the woman was not there at that time?
Inspector Chandler: Yes.
By the Jury: The back door opens outwards into the yard, and swung on the left hand to the palings where the body was. If Richardson were on the top of the steps he might not have seen the body.
Inspector Chandler: He told me he did not go down the steps.
Now, of course, saying that he “cut a piece of leather off my boot with an old table knife” during an investigation into a knife crime meant he had to produce the knife.
So The Daily Telegraph reported that when John Richardson returned to the inquest, the knife that he produced was:
“A much-worn dessert knife - with which he had cut his boot. He added that as it was not sharp enough, he had borrowed another one at the market. “
It is a little odd because earlier in the day he was very specific about what he did.
“After cutting the leather off my boot, I tied my boot up and went out of the house into the market.”
So, is it possible that he deliberately chose a knife that he knew nobody would believe could have done the damage to Annie Chapman?
Did he then realise that he had to explain the fact that the knife could not cut the leather?
So, did this market porter invent a story explaining how the leather was cut?
Possibly.
After all he was a market porter like Jimmy Huddart who made it into Spitalfields Life.
Spitalfields Life December 16 2011
“A market porter of forty years standing, Jimmy Huddart is proud to display the clothing of his trade. He keeps this apron pristine for ceremonial occasions now, but it is of the traditional design made of the full width of strong canvas, with leather straps and reinforcement across the front where the boxes cause most wear. In use, an apron like this would quickly acquire a brown tinge yet provide its owner with at least two years of wear, with prudent repairs. In the pocket, Jimmy always kept his porter’s knife.”
Why was John Richardson going to work as a market porter at Spitalfields Market with a rusty, blunt and broken dinner knife that couldn’t even cut leather?
John Richardson was, of course, cleared of suspicion by the other eyewitness in this case.
Elizabeth Long said Annie Chapman was still alive at 5:30 a.m. At 5:30, Richardson had been at Spitalfields Market for half an hour surrounded by other market porters.
Market porters who were perhaps wondering why he was struggling to trim Brussels sprouts with a blunt, broken and rusty dinner knife.
Should you trust eyewitness evidence?
Before looking at Elizabeth Long’s evidence, it is worth reminding ourselves that attitudes to the reliability of eyewitness evidence were very different in 1888.
Eyewitness evidence may be very appealing, but thanks to modern forensics and especially the use of DNA, we know it can be very unreliable.
Relying on eyewitness evidence has resulted in many miscarriages of justice, as The Innocent Project in the USA has proved.
This article by Scott O. Lilienfeld and Hal Arkowitz appeared in Scientific America on January 1 2010
“In 1984, Kirk Bloodsworth was convicted of the rape and murder of a nine-year-old girl and sentenced to the gas chamber—an outcome that rested largely on the testimony of five eyewitnesses. After Bloodsworth served nine years in prison, DNA testing proved him to be innocent. Such devastating mistakes by eyewitnesses are not rare, according to a report by the Innocence Project. Since the 1990s, when DNA testing was first introduced, Innocence Project researchers have reported that 73 per cent of the 239 convictions overturned through DNA testing were based on eyewitness testimony.”
Kirk Bloodsworth was proven to be innocent.
Eyewitness evidence needs to be handled with care.
In the case of Jack the Ripper, Mrs Elizabeth Long is a celebrated eyewitness, and her evidence is included in almost every book published on the subject.
The reason is explained in The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Source Book:
“The first probable sighting of the killer, by the witness Mrs Long, also occurred in this case.”
In the hunt for Jack the Ripper, a ‘probable sighting’ has to be a big deal.
And in Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates, Stewart Evans and Donald Rumbelow expand on why the police surgeon’s evidence of the time of death is unreliable.
At the same time, they go to some lengths to explain any contradictions in the eyewitness evidence. Eye witness evidence which is incompatible with the time of death given by the Divisional Police Surgeon, Dr George Bagster Phillips.
These writers are not alone.
In his book, The Complete History of Jack the Ripper, Philip Sugden explains these murders by saying,
“Indeed, his victims, prostitutes all, accustomed to accosting men and taking them to dark and unfrequented byways and yards for sex, greatly facilitated his crimes.”
Mrs Long’s evidence supports this theory.
Philip Sugden writes:
“At about 5 in the morning a Mrs Elizabeth Long left her home at 32 Church Street to go to work at Spitalfields Market. It was 5:30 as she walked westwards through Hanbury Street. She was sure of the time because she heard the clock of the Black Eagle Brewery, Brick Lane, strike the half-hour just before she got to the street. A man and a woman were standing on the pavement near to number 29 . . . the woman had her back to Spitalfields Market and hence faced Mrs Long as she approached, and the man’s back was turned towards Mrs long and Brick Lane. Mrs Long’s evidence is crucial, for she later visited the mortuary and positively identified Annie Chapman as the woman she had seen. Her companion was almost certainly the murderer.”
At the inquest, Mrs Long did her best to describe him. Mrs Long said she didn’t see the man's face but noticed that “he had a dark complexion. He was wearing a brown, low-crowned felt hat. He had on a dark coat. He seemed to be a man over forty years of age. He appeared to be a little taller than the deceased. He looked like a foreigner. He looked like what I should call shabby-genteel.” And she passed by just in time to overhear him say, ‘Will you?’ and hear Annie reply, ‘Yes.’
Philip Sugden says Mrs Long’s crucial evidence shows that this man was almost certainly the murderer.
And so, of course, it shows exactly what he - and most modern experts - believe. Annie Chapman brought about her own death by accosting a man and taking him to a dark and unfrequented yard for sex.
At 5:30, 29 Hanbury Street was neither dark nor unfrequented.
There’s a very good description in Philip Sugden’s book. He says: “As the sun rose at 5:23, there were plenty of people about. Spitalfields Market opened at 5. This end of Hanbury Street was clogged with vehicles.”
He goes on to say, “When the killer and his victim entered number 29, the house itself was rapidly coming to life. In slaughtering Annie when and where he did, the murderer had thus taken an extraordinary risk.”
It all makes for an exciting story. Of course, that whole tale hangs on Mrs Long and her crucial evidence.
Evidence she was giving on September 19th - 11 days after the murder.
Was she such a strong witness that her evidence could overturn Dr Phillips's expert opinion of the time of death?
Given what modern studies have shown about false memory and the unreliability of eyewitness accounts, Mrs Long’s recall seems truly remarkable.
Especially when you consider that when the Coroner asked her if it was unusual to see a man and a woman standing there talking at that hour. She said:
“Oh no. I see lots of them standing there in the morning, that's why I didn’t take much notice of them”.
Of course, by saying she didn’t take much notice of the couple, Mrs Long was explaining why it took her three days to decide that the police might be interested in her crucial evidence.
The police were sufficiently interested that she was granted access to the mortuary.
At the mortuary, she was able to say that she was sure that one of the faces she had walked past four days earlier during her half-hour walk to work had been the face of the murder victim. It’s impressive.
Think of a busy street you were walking down three days ago.
Then, try to describe to yourself one of the people you passed by—one of the people whom you didn’t take much notice of. Check the level of your recall against Mrs. Long's detailed description of the “foreign-looking” gentleman.
Of course, if you walked past Donald Trump or your mother three days ago, you’d have no trouble recalling that, but Mrs Long didn’t know Annie Chapman.
But if Mrs Long was right - as the Coroner and, indeed, modern writers seem to think - then it certainly confirms the theory that this 47-year-old woman who was in very poor health and had had no sleep since she told a friend the evening before that she was too ill to do anything - managed - after being kicked out of Crossingham’s doss house just before 2 in the morning - to search the streets for three and a half hours before arriving at the west end of Hanbury Street. Where - among “the many people and clogged market vehicles” - she finally found a man who she could accost and take - after the September sun had risen - through the front door of a house which, as Philip Sugden says, was busy with people going to work.
Did Mrs Long invent that story?
Now, it could have happened that way. But do you think it could be possible that Mrs Long made up her story to get her 15 minutes of fame and a free pass to view Annie Chapman’s dead body in the mortuary?
What if Annie Chapman leaves Crossingham’s doss house and walks 500 yards to a house she knows well rather than searching the streets for three and a half hours?
And she did know it. When John Richardson’s mother, Amelia Richardson, saw Annie’s body, she recognised her.
She said that Annie had called at number 29 many times, and Amelia Richardson said she had bought needlework and crochet work that Annie had made.
So Annie knows the house. She knows that it is let out in rooms, so the front door and door to the yard are left unlocked. She goes through to the yard, and then this little woman huddles down between the steps and the fence and falls into a deep sleep.
A few hours later, John Richardson arrives and checks out the padlock on the cellar door. He holds open the door to the yard. A door that is hiding the sleeping Annie. He leaves, and then another man checks out the yard and sees her huddled in the corner. It’s just irresistible fun. And who’ll miss one more drab little woman?
What if John Richardson’s stories were just inventions?
He lived close to where the five victims lived and less than 20 minutes from each of the murder sites.
The police were interested in John Richardson because of the changes he made to his story.
Mrs Long’s eyewitness evidence cleared John Richardson.
The police lost interest when Mrs Long arrived and told everybody that Annie Chapman was alive and well at 5:30.
And, of course, that was half an hour after Spitalfields Market opened at 5 am. From 5 am, John Richardson was busy being a porter at that same Spitalfields Market.
Remembering what Philip Sugden wrote:
“At about 5 in the morning a Mrs Elizabeth Long left her home at 32 Church Street to go to work at Spitalfields Market.”
It might be worth pointing out that Church Street is now called Fournier Street, and Number 32 is a very convenient 2-minute walk from Spitalfields Market and less than 3 minutes from 29 Hanbury Street.
What was Mrs Long doing for the other 27 minutes?
Now, it’s possible she had a Pilates class or the equivalent, but nobody asked her why she left home at 5 am and deliberately made herself late for work that morning by the detour she took.
Now, nobody can know exactly who committed each of these murders. So perhaps any of us can say, “What if . . .”
And Philip Sugden is certainly not the only expert on the Jack the Ripper murders who believes that:
Mrs Long’s evidence is crucial, for she later visited the mortuary and positively identified Annie Chapman as the woman she had seen. Her companion was almost certainly the murderer.”
But then others could say, what if . . .
What if the police surgeon was right in his estimate that she was murdered at least 2 hours before he first examined her? So before 4:20. When it was still dark and Spitalfields Market had yet to come to life.
What if John Richardson was checking for anybody dossing in the yard before 4:20?
He sees the sleeping Annie curled up between the steps and the fence. He grabs her by the throat and then pulls out his knife. And then made up a story about the yard being empty at quarter to 5 to give himself an alibi in case anybody reported seeing him entering or leaving 29 in those predawn hours.
On the subject of John Richardson being a suspect - he does fit a 1988 FBI profile by Special Agent John Douglas, who suggested that the suspect, known as Jack the Ripper, might have had the following traits.
• Aged between 28 and 36 - Tick.
• Local, ordinary - He lived within five minutes of the victims. And he was a porter at the Spitalfields Market - Tick.
• Domineering mother/weak or absent father - His mother, Amelia, was very religious, and she ran the family packing case business. His father was dead - Tick.
• Had likely been interviewed during the investigation. - Tick.
Thank you for checking out this post.