The kidney removal of Catherine Eddowes.

[Trevor Marriott]

I saw this posted on Facebook earlier today. Identity removed to protect the innocent

Somebody singing from the same song sheet as myself

Cue Herlock and his gang of followers

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Enigma]

An unsubstantiated statement by an unidentified individual on the internet (Facebook always being a reliable source). That MUST be proof organs were removed in the mortuary. Seems legit to me.

[GBinOz]

I want to float a piece of speculation but I want to stress that this is all that it is. I’m not trying to claim that this what happened but there’s nothing wrong with speculation as long as it’s acknowledged as such from the start. And as none of us know exactly what occurred and at what time etc the situation is ripe for such speculation. Mine requires three things for consideration - 1) that the couple seen by the three men were unconnected to the murder, 2) that Constables weren’t always 100% diligent in their duties (especially at night in winter) and may have occasionally cut a corner or two (literally in fact in this scenario) and 3) that Bullseye lamps weren’t very bright. I’ll stand correcting but I seem to recall Neil Bell making this point previously.

So might the couple have been someone else? Why not? Eddowes and her killer clearly couldn’t have been the only couple on the streets at that time but, more importantly, she was released from Bishopsgate Station at around 1.00. From the station to Mitre Square is a walk of around 10 minutes I believe. Yes she could have gone in a different direction before changing her mind. Yes she might have sheltered from rain before arriving but these are both a matter of speculation too. So I think it’s entirely valid to ask - if she arrived at Mitre Square at around 1.10, why would she have been chatting 20-25 minutes later. Surely she wouldn’t have arrived at Mitre Square and then stood around in the hope of a client? So I’d suggest that it’s at least a possibility that the couple weren’t Catherine and her killer. Back to the scenario.


Catherine runs into her killer at around 1.10 and by 1.15 she is lying dead in the corner of Mitre Square. The killer begins ‘work’ but around 1.30 he hears PC Watkins footsteps as he approaches from Mitre Street. The killer goes into Church Passage and stands near to Duke Street waiting. His thinking is that if the body is discovered the Constable will blow his whistle which would be his signal to flee the scene before other officers arrive.

Watkins walks along the left side of the square until he’s near to Kearley and Tong. Instead of walking the entire perimeter of the square he directs his lamp toward the corner. He sees no one standing but misses the body lying in shadow. He turns and leaves; the killer hears this. Realising that it will be a fair few minutes before he reappears he goes back and continues for another 10 minutes or so before fleeing the scene.

Watkins arrives back at 1.44 but this time he moves closer to the corner and sees the body. The killer has had 25 minutes with his victim.


Remember - speculation only - but a possibility.

Hi Herlock,

Speculation?....Yes...but with a mystery littered with contradictions and light on verifiable fact, aren't most of our theories speculation. In this case I believe you present viable alternatives.

Eddowes was picked up by police near Aldgate Station in a drunken state when she had been, apparently, broke having expended the money from the sale of her partner's shoes on a breakfast. Perhaps she "earned" some money to pay for drinks, of perhaps she was in the company of someone who was paying for her drinks, someone who was listening to blackmail threats from her - she had said that she knew the identity of the ripper.

So we have the story of Lawende and Co. seeing a couple in the vicinity and, thanks to Scott Nelson's excellent dissertation, a sighting of a couple leaving Aldgate station in the direction of Mitre square with the man returning shortly afterwards alone, possibly having had a police officer stand aside for him to pass in the orange market. The Lawende theory has popular support, but once again I find myself in the minority.

You present one alternative to the Watkins skiving theory. Another is that he decides at 1:15 that a nice cup of tea with George Morris was preferable to a 15 minute beat in the rain...who was going to know...who was going to tell? So he leaves the warehouse and resumes his beat without doing a circle in the square.

All speculation, of course.

Cheers, George

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

Speculation?....Yes...but with a mystery littered with contradictions and light on verifiable fact, aren't most of our theories speculation. In this case I believe you present viable alternatives.

Eddowes was picked up by police near Aldgate Station in a drunken state when she had been, apparently, broke having expended the money from the sale of her partner's shoes on a breakfast. Perhaps she "earned" some money to pay for drinks, of perhaps she was in the company of someone who was paying for her drinks, someone who was listening to blackmail threats from her - she had said that she knew the identity of the ripper.

So we have the story of Lawende and Co. seeing a couple in the vicinity and, thanks to Scott Nelson's excellent dissertation, a sighting of a couple leaving Aldgate station in the direction of Mitre square with the man returning shortly afterwards alone, possibly having had a police officer stand aside for him to pass in the orange market. The Lawende theory has popular support, but once again I find myself in the minority.

You present one alternative to the Watkins skiving theory. Another is that he decides at 1:15 that a nice cup of tea with George Morris was preferable to a 15 minute beat in the rain...who was going to know...who was going to tell? So he leaves the warehouse and resumes his beat without doing a circle in the square.

All speculation, of course.

Cheers, George

Hello George,

Thanks for the comments. As I said, whilst this isn’t something that I’m pushing as “what I think happened,” but like you, I don’t think that there’s anything impossible or massively unlikely about it. Yes there could be another reason why Eddowes was talking in Duke Street 20 minutes or so after she would have arrived there after walking directly from the station but we would be equally as unsure that this alternative explanation was true too. So even if we allow 10 or 20% possibility that this couple might not have included Eddowes then we have a huge potential difference. That a killer crouching in Mitre Square might have heard the echoing footsteps of an approaching PC doesn’t sound too much of a stretch to me. So just as the killer of Nichols might have been alerted by PC Neil approaching why couldn’t our killer have heard PC Watkins arriving at around 1.30. After all, isn’t a square more likely an echo chamber than a street? That police officers weren’t always totally diligent is based on human nature and the fact that we do read of officers being dismissed (drinking on duty, going with women etc) Nine months later his colleague Harvey was dismissed after all. That bullseye lamps weren’t particularly bright is a valid point I believe. All that would be left is my suggestion of the killer ‘retreating’ while Watkins was in Mitre Square. Being confident that a Constable finding a body would blow his whistle our killer would have known that this would have given him a kind of ‘startling gun’,to make his getaway.

You never know George it might have been what happened.

And it might not have been of course.

[Doctored Whatsit]

I think that George and Herlock are right to speculate, because Lawende only saw the back of a woman who could have been Eddowes because she wore similar clothes. We cannot accept that as a positive identification, especially as some doubt the identifications actually made by witnesses such as Long, Schwartz, and certainly Packer.
We must consider plausible alternatives.