Cry Murder!

[Frank]

Maybe it was really Mary Kelly crying "Oh, murder!" (dubbed: "Oh, sh*t") when she saw her new customer pulling out a knife. In this very moment such a first reaction would be conceivable (for me) as she recognised the Whitechapel Murderer. She couldn't then say/cry anything else because her murderer cut her throat.

[perrymason]

Maybe it was really Mary Kelly crying "Oh, murder!" (dubbed: "Oh, sh*t") when she saw her new customer pulling out a knife. In this very moment such a first reaction would be conceivable (for me) as she recognised the Whitechapel Murderer. She couldn't then say/cry anything else because her murderer cut her throat.

Frank, the evidence suggests that she was not attacked after that cry. Elizabeth Prater was in that same house, and testified she could hear when Mary moved about in her room. She was wakened before the voice, and listened for anything to follow to see if this was a real cry for help...she heard no noise following the cry, she decided this was like many other nights when she heard similar things...and she testified she fell back asleep 5 minutes later.

Mary was attacked with a knife and moved her left arm to block slashes or blows....ergo, she was conscious and alive when the attack began...maybe not fully awake. But she struggled with him some.

Id be more inclined to think this happened when Elizabeth was sleeping and didnt hear anything rather than assuming no noise was caused, so between approx 1:30 and 3:45am, or after 3:50am.

Best regards

[perrymason]

...edit: In that first sentence I should have phrased that "immediately after" the cry....

Cheers Frank.

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Mike,

Elizabeth Prater was in that same house, and testified she could hear when Mary moved about in her room.

... which Prater mentioned at the point in her testimony where she described her passing the partition on her ascent of the stairs; in the same sense, she "could have seen" the light through the gap in the partition, but that doesn't mean she said that she could do either once she was in her room.

Not strictly relevant to this thread, maybe, but it does no harm to remind ourselves of such things, once in a while

Mary was attacked with a knife and moved her left arm to block slashes or blows....

The only wounds that showed extravasation of blood in the skin were a small cut on Kelly's left thumb and a few abrasions on the back of her left hand. This suggests to me that Kelly might have brought her left hand up in a vain effort to push the knife away - either that, or she clutched instinctively at her throat and suffered minor collateral damage from the knife as a consequence.

It's worth remembering that Bond reports that both arms and forearms - i.e. left and right - had "extensive jagged wounds", and no extravasation is noted in respect of them. As far as one can tell from the photograph of the left arm, those jagged wounds are comparatively "clean". That is, there are no rivulets or patches of "oozed" blood on the skin either side of the wounds, as one might expect if they were inflicted whilst the circulation was still viable.

Bearing those factors in mind - i.e., both arms and forearms had sustained cuts, and those cuts were comparatively "clean", with no reported extravasation - it's probable that the cuts were inflicted after death.

Id be more inclined to think this happened when Elizabeth was sleeping and didnt hear anything rather than assuming no noise was caused, so between approx 1:30 and 3:45am

That's a pretty wide margin, Mike! Isn't it more logical to conclude that, if the scream Prater heard coincided with Kelly's death, then she was killed around 3:45 and no earlier?

[perrymason]

Isn't it more logical to conclude that, if the scream Prater heard coincided with Kelly's death, then she was killed around 3:45 and no earlier?

Hi Sam,

If the scream that was heard at approx 3:45am by Sarah and Elizabeth was Mary as she is first being attacked, then Id expect as I said to have evidence that some scuffle would immediately ensue and that Elizabeth, who actually referred to hearing Mary move about in the past and aside from her stairs observations, would have heard at the least sounds from a room that is part of the same house downstairs. Sarah and Elizabeth both listened for sounds to follow to determine the danger, if any, that was a cause for that cry, and none was heard. Liz went back to sleep.

So if the cry wasnt Mary, then she could already be dead...we do have the loiterer there much earlier than 3:45am...and Blotchy likely with her till at least 1:30am.

If she is the source, and she isnt in the process of actually calling for help.....which to me might be best heard by the phrase "HELP" or "HELP ME", then you have to explain why she would be startled by her killer but not engaging in an immediate fracas with him or causing any further noise.

When would you likely hear a startled utterance and little or no noise following? Well...One occasion might be when one party was woken suddenly and unexpectedly in the middle of the night after being passed out half undressed on the bed for over 2 hours.

Cheers Sam

[smezenen]

Maybe this is just another stupid question but I am a little confused about that.

In the night of Mary Jane Kelly's murder the witnesses Kennedy, Lewis and Prater heard a cry of "Murder!" from the direction of Kelly's room shortly before 4.00 a.m.
In the Tabram case it was mentioned that these cries were rather frequent in such a rough district.

I am no native speaker and so I wonder if it is common to cry "Murder!" instead of something like "Help!"

Best regards,
Frank

Just to add a little about this phrase. My grandpaents both grew up in east london and while I cant say I ever heard someone say Oh Murder when they where being killed I often heard my grandparents say it when they where frustrated with something. Not as a replacement for the suprised phrase of Oh Sh*t but more for the angry phrase of G*d D*mn it. grandma passed 20 years ago but my 98 year old grandfather is still alive I will have to ask him about the origins of the phrase when I see him this coming week.

[perrymason]

Just to add a little about this phrase. My grandpaents both grew up in east london and while I cant say I ever heard someone say Oh Murder when they where being killed I often heard my grandparents say it when they where frustrated with something. Not as a replacement for the suprised phrase of Oh Sh*t but more for the angry phrase of G*d D*mn it. grandma passed 20 years ago but my 98 year old grandfather is still alive I will have to ask him about the origins of the phrase when I see him this coming week.

Again smezenen, an interpretation that shows the phrase is perfectly compatible with frustration, annoyance, anger,....any one of which or all may be feelings someone would have when woken to a hangover or headache likely of gargantuan proportions, by someone either expected but resented, or not expected.

HELP....that was used to call for help often. "Oh-murder", as we can see, is not as clearly suggestive of imminent danger.

Cheers smezenen

[prowling cat]

As a young girl living alone in th early 80s I was told that in the event of someone attacking me, the best cry was "fire!", because if I were to call rape or any other thing, chances were, nobody would open a window or intervene. I luckily have never had to try this out, but it makes one think...

[Celesta]

Deja-vu

This thread discusses all of this.

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=1029&highlight=oh+murder

[Archaic]

"Screaming Bloody Murder"

I wonder what the origin of the phrase "screaming bloody murder" is? Because nowadays we use it in a deliberately satirical, exaggerated kind of way & apply it to anyone making a big noisy fuss. We use it as an idiomatic phrase, usually when telling a humorous anecdote. I guess a couple of similarly-used phrases would be "crying their eyes out" or "raising the roof".

I don't think I've ever heard it used to describe an instance where someone really was screaming about a bloody murder!

OK, let's see if Sam can pull the answer out of his sleeve, and tell us the exact year, day & time the phrase "screaming bloody murder" entered popular speech.
He probably can. I'm guessing it was probably around the time that "Oh, Murder!" went out.

Best Regards, Archaic

PS: Frank, your English is really good! English is a weird language & even native speakers have trouble with it; don't despair. You're doing great.

[Sam Flynn]

I wonder what the origin of the phrase "screaming bloody murder" is?

"Screaming blue murder" (which is the more familiar expression to me) is apparently an anglicisation of the French exclamation "morbleu!", which in itself is a euphemised contraction of "mort de Dieu!" ("God's death!"). The earliest reference I have found to "blue murder" in public literature is in a book of popular rhymes and glees dated 1828. As such, I suspect that the phrase was imported into English around the time of the French Revolution or the subsequent Napoleonic Wars.

[richardnunweek]

Hi Guys,
I will assume that the cry'Oh Murder' was the term used, from Mrs Praters recollection, as she was the only one that gave a oral description of it at the inquest, and she refered to it ''Like awakening from a nightmare'
My suggestion[ for many years] was that the cry of 'Oh Murder' was precisely that ie, Mary awakening from a troubled dream , and infact was not being attacked at all, at that point.
If this cry had not taken place , at the hour it happened around 4am, then i bet a pound to a penny , that the estimated time of death, would not be a foregone conclusion, that many members believe it to be.
If one reads Kit Watkins report a few years after, the interview [ alleged] with court resident lottie, makes very intresting reading'
'She told me she had a bad dream, in which she was being murdered', mayby i shall be next she said'
That happened shortly before kellys actual death, sometime after the double event, as Lottie said 'and she was the next,
As the subject of the dream was being murdered, then rather apt is it not?, that the cry out stated 'Oh Murder'.
If the witnesses that claimed to have seen kelly alive in the morning. were telling the truth, then that would explain it.... she was not dead, just the 'Horrors of drink' around 4am.
Its that simple.
Regards Richard,

[Sam Flynn]

Living up to her name...

Hello Rich,

Your Prater reference presumably comes from the Daily News of 13th November 1888:

Perhaps the most sensational bit of evidence tendered was that of a garrulous young woman who, with some dramatic force, imitated by voice and action a sort of nightmare cry of "Oh! murder!" which she declared she had heard just after she had been woke up by her kitten rubbing its nose against her face about half-past three or four o'clock on the morning of the murder.

If the paper's description of the witness is correct, then Prater is certainly living up to her name ("garrulous" = "given to excessive and often trivial or rambling talk"; "prater" = "one who indulges in empty, foolish, or trivial talk; idle chatterer"). In addition, we have the observation that she "imitated by voice and action" in a "dramatic manner" the kind of scream she'd heard, although how she'd have known which actions would have been appropriate is a mystery, given that she couldn't see what Kelly was doing at the time.

Taking that pen-portrait of Prater into consideration, the phrase "melodramatic gossip" strikes me as a fair summary of how she came across at the inquest. On that basis, we should treat her description of the "nightmare cry" with more than a degree of caution. We certainly can't take it literally.

[richardnunweek]

Hi Sam.
We simply cannot take any witnesses literally, however as Praters explanation given in 1888, and Watkins Lottie, some three years later, both refer to a nightmare/bad dream, we have some basis, in which to form an opinion.
The Term used 'Oh Murder' by Prater at the inquest, could well refer to MJK, having a reoccurrence of the dream ,that she informed lottie about, in which she was being murdered, in which case the act of murder in a dream , could have awoken kelly crying out those actual words.
We know from Barnetts own mouth, that he used to read all about the murders to Mary, he claims she asked him to do it, which if so, could have made her paranoid, and brought on a horrid dream.
If it was Barnett that wanted to read every bit about the murders to Mary, it could have brought on the same response.
We know she was very frightened, of going out alone, so it is surprising that she did that on thursday evening, she was i would say extremely frightened of being alone in room 13, note the sleepovers , since Barnett left,and bringing home Blotchy, and Astracan, when it was said it was not her policy to bring men back.
As it is on record that the discription of the cry was similar to awakening from a bad dream, why is not impossible that it was just that?, Praters garrulous behaviour does not make her out as a bad witness,
Regards Richard.

[FrankO]

"prater" = "one who indulges in empty, foolish, or trivial talk; idle chatterer"

On a side note, ‘praten’ is common Dutch for ‘to talk’ and a ‘prater’ is someone who talks or likes to talk. Funny to discover that yet another English word is virtually the same in Dutch. I didn’t even know that ‘prate’ and ‘prater’ existed in English.

Best,
Frank