The broken window

[Wickerman]

Small point but why not put your arm through the broken pane, unclip the sash window and open it

Those windows may not have opened in years
Even McCarthy, if he wasn't aware that the lock could be reached, it only being known to Barnett & Kelly?, he should have been able to make the suggestion.
Like, "hey, the lock is mounted high enough that you should be able to reach the lock through the broken window", or something like that.

Anyone seeing the flesh on the table, behind the door, must have been able to see the lock, wouldn't you think?

[packers stem]

Those windows may not have opened in years
Even McCarthy, if he wasn't aware that the lock could be reached, it only being known to Barnett & Kelly?, he should have been able to make the suggestion.
Like, "hey, the lock is mounted high enough that you should be able to reach the lock through the broken window", or something like that.

Anyone seeing the flesh on the table, behind the door, must have been able to see the lock, wouldn't you think?

Agreed...McCarthys lack of help is a concern...he looked through the window himself!!
Even if he didn't have a spare key, which I don't believe,he knew the lay out, the door and the lock

[packers stem]

One other small point is a statement in the star stating that the bedstead was blocking the door and because of this it was believed that the killer left via the window...

[Phil Carter]

Agreed...McCarthys lack of help is a concern...he looked through the window himself!!
Even if he didn't have a spare key, which I don't believe,he knew the lay out, the door and the lock

Hello Packers Stem, Wickerman,

All of which can be summed up thus..

Barnett would have known how to open the door.
McCarthy would have known how to open the door.
All the policemen who looked through the windows would have the possibility of knowing how to open the door.
All of the medical men likewise.
Any neighbour that may have peered through the broken windows likewise. Likewise McCarthy's rent collector.

All of which..and let us just ignore the time scale and the waiting around, the dogs, etc, for a moment...leads me to ask a very important question.

Why ask someone to get a pickaxe to break the door open anyway?

You see, I simply cannot believe that in the time span between the body first being seen and the time of the actual entry to the room, nobody..nobody actually had been thinking at all. What the flaming heck do X amount of policemen, the landlord, his servant, X amount of doctors, X amount of near neighbours actually talk about for that length of time? It was a cold morning with drizzle. That's rain to you and me. Not a lot of umbrella mentions I note. So all these well clad people are standing around, cold and wet, talking about the victim, her background, her life, and not one single person said..After the orders to go in came..."hang on..you don't need a pickaxe, just reach through the window".

Didn't it occur to Abberline that if he had been told that the key was missing...

MARY would have to get back in to her own place every time she went out? Now she didn't need a blinking pickaxe every time. So...duh!

People say..oh..you are just looking for a problem where there isn't one.
In this case...that's my point. There isn't a problem opening that door. But by the most amazing set of circumstances. .opening the door BECAME a problem.
That is what is most unbelievable. The solution was at hand. The solution was simple. Yet..no.

And the worst thing is that there were people on hand to know the answer. It was staring them straight in the face.

Which is where I suggest that the delay in opening that door takes on a whole new meaning.

But then

Some people around here see all of the above as quite quite normal.

I don't. Sorry.


Phil

[David Orsam]

Hello Packers Stem, Wickerman,

All of which can be summed up thus..

Barnett would have known how to open the door.
McCarthy would have known how to open the door.
All the policemen who looked through the windows would have the possibility of knowing how to open the door.
All of the medical men likewise.
Any neighbour that may have peered through the broken windows likewise. Likewise McCarthy's rent collector.

All of which..and let us just ignore the time scale and the waiting around, the dogs, etc, for a moment...leads me to ask a very important question.

Why ask someone to get a pickaxe to break the door open anyway?

You see, I simply cannot believe that in the time span between the body first being seen and the time of the actual entry to the room, nobody..nobody actually had been thinking at all. What the flaming heck do X amount of policemen, the landlord, his servant, X amount of doctors, X amount of near neighbours actually talk about for that length of time? It was a cold morning with drizzle. That's rain to you and me. Not a lot of umbrella mentions I note. So all these well clad people are standing around, cold and wet, talking about the victim, her background, her life, and not one single person said..After the orders to go in came..."hang on..you don't need a pickaxe, just reach through the window".

Didn't it occur to Abberline that if he had been told that the key was missing...

MARY would have to get back in to her own place every time she went out? Now she didn't need a blinking pickaxe every time. So...duh!

People say..oh..you are just looking for a problem where there isn't one.
In this case...that's my point. There isn't a problem opening that door. But by the most amazing set of circumstances. .opening the door BECAME a problem.
That is what is most unbelievable. The solution was at hand. The solution was simple. Yet..no.

And the worst thing is that there were people on hand to know the answer. It was staring them straight in the face.

Which is where I suggest that the delay in opening that door takes on a whole new meaning.

But then

Some people around here see all of the above as quite quite normal.

I don't. Sorry.

Are you aware of a character in South Park called Captain Hindsight?

[Wickerman]

MARY would have to get back in to her own place every time she went out? Now she didn't need a blinking pickaxe every time. So...duh!

Hi Phil.

When Cox followed Mary & Blotchy, Cox didn't mention Kelly reaching through the window to open the door.

Which is consistent with something I read elsewhere, that locks were mostly used when the tenant was inside, for personal protection.
People carried their possessions around with them so an assault was more likely than burglary. When the tenant was out they didn't lock the door, they had nothing in the room worth stealing, everything they treasured was on their person.

Assaulting someone in the street was one way to steal their possessions, yes, and it did happen, but there would be witnesses. Breaking in and stealing from them is even better, no witnesses, being behind closed doors.
Moral of the story, when at home, lock your door, when you're out leave it off the latch.

[Phil Carter]

Hi Phil.

When Cox followed Mary & Blotchy, Cox didn't mention Kelly reaching through the window to open the door.

Which is consistent with something I read elsewhere, that locks were mostly used when the tenant was inside, for personal protection.
People carried their possessions around with them so an assault was more likely than burglary. When the tenant was out they didn't lock the door, they had nothing in the room worth stealing, everything they treasured was on their person.

Assaulting someone in the street was one way to steal their possessions, yes, and it did happen, but there would be witnesses. Breaking in and stealing from them is even better, no witnesses, being behind closed doors.
Moral of the story, when at home, lock your door, when you're out leave it off the latch.

Hello Jon,

I don't believe Cox followed Mary and Blotchy down the alleyway did she? In which case..she wouldn't have seen how they entered the room? I could be mistaken?


Phil

[packers stem]

Hi Phil.

When Cox followed Mary & Blotchy, Cox didn't mention Kelly reaching through the window to open the door.

Which is consistent with something I read elsewhere, that locks were mostly used when the tenant was inside, for personal protection.
People carried their possessions around with them so an assault was more likely than burglary. When the tenant was out they didn't lock the door, they had nothing in the room worth stealing, everything they treasured was on their person.

Assaulting someone in the street was one way to steal their possessions, yes, and it did happen, but there would be witnesses. Breaking in and stealing from them is even better, no witnesses, being behind closed doors.
Moral of the story, when at home, lock your door, when you're out leave it off the latch.

Evening to you all
With every day that passes I find I'm believing Barnett's story less and less and that's where the whole lost key,arm through window stuff comes from...
If we're thinking mortice lock and latch a bit similar to old back doors then there HAS TO BE A MISSING KEY as they would have tried the latch.
Surely wouldn't have been a yale type lock in those days...maybe at the top end of society but not in McCarthys rents... We need to see the door lol
I'm still going with it being blocked by the bed and the removal of the window on Arnolds arrival

[David Orsam]

Are you aware of a character in South Park called Captain Hindsight?

From Wiki:

Perfect 20/20 hindsight is the power that Captain Hindsight is most associated with. With his natural hindsight abilities raised to superhuman levels, due to an accident with a retroactive spider, Captain Hindsight can immediately know how an event could have been avoided just by looking at the scene. As it is perfect hindsight, it may give him knowledge that he didn't already have, such as building designs, to work. However, this power appears to force him to know how things could have been stopped and express it vocally, as he is seen muttering to himself when he was talking to Mysterion, leading him to label it as a curse as he can't save the people anyway. The greatest weakness to this power as Hindsight demonstrated, is the fact the ability only works after the action has occurred, which more often than not makes him regret doing the action in the first place and second guesses every action he does.

[Wickerman]

Evening to you all
With every day that passes I find I'm believing Barnett's story less and less and that's where the whole lost key,arm through window stuff comes from...
If we're thinking mortice lock and latch a bit similar to old back doors then there HAS TO BE A MISSING KEY as they would have tried the latch.
Surely wouldn't have been a yale type lock in those days...maybe at the top end of society but not in McCarthys rents... We need to see the door lol

Have you seen this link?

http://www.casebook.org/forum/messages/4921/6718.html

Scroll down to the bottom for an example of the type of lock it may have been.

[Michael W Richards]

Have you seen this link?

http://www.casebook.org/forum/messages/4921/6718.html

Scroll down to the bottom for an example of the type of lock it may have been.

It was a spring latch Jon, one that was engaged when "off". The latch needed to be set to be in effect. I have this theory about the broken window...because I believe in actuality there were three holes in the 2 sets of windows, one one the panes to the far left, one high on the right side, and one down by the lower right hand corner..the one that it is alleged Barnett used when they left the latch engaged and went out.

Heres my theory...I think they intentionally broke the one that Barnett used because they did indeed lose their key and didnt want to leave the room unlocked when they went out. It seems to convenient for it to have been the one that was accidentally broken during a row. I believe the broken window that occurred in a row was one of the 2 higher breaks.

Cheers

[packers stem]

Have you seen this link?

http://www.casebook.org/forum/messages/4921/6718.html

Scroll down to the bottom for an example of the type of lock it may have been.

Hi Wickerman
That looks like it makes sense. Works in the same way as a yale but more in keeping with the time

[packers stem]

It was a spring latch Jon, one that was engaged when "off". The latch needed to be set to be in effect. I have this theory about the broken window...because I believe in actuality there were three holes in the 2 sets of windows, one one the panes to the far left, one high on the right side, and one down by the lower right hand corner..the one that it is alleged Barnett used when they left the latch engaged and went out.

Heres my theory...I think they intentionally broke the one that Barnett used because they did indeed lose their key and didnt want to leave the room unlocked when they went out. It seems to convenient for it to have been the one that was accidentally broken during a row. I believe the broken window that occurred in a row was one of the 2 higher breaks.

Cheers

Hi Michael
We don't know which of the two lower panes was broken

[Michael W Richards]

Hi Michael
We don't know which of the two lower panes was broken

As I said PS, I believe a photo exists that shows a few breaks in the 2 sets of windows, and only 1 pane broken at the bottom right.. closest to the corner of the room. That is the only one that one might use to access the latch...and for that reason, I suspect the keyless couple created that particular break intentionally.

[c.d.]

People say..oh..you are just looking for a problem where there isn't one.
In this case...that's my point. There isn't a problem opening that door. But by the most amazing set of circumstances. .opening the door BECAME a problem.
That is what is most unbelievable. The solution was at hand. The solution was simple. Yet..no.

And the worst thing is that there were people on hand to know the answer. It was staring them straight in the face.

Which is where I suggest that the delay in opening that door takes on a whole new meaning.

But then

Some people around here see all of the above as quite quite normal.

I don't. Sorry.

Hello Phil,

I have to disagree. What was staring them in the face was the bloody, butchered corpse of Mary Kelly. I think even the most experienced and hardened policeman might be forgiven for not thinking clearly under the circumstances. Certainly a much simpler explanation than something more suspicious and sinister.

c.d.