Hutchinsons statement....

[Fisherman]

I think that Hutchinson,by Friday night or Saturday,would have known/heard about the murder, and whether his sighting was "relevant" to the murder because it happened earlier the same day or yesterday - if Saturday - and this relevance is all he had to remember.He could not have forgotten this by Monday evening.

"I think" is of course a powerful argument, but I tend to be a bit careful about it whenever it surfaces just the same.

Mary Kelly was killed on the 9:th of November. George Hutchinson sought out the police on the evening of the 12:th of November. He claimed to have seen Kelly with a man in the early morning hours of the 9:th, meaning that it was on the night of the 8:th of November.
Putting it in weekday chronology, Hutchinson basically returned to London after having left Romford in the late evening of Thursday, arriving in the East End at around 2 AM on Friday. That was when he withessed the meeting between Kelly and Astrakhan man.
He then went to see the police on Monday. So we are dealing with a spectrum involving five days, Thursday-Monday.
We do not know when Hutchinson found out about Kelly having been killed.

Now, imagine that Hutchinson mistook Wednesday for Thursday - he lived a vagrantīs life, and will have taken whatever working opportunities that came along, sleeping whereever the work placed him, and being willing to travel by night between different places. If he made this very simple mistake (compare by asking yourself when you had that cod for dinner last week, was it on Tuesday or Wednedsay? When was it Trump twittered "cofefe", was it on Monday or Tuesday?), he would have been inclined to think that it must have been Friday morning he saw Kelly instead of Thursday morning.

It is a very trivial thing to do, and I have never seen it questioned with such heat until it was mentioned out here. Out here, we get "He could not have forgotten".

Believe me - he could well have.

[Fisherman]

It's not a question of not accepting that Hutchinson could get the date wrong, it's a question of how likely he was to have done so.

It is a question of both, Gareth. Because if we say "no, he is less likely to get it wrong than right, so it didnīt happen", we are not being very discerning. Regardless of what happens around us, we are given to this type of mistake on a regular basis. People mistake the days of their weddings, the first day on a new job etcetera. It is an extremely common thing. And saying in retrospect that since somebody got killed, a person knowing the victim will never mix up the days when inīt happened is - and please donīt call me hectoring - beyond ridiculous.

Therefore it is VERY much a question if it CAN happen, and not at all just a question of how likely it is to happen. The latter thing will also be dependent to a degree of how given Hutchinson was to muddle the days on a general level, and since we have no idea whatsoever about that particular factor, how on earth can we decide how likely a mistake was in his particular case? We can work from general knowledge only, and that tells us that although we normally do not mix up the days, it is nevertheless something that can very easily happen, and it happens more often to those living a vagrant type of lie than to those who do not.

That really is all we can say on a general level. After that, we must weigh in the facts we have, and they tell us that:
-Dew opted for this kind of mistake on Hutchinsons behalf.
-His story was never fully dismissed.
-Hutchinson must have met Lewis if he stood where he said he stood, when he said he did, but he does not mention seeing her. He is adamant in pointing out that he saw two people only during his vigil.
-Hutchinson said he walked the streets all night, but the weather was awful and walking the streets would be stupid. The night before, however, was nice and dry.
-Kelly and Astrakhan stopped for a number of minutes outside the court, according to Hutchinson. Wy would they do that, in abominable weather? Why not walk the last five yards and get inside, inside of chatting in gale-force winds and pouring rain outside the court?

When we take matters into consideration, the suggestion that Hutchinson mixed up the days becomes a very good one. But it demands that we are able to see that it is NOT all about how likely we are to mix up days, generally speaking, but instead of how we need to use our certainty that people do it very often in combinbation with the known details of the murder evening.

Itīs a wider perspective, but a much needed one.

[Varqm]

Sarah Lewis saw the first couple near Britannia,the loitering man across near Crossinghams ("The man was looking up the court; he seemed to be waiting or looking for some one". - Lewis),the second couple farther down the street from Miller's Court either in her side of the street or across and proceeded to Miller's Court and to her room.That to me is what simply happened.No Hutchinson.

[Varqm]

"On the contrary, there is every reason to believe that the couple were seen in Dorset Street, and were still in Dorset Street, when Lewis/Kennedy entered the Court itself.

__________________
Kind regards, Sam Flynn "

Yes the Britannia couple and this one (the one "further on").Based on the inquest it's pretty clear.I do not know what's hard to understand about that.For years,this has been understood as such.She said it like she did because there was nothing more to be said about those couples.

[Sam Flynn]

I think that Hutchinson,by Friday night or Saturday,would have known/heard about the murder, and whether his sighting was "relevant" to the murder because it happened earlier the same day or yesterday - if Saturday - and this relevance is all he had to remember.He could not have forgotten this by Monday evening.

Well said.

[David Orsam]

IF Lewis was indeed 5 months pregnant as Simon Wood pointed out..surely a newborn child 4 months later registered under the name Lewis/Kennedy would clarify the matter? Especially if the mother's name was Sarah Kennedy?

It wouldn't clarify the matter at all Phil. We know that Sarah Lewis was living with a man called Joseph Gotheimer. So any child would either bear the surname Lewis (because she wasn't actually married to him) or Gotheimer.

So that wouldn't help us in any way.

My suggestion is that Sarah Lewis did not want to call herself the foreign sounding Mrs Gotheimer but she did want to make clear that she had a husband (and you will recall that she told the police in her statement that she had had "a few words with my husband") so she chose an English married name for herself of "Kennedy" when she spoke to the press. Perhaps Joseph himself went by that name.

So the birth records are never going to assist us here. Jon will be assisted if he finds that Sarah Lewis had a sister who married a man named Kennedy but I don't think he ever will.

[David Orsam]

Now..53 is a specific number.. not likely to have been made up.
The point is..nowhere near that number are found in the Kelly file. So that's one hell of a lot of missing statements.

There is no existing "Kelly file" though Phil. If you mean the statements held by the coroner for Middlesex, those are papers relating to the inquest only and include only statements of those who gave evidence.

Not everyone who makes a statement to the police in a murder investigation will be called to give evidence at an inquest by any means. Just think about all the suspects who could be interviewed by police and make a statement as to their whereabouts etc. If the police clear them from involvement they have no reason to appear at an inquest. Many witnesses might make statements in which they say they saw or heard something but nothing of any significance. So they will not be called either.

There's really nothing surprising or suspicious about the notion that a lot more statements are taken by the police in an inquiry than who testify at inquest or indeed at any form of court hearing within criminal proceedings.

[Phil Carter]

Hello all,

Interesting discussion.��
May I point out a couple of apparently overlooked things?

1. IF Lewis was indeed 5 months pregnant as Simon Wood pointed out..surely a newborn child 4 months later registered under the name Lewis/Kennedy would clarify the matter? Especially if the mother's name was Sarah Kennedy?

2. I forget which newspaper..forgive me.. but it stated that 53 witness statements re. The Kelly murder had been collected by the police. Now..53 is a specific number.. not likely to have been made up.
The point is..nowhere near that number are found in the Kelly file. So that's one hell of a lot of missing statements.
It also raises the question of why there was such a cull on the amount of witnesses/persons at the inquest.
The inquest proceeded at a very strange pace with an abrupt ending. Some call it indecent haste.
It is not unthinkable that the police wanted information held back from public testimony. It would fit in with people being asked to not talk to the press (53 different individual's statements are not recorded in the press).


Regards


Phil

[Varqm]

Bang on, Colin - that certainly is a very obvious possibility. But there are those who will not accept that Hutchinson could err like that. Iīm not one of them.

I think that Hutchinson,by Friday night or Saturday,would have known/heard about the murder, and whether his sighting was "relevant" to the murder because it happened earlier the same day or yesterday - if Saturday - and this relevance is all he had to remember.He could not have forgotten this by Monday evening.

[Sam Flynn]

You can always offer a suggestion as to what happened to this couple after they walked up the passage.

Because they quite possibly didn't walk up the passage. I believe you've only found one newspaper report that says they entered Miller's Court? Most, if not all, reports seem to say that Lewis/Kennedy saw the couple in Dorset Street.

It doesn't make sense to use the term "further on" to refer to the couple's being in the short passageway that connected Dorset Street to Kelly's room. If they were there, Lewis/Kennedy would surely have said "just down the passage" or "in front of me", but she doesn't.

Apart from the one newspaper report, which could well have been in error, there is no reason to believe that Lewis/Kennedy saw the couple enter Miller's Court. On the contrary, there is every reason to believe that the couple were seen in Dorset Street, and were still in Dorset Street, when Lewis/Kennedy entered the Court itself.

Besides.... if Lewis/Kennedy had seen Kelly and this man actually enter Miller's Court, you'd think that it would have been stated explicitly and unanimously in the press and in her police testimony, and that she'd have been asked about it at the inquest. But it isn't, and she wasn't.

[David Orsam]

She told the court she was at the Keylers at 2:30 - when the clock chimed, which is between 2 and 3, is it not?

She did indeed tell that to the court but not to the police so if she told the newspaper reporter the same thing as she told the police, namely that she arrived in Dorset Street between, or around, 2 and 3, it might easily have been included as 3am in the press report.

[Wickerman]

Yes of course it's a problem that you seem to be relying so heavily on a newspaper account in respect of the difference between 2.30 and 3.00am in circumstances where Lewis had told the police she arrived at Millers Court between 2 and 3.

She told the court she was at the Keylers at 2:30 - when the clock chimed, which is between 2 and 3, is it not?

[Wickerman]

So, you think it's a stretch that the reports we have of Kennedy's story may be a mix-up, but you don't think what you're saying here is? Right...

Can you explain where you see this mix-up?

If Lewis didn't know the value of what she saw because she didn't know Kelly, then the same would be true in some way of the portion you quoted: note that Kennedy is reported to have seen "a woman" and not specifically the deceased. The main reason why Kennedy's testimony was brought up in this thread was her supposed sighting of Kelly by the Britannia at 3 AM.

If there was a mix-up about who Lewis was, or if Kennedy was lying, that's not contradicted by Abberline being reported as talking to Kennedy.

Abberline surely would have known which woman was which, meeting them face to face and all, but he never says that he doesn't so... what's your point?

The line you hi-lited in the quote took place "at the court", not outside the Britannia. This "woman talking to two men" may have had nothing to do with the crime - we simply do not know.

I was going to say that we don't know much about the costumer in the quote you gave, so we can't even know if that's Lewis but considering your posts in this thread... by all means, don't let anyone stop you from seeing what you want to see.

It could be anybody. Though, if it isn't Lewis, then we have another as yet unknown witness who saw a "funny-looking" man in the vicinity of the murder.

I don't see anything as irregular, I'm just pointing out that she does not say that the couple went indoors once they reach Miller's Court -- at least not as specifically as you seem to think.

I guess if she saw a couple walk up the court, then when she gets there she see's no-one in the court, we are left with an impossible situation. With no way out of the court, what did they do, spread wings and fly?

As in: if they were both telling the truth then Hutchinson could have left, then Kelly left shortly after, and then she was seen by Kennedy. I don't know what about that is unclear to you or what you're trying to contradict since what you responded basically agrees with what I said...

What you said was correct, one reason it is correct is because......
"There is no overlap in time. It is not easy for us to establish accurate timelines when almost every time given is an "about", which could be as much a five or even ten minutes either way of the hour stated."

That was agreeing with you, though why you should think otherwise is the puzzle.

In any case, Lewis never specifies that the couple went inside in Miller's Court (which was the point I was trying to make).

You can always offer a suggestion as to what happened to this couple after they walked up the passage.

[Sam Flynn]

I don't see how.
Lewis is walking away from the Britannia, towards Millers court when she say's that there was a couple further on. She's already mentioned the couple outside the Britannia as she passed them. Now, she is down Dorset street....

The beauty of neck vertebrae is that they can swivel, thus enabling the head to look in more than one direction if the need arises.

Besides, "it is nonetheless true, as I suggested, that a couple seen standing outside the Britannia could be described as "further on" from the POV of someone at the entrance to Miller's Court."

My original statement, as quoted in italics, is still perfectly correct, even if you don't think it applied to Lewis.

[David Orsam]

"Separate abodes" refers to Lewis who lived in Great Pearl Street, and Kennedy who lived at No.2 Millers Court.

Am I going too fast for you?

Yes you are. How do you know that Mrs Kennedy lived at No 2 Millers Court? Where is the proof? Where was her husband?

And how do you account for the version of her story which appeared in the Evening Post of 9 November 1888:

"Our representative has interviewed a woman named Kennedy, who was on the night of the murder staying with her parents at a house situate in the court immediately opposite the room in which the body of Mary Kelly was found."?