Why Didn't the Police Have Schwartz and/or Lawende Take a Look at Hutchinson?

[Jon Guy]

I pointed this out quite a few pages back when discussing fish and potatoes.

Obviously even today stomach content is a significant bit of information in any homicide.

Did Phillips or Bond hazard a guess at when this meal was taken ?

[Batman]

Did Phillips or Bond hazard a guess at when this meal was taken ?

Yeah they did, but today because of rigor mortis and statements regarding Kelly's state of rigor mortis, we can figure out a good time for her death. Somewhere between 3am and 4am it seems. Food taken before midnight would be well disgested by then.

https://casebook.org/dissertations/ripperoo-todeath.html

[Darryl Kenyon]

Dr Bond said the meal of fish and potatoes was probably eaten 3 or 4 hours before Mary died. Now assuming that Mary was murdered around 4 am this fits neatly in with Blotchy arriving at 13 Millers court. Or does it?
Alcohol can slow digestion by 50% and since Mary was likely very drunk this would probably be the case. Not only that but complex carbohydrates [starches] are a difficult type of food to break down during digestion. And of course, potatoes are one of the most starchy foods out there.
Bearing all this in mind I would like to guess that Mary probably ate her meal between 10 and 11 pm.
Would she have been noticed in a Chandler's shop? Well, it was the Lord Mayor's show the day after and some of the working populace I believe would have had the day off. So the pubs and takeaways, so to speak were probably busier than normal so she may not [or Blotchy, if he bought the meal], been noticed.

[Batman]

Would like to guess that Mary probably ate her meal between 10 and 11 pm.
Would she have been noticed in a Chandler's shop? Well, it was the Lord Mayor's show the day after and some of the working populace I believe would have had the day off. So the pubs and takeaways, so to speak were probably busier than normal so she may not [or Blotchy, if he bought the meal], been noticed.

Still, IF the food had been purchased that evening by JtR, then someone would have to have dealt with him.

Furthermore, who sold the beer in the can to Blotchy?

[Sam Flynn]

Not only that but complex carbohydrates [starches] are a difficult type of food to break down during digestion.

Not much carbohydrate digestion happens in the stomach, which mainly secretes protein-busting enzymes. A small amount of carbohydrate-processing enzyme (ptyalin) is mixed with the food in the mouth, but most carbohydrate digestion occurs when the food reaches the small intestine. As the food was found in Mary's stomach, chances are that the potatoes hadn't had a chance to be fully digested yet.

The fish is another matter, in that its protein is fairly quickly broken down due to its delicate structure. Te fact that partially-digested fish was seen in her stomach (and was still recognisable as such) might suggest a shorter time had elapsed between her meal and her death than we might think. Perhaps 2-3 hours (or less), rather than 3-4?

If only we knew when she was killed...

[Wickerman]

..... and since Mary was likely very drunk this would probably be the case.

Who was it that wrote her clothes were folded (on a chair?), and her shoes placed by the fire?

I can't remember the source, but not the actions of someone "very drunk".

It's unfortunate that Dr Bond did not give more details on what led him to draw the conclusion he did about her time of death.
Even the police would know the potential value of finding partly digested food in her stomach. The surgeon would alert the police immediately.
Whatever the police uncovered, they must have given Bond a time when she could have last ate.
Dr Bond cannot arrive at a time of death without that critical detail, and that detail had to come from the police, even if it was a rough estimate.

[Michael W Richards]

Sorry for repeating myself but I find the idea that a man of probable means [Gold chain etc] would go up a notorious street in the middle of the night, and then into a room up a darkened court with a prostitute while all the time being followed by a man who stooped down to have a look at him very unlikely indeed.
If just for his own safety. How did he know it wasn't a trap? And Hutch wasn't Mary's accomplice ready to mug him of his parcel and chain etc once up the court.

Excellent observations, since we know that there were women working with men to do just that. Unless he knew Mary, and trusted her, which would again, point away from someone who kills strangers..as Jack did.

Killing strangers is far more likely to end up as an Unsolved murder.

[Observer]

I feel your pain, brother.
I bought mine from my local oil cloth shop.

Indeed, and I thought I had asbestos fingers. Thanks for the advice re the oil shop, but i'm going to stick to kebabs from now on.

[Observer]

Around midnight.

If she took her meal around midnight, what was A Man doing standing talking to her at 2 in the morning with a fish supper in his hands? In short the fish supper in question could not have been the one that Kelly partook of at "around midnight"

[Sam Flynn]

Who was it that wrote her clothes were folded (on a chair?), and her shoes placed by the fire?

I remember asking this a few years ago, as I couldn't find any contemporary source that said her clothes were "neatly folded", and that remains the case. I think the idea is a more recent invention that's somehow slipped into accepted use.

If you look at the sketch of Kelly's room which appeared in Reynolds News, which I believe was drawn by someone who was there, we see a pair of shoes kicked off in front of a chair, with what appears to be a coat loosely hanging off the back of it.

[Batman]

If she took her meal around midnight, what was A Man doing standing talking to her at 2 in the morning with a fish supper in his hands? In short the fish supper in question could not have been the one that Kelly partook of at "around midnight"

I am saying around midnight.

I would not rule out later as you have.

[Darryl Kenyon]

If you look at the sketch of Kelly's room which appeared in Reynolds News, which I believe was drawn by someone who was there, we see a pair of shoes kicked off in front of a chair, with what appears to be a coat loosely hanging off the back of it.

Hi Sam the coat may be the coat left there by Maria Harvey

[Observer]

I am saying around midnight.

I would not rule out later as you have.

I'm not ruling anything out or in. How can you say that she took her meal around midnight, and maintain that A Man's parcel contained fish and chips? I don't know about you but if someone said to me that they had had a meal around midnight I would assume they meant within 20/30 minutes either side of midnight. How far does "around midnight " stretch too? Two hours, three hours, six hours?

[Darryl Kenyon]

Who was it that wrote her clothes were folded (on a chair?), and her shoes placed by the fire?

I can't remember the source, but not the actions of someone "very drunk".

Mary Ann Cox - She was called Mary Jane. I last saw her alive on Thursday night, at a quarter to twelve, very much intoxicated

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Sam the coat may be the coat left there by Maria Harvey

It looks like the coat was casually draped on the chair, and there's a pair of equally discarded-looking shoes on the floor in front of it. I'd bet a pound to a penny that it was Mary Kelly who slung the coat on the back of that chair, then sat on it to take off her shoes.