Why Did The Police Discount Hutchinson's Statement So Quickly?

I'm not so sure the police would have had the time, resources or inclination to perform character-checks on every witness, Mike. On any witness, come to that - especially considering the pressure they must have been under at that time.

Hi Sam,

My thinking is that on the weekend, those witnesses were believed all they were going to get, so I think if focussed on their potential viability to put on the stand, the police could interview a few people known by most witnesses on Saturday and Sunday. They had interviewed the witnesses themselves Friday, and they did have that weekend to organize themselves enough to think they could mount an Inquest on the very first business day after the murder.

They were dealing with fixed address witnesses for the most part too....enabling some neighbors to perhaps know them better than a roommate at the lodging house might.

But Georges value wasnt necessarily long term....I think thats the way they saw his tale at first....he could and would identify who he saw if they could find him....maybe that search for possibles was their way of feeling his story out....but they had to act on it right away, having lost 3 days already. If the man he said hed seen hadnt fled by Monday,....its not a stretch to think hed leave his coat, his spats and his horse head pin in the closet from Tuesday or Wednes on anyway.

Cheers Sam.

[Sam Flynn]

We know that the people who appeared at the Inquest Monday were felt to be credible evidence... so we can assume they were checked out over the weekend for opinions about their character.

I'm not so sure the police would have had the time, resources or inclination to perform character-checks on every witness, Mike. On any witness, come to that - especially considering the pressure they must have been under at that time.

Perry Mason,
Your post raises a number of questions, firstly, how long did it take the police investigation to interview other witnesses about the area of Miller's Court, considering the in-depth detail supplied by Hutch? You surmise approx. 72hrs at the least. I think you are right in your surmise...but Jack was lonnnnggg gone, before Hutch appeared on the scene, so to speak.
Rosey :-)

Hi Rosey,

That figure of 72 hours is the approximate time that George Hutchinsons story was apparently believed by the investigators, as we dont see anything from them until I believe late on the 15th or early the 16th that he was "discredited" as a witness.

We can see that they felt the witness was still very useful on Monday night, more than 72 hours after finding her...perhaps if only for the short term assuming they could bring some men in for him to identify. He said he was sure he would recognize the man again. I dont think any other witness who saw a suspect last with a victim said that, if memory serves.

We know that the people who appeared at the Inquest Monday were felt to be credible evidence......(other than Mrs Maxwell, judging by the comments introducing her testimony...perhaps she was just deemed honest but somehow mistaken), so we can assume they were checked out over the weekend for opinions about their character.

They jumped on the witness sighting portion with George....maybe at the expense of first reviewing whether he was worth their extension of belief...as it seems the Inquest witnesses received.

Best regards

[Rosey O'Ryan]

In an effort to punch my prior point that David picked up on, as it relates directly to the thread question,.....the potential for the information that Hutchinson gives to be "case breaking" is clear,...Ive never read a more detailed suspect description in any cases Ive read about.

So he was dismissed quickly because his story was investigated quickly. That being said they did not officially step back from his suspect until late on the 15th or 16th....which would suggest that they dismissed his story after they had spent nearly 72 hours investigating it.

These facts lead one to conclude that the dismissal was warranted, not rushed,... at least in the opinions of the men he talked to, and that investigated his story.

Best regards all.

Perry Mason,
Your post raises a number of questions, firstly, how long did it take the police investigation to interview other witnesses about the area of Miller's Court, considering the in-depth detail supplied by Hutch? You surmise approx. 72hrs at the least. I think you are right in your surmise...but Jack was lonnnnggg gone, before Hutch appeared on the scene, so to speak.
Rosey :-)

[richardnunweek]

Hi Garry ,
If a peice of string was attached to the chain , and was near the broken window, it would indeed make sense, however surely that could not have been evident when the police arrived, for surely entrance to the room would have been quite easy to see.
I am intriqued about the report of a Mrs storey, and Cox, actually entering the room, surely that was not likely, although one report did say, that residents of the court were concerned about Marys well being,, and reported no one could make her hear, and upon this reported to her landlord., and because of this Bowyer was sent to check.
This however appears to be incorrect, but as i said earlier, i believe we are proberly miles away from the actual events of that night/morning.
Regards Richard.

[Garry Wroe]

Apologies for the above. Another gold medal for incompetence. Now I'm off for a pinch of snuff ...

[Garry Wroe]

Hi Richard, Sam, All.

Contrary to what has been assumed, I’m inclined to think that it is Blotchy rather than the Jewish-looking suspect who underwent the somewhat spectacular metamorphosis at the hands of Mrs Cox’s niece. I have nothing to substantiate this surmise beyond a gut feeling, however.

The piece of string is an interesting one. There has been a good deal of conjecture about the method by which Mary Kelly secured her room after her key went missing. Whilst some sources mentioned a spring lock, others (Barnett included) referred to a bolt. Recently, though, I discovered that both terms were interchangeable descriptors for a locking mechanism that looks very much as though it was the precursor to the modern-day night-latch (see below). The bolt was spring-mounted, ensuring that it self-actuated whenever the door was closed. To disengage it, one simply pulled the chain and the bolt slid back into a neutral position. As I understand it, a piece of string was often attached to the chain for ease of use. In Kelly’s case, this would have made even more sense since one end of the string could have been left close to the broken window pane, thereby rendering this mode of access simpler and possibly less dangerous.

Whether Kelly did indeed attach a piece of string to the lock is, of course, open to debate. But at least the apparent contradiction between the bolt and spring lock appears to have been resolved.

Regards.

Garry Wroe.

...... it's just a pity she'd forgotten about the screams at the time of the murder!

I dont think any single witness that we study here is beyond being effected by the details of others stories to some degree, or to some embelishments....Astrakan may have only come to him after he had first boarded the vehicle that he thought verifies his story, Wideawake Hat man.

Mary Ann isnt the "ear-witness" to anything that night Sam, only the singing going on as she passed, when it was,... and to the light seen inside, when it was lit.

Elizabeth Prater is in the same house, and Sarah Lewis is almost across from Marys door, the same 2 witnesses that are in close proximity to room 13 oddly enough. Yet Neither say the sound was from Marys room. Sarah,... "as if at her door", and Liz,... "as from the court".

I support both their sound accounts, and yet point out that it needn't have been Mary crying out. Since no noise followed that call, it would seem no attack did.

But a woman may have uttered that in shock from the courtyard that wasnt Mary Kelly.

Best regards Sam.

[Sam Flynn]

who was Mrs Storey?

Interestingly, Rich, there was a Bridget Storey, aged 34, who lived at nearby Paternoster Row in November 1888. There's a possibility that this was the woman to whom Cox referred, albeit perhaps she wasn't a contemporary resident of Miller's Court at the time of Kelly's death. That said, she could have moved from Miller's Court to Paternoster Row shortly afterwards, I suppose.

Bridget Storey was admitted to the Whitechapel Infirmary on 21st Nov 1888, giving her address as 4, Paternoster Row. She was suffering from "tussis" (a cough), so perhaps some of her snuff had gone down the wrong way!

and whats this about a piece of string

No mention was made of it at the time, but the "window trick" was described to some extent - and no piece of string was involved. Sounds made up to me, as does the jolly tableau of the drunken sailors staggering home from the Frying Pan on Mary's arm (...how stereotyped is that? They were probably singing "Yo Ho!" as well ). The mention of an iron gate at the entrance to Miller's Court is clearly fictitious, as is the dialogue between Kelly and Mr Astrakhan... oops! but Cox didn't see her with Mr Astrakhan, did she? Also, the stor(e)y of Mary dishing out snuff to impromptu visitors seems to have crept in from nowhere, but there's no mention of "Only a Violet", which you'd think Cox would have remembered. To make up for that, Cox somehow "remembers" hearing Mary scream.. it's just a pity she'd forgotten about the screams at the time of the murder!

[richardnunweek]

Hello Garry,
Ninety per cent of what you wrote I was well aware of , but who was Mrs Storey?, and whats this about a piece of string, I am totally bewildered.
I am beginning to believe we are totally ignorant. of anything that happened that night in millers court....totally on the wrong wavelength..all of us
Regards Richard.

[Garry Wroe]

Precisely, Sam. And we have no way of knowing whether these inaccuracies originated with Mrs Cox, her niece, or a combination of the two – which is why I have repeatedly advocated a circumspect approach with regard to the Toppy claims.

Regards.

Garry Wroe.

In an effort to punch my prior point that David picked up on, as it relates directly to the thread question,.....the potential for the information that Hutchinson gives to be "case breaking" is clear,...Ive never read a more detailed suspect description in any cases Ive read about.

So he was dismissed quickly because his story was investigated quickly. That being said they did not officially step back from his suspect until late on the 15th or 16th....which would suggest that they dismissed his story after they had spent nearly 72 hours investigating it.

These facts lead one to conclude that the dismissal was warranted, not rushed,... at least in the opinions of the men he talked to, and that investigated his story.

Best regards all.

[Sam Flynn]

As I’m sure will be immediately apparent, virtually every detail has either been grossly exaggerated or distorted to the point of untruth.[/SIZE][/FONT]

More damningly, most of it seems to be pure invention.

Just saw my last post....and my apologies for the spelling errors....discredited, and any for anmy.

All the best

[Garry Wroe]

Hi Richard.

Given our previous discussion relating to the unreliability of anecdotal evidence, particularly that which has been passed down through the intrafamilial route, I thought that the following account, provided to Dan Farson by the niece of Mary Ann Cox, might be of interest:-

"The night of the murder of Mary Kelly my aunt was very young, just married with one child. She was standing at her door and waiting for her husband who was a bit of a boozer. She saw Mary coming through the iron gate with this gentleman, a real toff. Mary was always bringing home men, mostly seamen from a pub called the Frying Pan, singing and holding their arms with a bottle of gin under her arm. This night as they got under the lamp in the court they stopped. Mary's words were "all right love don't pull me along". My aunt said they were only a few yards away from her, at the door she said she saw him as plain as looking at her hand. He was a fine looking man, wore an overcoat with a cape, high hat, not a silk one, and a Gladstone bag. As they went into the house, Mary called out "goodnight" to my aunt."

She also added that her aunt heard 'terrible screams from Mary, but no one took any notice because it happened often'. Finally, she is quoted as saying this about the discovery of Kelly's body:

"Now next morning a Mrs Storey who was always in and out of Mary's room to have a pinch of snuff and a chat, was the first person to find the terrible body. Mary had a string on the door so anybody visiting had no need to knock. She dashed next door to my aunt and they both went in. My aunt never forgot the sight she saw.”

As I’m sure will be immediately apparent, virtually every detail has either been grossly exaggerated or distorted to the point of untruth – a perfect illustration, I would suggest, of the inherent unreliability of second-, third- and fourth-generation anecdotal evidence.

Regards.

Garry Wroe.