"Murder...!" cry

[c.d.]

Just as an idle thought, Blotchy seems a pretty distinctive individual. I wonder if places where he might have bought the beer could have been checked?

c.d.

[c.d.]

You might have a point there, Wick. I don't know the answer. Maybe somebody can chime in and help.

c.d.

[Wickerman]

Hello Sam,

Assuming that Abberline was told the TOD wouldn't a seasoned detective such as himself have asked what that was based upon? Yes, we have to make assumptions but this sounds like pretty much a done deal to me.

c.d.

Actually c.d., I think it worked the other way around. Bond cannot estimate a time of death until Abberline provides Bond with an estimated 'time of consumption'.
The first step is for him to find the chippy, which isn't going to take too long.

I'll bet if the stomach contents had been made public, the press would have found where/when she last ate in no time flat.

[Wickerman]

I wonder if Blotchy could have brought her the food.

c.d.

Absolutely, on the way home from pub or maybe they went out shortly after one.

Yes, I think Bond was given a "time of consumption" based on Kelly's liaison with Blotchy.

The ironic thing for me though is, it had to be wrong.

[Abby Normal]

I wonder if Blotchy could have brought her the food.

c.d.

Absolutely, on the way home from pub or maybe they went out shortly after one.

[Abby Normal]

In the 19th century, as now, the presence of partly broken-down fish in the stomach would suggest that the food had been consumed a couple of hours before the relevant enzyme (pepsin) had ceased to be viable.True, but assuming the ~4AM cry of "Murder" was indeed hers, we can propose that she had been out and about at around 2AM, at which time she probably ate her last meal.

Well she wasn't heard singing and all was quiet after one, so I could go with maybe she and blotchy went out and got a bite to eat and came back.

[c.d.]

I wonder if Blotchy could have brought her the food.

c.d.

[c.d.]

True enough, but the important question is less one of where she went, but when she ate. To put it in a quasi-equation form:

Time of Eating = (Time of "Murder!" cry) - (Approx time for fish to appear partially-digested in stomach)

That's true, Sam. She could have gone out and brought the food back and eaten it later but if I were Abberline I would want to question everybody at the food establishment to see if they could remember her talking to anybody while there.

c.d.

[Sam Flynn]

Assuming that Abberline was told the TOD wouldn't a seasoned detective such as himself have asked what that was based upon?

Possibly, but - again - not everything was reported in the papers and, thanks to Roderick Macdonald, very little came out at the inquest either. Given that the Kelly murder was by far the most "spectacular" of the Ripper crimes, it's a shame that we are so very poorly served by the records.

[Sam Flynn]

Well since Mary didn't have a car and was therefore walking and since it was late at night a reasonable assumption would be that it was somewhere close. It does not seem an insurmountable task to find out where she went.

True enough, but the important question is less one of where she went, but when she ate. To put it in a quasi-equation form:

Time of Eating = (Time of "Murder!" cry) - (Approx time for fish to appear partially-digested in stomach)

[c.d.]

Hello Sam,

Assuming that Abberline was told the TOD wouldn't a seasoned detective such as himself have asked what that was based upon? Yes, we have to make assumptions but this sounds like pretty much a done deal to me.

c.d.

[c.d.]

Seems there were a lot of places selling food all hours of the day, at least one other murder here on Casebook references going out to get hubby food at about 1:00 am. Henry Mayhew also talks about it in one of his books.

Well since Mary didn't have a car and was therefore walking and since it was late at night a reasonable assumption would be that it was somewhere close. It does not seem an insurmountable task to find out where she went.

c.d.

[GUT]

Here's what I was looking for Elizabeth Mahoney at Tabram's inquest



I live at 37 [sic] George-yard-buildings, Whitechapel - a block of model dwellings - and am a married woman, my husband, Joseph, being a carman, while I work at a match factory at Stratford, where I work from nine in the morning, usually, till about seven o'clock at night. So far as I can remember, I have occupied rooms in the present house for about eight months. Monday was Bank Holiday, and my husband and I were out all day, and did not return until twenty minutes to two on Tuesday morning. We went straight up to our room, and after taking off my hat and cloak, I came down again and went to a chandler's shop in Thrawl-street to buy some provisions for supper. I came back having been gone about five minutes; and after having supper we went to bed. On neither occasion, either in coming up or going down the stairs, did I see the body of a woman lying there. It is quite possible that a body might have been there, and that I did not notice it, because the stairs are very wide and were completely dark, all the lights having, as usual, been turned out at eleven o'clock. I did not get up till half-past eight in the morning, and during the night my attention was not attracted by a noise or disturbance of any kind. I did not know of the body of the deceased having been found on the stairs till about ten o'clock on Tuesday morning.

[Sam Flynn]

Sorry, Sam but your response goes by me. Wouldn't Abberline have been told the basis for the TOD and wouldn't he have tried to find those places as suggested above?

It's by no means a given, CD. Besides, perhaps he did - it was a notoriously short inquest, and not much has been left to posterity.

As the saying goes, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

[c.d.]

Sorry, Sam but your response goes by me. Wouldn't Abberline have been told the basis for the TOD and wouldn't he have tried to find those places as suggested above?

c.d.