Help On Some Details

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jon,

"There exists a longstanding resistance on these boards to accepting what Hutchinson said could be true."

No ****, Sherlock.

Regards,

Simon

[Sam Flynn]

The importance of the couple she saw pass up the court only became apparent after Hutchinson came forward with his story.

There exists a longstanding resistance on these boards to accepting what Hutchinson said could be true. Which is why some try to interpret what Lewis saw differently.

She did not see a couple pass up the court. That's not a product of "longstanding resistance", but of objective consideration of the evidence.

[Fisherman]

Jon, this sentence from the Morning Advertiser:

"In Dorset-street I saw a man with a wideawake on stopping on the opposite side of the pavement."

...where in it can a comma be placed?

Here:

In Dorset-street I saw a man with a wideawake on, stopping on the opposite side of the pavement.

Or here:

In Dorset-street I saw a man with a wideawake, on stopping on the opposite side of the pavement.

[Trevor Marriott]

Right, and Bowyer's disclosure was also published the same day as the results of the renewed inquiry of the Millers Court residents. Bowyer seems to confirm this 2nd attempt in questioning witnesses because he makes reference to speaking to Abberline & Reid.
So possibly, Abberline & Reid among others returned to the court as the article implies.

The police may have returned to Millers court to interview witnesses who may not have been available the first time. We dont know when Bowyer made his statement to the police about seeing the man.

How do the police know what constitutes material evidence until they begin their investigation?

What would be the point in the police taking a statement from a witness whose only input was [I]"I live at ---Millers Court. On the night of Nov 8th I was in my room. I did not go out,I did not hear anything untoward, and I went to bed at 10pm and woke up at 8am" They couldn't have taken hundreds of statements because only a handful lived in Millers Court.

Lets not forget, the only witness statements that have survived were the few selected by the Coroner. The rest remained in the police files and have not survived.

If these other statements did ever exist what do you think any of them contained ?

I think you know what I'm saying - don't accuse a witness of lying unless you can provide an alternate account of their story from another source.
Not agreeing with their story is no justification to accuse them of lying.

But if you then have an alternate source which contradicts, how do you know which one is telling the truth.Even you have to accept that there are major conflicts and discrepancies in the witness testimony, some say they saw things, which they may not have, some may have exaggerated the facts on what they saw or knew.

There's nothing wrong with newspaper reports if you know the difference between reliable inquest coverage, debatable witness statements, and questionable journalistic hyperbole.

Yes reliable inquest, as in the case of Eddowes because we have signed depositions. But then we have newspaper reports which report other questions and answers from the witnesses that do not form part of the depositions. Can we readily accept those as being 100% accurate, no we cant because all through this we see conflicts in newspaper reports from newspapers covering the same event.

Whether you believe Hutchinson was the last person to see Kelly alive or not we have sufficient cause to accept Kelly was out on the streets between 2:00 and 3:00 o'clock Friday morning. Hutchinson, Bowyer, Kennedy & the press account of police returning to Millers Court. They can't all be lying, they can't all be wrong.

I am not disputing what you say because Hutchinsons statement cannot be dismissed as being false, and there is corroboration to that, and all those who are trying to suggest she was killed much earlier are clearly wrong.

As I have said before there are many issues and ambiguities with regards to witness testimony given at the inquests which were not expanded upon and clarified, and had they been we might be much more wiser than we are today.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Wickerman]

Jon, this sentence from the Morning Advertiser:

"In Dorset-street I saw a man with a wideawake on stopping on the opposite side of the pavement."

...where in it can a comma be placed?

Here:

In Dorset-street I saw a man with a wideawake on, stopping on the opposite side of the pavement.

Or here:

In Dorset-street I saw a man with a wideawake, on stopping on the opposite side of the pavement.

Hi Christer.

The way I would approach that question is to list all the versions available and assess what the various journalists present in the court heard.

The court version reads:
"When I went in the Court I saw a man opposite the Court in Dorset Street standing alone by the Lodging House. He was not tall - but stout - had on a wideawake black hat – I did not notice his clothes."

That reads pretty clear to me, but I know the use of the word "opposite" has changed over the years. Today we rarely use "opposite" if meaning "in front of", but that was not the case in the 19th century.
In those days I could write, 'I walked down the street, stopping opposite No.6, and knocked on the door'.
Today we are less likely to use "opposite" in that context. So, we cannot be a hundred percent sure if Lewis saw a man standing outside (in front of) Millers Court passage, or on the other side of Dorset street across from the passage.
Another complication is, on the other side of the street was a huge lodging-house, who's doorway just may have been facing Millers Court. So when press accounts mention a "lodging-house door" we still cannot be sure if they mean the lodging-house across from Millers Court, or the doors to No.26-27 where the passage is located.

Daily Telegraph - When I went into the court, opposite the lodging-house I saw a man with a wideawake. There was no one talking to him.

Times - ...and saw a man standing at the lodging-house door by himself. He was stout, but not very tall, and had on a wideawake hat.

Morning Advertiser - In Dorset-street I saw a man with a wideawake on stopping on the opposite side of the pavement.

St. James Gazette - She saw a stout looking man standing at the entrance to Miller's court.

Echo - She saw a man at the entrance to the court. He was not talking to anyone.

East London Advertiser - When she went into the court she saw a man standing outside the lodging-house door.

Morning Post - When she went into the court she saw a man standing near the lodging-house door opposite.


It seems to me an argument can be made for the man standing on either side of the street. But in my view, anyone following someone is going to do so down the other side of the street to where they are walking, then when the couple enter Millers Court passage, the loiterer would cross the street and stand at the passage entrance.
So, to me the question is mute - the loiterer could have been seen on either side of the street.

What may provide a clue is the presence of the couple. If they are still in Dorset Street then the loiterer, in my view, would stay on the south side.
As Sarah Lewis clearly saw this other couple in front of her in Dorset street then the loiterer (Hutch?) would have been on the south side of Dorset street (outside Crossinghams lodging-house), where he would stop until the couple enter the passage.
As Lewis clearly tells us she saw the couple enter the passage, then the man she saw by himself must (in my view) have been standing outside Crossinghams lodging-house across from Millers Court. Which is what I think we read in the court version at the beginning of this list.

[Wickerman]

The police may have returned to Millers court to interview witnesses who may not have been available the first time. We dont know when Bowyer made his statement to the police about seeing the man.

Completely agree, on the day of the murder the police interviewed the tenants who were present roughly between 11:00 and 5:30pm. Some may have been at work between those hours.
If Bowyer had been asked about seeing a strange man in the court over night then we would read as much in his police statement, then he would be questioned about it at the inquest. So he must have been interviewed a second time, but after the inquest.

What would be the point in the police taking a statement from a witness whose only input was [i]"I live at ---Millers Court. On the night of Nov 8th I was in my room. I did not go out,I did not hear anything untoward, and I went to bed at 10pm and woke up at 8am" They couldn't have taken hundreds of statements because only a handful lived in Millers Court.

Isn't that pretty much what Julia Vanturney had to say? - basically nothing. She even contradicted the suggestion of a cry of 'murder'.
By the way, the police also took statements from all the tenants of Dorset street, hundreds of them.

If these other statements did ever exist what do you think any of them contained ?

It doesn't matter what I think, you know the procedure. The coroner only selects those statements that are required to help him (his jury) determine the victims identity, and the where, when & how she met her death, the rest are retained by the police.

But if you then have an alternate source which contradicts, how do you know which one is telling the truth.

It's precisely because we don't know that we must treat both accounts as potentially credible until something turns up to suggest otherwise.
Once the researcher arbitrarily decides one account over the other, the researcher is now speculating, and not following the evidence. So any of his/her conclusions are highly debatable at best.

Yes reliable inquest, as in the case of Eddowes because we have signed depositions. But then we have newspaper reports which report other questions and answers from the witnesses that do not form part of the depositions. Can we readily accept those as being 100% accurate, no we cant because all through this we see conflicts in newspaper reports from newspapers covering the same event.

The court depositions do not include questions, the press often do.
So the court depositions are often without context. The press coverage does provide context, so can be more informative.

As I have said before there are many issues and ambiguities with regards to witness testimony given at the inquests which were not expanded upon and clarified, and had they been we might be much more wiser than we are today.

And the press coverage actually does, in some cases, expand & clarify those ambiguities. Which is reasonable justification for paying close attention to what was written.

[Trevor Marriott]

Completely agree, on the day of the murder the police interviewed the tenants who were present roughly between 11:00 and 5:30pm. Some may have been at work between those hours.
If Bowyer had been asked about seeing a strange man in the court over night then we would read as much in his police statement, then he would be questioned about it at the inquest. So he must have been interviewed a second time, but after the inquest.

He also could have come forward quite easily before and the police chose to disregard it because at that time Hutchinson had not come forward.

Isn't that pretty much what Julia Vanturney had to say? - basically nothing. She even contradicted the suggestion of a cry of 'murder'.
By the way, the police also took statements from all the tenants of Dorset street, hundreds of them.

How do you know that is fact ? and how do you not know that they could have simply been verbal statements mentioned in the course of perhaps house to house enquiries? Where does it say anwhere that these staments were in the from of written ones?

It doesn't matter what I think, you know the procedure. The coroner only selects those statements that are required to help him (his jury) determine the victims identity, and the where, when & how she met her death, the rest are retained by the police.

I think you will find it is the police that present the witnesses to the coroner. The coroner does not choose.

It's precisely because we don't know that we must treat both accounts as potentially credible until something turns up to suggest otherwise.
Once the researcher arbitrarily decides one account over the other, the researcher is now speculating, and not following the evidence. So any of his/her conclusions are highly debatable at best.

I agree on that point, but isnt that what some researchers do? They follow the one which suits their theory.

The court depositions do not include questions, the press often do.
So the court depositions are often without context. The press coverage does provide context, so can be more informative.

i beg to differ but as can be see they do contain questions both from the coroner and members of the jury.

And the press coverage actually does, in some cases, expand & clarify those ambiguities. Which is reasonable justification for paying close attention to what was written.

But when there are conflicting newspapers reports all must be treated with caution. because if two newspaper reportes were sitting side by side and both subsequent reports were in conflict who do you believe?

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Curious Cat]

Sorry, when I said that Hutchinson saying where he said he was may be corroborated by proxy I was including Sarah Lewis's statement of seeing a man standing and looking towards/down Miller's Court. I should've made that clearer.

What I was really aiming at was if there was anything that corroborated Hutchinson's statement other than his presence.

Is it possible that he was indeed there but thought he hadn't been seen, only to learn through the inquest that he had been spotted but not identified specifically? Could he have feared someone else identifying him to the police and so decided to bring himself forward as the man seen by Sarah Lewis so as to block a chance of him becoming or being seen as a suspect?

[Wickerman]

There was no description given, just a man in a widewake hat, a very common hat. Why make himself known when no-one knew who he was anyway.

[Fisherman]

Wickerman: Hi Christer.

The way I would approach that question is to list all the versions available and assess what the various journalists present in the court heard.

I agree, Jon!

The court version reads:
"When I went in the Court I saw a man opposite the Court in Dorset Street standing alone by the Lodging House. He was not tall - but stout - had on a wideawake black hat – I did not notice his clothes."

That reads pretty clear to me, but I know the use of the word "opposite" has changed over the years. Today we rarely use "opposite" if meaning "in front of", but that was not the case in the 19th century.
In those days I could write, 'I walked down the street, stopping opposite No.6, and knocked on the door'.

I am aware of this construction. To me, it involves pretty much the same "opposite" - when we stop outside No. 6, we find ourselves standing opposite the door.

Today we are less likely to use "opposite" in that context. So, we cannot be a hundred percent sure if Lewis saw a man standing outside (in front of) Millers Court passage, or on the other side of Dorset street across from the passage.

Maybe not from this part of the text - but there are other excerpts that clarify, for example Daily Telegraph, who wrote: " When I went into the court, opposite the lodging-house I saw a man with a wideawake" - meaning that she was not speaking of a man standing precisely where she walked herself. Equally, we have the Times, stating that Lewis "saw a man standing at the lodging-house door by himself". There was no door in the opening to the court, and so we can fix the man on the opposite side - on the other side of the road.
Another complication is, on the other side of the street was a huge lodging-house, who's doorway just may have been facing Millers Court. So when press accounts mention a "lodging-house door" we still cannot be sure if they mean the lodging-house across from Millers Court, or the doors to No.26-27 where the passage is located.

I disagree - the court HAD no doors, the doors of 26-27 were to the side of the court.

Daily Telegraph - When I went into the court, opposite the lodging-house I saw a man with a wideawake. There was no one talking to him.

Times - ...and saw a man standing at the lodging-house door by himself. He was stout, but not very tall, and had on a wideawake hat.

Morning Advertiser - In Dorset-street I saw a man with a wideawake on stopping on the opposite side of the pavement.

St. James Gazette - She saw a stout looking man standing at the entrance to Miller's court.

Echo - She saw a man at the entrance to the court. He was not talking to anyone.

East London Advertiser - When she went into the court she saw a man standing outside the lodging-house door.

Morning Post - When she went into the court she saw a man standing near the lodging-house door opposite.


It seems to me an argument can be made for the man standing on either side of the street. But in my view, anyone following someone is going to do so down the other side of the street to where they are walking, then when the couple enter Millers Court passage, the loiterer would cross the street and stand at the passage entrance.
So, to me the question is mute - the loiterer could have been seen on either side of the street.

I think we can say with certainty that he was observed on the other side of the street, standing right outside the lodging house door.

What may provide a clue is the presence of the couple. If they are still in Dorset Street then the loiterer, in my view, would stay on the south side.
As Sarah Lewis clearly saw this other couple in front of her in Dorset street then the loiterer (Hutch?) would have been on the south side of Dorset street (outside Crossinghams lodging-house), where he would stop until the couple enter the passage.
As Lewis clearly tells us she saw the couple enter the passage, then the man she saw by himself must (in my view) have been standing outside Crossinghams lodging-house across from Millers Court. Which is what I think we read in the court version at the beginning of this list.

I think that what Lewis did was do observe the man as she turned into the court: "When I went into the court, opposite the lodging-house I saw a man with a wideawake." It´s only after this that she in the same source (Daily News) says that she saw a couple walk up the court. If she was already in the court, then the loiterer must have been in place outside Crossinghams as she and the couple turned into the court, Lewis first and the couple afterwards, it would strangely seem.

The problem is that Hutchinson was nowhere near either the corner of the court or Crossinghams at this stage, as laid out in his interview in the same paper the day after:

"I followed them across and stood at the corner of Dorset street. They stood at the corner of Miller's court for about three minutes. Kelly spoke to the man in a loud voice, saying, "I have lost my handkerchief." He pulled a red handkerchief out of his pocket, and gave it to Kelly, and they both went up the court together. I went to look up the court to see if I could see them, but could not."

So he was AT THE CORNER OF DORSET STREET as the couple turned into the court! Which means that whoever the loiterer was, it was not Hutchinson.

[Curious Cat]

There was no description given, just a man in a widewake hat, a very common hat. Why make himself known when no-one knew who he was anyway.

But on the night did he think he hadn't been spotted at all?

When he heard that 'a man' had been observed did he fear someone else would come forward who could identify him more clearly? Would this prompt him to suddenly come forward himself and give an account that he saw as explaining his presence while also throwing the police in another direction?



I'm interested in him saying in his statement that Mary asked him for a sixpence. If Mary had already had client in Blotchy, why would she be asking Hutchinson for money?

[seanr]

I think there are a few problems with the suggested scenario that Sarah Lewis witnessed George Hutchinson watching Mary Kelly enter Miller’s Court with Astrakhan man.

Hutchinson does not appear mention seeing Sarah Lewis enter Miller’s Court.

When Lewis passes her man stood in Dorset Street, she states he seemed to be waiting for someone to ‘come out’. If the couple Lewis’ mentioned were the couple this man was interested in, he would be watching them over waiting for someone else.

I’d suggest if she had seen a couple pass up the Court as the coverage in the Daily News seems to report, much more interest would have been paid to them in the inquest, even if they are not connected with Kelly themselves, they would be important as witnesses (in fact, the reason they are discussed at all is more to establish the couple potential witnesses).
If the couple passed into the court they must have either passed Lewis or she must have passed them to enter the court. There’s no mention of this.
The couple could be passing along Dorset Street and be consistent with all reports of her words I’ve seen - with the notable exception of the Daily News.

Sarah Lewis herself does not seem to associate the couple she saw in Dorset Street with Mary Kelly. On the contrary, she seems to seek to suggest she may have been picked up at the Ringers by the suspicious man Lewis had previously encountered in Bethnal Green.

[Simon Wood]

At 3.00 am Mary Ann Cox returned home. She did not report seeing George Hutchinson.

At 3.00 am Bowyer was fetching water from the tap in Millers Court.

He did not report seeing Hutchinson; nor did he report seeing Mary Ann Cox.

Mary Ann Cox did not report seeing Bowyer.

Also, the water tap Bowyer was using was within a few feet of the broken windows of Room 13, yet he did not report any sounds coming from Mary Kelly or her astrakhan-trimmed companion.

[Fisherman]

I think there are a few problems with the suggested scenario that Sarah Lewis witnessed George Hutchinson watching Mary Kelly enter Miller’s Court with Astrakhan man.

Hutchinson does not appear mention seeing Sarah Lewis enter Miller’s Court.

When Lewis passes her man stood in Dorset Street, she states he seemed to be waiting for someone to ‘come out’. If the couple Lewis’ mentioned were the couple this man was interested in, he would be watching them over waiting for someone else.

I’d suggest if she had seen a couple pass up the Court as the coverage in the Daily News seems to report, much more interest would have been paid to them in the inquest, even if they are not connected with Kelly themselves, they would be important as witnesses (in fact, the reason they are discussed at all is more to establish the couple potential witnesses).
If the couple passed into the court they must have either passed Lewis or she must have passed them to enter the court. There’s no mention of this.
The couple could be passing along Dorset Street and be consistent with all reports of her words I’ve seen - with the notable exception of the Daily News.

Sarah Lewis herself does not seem to associate the couple she saw in Dorset Street with Mary Kelly. On the contrary, she seems to seek to suggest she may have been picked up at the Ringers by the suspicious man Lewis had previously encountered in Bethnal Green.

That's not a bad first post, Seanr - welcome to the boards!

[Curious Cat]

Hutchinson doesn't mention seeing Sarah Lewis, but he also doesn't mention seeing another man waiting/hanging around opposite Miller's Court either. He only mentions Astrakhan who is separate from the man Sarah Lewis refers to.

Three possible scenarios...

If the couple Sarah Lewis saw was Mary Kelly and Astrakhan then Hutchinson simply misses seeing the other man and Sarah Lewis as he follows them to Miller's Court.

If the couple Sarah Lewis saw was not Mary Kelly and Astrakhan then its moot whether Hutchinson saw her or not as he's not following that couple at that point.

If the couple Sarah Lewis saw was Mary Kelly and another man, and as Hutchinson places himself as the man Sarah Lewis saw waiting opposite Miller's Court, it completely contradicts his statement as this means he was already ahead of them when all three pass by into the court.