Help On Some Details

[Curious Cat]

Hi Curious Cat,

from time to time I pass by these boards to see whether the ripper has finally been caught. You didn't receive an answer to your above question yet right?
Maybe there is no further information. And we could speculate that it was a misreporting. As was pointed out in this thread, other newspapers ran the quote from Abberline differently.

Thank you also for bringing some straightforward fresh & analytical thinking to this mystery. I am one of the ones who still shares your initial doubts about the door and the lock. My 2 cents is still: the murderer did lock the door from outside, he took the key away with him, and that is the reason the police had to force the door instead of just reaching through the window. But i am not able to proof.

Because in my world, a spring lock locks when you pull a door shut. In addition, you can prevent opening from inside by locking from outside, which will lock the bolt.

All the best
IchabodCrane

Thank you.

Yes, the lock has - if you pardon the pun - been a bit of a sticking point in my mind. It seems there was a particular way to open and close the door which the killer apparently has enough knowledge of to both enter and/or leave the room that way. Given the opportunistic nature of the previous killings it appears to me that there's a level of planning involved with Mary Kelly, so the function of the lock and whether the killer took it into account is a point of interest.

[Bridewell]

Hi SD

Thanks. I'm glad you found the research interesting. Still working on tracing Mrs Paumier's Kennedy half-siblings. I was interested to see that Mrs Paumier's son used her maiden name as his surname occasionally, as well as his own surname of Paumier. I wonder if Mrs Paumier ever borrowed her mother's previous surname?

Just as both Albert Cadosch's sons adopted their mother's maiden name (French) after he did a runner.

[Bridewell]

Thank you.

Yes, the lock has - if you pardon the pun - been a bit of a sticking point in my mind. It seems there was a particular way to open and close the door which the killer apparently has enough knowledge of to both enter and/or leave the room that way. Given the opportunistic nature of the previous killings it appears to me that there's a level of planning involved with Mary Kelly, so the function of the lock and whether the killer took it into account is a point of interest.

Do we have reason to believe that the killer did indeed enter by opening the door himself rather than being admitted by the occupant?

[Abby Normal]

Not sure how being able to ID the man again makes Hutch seem like he is not a reluctant witness? He saw the man and described him in detail- he was then going to say to the Police he wouldn't know him again? Not very likely is it? He does a walk around with the Police to help. Nothing wrong with that. After being cleared by Abberline Hutchinson is happy to talk to the press. When I say he was a reluctant witness I refer to that weekend and the time period before being cleared by Abberline.

at which time he conveniently misses the inquest.

too may red flags with ole hutch.

Abberline beleived him initially thats all we know. probably because he just came from the inquest in which Abberline has just heard about sarah lewis waiting and watching man..and in he waltzes. the best liars weave truth into there lies. Abberline was probably overly hopeful this man can help him catch the ripper.

then hutch goes to the press with his story.

then the press acounts of hutchs reduced importance.

When I say he was a reluctant witness I refer to that weekend and the time period before being cleared by Abberline.

from my experience, reluctant witnesses remain reluctant witnesses.

[Abby Normal]

lets not forget that even if hutch was telling the gods honest truth about aman, he culd still have been marys killer and the ripper.

he waits along time for aman to leave... gets fed up leaves... comes back fourish...stands by her door perhaps pulls back the coat in the window and sees mary is now alone and passed out on the bed. makes his move.

he was engaged in stalking behaviour with her after all.

[Sunny Delight]

at which time he conveniently misses the inquest.

too may red flags with ole hutch.

Abberline beleived him initially thats all we know. probably because he just came from the inquest in which Abberline has just heard about sarah lewis waiting and watching man..and in he waltzes. the best liars weave truth into there lies. Abberline was probably overly hopeful this man can help him catch the ripper.

then hutch goes to the press with his story.

then the press acounts of hutchs reduced importance.





from my experience, reluctant witnesses remain reluctant witnesses.

A red flag that Hutchinson missed an inquest where nearly everyone was amazed it ended in one day. That's not even a yellow flag. We don't know what Abberline thought but Walter Dew writing years later said the Police were on a high in regards Mary Ann Cox statement. At last they had a witness and a description to go on. A man even seen entering her flat. Then Abberline hears at 6pm another guy has come forward and blown the whole thing sky high. Abberline may have been overly hopeful but I imagine at first he was probably cynical and frustrated. Maybe he even thought great another time waster before 'interrogating' him. Who knows?


A reluctant to come forward witness afraid of being suspected is different to a reluctant witness. Once Abberline cleared Hutchinson maybe he became quite happy to milk it.

[Curious Cat]

Do we have reason to believe that the killer did indeed enter by opening the door himself rather than being admitted by the occupant?

Any killer planning to kill someone indoors has to think about their entry and exit.

The door/lock at 13 Miller's Court apparently required a particular knack to open it from the outside. Did the killer have prior knowledge of this or was it something that only became apparent at the time of the murder? Was the killer after leaving the body unfound for as long as possible by closing the door a particular way so it was jammed or was it just fortune that the door shut and jammed as it did before?

[Joshua Rogan]

Is Hutchinson corobarating Sarah Lewis's account or is he attaching himself to it?

You'd think that if he was trying to insert himself into her account, he might have mentioned seeing her go ino the court, rather than deny seeing her.

[Wickerman]

But to me Wick it does seem strange that in her inquest testimony she say's there was no one in the court.

I'm not sure I follow your question.
If you follow behind a couple who enter Millers Court, but by the time you get there, you see nobody in the court.
Isn't your first thought to wonder which house they went into?

Surely if a couple were going in or out of the court they would have been in the court? And even if for arguments sake the couple was say in the passageway coming out of the court when Sarah saw them, why not mention this?
Sorry for asking this without going through all the reports but am i right in thinking it was just the Daily News who reported Sarah's evidence this way?
Regards Darryl

This is the part I am not following, there is no suggestion that this couple was coming out of the court.

[Fisherman]

I'm not sure I follow your question.
If you follow behind a couple who enter Millers Court, but by the time you get there, you see nobody in the court.
Isn't your first thought to wonder which house they went into?




This is the part I am not following, there is no suggestion that this couple was coming out of the court.

I think Darryl is thinking the same thing as I do - once Lewis says that a couple entered the court (if she ever did say that), she would not be likely to follow that statement up with claiming that the court was empty.

Of course, if the couple had gone inside, the court may well have been empty as Lewis reached it, but the expected thing to say in such a case would be something like "As I got there, the couple was nowhere to be seen".

That does not negate how she COULD have said and meant what you think she said and meant - its just that it does not sit well with me. I am very inclined to think that she said that the court was empty to point out that it was so as she walked up to it, as well as when she entered it.

Its all open to interpretation. That's my interpretation.

[Wickerman]

There's no problem with the police taking and believing an account that comes to them a few days later, the problem lies with what stopped Hutchinson himself going to the police earlier.

There are a couple of points which may shed some light on these questions.
The most common theory in the press over that weekend was the story given by Maxwell & M.Lewis - that Mary had been murdered sometime after 9:00 Friday morning.
The question then becomes, why would Hutch feel he saw something significant about 7 hours before her murder?

This is one reason he may not have felt compelled to come forward, what he saw had nothing to do with her murder so late in the morning.


Following the inquest, and the more recent press reports that she may have been murdered around 3:00 - 4:00, plus the Star in their early Monday afternoon edition claiming - The Murderer Described as a heading for a paragraph describing Cox's account.
Hutchinson would know that Cox cannot have seen the murderer at 12:00, because he saw Kelly alive at 2:00.

Now we have a reason for him to finally come forward, to set the record straight. Cox did not see the murderer.

Is Hutchinson corobarating Sarah Lewis's account or is he attaching himself to it? The only person he spoke to that night and who could corobarate his account is dead.

Hutchinson story only became public knowledge the same morning as Lewis's account was published.
He can't have known her story, like she can't have known his.

[Darryl Kenyon]

Hi Wick I am assuming here that you are saying the couple Sarah followed went down the passageway before her and when she got to the end of the passageway they had already entered their abode for the night.
I have to say I am having trouble with this, not only does the coroner not ask Sarah did you see which house they went in but there is no mention of this couple in Millers court and who they were. There was only so many dwellings in the court and we know the police kept the occupants there until 5:30, [at least Sarah] the next day. Surely the police would have found said mystery couple but there is no mention of them.

[Darryl Kenyon]

I think Darryl is thinking the same thing as I do - once Lewis says that a couple entered the court (if she ever did say that), she would not be likely to follow that statement up with claiming that the court was empty.

Of course, if the couple had gone inside, the court may well have been empty as Lewis reached it, but the expected thing to say in such a case would be something like "As I got there, the couple was nowhere to be seen".

That does not negate how she COULD have said and meant what you think she said and meant - its just that it does not sit well with me. I am very inclined to think that she said that the court was empty to point out that it was so as she walked up to it, as well as when she entered it.

Its all open to interpretation. That's my interpretation.

And mine as well Fish

[Wickerman]

Those newspaper reports that Wick cited earlier clearly got their wires crossed.

So, the journalist writing her account in the newspaper, and Hutchinson himself at the police station both just happen to get their wires crossed on exactly the same detail?

Short of believing in ESP, that would take some doing.

[Busy Beaver]

There must have been a number of people in or around Millar's Court between 0.100am and 0.330am, otherwise the Ripper would have probably got to Mary Ann Cox first as she was on and off the street. Would it be that after everyone else disappeared Mary went out when it was quite and unfortunately met up with the Ripper, took him back to her room and the screams around 0.400am where indeed her being murdered.