Murder!

[Bailey]

It may seem odd based upon our modern experiences for someone to cry "murder" when being attacked, but it was common back then. Any attempt to try to give some other meaning to the word that's based upon thinking it doesn't sound realistic is misplaced.

Hey Dan

Firstly, thanks for clearning that up! I certainly wasn't suggesting any other meaning, just commenting that it seemed odd to me.

Coincidentally, after my post on the subject last night, I was reading Farson (first time, I only just got hold of a copy recently) and he has some information from Mary Cox's neice. Obviously, this is completely unreliable, being second-hand hearsay decades laters, and no doubt embellished greatly by Cox at subsequent tellings, but she says, her aunt heard "terrible screams from Mary, but no one took any notice because it happened often."

Not sure whether this means terrible screams in general happened often, or Mary was inclined towards regular screaming (at the risk of being crass, perhaps she put on an overly enthusiastic performance for her clients?), but it sounds like the gradual growth of a small cry of murder into something that makes a much better story to tell young relatives.

According to the (un-named) niece, Mary Cox also saw MJK the night before the murder with the cartoon version of Jack - high silk hat, Gladstone bag etc, and then to top it all off, was apparently amongst the first to find the body, after a Mrs Storey who let herself into the room with a piece of string on the door latch that Mary left there so people wouldn't have to knock.

As clearly as this is all extremely dubious, it does make an interesting point re easy access to the room if the string on the latch was common knowledge.

I assume that somewhere out there subsequent researchers have given all this a thorough dismissal?

B.

[c.d.]

One of the residents of Millers Court (can't rememember who) testified that that expression was commonly heard in the Court.

c.d.

[Cap'n Jack]

Don
the voyage ends here:

'Cross-examined. The back window leading into our house is always left open, and I have found two different men in our back place during this last fortnight—the window leading into the street has no bolt, and the people have been coming through that—the houses in our neighbourhood have been broken into since this man has been in custody.

MRS. SERGEANT. I live at 79, Pennington Street—I heard no disturbance during the night, but I heard cries of "Police" and " Murder," and opened my window and saw Mrs. Smith in her chemise calling out.'

That is from late 1887, and Mrs Smith had dropped her fags in the yard but it was 'murder' for her.

[Supe]

AP,

Aye, aye. A short but instructive cruise. A lot better than the "cruise to nowhere" my stepfather once tried to book me for on the 'Flying Dutchmen Lines."

Anyway, dropping her ciggies is just the sort of thing I would expect would normally draw a cry of "Murder!" at the time. Diesn't mean it wasn't also used literally, but its non-literal, slangt use, would accounbt for its seeming ubiquity.

Don,

[John Casey]

you know Supe you might just have something with "oh Merde!" I'm guessing if it were uttered in a celt/french/cockney/p*ssed accent it'd sound like "oh Murder!" to someone who didn't know French, and was used to hearing "oh Murder" anyhow....

[perrymason]

If I recall correctly, most versions of the exclamation are as follows...."oh-murder". Neither word capitalized, nor is any emphasis indicated by an inflection in the delivery, that is represented anyway,... and it is hyphenated. We have accounts that many residents heard the phrase at night and paid it no mind...and we didnt have corpses or attempted murders to indicate the phrase and act were always linked. "oh murder" might just mean "oh sh*t" at times.

I would think two elements are required knowledge if we are to guess how the phrase might have been used that night, the volume the voice had and whether or not there was emphasis placed on any word or syllable. I dont think we can know the second, but the voice was heard as a "faintish cry" by Elizabeth Prater, and there is good reason to suspect that she heard this through a court facing window, directly above Mary's.

That, and no noise following I believe helps us with the question of the calls intent, and I dont believe "in annoyance" should be ruled out.

Best regards all.

[Sasha]

People were living in very close quarters in Millers Court. In view of this, it's not clear to me that the famous words "oh murder" were even uttered by Kelly.

Sasha

[j.r-ahde]

Hello you all!

What if the cry "Oh, murder!" was literally by an eye-witness, seeing something from the window?!

"What, why this person didn't show up then?!"

A good question, indeed! Maybe the person was dead-drunk, forgetting the scene?!

All the best
Jukka

[JilltheRipper]

Maybe she shouted "murder" because she hoped that if people had heard her they wuld automatically interupt the murderer whereas if they just heard her shouting the name of the murderer they culd just think it was a fight between a man and a woman, domestic abuse was common back then so people culd just assume thats wat was happening

[Dan Norder]

Paging Occam's feldscher...

The fact of the matter is we know that Mary Kelly was attacked. We know from the wounds, as compared to many of the others, that she offered at least token resistance to her killer. Do we think she would have remained silent while she was struggling for her life? No, she would have tried to cry out. The thing most people of that era said in situations like that was "Murder!", which, not so coincidentally, was in fact heard coming from her room around the time she was killed.

If this were a creative writing class we could hand out points for the most novel explanations people could come up with. Maybe Diemschitz's pony was a zebra with paint covering up the stripes because it sounds so much more exotic. But if we're looking for what is most likely to have happened on the night of Kelly's murder, the simple explanations that fit the available facts, no matter how boring they are for some people, are the best bets.

[richardnunweek]

Hi Folks,
With the relevance to the cry heard 'Oh Murder', surely the best description must derive from Prater, who describes it as' As awaken from a nightmare', which surely may have some credence, if one takes the Kit watkins reporting some three years later as worthy.
To sum up my point , just because a cry of 'Oh Murder' was heard from millers court around 4am on the morning of the 9th November, it does need to be the precise time of mjks demise, simply a reoccurence of a recent dream, thus 'The horrors of drink' would be a apt statement from Mary Kellys mouth, to one Mrs Maxwell, around 815am.
I simply will not budge on my conviction, that the cry heard was simply a awakening from a dream, that Mjk was aware of , because of alcohol, and Barnets ramblings, that inflicted a sense of fear.
Regards Richard.

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

I am with Dan Norder - God forbid - on this one.
We know Kelly was murdered that night, and then we have two independent witness accounts of hearing a cry of murder at approximately the same time, and that coincides with one of the medical men's estimate of the time of death!
Sure, as Prater and Cox said, such screams might not have been unusual in a place like Dorset Street, but at 4.00 am and at the same night and area as a murder actually occurres? What are the odds?
We're often talking of coincidences here, but surely this is just too much. The facts say that screams of murder were heard in the same area and the same night a murder occurred and by two independant witnesses. Dismissing those facts as 'coincidences' by using far-fetched arguments is certainly non-productive.

All the best

[Cap'n Jack]

Dan is of course absolutely right, the cry of 'oh murder' was often heard when someone was either unexpectedly shot, stabbed or otherwise mortally wounded in a violent attack... and I could show hundreds of murder trials and cases where this is proven.
But equally - and proven so - the cry was also used, most often by women, when they had lost their fags, or their little cat.
However it is just as likely, given the evidence that we have, that Mary staggered into her room that night - at some point - saw a dismembered corpse on her bed and sighed 'oh murder', and then ran away.
My clear assumption from the very first second that I read the inquest testimony of all the witness from Carthy's Rents was that they were lying about the events of that night.
The swivels and changes in testimony first given to the police, and then later at inquest leave no other conclusion.

[Natalie Severn]

But if you have them all lying to the police like this AP,then we are back into a conspiracy theory.I can"t see Joe Barnett being in on a thing like this,emphatically and loyally insisting Mary should be remembered as Marie Jaenette Kelly rather than plain Mary Kelly,then taking part in a massive masquerade at her phony funeral.

[j.r-ahde]

Hello CJ!

I find it most probable, that it was MJK slaughtered on the bed, because;

1. MJK was almost as tall as the men of the time, 5'7"(170,28 cm). So, the girl of the same size would obviously have been noticed!

2. On one crime documentary one detective (not relating JtR, though!) noticed, that the witnesses were lying; because their statements were exactly the same!

3. Like Natalie suggested, such a conspiracy would have been too massive to handle.

4. Those, who thought they had seen MJK the time of the murder, obviously saw someone in her overcoat. This doesn't prove about conspiracy, since according to Joe Barnett MJK used to help those doing ever worse than herself!

What it comes to the cry, though being common in the area, it could very well have been from MJK's mouth. But discussing about all the possibilities is all, what we are here for!

All the best
Jukka