Kelly photo 1 enhanced - graphic

[Simon Wood]

Hi Sam,

The Star, 10th November 1888—

"He [Barnett] knew nothing about her proceedings since he left her, except that his brother met her on the Thursday evening and spoke to her. He himself had been taken by the police down to Dorset-street, and had been kept there for two hours and a half.

"He saw the body by peeping through the window."

Regards,

Simon

[harry]

Christine,
The 'Tumble Down' was described as such,as I have entered on another thread,and was an article stated to have been in the room.Possibly a slang expression.
Regards.

[Christine]

Thanks harry

I found your other post. My guess is that it was an error for "Tumble down bed." I did some internet searching and found lots of tumble down chairs, beds, and tables, but no tumble downs (outside of sports). Since there was, in fact, a tumble down bed in the room, the Gleaner's sentence makes more sense if someone just dropped the word bed.

[perrymason]

Hi Sam,

The Star, 10th November 1888—

"He [Barnett] knew nothing about her proceedings since he left her, except that his brother met her on the Thursday evening and spoke to her. He himself had been taken by the police down to Dorset-street, and had been kept there for two hours and a half.

"He saw the body by peeping through the window."

Regards,

Simon

Other than the fact the day she is seen with Daniel Barnett isnt correct..it was the Tuesday or Wednesday Night wasnt it?...that sounds like a reasonable, not "fluffed up" piece to me Simon....I assume you agree. And I do believe they would have sought him out during the day....perhaps they started as early as 11:30 to look for him.

For the sake of argument....for the moment, lets say they found him, and the article is essentially correct about that detail. The only way he would see her eyes, if Sam has accurately estimated the issues with the photograph not revealing the eye details with Mary as is, is by having them either place the skin and flesh out the the way for him, or he just views her like we see her in MJK1. Depending on what time he is there doing that, he might even have been restricted from entering the room....if he arrived there before 1:30pm.....2 hours after the court is sealed.

If his ID was from the window with Mary as is in MJK1, that is one suspect ID. And I believe this point is a new one....bravo Simon.

All the best.

[Chris Scott]

Harry has mentioned the Gleaner article of 17 November and has very kindly supplied me with a copy.
Below is a transcription.
I have omitted one badly damaged section which related to pronouncements by Dr Forbes Winslow on the murder
My grateful thanks to Harry for sending this and other articles to me recently
Chris

Daily Gleaner (Jamaica)
17 November 1888

Panic in Whitechapel

The Herald's European edition publishes today the following from the Herald's London Bureau, No 391 Strand, dated November 9, 1888:-
The festivities in honor of the Prince of Wales' birthday and the installation of the new Lord Mayor were tragically interrupted today. While the <illegible> parading the streets of London, the police were gaping aghast around some wretched shambles, in which lay the mutilated body of another victim of the Whitechapel fiend.
I visited the scene of the crime of noon today.
It lies within a quarter of a mile of the places in which most of the preceding six murders were committed by the fiend, where Hanbury Street and Prince's Street run together at a point not unlike the corner of Seventh Avenue and Broadway at Forty Third Street.
The murder was committed in a stable yard, having much the same position relatively to Hanbury and Princes's Streets as the centre of Thirty Fifth Street would have to Broadway Seventh Avenue.
All the recent so called Whitechapel tragedies have occurred within gunshot distance of this spot.
Strong bodies of police patrolled the neighborhood, literally 'locking the stable door' after the horse was stolen.
"Why were they not about last night and the night before and every night since the last murder?" was the common cry of the excited crowds, whom a cordon of constables were keeping back from the wretched little cul de sac in which had lived poor Mary Jane Kelly, alias Fisher, alias Ginger.
Not even the reporters were allowed within the police line. It was determined this time to keep the clews from being effaced tampered with or distorted. Besides, bloodhounds were to be employed, scent must not be obliterated.
As on previous occasions, all kinds of conflicting and contradictory stories were afloat.
Dr Gabe, of Mecklenburg Square, a medical official, was fresh from the horrible sight in the squalid apartment immediately off the wretched court, in which the only furniture was an oil stove, two rickety chairs and a tumble down.
At the head of this bedstead was a piece of looking glass such as one buts in Petticoat Lane for a half penny.
The Doctor said that in his experience in dissecting rooms never had he seen such ghastliness.
The corpse lay, as he saw it, naked on a blood stained woollen mattress. The victim's hair was tossed upward on a pillow and matted with gore, as if the murderer had first wiped his hands.
The nose and ears were sliced away. The throat was cut from left to right, so that the vertebrae alone prevented a headmanslike severance.
Below the neck, the trunk suggested a sheep's carcass in a slaughter house.
Ribs and backbone were exposed and the stomach, entrails, heart and liver had been cut out and carefully placed beside the mutilated trunk.
As in the previous cases, certain portions of the body were missing. The flesh on each side of a cut on the median line was carefully back.
An inch or two away, from the hips to the ankles, the flesh was shredded more or less, with apparent savageness of purpose.
"It must have been the work of a full half hour," said the Doctor.
The body was just beginning to stiffen when it as discovered.
At one in the morning "Mary Jane," as they called her, had been heard be a fellow lodger crooning a drunken song - perhaps to the murderer. From that hour till half past ten this morning all is still a hideous blank.
Then a young man who is a neighbor knocked at the door. It was apparently locked. The murderer, sly to the last or with method in madness, had taken the key. But there was a side window with a pane broken in a quarrel she had a week ago with a man with whom she had cohabited. She parted from him some time past, but this morning the man appeared.
He had little to tell but the common tale of the miserable woman's life.
The murderer might easily have left the house at any time between one and six o'clock this morning without attracting attention. The doctors who have examined the remains refuse to make any statement until the inquest is held.
Three bloodhounds belonging to private citizens were taken to the place where the body lies and placed on the scent of the murderer, but they were unable to keep it for any great distance, and all hope of running the assassin down with their assistance will have to be abandoned.
Before the post mortem examination a photographer was set to work in the court and house. The state of the atmosphere was unfortunately not favourable to good result. The photographer, however, succeeded in procuring several negatives.
The post mortem examination lasted two hours, and was of the most thorough character. Every indication as to the manner in which the murderer conducted his awful work was carefully noted, as well as the position of every organ and the larger pieces of flesh.
The surgeon's report will be of an exhaustive character, but it will not be made public until they give evidence at the Coroner's inquest.
At ten minutes to four o'clock a one horse carrier's cart with a tarpaulin covering was driven into Dorset Street and halted opposite Miller's Court, the victim's home. From the court was taken a long coffin, scratched with constant use, which was borne into the death chamber. There it remains.
The news that the body was to be removed caused a rush of people and a determined effort to break the police cordon. The crowd was of the very humblest class. Ragged caps were doffed, and slatternly looking women shed tears as the shell, covered with a ragged looking cloth, was placed in a van.
The remains were taken to Shoreditch Mortuary to remain there until viewed by the Coroner's jury. The inquest will open on Monday morning.
John McCarthy, the landlord of the place in which Mary Jane lived, gives this interview:-
"When I looked through the window the sight I saw was more ghastly even than I had prepared myself for. On the bed lay the body, while the table was covered with lumps of flesh. Soon Superintendent Arnold arrived, and instructions to burst the door open was given.
I at once forced it with a pickaxe and we entered. The sight looked like the work of a devil. The poor woman had been completely disembowelled. Her entrails were cut out and placed on a table. It was these I had taken to be lumps of flesh.
The woman's nose had been cut off, and her face was gashed and mutilated so that she was quite beyond recognition. Both her breasts, too, had been cut clean away and placed by her side. Her liver and other organs were on the table.
I head heard a great deal about the Whitechapel murders, but I had never expected to see such a sight.
The body was covered with blood and so was the bed. The whole scene is more than I can describe. I hope I may never see such a sight again."
It is most extraordinary that nothing was heard by the neighbors, as there are people passing backward and forward at all hours of the night in the vicinity. But no one heard so much as a scream.
A woman tells me she heard the victim singing "Sweet Violets" ay one o'clock this morning. So up to that time, at all events, she was alive and well.
So far as I can ascertain, no one saw her take a man into the house with her last night.

I may add that no possible clew exists. Arrests of innocent persons are being made, as before, and the oddest and most improbable stories are being started by reporters in sensational papers. The police are said to be reticent.
The man with whom the victim had been recently living could not recognise her, but, of course, the surroundings, clothes, &c., identify her.
She leaves a natural son, aged ten, who was absent with a neighbor last night and knows nothing of the occurrence.
I visited the place again after dark tonight. The streets had become empty and silent.
I then visited the West End, filled with illuminations in honor of the Prince's birthday. Pall Mall, St. James's, Piccadilly, were bright with gas and filled with merriment. A strange contrast!
I met an American tourist homeward bound tonight.
"After this," said he, "I shall never grumble at any error of our New York police. It may not be perfect, but in acumen and for the security of our life the Mulberry Street heads deserve our respect."

[Sam Flynn]

Thanks Simon,

Hi Sam,

The Star, 10th November 1888—

"He saw the body by peeping through the window."

That's not the same as saying that "he IDENTIFIED the body by peeping through the window", though, still less "he FORMALLY identified the body by peeping through the window", or "he WAS BROUGHT BY THE POLICE TO IDENTIFY the body by peeping through the window". Barnett simply couldn't have noted the ear, and certainly not the eyes (one of which was angled downwards, 'tother obscured by flaps of loosened flesh) from such a vantage-point.

[Majewski79]

This has got to be one of the most interesting threads I've ever seen. However, while looking at this picture, I can't help but notice, are her eyes (pupils) actually visible here? Is it just me seeing distorted detail or am I wrong? I put two little black dots where I think it is what I am seeing. The picture is chilling to begin with but.. I dunno, visible eyes would completely send this image over the top.

[Sam Flynn]

Kelly's head is inclined towards the pillow (this is apparent from her hairline, if nothing else). On that basis, the axis of her features is not slap in the middle of her "face", but rotated downwards. Bearing that in mind, it's possible to gauge reasonably closely where her eyes, nose and mouth were likely to have been:



I've not tried to be "definitive" here - it's just a crude guide. However, suffice to say that the eyes, nose and mouth were in rather different positions than one might assume at first glance.

(Prior to the Casebook crash, I superimposed a cutout of a woman's skull, appropriately rotated, against Kelly's head, and the alignment was almost perfect.)

[perrymason]

Thats good stuff Sam.....and important here in particular...because as you note, and Ive said youve noted.....is that it appears we cannot discern those features within the image we have. The skin or flesh covering that area is sound, and I can make out what I feel may be evidence of that.

So.......did his peeking through the window constitute his Identification.....or did he have a closer, in the same room, inspection with her that afternoon when the features were mentioned and confirmed by him.

You know, ...the fact his ID is just that...2 features....maybe supports a quick look from a few feet away.

Cheers Gareth

[Simon Wood]

Hi Sam,

You may not like it, but Barnett peeping through the window is the closest to a positive ID we've got.

Regards,

Simon

[Sam Flynn]

So.......did his peeking through the window constitute his Identification

Almost certainly not, Mike. It would have been impossible, I'm sure you'd agree, to have made out the ear and eyes amid all that mess, from that distance, and in less-than-ideal lighting conditions.

or did he have a closer, in the same room, inspection with her that afternoon

I suspect that Barnett (like the jurors, but possibly not at the same time) was taken to the mortuary to view the stitched and cleaned-up body there.

[perrymason]

Almost certainly not, Mike. It would have been impossible, I'm sure you'd agree, to have made out the ear and eyes amid all that mess, from that distance, and in less-than-ideal lighting conditions.I suspect that Barnett (like the jurors, but possibly not at the same time) was taken to the mortuary to view the stitched and cleaned-up body there.

Hi Sam,

The logical human in me says of course he had an opportunity to actually get close enough to make out the features he says he knew. There is a chance though.....based solely on the Star story of him seeing Mary from the window at this point....and perhaps the absence of the actual details of his identification...who was in the room, who took his ID down.....that kind of thing....that leaves it as possible that he identified at least 1 of 2 features on Mary that could not be seen from the window.

Even having that as possible is annoying...but its the case I think.

Cheers Sam

[Sam Flynn]

You may not like it, but Barnett peeping through the window is the closest to a positive ID we've got.

That's not quite true, though, is it Simon? There were formal visits to the (cleaned-up) corpse arranged by the inquest.

Bowyer and McCarthy had both peeped through the window on the morning the body was discovered. I suppose it's possible that the Star of the 10th November got its wires crossed, and allowed one or other of these "peeps" to leech into their Barnett story. Assuming this wasn't the case, there were clearly opportunities to view the body under favourable conditions from the Saturday afternoon onwards, after the doctors had completed their post mortem at Shoreditch morgue.

It's not a question of whether I like it or not. The fact remains that a quick shufti through a broken pane on the morning of her death was not the last chance people had of viewing the body of Mary Kelly.

[perrymason]

What Im wondering is ......if this man had peeked in through the window.....would he be reticent about actually entering the room with that scene lying there?

He looks through a window of a room he used to live in, on a bed where he used to sleep with Mary, and sees that awful spectacle with red hair. Does he need to be made to look hard at that corpse to firm the identification? Is the site and the memories and perhaps her hair enough to say....I cant look at that anymore....its her, Im sure.

Cheers Sam

[Sam Flynn]

Mike - I really don't have a problem with Barnett having an initial peek through the window (if it happened) and then making a formal ID after the body had been prepared.

Then, as now, there were formalities to go through - and, if nothing else has changed since 1888, you can be sure that the British love of red tape was as strong as ever.