Kelly seen alive AFTER murder during lord mayors show?

[c.d.]

What exactly does "partly digested" mean? Does it mean that the food appeared to be 10% digested or 90% digested? It seems there is a lot of leeway there. Also, was this the sole basis on which the doctors made their estimate as to the time of death?

c.d.

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
Thank god a modern day specialist verdict had been given for the likely T.O.D for the murder of kelly, if one takes the time as between 8am-10 am we have the classic morning murder which I have been rambling on about since day one.
Quite simply every one was telling the truth, no conspiracy, no corruption.
Blotchy had his karoke show, and then left, Hutchinson saw Mjk, and witnessed her and Astracan, he left a while later, Mary had a nightmare[ recurring] that she was being murdered, hense the 'Oh Murder'[ heard by prater and others] Maurice Lewis saw kelly leave her room, Mrs Maxwell saw and spoke to Mary, and also saw her killer, the man dressed as a market porter, and she was killed around 9am.
Its that simple, but the vast majority of us still believe a nineteenth century doctor/doctors, and the mystery continues.
Regards Richard.

[KatBradshaw]

Wow Wolf that is a very detailed post! It is interesting and always good to question the accepted but not tested ideas. On this one however I would have thought that the evidence, both actual and circumstatial, points to Maxwell being mistaken.
What sort of time would YOU estimate that Kelly died then?? Baring in mind that the killer would have had to escape without anyone noting him having been there. It would also be interesting to ask anyone what they think of people noticiting the fire in Kelly's room at an earlier time. They wouldn't have thought it odd maybe but may well have noticed it.

[j.r-ahde]

Hello you all!

Once again; Mary was as tall as an average man, being 5'7" tall (170,28 in centimeters!). This fact seems to rule out any possibility of a stand-in on the bed!

And now for an adaption from the Victims introduction of this Site:

"...8:30 AM: Caroline Maxwell, a witness at the inquest and acquaintance of Kelly's, claims to have seen the deceased at around 8:30 AM, several hours after the time given by Phillips as time of death. She described her clothing and appearance in depth, and adamantly stated that she was not mistaken about the date, although she admitted she did not know Kelly very well. ..."

Maybe an overcoat lent to a "tenant" of hers, despite MJK was tall?!

All the best
Jukka

[BLUE WIZZARD]

With regard to Mary's eyes and whether they were visible, I have over the years come across reprints of the photos where I could see her left eyeball clearly although the eye was only half open.

This was after hours of studying the photo however.

BillieHoliday,

What took hours to study?

BW

[BillieHoliday]

With regard to Mary's eyes and whether they were visible, I have over the years come across reprints of the photos where I could see her left eyeball clearly although the eye was only half open.

This was after hours of studying the photo however.

[Nothing to see]

I've never placed any credence in Caroline Maxwell. You are all much more expert in this than me but the time line that Maxwell's story suggests just doesn't make any sense. Kelly was dead IMO long before 8am. What do we really know about Maxwell? Did she really know Kelly? Or was she after her '15 mins fame'? It's a good question about why she testified or was allowed to testify. No, I'm not into conspiracy theories but something happened there that I certainly don't understand. Kelly, I'm sure, was dead long before Maxwell 'said' she spoke to her.

[celee]

Hi,

Poor Mary Kelly, rest in peace. Okay, say Kelly was seen by Maxwell. That would open the door for some tough questions.

1. Could the Ripper have killed and mutilate Kelly in the now much shorter time frame?

2. Could the Ripper escape Kelly's room without being detected. I mean everyone and there brother was obviously on the street?

3. Was the body found that morning the remains of Kelly or someone else?

4. If the dead woman was not Kelly, then why would Kelly not come forward?

5. Was Kelly a sinister woman who was some how involved in the Murders?

All this speculation makes for fun conversation and I am all for spirited conversation. However, Kelly was Killed between Midnight and 3:45am in the morning by Jack the Ripper.

Your friend, Brad

[Roy Corduroy]

Thank you, Wolf.

If Maxwell was right, the other witnesses don't have to be "wrong."

Roy

One of my favourite recent posts too Wolf....the key here is that you possessed top drawer professional opinion I wasnt aware of....thats my defense anyway.

But if Bonds estimates were off by that amount, surely his other conjectures must be somewhat suspect too....not that this is going to sink the good SS Canonical by itself.

Thats a very interesting thought though Wolf...have to consider that some more.

On the violence I associated with the vomiting, it was based on the story that she had thrown a beer right up as soon as she drank it. To me that sounds like the body rejecting food or drink, due to what biological process...Im no doctor. But it sounded like someone whose system was rejecting any more damage for the moment. Stomach maybe contracting, or stomach muscles...adding force to the action. Now....that does tie in with her being potted when arriving home....but she also sings off and on for over an hour....with what we may assume is the alcohol that was in her when she arrived. Functional. Maybe tired, maybe full, maybe just cheery...but somewhat functional. What.....I will still phrase it this way for the moment, no offense.....the woman who spoke to Caroline Maxwell said was the "horrors of drink upon me". I think that woman....for the moment...either drank cheaper more disgusting booze than Mary, or more of it....because Mary was having no "horrors" from around 11:45 until almost 1:30am.

Thanks for the food for thought Wolf....and nice to see you since I havent for a few months.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Wolf,

A fascinating post.

The cops knew Maxwell's story on Friday 9th November, and the Coroner knew what she was going to say before she opened her mouth at the inquest on 12th November. If her story was so contradictory and flew in the face of "the facts" why on earth was she subpoenaed to appear at the inquest in the first place?

What seems strange to me is that her story could have so easily been blown out of the water by the Coroner asking Bagster Phillips' opinion on MJK's time of death.

But the question never came.

Regards,

Simon

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Hi Michael.

Caroline Maxwell’s testimony is one of the most contentious subjects (usually hotly debated) in the entire study of the Whitechapel murders. However, the contention seems to be mostly based on such things as a selective use of the facts and/or a general fervent clinging to the accepted dogma of Ripperology.

I noticed that although you admit that you don’t know that Kelly’s stomach was completely emptied of its contents you do state “I can say that not only does violent vomiting clear the stomach's food contents in my experience…” (emphasis mine). I’m assuming here that you don’t actually know that she vomited violently either. I don’t see how you could. In fact all we can say is that according to Caroline Maxwell Kelly told her on the morning of the 9th of November that she had had a half pint of ale and then had vomited it up. This doesn’t appear to me to indicate any violence or complete emptying of the stomach.

One of your points is more interesting. You stated:

…I was thinking someone would suggest she ate after throwing up and before she is killed...but that isnt in sync with the medical determination on how long the meal was inside her and in her digestive tract.

And later:

And more importantly, we know by the medical estimates roughly when that process ceased. And that was well before 8am by estimates.

I am going to assume that you are relying on Dr. Bond’s report to Robert Anderson in which Bond states: “the remains of a recently taken meal were found in the stomach and scattered about over the intestines. It is, therefore, pretty certain that the woman must have been dead about 12 hours and the partly digested food would indicate that death took place about 3 or 4 hours after the food was taken, so 1 or 2 o’clock in the morning would be the probable time of the murder.”
The problem with Dr. Bond’s opinion is that he is absolutely wrong with the length of time it would take for a meal of fish and potatoes to become “partly digested.”

Roughly ten years ago, in an attempt to find out who was a more trustworthy medical man, Bond or Phillips, I elicited the opinions, with the help of friends at U of T, of a dozen forensic pathologists from all over the world. These were men and women, some at the top of their field, with years of forensic experience (one was a Brazilian professor with over 50 years on the job) who generously took the time to look at the material I sent them and then answer a series of questions and offer their opinions regarding the deaths of Mary Kelly and Annie Chapman.

What I was told about digestion and the Kelly murder was that Bond’s estimate of 3 or 4 hours for a meal of fish and potatoes to become only “partly digested” is not credible. The modern scientific opinion is that the time would be somewhere between ˝ an hour and 1˝ hours (with the likely time being less than 1˝ hours).

What I was told about time of death for Kelly was that possibly, given what Bond says about the condition of the body, Kelly died somewhere between 6 and 10 am, which seems to support what Dr. Phillips had to say, (with the likely time being narrowed down to between 8 and 10 am).

Do we have any evidence, or testimony that could possibly support the modern medical opinion? Amazingly we do.

Wolf.

I think it's possible that the witnessing of Kelly on the Lord Mayor's day was just an exaggerated story, even today you find incorrect information in gossip and it's a form of entertainment amongst those who do it, just to liven things up a bit, it may be that some of the poorer classes at the time had gossip towards thinking that the killings were connected with Prince Eddie as he had rooms in Whitechapel. The body was identified as Mary Kelly by Joe, i doubt that there would have been a similar looking woman with the right height, build and age winding up dead in Mary Kelly's room. Kelly's death was very nasty and domestic killings have a very nasty ring to them, with emotions involved.

[kensei]

I see a parallel to this question in a case from 1999- the Yosemite Park murders, in which mother and daughter Carole & Juli Sund and Argentinian exchange student Silvina Pelosso disappeared while on vacation, were missing for some time and were then found murdered in that wilderness area. Serial killer Cary Anthony Stayner was eventually convicted and confessed to killing them the same night they disappeared. I remember reading that while the FBI was investigating and before the bodies had been found, a female shopkeeper in the area reported that the three women had come into her shop AFTER they'd been reported missing, that she even remembered the foreign girl saying she was from Argentina. She was positive, yet she was completely wrong. The women were definitely dead at the time the supposed witness said this happened. How is this possible? All you can do is throw up your hands and say that somehow it is. People can indeed be mistaken about things they would swear on their life to being right about. It's just something that is, with no more explanation than that.

[BLUE WIZZARD]

Miss Marple,

Thank you for the advise.