Open or Closed-Probabilities

I have a theory I have not seen suggested so far..at least if it has, I missed it...(first post here btw)

Suppose the Ripper spotted Mary on the streets, marked her down as his next victim and was following her waiting for his chance to strike.

But he didnt get the chance until Mary was at the door of Miller's Court, and he grabbed her as she was opening the door, but missed his first grab at her, before getting her inside, getting his hands around her throat to quiet her with all that followed...

this would account for the cry of "Oh murder" heard...(Mary's final words in other words) and the sound of Mary (actually the Ripper) moving around in her room?

So...what did I miss? Where the holes in my theory?

Hi Mac,

First wanted to say thanks to Sam for the rebuttal, and on the above Mac, the only real problem is with the idea that the attack begins with the cry out. There is no sound that follows that cry, none at all, and 2 women were awake likely listening closely for something to follow that cry that might suggest real danger. There is lots of testimony that cries like that were not unusual, including by Liz Prater, so I would imagine curiousity concerning their own safety at the moment the cry was heard, since it was so close, might have them listening intently for a follow up sound to see if that was a real call for help.

The attack didnt commence until Mary is on the bed, by the evidence. Now...was "oh-murder" possibly shouted from her bed.....possibly....was she at the open door....possibly....was she entering with someone....possibly......but you have to consider that phrase..... then silence.

I think it points to an exclamation that needed no supplementary words or actions. Perhaps in response to an annoyance.

Cheers Mac

[macknnc]

I have a theory I have not seen suggested so far..at least if it has, I missed it...(first post here btw)

Suppose the Ripper spotted Mary on the streets, marked her down as his next victim and was following her waiting for his chance to strike.

But he didnt get the chance until Mary was at the door of Miller's Court, and he grabbed her as she was opening the door, but missed his first grab at her, before getting her inside, getting his hands around her throat to quiet her with all that followed...

this would account for the cry of "Oh murder" heard...(Mary's final words in other words) and the sound of Mary (actually the Ripper) moving around in her room?

So...what did I miss? Where the holes in my theory?

[Sam Flynn]

I did say that I dont see any evidence of collusion,...but apparently you might. Swapping stories before the Inquest would be just that, and had their been any suggestion of that the Police would have had the obligation to pull both accounts from the records

They weren't under constant police guard from the 9th through to the 12th, Mike. They might easily have swapped stories with each other, or compromised their own stories via Chinese Whispers carried by others still, either in person or via the papers.

Their "descriptions" aside, their timing on a cry <snip> are corroborative. Both suggest a time which is approximately 3:45am.

Indeed so, although whether both truly heard it - or one did, and the other latched onto her story before the police interviewed either - is a moot point.

You'll note that I "snipped" a chunk out of the quote, there, which was this: "and where [the scream] likely came from". I've no doubt that, if both women truly heard a scream (or screams - depending on which statement you read), they reported the general direction of the sound reasonably well. However, it would be folly to take their word entirely literally, because hearing isn't one of mankind's most acute senses, and we're rather poor at pinpointing the precise locations of sounds - getting the direction right is almost as good as it gets. And that, it should be noted, is at the best of times, which plainly didn't apply at nearly 4AM, with one witness who was drunk and drowsy, and the other tired and desperately trying to get some sleep.

Many times over the past years Ive noticed that quite a few of the more knowledgeable posters here discount the validity of a witness or of an autopsy physicians opinion, or a police opinion, based on little more than a hunch the data is incorrect.

I don't discount anything, however I am trying to exercise proper and due caution when considering these matters. Opinions or fleeting perceptions, by their very nature, cannot be taken literally, except inasmuch as they are opinions or fleeting perceptions.

If I suspect that an opinion/perception may be flawed, then I do so not based on a mere "hunch", but after carefully weighing up the evidence, and based on other logical, scientific and logistical considerations.

So for your position....what evidence do you believe exists that suggests either or both of the "ear" witnesses should be excluded from consideration....or that they were considered without merit by the authorities?

I personally know of none....so Im asking.

I know plenty of reasons why we should treat what they said with due caution, and I've already stated most of them. I'm not "excluding" anything except the validity of taking literally what were irrefutably subjective statements made by witnesses who were irrefutably not well-placed to have made any detailed observations in the first place.

I disagree, Mike - I can well imagine two scabby Spitalfields drabs having a good old gossip and swapping stories. This, alone, might explain why both women's stories changed between their police interview and the inquest. Even then, their descriptions are sufficiently imprecise and divergent to warrant concern.

Hi Sam,

I did say that I dont see any evidence of collusion,...but apparently you might. Swapping stories before the Inquest would be just that, and had their been any suggestion of that the Police would have had the obligation to pull both accounts from the records, or to prevent them from giving their statements at the Inquest altogether.

Their "descriptions" aside, their timing on a cry and where it likely came from are corroborative. Both suggest a time which is approximately 3:45am.

Many times over the past years Ive noticed that quite a few of the more knowledgeable posters here discount the validity of a witness or of an autopsy physicians opinion, or a police opinion, based on little more than a hunch the data is incorrect. I wont say the positions are taken because pre-existing theories force the story perspective for all of those posts, but for some I would have to say its almost certain.

That being said, the "evidence" we have are the facts gathered at the Inquests primarily, and the police reports and memorandums. That evidence states in this case that 2 women on the night Mary was murdered heard a call from what may be Mary Kelly at approximately the same time,...with differing opinions on the volume heard, but the same on the probable location of it.

Since one woman was upstairs behind a closed door just barely awake, and one was awake on a chair by the door to the courtyard, probably inside 20 feet from Mary Kelly herself, "faintish", and "loud" make sense, respectively.

I wouldnt arbitrarily dismiss any witness without evidence that says they were incorrect, thought to be incorrect by the investigators, proven to be less than trustworthy, or they are providing information that is reasonably untrustworthy based on the other data.

Names like Packer, Hutchinson, Malcolm, and Schwartz come to mind, Sarah Lewis and Elizabeth Prater....and Mary Ann Cox for that matter, do not. On the records, the last man to be seen with Mary Kelly alive comes from Mary Ann Cox....no-one has seen fit to discredit her to-date, why should we do so now?

The records say 2 women in separate locations at a very late hour heard the same phrase called out, in differing volumes. At the same time.

Unless one or both cannot be trusted, thats the way it was.

So for your position....what evidence do you believe exists that suggests either or both of the "ear" witnesses should be excluded from consideration....or that they were considered without merit by the authorities?

I personally know of none....so Im asking.

Cheers Sam

[Sam Flynn]

Their timing, and their description of the location they felt the cry came from and its volume...are undeniably hard to explain without collusion....and I dont see that here myself.

I disagree, Mike - I can well imagine two scabby Spitalfields drabs having a good old gossip and swapping stories. This, alone, might explain why both women's stories changed between their police interview and the inquest. Even then, their descriptions are sufficiently imprecise and divergent to warrant concern.

Hi Sam,

I do see them in less than rosy light, so I am not arguing with some of the objections you have regarding them overall as what we might deem "dependable or trustworthy"...although Kennedy/Lewis may have been a press error from Central News or any of the individual press. Their timing, and their description of the location they felt the cry came from and its volume...are undeniably hard to explain without collusion....and I dont see that here myself.

They are among the few people locally that we might be able to use as witnesses, and I believe the 2 women closest to Mary Kelly, geographically, at the time the cry was heard.

I wish I could recall the source, but I do believe that in the press there was a 3rd ear-witness statement to the cry out near 3:45am as well. From someone in 25 Dorset? or 23 maybe?

Cheers Sam Flynn

[Sam Flynn]

We really have no idea how credible they were.....the contemporary police had to sort that out....and they put them on a stand based on what they perceived their potential value was in determining the cause of death.

They were largely all they had to work with, Mike - certainly in Kelly's case. The expression "Hobson's Choice" springs to mind. It's clear from Lewis's (or is that "Kennedy's") mutating and ever more sensational accounts in the press, the police and inquest statements that we should treat her evidence with a degree of caution. Prater, of course, was zonked and shagged-out for most of the night - and her story varies, on important points of detail, from police statement to inquest testimony, too.

That's not to say we throw the baby out with the bathwater, but it emphatically means that we can't take their words as "definitive" or "precise" in the slightest, when they're not even definitive or precise in themselves. I have little doubt that the truth is "out there, somewhere", but it ain't nailed down, not by a long chalk.

I'm not sure quite how "trusted", or indeed "sensible", the evidence of a soporific drunk on the one hand, and a gossip-monger from Great Pearl Street on the other, can really be, Mike.

Perhaps in the soup that was the East End, thats a pretty good bet Sam. We really have no idea how credible they were.....the contemporary police had to sort that out....and they put them on a stand based on what they perceived their potential value was in determining the cause of death.

Cheers

[Sam Flynn]

One makes perfect sense with the known and trusted evidence....and one needs some kind of speculative story to tie it up neatly. I prefer trusted, and sensible myself.

I'm not sure quite how "trusted", or indeed "sensible", the evidence of a soporific drunk on the one hand, and a gossip-monger from Great Pearl Street on the other, can really be, Mike.

There are no grounds for the suggestion that a knife attack on a woman capable of some resistance, and engaging in some.....(see medical opinions on left arm wounds)...would cause little or no noise on a rickety bed on old wood floors. There are also no grounds for a suggestion that Elizabeth would not hear that noise if it had occurred, as we have statements that indicate she could hear Mary merely "moving about" in the room....below hers.

Sarah Lewis though the cry was "at her door"...the Keylers door was just across the courtyard opposite that door...(some 8-10feet).....and Elizabeth Prater, who is on record saying she could hear Marys movement inside the house....says the cry sounded from outside the house....in the courtyard.

Marys windows and 2 small broken panes... covered from the inside by a pilot coat and curtains...faced the wall, that would not allow sound to escape that Sarah would hear "as at the door"....Elizabeth clearly says she heard the cry from outside the house, "as from the court".....which would suggest that if the cry was Mary at all, it was made by her from within the court outside her room....or from inside her room with the door open.

One makes perfect sense with the known and trusted evidence....and one needs some kind of speculative story to tie it up neatly. I prefer trusted, and sensible myself.

Cheers

[Dr. John Watson]

I don't believe Kelly is the one who cried "Oh, murder!" A woman in fear for her life, perhaps facing imminent attack, would hardly waste time with words. Reflex alone, I think, would cause her to simply scream for her life, as loud as she possibly could, unless she was asleep or paralyzed with fear, in which case she would make no sound. I have always suspected that a friend - perhaps the prostitute who had stayed with her - came to Kelly's room after the murder and peered through the broken window to see if Kelly was home. There could still be enough light from the fireplace to reveal the ghastly sight on the bed - a sight that would certainly evoke the cry, "Oh, murder!" - a cry that would have come from just outside the room, as Kelly's neighbors have described it. The horrified witness then fled and forever kept silent, not wishing to become involved.

[FrankO]

The more I think about it, doesn't it seem really odd that Prater- directly above the murder site and thus only a few yards away- would have heard someone cry out but NOT heard any of the sounds of a body being cut apart? Did she drift off again and was just a very deep sleeper, and Mr. Diddles just didn't happen to crawl on her again?

Hi Kensei,

I don’t think there’s anything odd about Prater not hearing anything directly after the cry and before dozing off to sleep again. It’s perfectly feasible that MJK’s throat was cut directly after the cry and that her killer kept still directly after cutting her throat, listening for sounds himself, trying to discern if the cry had caused alarm among inhabitants of the court. When, after half a minute or so, he heard no one react, he proceeded and Prater had probably fallen asleep again by then, not having heard any other sound again. Furthermore, I don’t think that cutting a body or even moving it would cause suspicious sounds, if they would be audible for Prater at all. Prater must have slept deep enough and apparently wasn't wakened again by Diddles.

All the best,
Frank

[kensei]

The more I think about it, doesn't it seem really odd that Prater- directly above the murder site and thus only a few yards away- would have heard someone cry out but NOT heard any of the sounds of a body being cut apart? Did she drift off again and was just a very deep sleeper, and Mr. Diddles just didn't happen to crawl on her again?

It makes me consider just for a moment (though I don't really believe it) the theory that Mary was really killed later in the morning, in daylight, presumably when Prater wasn't present to hear anything. But it seems practically unbelievable that anyone would have been bold enough to perpetrate that brutal a killing and take that much time to cut up the body in daylight hours with daily hustle & bustle going on right outside the door. Bowyer's knock could have come at any time once the sun came up.

[Celesta]

Hello Issack, Welcome to the site. I'm sorry I forgot to welcome you this morning. I was in a rush. I hope you enjoy your time here.

[Sam Flynn]

Whilst I believe the murderer was JTR, does anybody know if the body was positively identified by the police?

She was formally identified by her boyfriend - as is on record at the inquest - and other people who knew her viewed the body as well, Issack. Furthermore, she was seen entering her room with a man only a few hours before her death, and held a brief conversation with a neighbour as she did so. Those who entertain the quaint possibility that a "substitute" died on that bed - and a tiny, conspiracy-minded minority do - really ought to take all those factors into account.