Heartless?

[Wickerman]

What Dr. Bond appears to be describing in his post-mortem report are the injuries and the injuries alone.

It is unfortunate that Dr. Phillip's post-mortem report has not survived, it was afterall Dr. Phillip's case. If the report we have of Alice McKenzie is anything to go by, the Kelly autopsy would have been quite comprehensive.

What we have by Dr. Bond is very brief, he was not present to do an autopsy. He was invited by Anderson in October to review all the Whitechapel murders in order that Scotland Yard have professional "guidance as to the amount of surgical skill and anatomical knowledge probably possessed by the murderer or murderers".
It was more of a convenience that another murder (MJK) occured while Bond was analyzing the autopsy records from the earlier murders.

He doesn't discuss the condition of the body parts that were removed from the body, he just notes them as removed.

Yes, it was just not necessary for him to go into such detail, we are lucky to have what we do, but, had the actual autopsy report by Dr. Phillips survived we would know so much more.

Regards, Jon S.

[Hunter]

He meant just what he said. The heart was absent. Whether Bond gave a description of the condition of the various organs or not, he accounted for their whereabouts after they were removed from their original location.

[DRoy]

What Dr. Bond appears to be describing in his post-mortem report are the injuries and the injuries alone.

He doesn't discuss the condition of the body parts that were removed from the body, he just notes them as removed.

He mentions viscera (liver, pancreas & intestines), uterus, kidneys, liver, spleen and stomach as all being removed yet does not mention the condition of any of them (except...see below comment about the stomach).

I could only count three internal body parts that Dr. Bond actually describes the condition of...1) lungs 2) pericardium 3) "remains of the stomach attached to the intestines" (I interpret the word "remains" as a gruesome way to describe the condition of at least a portion of the stomach).

Perhaps he doesn't say where the heart was found for the same reason he didn't mention where the partly removed nose, cheeks, eyebrows and ears ended up. Or perhaps it was just an oversight on his part.

So in saying the heart was absent, I believe he is saying that it was not in the pericardium (sack) which is where it was supposed to be.

DRoy

[Hunter]

The only part of Mary Kelly that anyone was allowed to see was her face. The rest of her was covered.

[Wickerman]

So it implies that the reporters were lied to by someone they assumed would be in the know. So who was that, and why lie?

In order to prevent the mail room being clogged up with packages of hearts....

(Remember the kidney?)

Regards, Jon S.

[Bridewell]

Skaken, Not Stirred

Dr Bond's area of expertise extended to the body but nothing more; he was not obliged to account for missing organs,and, i am sure, would have considered rooting about for them, possibly on hands and knees, beneath his dignity.

Let's hope that others stood on their dignity rather less than he did.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Scorpio]

Hi GM.

I’m going to guess that the book you’re reading is Robert A. Snow’s In Pursuit of Jack the Ripper. I very much enjoyed this book but there were some things, like Snow stating that Kelly’s heart was not missing, that I disagreed with. The short answer, to my mind, is that yes, Kelly’s heart does appear to have been missing.

There were newspaper reports, the Daily Telegraph 13 November for example, which did actually state that some “bodily organ” was missing while the Observer, 18 November, stated flat out that the killer “cut the woman’s heart out and carried it away.”

Also, in Dr. Allan McLane Hamilton and Lawrence Godkin’s 1894 book, A System of Legal Medicine, Dr. Francis A. Harris wrote a section titled Death in its Medico-Legal Aspects in which was a segment titled Identity of the Dead Body. This segment was written with the aid of Dr. Charles A. Hebbert, Dr. Thomas Bond’s assistant, and uses the murder of Mary Kelly as an example. Here it is stated “In this case, to be sure, all the organs except the heart were found scattered about the room…”

Finally we have Dr. Bond’s own report in which, as you posted, he states “the pericardium was open below and the heart absent.” It has been pointed out that this statement doesn’t necessarily mean that the heart was taken away and was missing but beyond this it is what Dr. Bond doesn’t say that is important.

Nowhere in Bond’s notes of the description of the body in situ does he state where the heart was found in the room, although he tells us where everything else was found. Nowhere in Bond’s autopsy notes does he mention the condition of the heart, which he would have routinely done as part of the post mortem, had it been found. The likelihood is, therefore, that Kelly’s heart was missing and taken away.

Wolf.

Dr Bond's area of expertise extended to the body but nothing more; he was not obliged to account for missing organs,and, i am sure, would have considered rooting about for them, possibly on hands and knees, beneath his dignity.

[Errata]

I think the notion of the heart 'rolling under the bed' more than a little unlikely.

Regards, Bridewell.

Hey man, those things bounce like you wouldn't believe...

No it's totally unlikely. But a good many of these "all organs found" stories came out after the inquest, when the reporters saw Kelly's body. So either they were under the impression the heart was there because they saw something they took to be a heart, or someone told them that the heart was there, which would be an interesting lie. Interesting in a "why bother" kind of way. So if it is really unlikely that the heart was in fact found... why say it was? A missing heart is a good story. A found one is less so. So it doesn't make sense for a reporter to invent the heart being found. It cuts a good story off at the knees. So it implies that the reporters were lied to by someone they assumed would be in the know. So who was that, and why lie?

[Bridewell]

I think the notion of the heart 'rolling under the bed' more than a little unlikely.

Regards, Bridewell.

[DRoy]

Kelly died on the 9th, was autopsied on the 10th, and her inquest was on the 12th. Is it possible that between the 10th and the 12th they found her heart? They sent someone to sift through ashes, so they were looking for a body part. Is it possible they found it under the bed, or behind the table or something?

Possible but I find it unlikely. The room as small as it is...with the little furniture it had...with the amount of people that went in the room...possible but unlikely.

DRoy

[Errata]

Kelly died on the 9th, was autopsied on the 10th, and her inquest was on the 12th. Is it possible that between the 10th and the 12th they found her heart? They sent someone to sift through ashes, so they were looking for a body part. Is it possible they found it under the bed, or behind the table or something?

[DRoy]

What plan do you think they had based on what was known at the time ?

I'd only be speculating which I try not to do too much of.

I'm attempting to stay on topic for this thread...the conflicting pieces of information we can gather regarding the heart can lead one to infer that giving out too much information might not be the best idea...which could be why we have conflicting statements.

Jon made some great points about not giving out information while they were investigating but that doesn't seem to have been followed by everyone. I find it odd that we were made aware very quickly of body parts missing in the other murders yet not so with this one (if in fact missing at all). Something changed. Police strategy or something else?

Dr. Gabe was not used to this sort of thing, he mostly looked after children. So could the shock of seeing body parts everywhere and a woman cut up skew his memory? Sure. Could that shock also lead him to identify or note a heart being there when it wasn't? Sure.

Let's not forget that Dr. Gabe apparently also says that the uterus and ovarian adjuncts were missing as in the other murders. How could he know this if it took Dr. Bond to put the body back together again to see if there was missing parts? The report states that Dr. Gabe was "fresh from the horrible sight." Does that mean 5 minutes or 5 days?

Cheers
DRoy

[Trevor Marriott]

Mr Marriott,



I used the word "perhaps" for a reason.



And look how well that worked out for them. "Perhaps" trying something new might help them catch a killer. If at first don't suceed...keep trying the same thing until it works? They deserve more credit than that.



...a/o a statement to the press telling them their strategy plan which might have included misinformation or holding information back, etc.

Cheers
DRoy

What plan do you think they had based on what was known at the time ?

[DRoy]

Mr Marriott,

Can we stop suggesting all the time the police were holding things back, its cropped up in another thread. Its wearing thin now !

I used the word "perhaps" for a reason.

They held nothing back with regards to Chapman Eddowes regarding the missing organs.

And look how well that worked out for them. "Perhaps" trying something new might help them catch a killer. If at first don't suceed...keep trying the same thing until it works? They deserve more credit than that.

The only thing they were probably holding back is a statement saying "we havent a clue"

...a/o a statement to the press telling them their strategy plan which might have included misinformation or holding information back, etc.

Cheers
DRoy

[Wickerman]

Can we stop suggesting all the time the police were holding things back, its cropped up in another thread. Its wearing thin now !

To a point the suggestion has some merit.
To start with the police were not allowed to give interviews to the press concerning an active investigation.

The Star complained on a regular basis that the police will not talk to them. In fact The Star admit to having to resort to "making it up as they go". Is there any wonder so many bogus and blatently false stories were put about by The Star.

The Echo had better success but most sources of "police opinion" came via the agencies circulated by wire, so providing the paper was willing to pay for the release, the opinion was available to all the press at the same time.

The police did not wilfully inform the press about specific details of evidence in an active investigation. We should not expect the police, nor the medical men, to say anything to the press about a missing organ, this would be reserved for the Inquest.

Regards, Jon S.