Could MJK have survived Miller's Court

[Michael W Richards]

Hi Michael

Abberline took a statement off Barnett that afternoon in Millers Court.

The Police would have been looking for him as soon as they were aware of the body.

Ive read that Jon, and if true, then it would imply that the police altered the appearance of Mary Kelly to some extent to allow him to see her eyes. Something I highly doubt myself. Ive read that he made an ID from the window late that afternoon in one report.

My post is based on the specific nature of his ID Jon....in that her eyes, to my understanding and belief, were not visible in the photos we have seen. Im somewhat skeptical that the best he could do is identify parts of her that were obscured while she lay there in the first place, when her feet and hands were visible and should have been easy to recognize by a lover. Her overall body length should have been a factor for him.

But he named only the eyes and 'ear or hair, depending on which you subscribe to.

Best regards

[Jon Guy]

Hi Michael

I dont believe that they could have learned of Barnett, then tracked him down and brought her to the room for an in-situ ID in that short a period of time.

Abberline took a statement off Barnett that afternoon in Millers Court.

The Police would have been looking for him as soon as they were aware of the body.

[Michael W Richards]

I don't think we would be having these discussions if we knew for sure who MJK was. But all the obfuscation around her identity is, I think, spilling over into questions around her survival. That's not to say I don't think the questions should be asked. But it's easier to ask them about someone who already has an aura of mystery.

For myself, even though her face was completely destroyed, it sounds like her physicality and her hair were such that she was identifiable by those methods. But then I believe that the person taking Barnett's statement misheard 'hair' for 'ear'. Hair is not just identifiable by colour but also by form and texture. You wouldn't mistake a strawberry-blonde with straight fine hair for a strawberry-blonde with thick wavy/curly hair.

Hi RivkahChaya! You make me think I should have nic'ed myself NachaChava!

Hi Chava,

Long time no see.

Heres what I believe happened with the ID,...it was reported that Mary was removed from the room around 4:30-5:00pm that afternoon. Which means from the time we are told they first entered the room until they put her remains in a box to be taken away is approx 3-3 1/2 hours. I dont believe that they could have learned of Barnett, then tracked him down and brought her to the room for an in-situ ID in that short a period of time. So his ID was like a mortuary one, like the jurors saw. She was covered head to toe excluding her face... which they repaired somewhat, but I believe its with that prep that he is shown her for his ID.

Which to me makes the ID a little more compelling, because he would have been shown the eyes and they could have shown him her hair by moving any cloth that may have obscured it...although at that time I believe it was down her back inside the temporary coffin.

All the best Chava

[Chava]

I don't think we would be having these discussions if we knew for sure who MJK was. But all the obfuscation around her identity is, I think, spilling over into questions around her survival. That's not to say I don't think the questions should be asked. But it's easier to ask them about someone who already has an aura of mystery.

For myself, even though her face was completely destroyed, it sounds like her physicality and her hair were such that she was identifiable by those methods. But then I believe that the person taking Barnett's statement misheard 'hair' for 'ear'. Hair is not just identifiable by colour but also by form and texture. You wouldn't mistake a strawberry-blonde with straight fine hair for a strawberry-blonde with thick wavy/curly hair.

Hi RivkahChaya! You make me think I should have nic'ed myself NachaChava!

[RavenDarkendale]

@ RivkahChaya

I know. It's funny. I hear gunshots all the time as I live in a rural area. People hunt, kill varmints and pests. and target practice a lot. I do myself.

Yet when a man killed himself week before last less than a quarter of a mile away, I heard nothing though I was home at the time. I found out about it on the nightly news. Rum old world...

[RivkahChaya]

Today you could hear screams and gunshots and nobody interviewed would admit to hearing anything.

Case in point:...

Jon and Chy have three big dogs which were locked in their kennels under the kitchen table. These dogs back very loudly and try to get out of the kennels at the slightest excuse. They must have gone wild when someone came through a window with a broken latch.... No neighbor would admit to seeing or hearing anything!

Yes, but, it's possible the dogs bark at other things too. If the dogs bark any time a car door slams outside, a siren goes by, they see something outside the window, like a bird or a squirrel, and soforth, it possible that the neighbors tune them out.

A lot of things sound like gunshots: cars backfiring (if you haven't ever really heard a car backfire, come to Indiana; I never heard one when I lived in New York), firecrackers, bottles breaking, utility transformers blowing, cars hitting trees, and if you live in the country, people firing blanks to scare birds away from cornfields. I don't call the police every time I hear something that sounds like gunfire, and so far, I have never had the police come around to ask me whether I heard any shots fired the day before, and I've never opened the paper, or a webpage, to see that someone was shot near where I live, and I either heard nothing, or heard something I dismissed as something other than gunfire.

It isn't a question of not getting involved. I've called 911 a few times when I've heard fights that sounded one-sided (one person was in a position to seriously injure the other, or one person sounded a lot more scared than the other), or that the fight might be headed toward property destruction. But I've never been moved to call for either dog-barking, or "gunfire."

[RavenDarkendale]

Today you could hear screams and gunshots and nobody interviewed would admit to hearing anything.

Case in point:

Last Wednesday I was visiting my son and daughter-in-law in Augusta, GA. They live in a large, multi-building apartment complex. The area is well taken care of, the apartments very nice. Not a seedy or down-ridden housing project at all.

My daughter-in-law is a graduate student, so she was at collage. My son, my wife, and I left the house at 12:00 noon to get something to eat and look around a bit. Bright sunny day, not a cloud in the sky. We arrived home at 3:00pm to find the place torn to pieces and cleaned out, electronics, jewelry, lock box, etc.

Now Jon and Chy have three big dogs which were locked in their kennels under the kitchen table. These dogs back very loudly and try to get out of the kennels at the slightest excuse. They must have gone wild when someone came through a window with a broken latch, unlocked the back door for their accomplices, and carried out TV, X-Box, Wii, DVD player, my laptop, games, jewelry, a .40 caliber fully loaded semiautomatic, etc, No neighbor would admit to seeing or hearing anything!

[Phil H]

Interesting.

Phil H

[Michael W Richards]

if Mrs Prater's room is at the front of the building (over the shed) rather the rear, it just might explain the possibility of her hearing a cry from the court faintly, whilst the other witnesses, facing on to the court, heard it louder?

But as I recall, no one reported hearing a louder cry, did they?

Phil H

Phil,

Eliabeth heard a faint cry of murder, "as if from the court",..Sarah heard it "as if at her door".

That volume differential pretty clearly puts the cry emanating from the courtyard somewhere. Since their times roughly match as well, I believe we have legitimate "ear" witnesses.

Cheers

[RivkahChaya]

A Star reporter who inquired into the matter extracted from one of the women the confession that the story was, as far as she was concerned, a fabrication; and he came to the conclusion that it was to be disregarded.

Well I am simply shocked! shocked, I tell you.

[Wickerman]

Hi Phil

From the Inquest testimony of Sarah Lewis:

"I sat awake till nearly five - a little before four I heard a female voice shout loudly once Murder!"

I believe Christer is quite right though in asserting that other inhabitants of the Court subsequently jumped on the bandwagon

All the best

Dave

It was reported in the press that several women came forward suggesting they heard this cry, but they all heard it at different times. The earliest I believe was 1:45 am, the latest "just after 4:00 am".
Most of the claims were dismissed, according to the press.

The desire to be interesting has had its effect on the people who live in the Dorset-street-court and lodging-houses, and for whoever cares to listen there are
A HUNDRED HIGHLY CIRCUMSTANTIAL STORIES,
which, when carefully sifted, prove to be totally devoid of truth. One woman (as reported below) who lives in the court stated that at about two o'clock she heard a cry of "Murder." This story soon became popular, until at last half a dozen women were retailing it as their own personal experience. Each story contradicted the others with respect to the time at which the cry was heard. A Star reporter who inquired into the matter extracted from one of the women the confession that the story was, as far as she was concerned, a fabrication; and he came to the conclusion that it was to be disregarded.

http://www.casebook.org/press_reports/star/s881110.html

Regards, Jon S.

[Cogidubnus]

But as I recall, no one reported hearing a louder cry, did they?

Hi Phil

From the Inquest testimony of Sarah Lewis:

"I sat awake till nearly five - a little before four I heard a female voice shout loudly once Murder!"

I believe Christer is quite right though in asserting that other inhabitants of the Court subsequently jumped on the bandwagon

All the best

Dave

[RivkahChaya]

Some discovering the body via the window, or seeing the murder happen is a non starter , anyone would have screamed to such an extent , that the whole of Dorset street would have known about it.

That's a really good point. Who finds a body, and says nothing other than the Victorian version of "Oh, crap." Or, "Wow, a murdered body," with little emotion, or attempt to alert the police.

No one, we are asked to believe, other than Mary Kelly, who seizes upon the opportunity to abscond, yet carelessly allows herself to be seen by Caroline Maxwell close enough to the time that the body is discovered, that we have to wonder what sort of game of chicken she is playing. If the body has been there since 4am, and Mary Kelly is walking around-- and you have to wonder where she's been between 4am and 9am-- she doesn't know when the body will be found, so she's taking a chance hanging around Dorset Street. Even if she's frantically turning tricks to raise train fare to Ireland, you'd think she'd at least walk a mile out of the way, just in case. And not spending any of the money on beer.

Also, she doesn't know for certain the body will be misidentified. There has to be someone around who knows the woman it "really' is, and maybe Joseph Barnett won't make a mistake, especially since one would think he doesn't want the body to be MJK. One thing MJK can do toward getting the body identified as herself is to get the hell out of Dodge. She also could have tried leaving something personal on the body-- if she had a hair comb, or ring, or something-- but maybe she can't bring herself to touch it. Understandable. Still, even given the little she is going to know about forensics, she has to be able to figure out that hanging around is a bad idea.

In other words, late morning sightings, one thing generally used to argue that MJK survived the Miller's Court attack, I think argues very much against her using the dead body in her room as an opportunity to disappear.

[Fisherman]

All of Millerīs Court - or so they said... The only ones the coppers put stock in, though, were Prater and Lewis.

The best,
Fisherman

[Phil H]

All of this is pure imagination, but you can see [ hopefully] what I am just suggesting.

Just about Richard.

Who, apart from Mrs Prater heard the cry?

Phil H