It wasnt Kelly theory

[Losmandris]

Hi Losmandris,



I agree that Maxwell's morning murder (note the alliteration) scenario produces a very restricted time window, but that alone is not sufficient for us to discount the possibility. Eddowes' murder shows us that, for example. That doesn't mean we have to accept that MMM was the case, only that we need to be careful we don't discount an avenue of explanation prematurely by letting the explanation drive the evidence.

What I mean by that is the following. There was some true sequence of events that happened. We don't know what that sequence was. We only see the impressions that real events leave behind. Those "impressions" are the evidence we have to work with, which is our data. Our theories are just explanations for those data impressions. Unfortunately, the data we have to work with is, for the most part, eye witness testimony, and so our data is subject to error, meaning our data may exist in the form it does for reasons other than the sequence of events we're interested in explaining. Those reasons are things like, the witness misremembered some detail, the witness is intentionally lying, the witness is genuinely mistaken, the witness omits some detail in the telling of their recollections, the witness phrases things poorly and it is not clear what exactly they mean, and so forth. This means that any statement by a witness cannot be viewed as a single "point", but rather is associated with some sort of range of values that we need to consider.

Our explanations are attempts to clear away the errors and find the true sequence of events. We can do that to some extent if we can show that even accounting for the range associated with the data it still is impossible for that sequence to have occurred.

Sadly, many of the bits of information we have are associated with quite large ranges. You mention that 9:45, for example, as the latest time for the murder, and suggest that still leaves it possible if only just. But the latest time is only one end of the range we need to consider. We would want to also consider the "earliest" time as well. Clearly, if the latest time still produces a workable time line, then the earliest will put even less pressure on the explanation.

What we shouldn't do is draw conclusions like "well, this end of the range of possible sequence is pretty tight" and so decide that the explanation should be dismissed. See, the closer we get to the real sequence of events due to having more and more data (if that were possible - we're unlikely to get more data for this case unless there's information recorded in a source not yet found) then the tighter and tighter the explanation should get, with the ideal being that we could account for every second. In a sense, the more complete our explanation becomes the less and less room there is for error, making the explanation seem less and less "possible" despite it better approaching the truth!

While I'm not convinced that the MMM is actually the right explanation, and if push came to shove I would place my bet on it being incorrect, the information we have does not preclude it sufficiently that we can reject it outright. There is evidence to support it (it comes from actual statements about the case specifically), so it's not just an idea plucked out of thin air, and the timeline it produces is not impossible. As such, it is a viable explanation, it has some positive support (there's data to suggest it) and there's nothing that really refutes it. So even if MMM is not one widely accepted, it still produces a timeline that might be what it is we're trying to explain!

There was only one sequence of true events, and if we consider the full range of times (so the earliest to the latest time for the murder to occur), we end up with even the latest time still resulting in sufficient time available.

That's not proof that Maxwell was correct, rather it is simply the fact that we cannot show she must have been mistaken. We're left with no evidence based reason to reject her account, we're only left with our subjective impressions of how likely it is that she was correct. We're left with our subjective ranking of the two explanations, at "night" (meaning closer to 4am) or in the morning (the MMM), which is one thing, but I think it is important not to overlook the fact that our subjective impressions may be the source of error that gets that wrong.

As I say, my subjective impression is that the murder was at night, and that Maxwell was mistaken in some way, but I freely admit that my subjective view could be wrong.

Now, it is possible that as we explore the data further, and evaluate things more closely, we may end up with more and more reason to consider MMM, or we may find it becomes less and less plausible. If we allow our current impressions to become too cemented, to prematurely let them turn from "more probable" to "being sure", then we will make it more difficult for ourself to evaluate new information as we'll be "sure" it must be wrong rather than focus on examining it to see if it must be wrong.

- Jeff

Thanks for this Jeff it mlkes a lot of sense. We are simply not in a position 130 odd years later to question Maxwell's statement. She could be completely correct. indeed there may have been more people who saw MJK in the morning, who just didn't come forward. There are some bit unaccountable gaps. We have no idea what happened between 2am when Hutchinson claimed to have seen MJK and 8am when Maxwell claims to have seen her (if she did) and then until 10:45am when Bowyer discovers the body. Was the body already lying there at 8am or did Maxwell genuinely see her? We just cannot say for for sure. We can say on balance of probability but even then there are just too many things we don't know. Like how busy was the court in the morning? If it was super busy would someone have come across the body earlier, if it was there? What type of person was Maxwell, was she prone to forgetfulness or had problems with her vision? There are just too many things that through this up in the air and don't allow us to come down conclusively on one side or the other.

I think the only thing we can say is that the person found in the room was the person known to Joe Barrett and her own associates as MJK. Everything else???????

[GBinOz]

Time being tight, doesn’t make it impossible. I need a good reason to say Maxwell and Lewis were both wrong, either accidentally or for some sinister purpose, so far I have yet to see one. Sure if they are both right it raises some interesting questions, but again that is no reason to reject them. Same with the ID of the body, no one at the time seems to have struggled with it, and if it was false, Why?

Maxwell was corroborated by Lewis, and possibly others. Two women said they heard singing and cries of murder, and one of those originally told the press she had heard nothing. Two others said they heard no singing and no cries of murder. I agree that we can't just discard corroborated evidence in order to validate contradictory evidence.

I am tending to agree with Jon that the testimony appears to imply that the ID was made later and not just by looking through the window, but I can't find confirmation.

Cheers, George

[Wickerman]

If MJK was murdered in the morning and taking into consideration the information from Maxwell, I wonder what the timeline would be? She goes back into the pub, picks someone up, is back at her place by 9:45 at the latest for the deed to take place? I agree with JeffHamm that the murder probably didn't take as long as we may think, but this is cutting thinks (no pun intended) a little too fine for me.

As much as it troubles me (she sounds very convincing), I think Maxwell must have been mistaken. And I don't believe the person found in millers court was not the person we all regard as MJK.

Agreed, Yes Maxwell made a mistake, & Yes the body was Barnett's lover.

[GUT]

Time being tight, doesn’t make it impossible. I need a good reason to say Maxwell and Lewis were both wrong, either accidentally or for some sinister purpose, so far I have yet to see one. Sure if they are both right it raises some interesting questions, but again that is no reason to reject them. Same with the ID of the body, no one at the time seems to have struggled with it, and if it was false, Why?

[JeffHamm]

Hi Losmandris,

If MJK was murdered in the morning and taking into consideration the information from Maxwell, I wonder what the timeline would be? She goes back into the pub, picks someone up, is back at her place by 9:45 at the latest for the deed to take place? I agree with JeffHamm that the murder probably didn't take as long as we may think, but this is cutting thinks (no pun intended) a little too fine for me.

As much as it troubles me (she sounds very convincing), I think Maxwell must have been mistaken. And I don't believe the person found in millers court was not the person we all regard as MJK.

I agree that Maxwell's morning murder (note the alliteration) scenario produces a very restricted time window, but that alone is not sufficient for us to discount the possibility. Eddowes' murder shows us that, for example. That doesn't mean we have to accept that MMM was the case, only that we need to be careful we don't discount an avenue of explanation prematurely by letting the explanation drive the evidence.

What I mean by that is the following. There was some true sequence of events that happened. We don't know what that sequence was. We only see the impressions that real events leave behind. Those "impressions" are the evidence we have to work with, which is our data. Our theories are just explanations for those data impressions. Unfortunately, the data we have to work with is, for the most part, eye witness testimony, and so our data is subject to error, meaning our data may exist in the form it does for reasons other than the sequence of events we're interested in explaining. Those reasons are things like, the witness misremembered some detail, the witness is intentionally lying, the witness is genuinely mistaken, the witness omits some detail in the telling of their recollections, the witness phrases things poorly and it is not clear what exactly they mean, and so forth. This means that any statement by a witness cannot be viewed as a single "point", but rather is associated with some sort of range of values that we need to consider.

Our explanations are attempts to clear away the errors and find the true sequence of events. We can do that to some extent if we can show that even accounting for the range associated with the data it still is impossible for that sequence to have occurred.

Sadly, many of the bits of information we have are associated with quite large ranges. You mention that 9:45, for example, as the latest time for the murder, and suggest that still leaves it possible if only just. But the latest time is only one end of the range we need to consider. We would want to also consider the "earliest" time as well. Clearly, if the latest time still produces a workable time line, then the earliest will put even less pressure on the explanation.

What we shouldn't do is draw conclusions like "well, this end of the range of possible sequence is pretty tight" and so decide that the explanation should be dismissed. See, the closer we get to the real sequence of events due to having more and more data (if that were possible - we're unlikely to get more data for this case unless there's information recorded in a source not yet found) then the tighter and tighter the explanation should get, with the ideal being that we could account for every second. In a sense, the more complete our explanation becomes the less and less room there is for error, making the explanation seem less and less "possible" despite it better approaching the truth!

While I'm not convinced that the MMM is actually the right explanation, and if push came to shove I would place my bet on it being incorrect, the information we have does not preclude it sufficiently that we can reject it outright. There is evidence to support it (it comes from actual statements about the case specifically), so it's not just an idea plucked out of thin air, and the timeline it produces is not impossible. As such, it is a viable explanation, it has some positive support (there's data to suggest it) and there's nothing that really refutes it. So even if MMM is not one widely accepted, it still produces a timeline that might be what it is we're trying to explain!

There was only one sequence of true events, and if we consider the full range of times (so the earliest to the latest time for the murder to occur), we end up with even the latest time still resulting in sufficient time available.

That's not proof that Maxwell was correct, rather it is simply the fact that we cannot show she must have been mistaken. We're left with no evidence based reason to reject her account, we're only left with our subjective impressions of how likely it is that she was correct. We're left with our subjective ranking of the two explanations, at "night" (meaning closer to 4am) or in the morning (the MMM), which is one thing, but I think it is important not to overlook the fact that our subjective impressions may be the source of error that gets that wrong.

As I say, my subjective impression is that the murder was at night, and that Maxwell was mistaken in some way, but I freely admit that my subjective view could be wrong.

Now, it is possible that as we explore the data further, and evaluate things more closely, we may end up with more and more reason to consider MMM, or we may find it becomes less and less plausible. If we allow our current impressions to become too cemented, to prematurely let them turn from "more probable" to "being sure", then we will make it more difficult for ourself to evaluate new information as we'll be "sure" it must be wrong rather than focus on examining it to see if it must be wrong.

- Jeff

[Abby Normal]

If MJK was murdered in the morning and taking into consideration the information from Maxwell, I wonder what the timeline would be? She goes back into the pub, picks someone up, is back at her place by 9:45 at the latest for the deed to take place? I agree with JeffHamm that the murder probably didn't take as long as we may think, but this is cutting thinks (no pun intended) a little too fine for me.

As much as it troubles me (she sounds very convincing), I think Maxwell must have been mistaken. And I don't believe the person found in millers court was not the person we all regard as MJK.

Hi Los
totally agree with this.good post. and of course added to this is that the ripper usually killed at night, the corroberated screams of murder heard by two witnesses during the night and the fact that apparently he was able to leave her room in busy mid day morning without being seen and that no one else saw her up and about in said busy mid day morning. imho re maxwells sighting it was a classic case of mistaken identity.

[Losmandris]

If MJK was murdered in the morning and taking into consideration the information from Maxwell, I wonder what the timeline would be? She goes back into the pub, picks someone up, is back at her place by 9:45 at the latest for the deed to take place? I agree with JeffHamm that the murder probably didn't take as long as we may think, but this is cutting thinks (no pun intended) a little too fine for me.

As much as it troubles me (she sounds very convincing), I think Maxwell must have been mistaken. And I don't believe the person found in millers court was not the person we all regard as MJK.

[Kattrup]

One thing I did notice is that the original transcription did not contain the words "in the mortuary". Those words were added to the Times account of the inquest. So, I guess we still don't have an unadulterated statement that he saw her at the mortuary, just a presumption by the Times journalist.

Ah yes, you are correct about that, I hadn't noticed.

[Wickerman]

Contrary to my previous post, it should be noted that in the case of Schwartz, the notes by Swanson (dated 19th Oct.) appear to imply Schwartz was permitted to identify the body of Stride on the evening before the autopsy. The actual date of the I.D. is not given, but as Swanson's report is a condensed version of original reports, this may be an oversight.

[GBinOz]

Not exactly a "law", but there is a matter of jurisdiction that officers of the law must observe.
The Coroner has jurisdiction over the body, that is a matter of fact.
This means no-one goes near the body without the consent of the coroner.

The one person who is granted consent is the physician assigned by the coroner to conduct the autopsy.
The physician is allowed to decide who can see the body. This was especially a concern in the case of Mylett, if you recall the complaints by Dr. Bond.
The body is often the sole source of evidence, it must be kept well away from anyone for fear of contamination.
In the case of Kelly, Dr Phillips had jurisdiction in the name of Coroner Macdonald.

Dr. Phillips had to invite all the surgeons who arrived at Millers court that Friday afternoon.
Only, after the autopsy is concluded and the medical officer or physician has collected all the evidence is the body released to the police. This is when witnesses can be brought in to identify the body.

As far as I know that was the accepted procedure.

Hi Jon,

Thank you for that clarification.

I recall that in the Chapman case the Coroner questioned Chandler about the chain of custody of her body, and Chandler enunciated quite a strict procedure.

Best regards, George

[GBinOz]

thanks george
i can keep an open mind of maxwell being right and kelly was killed later in the morning, but not that it wasnt kelly who was murdered.

You're welcome Abby. I'm not trying to convince you. I'm not convinced myself. So many contradictions, as usual.

Cheers, George

[Wickerman]

..... I wasn't aware that the legal requirement was for the ID to take place after the autopsy. That is the over-riding consideration.

Best regards, George

Not exactly a "law", but there is a matter of jurisdiction that officers of the law must observe.
The Coroner has jurisdiction over the body, that is a matter of fact.
This means no-one goes near the body without the consent of the coroner.

The one person who is granted consent is the physician assigned by the coroner to conduct the autopsy.
The physician is allowed to decide who can see the body. This was especially a concern in the case of Mylett, if you recall the complaints by Dr. Bond.
The body is often the sole source of evidence, it must be kept well away from anyone for fear of contamination.
In the case of Kelly, Dr Phillips had jurisdiction in the name of Coroner Macdonald.

Dr. Phillips had to invite all the surgeons who arrived at Millers court that Friday afternoon.
Only, after the autopsy is concluded and the medical officer or physician has collected all the evidence is the body released to the police. This is when witnesses can be brought in to identify the body.

As far as I know that was the accepted procedure.

[Abby Normal]

Hi Abby,

To answer you previous question, Maxwell testified she spoke with MJK at the entrance to Miller's Court at about 8:45am and saw her outside the pub talking to a man at about 9am. Bowyer found the body at about 10:45am.

I empathise with your comments on the after effects of vomiting. But if you are to keep an open mind, must not you consider even the remote possibility that Maxwell could have been right, and the woman with the full stomach was at that time lying dead in No13?

Cheers, George

thanks george
i can keep an open mind of maxwell being right and kelly was killed later in the morning, but not that it wasnt kelly who was murdered.

[GBinOz]

hi george
interesting point about the food found in Marys stomach-i forgot about that. as someone whos yacked from both food and alcohol poisoning I can assure you that not only is your stomach cleared out (to the point your heaving and either nothing or small amounts of water/stomach bile is coming out) but you have no desire to eat anything again for quite some time. and of course as I pointed out earlier also-someone that sick would not be in any shape to be go solicitating and or have sex. no way. the more we discuss this aspect, im seeing it more and more LESS likely she was seen by maxwell and was killed in the daylight morning. but i keep an open mind lol.

Hi Abby,

To answer you previous question, Maxwell testified she spoke with MJK at the entrance to Miller's Court at about 8:45am and saw her outside the pub talking to a man at about 9am. Bowyer found the body at about 10:45am.

I empathise with your comments on the after effects of vomiting. But if you are to keep an open mind, must not you consider even the remote possibility that Maxwell could have been right, and the woman with the full stomach was at that time lying dead in No13?

Cheers, George

[GBinOz]

Hi All,

Is there anything to support the contention that Barnett ID'd Kelly at the mortuary?

Regards,

Simon

Hi Simon,

I couldn't find anything....maybe I didn't look hard enough. So far we have the Times report of the inquest which contains an augmentation with regard to the court reporter's file, and Jon's stipulation that it was required by law.

Cheers, George