Was Mrs Maxwell lying

[Wickerman]

As I understand it, Dr Bond arrived at Miller's Court at about 2.00pm on the Saturday, when he found the corpse in the early stage of rigor mortis which, he said, increased as his examination continued. He said the body was relatively cold when he first saw it. The food he found in the stomach and intestines was partly digested which suggested to him that death occurred about 3-4 hours after the food was taken. He stated that in his opinion death had occurred at approximately 1.00 to 2.00 am, or about 12 hours before he first examined the body.

And the piece of the puzzle that is missing for us today is not knowing when Kelly was supposed to have last ate.
Dr. Bond would need to ask the police that question, so the very fact he was able to use digestion as an estimate means the police had provided him (and Phillips) with an answer.
Whether the answer was correct or not we cannot know.

I do not know if the measurement of rectal temperature was, in 1888, an established procedure to assist in the estimation of t.o.d., but from what I understand of Dr Bond's reporting, he did not carry out this procedure.

Taking the temperature of the body and the ambient temperature at the murder scene 'was' part of the procedure. You may recall that these details are not given in any of the cases.
From what I understand (don't recall the source this minute), but where a body is mutilated to the degree that the body temperature is compromised, it is the brain that they take the temperature from.

Bill Beadle suggested that in those days it was difficult for t.o.d. to be even approximated,

It is still true today, contrary to many stories presented on CSI

He also says that Morris Lewis and an unidentified woman claimed to have seen Kelly early on the Saturday morning, but how seriously the police followed up these claims I simply don't know.

Mrs Maxwell said that she had got the date right because it was the day she returned some china borrowed by her husband to a house over the road, but it seems that the police never followed this up, doubtless because they didn't believe her. By her own admission Mrs Maxwell had spoken only twice to Kelly prior to the murder, so it seems she didn't know her very well but probably enough to have recognised her at a short distance.

I really can't see why Mrs Maxwell should have lied. It seems to me that she was confused about the date, maybe even confusing that Saturday morning with the day before. Maybe she'd had a few bevvies herself, and was a bit fluttery as a consequence. Walter Dew said he discounted her evidence, and apparently he knew her quite well.

Graham

It is easy to confuse the day, isn't it Graham

The day was Friday, not Saturday, and Maxwell saw Kelly Friday morning, the same day she told police her story.
She saw Kelly and told the police on the same day - so how could 'she' confuse the day?

More likely the woman she saw was not Kelly, IMO.

[Jon Guy]

But surely we don't know where Henry was working. If he was working at #14, and Mrs Maxwell lived there too, then how could he "return from work"?

Hi Robert

I assumed Henry Maxwell was deputy keeper at 14 Dorset St, where they also had a room, and the return from work was reference to him finishing work and kicking off his boots. Wasn`t Carrie Maxwell helping out number 14 by returning plates and collecting milk as a chore for number 14, which is why I assumed her husband worked there too?

[Graham]

Wickerman,

now how did I manage to get the day wrong? I think it was probably because I had the Lord Mayor's Show in my mind as I wrote - the police were keen that this should go ahead as planned, murder or no murder - and the Show was on the Saturday.

From what I can gather, in those days it was the state of rigor mortis that was the only effective routine method of approximating t.o.d. Maybe brain temperature is used today, but not sure a Victorian medic would have the necessary equipment on his person to perform this. In fact, in the early stages of decomposition, the temperature of a corpse will actually rise slightly, just to complicate matters.

I leave the watching of programmes such as CSI to those who can appreciate such junk.

Graham

[Robert]

Hi Jon G

I don't know, it's all very confusing. Have a look at this thread :

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=15280

Graham, I thought the Lord Mayor's show was the Friday. Were not the proceedings darkened by shouts of "Murder! 'Orrible murder!"?

[richardnunweek]

Hi ,
Unless all the historical records are wrong , the lords mayors show 1888 , was on Friday the 9th November .
Its not important where the Maxwell's actually resided, what is certain is Henry Maxwell worked at number 14[ as far as I can ascertain] and whats more it appears that Mrs Maxwell used to stay up with him whilst he was working, so it would have been easy for him to wander off.?
It could well be that she put two and two together. well before it reached November, and found out her husbands sordid hobby.
And to answer the question everyone asks.
But why would the killer pen what appears a hoax letter to the Yarmouth police showing an address relevant to himself.?
Two answers spring to mind.
A] The police would have believed exactly what, the posters who have asked that question have, Why would the real killer lead us to their address.?
B] If the London police took that letter with any seriousness , they might be off guard in Dorset street on the Thursday evening.
If Mrs Maxwell had discovered either by his appearance or orally, that her husband had slain Kelly across the road, and was fully aware that he also had sent [which he called] a hoax letter to another police force, she considered she had to act if she was to protect this nightmare.
All she had to do was to wait until she was sure that the body was undiscovered around 830 am, and then wait until it was , before coming forward to state her sighting , having her husbands movements well documented after the time of her sighting.
Its that simple , whether it happened all not..
Regards Richard.

[Robert]

Richard, you're assuming that Mrs Maxwell was happy to go on living with a mass murdering husband.

[Stephen Thomas]

Richard, you're assuming that Mrs Maxwell was happy to go on living with a mass murdering husband.

And Mrs Christie made that particular mistake.

[richardnunweek]

Hi Robert,
I doubt if my suggestion became anything more then ''speculation'', that she was overjoyed that her husband was a cold bloodied killer, but love and fear are emotions, that can cloud judgement., and in a desperate attempt in blind confusion, she could well have made the decision to act the way she did.
The term ''Diminished responsibility'' sums it up.
Regards Richard.

[pinkmoon]

Hi Robert,
I doubt if my suggestion became anything more then ''speculation'', that she was overjoyed that her husband was a cold bloodied killer, but love and fear are emotions, that can cloud judgement., and in a desperate attempt in blind confusion, she could well have made the decision to act the way she did.
The term ''Diminished responsibility'' sums it up.
Regards Richard.

We have to remember that women were a lot more dependent on their spouses in the "good old days".Before the welfare state the poor average person living in the area would class a good standard of living as not going hungry.Having read jack London's "the people of the abyss"( which was written over ten years after the murders and the area had slightly in proved ) domestic abuse seems to be wide spread and it wasn't uncommon for wife's to plead with magistrates not to jail their husbands because no husband no money no food.The maxwell idea certainly needs investigating thoroughly if I had the time and money and a much thicker skin I would do it myself ....well done richard a plausable suspect and not a royal coach in site

[Graham]

Graham, I thought the Lord Mayor's show was the Friday. Were not the proceedings darkened by shouts of "Murder! 'Orrible murder!"

And of course you're right, Robert. Just that I associated official frivolity with a weekend day, I suppose.

I don't know me Lord Mayor's Show from a hole in the ground, do I?

Graham

[Jenni Shelden]

Its an interesting hypothesis, that Maxwell may have been intentionally lying for the reasons stated in this thread, but I have often thought she must have been genuinely mistaken to make the statements she did, even after MacDonald warned her not think carefully about what she was saying.

I suppose the alternative is that she was intentionally inserting herself into the investigation to get attention - fifteen minutes of fame and all that.


I wonder how well she knew Kelly, did she see someone else such as Lizzie Albrook or Maria Harvey and think they were Kelly?
Jenni