'oh Murder'

[bolo]

Hello Jon,

thanks for posting the details on Prater's testimony. What I want to say is that a gap in the partition that is wide enough for a glimmer of light does not have to be wide enough to peek through it into Mary's abode.

In other words, I find Natasha's scenario where someone does right that, witnesses Mary getting killed and mutilated and cries out "oh Murder" highly improbable.

Best wishes,

Boris

[Wickerman]

You are quite correct Boris.
From Praters GLRO version, that she "could have" seen the glimmer of light while ascending the stairs - if the light had been on.

It might be that she is describing the partition wall not quite meeting the ceiling?

[GUT]

On all the photos it doesn't look a very solid partition so I am not surprised that light showed through but I doubt it was the means of access for the killer for a few reasons:

1. I feel sure that such access would have been noticeable to the police

2. The room was so small I am note sure that there was enough room to gain access that way

3. The Photo appears to show the bed pushed hard against the wall so unless the killer pushed it against the partition and then left by the door it just doesn't work.

[Sam Flynn]

You are quite correct Boris.
From Praters GLRO version, that she "could have" seen the glimmer of light while ascending the stairs - if the light had been on.

In the Daily News, 13th Nov, we have some very interesting additional detail from Prater:

"On Thursday morning about 1 o'clock I was waiting for a young man outside the house. I was then on a level with the deceased's window, but I do not recollect whether there was a light in it."

It seems that Prater's waiting for her "young man" outside the Court gave her a vantage-point such that any light streaming out of Kelly's window might have been visible. Not that she noticed.

[Natasha]

Hi guys

Thanks for the info on the partition
Maybe Prater felt like she might be intruding by looking through a gap into someones house etc, and did the polite thing by not acknowledging it too much, and if that is the case this would explain why we wouldn’t know for sure how much the of the room could have been seen. Also Prater appears to not have a definite answer either way as to weather the light was on. You may say why wouldn’t Prater say anything to Kelly? Kelly may have perceived that her neighbours were nosy and should mind their own business.

I find it a bit unusual that nobody else mentioned seeing any lights through the gap, maybe they did indeed see something they shouldn't have

So that would leave the window and possibly the keyhole, maybe there is something else that has been overlooked.

[Ginger]

Prater's staircase ran along the back wall of Kelly's room? Was the entrance to the stairs in the covered passageway, then? Was it only an entrance to the stairs?

[Sam Flynn]

Prater's staircase ran along the back wall of Kelly's room? Was the entrance to the stairs in the covered passageway, then? Was it only an entrance to the stairs?

The doorway to the stairs was indeed in the passageway, although the staircase didn't abut directly against Kelly's wall - which was, in fact, only a flimsy partition. There would have been space between the partition and the foot of the stairs, but any light streaming through chinks in the partition would have been easily visible as one climbed the stairs in the dark.

The staircase might once have been accessible from the front of the house, but McCarthy now used the front room for storage - a space colloquially known as "The Shed".

[Wickerman]

If you look close at the photo (Body on the bed), in the background the wainscoting appears to carry on the same angle into the corner of the room away to the right. It doesn't turn at the back of the headboard.
In other words it appears the bed is a couple of feet away from the right side wall. There is the faint image of a door at the side of the bed.

Something like this.

[Ginger]

Thanks, Sam and Wickerman!

[Wickerman]

One other detail that always intrigued me was those two windows.
What builder would place two windows side-by-side in the same room, yet different sizes, and at different elevations?
Builders usually incorporate symmetry when possible.



It struck me that there may have been an internal partition between those two windows making a small room, and a passage down the side.
The small window then may have originally been a back door.

The partition since being removed, and the back door bricked up to make a small window.
The door we see on the side may have began life as a window for light into the passage.

And, if there had been a passage there originally, that would explain why the image of a door is seen so far away from the corner of the room in the previous sketch. It is due to the partition wall being removed.

[spyglass]

Hi Wickerman,
Maybe you posted this on wrong thread, I was just talking about this on the "was mary kelly a ripper victim" thread.

[c.d.]

Of course all of this is moot if Kelly simply invited her killer into the room.

c.d.

[Wickerman]

Hi Wickerman,
Maybe you posted this on wrong thread, I was just talking about this on the "was mary kelly a ripper victim" thread.

Hi Spyglass.

It's a continuation from what Natasha, Sam & Ginger had been questioning, the location of the stairs, passage, partition, etc.
I'm suspicious that these tentative points 'may' suggest this house on Dorset St. being similar in plan to what we see of 29 Hanbury St. and the location of the stairs.

[Wickerman]

Of course all of this is moot if Kelly simply invited her killer into the room.

c.d.

That is what the circumstantial evidence has suggested all along.

[Edward]

A few random thoughts

Natasha
The forensic evidence (blood saturation of the bed) suggests that Mary was lying on the far side of the bed when her throat was cut. “ … which was the immediate cause of death, was inflicted while the deceased was lying at the right side of the bedstead and her head and neck in the top right-hand corner.” (Dr. Phillips inquest testimony) Anybody confronted by an attacker would surely try to get up or scramble away. True, she could have scrambled to that corner of the bed, but would most probably have then been in a more upright position rather than lying down as the blood evidence suggests. I don’t think the victim uttered, “Oh Murder”.

Wickerman
I agree that the two windows are very odd. It has always seemed strange to me. However, if the smaller window had formerly been a door, that would place two doors only a few feet apart, which would also be pretty odd. Perhaps I’m not visualizing the location of your suggested partition correctly.

If anybody saw anything in Mary’s room through the cracks in the partition, that would place the witness behind the partition, and any cry of “Oh Murder” would have been muffled, and not sound as if, as Prater described, “It seemed to proceed from the court”. (Prater inquest testimony).

Best Regards,
Edward