Oh, murder!

[barnflatwyngarde]

David,

if you would have answered the questions instead of avoiding them, you would have had to answer "no".

And that answer would have called for new questions, such as:

Prater and another witness heard the cry "Oh, murder!" on the night of the murder of Kelly. This was in the newspapers.

And still, no one stepped forward and said "I was the one who cryed "Oh, murder!".

If it was just a trivial cry on a night of a murder by Jack the Ripper, why did no one solve the problem, presented over several days in the newspapers, by stepping forward and explaining it?

If it was just a trivial cry on a night of a murder (thought to having been performed) by Jack the Ripper, why didn´t the police find anyone who claimed to be the source of the cry, if they didn´t (sources may be lost)?

If it was just a trivial cry on a night of a murder by Jack the Ripper, why didn´t Prater afterwards, when she learned about the murder, interpret the cry as originating from Kelly?

If it was just a trivial cry on a night of a murder by Jack the Ripper, how can anyone just assume - just because there may be no answers to the questions above - that the cry came from Mary Jane Kelly?

Pierre

Instead of adopting a patronising, know it all attitude, why the hell dont you just simply put forward what your premise is?

Your post puts forward 4 questions.

If you are so smart why the hell don't you answer your own questions?

[Pierre]

Instead of adopting a patronising, know it all attitude, why the hell dont you just simply put forward what your premise is?

Your post puts forward 4 questions.

If you are so smart why the hell don't you answer your own questions?

No, you misunderstand. I am being neutral, not patronising or smart.

[Observer]

Instead of adopting a patronising, know it all attitude, why the hell dont you just simply put forward what your premise is?

Your post puts forward 4 questions.

If you are so smart why the hell don't you answer your own questions?

I have just read Piere's post, to which you refer, a number of times, and can't for the life of me see it being any more patronising, or know it all than anyone who posts here in this forum.

Givee it a rest.

[Abby Normal]

Indeed, Robert. However, it's worth remembering that Prater heard the cry emanating "from the back of the lodging-house, where the windows look into the Court" (or words to that effect), which would mean that it didn't come from Dorset Street, but from a point of origin not far from Kelly's room, if not in it.

I agree with this.
Two women hear the cry, at a time not incongruent with time of death, in fact one which jibes with the other witness testimony of what was going on that night, from a location nearby even pointing to her specific room, from a woman, and who is in fact found murdered.

Considering the cuts in the corner of the sheet and probable defensive wounds indicating the murderer may have covered her face while cutting through showing that she may have had a little time to yell out before murdered.

I would bet more than likely it was Mary.

[Harry D]

Wasn't there only a thin partition separating Elizabeth Prater's room from Mary Kelly's? So how did she only hear a muffled cry when Sarah Lewis, who was in No.2, also heard it? That would seem to argue against it emanating from No. 13.

[c.d.]

It seems to me that we have a chicken and the egg problem here. We have no way of knowing whether Mary's neighbors were simply asked "did you hear anything unusual last night" or were they first told of her murder thus influencing what they heard or think they might have heard.

c.d.

[Sam Flynn]

Wasn't there only a thin partition separating Elizabeth Prater's room from Mary Kelly's? So how did she only hear a muffled cry when Sarah Lewis, who was in No.2, also heard it? That would seem to argue against it emanating from No. 13.

Interestingly, Prater refers to the partition when she talks about climbing the stairs, and doesn't state that the partition physically separated hers and Kelly's room. That would be tricky in any case, as (a) Prater was on a higher floor; and (b) I'm pretty sure that Prater's room was at the front of the building and not directly over Kelly's. There is plenty of evidence to support this, including the words of Elizabeth Prater herself. Seen in that light, Sarah Lewis was about as close to Kelly's room as Prater was, if not closer.

[David Orsam]

if you would have answered the questions instead of avoiding them, you would have had to answer "no".

Oh my dear boy, I explained to you that your questions did not arise out of what I had posted, so there was no reason for you to be addressing them to me. You are as capable as I am of reading the evidence, my dear fellow, so there is no need for me to tell you what the witnesses said or did not say.

[David Orsam]

Indeed, Robert. However, it's worth remembering that Prater heard the cry emanating "from the back of the lodging-house, where the windows look into the Court" (or words to that effect), which would mean that it didn't come from Dorset Street, but from a point of origin not far from Kelly's room, if not in it.

No, she did not say she heard the cry emanating "from the back of the lodging house" or words to that effect.

What she said was "I frequently hear such cries from the back of the lodging house".

[David Orsam]

The good news is that we have another pair of ears here, those of Sarah Lewis, who provides some useful triangulation. Taken together, and assuming the one didn't crib from the other, both "ear-witnesses" would seem to pinpoint the source of the cry as Room 13.

The bad news is that neither of them pinpoint the source of the cry as Room 13. The best you can get is the statement in Lewis' deposition (which appears to be a summary of her evidence rather than her own words) that the cry seemed to come "from the direction" of Room 13. That, as you will appreciate, is different from saying that it came from Room 13.

[Sam Flynn]

The bad news is that neither of them pinpoint the source of the cry as Room 13. The best you can get is the statement in Lewis' deposition (which appears to be a summary of her evidence rather than her own words) that the cry seemed to come "from the direction" of Room 13. That, as you will appreciate, is different from saying that it came from Room 13.

The key word in my previous post was triangulation. Prater, at the front of 26 Dorset Street, hears the cry coming from "the back of the lodging-house", and Lewis, just inside Miller's Court itself a few paces away from Kelly's room, hears it coming "from the direction" of Room 13. Taking the words and locations of both Lewis and Prater into account, we're either talking about the entrance to Kelly's room, the little "courtyard" outside Kelly's room, or Kelly's room itself. That puts the origin of the cry - if indeed there was a cry at all - pretty much centred around Kelly's room.

[David Orsam]

The key word in my previous post was triangulation.

Yes I know and you can't triangulate the location of a sound from the recollection of two people who basically say it come from somewhere close by.

[Sam Flynn]

What she said was "I frequently hear such cries from the back of the lodging house".

Why would she have added that detail, if she had not heard the cry coming from the back of the lodging-house on this occasion? If this wasn't the case, we'd have to imagine her meaning "I heard a cry in Dorset Street, but I frequently hear them coming from the back of the lodging-house where the windows look into Miller's Court"... which strikes me as a non-sequitur, if not outright absurd. Besides, Sarah Lewis' evidence clearly indicates that the source lay in the direction of Kelly's room.

It might have been some other floozie larking about in the "quad" between Lewis' and Kelly's room for all we know, it might have been imagined by Prater/Lewis, it might even have been Kelly's death-cry, but - whatever it was - it wasn't "any old noise in any old place", no matter how much one might like to dismiss it as such.

[Sam Flynn]

Yes I know and you can't triangulate the location of a sound from the recollection of two people who basically say it come from somewhere close by.

I really can't be bothered discussing this further with you. You're impossible.

[Pierre]

The key word in my previous post was triangulation. Prater, at the front of 26 Dorset Street, hears the cry coming from "the back of the lodging-house", and Lewis, just inside Miller's Court itself a few paces away from Kelly's room, hears it coming "from the direction" of Room 13. Taking the words and locations of both Lewis and Prater into account, we're either talking about the entrance to Kelly's room, the little "courtyard" outside Kelly's room, or Kelly's room itself. That puts the origin of the cry - if indeed there was a cry at all - pretty much centred around Kelly's room.

Triangulation is a methodological approach, meaning that you use different methods to answer a research question. You use the same approach here and it is not a method, it is just "taking into account".

Pierre