Let there be light!

[Wickerman]

If the police had a "belief" as to when Kelly last ate food then that directly affects the time of death. Such belief must have had some evidential basis and, in fact, would be a crucial piece of evidence. I would say it is incredible if that piece of evidence existed as at 10 November but was not produced at the inquest two days later. For that reason, Jon, I cannot agree with you at all and believe that Bond (and Phillips if you like) simply estimated the most likely time that Kelly ate her evening meal and worked from that basis.

I would say the same about an official time of death being offered at the conclusion of the inquest. This was part of the Coroner's duty yet incredibly, none was given.
One of the complication with this inquest, in my view is, the Coroner is not normally included in the medical investigation, Macdonald was a physician himself.
In this case Macdonald was very much involved at Millers Court and, in my view, already knew what much of the medical evidence suggested.
So, he either knew what Bond and Phillips had concluded so just needed to fast-track the rest of the evidence, or knew that no time of death had been established, so knew that admitting the medical evidence would not help that determination.

I see this as a mistake on his part, it left the police with an untenable window of opportunity for the murder to have taken place, anywhere from 1:00 am to 9:00 in the morning.

[Wickerman]

Pierre, of course Prater can only speak for herself but if she frequently heard the cry of "Murder" during the night then it was a common occurrence wasn't it?

There is another source that mentions the habit people had of crying "murder", as a call for help, not necessarily a case of life and death though. I can't recall whether it was in Fishman's East End 1888, or Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor, or a similar source.

[David Orsam]

So I am inclined to give Bond the benefit of any doubt, that he and Phillips had likely been informed, presumably via the police, when they believed Kelly had last ate.

If the police had a "belief" as to when Kelly last ate food then that directly affects the time of death. Such belief must have had some evidential basis and, in fact, would be a crucial piece of evidence. I would say it is incredible if that piece of evidence existed as at 10 November but was not produced at the inquest two days later. For that reason, Jon, I cannot agree with you at all and believe that Bond (and Phillips if you like) simply estimated the most likely time that Kelly ate her evening meal and worked from that basis.

[Wickerman]

Hi Jon,

Without wishing to be obtuse I don't really know what you mean by "the product of his own opinion". I have no doubt whatsoever that he was expressing his own opinion in his report. In reaching that opinion, he might have had discussions with others, so that one could say his opinion was the product of those discussions, but I'm quite sure Bond did not express any opinions in his report which he did not agree with.

Hello David.

Being familiar with Bond's report I'm sure you can guess what I am alluding to, this account in the press:

"Dr. Phillips has only vaguely indicated to the local police the result of his investigations, but a report on the question has, it has been asserted, been jointly made by him and Dr. Bond, and submitted to Sir Charles Warren."
Echo, 10th Nov.

Dr. Bond's report, though written by Bond, was apparently the product of both Phillips and Bond, according to the press.
Given that the responsibility for the autopsy lay with Phillips, it is perhaps only to be expected that what Bond writes does not severely contradict any opinions held by the leading physician, Dr. Phillips. Though on the other hand Dr. Bond does have a tendency to contradict his peers on occasion.

With all this in mind I have assumed the conclusions expressed by Bond were the result of more information than he makes reference to in his report.
Any experienced physician knows he cannot use digestion as a 'stop-watch' to estimate time of death without having some indication of when that last meal was taken.

That being the case, I think we need to consider whether it is necessary for Dr. Bond to explain every consideration which led to that conclusion in a report to his superior - I think not.
Neither Anderson nor Warren were medical professionals so Bond has no need to provide all considerations that led him/them to consider 1:0-2:00 as the time of death.
We can see for ourselves that neither Lividity, Rigidity, nor body temperature were suitable methods to help determine ToD. In fact he dismissed both rigor mortis and algor mortis before he mentioned digestion - from this we can take it that digestion was the only remaining means. Which can hardly have been a point of contention between himself and Phillips.

At an autopsy, when food is discovered in the stomach nothing can be deduced from that without informing the investigators (Abberline) so the police can make every enquiry to find out when she last ate.

I appreciate that this boils down to a matter of belief for anyone in our day, but I doubt that a physician would attempt to draw such an important conclusion from incomplete data. Not only would that have been unprofessional, it would imply both Phillips and Bond were being unprofessional, or put Bond in direct contradiction of Phillips in the official autopsy report.

So I am inclined to give Bond the benefit of any doubt, that he and Phillips had likely been informed, presumably via the police, when they believed Kelly had last ate.

[David Orsam]

The Prater-sources give the impressions of one single individual. Not the impressions of 50 people or more.

Pierre, of course Prater can only speak for herself but if she frequently heard the cry of "Murder" during the night then it was a common occurrence wasn't it?

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=Henry Flower;385856]

Pierre, she had no possibility to give a reliable statement on this? That's garbage. Because she hadn't kept a detailed statistical diary of the exact times and dates when such cries were heard, and by how many other residents, you think you can state she had NO POSSIBILITY of reliably stating that it was a fairly common thing to hear? Rubbish. By those idiotic standards we are entitled to dismiss half the testimony given at any inquest. She was speaking for herself, from her own experience, she has no need to back up her testimony with a statistical analysis of 50 other residents. Do you apply that same standard to ALL witnesses at the inquests? No, you don't. Only when it suits you.

The two Prater-sources (police investigation, inquest) can only be used for writing idiographic history. Not nomothetic history. The Prater-sources give the impressions of one single individual. Not the impressions of 50 people or more.

I apply the right method to the sources in this matter, since it is the only one possible by historical and sociological standards.

She lived in Spitalfields. In the autumn of 1888. You did not.

You are not a bird. Does this mean that you are not able to study birds and draw conclusion about birds? And how about studying dinosaurs?

She stated it was not uncommon to hear such cries. You can call her a liar (if you have evidence to back it up with) but what you can't do is simply dismiss her claim because she is an individual human with ears, rather than a statistical analysis.

No one says that Prater was a liar. There is no evidence for that. If there is any tendency in the source, it might be that she was afraid. What do I base this on? That she was barricading the door with two tables. If it is an historical fact that she was afraid when she heard "Oh, murder!" and did not want to go down the stairs to see if there was anything to be afraid of, she did not tell the court this. Why? Did she think she could have saved Kelly? All this, marked in blue, are pure speculations. But they are more reliable than the statement that such a cry was common and we know it was because Prater said it.

You have a habit of cherry-picking when to apply your self-lauded rigorous statistical/analytical standards.

No, that is not the habit. The habit is to question everything I think and everything everybody else is thinking.

Regards, Pierre

[David Orsam]

There is no such tendency in this source.

Firstly, what is the external function of the source, David? It is to give Warren an opinion on the amount of surgical skill and anatomical knowledge probably possessed by the killer(s), and doing so using the medical evidence given at the inquests.

Therefore, giving evidence for the TOD is not the function. So there is no reason to think that there should be an internal problem with the source connected to it.

Yes of course there is a reason to think there is a problem. Dr Bond was being paid by the Metropolitan Police/Home Office to provide an opinion. Therefore, he has to express an opinion. He can't just say "I don't know". So his "tendency" is to fulfill the expectations imposed on him. The "external function" of the source is to keep his paymasters happy.

We now know in 2016 that what the doctor was attempting to do was impossible. The only mystery is why you still seem to rely on his time of death estimate.

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=David Orsam;385862]

Yes it does have a "tendency" actually. It has a "tendency" by which Bond wants to pretend that he can estimate the actual time of Kelly's murder when the reality was that he had no chance and no hope of doing so. Consequently, he put forward an explanation as to how he arrived at a time of 1-2am that doesn't actually make sense when read carefully.

There is no such tendency in this source.

Firstly, what is the external function of the source, David? It is to give Warren an opinion on the amount of surgical skill and anatomical knowledge probably possessed by the killer(s), and doing so using the medical evidence given at the inquests.

Therefore, giving evidence for the TOD is not the function. So there is no reason to think that there should be an internal problem with the source connected to it. And it is also obvious that Bond is critical about his own statement as to the TOD in the source. He is therefore not "pretending".

Also, you write that "he had no chance and no hope...". Firstly, chance is an external, measurable concept. It is therefore not meaningful to render the concept an idiographic angle.

On the other hand, if you wanted to postulate that Bond did not think he had a chance, that would be an idiographic statement, relevant for discussing historical sources. But then you need a source for what he was thinking.

And as there is such a source, namely the one we are discussing here, it is easy to see that Bond thought he had some chance, since he actually gives a statement for the TOD.

So, the same goes for the "hope" you are talking about, which here is clearly idiographic, and the source shows that he had some hope, since he gives the TOD.

So, to conclude, Bond thought he had a chance, and he thought there was hope (speaking in your own terms) that he could give a meaningful TOD, and at the same time he critically discussed the problems with the procedure, thereby not at all pretending anything.

Therefore there is no such tendency in this source.

Regards, Pierre

[David Orsam]

Hello David.
Just off on a tangent here for a minute....
I know you are familiar with Dr. Bond's summary/report to Anderson/Warren, but from your post above do I detect that you think his report was entirely the product of his own opinion?

I ask because, I'm inclined to think not.

Hi Jon,

Without wishing to be obtuse I don't really know what you mean by "the product of his own opinion". I have no doubt whatsoever that he was expressing his own opinion in his report. In reaching that opinion, he might have had discussions with others, so that one could say his opinion was the product of those discussions, but I'm quite sure Bond did not express any opinions in his report which he did not agree with.

The point that I was making in my post was that, like every medical man, he was expected to be able to come up with an accurate time of death. People would rely on him to do so and he had to deliver. The problem was that it wasn't possible for him to do it. I'm sure he did his best and thought he was in the ballpark but he might as well have stuck his finger in the air. To what extent he was conscious of this I can't say, and he might have been deceiving himself, but his explanation of how he reached his conclusion of 1-2am doesn't make sense.

[Henry Flower]

Contesting the statement of a witness requires 'just cause' - that is, evidence to the contrary.

Ah, but Wickerman, his highly calibrated tendencyometer starting bleeping when he scanned Prater's testimony.

[Wickerman]

Yes it does have a "tendency" actually. It has a "tendency" by which Bond wants to pretend that he can estimate the actual time of Kelly's murder when the reality was that he had no chance and no hope of doing so. Consequently, he put forward an explanation as to how he arrived at a time of 1-2am that doesn't actually make sense when read carefully.

Hello David.
Just off on a tangent here for a minute....
I know you are familiar with Dr. Bond's summary/report to Anderson/Warren, but from your post above do I detect that you think his report was entirely the product of his own opinion?

I ask because, I'm inclined to think not.

[Wickerman]

..... She stated it was not uncommon to hear such cries. You can call her a liar (if you have evidence to back it up with) but what you can't do is simply dismiss her claim because she is an individual human with ears, rather than a statistical analysis.

But this type of bias thinking is not uncommon here on Casebook. Several other posters habitually claim a witness or source are lying.
This is a form of desperation, theorists who chose this path, being unable to provide contradictory evidence, are hi-liting the fact they are backed into a corner. Resorting to name-calling and condescension is their only alternative.

Contesting the statement of a witness requires 'just cause' - that is, evidence to the contrary.

[David Orsam]

Wrong. You treat Prater as a statistical institution. Prater Statistics.

I haven't mentioned any "Prater Statistics" nor do I treat Prater as a statistical institution. I referred to her evidence at the Kelly inquest. Henry Flower has already explained it so I won't bother repeating what he says.

[David Orsam]

Does the Bond source have a tendency considering the statements about TOD? NO.

Yes it does have a "tendency" actually. It has a "tendency" by which Bond wants to pretend that he can estimate the actual time of Kelly's murder when the reality was that he had no chance and no hope of doing so. Consequently, he put forward an explanation as to how he arrived at a time of 1-2am that doesn't actually make sense when read carefully.

[David Orsam]

The hierarchy of the sources demands that we take into consideration that the statements of professionals from the inquest are more important. If the sources where the professionals speak have tendencies and other sources do not, it is the other way around. Does the Bond source have a tendency considering the statements about TOD? NO.

The Bond source was not one of "the statements of professionals from the inquest" so your argument fails on its own terms.