The fire in the grate explained

[Damaso Marte]

People (not just Pierre) constantly talk about how the Miller's Court murder scene was "risky" for the killer - how somebody could have come home, how somebody could have heard through a partition, how somebody could have put their hand through the broken window, etc. People, not just Pierre, have been saying this on Casebook for years.

I find it utterly absurd in the context of the Whitechapel murders. Whatever the security flaws at Millers Court, it was the least risky murder scene of the entire murder series! Thus I don't think that Pierre's assumption that the murderer would not dare light a fire during the murder or mutilation holds.

[GUT]

[b]I especially ask David Orsam and GUT here in the forum to abstain from trying to destroy this thread by putting belittling and ridiculing commentaries in it.

And by that you mean anything that disagrees with you, or shows the glaring mistakes in your hypothesis?

Sorry.

Oh great Historian.

C and D are pure fantasy.

B is imaginative I give you that much.

and E doesn't account for the later sightings, by Maxwell and Lewis.

[GUT]

People (not just Pierre) constantly talk about how the Miller's Court murder scene was "risky" for the killer - how somebody could have come home, how somebody could have heard through a partition, how somebody could have put their hand through the broken window, etc. People, not just Pierre, have been saying this on Casebook for years.

I find it utterly absurd in the context of the Whitechapel murders. Whatever the security flaws at Millers Court, it was the least risky murder scene of the entire murder series! Thus I don't think that Pierre's assumption that the murderer would not dare light a fire during the murder or mutilation holds.

Inside a room v Out in the Street.

One has a greater chance of being trapped, but a lower chance of anyone knowing a murder was happening in the first place.

I know which I would have chosen if I had the choice.

But that may not suit some people's hypothesis.

[Damaso Marte]

Oh, and I believe what Pierre is trying to suggest is that Mary Kelly discovered the mutilated body of somebody else during the 3:00 AM hour and was the one who screamed murder.

He is trying to repeatedly hint at this in a Socratic way. The way Lynn Cates often does. Say, has anyone seen Lynn around lately?

[GUT]

Oh, and I believe what Pierre is trying to suggest is that Mary Kelly discovered the mutilated body of somebody else during the 3:00 AM hour and was the one who screamed murder.

He is trying to repeatedly hint at this in a Socratic way. The way Lynn Cates often does. Say, has anyone seen Lynn around lately?

I do wish people would say what they mean and mean what they say, this guess what I mean and then when you answer I'll say "But that wasn't what meant" type thing is really annoying.

A bit like one who has told us they have about three different qualifications, changing all the time.

But then I think some posters are out to annoy.

[The Good Michael]

Oh, and I believe what Pierre is trying to suggest is that Mary Kelly discovered the mutilated body of somebody else during the 3:00 AM hour and was the one who screamed murder.

He is trying to repeatedly hint at this in a Socratic way. The way Lynn Cates often does. Say, has anyone seen Lynn around lately?

That socratic thing gets a bit silly. When Lynn does it, I can play with it. If Pierre does it... well I don't think he knows he does it.

Mike

[John G]

The most important pieces of evidence suggest she was killed when lying on the right hand side of the bed, and this would suggest to me that the killer was in bed with Kelly: otherwise why not lie in the middle of the bed in the event of sleeping alone.

This doesn't necessarily suggest he waited a while. He may simply have waited only until she was compromised lying between him and the wall, which could have been a matter of a few minutes from stepping inside the room. That would have been convenient for Jack in the sense that he didn't have to subdue her to get her into position.

I don't think that really proves anything. Even single people might have preferences as to which side of the bed they sleep, and if she was asleep when attacked she may have been tossing and turning in the night.

However, if she was killed by JtR, I still think it likely that he would have attacked more or less as soon as they were through the door and out of sight of potential witnesses; which is exactly what Sutcliffe did when he murdered Atkinson in her flat.

The neatly folded clothes on the chair are also something of a conundrum. Is this, for example, something Kelly would be likely to do whilst drunk-and a number of witnesses suggest she may have been inebriated, or had been to the pub-or would she be more likely to just throw her clothes on the floor in this situation?

[GUT]

Oh, and I believe what Pierre is trying to suggest is that Mary Kelly discovered the mutilated body of somebody else during the 3:00 AM hour and was the one who screamed murder.

He is trying to repeatedly hint at this in a Socratic way. The way Lynn Cates often does. Say, has anyone seen Lynn around lately?

Lynn posted last week I think it was the Coincidents thread. (the thread may be wrong but I definitely saw a post from him three or four days ago).

[Rosella]

Perhaps Jack suggested to Mary "You get into bed first, luv," and when she did so she of course settled herself in near the wall, with the way the bed was positioned.
I think people get into habits when they undress and maybe Mary was always careful with the few items of clothing she possessed, especially as she had to wear them the next day.

[wigngown]

Pierre,
An interesting theory.

Are you saying that the killer murdered and mutilated the woman in absolute darkness? Or by say, candle light? Are you inferring that the killer had a good understanding of human anatomy?

Best regards.

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=Pierre;376492]

Hi,

There is an error in my first post and will correct it. I wrote:

E) Given the facts I now establish above, we have very good evidence for a TOD before or about 04.00. At 04.30, Kelly was definitely dead.

The TOD is not postulated to have occurred "about 04.00". "About 04.00" is an interpretation for the time of the scream "Oh, murder!", from the Prater inquest source: "...it was after 4 probably -".

So I correct the conclusion above as follows:

Given the facts I now establish above, we have very good evidence for a TOD at a point in time before 04.00.

Regards, Pierre

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=Azarna;376558]The conclusion you stated was this:

A) The murderer lit the fire since women´s clothes were burned. The victim could not afford to burn clothes.

based on this:

1. Abberline´s statement at the inquest:

"I have taken an inventory of what was in the room, there had been a large fire so large as to melt the spout off the kettle I have since gone through the ashes in the grate & found nothing of consequence except that articles of woman´s clothing had been burnt...".

Interpretation: The fire was lit by the killer, since the victim was poor and would not afford to burn clothes.

But Abberline's statement does not lead to your conclusion. He says nothing that implies the fire was lit by the killer. As I said, the fire could have been already lit (presumably by MJK) and the killer added the clothes. This could be interpreted from Abberline's statement just as well as your interpretation could.

Hi,

Yes, but you see, Abberline is a long dead police investigator speaking in a source. And I am an historian, analysing the source. I am not a police investigator. And this is not a police investigation. It is an historical investigation.

So therefore, we can not use the non existing statements of a dead police investigator to conclude who lit the fire.

We can only analyse each source and all the sources together and make an interpretation of the sources and draw our conclusions, based on the results of using the historical methods.

So, as you write: :

Abberline's statement does not lead to your conclusion. He says nothing that implies the fire was lit by the killer.

This means that the source is silent in the matter of "who lit the fire". The consequence of this silence of the source is that we can not say anything about what Abberline was thinking, if he was thinking anything about "who" lit the fire.

Therefore we can not DIRECTLY AND IN A SIMPLIFYING, REDUCTIVE WAY ASK THE SOURCE: "Who did Abberline think lit the fire?" And then answer: "He says nothing and because Abberline says nothing, we can now nothing". This, instead, is where the historical methods come in.

Then, your conclusion:

C) The murderer therefore lit the fire to light up the room for the witness.

Would indeed be a reason why the fire was not already lit.. however you had come to the "killer lit the fire" conclusion from JUST Abberline's statement, ie before considering Bowyer's statement in any way.

No. The statement of Abberline is about burnt clothes and this is what I analyse together with the rest of the statements in the text(s).

So you have made the wrong interpretation of the text in my first post. Read the whole text with all the conclusions again.

So I agree that whilst you one could combine the two together to make a "killer lit the fire" interpretation, your stated interpretation A is flawed as it stands.

OK. Good for you.

Regards, Pierre

[Pierre]

I see that you added the above paragraph after posting. It's completely untrue. If screams in the night were common it only needed one person to have heard them to establish that they were common. Why you think "at least 50 randomly selected persons" are needed to confirm this is utterly baffling.

You are totally wrong if you are trying to generalize from Prater to the area or neighbourhood. And the reason why you are wrong is that you know nothing about statistics. I am sorry, but I can not help you with that problem. You will have to study statistics on a basic level to understand what I say.

But I can demonstrate the difference between the power of a single statement about a personal question and the power of a single statment about a general question. This may help you a little.

If Prater stated she was married to William Prater, you would not need 50 persons confirming this, since William Prater connected to the life of Prater and Prater was one person.

If Prater stated it was common to eat fish in the area, you would need 50 randomly selected persons answering the question "Is it a common thing for you to eat fish?" and then you could generalize the answer to the whole area.

But if you only say that the statements of Prater about the commonness of screams of murder was only her own words, which are NOT applicable for a total generalisation, then you have a different problem:

Then you must go from statistics and nomothetic history to idiographic history.

Tell me what you want to do, and I will look at the Prater sources again if you prefer the idiographic history.

Regards, Pierre

[wigngown]

Hi Pierre,

If one person gave information that something, in their view, was a common occurrence, this would be an uncorroborated statement. If another person agreed with this statement then obviously the statement would be corroborated. Higher significance will always be given to corroborated statements.

Best regards.

[wigngown]

PS David is correct in saying that anyone can give a statement saying that in their view something is a common occurrence. Although uncorroborated it would nonetheless be accepted as a valid statement.