Bowyer´s inquest testimony

[Elamarna]

Naturally.

And that doesn’t cause you any problems ?
There have been plenty of investigations into witness recall which suggest that memory can alter after only a few weeks, let alone 50 years.

People don't lie; but they can misremember.

The same is often said of Anderson, writing about 20 years after the events and Swanson, unknown when he wrote the marginalia but at least 20 years.

elamarna

[Elamarna]

Pcdunn,

nice interpretation

however you missed that the doctors could have moved it during their examination

don’t see a problem myself, it fits ok with richardh's plan in post 614 on praters stairs thread.'s

Robert st Devil has also suggested the bed at an oblique angle in the past.

Believe I may have suggest that the bed was moved to allow Jack to work

As you say, its how we interoperate an account written 50 years after the account , by some one whos part in the investigation has been disputed in the past.

i think we can say however that he is not suggesting the bed is barricading the door.

[Pcdunn]

I will admit that Dew's description of the bed being oblique has been niggling at me, because it does not agree with the position seen in the photograph called MJK1.
This also means the arguments that the bed was against the partition (with what appeared to be a door-- either functioning or non-functioning-- set into it) are no longer valid.
I think we should take Dew's description as meaning it is how he first saw the bed when he looked into the room, as the interpretation of "drawn across the room" not meaning as it was standing there displays a misunderstanding of his phrasing of the period.
Very well. How should we reconcile Dew's statement with what the MJK1 photograph shows? Or for that matter, the remark that the door from the Court "knocked against the table"?
1) The killer must have moved the bed into an oblique position so he could more easily move around it and reach the corpse from all directions.
2) If this is the case, then the investigating officials must have been responsible for shifting the bed back against the partition for the photographer's ease of working-- hence the position seen in MJK1.
3) The above seems sensible, and fits with the inquest question about a witness hearing any sounds of furniture being moved around in the night.
4) However, given that Dew's memoir was written many years later, perhaps his memory of the bed's oblique position came from movements to it by the investigating parties AFTER the room was entered (sensible enough, maybe, if the photographer needed to get around it to take the picture called MJK3).

So-- our mental exercise hasn't really gotten us very far, I'm afraid. Dew either recalled the scene perfectly, or got some details wrong-- in any case, the bed was AT SOME POINT, in an oblique position at odds with MJK1.

[Pierre]

Just one simple question.

you do know that Dew wrote that account 50 years after the event don't you?

Naturally.

[Elamarna]

Just one simple question.

you do know that Dew wrote that account 50 years after the event don't you?

[Elamarna]

Definition of "was drawn obliquely": It is describing how, in what way, the bed was moved. Not how it was standing in the room.

"On the bed, which was drawn obliquely across the small room..." (Dew)

Thus:

Pierre
"Definition of "was drawn obliquely": It is describing how, in what way, the bed was moved. Not how it was standing in the room". Where does this definition come from, as it is so specific it more like a personal view of what it means, not a definition

Sorry that is nonsense, if it was drawn obliquely across the room, it means it was moved from from where it started, parallel to the side wall from head to foot to a position that is at an angle to this. putting it parallel to the door, also moves it to a right angle to the side wall.

drawing little beds on a image of an oblique angle does nothing.

you have your view, so be it.

[Pierre]

Pierre

Definition of oblique in English:
adjective
1Neither parallel nor at right angles to a specified or implied line; slanting: we sat on the settee oblique to the fireplace

That Is has in Richards plans and has been suggested by others, it is not barricading the door

but of course you not reading this are you

Definition of "was drawn obliquely": It is describing how, in what way, the bed was moved. Not how it was standing in the room.

"On the bed, which was drawn obliquely across the small room..." (Dew)

Thus:

[Elamarna]

Pierre

Definition of oblique in English:
adjective
1Neither parallel nor at right angles to a specified or implied line; slanting: we sat on the settee oblique to the fireplace

That Is has in Richards plans and has been suggested by others, it is not barricading the door

but of course you not reading this are you

[Elamarna]

No you do not know what i will say.

I will say is is arrogant to say it is a fact.

But I know you suspect

[Pierre]

Walter Dew remembers

Hi,

At the inquest, Bowyer testified:

" There was a curtain. I put my hand through the broken pane and lifted the curtain.

I saw two pieces of flesh lying on the table.

[Coroner] Where was this table ? - In front of the bed, close to it.

The second time I looked I saw a body on this bed, and blood on the floor.

Why did Bowyer not see the body on the bed the first time he looked in through the window?

Can this be the reason why he did not see the body the first time? The table was "in front of the bed" if you were trying to enter the room:

In his memoirs Detective Constable Walter Dew tells us the state of the room and what he did and saw when he first arrived at Miller´s Court:


Source: http://casebook.org/ripper_media/rps.walterdew.html

"The room was pointed out to me. I tried the door. It would not yield. So I moved to the window, over which, on the inside, an old coat was hanging to act as a curtain and to block the draught from the hole in the glass.

Inspector Beck pushed the coat to one side and peered through the aperture. A moment later he staggered back with his face as white as a sheet.

"For God's sake, Dew," he cried. " Don't look."

I ignored the order, and took my place at the window.

When my eyes had become accustomed to the dim light I saw a sight which I shall never forget to my dying day.

The whole horror of that room will only be known to those of us whose duty it was to enter it. The full details are unprintable.

There was a table just beneath the window. On the bed, which was drawn obliquely across the small room, was all that remained of a good-looking and buxom young woman."

This is how I think we should interpret what Walter Dew did and saw:

1. "I tried the door. It would not yield."

Interpretation: Because it was barricaded with the table and bed. (Abberline´s statement in the inquest implies that the door wasn´t locked. And the police DID actually try to open the door. So the long waiting outside the room, which can´t have happened, was not an issue of waiting for any dogs. They must have entered the room through the other door from the front room. And MJK3 confirms this since the entrance door is still barricaded by the table and bed in this photo. But the question is: WHY couldn´t the police reveal this?).

2. "There was a table just beneath the window."

Interpretation: The table with flesh on it that Bowyer saw.

(Perhaps people have for a long time wrongly thought that there were two tables in the room. There might have been, and there might have been only one.)

3. "On the bed, which was drawn obliquely across the small room, was all that remained of a good-looking and buxom young woman."

Interpretation: The murderer had moved the bed to barricade the door. (Easy to understand since the room was on the ground floor).

Bowyer and Dew were among the first to see the room and both give a description of the room that fits MJK3 perfectly.

And at the inquest the coroner asked Prater if she had heard beds or tables being pulled around.

So now, having read Dew´s Memoirs after having seen the photograph, and after having read Bowyer´s statement and the coroner´s question in the inquest, I think that this is the right interpretation of how the room actually looked.

We have several independent sources stating this. So this is no longer "a suggestion" but I say it is a fact.


(I already know what you, Steve, will say. And I know the problems with interpreting the sources. I respect your "view" as you often call it and your claim that your view is "general". So you may post what you want here. But this time, since I already know what you think and have read it so many times, I will not go into discussion with you on this.)

Regards Pierre

[Elamarna]

Rosella,

being a Londoner,

I would call Sheffield the North, but thats me.

I agree with you, looking at the actual article its only a few lines long, seems to give its source as Central News, also states firmly murder occurred at 2 in morning.

if it was acurate, surely other papers would have picked up on it.

my post on the Star storey shows how they got it wrong often.

Elamarna

[Elamarna]

Robert

Of course I think on the Saturday The STAR claimed that McCarthy found the body, entered the room, then left it, locking it before going for the police.

Obviously all of that is wrong. this is way i find newspapers unreliable as historical documents.

What’s the saying, " one swallow does not a summer make" or something like that

Steve

[Rosella]

^ Sheffield is in the midlands of England. If the provincial newspaper was important and prestigious enough (like the Manchester Guardian) they sometimes had their own London correspondents, but I don't think this is the case here. The paper's taken copy from a London daily IMO, and I don't think it's accurate.

Surely if the bed was barricading the door of Mary's room that circumstance would have turned up in inquest testimony, official reports and in the main London newspapers?

[Robert St Devil]

Wickerman posted it in the TOILeTS IN MILLERS COURT archive thread.

You're 100% correct. No jumping to conclusions, just more mining for answers.

[Elamarna]

no problem,

yes different papers

its was a small regional paper. on 8 pages

obviously this is known about, so we wait for others who may have discussed it in past to comment i think.

I have to say I am inclined not to believe it without some form of back up.

it could be it was retracted or corrected at a later date., certainly no follow up in November i could find

what was the thread?

Given that we know Pierre has spent time reading the site, i wonder if this is where is idea came from.