One on one with Stephen Senise

[Simon Wood]

At the time of the Bethnal Green Road incident, Mrs Kennedy was in the company of "her sister," and Sarah Lewis was in the company of "another female".

Regards,

Simon

[packers stem]

Lewis & Kennedy's account of what happened Wednesday night is the same, because they were together.
It's only their Friday morning statements which differ, because they arrived separately.
What Lewis saw that morning does not match what Kennedy saw, neither do their times match.
There is no cause to suggest they were the same woman. So to talk about a 'real' Mrs Kennedy only feeds into this false narrative.

As has been pointed out before, Lewis's account serves to confirm Hutchinson's story in so far as she saw a man & woman in the street while this lurker was standing opposite the court. She didn't describe the man, but she did offer some details about the woman. That she was the worse for drink, & without a hat, and that this couple both walked up the court.

None of this was recounted by Kennedy, but it is of some importance to acknowledge that Kennedy was credited with seeing Kelly alive around 3:00 am, standing outside the Britannia.

Once we accept these two accounts, Hutchinson's story is of no more importance. Astrachan is no longer a suspect, and Hutch himself is off the hook too.

Jon we have a number of issues here ....

Firstly , at no point did Sarah Lewis ever mention the lack of headgear or that the second couple walked up the court .The official transcript, the times or the telegraph , I'm not going to check every newspaper but I don't recall seeing it anywhere .
And in her statement they didn't even exist .

Secondly there are two quite different Kennedy press statements on the same day .
The star on the 10th gives the one you mention and tells us of her passing a young respectably dressed man with a woman along with a dishevelled woman (here's where the lack of headgear comes in) .... Kennedy didn't know any of them at this juncture .
The evening news of the same day she tells of passing a couple outside the Britannia ...on this occasion it was the deceased along with shiny bag man ....

Going on to Sarah Lewis and things become even more bizarre
What was between 2 and 3 in the statement became 2.30 three days later as she now remembered passing the church clock, how does that happen ?
The man watching the court , who of course didn't exist with Kennedy , was talking to a woman initially in the statement til someone crossed it out and she also couldn't describe the man .At the inquest ,as if by magic , she could .... even down to hat style and colour .

Mrs paumier recounted the brushfield street tale with Sarah Roney at the heart of it along with two others .Was Roney Lewis ? Maybe but if Kennedy and Lewis were two of the three (or just the two ) you do have to question why Lewis was oblivious to the fact that the female accompanying her was her sister !

I thought for a long long time that Kennedy and Lewis were different the same as you but the number of inconsistencies with Lewis make me think that they were one and the same and that the Star Kennedy report is the correct one , it seems more natural and more to it .
I suspect from that point and the point of giving a statement she was led and dictated to

If the existence of Mrs Kennedy is proven then great , happy to be proven wrong and accept the Kennedy sighting as the last one .
Only ones who need to dismiss that sighting are those wishing to push the Hutchinson story

[Wickerman]

Jon we have a number of issues here ....

Firstly , at no point did Sarah Lewis ever mention the lack of headgear or that the second couple walked up the court .The official transcript, the times or the telegraph , I'm not going to check every newspaper but I don't recall seeing it anywhere .
And in her statement they didn't even exist .

Did you read this post?

http://forum.casebook.org/showpost.php?p=449029&postcount=12

Secondly there are two quite different Kennedy press statements on the same day .
The star on the 10th gives the one you mention and tells us of her passing a young respectably dressed man with a woman along with a dishevelled woman (here's where the lack of headgear comes in) .... Kennedy didn't know any of them at this juncture .
The evening news of the same day she tells of passing a couple outside the Britannia ...on this occasion it was the deceased along with shiny bag man ....

There was at least 10 newspapers who published an account of the interview with Kennedy. Four of them on the 10th, the day after the murder.

Did you read this about Abberline interviewing Kennedy?
"Detective-Inspector Abberline has interviewed a girl named Kennedy, who states that about half-past 3 on the morning of the murder she went to her parent's house, which is opposite the room occupied by Mary Jane Kelly,..."

http://www.casebook.org/press_reports/times/18881112.html

Do you think he would have known if Kennedy was also Sarah Lewis he had previously taken the statement from?

Going on to Sarah Lewis and things become even more bizarre
What was between 2 and 3 in the statement became 2.30 three days later as she now remembered passing the church clock, how does that happen ?
The man watching the court , who of course didn't exist with Kennedy , was talking to a woman initially in the statement til someone crossed it out and she also couldn't describe the man .At the inquest ,as if by magic , she could .... even down to hat style and colour .

The statement was in Abberline's hand, the strikeout is likely Abberline making a mistake in taking down her statement, nothing more mysterious than that.
2.30 is between 2 and 3, so I'm not sure why you object.
How precise do you expect these people to be when none of them had watches?
All times given are guesswork, except if they make reference to hearing the Spitalfields clock strike, because that was all they had as a guide.

Mrs paumier recounted the brushfield street tale with Sarah Roney at the heart of it along with two others .Was Roney Lewis ? Maybe but if Kennedy and Lewis were two of the three (or just the two ) you do have to question why Lewis was oblivious to the fact that the female accompanying her was her sister !

The issue of whether the other woman was a "sister" or a "friend" could easily be the reporters error. It has no bearing on the content of their stories.

I thought for a long long time that Kennedy and Lewis were different the same as you but the number of inconsistencies with Lewis make me think that they were one and the same and that the Star Kennedy report is the correct one , it seems more natural and more to it .
I suspect from that point and the point of giving a statement she was led and dictated to

The value of press accounts is when they are taken together. Researchers do not select one preferred source and dismiss the rest. Each account adds a small detail which is not contained in the others, so collectively we can build up a better picture of what happened.
I have around a dozen various Kennedy accounts and the value is with them all together, not with one at the expense of the others.

It's the same with press coverage of an inquest, each newspaper (the editor), had his own opinion on what was of interest to publish, not one of them provide the complete testimony of anyone. So, here again, the value is to collate all the versions to obtain a more complete picture of what was said.

If the existence of Mrs Kennedy is proven then great , happy to be proven wrong and accept the Kennedy sighting as the last one .
Only ones who need to dismiss that sighting are those wishing to push the Hutchinson story

Some have even suggested Kennedy was made up (good grief!), yet no-one has offered a reason why they reject what Kennedy is reputed to have said.
There is no valid cause to reject her statement, nothing she said has been contradicted, or shown to be wrong.
It just seems to be ill conceived bias.

[packers stem]

Unfortunately Jon , I can see we think completely differently .
You mention the importance of cross referencing newspaper reports which I know full well only to shoot yourself in the foot by dragging out possibly the only one to mention that the woman seen by Lewis was not wearing a hat and another telling me that Abberline interviewed Kennedy and would abberline not know they were the same .... of course , if there were two separate people and he interviewed them both .
Feel free to produce Mrs Kennedy's statement written in 'abberline's own hand' whenever you wish as there must be one !
The clue was in my last post
The statement was Kennedy /Lewis .... she was led and was dictated to as shown by the sheer gulf between the Lewis statement and her testimony.
It altered beyond all recognition , nothing else could explain it ..... apart from being so stupid she should never have got near the stand ... my view is that what she came out with bears no resemblance to what she saw ..... Kennedy interview , the honest sounding one lol

[Sam Flynn]

There is every reason to dismiss "Kennedy", Jon, not least because it beggars belief that a genuine witness with such important information would not have been called to the inquest. If Caroline Maxwell was summoned to give her story, then surely they'd have heard Kennedy's evidence as well.

[packers stem]

There is every reason to dismiss "Kennedy", Jon, not least because it beggars belief that a genuine witness with such important information would not have been called to the inquest. If Caroline Maxwell was summoned to give her story, then surely they'd have heard Kennedy's evidence as well.

Well , no not really
It's pretty much across the board that most who really saw anything valuable didn't get anywhere near the stand ....
Schwartz , Packer, Maurice Lewis .... there's a fair old list really .
Although all sorts of worthless witnesses were called who saw absolutely nothing ...
Mrs Malcolm got there because of a premonition

[Sam Flynn]

Kennedy saw what appeared Kelly with a suspicious man within hours of her death, and her testimony would have been helpful in corroborating aspects of Lewis's story. Far from being a peripheral figure like Maurice Lewis, she would have been a very important witness indeed... if she existed.

[packers stem]

Kennedy saw what appeared Kelly with a suspicious man within hours of her death, and her testimony would have been helpful in corroborating aspects of Lewis's story. Far from being a peripheral figure like Maurice Lewis, she would have been a very important witness indeed... if she existed.

Why would Maurice Lewis be peripheral ?
His evidence would be absolutely vital in backing up the immovable Caroline Maxwell

[Abby Normal]

Isn’t it obvious that Kennedy is just a garbled press version of Lewis?
Or Kennedy was parroting Lewis for her 15 minutes of fame?

Surely this phantom witness is useless at best and just obfuscates at worst, no?

[packers stem]

Isn’t it obvious that Kennedy is just a garbled press version of Lewis?
Or Kennedy was parroting Lewis for her 15 minutes of fame?

Surely this phantom witness is useless at best and just obfuscates at worst, no?

Not at all
The initial Kennedy press statement has a clear ring of truth to it with comments
Sarah Lewis didn't speak to the press so they didn't know about her until the inquest.
You see, what is obvious to me isn't to you and vice versa
Jon's obvious is different again .It all comes down to how we think , that dictates how we view available evidence .
I know some who will only accept official documents and nothing press wise, many of us doubt everything official.
That's how it is .... otherwise why would we bother with all this ?
You think it's the press
Jon thinks they're two different people
I think , although I never used to , that they are one and the same .Kennedy her press name and Lewis the official one but I question the drastic alterations from one statement to the next

[packers stem]

Incidentally ....
Hutchinson also couldn't have known of Sarah Lewis until the thirteenth as her inquest testimony didn't make the afternoon press of the 12th

[Wickerman]

Kennedy saw what appeared Kelly with a suspicious man within hours of her death, and her testimony would have been helpful in corroborating aspects of Lewis's story. Far from being a peripheral figure like Maurice Lewis, she would have been a very important witness indeed... if she existed.

You'll probably find Gareth that an inquest is not the place to produce witnesses to simply corroborate the story of another witness. This can happen at a trial (being a higher court), but not at an inquest. You would also have the Coroner having to pay two witnesses to tell the same story. Some Coroner's, like Macdonald, were penny pinchers.
He didn't even pay all those who did show up!

Corroboration is done by the police before the inquest.

To call Kennedy is to merely duplicate what Sarah Lewis had seen.
Both Lewis & Kennedy saw the Britannia-man, but only Lewis saw the lurker - so Lewis gets called.
Likewise, Maurice Lewis doesn't get called for the same reason - duplication with Maxwell's testimony.

As the time of death commonly assumed prior to the inquest was about 9:00 am, then Kennedy seeing Kelly at 3:00 is of no consequence, but Maxwell seeing her just before the assumed time of death is of interest, who was she with, what did she say, where was she going, etc.
None of this matters at 3:00 am. but all of this matters at 9:00 am.
If you read through the Kelly inquest you will see that the Coroner did not reject Maxwell's testimony. And, he only instructed the jury to determine cause of death.
There was no investigation as to a time of death, be it 2:00, or 3:30, or 9:00 am.

It needs to be remembered, we are looking at this inquest from our day and from what we know today, which is wrong.
We should all look at it from their day and what they knew.

The common belief seems to have been that the murder took place around 9"00 am, which is why Hutchinson saw no reason to run to police straight away, and no reason for the Coroner to call Kennedy.
Even at the conclusion of the inquest no time of death was offered.

Dr Bond seems to have been the only one who found cause to assume the murder took place between 1-2:00 am. Which didn't seem to carry any weight with the police before the inquest.

[John Malcolm]

Incidentally ....
Hutchinson also couldn't have known of Sarah Lewis until the thirteenth as her inquest testimony didn't make the afternoon press of the 12th

Unless he was at the inquest.

[Abby Normal]

Unless he was at the inquest.

Yup. Or heard it through the grapevine.

[Wickerman]

Unless he was at the inquest.

Right in front of Abberline?

The inquest was held in what was basically the living room of a house, not a football stadium.