Could MJK have survived Miller's Court

[Wickerman]

Someone later suggested that they then froze that way in rigor, the evidence being the supposed need for some unusual kind of box to cart her away.

Yes, I don't know where that came from either, its not true.
Kelly's body was placed in a 'regular' well-used shell and transported on a cart to the mortuary.

Regards, Jon S.

[lynn cates]

Virgin

Hello Mike. Thanks.

Have you got something against her?

Cheers.
LC

[RivkahChaya]

That warm environment would slow the rigor onset, not escalate its timetable. I believe the body needs to have cooled considerably, in conjunction with other chemical breakdowns, in order for the process to reach that point.

Actually, heat speeds up rigor. it acts as a catalyst for the chemical changes that cause rigor.

Also, rigor happens in muscles only. It does not happen in ligaments, tendons, or cartilage. It her knees and pelvic joints were denuded of muscle, then the bones, which are some of the heaviest in the body, may still have allowed to to "flop," or at least move a little, when it was moved, and not behave exactly as a body in full rigor should.

Now, I don't ow that; I'm just suggesting it as possibility. Maybe someone who knows something about medicine or forensics can jump in.

[Suzi]

WHAT possible relevance does this have Lynn!!!!!!! Another symptom of how irrelevancy is creeping apace into Ripperology - and it takes up a LOT of space!!!!!!

[lynn cates]

vide supra

Hello Suzi. Thanks.

See Mike's initial post.

Cheers.
LC

[Suzi]

CIAO Lynn I'm sorry to leave cb I really am but things ain't what they used to be

[Michael W Richards]

Actually, heat speeds up rigor. it acts as a catalyst for the chemical changes that cause rigor.

Also, rigor happens in muscles only. It does not happen in ligaments, tendons, or cartilage. It her knees and pelvic joints were denuded of muscle, then the bones, which are some of the heaviest in the body, may still have allowed to to "flop," or at least move a little, when it was moved, and not behave exactly as a body in full rigor should.

Now, I don't ow that; I'm just suggesting it as possibility. Maybe someone who knows something about medicine or forensics can jump in.

Hi Rivkah,

Im no doctor either, but to address the above and Jon's comments which relate to this issue, rigor had commenced and was ongoing. How that affects joints is the issue here. The flesh and tissue were taken from her abdomen and midsection, and from her right leg to the knee, and from the inner left thigh. Her right arm was almost separated completely from the body excluding some sinew attachments.

So there were ample tissues still in place to show the effects.

As to the method of her egress, it was a box John. Not a wooden coffin, like we see in other Canonical murders. Of course she was in many more pieces than the others. It was specifically referred to as a box, and considering her position in death, if rigor had set in, then they likely had little choice but to use something unorthodox. She is the only victim that was left this long after her murder remember.

She was put into a regular wooden coffin by the time the jury viewed her, and her entire body, excluding her face, was covered.

And no Lynn,....not a thing against THE Madonna, nor against madonna, I just wanted to nip that in the bud before someone suggests Mary position on the bed was her variation of the "Vogue.

Best regards all

[Wickerman]

As to the method of her egress, it was a box John. Not a wooden coffin, like we see in other Canonical murders. Of course she was in many more pieces than the others. It was specifically referred to as a box, and considering her position in death, if rigor had set in, then they likely had little choice but to use something unorthodox. She is the only victim that was left this long after her murder remember.

Hi Michael.

If it is the effects of rigor that concern you, remember her body was moved out of room 13 by 4:00 pm. Due to the condition of the body we don't know the extent of rigor by that hour, we can't assume it was complete nor can we assume that the largest of the limbs were fully affected.

Also, Rigor is not a permanent condition, in the same way that it spreads from the smaller muscles (face/fingers/toes) to the larger (forearms/calfs/thighs), it then passes off in the same order, the smaller muscles first then the larger muscles last.
The body is then flexible for a time until finally stiffening permanently.

Bond does say the extent of rigor increased during the examination made at Millers Court, but not that it finally set in before they had concluded their examination. So long as that was the case, the body would still be flexible enough to place inside the shell brought by the undertaker.

"...At four o'clock yesterday afternoon the remains of the murdered woman were removed in a plain shell to the mortuary,.."

"...The poor woman's fragments, put together as skilfully as possible, are lying in the Houndsditch mortuary in a scratched and dirty shell of a coffin often used before."

I was only pointing out the shell used was a used shell not something specially built for the occasion.

All the best, Jon S.

[Bridewell]

Dismissing Evidence

Statement: I don't dismiss Maxwell's story.

Rebuttal: You should though,..... she barely knew the woman, and her evidence, as the coroner at the Inquest pointed out to her, differs from all the other evidence, including Bonds. She claims a woman that lived down the street from her, to whom she said basically "Good day" twice in 4 months, is suddenly calling her by her first name and spilling her guts out both figuratively and literally? Then of course there is also the scientific data.

No. I still don't dismiss Maxwell's evidence - and nor should anyone else in my view. We don't have sufficient testimony to start dismissing parts of it wholesale. Mrs Maxwell is quite clear that she knew Mary Kelly and Joseph Barnett and had done so for 4 months. She had only spoken to her twice, but that doesn't mean she didn't know perfectly well who she was talking about - they lived on the same street. The fact that she knew both Kelly and Barnett makes it improbable that she was thinking of the wrong person.
The "scientific data" concerns the onset time of rigor mortis - at best an approximation.

http://chemistry.about.com/cs/biochemistry/a/aa061903a.htm

N.B. I don't dismiss Bond's evidence either, but nor do I assume that his statements concerning the onset time of rigor mortis are the last word on the subject.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Wickerman]

A "shell" was a temporary cheap container for the body before it was prepared for the coffin, a container of some value.

With respect to the body of Annie Chapman, we read:

"The mortuary, a long, low building, contained on the left hand side of the door three coffins piled one on the other, and two sable shells; the coffins I believe were empty, the shells were occupied. On the right hand side close to the post mortem table, stands another shell, which reveals on lifting the lid all that is left of the poor unfortunate, cruelly done-to-death "Dark Annie.""
Croydon Advertiser, 15 Sept. 1888.

Regards, Jon S.

[c.d.]

I haven't read the entire thread so my apologies if this has already been covered.

If Mary simply took off, wouldn't she need money to do so? Although you could argue that that was the reason she didn't pay her rent. But what about clothes or a suitcase or her personal things? If the police had this suspicion, wouldn't they have asked Barnett to examine the apartment to see if anything was missing?

Plus, you also have to account for the woman who was then in her bed. Wouldn't she have been reported missing? And if the missing woman was a prostitute and/or a friend of Mary, wouldn't that have started the police asking questions?

This all seems pretty far fetched to me.

c.d.

c.d.

[Bridewell]

I haven't read the entire thread so my apologies if this has already been covered.

If Mary simply took off, wouldn't she need money to do so? Although you could argue that that was the reason she didn't pay her rent. But what about clothes or a suitcase or her personal things? If the police had this suspicion, wouldn't they have asked Barnett to examine the apartment to see if anything was missing?

Plus, you also have to account for the woman who was then in her bed. Wouldn't she have been reported missing? And if the missing woman was a prostitute and/or a friend of Mary, wouldn't that have started the police asking questions?

This all seems pretty far fetched to me.

c.d.

It seems that way to me too. You don't need to butcher someone in order to do a moonlight flit.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Wickerman]

As much as we might feel like accepting Maxwell at face value, the implications for the medical evidence are staggering.
If Maxwell is correct, the body must only have been dead about an hour and a half when it was first discovered.
So, by the time of the autopsy, at 2:00 pm, four and a half hours had past, or thereabouts. Rigor would only just have started around 1 o'clock.

Bond said that at 2:00 pm the body was comparatively cold and that Rigor "had set in", to what extent we cannot determine, but increased during the examination. Bond does estimate the body to have been dead about 12 hours by this time.

So, could a lukewarm body dead only about 4 1/2 hours fool a room full of surgeons into thinking it had been dead about 12 hours?
Bond may have penned the brief report but we do know it was with the collaboration of Dr. Phillips, who was responsible for the official autopsy.

Its a tall order to believe Maxwell, unless it was a case of mistaken identity on her part?

Regards, Jon S.

[RivkahChaya]

Bond may have penned the brief report but we do know it was with the collaboration of Dr. Phillips, who was responsible for the official autopsy.

Its a tall order to believe Maxwell, unless it was a case of mistaken identity on her part?

Regards, Jon S.

Would an eviscerated body cool faster? I mean, of course it would, but what was the standard for "temperature"? it's liver temperature now, but I don't know if that was the standard in 1888, and then as now, if the liver was exposed, that would matter, and now, IIRC an article I read once, the ME would additionally take a rectal temperature.

Was the coroner in 1888 simply referring to "cold to the touch"? Eviscerated and undressed, wouldn't the body cool faster? I realize that blood is not pumping, but the body still has a lot of fluid, so you with still have some heat conduction.

On the topic of a a substitute body: this is a literary meme. It goes back at least to Ayn Rand's The Night of January 16th. In that case, the person who wishes to disappear is very wealthy, and world-famous. It would be like Paris Hilton deciding to vanish. It would be a media circus. In her case, she probably would need to establish herself as dead, if she really wants to disappear, and not have the whole world out searching for her (and her family probably offering a reward). I doubt that she would go so far as to commit a murder, though.

If you go back to the story of Joseph in the bible, you find the meme of a faked death in his brothers manufacturing evidence by bloodying up his coat with goat's blood.

Given how old those stories are, it's no surprise that people's minds go there for a "disappearance" story.

But the fact is, that MJK isn't Paris Hilton, or even the favorite son of a biblical patriarch. No one is going to look for her. Barnett might be moved to, but he has no resources. McCarthy has some resources, but even if he considered going trying to track her down for the back rent, a cost-benefit analysis is probably going to dissuade him. Her family, on the whole, doesn't seem to know where she is, and she doesn't have any old friends she keeps in touch with. If she wants to reconnect with family later, she can. They probably won't turn her into McCarthy if he asks them about the back rent.

In fact, if she does disappear, she does only to us, and Barnett, McCarthy, et al. Since we don't know who her family is, we don't know that she disappears to them.

The point of all of that, is that there is no need for somebody other than MJK to be in that bed. If the body is not hers, then I would think she would show up pretty soon after the discovery. IMO, she might even like being the center of attention, briefly, as the women who narrowly escaped the Ripper's knife.

[Bridewell]

As much as we might feel like accepting Maxwell at face value, the implications for the medical evidence are staggering.

Hi, Jon.

There's a difference between refusing to discount her evidence and accepting it at face value. I do the former, but not the latter.

Regards, Bridewell.