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** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
Archive through May 22, 2000
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Victims: General Discussion:
Mary kelly:
Archive through May 22, 2000
Author: Wolf Vanderlinden
Tuesday, 16 May 2000 - 04:00 pm |        | Alegria, the argument that Mary Kelly may have been murdered later in the morning is not based solely on the article in the Times quoting Phillips' estimated time of death, in fact, as far as I know, only Sugden mentions this article at all. It is only a tantalizing hint at what Dr. Phillips might have thought about Kelly's TOD as we have no official version of his findings. The problem with the article is that it supposes that Dr. Phillips was able to give a Time Of Death based solely on a brief visual examination of the body through the broken window pane of Kelly's room.
"...when he was called to the deceased (at a quarter to 11), she had been dead some five or six hours." From the Times, 12 November.
"I was called by the police on Friday morning last about 11 o'clock and proceeded to Millers Court which I entered at 11.15 am....I looked through the lower broken pane and satisfied myself that the mutilated corpse lying on the bed was not in need of any immediate attention from me...Rather an understatement I would think. Having ascertained that probably it was advisable that no entrance should be made into the room at that time I remained until about 1.30 when the door was broken open..." From Dr. Phillips's inquest testimony, 12 November. (If the Times was correct and Phillips meant 5 or 6 hours from his arrival at Millers Court, than TOD was from between 5:15 and 6:15 A.M.)
So, what are we to make of this other than if the Times was right, Phillips was either a fool, a braggart or the greatest forensic pathologist of all time. I think the answer lies in the rest of the paragraph in the Times,
"There is no doubt that the body of a person who, to use Dr. Phillips's own words, was ‘cut all to pieces' would get cold far more quickly than that of one who had died simply from the cutting of the throat; and the room would have been very cold, as there were two broken panes of glass in the windows. Again, the body being entirely uncovered would very quickly get cold."
Here we have an indication that the Doctor was basing his findings on Algor Mortis, or the cooling of the body after death. Based on the crude methods of Victorian forensic pathology, body temperature was estimated by simply feeling the corpse, it seems reasonable to assume that Dr. Phillips was basing his TOD not, as the Times reported from when he arrived on the scene, but from a time when he had actually come in contact with the body of Mary Kelly, sometime after 1:30 P.M. when he had finally entered the room. This would then mean that Dr. Phillips was giving a TOD at around 7:30 to 8:30 A.M.
Questions were first raised about the "official" TOD, 1 or 2 A.M. was the time given by Dr. Bond in his report to Assistant Commissioner Anderson, by the testimony of Caroline Maxwell and newspaper interviews with Maurice Lewis and an unnamed woman reported in the Times, all of whom claimed to have seen Mary Kelly alive on the morning of the 9th, well after Bond's TOD. Indeed, most writers on the subject modify Bond's estimated TOD to explain the testimony of Sarah Lewis and Elizabeth Prater who supposedly heard a cry of "Murder" at around 4:00 A.M. It doesn't help Dr. Bond's case when his statements that, in regards to Rigor Mortis, "...the period varies from 6 to 12 hours before rigidity sets in." is woefully inaccurate as is his opinion that, "...the partly digested food would indicate that death took place about 3 or 4 hours after the food was taken." Modern forensic pathology points to a TOD in keeping with Dr. Phillips's if indeed he was misquoted in the Times article and he was basing his estimation on when he actually entered the room. It is interesting to note that Maxwell, Lewis and the unnamed woman are scrutinized and dismissed as being untrustworthy witnesses , probably true in Lewis's case, while the changing testimony of Elizabeth Prater is scarcely commented on because she seems to cooperates the flawed findings of Dr. Bond
Wolf. |
Author: Simon Owen
Tuesday, 16 May 2000 - 07:00 pm | | | I agree with Wolf here , an excellent answer. |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Wednesday, 17 May 2000 - 08:28 pm | | London, England N 51 18' 0" W 000 6' 0"
9 November, 1888
beginning of civil twilight: 6:33
sunrise: 7:09
sunset: 16:17
end of civil twilight: 16:53
source: US Dept of Commerce, NOAA Surface Radiation Research Branch
"It appeared as if a large quantity of women's
clothing had been burnt. When asked why the fire had been lit, Abberline replied:
I can only imagine it was to make a light for
the man to see what he was doing. There was
only one small candle in the room, on top of
a broken wine glass."
(from Jack the Ripper: the First American Serial Killer by Stewart Evans & Paul Gainey)
RJP |
Author: Alegria Mendes
Thursday, 18 May 2000 - 10:27 am | | Thank you Wolf. That clarifies a lot. I'd still like to know how they could leave out an official ruling on TOD at the inquest. That really irritates me.
:)
Alegria |
Author: Leanne Perry
Thursday, 18 May 2000 - 11:27 pm | | G'day Alegria,
I think they wanted to get the inquest over and done with, as soon as possible. As soon as it opened, there was a protest from a couple of jurors who claimed that the proceedings ought to be held in the district that her body was found in, rather than in Shoreditch, where the body laid. The inquest ended the same day it started. Coroner MacDonald told the jury at the end, that the purpose of this inquest, was simply to determine the cause of death, anything else he told them, was the job of the police. I don't think they cared about an official TOD.
Leanne! |
Author: Jill De Schrijver
Friday, 19 May 2000 - 04:52 am | | There also seemed some kind of bad blood between Coroner Baxter and MacDonald. I remember reading (I think A-Z) that the body of MJK was even kept for some time in Shoreditch in disgraceful circumstances, not in the normal mortuary, because that would turn her over again to the district of Baxter, where Baxter then had the right to begin his own inquest. By making sure MJK was kept in Shoreditch MacDonald prevented this. Probably thought to prove that he could make a better job of it than Baxter. A pity, because the last one was more experienced with the JtR case. I also believe I've read that MacDonald intended to have another inquest, but that came to nothing.
Jill |
Author: Leanne Perry
Friday, 19 May 2000 - 07:09 am | | G'day,
Reading the 'A-Z' it says that MacDonald said: 'There is other evidence which I do not propose to call, for if we at once make public every fact brought forward in connection with this terrible murder, the end of justice might be retarded'.
He did not complete or sign the certificate of findings!!!!! Disgusting!!!!!!!!!
Leanne! |
Author: Wolf Vanderlinden
Saturday, 20 May 2000 - 05:12 pm | | RJ, you seem to be doubting the possibility that Mary Kelly had been killed in the early morning of the 9th based on the fire, Inspector Abberline's interpretation of it's purpose and time of sun rise. Well, let's look at this.
What was it that Inspector Abberline actually said at the inquest regarding the fire?
"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 women clothing had been burnt which I presume was for the purpose of light as there was only one piece of candle in the room." (punctuation mine) From Inspector Abberline's inquest testimony, 12 November, 1888.
Now, it is a small point and really of no importance except to the argument that I am making, but Stewart and Paul have made a mistake with the paragraph that you used regarding Abberline's testimony. They write:
"When asked why the fire had been lit, Abberline replied: I can only imagine it was to make a light for the man to see what he was doing."
The question ask by the coroner however, wasn't why was the fire lit, but why was the clothing burned. This can be seen in Abberline's official inquest testimony but that is written without the certainty of the Coroners actual question. We have to look at the newspapers to check that and they are quite clear on the point:,
We have since gone through the ashes in the fireplace; there were remnants of clothing, a portion of a brim of a hat, and a skirt, and it appeared as if a large quantity of women's clothing had been burnt. Coroner: Can you give any reason why they were burnt ? Abberline: I can only imagine that it was to make a light for the man to see what he was doing. From The Daily Telegraph, 13 November, 1888.
Again, a small point but one which shows us what Abberline was actually saying here. The certainty of Abberline's testimony as to the reason for the fire is lessened. Yes, there is the possibility that the fire was made for light but it also could have been made for other reasons as well. If light was needed, we have to ask the question why didn't the killer light the candle? The small candle that Kelly had just bought from McCarthy was still stuck onto the top of a broken wine-glass. The killer hadn't used it for light, why? Perhaps because it was light enough to see already.
Could warmth be another reason for the fire? Of course it could and that would fit in well with the morning of the 9th. It had rained most of the night and although your NOAA Surface Radiation Research Branch tells us that sun rise was at 7:09 A.M. that morning, what it doesn't tell us was that it was grey, cold and overcast. The low was 3°C., (38°F.), and there were intermittent showers throughout the early morning. If anyone is interested in seeing exactly what that morning was like, they have to look no further than W. Logsdail's painting, The Lord Mayor's Procession, 9 November, 1888, which now hangs, I believe, in the Guildhall. The sky is grey and dull, the roadway wet and slick and the onlookers bundled up to gawk at the Lord Mayor in his gilded carriage and his entourage of liveried servants. A fire built to keep out the cold that morning is entirely possible especially if the Ripper was naked, as some believe, in order to keep his clothing clean while he carried out the mutilations.
One last observation about the fire, when the police finally entered the room at 1:30 P.M., they found that the ashes in the grate were still warm, a consequence, they thought, of the "large fire" that had been burning that night or perhaps simply a consequence of a fire that had been burning only five to six hours before they had entered the room?
Wolf. |
Author: Diana
Saturday, 20 May 2000 - 06:40 pm | | | My husband was recently told to go on a low salt low fat diet. This means that every piece of meat I cook must have every bit of visible fat removed. Chicken must have the skin removed. When I get back from the grocery store I sit down to defat/deskin the weeks meat and let me tell you it is a major undertaking. It is one of those jobs that looks simple and is not. It is time consuming tiring work. Whatever time Mary was killed, Jack needed a lot of time to do to her what he did. As to body temperature there is an example a layperson like me can relate to. Since Mary was cut up to the degree she was, I would invite the reader to consider what would happen if they took a piece of freshly cooked meat, hot from the oven and placed it in a room where the temperature was 38 degrees fahrenheit, 3 degrees centigrade. How cold would the meat be in one hour? Two hours? What if the meat was only 98.6 degrees fahrenheit (Is body temperature centigrade about 38?)when you started instead of oven temperature? |
Author: David M. Radka
Saturday, 20 May 2000 - 07:45 pm | | This is a good idea. Why doesn't somone buy a pot roast and heat it up to 98.6 degrees F--human body temperature. Then put it in a room where the temperature is controlled at the same level as MJ's room, and have a thermometer stuck deeply in the meat. Then monitor the temperature as it declines. When the temperature is the same as MJ's body as reported by the Doctors on the scene, we'd have a reasonably accurate, objective view as to the time of death. This could make the difference in debates concerning the Maxwellian morning sighting. Another good post by Ms C.
David |
Author: Alegria Mendes
Saturday, 20 May 2000 - 10:51 pm | | | Both suggestions sound like good ideas with one exception. We don't really know how hot/cold MJK's room was. The windows were broken so it would be chilly and we have an outside temp of 3degrees C but we have no way of knowing how much the room had been warmed by the fire. |
Author: Diana
Sunday, 21 May 2000 - 07:58 am | | | Nothing in Texas is ever 38 degrees not even a refrigerator! (--: Somebody else is going to have to do this. |
Author: Diana
Sunday, 21 May 2000 - 08:15 am | | | I said that tongue in cheek. Actually we do have some winter days that get that cold. I just remembered something though. One day a few years ago our heating system died in the middle of winter. We had a repair man out to the house but it took him hours to fix it, past sunset into the evening. We built a roaring fire in the living room fireplace and huddled around it. Let me tell you that fire did not do nearly as much good as you might think. The only way you got any warmth at all was to be within maybe 2 and 1/2 feet of the fireplace (about 75cm) and we all had on winter coats and were shivering. |
Author: Diana
Sunday, 21 May 2000 - 09:13 am | | | I just went through the manual for my refrigerator. Their lawyers must have told them never to tell anybody what temperature it would actually run at. Ideally we need someone with an old house or someone with a very good friend with an old house that has not got central heating and has a fireplace in one small room. Then we need to wait for a 38f, 03c, degree day and in Texas that would have to be next December or January. It would be best to have several people do this and compare results. We can never duplicate all the variables but if the results were very marked it might tell us something. |
Author: David M. Radka
Sunday, 21 May 2000 - 10:23 am | | We find that burning our living room fireplace saves us very little on heat, all things considered. As Ms C says, some heat is put into the room by the fire, but you have to be standing fairly close by to feel anything. 15 feet away you remain cold. We have a huge antique Victrola with heavy wind-up coils inside it near our fireplace--it can absorb some of the heat from the fire and radiate it back into the room over time. But what heat the room gets mostly comes from radiation from the heated bricks, and it takes quite a good deal of burning to get those bricks hot enough to radiate. MJ probably had a fireplace with a minimum of bricks due to the poverty of the neighborhood and cheapness of construction--probably it was constructed mostly for cooking, with little mass added to it for heat considering the smallness of the room. She didn't have any large, massive objects in the room to absorb much heat. The clothing burned wouldn't generate a great deal of heat anyway I don't think--the fire might burn fairly brightly for awhile, especially if the Ripper used a whole lot of fabric, but would not provide the kind of long-term energy source that would heat up the room very much. And, as we've found, leaving the flue open to exhaust the last of the smoke when the fire dies down really robs the room of heat--undoubtedly, a good deal of MJ's body heat went out the flue and up the chimney before the police came. MJ's room likely was not insulated, either, and probably shed heat quickly. Over all, I wouldn't place any great effect on the fire as a source of heat keeping the body warm. I'd discount it for the most part. Therefore, if we could find out the temperature profile of London for that evening, I think the experiment would work.
David |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Sunday, 21 May 2000 - 04:14 pm | | Hello All.
Just to make sure we are all "on the same page", are we in agreement that a rapid cooling of the body would tend to DELAY rigor mortis? That is, though it would obviously speed up Algor Mortis, a cold room might well move the time of death to earlier in the morning? Keep in mind the 12 November TIMES article already quoted by Wolf:
"the room would have been very cold, as there
were two broken panes of glass in the windows.
Again, the body being entirely uncovered would
quickly get cold."
Wolf-- many thanks for your intelligent comments in regards to my previous post. Your attention to detail is much admired. Yes, I suppose the 7:09 sunrise 'cuts both ways'...
I have not yet come to any firm conclusions about MJK's time of death, and frankly I find it somewhat difficult to wrap my mind around the various conflicting statements and known facts.
As unlikely as her statement initially seems, I tend to give some credence to Mrs. Maxwell, as she is not part of the rum-for-breakfast crowd, seems adamant, and clearly isn't perfunctorily telling Abberline and the coroner 'what they want to hear'.
Some points that I am currently mulling:
1) Do we know that the candle in MJK's room was NOT used by the killer? I don't know where Tully is getting his information, but on p.239 of "Prisoner 1167" he makes the following statement:
"The larger table was to the left-hand side
of the room, not far from the unbroken window.
On it was a broken wine glass containing a
candle --a 'farthing dip'-- of which less than
half had been consumed"
When Abberline took the jury to view the murder scene, he lit the room with a candle stuck in a bottle. It was mid-day, but at this point the windows had been whitewashed and boarded up.
It would be interested in knowing how long it would take to burn away half a stick of a 'farthing dip'. (More experiments for David?) I thought that I somewhere read that Dr. Phillips estimated that the mutilations would have taken over an hour to perform, but I might be wrong on this point. How long would the murderer be willing to stay in the room after daylight? Any ideas?
2) When, where, and how did Mary manage to have a meal of fish and potatos? This seems important to me.
3) If the entry into Miller's Court was a narrow passage 20' in length, it is highly unlikely that a wandering JtR would have been lucky enough to stumble on to the sleeping MJK. If Mrs. Maxwell was correct about Mary's condition that morning, is it likely that she would have been entertaining customers?
I have a few other points, but this post is too long as it is. Maybe later.
David--according to Tully at least, woolen clothing melts upon being lit, and cotton flames, but with 'a very weak light'. But I'd like perform my own experiments to confirm this. Though I am somewhat hesitant to give 'fuel' to the Barnettites, it strikes me that if Mrs. Harvey's laundry wasn't burned for heat or for light, it might well have been burned for 'spite'. There was no love lost between Barnett and Mrs. Harvey, and he may well have blamed her for his estrangement from Mary. Why not torch her things?
Best regards & etc.,
RJP |
Author: Diana
Sunday, 21 May 2000 - 05:42 pm | | | Mary had been drinking the night before. Would the presence of alcohol in her system affect rate of cooling? I wish no irreverence, but the only way I can think to explain this is the idea of antifreeze in a car's radiator. |
Author: David M. Radka
Sunday, 21 May 2000 - 06:05 pm | | I don't believe the alcohol in the blood would have the thermal properties of antifreeze. Antifreeze works by keeping the water in the radiator from freezing when the engine is not running, and by speeding up the thermal transfer of heat from the engine to the radiator when the engine is running. It is true that alcohol accepts heat quickly, but in a car radiator the alcohol is flowing, whereas in a dead body it is not. So, no heat thransfer would be taking place.
I think the fire may have been lit to heat metal to cauterize a wound he received when cutting up the body as Ms C has suggested, or as a kind of fitting aesthetic comment on what he was doing to the body. The flames would be relentlessly consuming the clothes while he was doing the same to the body. |
Author: Jill De Schrijver
Monday, 22 May 2000 - 03:38 am | | A question?
Does woolen clothing burn so much? When we had chemistry in high school we were always advised to wear woolen clothes in the test room with the burners. And I have experienced why. We had gas taps with one burner and two outlets (meaning 1 outlet free). My companion had wrongly opened the free tap while I was trying to light the burner. A huge flame was created going right my direction. My sweater stood in flame, but since it was wool the flame died almost immediately and only some of the plushes were scorched. I got off with a scare, my companion with a scolding, and my sweater when removed of the few scorched plushes looked as new. |
Author: Diana
Monday, 22 May 2000 - 04:48 am | | | Have you ever seen a singed sheep? (--: |
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