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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 March 04, 2001
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Victims: Specific Victims:
Mary Jane Kelly:
Archive through March 04, 2001
Author: John Omlor
Tuesday, 27 February 2001 - 12:30 am |        | One brief question from a new reader. The discrepancies in the witnesses' testimonies at Mary Kelly's Inquest concerning when the deceased was last seen alive (at least two people, Caroline Maxwell and Maurice Lewis, claiming to have seen her as late as 8:30 and 10:00 am respectively) has been much discussed on these boards -- especially in the Joe Barnett debates. Has the community of scholars around here ever come to some sort of general agreement about the actual time of the Kelly murder? Was the doctor on the scene simply mistaken about pushing the time so far back -- could she have been killed only less than an hour before her remains were discovered? Or is it generally assumed that the witnesses were mistaken or confused (Maxwell, after all, claims to have spoken with MK at some length and even seen MK's vomit "in the road"). Just wondering about the state of agreement here these days.
--John |
Author: Wolf Vanderlinden
Tuesday, 27 February 2001 - 12:03 pm | | Hello John, welcome to the boards. As there seems to be little disagreement about Mary Kelly's time of death, I suppose that the general agreement is that she was killed when Sarah Lewis and Elizabeth Prater heard a cry of ‘Murder', sometime around 4:00 a.m.. I am one of the very few who dispute this time of death but seem unable to convince anyone that Dr Bond's estimate for the onset of rigor mortis is wildly incorrect. Dr Bond, however, is not even given his due in that his opinion of time of death, 1:00 or 2:00 a.m., is superceded by Lewis and Prater and the cry, (or cries?), of murder heard two hours later. It is apparent, therefor, that the time of death, now, seemingly carved in stone, relies solely on the reliability of Lewis and Prater. No other evidence is necessary and modern forensic science be damned. And as for the little inconsistencies in Elizabeth Prater's testimony, well, why muddy the waters with facts.
Wolf. |
Author: John Omlor
Tuesday, 27 February 2001 - 12:36 pm | | Wolf,
Thanks very much for the welcome and the response. It's interesting to me how such general consensus gradually occurs within a group despite clearly contradictory historical documents. I am sure there are valid reasons for this among those who have conducted the research. Even the contemporary accounts seem to have quickly settled on the 4 am time and thus the testimony of the two conflicting witnesses seems to have been mostly dismissed. And I'm sure that memories among the people in the neighborhood were often anything but reliable, especially given the late-night, early morning states of minds. But from a neophyte's view, Caroline Maxwell's recollections concerning her exchange with a drunk-sick Mary seem at least as coherent as Prater's narrative. Of course the details of both testimonies, as I read them reprinted in the Companion, are sketchy, as they would have to be given the circumstances. But the discrepancies apparently largely resolve themselves within the dynamics of a community of scholars without this resolution ever being made explicit or definitive. Perhaps this is one of the ways that material repeatedly discussed over a long period of time begins to be taken for granted (always a dangerous thing in any kind of scholarship, I think). Anyway, thanks Wolf for the thoughts. I will continue to follow the discussion.
--John |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Tuesday, 27 February 2001 - 05:00 pm | | Hi John, Wolf,
I have also not quite understood how the testimony of both Caroline Maxwell and Maurice Lewis can so conveniently be explained away as mistaken, publicity-seeking or plain lies, when compared with Lewis and Prater both hearing cries of "Oh murder", which apparently were so commonplace that neither thought anything much of it, even at this point in the Autumn of Terror. I should have thought, if it really was Mary crying out, in a sudden panic at realising she had Jack for company, and only had time to make one sound, it would be a very loud, high-pitched scream, rather than calling out a word that all the locals would immediately disregard as commonplace and nothing in the least sinister.
Now, because there are three of us, I expect those scholarly naysayers to descend on us by the dozen - we'd better duck quick! Oh murder!
Love,
Caz |
Author: stephen stanley
Tuesday, 27 February 2001 - 05:05 pm | | Make that four,Caz.....I remember reading a theory that the 'Oh,Murder'was MJK discovering the body.....
Steve S. |
Author: Martin Fido
Wednesday, 28 February 2001 - 01:48 am | | The argument that the medical timng of MJK's death was extremely unrealiable is very well put by William Beadle in 'Jack the Ripper: Anatomy of a Myth' - one of the books which is well worth reading for the excellent quality of its arguments, even when one may not agree with all the conclusions.
Martin Fido |
Author: Leanne Perry
Wednesday, 28 February 2001 - 04:26 am | | G'day everyone,
If the cry of "Oh Murder!" was commonplace in the court and Mary was so frightened of the murderer, surely that cry must have came from Mary's lips occasionally.
I tend to believe the eyewitness sightings of Caroline Maxwell and Maurice Lewis!
As the cry wasn't loud, I reckon Mary glimpsed at the sharp knife and Jack said: "It's OK darling, I just braught it to gut this fish for our breakfast"!
Leanne! |
Author: Simon Owen
Wednesday, 28 February 2001 - 04:12 pm | | Make that five Caz , I have argued before that the body in Miller's Court wasn't Mary Jane !
Simon |
Author: stephen stanley
Wednesday, 28 February 2001 - 04:44 pm | | Two more & we'll have the Magnificent seven....but seriously now folks....Is their any evidence other than Barnett's that the body was MJK's?....whereas two witnesses saw her later on?
Steve S. |
Author: John Omlor
Wednesday, 28 February 2001 - 05:05 pm | | Well, it's good to know that at least the historical contradictions of the Maxwell and Lewis testimonies have been kept alive as topics for discussion. Of course, they may have been mistaken as to days (although this seems unlikely in Maxwell's case, given the circumstances -- and I can find no one who suggests anywhere she had a particular reason to lie and to do so in such detail, including a created conversation and specifics such as seeing Mary's vomit on the road). In fact, it is even possible, as some have suggested, that the body in the bed is Mary and Maxwell is not lying. It would mean, of course, that she was killed much closer to the time her body was discovered. I believe the Barnett people make a version of this argument on that board.
I have also seen suggestions that Mary might have been in the very early stages of pregnancy when she was killed, although I cannot find this at the moment in any of the transcripts or reports. If so, Maxwell's tale about Mary being sick on the streets early that morning... Well, not that she would have needed a pregnancy given the amount of drinking she must have done on most evenings. There is a board elsewhere at this site concerning the vomit Maxwell mentions and Mary's last meal and when it must have been eaten. There is some provocative discussion there, although I'm not sure any of it is convincing one way or another.
Still, the questions remain.
--John |
Author: Jade Bakys
Wednesday, 28 February 2001 - 05:28 pm | | Hi John
I read in one of the many writers on Jack, and I cannot think who it was, stated undisputably that Mary Kelly was not pregnant, and recently published autopsy notes show this to be the case. (I think recent could mean the last 17 years). However maybe someone else has the answer.
Jade |
Author: Warwick Parminter
Wednesday, 28 February 2001 - 08:03 pm | | Colleen is very good, and very patient in what she does in researching peoples pasts. I'm not criticizing her in any way when I say, she hasn't had much success with MARY JANE KELLY,--or perhaps she was too successful,--she found too many MJKs. So, with Simon and Steven tending toward the belief that the body on the bed wasn't Mary's, you couldn't blame certain people for maybe wondering,-- was there a Mary Kelly at all? Then again, if Mary was seen and spoken to between 8 and 10 o'clock, and she was then killed between 10 and 10:45, then surely the body would have been still quite warm, and the blood under the bed quite liquid,-- surely a doctor would have seen that? On the other hand, if it was someone else dressed in Mary's clothes who was seen while Mary's body was lying dead on the bed, or if it was Mary herself who was seen, while someone elses body was lying dead on the bed, then, whose clothes were supposedly neatly folded on a chair at the foot of the bed!
Colleen, the AtoZ states that no documentary evidence has been found to prove that Winifred May Collis existed, can I suggest you give her a try? You may succeed where others failed.
Regards, Rick. |
Author: Martin Fido
Wednesday, 28 February 2001 - 10:50 pm | | Dr Bond's autopsy report on MJK has been reprinted in several places. Although he can be faulted for saying she was naked - (the remains of her chemise are clearly evident in the photographs) - it seems evident that she was not pregnant.
Martin Fido |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Thursday, 01 March 2001 - 05:01 am | | Hi All,
Caroline Maxwell could not be dissuaded from her fairly detailed testimony, despite, I believe I am right in saying, being aware that her tale contradicted medical opinion as to time of death. We simply don't know if she had a particular axe to grind - perhaps she was a person who could not tolerate her word being doubted or contradicted, and could not admit that she was, or could have been, mistaken. But, say we give her the benefit of the doubt, and assume that she was honestly stating what she had seen and heard (she may have felt especially stubborn if she knew she was right, yet was being told otherwise), and add Maurice Lewis for good measure. Then I'd be more inclined to look again at the time of death, as Wolf has been doing, than to suggest that it was not Mary who was killed.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Leanne Perry
Thursday, 01 March 2001 - 07:18 am | | G'day Everyone,
STEPHEN: Joseph Barnett peered through the broken window and confirmed that the body on the bed was Kelly's and landlord John McCarthy had also confirmed that it was - that's two witnesses!
We share the opinion that her recorded time of death was wrong. Not that it wasn't her body.
It was just believed that she died at the time of Lewis and Prater hearing "OH MURDER!", because that meant that Dr. Bond was correct and they wanted her inquest over as soon as possible.
I believe that Mary may have wanted Barnett at least, to believe that she was carrying someone else's child. Maybe that myth had it's origins in what someone said at the time, but in actual fact proved to be a little white lie!
Leanne! |
Author: John Omlor
Thursday, 01 March 2001 - 08:45 am | | Hi All,
Just to be clear about this, my own sense is that the conventional wisdom here may very well be -- is most likely -- correct about all of this. That Mary Kelly was indeed killed sometime between the hours of 3 and 5 am after being seen that evening with an unidentified man and after taking him into No 13. That the body was then discovered the next morning and photographed and examined early that afternoon and that witnesses told the truth when they talked to the police that day.
What fascinates me still, and the reason I originally raised this little question, are the words of Caroline Maxwell, of 14 Dorset Street. I am interested for two reasons. First, because, as CAZ notes, she is emphatic about her story even after she learns that it is "different" from all the others (they tell her this at the inquest -The Coroner reminds her "You must be very careful about your evidence, because it is different to other people's.") Her story appears unchanged from the time it appears in Abberline's notes of the morning of November 9th right up through her deposition and testimony at the inquest. She is willing, even a bit eager to swear to the truth of her account. At one point she says this, only to be reminded that she is already doing so.
"Witness: I am sure it was the deceased. I am willing to swear it.
The Coroner: You are sworn now."
Why is Caroline Maxwell so insistent? What has happened? What do we know about her? We know her husband was the deputy at the nearby CLH. Perhaps she considered herself a bit "above" the rest of her neighbors and wanted to play an important role in the case in order to gain a bit of respect on the local streets. Perhaps she has told her story to friends and they have doubted her and it has become very important to her to be believed. Her reputation, she might feel, rests on this. I do not know. These are and must remain only random speculations. She says she has not seen Mary for 3 weeks until that particular Friday morning. Why? Where has Mrs. Maxwell been? It's a small area, after all, and Mary has been out around the local streets most recent evenings as far as we can tell. Mrs. Maxwell says nothing about being away. She does say it was unusual to see Mary at such an early hour and perhaps, as I'm sure she would want people to know, she keeps different hours than Mary and so would not see her that often. We do know this, although she is willing to swear that it is Mary she saw, she quickly refuses to swear about the hat the man she saw was wearing -- thereby reinforcing the significance of her earlier willingness to take the oath, demonstrating how much that means to her.
"I should have noticed if the man had had a tall silk hat, but we are accustomed to see men of all sorts with women. I should not like to pledge myself to the kind of hat."
[Martin, thanks. I guess I did know, of course, that Mary was not pregnant, that there is nothing in any of the reports concerning her being pregnant (I went back again and re-read them just to be sure). I only mentioned the rumor because I saw it somewhere on these boards and because Maxwell insists on Mary being ill that morning. And this detail in the conversation interests me.]
What also fascinates me is that Maxwell is one of the few witnesses in this instance who tells a little story. Her testimony takes the form of a small scene, complete with dialogue. It is a bit more dramatically elaborate than even the testimony of Joe Barnett (who keeps everything simple and informative). Mrs. Maxwell clearly has a certain kind of imagination that structures her memories in an immediate way. Her tale is compelling because of that and because of her refusal to waver from it. Perhaps she likes standing out in the crowd, being the one who tells a different story. I do not know.
But the other, larger reason that this question particularly interests me is, please forgive me in advance, a more theoretical one. I find it especially fascinating to see what happens when a community of scholars -- historical, philosophical, or even literary scholars -- is faced with conflicting tales, information, or documents that make the status of past events even more radically undecidable than they otherwise might be. Caroline Maxwell, after all, presents us with a problem of reading. Within the context of the other witnesses and the conventional wisdom that has built up around the case over more than a century, her small, disruptive narrative creates a crack, a slight tear in the smooth fabric of the accepted account as offered by doctors, other reliable witnesses, and the police. Her moment of testimony, as it remains in the official records, cannot simply be fit into the frame placed around the events of Mary's death in any way that keeps that frame closed and fulfills any promise of or desire for completeness or coherence. And yet, no account can be offered with confidence for her lying. So, as a community, the scholars gradually, quietly, decide what to do. Perhaps there is not even a decision. Nothing is formally agreed upon, there is no plan. But as the accounts that are more supported and more easily accepted take hold and gain deserved currency, Mrs. Maxwell remains, unaccounted for, but in a way erased. She becomes a footnote, or at least a piece of secondary information. "Oh yes, there was also a women who testified..." By placing her statements and their inevitable and unshakable contradictions at the margins of the narrative of events constructed, the effect of her challenge to the official account is softened, left only to come up now and then in discussions like this one and then to be dismissed with a sigh when it is seen that nothing can be done....
This happens all the time with reading problems, especially in literature. And Caroline Maxwell, even as she is a "historical" figure, offers an especially "literary" story, with the elements of a dramatic tale and with, in any reading after the fact and within the context of the dominant discourse, the undecidable constructions of "art" that so often challenge unexamined assumptions and received conventions. There is no evidence to suggest she does this deliberately, of course, that she knows she is writing against the grain and wants to shake people up out of their desire to have a closed account that can make them feel better about such a horribly disturbing and extraordinary series of events that already will not allow the Victorian imagination (or even our own) to come to any kind of final terms with them. No, like many of the most disruptive texts, Mrs. Maxwell's gets its force -- what little force it is allowed here, now, in these moments of reading within an already structured and received set of accounts -- from its position within the series of accounts widely accepted and, most especially, from its difference from those accounts. It is a small, quiet moment of undecidability and destabilization that threatens to split up the community (hers and ours) if taken too seriously or if re-read too often or too closely. It is, by itself, as testimony, not enough, nowhere near enough, to force a rewriting of events or even a thorough reconsideration of any comfortable account of historical truth. But it will not go away. It remains and, as remains, presents historians, scholars and readers with one of those textual moments that spills out over the borders of any desire for simplicity, neatness or coherence and goes on to trouble those who would re-read and re-write even as they quickly try to tell another story.
I find this sort of textual moment intriguing both in historical and in literary terms. Such "accidents" of memories and events pose powerful problems concerning interpretation and knowledge and our own desires, which I think tell us a lot about ourselves and about our times. Such textual remains, sitting quietly but undecidably in the middle of the "official" record, challenge our patience for reading and our ability to live with the annoyance of unacceptable contradictions. Perhaps she is simply lying, perhaps she is promoting her own place in the community, perhaps she is telling the truth and our assumptions are wrong about events, perhaps she believes she is telling the truth and is the victim of a trick of memory or of a dramatic imagination. In any case, she has deposited into our files and our reading a moment that remains to call our attention to the undecidable nature of our enterprise and to our own desires.
At least, that's a way of looking at all of this that, at the moment, I find particularly provocative.
Then again, it's 8:30 am here and I could still be half asleep.
--John |
Author: Lisa Muir
Thursday, 01 March 2001 - 02:45 pm | | Mr. Omlor -
The above was written so beautifully - please, don't tell me you were half-asleep! |
Author: Wolf Vanderlinden
Thursday, 01 March 2001 - 03:40 pm | | Hello all. There were, perhaps, three witnesses who claimed to have seen Mary Kelly alive on the morning of the 9th that might challenge our belief in the status quo. Caroline Maxwell, Maurice Lewis and an unidentified woman mentioned in the Times.
According to Donald McCormick, this unidentified woman was supposed to have been standing in Dorset Street between the hours of 8 and 9 a.m., when she saw Mary Kelly walking towards Commercial Street. This would tie in quite nicely with Maxwell's testimony that she saw Kelly outside The Britannia, which was situated at the corner of Dorset and Commercial street, at around 8:45 a.m..Unfortunately, this is McCormick we're dealing with and so this must be taken with a mountain of salt. According to the Times of November 12th, this woman was positive that she had seen Kelly alive between half-past 8 and a quarter to 9 on the morning of the 9th and the Illustrated Police News of November 17th tells us that Kelly was seen walking along Dorset street at about 8:30 that morning, looking cheerful, bright and well, (which does not seem to jive with her having ‘the horrors of drink upon her'). It is possible that this statement is from the same unidentified woman written about in the Times and that McCormick was right. It is possible that this unidentified woman was, in fact, Caroline Maxwell herself. Hard to say, but she remains yet another tantalizing question mark.
John and Caz have mentioned the statements of Maurice Lewis, but how trustworthy was he? His description of Mary Kelly, that she was short, dark and stout, doesn't seem to match with other accounts beyond the fact that seems to have been stout. He also claimed to have known Kelly for five years and yet she had only been in London for four and had only lived in Whitechapel for less than two.
Lewis also seems to have seen a lot of Mary in the hours surrounding her death, much more than anyone else. He described seeing Kelly between the hours of 10:00 and 11:00, drinking with a woman named Julia and ""Dan," a man selling oranges in Billingsgate and Spitalfields markets, with whom she lived up till as recently as a fortnight ago.", in The Horn of Plenty on the night of the 8th. This would appear to be incorrect if we assume that "Dan" was in fact Joe Barnett. Barnett was quite clear, he had visited Kelly in Dorset street sometime between 7:30 and 7:45 and that he stayed for only 15 minutes, (something that was correctly reported on by the Daily Telegraph in their coverage of the inquest, but incorrectly transcribed as ‘one hour' in the official inquest report.) Also, in answer to a direct question from the Coroner, Barnett categorically denies drinking with Kelly at that time and his alibi of returning to his lodgings in Bishopsgate to play cards for the rest of the evening was verified by the police. If we then assume that this man was not Joe Barnett, then Lewis's credibility is severely diminished.
It seems odd that Lewis lived on Dorset street, claimed to have known Mary Kelly for years, knew that the man she was living with had left her yet doesn't know the mans name and apparently, can't recognize him on sight. Lewis also claims to have seen Kelly drinking in The Britannia after 10:00 a.m. on the morning of the 9th. Considering the fact that she was discovered dead at 10:45 a.m. this seems highly unlikely, not totally impossible, but unlikely. I am afraid that, in the end, Maurice Lewis is not a very credible witness here, especially if one is trying to question the strongly held belief of the time of death of Mary Kelly.
John has made some astute observations regarding Caroline Maxwell to which I can add little. I will say this, however. It is easy to disregard Maxwell's testimony by claiming that she must have got the day wrong because this is the no fuss, intellectually easy answer to a question that is hard to explain. This simple solution has staggering implications however. Implications that are never clearly thought out. If we accept this solution we must therefor accept the fact that the officials of the day must have been either totally incompetent or that somehow our ancestors of just a little over one hundred years ago possessed severely diminished powers of critical thought as compared to our own, or indeed to newspaper men of the day. Are we really to believe that Caroline Maxwell's statements were simply taken at face value by the police? That somehow she had escaped searching questions or a verification, as far as they were able, of her story? The police did check Maxwell's story and found that she seems to have described Mary Kelly's clothing accurately and that she had performed her errand to Bishopsgate on the morning of the 9th, as she had stated. This is why she was called as a witness to the inquest because the police, having checked, couldn't shake her story. They couldn't explain it nor did they believe it but they couldn't dismiss it out of hand.
We are left with two possibilities if confusion over the date is removed. Either Caroline Maxwell was telling the truth or she was lying, not fudging the truth, but lying. This is certainly possible and we can't now know beyond any reasonable certainty but, and this is a big but, if we add modern medical evidence, evidence that points to a much later time of death, all of a sudden we have the possibility of at least one eye witness to corroborate this new viewpoint. Maxwell's testimony is, however, quickly dismissed by most and she is generally seen as an unreliable witness, while the changing testimonies of other witnesses are not even questioned let alone commented on..
I am not going to rehash my beliefs regarding the time of death of Mary Kelly, or Annie Chapman for that matter, I have written about them in some length on these boards, but I initially answered Johns question in order to point out that certain witnesses are treated differently than others, that there is a certain status quo regarding the study of the Whitechapel murders and that critical thought is sometimes lacking, even by those who will accept outright the testimony of someone like Maurice Lewis. In the end, there seems to be some evidence that puts the accepted time of death of Mary Jane Kelly into some doubt. No one has to believe the evidence, but you will have to acknowledge that it does indeed exist.
Wolf. |
Author: Leanne Perry
Thursday, 01 March 2001 - 04:44 pm | | G'day Everyone,
JOHN: You watch too many soap operas on T.V. mate! If Caroline Maxwell lied with her statement about seeing and speaking with Mary, why would she then admit that she hasn't seen Mary for nearly a month? Why didn't she say: "Well,I should know because I see her every morning"? Then why did she refuse to swear about the style of hat? In most Australian soap operas, there's at least one character just like the Mrs Maxwell you describe.
I've got an idea that the belief that Mary was pregnant, started in a very early book written about Jack. A book that could have included eyewitness comments. That's why I believe it may have started as a contemporary rumour!
If we continue to ignore the testimonies that 'don't fit', how are we ever going to solve this?
I think that one problem in literature occurs when a writer goes on and on and on and on, before s/he gets to the end of a sentence. The problem is that the reader gets lost before they get to the end, and has to start over again!
That's why I put a lot of double spaces between paragraphs in my posts too. To give the readers eyes a 'rest'!
LEANNE! |
Author: John Omlor
Thursday, 01 March 2001 - 06:07 pm | | Lisa,
Thank you for the kind words.
Leanne,
I don't get a chance to watch soaps, but I think I know the type of person you are talking about. In my own post, I was not trying to draw any conclusions about Mrs. Maxwell; merely pose some questions regarding the effect of her testimony for the study of the case and the development of any received conventions. I was, of course, also trying to explain a bit about what precisely interests me in this issue.
I am sorry by the way, if the sentences in my morning post seemed to roll on too long for you. When my brain shifts into any sort of theory-mode, my syntax changes -- it's an occupational hazard, I suppose. I will to try fix this.
Wolf,
I think your analysis of the doubts surrounding Mr. Lewis' reports is a thorough one that raises serious questions. Then, still, as you demonstrate yourself, Mrs. Maxwell's story remains.
This remainder and its effects (or the effects of its at least partial erasure) are what I find so fascinating. They seem, as remainders that exceed the borders of accepted narratives so often do, to resist being assimilated easily into any particular account of events without simultaneously raising more questions and concerns for whoever happens to be telling the story at the moment.
I like that.
--John |
Author: Diana
Thursday, 01 March 2001 - 08:03 pm | | A lot depends on Maxwell's personality. I think all of us have encountered people who can never admit to being wrong, no matter what evidence is presented to them. If Maxwell was one of those (and it seems to me the less intelligent/educated a person is the more dogged their determination that their own perceptions/memories are infallible) then she can be discounted.
I have encountered certain individuals who have expressed fallacious ideas/opinions in my presence and I have not bothered to contradict them because I know ahead of time that the best arguments in the world will not change their set-in-cement thinking.
On the other hand she may have honestly seen what she claimed to see and thus decided to stick to her story.
It would have been very useful in 1888 to just get to know Maxwell on an informal basis and find out if she was one of those opinionated types or if she just honestly was convinced that she saw what she said she saw. In the first instance that quality of opinionated thinking would spill over into other issues/situations in her life. |
Author: Leanne Perry
Friday, 02 March 2001 - 03:50 am | | G'day Diana,
I know what you mean by 'set-in-cement thinking'. The trouble here is we don't know who was stuck in the cement: The people who heard someone yell "OH MURDER" or the three people who saw Mary, (Maxwell, Lewis and I believe there was an unidentified witness).
LEANNE! |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Friday, 02 March 2001 - 05:08 am | | Hi Leanne,
I don't think the cries of "oh murder" are relevant to your 'stuck in cement' point, because we don't know that the cry, if heard by the two women, came from a Mary in fear of her life, or, as the women presumably thought when they heard it, nothing more than an old London cry in the night.
I agree with John. I also find it fascinating to observe how the various scholars deal with the 'sore thumb' created by Maxwell's testimony. In the absence of any useful clues from contemporary reports, as Diana points out, about Maxwell's personality (I disagree strongly that intelligence/education has any bearing on a person's ability to admit fallibility, to themselves or others), do scholars use a rule that says a person is generally thought to be truthful unless there are very good reasons to believe otherwise, or can this be altered as and when the occasion suits, as in keeping the books nice and straight?
John, I think you'll be wonderfully at home on the Diary pages, where there are so many 'sore Maxwellian thumbs' sticking out in all directions, it should give you endless amusement watching how the various protagonists go about their business trying to poke them back in, apply antiseptic cream, or go in for amputation! 
Love,
Caz |
Author: Rachel Henderson
Friday, 02 March 2001 - 10:08 am | | I understand that for the Police, eyewitness testimony can be problematic, purely because people misremember or place ther own interpretations on events - albeit unknowingly. For example, a survey in Birmingham (UK) a few years ago staged a mugging with 3 white youths "attacking" a woman and running off with her bag. The Police questioned all available witnesses on the spot and again later, and discovered that around 80% of those questioned described the muggers as black. This example was then used to demonstrate that even 20 minutes after an incident, people will unwittingly alter their story to fit their own preconceived perceptions or prejudices of what they saw.
The point, really, is that Maxwell may have seen Mary Kelly, may have truly believed she saw Kelly, but the crucial difference is an Andersonian one: was it what she saw, or what she believed she saw?
Does this make sense, or am I barking up the wrong tree? (Won't be the first time!)
Rachel |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Friday, 02 March 2001 - 11:18 am | | Hi Rachel,
Of course you are right. It must be a nightmare for the police to assess the quality of eyewitness testimony.
I guess we just don't know enough to be sure with Maxwell one way or another, but at least we can be grateful that her testimony isn't lost to the case on account of its contradictory nature.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Wolf Vanderlinden
Friday, 02 March 2001 - 12:34 pm | | Oh no, this had to get interesting just when I'm going away for the weekend. Rachel has made a valid and interesting point, one which I have no time to discuss right now as I'm literally 'out the door'. Doh!
Have a good weekend all.
Wolf. |
Author: John Omlor
Friday, 02 March 2001 - 02:06 pm | | Rachel,
I think you make an excellent point about the reliability of witnesses and the way their testimony can often be, shall we say, "ideologically informed" (I'm being polite).
But one of the problems with Mrs. Maxwell's testimony, it seems to me, is precisely that it is not a disagreement between a group of people who all saw something over just what it was they saw. It is, rather, the detailed account of an individual who insists that she remembers meeting, stopping and speaking to another individual hours after one of them was supposed to be dead.
And it would have been difficult for Mrs. Maxwell to have her days confused, since Abberline first takes her story on the afternoon of the 9th. She is saying she talked to Mary *that* morning.
One odd textual note for people to ponder:
In her initial statement, written I think in Abberline's hand, Mrs. Maxwell speaks of meeting Mary "Friday morning 9th.*" Then, in a marginal note, Abberline adds "*about half past 8 o'clock."
Later, in her deposition, Caroline says "I am positive the time was between 8 & half past I am positive I saw deceased I spoke to her."
I wonder why Abberline had to remember to add the time as a marginal comment in the original report. How did the interview go? Did he say anything to her about the time that day? What prompted the positioning of the time outside the body of the report? Was the note added at the time of the interview or later?
It is, by the way, apparently the *only* marginal note made on any of the initial witness statements in the Kelly case. And, if I read Skinner and Evans' Companion right, it might come complete with asterisk, just like a textual note.
Just a little Friday oddity...
--John |
Author: Leanne Perry
Friday, 02 March 2001 - 04:05 pm | | G'day Rachel,
About the 'staged mugging' you describe: Did any of the witnesses stop and talk to the thieves, before they ran off?
LEANNE! |
Author: Warwick Parminter
Friday, 02 March 2001 - 04:32 pm | | To all, or anyone who can help.
My wife is trying to put a small photograph of myself into my profile,(I don't know how,--I'm a male), three times she's tried, and three times it's come out massive! I wanted something the same size picture as Caz, or Chris, would somebody help us PLEASE,
Hopefully, Rick |
Author: Triston Marc Bunker
Friday, 02 March 2001 - 07:41 pm | | To All,
Good to see us not mention the intelectually challengened tonight..........
Tris |
Author: Alegria
Friday, 02 March 2001 - 07:56 pm | | Rick,
In the program that you used to scan the photo, there should be a resize button. You scale it down to approx 200 pixel width. |
Author: John Omlor
Saturday, 03 March 2001 - 01:16 pm | | Hello everyone,
Please allow me to offer a few more thoughts about Mrs. Maxwell. It seems to me unlikely that she would stick to her story (despite the preponderance of accepted evidence and witness testimony that her tale seems to contradict) solely for the purpose of making herself important or to increase her reputation; since her insistence upon her tale in fact could only, and does, have the opposite effect -- relegating her to the margins as an exception, an inconvenient anomaly, turning her into a footnote and perhaps, at the time, even casting doubt upon her reliability and her reputation. She had to know at some point when conclusions were being reached that it would have been the easiest thing to say "Yes, that's right, it must have been Thursday morning that I saw Mary..." Perhaps she would have lost her unique position as dissenting witness (a position which she might have enjoyed although I cannot imagine it made her daily life too comfortable -- what must her husband have thought of all of this?) but she would have been welcomed into the fold of witnesses and into the official narrative I am sure with eager arms by all of those looking for more support for the official account of events and for some closure for their particular narratives. How frustrating it must have been for her to tell her tale only to see it have no effect on the reported conclusions eventually drawn in the papers and in the history afterwards. I do not even know how long she lived, but we have no evidence that she stood to gain in any way, either in terms of her reputation and standing or in financial terms from her testimony and no one ever came forward to refute her tale. Odd. I am trying to imagine for myself the circumstances under which she could be mistaken. She knows Mary and Joe. And that day is not only the day of the murder, it is also a celebration day, as we know, and not likely a day Caroline might confuse with the day before.
In any case, I wanted to offer a small example of the sort of thing that happens to Mrs. Maxwell and her tale when it is rewritten into history. I could have chosen any number of Ripper books for this, and my choice is in no way meant as a criticism of this books' authors. I admire Stewart Evans and his research and writing a great deal. He has taught me, through his texts and through the documents he has made available to us all, nearly everything I know about this case in one way or another. But I want to read just two paragraphs of one of his books to illustrate my point.
I recognize that the purpose of Evans and Gainey's Jack the Ripper: First American Serial Killer is not to recount the murders per se, but to advance the case for Tumblety as a suspect. I am not seeking to criticize that project or its conclusions here. I merely want to look at a moment in the text that is repeated, in different ways, in book after book on the case.
On page 142 Gainey and Evans write:
"If the cry does not indicate the time of Kelly's death, then it is virtually impossible, from the evidence given, to say what time she did die. What medical evidence there is on this point is vague and, as we have seen, doctors of the era were notoriously inaccurate in their estimations. Factors that would have had a great effect in the case of Kelly were the extremely cold November day, the nakedness and evisceration of the body, and the delay, at least two hours and forty-five minutes, between the finding of the body and the doctor's first examination.
"The other great difficulty about determining a time for the murder is the evidence of Mrs. Maxwell, who claimed to have seen Kelly at a later time. This, in view of the foregoing evidence, cannot be correct unless we accept the fanciful theorizing of those who assert that it was not Kelly who was murdered in Miller's Court. The authors feel that in the final reckoning we must accept that Mrs. Maxwell was mistaken and had, in fact, seen Kelly on Thursday morning. Her time of death, although by no means certain, we must place just before 4 am, in accordance with the cry heard by the witnesses."
That is how easily and quickly it is done. I do not fault Evans and Gainey. They were doing what they had to do, what was expected of them -- to draw conclusions. Imagine their publisher's reaction if they tried to end the chapter announcing that "because of the conflict between the testimony of the attending doctor and several witnesses and that of Mrs. Maxwell, a conflict that can in no way be simply resolved, we are unable to make any conclusions about the time of Mary Kelly's death or what precisely happened in her final hours." I am afraid that would not satisfy very many readers.
But if we examine the movement of the argument between the two paragraphs we see a telling moment of slippage, a subtle elision that allows the conclusion to sound stronger than it actually is. The first paragraph begins by explicitly stating the unreliability factors built into much of the accepted evidence. Then Mrs. Maxwell is mentioned as posing "the other great difficulty." Then there is a simple phrase, set between two commas, allowed to stand there on its own without even hinting of the contradiction implied within it:
"This, in view of the foregoing evidence, cannot be correct unless...."
and then the fanciful idea that it was not Mary in the bed is offered as the only way Mrs. Maxwell's testimony can be made to fit.
Two things have happened here. First, and most importantly, the phrase "in view of the foregoing evidence" is allowed to do the work of establishing an official and accepted narrative of reliability even immediately after the previous paragraph has just finished announcing that no such account can actually exist given the number of "factors" that remain troublesome. Within the sentence, the phrase serves to legitimize, before the fact, the 4am conclusion without actually making an argument and therefore makes Mrs. Maxwell necessarily mistaken. But, not only has the page *not* argued that the "foregoing evidence," including the cries, allows one to establish such a conclusion; it has argued precisely the opposite and only ten lines above. This logic of first announcing the difficulties and then eliding over them with a simple phrase, the logic of "This is a problem but... and then "therefore.." allows the text to have it both ways. It can "consider" the difficulties without actually having to deal with the ramifications of them because it then allows those difficulties to quietly shift into a conclusion and stand as "foregoing evidence" which has, somehow, apparently become reliable. It is a moment when the text seeks to fund towards closure and finding obstacles in the way, it absorbs them and buries them in a reading move that is not left for the reader to see -- the obstacles in the first paragraph now having been subtly translated into compelling "foregoing evidence" in the second. And, because of this bit of textual sleight of hand, a strategy necessary if the text is ever going to reach the expected conclusion and satisfy the desire of its readers for some sort of closure at the end of the chapter, some sort of presence, of there being something *there*, because of this Mrs. Maxwell must abruptly be dismissed as having been "mistaken." No mistake is proven, of course, no evidence is even offered in support of the claim that she must be mistaken. She must be because her tale is not easily absorbed into the" foregoing evidence." But the evidence, despite the warnings of the first paragraph, is indeed "foregoing" -- it has come before. It has already been established and Mrs. Maxwell has no chance.
Of less importance perhaps, but still telling as to its effects, is the fact that Caroline's story is also linked by association with a set of theories -- by no means, as we have seen on this board, the *only* theories that can include her testimony -- that are easier for the authors to dismiss as "fanciful." One way or another, her testimony is dealt with without serious arguments that would account for her "mistake." Either she *must* be mistaken because of some powerful "foregoing evidence" -- though its power remains unestablished and even cast into doubt by the text itself -- or her tale is scapegoated out of the community of facts by tying it to "fanciful theorizing."
This is the anatomy of an argument that never really takes place. It is mere dismissal dressed in the disguise of an argument and the conclusions that are allegedly arrived at
"The authors feel that in the final reckoning we must accept that Mrs. Maxwell is mistaken."
are particularly troublesome. Where does this "must accept" come from? Why "must"? Why this language of the imperative, this language of inevitability when the text itself recognize all the doubts that surround the evidence? Why are these doubts not allowed to stand but necessarily transformed into conclusions that "must" be accepted? That word "must" does the job -- it allows the argument to appear to have reached a conclusion and therefore to have considered and rejected Mrs. Maxwell's testimony with reason. But that is not, in fact, what has happened and the "must" has been slipped into the argument only in order to *reach* the conclusion without giving Mrs. Maxwell's testimony a chance to stand on the same level as cries heard in the night or medical evidence from doctors that were "notoriously inaccurate in their estimations."
From what I can tell, this has happened to Mrs. Maxwell and her testimony (and at this point in history, she *is* her testimony -- it is nearly all that remains of her and what her name has come to signify) repeatedly in a number of Ripper books in a similar way.
This fate, more than anything else, seems to me to renew the call that she be once again heard. And that leads me to a final request.
I have what I think is a simple question. Has anyone ever attempted or succeeded in doing any serious, detailed biographical research on Caroline Maxwell, her family and her home life? I must admit that lately I have been haunted by this woman and her story and her unwillingness to waver from it; but from all the Ripper books I have read, the details about her seem to be still fairly sketchy (usually just her husband's job, her story, her errand, etc..). I can't help wondering what people around the neighborhood thought of her, what her husband thought of the role she was playing in the drama and especially just what sort of woman she was (and of course other things like why she hadn't seen MJK for weeks and yet spoke to her the very morning of the day she was later interviewed by police, the day of the murder).
If anyone has researched Mrs. Maxwell's character or her bio, please let me know where I might find that material.
Thanks for reading and I apologize for the length of all this.
--John |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Saturday, 03 March 2001 - 02:15 pm | | Dear John,
"Did Caroline Maxwell see Mary Kelly?" Simple question, John. |
Author: John Omlor
Saturday, 03 March 2001 - 02:19 pm | | Hi Rosemary,
Could there be a simple answer?
The simplest one, I suppose, is "I don't know."
I do know that she testified repeatedly that she did and, for a number of reasons, I am interested in what happens to that testimony when we try and reconstruct events. I hope the above post at least demonstrates that interest.
--John |
Author: Diana
Saturday, 03 March 2001 - 09:06 pm | | | The key lies in her personality. |
Author: Judith Stock
Sunday, 04 March 2001 - 01:19 am | | Apropos of nothing, we all know that witnesses under NO stress, and with NO reason to lie, very often see what they want to see, and not what is actually there. Few cases are hung on the eye- witness testimony of one person alone; most are made firm by what is very often denigrated as "only" circumstantial evidence. A man was executed in Texas recently (so what's new about THAT?) because of one woman's eyewitness testimony, and before the execution took place, her evidence had been shredded as unreliable and self-aggrandising. However, she still clung to her story, even though she had been proven unreliable, and the story impossible to prove with any validity. True to form, the Texas courts and governor (Howdy Doody Bush) chose to ignore the problem, and claimed the evidence was ample without the woman's testimony....which later proved NOT to be the case...and proceeded with the execution. The so-called evidence could not place the man at the scene of the crime, and could not explain away his rock-solid alibi, but ...no matter. Defence psychologists spoke of WHY the woman refused to back away from her supposed unshakeable statement; what they offered was very simple: once one has placed themselves well and truly in the spotlight, or limelight, or in the headlights, with a statement of "fact" delivered with firm resolve and determination, it is very difficult to publicly back away and say "oooops!" Few people are willing to do it, even fewer these days of "it's not MY fault!"
Maybe Caroline found herself in that position, but couldn't bring herself to recant once she was in print.
Just an observation, on Caroline and her fifteen minutes of fame, for a Saturday evening......
Regards to all,
Judith Stock |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Sunday, 04 March 2001 - 04:15 am | | Dear John,
That is not a simple answer!"Did Caroline Maxwell see Mary Kelly?" |
Author: R Court
Sunday, 04 March 2001 - 05:09 am | | Hi all,
According to the inquest notes on Mary, Caroline Maxwell did not know her for long, apparantly only having spoken to her a couple of times. I suspect that Caroline, even when telling the truth as far as she believed it, could have confused Mary with some-one else.
Witness staements concerning, as example, Mary's supposed child, or that she lived on the second floor showed clearly that at least here, the wrong person had been identified. Caroline did describe Mary's clothing fairly accurately as far as we know (black velvet dress, etc.) but if another woman in the near just happend to be wearing just such apparel, and accepting Caroline's poor knowledge of Mary, an unintended misidentification would have been easily possible.
I personaly cannot accept that, if some other poor wretch had been the victim in Mary's bed, Mary would afterwards casually stroll around drinking beer, chatting with neighbours and so on before making herself scarce. After having found that horror scenario in her own home she would with certainty not just have bought up the last beer.
Unless (hee hee)... Mary was Jack...
Best regards
Bob |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Sunday, 04 March 2001 - 05:15 am | | Dear Bob,
Or...Jack was Mary. |
Author: R Court
Sunday, 04 March 2001 - 05:49 am | | Hi Rosemary,
Or so. This, of course, might bring new light into the JtR question... was Jack Mary? Something for a new suspect entry like Victoria Queen, but that was along time ago. The question then is, however, if Jack-Mary chopped up the victim in Millers Court, then who was the unfortunant? Not Maxwell.
Best regards,
Bob |
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