Reid : News Of The World Article April 12, 1896

[Trevor Marriott]

I didn't say it was an error (regarding Kelly), nor would it be "convenient" for me, because I have no theory about the removal of organs, and therefore no axe to grind.

I said that police reminiscences are unreliable. Solid contemporary evidence is what's needed.

Well lets start with more corroboration from 1888!

The Times 10th November


“The latest account states upon what professes to be indisputable authority that no portion of the woman's body was taken away by the murderer. As already stated, the post-mortem examination was of the most exhaustive character, and surgeons did not quit their work until every organ had been accounted for and placed as closely as possible in its natural position.”

Times Nov 12th


“As early as half past 7 on Saturday morning, Dr. Phillips, assisted by Dr. Bond (Westminster), Dr. Gordon Brown (City), Dr. Duke (Spitalfields) and his (Dr. Phillips') assistant, made an exhaustive post-mortem examination of the body at the mortuary adjoining Whitechapel Church.It is known that after Dr. Phillips "fitted" the cut portions of the body into their proper places no portion was missing. At the first examination, which was only of a cursory character, it was thought that a portion of the body had gone, but this is not the case. The examination was most minutely made, and lasted upwards of 2 ½ hours after which the mutilated portions were sewn to the body,

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[Chris Phillips]

and is that convenient to say the part regarding the organs removal was an error on his part, come on give the man some credit for his rank and his direct involvement in the case !

I didn't say it was an error (regarding Kelly), nor would it be "convenient" for me, because I have no theory about the removal of organs, and therefore no axe to grind.

I said that police reminiscences are unreliable. Solid contemporary evidence is what's needed.

[Trevor Marriott]

If so, then you need to rely on the independent sources, not on Reid. Because police reminiscences years after the event aren't reliable. And it's obvious that Reid's reminiscences contain many errors.

and is that convenient to say the part regarding the organs removal was an error on his part, come on give the man some credit for his rank and his direct involvement in the case !


Was his memory failing when he gave the previous newspaper article in 1910 which Howard posted previous I dont see anyone pulling that article to pieces to prove their point.



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[Trevor Marriott]

Trevor,
But he was that out of touch. He flat out stated that all the bodies were found intact, and if Anderson or Swanson had said it then you'd have been shouting it from the rooftops in your determination to show how unreliable they are. But because it's Reid, you are fighting tooth and claw to argue that he didn't say what he clearly did say.

There is no disputing that in Reid's case he was unreliable, even about the Tabram investigation of which he had direct personal knowledge. You can't judge Reid just on his accuracy about Kelly, it's the totality of what he said that gives the clearest picture of the man, and the things that would have been important to him. For example, are you really sure that the missing body parts were that important back then? It's your assumption that they were, that they would have been at the forefront of Reid's mind, but if they weren't then it becomes less incomprehensible that Reid might never have taken the matter on board.

It really all boils down to what information was given to Reid, what was important to him, and how much he remembered. Like Major Smith, he thought he was important enough to know all the facts, but what if he wasn't as well-informed as he thought. What if he wasn't interested in the medical evidence?

Reid wrote, "Another absurd theory was that the murders were committed by a left-handed man who had seized his Victim from behind. The evidence was quite contrary to this. In the throat cutting the fiend had shown cunning. The position of the blood andthe body showed that he had stood face to face with the woman, and had slashed her throat, with his right hand from right to left, causing the blood to spurt away from him, so that he probably never had any blood stains on his clothes.”

This was not in agreement with Dr Bond, who, in his report to Robert Anderson, concluded “All five murders were no doubt committed by the same hand. In the first four the throats appear to have been cut from left to right...All the circumstances surrounding the murders lead me to form the opinion that the women must have been lying down when murdered and in every case the throat was first cut.”

Reid said the throat was cut from right to left and that the victim was standing, Bond said the cut was from left to right and that the victim was lying down. How conversant do you think this suggests Reid was with the medical evidence? There is evidence that suggests Bond and/or Hebbert said Kelly's heart was missing from the room. Reid's apparent ignorance of Dr Bond's conclusions has to raise a big question mark over Kelly’s heart, don't you think?

But thats a good point because conversely Anderson, Swanson, Macnaghten. Abberline, Dew, and Smith and Dr Bond in his report to Anderson all seem to have conveninelty forgot to mention the most heinous part of these crimes the taking away of the organs by the killer, I wonder why all of these make no mention in their later ramblings. I would have expected someone when discussing the murders to sugest that the motive for thse murders could have been organ harvesting.

You have mentioned Hebbert who was scribing for Dr Bond who prepared his report to Anderson from Hebberts notes. Hebbert scribed the heart was missing from the pericardium not that it was missing from the room.

In fact Hebbert did not go to Millers Court with the others after the post mortem so he is of no real evidential value other than to corroborate what Bond stated, and that falls short of conclusive proof that the heart was taken away by the killer.


With regards to the difference of opinions bewteen Reid and Bond I think Reid was quite entitled to question Bonds opinion. I did previously ask Dr Biggs to comment on the position of the killer in some of the murders given that the various doctors all gave different opinions back then.


Q. The doctors in their reports offer opinions as to which position the killer was with the victims when carrying out the murders. Are these opinions reliable or simply guesswork?

A. In answer to your question, it is impossible to say with certainty how the wounds were inflicted in terms of ‘reconstructing’ events from the appearance of wounds. This is something that used to be quite ‘popular’ even up until relatively late on in the 20thcentury, with pathologists stating confidently that a left-handed dwarf with a limp inflicted the injury from behind using a specific knife, etc. Nowadays it is accepted that there is so much variation that in such cases, apart from a few ‘extreme’ scenarios that can be more-or-less excluded, just about anything is possible.

So in other words, the killer could have been behind the victim (with them both standing), or he (or she!) could have been ‘above’ the victim (kneeling, squatting, crouched, lying, stooping...) whilst she lay upon the ground (+/- prior strangling). Or it could have happened during a highly dynamic struggle, with all manners of grappling, twisting and fortuitous slashing going on. Only persons present at the time really know what went on (and we can’t ask them!), and nobody can be certain about a ‘reconstruction’ now based on photos / medical records. If several envisaged scenarios are actually ‘possible’, then nobody can argue in favour of a particular one any more than another.

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[Trevor Marriott]

I doubt that, Chris. But I really do wonder how much information about MJK's postmortem Reid would be privy to.What was the procedure in cases like this I wonder? Does anyone know? Who, officially, would have been given the precise details of the results of the postmortem on Kelly? There was no information given at Kelly's inquest on the nature of the mutilations for anyone to pick up the information there.

To answer your question I believe Reid attended the post mortem and from there he and others went back to Millers Court to conduct further enquiries and to examine the remains in the fireplace as to what they found we can only speculate. perhaps the remains of a burnt heart?

So Reid was very much hands on with this specific murder.

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[Debra Arif]

It never does. But ne lives in hope...

Me too. That's those rose tinted specs of ours at work.

[Debra Arif]

I think you are benefitting from better background knowledge than I have. But nothing new there.

I doubt that, Chris. But I really do wonder how much information about MJK's postmortem Reid would be privy to.What was the procedure in cases like this I wonder? Does anyone know? Who, officially, would have been given the precise details of the results of the postmortem on Kelly? There was no information given at Kelly's inquest on the nature of the mutilations for anyone to pick up the information there.

[Paul]

For sure. Apart from I wondered just now if Reid was actually remembering initial reports that Kelly's uterus had been removed and taken away and setting that record straight. Nothing much has changed since the last time it was discussed though.

It never does. But ne lives in hope...

[Paul]

I understand it, and let me say that Reid was not directly involved in the murders of Nichols and Chapman.but by the time the Kelly murder took place as head of Whitechapel CID you would expect him to know the full facts about the all other murders, and we know that organs were found missing from the other victims when they did the post mortems

So for those on here to infer that he made a comment suggesting all the bodies were intact is beyond belief even he was not that out of touch.

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Trevor,
But he was that out of touch. He flat out stated that all the bodies were found intact, and if Anderson or Swanson had said it then you'd have been shouting it from the rooftops in your determination to show how unreliable they are. But because it's Reid, you are fighting tooth and claw to argue that he didn't say what he clearly did say.

There is no disputing that in Reid's case he was unreliable, even about the Tabram investigation of which he had direct personal knowledge. You can't judge Reid just on his accuracy about Kelly, it's the totality of what he said that gives the clearest picture of the man, and the things that would have been important to him. For example, are you really sure that the missing body parts were that important back then? It's your assumption that they were, that they would have been at the forefront of Reid's mind, but if they weren't then it becomes less incomprehensible that Reid might never have taken the matter on board.

It really all boils down to what information was given to Reid, what was important to him, and how much he remembered. Like Major Smith, he thought he was important enough to know all the facts, but what if he wasn't as well-informed as he thought. What if he wasn't interested in the medical evidence?

Reid wrote, "Another absurd theory was that the murders were committed by a left-handed man who had seized his Victim from behind. The evidence was quite contrary to this. In the throat cutting the fiend had shown cunning. The position of the blood andthe body showed that he had stood face to face with the woman, and had slashed her throat, with his right hand from right to left, causing the blood to spurt away from him, so that he probably never had any blood stains on his clothes.”

This was not in agreement with Dr Bond, who, in his report to Robert Anderson, concluded “All five murders were no doubt committed by the same hand. In the first four the throats appear to have been cut from left to right...All the circumstances surrounding the murders lead me to form the opinion that the women must have been lying down when murdered and in every case the throat was first cut.”


Reid said the throat was cut from right to left and that the victim was standing, Bond said the cut was from left to right and that the victim was lying down. How conversant do you think this suggests Reid was with the medical evidence? There is evidence that suggests Bond and/or Hebbert said Kelly's heart was missing from the room. Reid's apparent ignorance of Dr Bond's conclusions has to raise a big question mark over Kelly’s heart, don't you think?

[Chris Phillips]

For sure. Apart from I wondered just now if Reid was actually remembering initial reports that Kelly's uterus had been removed and taken away and setting that record straight. Nothing much has changed since the last time it was discussed though.

I think you are benefitting from better background knowledge than I have. But nothing new there.

[Debra Arif]

I think that's the view of nearly everyone here.

For sure. Apart from I wondered just now if Reid was actually remembering initial reports that Kelly's uterus had been removed and taken away and setting that record straight. Nothing much has changed since the last time it was discussed though.

[Debra Arif]

Reid does not specifically mention that he is refuting stories that it was Mary Jane Kelly's heart that was removed and taken away does he?

[Chris Phillips]

At the risk of taking enfillading fire from both sides, I interpret it that Reid is saying that nothing was missing from any of the bodies of the victims. That is, yes, he's specifically referring to the Kelly murder and saying her heart was intact, no parts of her body were missing but also making a general statement about what he understood about the bodies.

I think that's the view of nearly everyone here.

[Gary Barnett]

You are digressing I am specifically dealing with the Kelly murder which it is documented he was directly involved. I have accepted that in the NOW article he did make two minor mistakes on the Kelly murder and that shows that no one is infallible, but you and others are cherry picking the parts you accept and disregarding the other important parts which you suggest are down to memory failure


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Not at all. We are considering how reliable a source Reid is. If he gets loads of stuff wrong about one case he was intimately involved in (Tabram) then we must allow for the possibility that he got stuff about other cases wrong. The fact that he was able to quote Kelly’s rent correctly doesn’t in itself mean he had remembered that detail from 1888. He could have looked it up before giving the NOW interview.

I don’t know if it was the case with Reid, but I know that Fred Wensley compiled scrapbooks of press cuttings relating to cases he had been involved in.

[Chris G.]

This isn't about what Evans and Gainey interpret. Don't you understand that? It is a direct quote of what Reid wrote:
"It is said that in the case of the woman Kelly that portions of the body were carried away. This was not true. Every body was found complete."

Why would anyone expect to find mention of other bodies? Reid stated that it was not true that portions of Kelly's body were carried away, and he underlind this by saying that every body was found complete. That's not interpretation, Trevor, it's what Reid wrote!

Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean you can re-interpret Reid's words to mean something you find more acceptable. You don't have to repeat yourself. It's not going to change what Reid said.

From the 1896 article

I ought to tell you that the stories of portions of the body having been taken away by the murderer were all untrue. In every instance the body was complete.

Body not bodies

The is no mention of bodies !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


And Evans and Gainey clearly misinterpreted his comments

What so difficult to understand ?

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At the risk of taking enfillading fire from both sides, I interpret it that Reid is saying that nothing was missing from any of the bodies of the victims. That is, yes, he's specifically referring to the Kelly murder and saying her heart was intact, no parts of her body were missing but also making a general statement about what he understood about the bodies.

As a professional editor of the English language, with all its peculiarities, I would contend that syntactically its perfectly legitimate to reference one victim and one body and still be talking globally about a series of murders.

The rather ghastly photograph of Eddowes pegged up for the photographer though shows that her nose was missing, so the generalization doesn't quite wash that all the victims' bodies were intact... Hmmmm...

Talking about "syntax" I like the deliciously clever name of the Liverpool "Sailortown" tavern as depicted on this stylized cover done by an artist for this book on Liverpool published in 1934.