Reid : News Of The World Article April 12, 1896

[Chris Phillips]

If Reid is not regarded as a trustworthy source the same must apply to Swanson, Macgnaghten and Anderson so where does that leave us?

I keep telling you that I consider all the police reminiscences to be unreliable.


You obviously don't take in at all what anyone else says.

[Gary Barnett]

I would suggest that out of all the murders Kelly was the most memorable, so how could he forget that, and as stated if you read the NOW article he gets almost everything correct about that murder down to the most minute detail. i.e state of the room, how much she was in arrears.


The 1912 article clearly shows that he was not suffering from the degree of failing memory you and others would have us believe.


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All of that detail could have been mugged up from a scrap book.

Why would the sum of Kelly’s rent stick in his mind and not that he twice arranged ID parades at the Tower and on both occasions the witnesses drew a blank?

I can’t recall, did he personally take the statements from Barnett/McCarthy where the 4s 6d sum was mentioned?

And perhaps you can remind me whether it is you or I and ‘others’ who has/have a theory about missing organs. I know I don’t.

[Trevor Marriott]

I keep telling you that I consider all the police reminiscences to be unreliable.


You obviously don't take in at all what anyone else says.

But in this case there is corroboration to what Reid says that no organs were missing from Kelly from independent sources


All I can do is to keep pointing out the points that he gets right and the minor points he gets wrong, and in relation to the Kelly murder he gets more major points right than he gets wrong.


You cant look at the article and accept what he says about some of the content and then in the same breath suggest that the most important an contentious part of the article could not possible be correct due to failing memory especially with regards to his involvement in that specific murder, and the additional corroboration which suggests he was correct about no organs being found missing from Kelly



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[Paul]

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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"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."


What is difficult to understand, Trevor, is why it seems to be beyond your ability to understand that 'in every instance the body was complete' makes absolutely no sense. 'Every instance', as with 'every occasion', means more than one, but Kelly only had one body. If she had five bodies, you could legitimately say that in every instances the body was complete.



What is also difficult to understand is why you keep saying that Evans and Gainey misinterpreted their comments. They simply published an article verbatim. They didn't interpret or misinterpret anything. Go and take a look at their book. I take it that you have actually read a biography of Reid, the man in whom you place such trust?

[Chris Phillips]

But in this case there is corroboration to what Reid says that no organs were missing from Kelly from independent sources

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.

[Trevor Marriott]

All of that detail could have been mugged up from a scrap book.

Why would the sum of Kelly’s rent stick in his mind and not that he twice arranged ID parades at the Tower and on both occasions the witnesses drew a blank?

I can’t recall, did he personally take the statements from Barnett/McCarthy where the 4s 6d sum was mentioned?

And perhaps you can remind me whether it is you or I and ‘others’ who has/have a theory about missing organs. I know I don’t.

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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[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.

Yes you are right they do but not all of them and as stated there is corroboration to this part of the interview.



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[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 ?

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

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.

[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 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.

[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?

[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.

[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.

[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?

[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...