|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
    
Kris Law
Sergeant
Username: Kris
Post Number: 45
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 19, 2003 - 4:32 pm: |       |
I don't subscribe to the Maybrick theory at all, let me just start by saying that.
Having that out of the way, though, I would like to bring up the letters "F" and "M" on the wall beside Mary Kelly's corpse. To me, it definately looks like two letters, and not just random splashes of blood, BUT, it seems unlikely the police wouldn't have noticed it, and made note of it somewhere in the records.
But, there is always the possibility that it wasn't mentioned on purpose so that they could try to trick a suspect into admitting they knew something about it. This was the reason the missing heart wasn't mentioned to the press.
What do people think? Letters, or not? |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1599
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 19, 2003 - 4:59 pm: | |
Hi Kris
Even if these were letters (and not the result of blood splashes) they could have been made at any time. The partition would have been made from any old junk McCarthy could pick up cheap.
Robert |
Kris Law
Sergeant
Username: Kris
Post Number: 47
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Monday, December 22, 2003 - 9:14 am: | |
True, but the letters clearly seem to be written in the actual blood, do they not? It certainly doesn't look like run-of-the-mill graffitti to me. |
Sarah Long
Inspector
Username: Sarah
Post Number: 355
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Monday, December 22, 2003 - 9:43 am: | |
This is puzzling although I always have trouble seeing the F. Are you sure this hasn't just occurred in our mind? Our brains are very complex things and when we see something that isn't anything our brain try to make it into something familiar, this is how inkblot tests work. |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1621
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, December 22, 2003 - 11:01 am: | |
Hi
I can't tell if they're written in blood. Certainly it's possible to see all sorts of things. In the picture contained in the Rumbelow book, I've thought I could make out various writings and even a face. All probably in my imagination.
Robert |
Caroline Anne Morris
Chief Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 559
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, December 22, 2003 - 1:45 pm: | |
Hi All,
If anyone wanted us to see a letter at the scene, wouldn’t they have plumped for the large and almost too obvious upside-down F on Mary’s arm? It’s probably just another trick of the light combined with incidental gashes, but it hits me every time I see the photo, so if I were actually looking for an initial F there to use as an argument for something, I think that would have to be it.
But I’m not. 
Love,
Caz
|
Andrew Spallek
Inspector
Username: Aspallek
Post Number: 305
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Monday, December 22, 2003 - 2:08 pm: | |
Frankly, the "FM" has always appeared to me as if it were a mark on the photograph (like maybe the photographer's initials) and not actually on the wall.
But I think it most likely that we are seeing random splashes of blood on the wall.
Andy S.
|
Jennifer D. Pegg
Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 167
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, December 22, 2003 - 2:45 pm: | |
hi
i agree that the idea of fm is dubious but the idea the photographer would put his initials in the middle of the picture not the back/top or more likely bottom rather puzzling also (no offence)
jennifer |
Monty
Chief Inspector
Username: Monty
Post Number: 555
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - 5:38 am: | |
Howdy,
There is no mention of 'FM' in any police report, inquest notes, newspaper clippings or ex officers memoires.
Whats the conclusion on that ??
Monty
 |
Kris Law
Sergeant
Username: Kris
Post Number: 50
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - 9:41 am: | |
Well, as I said, I find it suspect that the police didn't include it, since if they really are letters they would probably be fairly obvious at the scene of the crime, i just thought it was worth discussing.
I was trying to think if there were any other "FM"s involved with the case, other than "Bunny" |
Monty
Chief Inspector
Username: Monty
Post Number: 559
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - 9:54 am: | |
Kris,
Absolutely worth discussing. Sorry if I seem too dismissive.
I also been racking my brains to find an 'FM'. I cannot.
Monty
|
Jim DiPalma
Sergeant
Username: Jimd
Post Number: 47
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - 11:38 am: | |
Hi All,
Just to embellish Monty's point, I would point out that in addition to the police investigators, several doctors, the photographer, and the entire inquest jury viewed Kelly's room first-hand. With all of those witnesses, we have not a single, solitary, contemporaneous mention of initials on Kelly's wall, not one.
And before anyone tries to claim that the initials were there but that somehow, all of those witnesses simply failed to notice, there is Dr. Bond's report. Here we have an experienced surgeon who looked *directly at the spot in question*, and described the markings as blood splashes, not initials.
Worth discussing, sure, but I think it's well past time to put this particular myth to bed.
Cheers,
Jim |
Sarah Long
Inspector
Username: Sarah
Post Number: 365
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - 12:20 pm: | |
Part of me agrees with that last statement of your Jim but the other part thinks that maybe this was something everyone missed. How many people who saw Mary on her bed in the state she was would even manage to look past her at the wall? Who would even bother?
I still think they are probably blood splashes and 'FM' is formed in our mind as this is what our brains make out. It's all very psychological.
Sarah |
Jeffrey Bloomfied
Inspector
Username: Mayerling
Post Number: 206
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 24, 2003 - 8:23 pm: | |
Actually I have never been able to view the photos of Mary very long - to me they remain the worst pair of atrocity pictures of the 19th Century, and up there with the worst from World War II. So I haven't been able to see these initials, although I am aware of how they are used to link James Maybrick to the glut in Miller's Court.
However, there is another faint (very faint) possible "F. M." linked to the Whitechapel Murders, but usually dismissed. In the late 1970s there was a brief attempt to build a case that the artist Frank Miles, a friend and roomate of Oscar Wilde, had not died before 1888 as was suspected, but lived into 1891, in an asylum, and that he was the Ripper. The theory was mentioned in the original paperback edition of Donald Rumblelow's book on the Ripper. However, the theory did not catch on, and I notice it has so fallen out of favor that Miles is not even listed on this's Web sites list of suspects.
Best wishes, and Merry Christmas,
Jeff |
Jackie
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, December 29, 2003 - 9:10 pm: | |
Could FM mean "F*ck Mary"? |
Jackie
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, December 29, 2003 - 9:22 pm: | |
Could FM mean "F*ck Mary"? |
Jeff Leahy
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, January 02, 2004 - 9:29 am: | |
Hi all I gather that at one time some research was done enharncing the 'FM' on the wall.
Does anybody know where to find a copy?
Jeff |
Jason Dean
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, January 02, 2004 - 3:11 pm: | |
Since Mary is said to have mentioned murder before she died maybe FM meant something like an expletive and murder--he might have been making fun of the fact that she cried "murder" before she died. (The murder word might have been on his mind the whole time he had been carving Mary up--it is said he might have spent about two or so hours on her.) Or maybe the F meant something like "fabulous" murder since he seems to have indulged his grotesque fantasies. Also maybe, if written by Jack, he meant it to mean fifth murder or something like that (to boast about all his murders and that he hadn't yet got caught) or maybe it meant final (Whitechapel) murder?
Also maybe the handwriting on the wall was not that visible from the photograph given that it was a camera from 1888 but maybe it was visible in person--if that were so, and the F were an expletive or something like that, it would have been very offensive and maybe the witnesses and others who viewed the wall agreed not to mention it because it was offensive and not relevant to finding Jack. Somebody did post an article on here that some people at the time did see handwriting on the wall but that it was too much for them (something along those lines). |
Jason
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, January 02, 2004 - 4:11 pm: | |
Also, I wanted to mention that from the photo on this site, it looked to me that FM was in the frame on C2/D2. I just reread some of the other posts and they are mentioning other spots for FM. It sure looks like F and then M written on the blood splattered on the wall above Mary's bed in both C2 and D2 frames--the F and the M are spaced apart. |
Jason
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, January 02, 2004 - 5:36 pm: | |
I had another throught: although something else might have been written in the room to refer to what FM meant (and that is why no mention was made of it), maybe the killer secretly also meant the FM to refer somehow to Flemming the man Mary might have been still seeing or Mary Flemming backwards. Maybe the killer really did previously know Mary-maybe not. Maybe if she had indeed taken Jack back to her room, maybe she had a little chat beforehand with him and maybe it came up--maybe not. There was a newspaper account of Mary being seen having a chat with a man before she was killed and laughing about the poster reward for the Whitechapel murderer. Also, although it wasn't JtR's style, maybe because Mary was so pretty and different from his other victims, and maybe he was in a good mood this time for some reason, he did indeed wait for her to get undressed and fold her clothes. Maybe he was excited that he finally got one of his victims into a closed-in area where he would be able to do his work unseen. Maybe that is what he craved all along--to do that--instead of attacking them in the streets and this was the opportunity he had been waiting for. So he didn't jump right in and attack her but viewed her for a while, licking his lips and rubbing his hands in anticipation of the kill. Also, maybe she was so pretty that he did get sexually aroused by her in the sense that he wanted to see her get undressed in front of him. I have diverted a bit from the FM, but also wanted to add that. |
Jason
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, January 02, 2004 - 3:45 pm: | |
If he meant fifth or final murder that would have been a mocking statement made at the expense of those trying to catch him and the murder itself had been so disgusting/awful--that maybe they decided mentioning it was unnecessary and more respectful/proper to leave out. They already had samples of handwriting of who they thought was Jack and they hadn't been able to catch him so unless the initials had been a direct clue as to who the murderer was such as "Frank Martin" or maybe the name of a street or maybe a statement in another language like femme morte--maybe they felt it unnecessary to mention it. I'm sure they were all tired/disgusted/repulsed by the Ripper at this point. This is of course assuming that anything else was visible on the wall to those present besides FM. From the photographs the F and M are spaced apart as if some writing had been written between the letters and the FM were not just written to represent someone's initials, etc. Also to add, if there had been something visible on the wall like fifth murder or final murder then maybe those investigating the murder were angry that they were being made fools of by the Ripper at this point and they all decided to leave out any mention of handwriting on the wall--they might have also convinced witnesses to leave out any mention of it because all it would do would be to glorify the murderer and leave the public's safety open to question and if it got out, maybe encourage others to commit similar crimes to the public's detriment. All of the above is just speculation, however. |
Jason
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, January 02, 2004 - 4:35 pm: | |
I am sorry above where I mentioned the F and the M seemed to be spaced apart because when I initially heard about an "F" and an "M", I looked at the small photograph on this site and it sure looked like an "F" in C2 and an "M" in D2 spaced apart. However, what my suppositions about the initials might mean (and why they were not mentioned) remain the same--maybe there was other writing on the wall, not visible on the photograph (that is, hidden behind the bed, etc., or somewhere else in the room, not visible in the photograph) that alluded to what the FM meant. In addition, someone also mentioned here that there might have been Hart written on the wall as well. |
Cludgy
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 06, 2004 - 9:41 am: | |
Talking of photographers,it's assumed that the killer placed Kelly's left arm across her body, could the photographer have placed it there?
If it was left dangling over the bed then maybe the cuts to the arm were out of shot.
The photographer then rested her arm on her body in order to include the slashed arm in better detail. |
Anthony Dee
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, January 08, 2004 - 11:39 pm: | |
The M on the wall matches the M on Maybrick's Watch and many in his Diary. It's very unique. he put it there along with the F for Florence |
Anthony Dee
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, January 09, 2004 - 1:43 pm: | |
Hi, Everyone. Sorry I didn't introduce myself. I'm Anthony and I'm making a report on JTR. I am interested in Criminology and want to continue in college in a few years. I am comparing Jame's Maybrick's handwriting and I see many similarities in certain letters. Especially the M. He rounds the tops of his M's off and also makes the right side higher than the left. The FM on the wall certainly doesn't look like blood spatter to me. I found a few M's in the Diary that rally match. |
|
Use of these
message boards implies agreement and consent to our Terms of Use.
The views expressed here in no way reflect the views of the owners and
operators of Casebook: Jack the Ripper.
Our old message board content (45,000+ messages) is no longer available online, but a complete archive
is available on the Casebook At Home Edition, for 19.99 (US) plus shipping.
The "At Home" Edition works just like the real web site, but with absolutely no advertisements.
You can browse it anywhere - in the car, on the plane, on your front porch - without ever needing to hook up to
an internet connection. Click here to buy the Casebook At Home Edition.
|
|
|
|
