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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 June 19, 2000
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Victims: General Discussion:
Markings on Mary Jane Kelly.:
Archive through June 19, 2000
Author: Jon Smyth
Friday, 16 June 2000 - 06:03 pm |        | Ok, back to common sense.......with a challenge.
Is there any of you artsy types out there who can fiddle, sharpen & in general clean up that shot of Mary's face?
If I look hard enough I can see the arch of the nostrils, pierce of the lips, ear lobes, and other miniscule details.....accepting of course that these are also not tricks of shadows & cuts.
Anyone care to take up the challenge?
Uncover Mary's face?
Best of luck, Jon |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Saturday, 17 June 2000 - 04:29 am | | Hi All,
Hubby just scanned MJK at 1200 bits per inch (don't ask me, I don't understand any of this) making a file of over 38MB.
What I now see is far less convincing. I'm sure the cuts up close and personal would look nothing like letters at all.
And the P or F looks much more like L at this magnitude. So we only need S and we would have an anagram of ELVIS!
Sorry folks, I'm forced to drop off my fence and join the Naysayers for a garden party. :-)
R.J, please don't start me off on limericks otherwise you'll all be suffering stuff like my 'old man on viagra who pole-vaulted over Niagara....' ;-)
Love,
Caz
PS And sorry, neither hubby nor I know how to get pics to appear here. |
Author: Ashling
Saturday, 17 June 2000 - 04:38 am | | JON: Most excellent suggestion--reconstructing Mary's face ... Now that we have a closer to life-sized pic onboard.
STEWART: Thanks for the picture and your input! |
Author: Oliver Franz
Saturday, 17 June 2000 - 07:58 am | | Jon,
I've played around with Stewart's scan last night to see if I can get a bit more definition out of it. The original is a tad too bright and lacks contrast. One can say I went over the top, but I believe I see the location of the eyes and part of the lips now. With a little imagination one *can* get a rough impression of what she might have looked like. At any rate, feel free to correct me on this.
Caz,
I think you mean 1200*dpi*. This strikes me as way too much (hence the big file size). 300dpi is more than enough for most printed images. Try scanning it at this resolution, then resize it to something more manageable. It will probably still be too large to post it here, so if you really like to share it, I can only suggest you upload it somewhere else on the web. There are quite a few services who provide free web space (Freedrive, Yahoo, Hotmail). Anyway, just a suggestion.
Later,
Oliver |
Author: Jill De Schrijver
Saturday, 17 June 2000 - 08:37 am | | Hi Oliver,
No the eyes are somewhere else. I have put the center line, on your pic, of the face again. You will immediately see that you have located the left eye in the center of the face. Mary was recalled as a beauty, not a cyclops.
You also have located the eyes to high: remember that there are brows above them and then still a forehead.
I can see you would think there would be still place enough for the forehead following your location. But the space above your located right eye, is actually the right temple.
Greetings,
Jill |
Author: Jill De Schrijver
Saturday, 17 June 2000 - 08:57 am | | All,
Thank you very much Stewart for posting the pic.
CORRECTIONS ON ANALYSES:
After studying Stewart's pic, I could more clearly see, what was cuts, what were smudges, and what was shadow and light. I have used Stawarts pic and draw blue lines accross the actual cuts (sharp and dark lines)
As Stewart said, I agree that only a broken upstanding leg is left of the 'F'. The rest are smudges.
The upstanding leg of the 'I' is clearly the mouth line. The flags of the 'I' are probably teeth or cuts into flesh.
The 'E' is as I suggested before the cut of nostrils of the nose.
The word 'FIVE' does not exist, it is only smudges, cuts, result of cuts, facial features and copies of copies of copies thrown together.
Greetings,
Jill |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Saturday, 17 June 2000 - 01:57 pm | | Anyone--Do you get the impression from the above photo that MJK would have been recognizable to McCarthy and Barnett? I would say "yes"; and I don't believe either man hesitated in their indentification of Kelly.
RJP |
Author: Simon Owen
Saturday, 17 June 2000 - 06:35 pm | | I can understand why everyone is very sceptical about this , but consider it this way : most seem to agree that at least three of the letters have come about due to cuts , with the ' E ' possibly MJK's nostrils. Are you saying that the killer accidentally cut the word ' FIV ' into MJK's face then , that completely by chance his random cuts came to resemble those letters ? What is the chance of that happening ?
My own personal opinion is that the word is cut on the victim's left cheek. Looking at Jill's picture , the two large black marks above the ' V ' are the nostrils and the jagged line above the ' I ' is the mouth. IMHO.
Since the killer probably made deliberate marks on the face of Eddowes , why is it not likely he would have done so with Kelly ? Since he took the mutilation further as a whole , why not the facial mutilation too ?
George , how do you respond ? Has your opinion been changed by what has been said ? |
Author: Jon Smyth
Saturday, 17 June 2000 - 08:25 pm | | Simon
The sceptisizm comes from the fact that all you are looking at is black marks on an old photograph. Unless you have a three dimensional model to analyse you are purely guessing.
Look at those black ink blotches the psychiatrists have clients look at, "what does this look like?" they ask.
What you are doing is no different, once you see a shape like a number or letter you will always see it, autosuggestion at work makes others see it too.
Be honest, how many random marks could you make on a clean piece of paper before lines begin to cross and you see an 'A' or 'K' or 'E' or some such distorted half recognisable letter or number?
Kelly's face was so grotesquely cut about, only those who do not appreciate the extent of the laserations will imply "there's a message".
This is sheer nonsense, looking at a one dimensional surface and declaring a line to be straight, when on the three dimensional model it was actually angular is nonsense.
You cant even be sure if you are looking at shadows or cuts, or shadows of cuts. So what is the point?
Regards, Jon |
Author: Diana
Saturday, 17 June 2000 - 08:42 pm | | | One other idea occurred to me. If we are to believe the "FIVE" we have to accept that Jack chose to make a script type letter E. That is two half circles arranged vertically. If I am going to carve an E in someone's face, which would be easier, to insert the tip of the blade and make an intricate rotation twice, or to make the four straight cuts or stabs needed to make a block style E? Wouldn't it have been more natural for Jack to do the latter? This decreases the probability in my mind of the "FIVE" being genuine. If Jack executed a script type E with the tip of the blade we have to include sculptors in the list of suspect trades. |
Author: Diana
Saturday, 17 June 2000 - 10:20 pm | | | I was just watching "America's Most Wanted". They featured a company called Cognitech and an employee (CEO?) Lennie Rudin. The company makes a business of digitally enhancing crime scene photographs and videos for police. I could not find them on the internet. |
Author: Ashling
Sunday, 18 June 2000 - 01:40 am | | Hi Diana! Seems we watched the show "together". Think Cognitech just does videos, not photos, according to their site anyway. Below are links to Cognitech, America's Most Wanted, and Faces.
The Cognitech and Faces sites are devoted mainly to selling their software. I know next to nothing about graphics ... If anyone artistic thinks the Faces software which allows you to make a composite drawing/photo--would be of any use with Mary's photo--Faces offers a free 24 hour trial of their software. After that the CD locks up, but can be reactivated for 7 days for $9.95, or you can buy it for $49.95. The Cognitech software is very expensive.
Cognitech also has an info section for police departments wishing to use their services ... not so sure they're geared for civilian inquiries, but if anyone wants to e-mail them, maybe they could tell us what our best options will be elsewhere.
Cognitech
America's Most Wanted
Faces
Janice |
Author: Christopher T George
Sunday, 18 June 2000 - 01:55 pm | | Hi Janice and Diana:
The Cognitech software is probably not helpful because what we do not have is either an image of MJK's skull or the actual skull. I would think that the facial reconstruction would need one or the other, and most probably, to be absolutely certain that the features are the correct one, the person's skull. All we have to work with at this point is a photograph of an amorphous mass of flesh much distorted by the killer's knife and the light and shadows that are provoking controversy and I think at this point misleading conclusions on what is carved there.
Chris George |
Author: Michael Lyden
Sunday, 18 June 2000 - 02:56 pm | | Hello,
firstly I have to admit that I just dont go along with this idea that Jack carved the word "FIVE" in to MJKs face.If you look hard enough in various places in the picture you begin to see words appearing that aren't realy there.For instance after staring at the panel that is supposed to bear the"FM" initials,I could discern the word "POLLY"[slightly to the left and above the"FM"].One thing that struck me only recently after looking at Kellys face,is the fact that that JtR has sliced through the upper and lower lips,peeled back the skin on each,giving the corpse the most ghasly grin ready to greet the first person that entered the room.
Elseware on this sight Ilight heartedly put forward the suggestion that directly to the right of Kellys left wrist was a torn peice of photograph bearing the image of James Maybrics left eye!Joking aside,this object is curious in the sense that it seems to be more well defined than alot of the bits of flesh etc..and having avery distinct vee shape at the top.This item does look remarkably like a picture of an eye but I dont think for one moment that it is.But what the hell is it.Your comments and suggestions would be mostv welcome. |
Author: Simon Owen
Sunday, 18 June 2000 - 05:47 pm | | Its probably just a bloody cut.
What would be fascinating is if it was a photo or a drawing of a human eye , used in a manner to determine a scale for the photo. Well , its a possibility.
Despite foreshortening , I still reckon we could make a good guess at the corpse's height , to at least within 10cm. For instance , the photos here show the base of the bed beneath Mary's matress , surely that couldn't be too disimilar in size to modern bed bases could it ?
If the word ' FIVE ' was carved on MJK's face then all we have left is a 2d photo on which to view it on anyway , so you have to make a choice whether it was really carved or not. Most won't want to accept that the police covered up certain aspects of evidence in the Kelly case , so obviously they will choose a more sceptical tack. |
Author: Diana
Sunday, 18 June 2000 - 07:15 pm | | | People used to be smaller than they are now. If you visit historic houses you will notice that the doorways are frequently kind of low causing moderns who are somewhat tall to stoop in order to go through them. I don't know what this means for beds. |
Author: Jill De Schrijver
Monday, 19 June 2000 - 04:58 am | | Simon,
On your post of Saturday, June 17, 2000 - 06:35 pm: Which picture of mine are you referring to? The last with the cuts? Or the previous one with the center line and eye-height line?
I want to state clearly that the cuts that we make the fictional word 'FIVE' of is NOT on the left cheeck. The left cheeck is almost not viewable on the picture. The most parts of Mary's face we see is the right side, with right sidetemple and the front and the front. How do I know this? Because I can see the right ear on the picture and I can't see the left one: which obviously means that the head is turned to the left. Her head is resting turned to the left, on her left cheeck. How else can I see this. You can clearly see the chin, and a line running upwards (in the last pic I posted) to where I can see the ear and the hair at the side. This line is the right jawline. I could go even into more detail why that is the jaw-line, but I have no inclination to do so, bacause it would lengthen this post unneeded.
The center-line is drawn correct, because it starts in the middle of the chin and follows the perspective of the head. This places the cuts to the front of the face. The mouthline and the nose as I positioned them are where there should be following the laws of perspective, general facial characteristics and construction of portret. I could try to explain all these generalities, and drawing lessons to you. But this would be too lengthy to. A much simpler advice on the take of this discussion of the perspective of Mary's head, is to get a copy of the picture and take it to a portrettist in your neighbourhood: a friend, a mother of a friend, a professional artist, a portret photographer, a street-drawing portretist, ... Ask to draw basic lines on it: center line, mouthline, nosebase, eye-height, brow-height, chin, jawlines, ...
Or you could come over to Belgium and I will try to teach everything about it I learned and experienced since I started with portret-drawing.
The only letters created by cuts is the 'V'. The 'E' is the leftover of a cut-away nose, the 'I' is a mouthline, and there is no 'F' but only a broken 'I'.
Greetings,
Jill |
Author: Jill De Schrijver
Monday, 19 June 2000 - 06:44 am | | All,
I have used Stewart's pic again, and redrawn the cuts on another layer above it. I have hidden the background (=the picture itself) away so only the cut lines are left, without interference of shadows, picture points (=noise), blood smears, ...
Greetings
Jill |
Author: Ashling
Monday, 19 June 2000 - 07:33 am | | JILL: Hi. Now I understand why you've drawn the center line further towards the left of Mary's face than I would. Try starting between the eyes & drawing down instead of starting with the chin and going up. It looks to me like there's a huge hole to the right of Mary's mouth. In essence the flesh of Mary's chin has been torn away from the area near her right jaw ... thereby making her chin sag towards the left side of her face, possibly as much as an inch away from the normal position.
Let me know what you think about this, please.
Thanks,
Janice |
Author: Jill De Schrijver
Monday, 19 June 2000 - 08:54 am | | Hi Ashling,
You could be right about the sag. But I drew the center line not also based on the chin but also to what was indicated by the hairline (green lines) as the center. You could also see the shine of the chintop, the skin would sag, but not the bone: he did not dislogde the jaw bone as far as I know. Actually all skin and face muscle would sag a little because of the heads position.
The lightning both on the cheeckbones and the cheecks skin down to the jaw-bone fits construction too, even his cuts there. His cheeckbone-cuts go right along it.
Starting from the right corner of the mouth is a cut that belongs to a cut star-formation. There is even some indication he did the same to the left cheeck: follow the mouth line and you'll see a dark patch, of which the lightning is so that it indicates more than shadow, rather cut.
I think the hole you referred to is the darker area (the area I 3x crossed through?). Actually I think this is not a hole, but smeared blood and shadows together. You could still see the jaw line, thus the bone there. Again this would rotate the point of the center line at the chin more up but would not even give an inch distortion.
Greetings
Jill |
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