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Mary kelly
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Victims: General Discussion:
Mary kelly
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 | Archive through March 22, 2000 | 20 | 03/22/2000 12:15am |
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| Archive through May 22, 2000 | 20 | 05/22/2000 04:48am |
| Archive through May 28, 2000 | 20 | 05/28/2000 05:58pm |
Author: Leanne Perry
Monday, 29 May 2000 - 06:18 am |        | G'day RJP,
'In the abdominal cavity was some PARTLY
DIGESTED FOOD of fish & potatoes...' Unfortunately he doesn't say how far digested it was. The food found in the 'remains of the stomach attached to the intestines.', could have been an earlier meal.
If MJK drank on an empty stomach at 8:00, and had something to eat just after, could that have made her puke?
If she had just eaten breakfast, then topped it off with a beer, after just hearing something that upset her, ("I feel so bad"), could she just have vomitted the last thing she consumed?
I think people then and now, believe that if they believe Maxwell's statement to be true, they're automatically believing that the body may not have been hers. I believe it was Kelly, but the guessed-at TOD should be questioned.
Leanne! |
Author: Leanne Perry
Monday, 29 May 2000 - 07:02 am | | G'day again,
The second paragraph should read: 'If MJK didn't eat breakfast first, and then had a beer, (ie nothing on her stomach) at 8:00 am, would that make her puke? Then I offer the suggestion that she could have eaten after she puked, when Maxwell had gone.
Leanne! |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Tuesday, 30 May 2000 - 07:30 pm | | Stepping back a few days to Simon's comment that Mr. Blotchy-Face was 'unlikely' to be a client: I still remember a few years ago listening to an animated Donald Rumbelow explain how quickly the East End prostitutes would "dispatch" their clients. Now, I fully believe Mrs. Blotchy-Face to be a client, but I'm wondering... what exactly WAS going on? According to Mrs. Cox, MJK entered her room with Mr. Blotchy-Face at around 11:45 p.m. and proceeded to sing. She was still singing at 1:15 a.m.(!) What the heck? Did she give a floor show along with the main performance?
If we're to believe Hutchinson's story (which takes place at around 2 a.m.) we have to believe that MJK finally stopped singing, dispatched Mr. Blotchy, got rid of him, got dressed (if necessary) and was back in business with client #2 in the span of forty minutes or so. A sudden desire to make sixpence after dawdling for two hours. MJK then spends at least 45 minutes with client #2 before Hutchinson gives up his vigil and leaves. These are certainly longer "encounters" than the ones I remember Rumbelow describing. It doesn't quite all add up.
Yet, if one throws out Hutchinson's story, I think there is reason to believe that MJK spent the whole evening with Mr. Blotchy-Face, and, in fact, he was the one that Mrs. Cox heard leave the court at 5:45 a.m.
RJP |
Author: Wolf Vanderlinden
Wednesday, 31 May 2000 - 12:47 am | | RJ, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that Carroty Moustache had already left by 1:00 when Mrs. Cox arrived home. Just because Kelly was singing doesn't mean that she was entertaining anyone. What is interesting is that both Mrs. Cox and Elizabeth Prater arrived at Miller's Court at around 1:00 A.M. and while Cox stated that Kelly was still singing, Prater, who stood at the entrance to the court for half an hour, said that she heard nothing. Julia Venturney stated that she heard nothing all night. No noise, no singing and no scream of murder.
There seems to be some confusion as to the footsteps heard by Mrs. Cox at 5:45 that morning. The Coroner questioned her fully on this point:
Mrs. Cox: "At a quarter- past six (the official inquest record says quarter to six,) I heard a man go down the court. That was too late for the market."
Coroner: "From what house did he go ?"
Mrs. Cox: "I don't know."
Coroner: "Did you hear the door bang after him ?"
Mrs. Cox: "No."
Coroner: "Then he must have walked up the court and back again?"
Mrs. Cox: "Yes."
Coroner: "It might have been a policeman ? "
Mrs. Cox: "It might have been."
It is impossible to say who this was but it cannot be assumed with any confidence that this was the killer leaving Mary Kelly's room. I do agree however that it doesn't seem to add up. Throw in Maria Harvey claiming that she was in Kelly's room when Joe Barnett arrived when she apparently wasn't, Mrs Maxwell, Maurice Lewis, Sarah Lewis arriving at the Keyler's uninvited at 2:30 in the morning, and screams of murder and you have some strange goings on.
Wolf. |
Author: Leanne Perry
Wednesday, 31 May 2000 - 08:48 am | | G'day,
Mary Cox saw Kelly enter her room, with 'Mr Blotchy-face' at 11:45 am and she began singing.
Kelly could have finished with 'Mr Blotchy' in half an hour or less, went out and got client #2, and been with client #2 when Mrs Cox left her room again. She may have started to sing once more.
Then she could have finished with #2, just after 1:00am, left her room again to get #3, when Hutchinson saw her.
The one Mrs. Cox heard leaving the court at 6:15, could have been #6 or #7 or #8.
Leanne! |
Author: Diana
Wednesday, 31 May 2000 - 08:18 pm | | | In most cases isn't the day's low temperature reached just before dawn? MJK would have gone to bed and been murdered within a few hours of this. |
Author: Roger O'Donnell
Friday, 02 June 2000 - 07:40 am | | All,
Possibly to open up something that has been discussed before, does anyone know if the most recently discovered SOC photo of MJK exists in a uncropped form? Lookng at the picture, the ratio doesnt match the older shot of the view from the door. Was it cropped for publication? If not, the why would you crop a SOC photo? It wouldn't be for artistic merit... Any ideas?
Roger |
Author: David M. Radka
Friday, 02 June 2000 - 11:18 am | | Roger,
Good point. I've also felt that photo # 2 was out of proportion somehow. Here are a few observations on it:
1. Police pulled MJ's chemise over her abdominal wounds before photo # 2 was taken, for Victorian modesty's sake. The chemise immediately became saturated with blood.
2. The camera might have been propped up on the tied bag of laundry seen in photo # 1 to make photo # 2.
3. MJ's left leg has been pushed further back toward her pelvis in photo # 2.
4. The crack in the door with light shining through it appears to be in the wrong wall in photo # 2.
5. The photographer would have had to move the foot of the bed away from the wall at an oblique angle to shoot photo # 2, and perhaps this is the reason for the apparent discontinuity of proportions compared to photo # 1.
6. I believe the tie on the laundry bag may be what shows up out of focus in the extreme foreground of photo # 2, not the exposed bone of MJ's right leg. People may have misinterpreted this as the bone when postulating that the Ripper used an axe on MJ.
What do y'all think?
David |
Author: Roger O'Donnell
Friday, 02 June 2000 - 12:44 pm | | David,
Having gone over the picture a few times (with some help from Johnno - THX BTW) I think the object in the foreground is MJK's lower leg, the artifact halfway down being (possibly)a rolled down stocking or similar(see also SOC pic 1) Notice the discontinuity caused by the artifact that indicates it is soft tissue somehow bound round, hence the stocking idea. The exposed bone is therefore cropped out of the shot, which is a pain.
Is it recorded that some PC did take a moment to preserve her modesty?
The resolution of the reproductions I've seen make distinguising the dark central region hard to evaluate. The texture could be a grain artifact, since the picture is woefully underexposed. As an aside, with moderern fast films I wouldnt want to try to get a good SOC photo without a flash in the same environment
Something I just noticed in picture #2 that looks 'odd', why should there be a large clear area on the table where the body parts were stacked? what was removed? and by whom?
Any thoughts?
R |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Friday, 02 June 2000 - 02:54 pm | | David--I think the crack of light in Photo#2 is from the window next to the small table, and not the door, isn't it?
RJP |
Author: Wolf Vanderlinden
Friday, 02 June 2000 - 06:35 pm | | Roger,David and R.J., photograph #2 has not been cropped for publication, the size you see is the size in which it was found. Was it originally larger in 1888? Doubtful. What you see is what you get.
The chemise was not pulled down by the police for modesties sake, it wasn't touched by the police or anyone else. What you think is material is actually human flesh.
What you see on the end of the bed are the bed clothes, not a "tied bag of laundry." Photography at this time was dependant on rather large box cameras which needed to stand on legs to cut down on blurring caused by movement. Photo #2 would not have been propped up on the bed.
Indeed it does appear as if the "left leg has been pushed further back toward her pelvis in photo # 2." It has been suggested that this was in order to get a good view of the damage to the thigh bone which might have been caused by an axe.
What appears in the extreme foreground of the picture is Mary Kelly's right knee and shin. The dark line being caused by " The right thigh was denuded in front to the bone, flap of skin, including the external organs of generation and part of the right buttock.", from Dr. Bonds P.M. report.
Wolf. |
Author: Roger O'Donnell
Friday, 02 June 2000 - 06:38 pm | | I seem to remember there being some discussion on one of the boards about the pillow like object in picture 2 (table pic). My wife pointed out it bears a resemblance to a fixure in my parent's house - a bolster. For those who don't know what one is, it is sort of a long underpillow, used on double beds. They fell out of fashion, to a degree, in the 50s-60s. I hadn't thought about it since it was a just a common place item to me :)
I thought the light in the picture was from the window, but since I had had difficulty mapping picture 1 to picture 2 I was not sure. Is there a layout of the room anywhere?
R |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Friday, 02 June 2000 - 09:15 pm | | Roger--Go back in the archives to Viper's post of April 8th and you'll get a description of the room's layout and a link to the Casebook Production's site where there is both a map and a virtual recreation of the room.
Wolf--There's been some confusion about the windows in MJK's room. In Martin Fido's book he states that Thomas Bowyer
"found the door bolted(or locked, as he
imagined) and pushed back the coat behind
the broken pane. What he saw sent him running
back to McCarthy." ("C,D& D of JtR" p. 92)
Now, I don't know Fido's source for this, but in Bowyer's testimony he doesn't mention a coat, but, rather, a curtain:
"I went around the corner by the gutter where there is a broken window. There was a curtain. I put my hand through the broken pane and lifted it and looked in."
To add further confusion, Tully points out in his book "Prisoner 1167" that Bowyer said it was a curtain at the inquest, but, in his statement to police, said that he 'threw the BLINDS back'(!) (I haven't seen a copy of Bowyer's statement to police).
Finally, in Evans & Gainey's book, there is the quote by Walter Dew, who states:
"I tried the door. It would not yield. So I
moved to the window, over which, on the inside,
an old coat was hanging to act as a curtain to
block the draught from the hole in the glass.
Inspector Beck pushed the coat to one side and
peered through the aperture." (p.133)
Now, looking at photo #2, I am assuming that I am seeing in the background the window closest to the door. The slit of daylight is straight, like the edge of a blind or curtain, not like a coat hanging over the window. Any thoughts?
RJP |
Author: David M. Radka
Friday, 02 June 2000 - 10:49 pm | | I have some problems with some things said in the above posts, but can't get into all of them now. Hey, this is a GREAT subject! I've been puzzled by photo # 2 for years, and will revisit this discussion.
Roger,
I have often thought of that large clear area on the table too. The possibility exists that the Ripper brought something into the room with him, and it occupied that place while he was there. This could have been a medical bag. Another thought: He placed the body parts on the end of the table to make them easily available for later use.
I can't see ANY WAY that the police did not pull down MJ's chemise to take photo # 2. In photo # 1 the pubic bone is visible, as is the butt of her large intestine pouring out fecal material onto her bed. You cannot see this in photo # 2. Additionally, her chemise is over her left knee in photo # 2, but the knee is bare in photo # 1. In photo # 1, you can clearly see where the Ripper palmed her bare knee to get some of the blood off his hand.
Be back later!
David |
Author: Ashling
Saturday, 03 June 2000 - 02:53 am | | Hi guys. We discussed these photos several months ago ... sorry I can't remember which board. Unfortunately, squinting at copies in any book won't give us accurate details. It's best to ask one of the authors who have seen the originals.
1. In photo #2, the door is open, pushed flush against the small table on the left side of Mary's bed. There is sunlight coming in through a vertical crack in the door.
It is thought that perhaps the door was opened to get more light in the room for photos ... because they windows were covered to keep the neighbors from peeping in.
2. Mary's chemise was not been pulled down over her knee or anything else.
WOLF: I always assumed JtR hacked at Mary's torso through her chemise. Unlike the skirts, corsets & whatevers the other victims wore, a linen chemise is pretty form fitting and practically see-through. It wouldn't hamper JtR's knife, or block his view, so why bother tossing it over her head?
I think the slashes in the sheet probably led me to that conclusion. I figured the front of her chemise would be in shreds, leaving only the sleeves, back, and a wisp of neckline fairly intact. What's your take?
Janice |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Saturday, 03 June 2000 - 04:38 am | | Janice--
Ah, ok; I see it now. One of those tricky optical confusions that becomes obvious once it's pointed out. Many thanks....
I still think the various statements about the broken window are problematic, but I suppose someone will have an answer to that riddle as well.
Cheers,
RJP |
Author: Christopher T George
Saturday, 03 June 2000 - 11:59 am | | Hi, Janice:
You are exactly right that in the small photograph of the crime scene the sunlight we can see coming through is from the crack in the door on the hinge side. We are looking at an angle across the bed with the photographer having his back to the partition and shooting across the bed toward the door which is in the corner of the room across the bedside table with the lumps of flesh upon it. Previously when I have looked at this photograph, I have thought it was looking across the bed toward the window, so I am glad that you have corrected us on this. Why the second photograph should be smaller than the first, I have not the faintest idea. It does not appear to be cropped. With two photographs taken with the same size format camera (presumably) one would expect, I should think, that the prints would be the same size. Perhaps someone with knowledge of early photography may be able to aid us.
Chris George |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Saturday, 03 June 2000 - 02:42 pm | | I now notice in a posting on the "FM in Mary's Kelly's Room" Board that Stewart Evans had already mentioned that the bed must have been moved away from the wall to take Photo #2. I guess I should have listened to David when he made this same point above (!)
To continue my dull rant about the curtains in MJK's room: the Times of November 10th calls them "muslin". I don't know where the coat came from except from the statement by Walter Dew, made some 50 years after the fact. Perhaps a coat was hanging on the windows in addition to curtains, to stop the draught caused by the broken windows. My main interest in the curtains is, of course, speculating that they might show that the room was well insulated and hence rigor mortis proceeded at a more or less normal rate.
RJP |
Author: Wolf Vanderlinden
Saturday, 03 June 2000 - 06:17 pm | | RJ, Ashling is right, we did discuss this all several months ago. What covered the window? it depends on what you read. Both the Daily Telegraph and the Times mention only a curtain, the Times says muslin curtain, Bowyer's inquest testimony states:
"I looked in the window there was a curtain over the window I pulled the curtain aside and looked in..."
However, in his written statement to Inspector Abberline it says:
"he knocked at the door, but not getting any answer, he threw the blinds back and looked through the window."
Mary Ann Cox, also mentions blinds at the inquest:
"The was light in the room when she was singing I saw nothing as the blinds were down,"
It is likely that blinds in this case are meant to mean curtains and that Cox's testimony was that the blinds were drawn rather than down. I am sure that Mr. Fido gets his information about the coat from Dew's quote, indeed several authors describe the coat as covering the window. We know that Maria Harvey's black mens coat was in the room and recovered by the police but only Dew mentions that it covered the window. It is entirely possible, if not likely, that the window was covered by both, with the coat obscured by the curtain.
I agree with Ashling and C-G that the light in photo #2 is coming from the door behind and to the right of the bed rather than from the window.
David it is hard to understand exactly what you are saying here. The low angle at which photo #2 was taken, and the position of the right knee and shin tends to obscure the area that you claim shows "the butt of her large intestine pouring out fecal material onto her bed." I can see no evidence that her chemise is covering her left knee in photo #2, again, what you see as material is in fact flesh, "The left (inner) thigh was stripped of skin, fascia and muscles as far as the knee". I also cannot see where "the Ripper palmed her bare knee to get some of the blood off his hand." in photo #1. Do you mean the smears of blood on the right calf?
What we are dealing with here is a police crime scene photograph, one of the first, if not the first, ever taken. It is also possible that the photographs were taken under the direction of the medical men at the scene, certainly Dr. Phillips tells the Coroner's Court when he produces a photograph of Miller's Court that he had it taken. I have already mentioned that photo #2 may have been taken for the express purpose of displaying the damage to the left femur, a claim that is hard to refute considering that this is what the photograph is centred on. I don't see where Victorian modesty and sensitivity enter into it.
Janice, I would imagine that the Ripper cut open the front of the chemise leaving only the sleeves attached to the body and then carried out the mutilations. Both breasts were removed intact and the abdomen opened by three large flaps but there are no signs of stabbing/slashing wounds to the torso in the Post Mortem report. The corner of the sheet that had been severely cut and slashed was level with the face and head and it is my belief that after cutting her throat, the killer covered her face with the sheet and then obliterated her features. I think that this is an important point and whether it means that her killer knew her or if he was trying to hide the fact that she didn't resemble his earlier, older victims, it does point to an attempt at removing her identity, whatever that was in the killers mind. Oh, and yes the body in the bed was that of Mary Kelly.
Wolf. |
Author: Ashling
Saturday, 03 June 2000 - 06:23 pm | | RJ: Maria Harvey left several items of clothing in Mary's room, including a man's overcoat. Inquest testimony:
"I left some clothes in the room 2 mens shirts, 1 Boys Shirt, an overcoat a black one a mans, a black crape bonnet with black stings, a ticket for a shawl in for 2/-- One little childs petticoat - I have seen nothing of them since except the overcoat produced to me by the police," ...
The best I can figure, Mary had some sort of thin curtain(s) over her windows (possibly furnished by McCarthy, as at the inquest he stated ..."the furniture and everything in the room belongs to me.").
Perhaps Mary hung the coat over the section of the window with broken panes (which may have been stuffed with rags) as extra insulation against the cold rainy night. Or a client may have done that. Or JtR may have done so to be doubly sure any neighbors passing by wouldn't see him at his bloody work. We may never know.
Hope this helps with some of your questions. BTW, your reaction above is much the same as mine when photo #2 was explained to me! :-)
CHRIS: Thanks for posting more in-depth on the photos. I hadn't really thought about it before ... just assumed the opened door blocked the view of the window. But you're dead right, photo #2 does appear to be shot at an angle from the right side (Mary's right) of the foot of the bed towards the left corner of the headboard (by the door). In which case the bed wouldn't need to be moved away from the wall much at all. Guess I need to re-read Stewart's Dissertation to get all these details gelled in my mind.
Janice |
Author: Ashling
Saturday, 03 June 2000 - 07:02 pm | | WOLF: I composed my earlier post off-line and didn't see your post until just now. Thanks for your input. I too think the facial mutilations and sheet slashes are crucial. I've not yet reached a solid conclusion.
One possibility to me is that some of the marks on Mary's arms are defensive wounds ... which invites the scenario that Mary's hands were resting on the sheet when JtR attacked ... Mary scooted backwards towards the wall and the right side of the bed, instinctively jerking her arms in front of her face, her hands convulsed by fear into fists, thereby clamping onto the sheet and pulling it above her face without even meaning to do that. But I'm still studying the evidence.
DAVID: I see the so-called "palm mark" on Mary's left knee that you mentioned. However, after conducting experiments with my hand and my husband's hand over my knee, I conclude that only a small boy or a midget would leave that small a palm print on Mary's knee.
I refer you to my post on another board today, the FM on Mary's board. The "palm mark" you envision could be a stain left by Abberline eating fish & chips at his desk, with the photos and reports scattered about his desktop. Just a far-out example to make a point, but these photos weren't kept in a vault during the investigation ... Some were thumbtacked to walls, etc.
Janice |
Author: Leanne Perry
Sunday, 04 June 2000 - 04:24 am | | G'day,
The 'Standard' reported on the 12th of November: 'The furniture consisted of the bed upon which the body was stretched, which was placed next to a disused washstand in the corner behind the door, and opposite the two windows. In the smaller one, of which there were two panes of glass broken, a man's coat was put across there to keep out the draught'.
Leanne! |
Author: Roger O'Donnell
Sunday, 04 June 2000 - 02:48 pm | | Wolf,
I can't see how the thigh is the centre of the detail. I've looked long and hard a cannot see the bone. To me, the centre of the picture appeare to be the pubic region. The RH thigh appears to be entirely out of fame, or so foreshortened by the angle as to be unrecognisable. The inscision just above the knee, where the denudation begins( as can be seen in pic 1), is definately out of shot. Maybe, I'm missing sometihng here, andI'll play with the photos some more and try to map pic 1 and 2 to relate points of interest, however, I still can't see the point of pic 2
From my limited knowledge of box cameras, the photographic plate would be of pretty standardised size, simply to fit the camera, therefore the ratio of the sides of the prints would be about the same. Therefore, I *think* that we're looking either at a crop, or a selective print... but what is the main subject?
R |
Author: Roger O'Donnell
Thursday, 08 June 2000 - 03:38 pm | | All,
Ive finshed meesing with the photos from the main board. I think ive mapped the 2 pictures. If anyone cares to take a look,I've posted it on the crime scene photographs discussion, since it more rightly belongs there
R |
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