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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 **
Mike the Jailer?
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Victims: Ripper Victims:
Mike the Jailer?
Author: Gordon S. Little
Friday, 21 June 2002 - 08:21 pm |        | I apologize if someone has already commented on this, but I was reading Scott Hannaford's dissertation So Long, Liz: Was Elizabeth Stride a True Ripper Victim? when I stumbled on this statement about Liz's boyfriend:
Kidney may have already been angry with Stride that evening--he had frequently tried to padlock her into their room (to stop her from leaving him),
Obviously there had to be plenty I don't know about the case, but I'd never heard before that Michael Kidney kept his girlfriend under lock and key. It surprised me so much that the first time through I read clean over the implication of the rest of that sentence:
and he had told the police that he had expected to come home that night to find her locked in the room.
Still, we live and learn. So I dug around a bit, and sure enough, right there in the lead article on Elizabeth Stride:
Their relationship is best described as stormy. He says that she was frequently absent when she was drinking and he even tried, unsuccessfully, to padlock her in (see list of possession at time of death).
Her possessions included "a key (as of a padlock)." Wondering if there was any more confirmation of this story, I did a search on the word "padlock," and up came this item from Garry Wroe's e-book JACK THE RIPPER... PERSON OR PERSONS UNKNOWN?:
Three years later she began cohabiting at 33 Dorset Street with Michael Kidney, a dockside labourer some nine years her junior. It was a turbulent relationship, one from which a now hard-drinking Liz would periodically absent herself. These disappearances obviously irked Kidney, for he took to padlocking her inside their room when he went out to work. Unbeknown to him, though, Liz had obtained a key of her own so was seldom constrained for long.
If three people say it, I suppose it must be true. And if Michael was really so paranoid and possessive that he kept Liz caged up all day, he might just have been desperate enough to go out and cut her throat if she escaped, on the usual principle that "if he couldn't have her, nobody would." I could only hope he left poor Liz some bread and water and a chamberpot to keep her last days comfortable while he was out at work.
Just the same, while I was idly trying to remember just how many polished farthings were really laid out at Annie Chapman's feet, a strange feeling of doubt crept over me. Our Mike might have been a lot of things beside a stevedore in his time, but I couldn't quite see him as a jailer. There's evidence that his relationship with Liz was "stormy" now and then--an understatement perhaps--but that's the way lots of people carried on at the time. In spite of that, very few act like zookeepers. The whole thing seemed psychologically implausible.
Michael may not have liked Liz leaving him to go on a bender--or on some other pursuit--but to me he'd always sounded fairly laid back about it. "She always came back," he'd said, adding that "she always returned without my going after her." If you love something, let it go... There was a hint of modesty when he said "I think she liked me better than any other man." And Liz as a caged bird seemed badly miscast, when the cage wasn't even gilded. Surely she'd been a pretty independent woman most of her life, and resourceful enough. I couldn't see her cooling her heels all day in a locked room with nothing to do. She'd soon have the window open, and if they didn't live on the ground floor she'd be shinning down the drainpipe in a flash, long skirts or not--or making a rope out of her bedsheets in time-honored fashion.
If Michael was "unsuccessful" anyway, what was the use of trying to lock her in? More important, how would the padlock key help her get out? Since the padlock and hasp had to be on the outside of the door, Liz couldn't have reached it from the inside to unlock it with the key. If she didn't have a handy window to unlock it through, like Mary Kelly, this must be a complex escape plot. She'd have to use the bedsheets to get out after all. Then she'd run back into the house, up the stairs, undo the padlock, go inside, reel in the bedsheets, shut the window again, and...
No, it was all a bit too convoluted for me. Besides, what did the rest of that first sentence say again? Mikey expected to come home that night and find Liz locked in the room? Yet if my memory served me correctly, hadn't he last seen her on the street a few days before? Why then would he go home expecting to find her locked in--or pretending to be? This must be some strange Houdini charade they were playing in their relationship, possibly with B&D overtones.
Surely the solution to this whole puzzle was simpler than that. Ah, here it was, in the Times report of 6 October on the inquest:
Inspector Reid. - When you and the deceased lived together I believe you had a padlock on the door? - [Kidney replied] Yes; there was only one key, which I had, but she got in and out somehow.
Out of context, I suppose that could be taken to mean Kidney padlocked Liz in, though she got in and out in spite of his efforts. Trust the Times to leave creative ambiguities in the air. They don't seem to have been very precise back then. Wasn't it the Times that earlier referred to Charles Cross as "George Cross"? Maybe they thought that man deserved a medal. But here's the inquest report apparently from the Telegraph on the same day as the Times:
Michael Kidney, the man with whom the deceased last lived, being recalled, stated: I recognise the Swedish hymn-book produced as one belonging to the deceased. She used to have it at my place. I found it in the next room to the one I occupy - in Mrs. Smith's room. Mrs Smith said deceased gave it to her when she left last Tuesday - not as a gift, but to take care of. When deceased and I lived together I put a padlock on the door when we left the house. I had the key, but deceased has got in and out when I have been away. I found she had been there during my absence on Wednesday of last week - the day after she left - and taken some things. [My italics]
This made perfectly clear what should have been obvious all along. Michael put the padlock on, not when he left Liz at home, but when they both left home rogether. The lock wasn't to keep Liz in. It was to keep intruders out--and presumably to keep their prized possessions out of thieving hands.
Liz may have had another key made, or possibly palmed the spare when the padlock was bought. She may have kept that from him because he didn't want anyone else having a key to his room, or she thought he wouldn't. And they do seem to have had a row the last time she left. But I think Michael should be cleared of the charge of obsessiveness that would otherwise make it probable, as opposed to merely possible, for him to hunt her down and kill her afterwards. And unless I'm missing some key piece of testimony, all this looks like an instructive exercise in How to Create and Nourish New Ripper Myths. As if there weren't enough already!
Regards to all,
- Gordon |
Author: Martin Fido
Saturday, 22 June 2002 - 06:08 am | | Good work, Gordon. This might well be repirnted in Ripperologist or Ripper Notes.
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Gordon S. Little
Sunday, 23 June 2002 - 02:35 am | | Thank you very much, Martin! It's nice to meet you. Since I've read your "Crimes, Detection, and Death of Jack the Ripper." I must agree that whoever "Jack" was, he was far more likely to be a person of that kind than some of the suspects whose names get tossed around! I enjoyed your "Murder Guide to London" as well. I'd be perfectly happy to have that article reprinted.
All the best,
- Gordon |
Author: Caroline Morris
Sunday, 23 June 2002 - 07:37 am | | Hi Gordon,
Excellent stuff! I think your interpretation of the padlock story is masterful.
It did sound very odd to me that Michael Kidney would freely admit trying unsuccessfully to padlock Liz in. It would have begged the obvious police response, "I put it to you, Kidney, that you were so enraged over your failed attempts to tame this shrew, that you sought her out and made absolutely sure that she could never defy you again."
Love,
Caz |
Author: Garry Wroe
Tuesday, 25 June 2002 - 02:39 pm | | Hello Gordon.
Your conclusion regarding Liz Stride and the padlocked room are certainly interesting. During the course of my researches for 'Person or Persons Unknown?', however, I did uncover at least two newspaper references to the fact that Kidney did indeed lock Stride inside their room to prevent her from "going on the spree". Unfortunately, this research was undertaken about ten years ago so I can't specify which newspapers carried this information. But it is there somewhere.
Don't forget, also, that Liz was a heavy drinker and often 'worked' into the small hours. As such, it is not unreasonable to suppose that she would have been a late riser and therefore slept through most of her hours of confinement. If so, her incarceration was possibly less austere than might be assumed.
This said, I am in no way dismissing your conjecture. It is always gratifying to encounter those who are willing to challenge orthodoxy with intelligent argument. I have lost count of the number of contributors to this site who regard Ripper authors as the font of all knowledge merely because they happen to have written a book or two. Knowledge in any field is evolutionary. But this evolutionary process is one that ceases once people such as yourself refrain from posing awkward questions.
All the best.
Garry Wroe. |
Author: Christopher-Michael DiGrazia
Wednesday, 26 June 2002 - 09:39 am | | Dear Gordon -
A quite enjoyble speculation! Like Mr Wroe, I too recall finding specific newspaper reference to Kidney locking Stride in, but can no longer find it within my voluminous files. Perhaps my gallant colleague, the ever-vigilant Alex Chisholm, can assist me here.
In any event, I'd like to take Martin's suggestion to heart. I would like to reprint this in the "Short Takes" section of "Ripper Notes," in either the July or October issues. Please contact me if this is acceptable to you. In the words of Paul Begg, we can't pay you anything, but think of the prestige!
Cheers,
Christopher-Michael DiGrazia
Editor, "Ripper Notes" |
Author: Christopher T George
Wednesday, 26 June 2002 - 10:18 am | | Hi, CMD and Gordon:
As co-editor of Ripper Notes, I second the idea to print Gordon's essay on the true circumstances of the padlock on the Kidney-Stride home as a "Short Take" in an upcoming issue of Ripper Notes. Gordon, a most astute and ingenious elucidation of the true facts. I congratulate you! Your explanation is sure to be of interest to those of our readers who are not on the Net and to those who are computer-literate but miss this thread. The essay, moreover, will help to dispell another of the many myths surrounding the case, of which, as you indicate, there are far too many! Congratulations once again. As an aside isn't it interesting that here there is an interesting parallel with the "missing key" debate in regard to Mary Jane Kelly and Joe Barnett and the door to 13 Miller's Court?
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: Garry Wroe
Wednesday, 26 June 2002 - 02:45 pm | | Hello All.
I'd just like to make a couple of further points regarding Liz Stride and the supposed padlocked room. To reiterate an earlier observation, I distinctly recollect at least two newspaper pieces in which Kidney claimed to have padlocked Liz inside their room in order to prevent her from getting drunk. This being the case, I can't, with the greatest of respect, concur with the conviction that Gordon's speculatory essay explodes yet another Ripper myth. Not yet, anyway.
Quite rightly, Gordon pointed out that an incarcerated Liz could hardly have disengaged a padlock attached to the external face of her room door. But if, as seems to have been the case, she did have a key to this lock, she had only to attract the attention of another lodger, slide the key underneath the door, then make her escape once this second person had unlocked the door from the outside. Simple.
If, on the other hand, Gordon is correct in his conjecture, someone will have to locate and explain the newspaper references previously mentioned before it can be claimed with any conviction that another Ripper myth has been exposed. To do otherwise, I would suggest, would open up the possibility of giving rise to precisely the same kind of myth that Gordon's essay was purporting to explode.
With best regards,
Garry Wroe. |
Author: alex chisholm
Wednesday, 26 June 2002 - 03:06 pm | | Hi Christopher-Michael
I don’t think I can help with this one. I can’t recall any newspaper reports that suggest Kidney locked Stride in their room.
Obviously, the extract of Kidney’s testimony posted by Gordon from – not only ‘apparently’ but certainly – the Telegraph, 6 Oct., is the one I'm most familiar with, but I don't think I've found anything to contradict it in the Times, Star, PMG, ELA, or Lloyds.
The PMG, 3 Oct., does refer to the “old artilleryman” Kidney’s statement to Central News. According to Phil Sugden this statement was published in the Daily News on 3 Oct. As I don’t have copies of the Daily News, I can’t confirm whether or not this Central News statement contained anything to suggest that Kidney locked Stride in their room. Sorry.
All the Best
alex |
Author: Tom Wescott
Wednesday, 26 June 2002 - 03:54 pm | | Hello all,
The Central News also reported that the graffito resembled the 'Dear Boss' letter in handwriting. The official documents state otherwise. In my opinion, Gordon makes an excellent argument, and since the only contestment to his argument is a newspaper report that nobody can seem to quote from, his argument stands pretty solid, unless someone brings forth something Gordon missed from the official records.
Ripper Notes has done a fine job in the past of exploding or exposing myths, as well as making sense out of the senseless (although, sadly, most of the posters to this site are unaware of this since they refuse, for whatever reasons, to subscribe to any of the Ripper mags), and Gordon's argument will fit nicely along-side previous myth-busters written by Yost and Vanderlinden.
Yours truly,
Tom Wescott |
Author: Christopher T George
Thursday, 27 June 2002 - 09:34 am | | Hi, Tom:
I am writing to correct an evident misconception on your part.
You wrote:
"The Central News also reported that the graffito resembled the 'Dear Boss' letter in handwriting. The official documents state otherwise."
But, Tom, note that the inquest testimony is that the writing was in a round schoolboy's hand, i.e., as discussed by Jon Smyth in his dissertation on the graffito, Detective Halse reported: "There were three lines of writing in a good schoolboy's round hand. . . ."
Tom, a "schoolboy's round hand" is exactly the same sort of copperplate writing seen in the September 25, 1888, Dear Boss letter.
I hope this helps.
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: Tom Wescott
Thursday, 27 June 2002 - 11:40 pm | | Chris,
Although I think this is a good discussion, I'm not sure what the 'evident misconception' on my part is. Halse does indeed describe the graffito as being of the same style of writing as the 'Dear Boss' letter, but the 11-6-88 report from Chief Inspector Swanson ('Ultimate' pg. 187), which I'm sure you're familiar with, states 'To those police officers who saw the chalk writing, the handwriting of the now notorious letters to a newspaper agency bears no resemblance at all'. It seems unlikely that Halse's opinion was not asked for, so this seems to indicate that he was of the opinion that the handwriting of the graffito, while of the same style as the letter, was not from the same hand, and therefore it seems the CNA was just creating good type by saying it was. That is, of course, assuming that the Central News Agency was wrong and the official records are correct (and on this point we must assume they are). Both can't be right. I am certainly willing to concede that any person's handwriting with a pen will differ greatly for their writing with a piece of chalk on rough brick.
As you mentioned, Halse also describes the graffito as having appeared in three lines, not the five that Warren gives us in his copy of a copy. What Halse saw was probably this:
The Juwes are not
The men that Will be
Blamed for nothing
Whereas what Warren saw was:
The Juwes are
The men that
Will not
be Blamed
for nothing
Then again, it may in fact have been:
The Juwes are
The men that
Will not be
Blamed for nothing
Four lines instead of 3 or 5, meeting both Halse and Warren half-way and making sense of all the capital letters given by Warren by putting them at the start of each sentence.
But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here, or perhaps I misunderstood what the misconception of mine you were correcting was.
Yours truly,
Tom Wescott |
Author: Caroline Morris
Friday, 28 June 2002 - 06:19 am | | Hi All,
From Gordon's post:
In the Times report of 6 October on the inquest:
Inspector Reid. - When you and the deceased lived together I believe you had a padlock on the door? - [Kidney replied] Yes; there was only one key, which I had, but she got in and out somehow.
If this was the original source of the ambiguity, as Gordon seems to have suggested, it would only take one other newspaper to lift and slightly alter Kidney's words, from the Times report, and there you'd have it in black and white that Stride got out somehow despite the door being padlocked by Kidney who had the only key. It doesn't take much for 'Send reinforcements we're going to advance' to become 'Send three and fourpence we're going to a dance', does it?
A third paper picks up on the second one's report, and you now have the definitely ascertained fact that Kidney tried unsuccessfully to stop Stride going on her drinking sprees by padlocking her in.
Couldn't it have happened that way?
Love,
Caz |
Author: Christopher T George
Friday, 28 June 2002 - 09:49 am | | Hi, Tom:
Well of course it is a matter of opinion whether one handwriting sample and another are both by the same person. All I am pointing out is that evidently from the description of the writing on the wall, it was written, per Detective Halse, in a "schoolboy's round hand" which does indicate that it was written in copperplate writing and that de facto the Dear Boss letter is also in copperplate writing, so that whether one thinks the two were written by the same individual or not, there is that resemblence between them. Comprendez, mon ami? 
Of course, as to the number of lines that the graffito was written in and to the exact wording, with the City Police and Met differing, these aspects must as well be in the eye of the beholder.
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: Tom Wescott
Friday, 28 June 2002 - 02:37 pm | | Caz,
I agree with you. I believe what Kidney was referencing when he mentioned she got in and out somehow are the times she came and got her stuff in his absence. In essence, he had locked her (and everyone else) out. This was misconstrued by some at the time as him having locked her IN and that she somehow got out.
Chris,
I'm with ya.
Yours truly,
Tom Wescott |
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