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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 August 12, 1999

Casebook Message Boards: The Diary of Jack the Ripper: General Discussion: Mary Jane's Crucifix?: Archive through August 12, 1999
Author: Kieran
Thursday, 05 August 1999 - 09:43 am
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According to Melvyn Fairclough there was a crucifix found with the diary which was later identified as belonging to the Nuns of Providence Row where MJK is once said to have stayed, apparently the nuns there now have confirmed it as one unique to their convent(?)
Could Maybrick have taken it with him & then hidden it with the Diary?
I do realise that there are no newspaper reports of MJK ever having wearing crucifix or that fact that it was missing from the body.
Can anyone shed any further light on this?
Cheers Kieran
Back at last!!

Author: Wolf
Thursday, 05 August 1999 - 01:30 pm
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Kieran, considering that the diary is a fake and that no one has seen the crucifix in question, it really isn't evidence of anything. If a crucifix is brought forth and can be identified as being exclusive to the Nuns of Providence Row, you would then have to prove that it was circa 1888, that it had belonged to Mary Kelly, and that it had been found with the diary. Just coming foreward with a Providence Row crucifix would be meaningless.

Wolf.

Author: The Gross Poet
Thursday, 05 August 1999 - 05:44 pm
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I need a (cruci)fix 'cause I'm goin' down,
Down to the bits that I left uptown,
I need a (cruci)fix 'cause I'm goin' down.

Mother Superior jump the gun,
Mother Superior Providence Nun,
Mother Superior jump the gun.

Author: John Kle
Thursday, 05 August 1999 - 08:16 pm
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And babys in black, so what can I do?.. She thinks of her (him) and so she dresses in black and though she'll never come back, she's dressed in black. Saturday, Bloody Saturday...

Author: Dave Yost
Thursday, 05 August 1999 - 10:30 pm
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Hi All,

1st - nice poems (uh-hu).

2nd - I was defered to the photos due to this line of thought. From the computer images I have and thanks to the actual photos I have courtesy Stewart Evans, I can safely say there is no "crucifix".

To add to this, and I know someone will mis-interpret, there are 2 "crosses"...one above the right knee and one above the right shoulder each about 2 to 2-1/2 feet above the bed. HOWEVER, these are not "crosses" in the sense of the Christian religion, but are natural products of the wall.

I offer this clear picture as evidence:
yy

Dave

Author: Dave Yost
Thursday, 05 August 1999 - 10:41 pm
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sorry it did not out the 1st time

2nd try
x

Author: Dave Yost
Thursday, 05 August 1999 - 10:42 pm
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sorry it did not come out the 1st time

2nd try
x

Author: Dave Yost
Thursday, 05 August 1999 - 10:48 pm
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s

Author: Dave Yost
Thursday, 05 August 1999 - 10:53 pm
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Not having luck up-loading image, if anyone wants a copy, please e-mail me.
Dyost@access.hky.com

Dave

Author: picture
Friday, 06 August 1999 - 02:43 pm
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mjk

Author: Peter Birchwood
Sunday, 08 August 1999 - 08:27 am
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Kieron:
(Do I know you?) As far as this crucifix goes, I can only remember a reference in Feldy's book to a statement by Anne Graham that she'd found the diary in a black trunk about 1968. Accompanying it was a crucifix (type unspecified) and tropical gear. Now obviously the crucifix was Mary Kelly's and the pith helmet and khaki shorts belonged to Jim Maybrick for use on the old plantation in the deep South. The only other reference that is specific about the crucifix seems to be Melvyn Faircloughs bit in the Mammoth Book but he says "It has been established..." and then goes on about it being pretty much certain that it's from Providence Road and must have been taken from Mary Jane. But who's established this? And how good and reliable a researcher is Melvyn Fairclough anyway? If this iswhat Anne is saying then I expect we might have even more questions to ask her if she ever appears at the C?D.

Author: Christopher George
Monday, 09 August 1999 - 01:49 am
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Hello all:

I am still not convinced we are looking at a crucifix on the wall. If you look at the wall to the right of the alleged crucifix you will see vaguely another small cross-like apparition that nicely parallels the one that people are interpreting is there. The cross looks too long, the arms too short for a conventional crucifix. The other point to be made is that the crucifix that Melvyn Fairclough and Anne Graham are talking about, and that was allegedly with the Diary, is evidently a smaller crucifix that Mary Jane Kelly was said to have been wearing. It is not the one that was on the wall--if there was a crucifix on the wall.

Chris George

Author: Jill
Monday, 09 August 1999 - 03:49 am
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Hello All:

I'm with you Chris. When first I read the cross-message, I checked with the photograph under MJK in the Casebook.
The 2 crosses are alike in features and both have a crack much more farther down aligned with them. The crosses don't show any shades at the wall, and therefor are shades themselves (like a crack).

Jill

Author: Rixa
Monday, 09 August 1999 - 04:24 am
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Hello everybody, this is my first time posting ever.

The alledged crucifix seems to me like a crack in the wall. I'm not sure what is implied in this discussion, but I think an obvious fact has been overlooked: the picture was taken after the murderer left the crime scene with whatever trophies he took.

I don't see how he could have gotten hold of that particular crucifix afterwards, even if it was there. What is there to suggest MJK had any crucifix in the first place?

Rixa

Author: Wolf
Monday, 09 August 1999 - 01:18 pm
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Hello C-G, Jill and welcome Rixa. The three of you are discussing the possability of a crucafix on the wall of Mary Kelly's room. This is a discussion that is taking place in the Mary Kelly Crime Scene Photographs board. This board is discussing a supposed crucifix that Anne Barret claims was with the diary when it was first seen by her. The crucifix is supposed to have come from Mary Kelly.

Wolf.

Author: Diana Comer
Monday, 09 August 1999 - 05:58 pm
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OOOh I hate to do this. Could the two whatevers be discolorations left on the wall by crucifixes that were taken? You know like when the sun fades the wallpaper everywhere except where the sun is blocked? It would account for their being one dimensional.

Author: Christopher George
Monday, 09 August 1999 - 06:05 pm
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Hi, Wolf:

You are exactly right that we should be talking here about the crucifix that was supposedly with the Diary when Anne Graham first took possession of it. So let's do just that.

In the "Mammoth Book of JtR," pp. 161-62, Melvyn Fairclough writes that Anne Graham said that when she first saw the Diary "in 1968 or 1969" she found a crucifix with it. Fairclough maintains that "It has been established [by whom I ask?] that the design of the crucifix was apparently exclusive to the Sisters of Mercy who ran the Women's Refuge in Crispin Street" where Mary Jane Kelly is said to have stayed. When visited by Fairclough in 1996, the sisters at their new location confirmed that the crucifix is like the crucifix of their convent but they were unable to tell Melvyn if it was unique to them, as has been alleged. Fairclough states, "The inference is that Kelly took the crucifix with her when she left the Women's Refuge and that Maybrick took it from her room after murdering her. Before his death he left it with his diary." (Mammoth Book, p. 162)

Melvyn goes on to say that "If the same type of crucifix is used by another establishment one would have expected, by now, that the diary's detractors would have discovered it. As far as I am aware no one has." (Ibid)

Well, my friends, THAT is a challenge is it not?

What if anything IS unique about this crucifix?

Is it said to be unique to the Sisters of Mercy at their East End convent or to the order overall?

Can it be proven to be a nineteenth century crucifix?

Can it be dated to 1888 or earlier?

Can it be proven to be from the Sisters of Mercy in the East End or even from Miller's Court?

As with the Diary, the proof lies with the people who would have us believe there is a connection to the Whitechapel murders.

Chris George

Author: S P Evans
Monday, 09 August 1999 - 09:39 pm
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The crucifix, just like the watch, is just another piece of hokum in the never-ending, non-sensical saga of the bogus 'diary' of Jack the Ripper.

Author: Kieran
Wednesday, 11 August 1999 - 02:34 pm
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Well said C-G who said what I was trying to say originally so well!!
Kieran'having problems with computer,but hopefully all o.k.now!'Brakes

Author: Christopher George
Wednesday, 11 August 1999 - 09:15 pm
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Hi, Kieran:

I find it hard to believe that the crucifix that was allegedly (per Anne Graham) with the Diary, when she says she took possession of it in 1968 or 1969, is so unique that it is linked only to the Sisters of Mercy of Whitechapel in 1888. It behooves the Diary camp to answer the question as to its uniqueness if the existence of this crucifix "exclusive to the Sisters of Mercy who ran the Women's Refuge in Crispin Street" is, as Melvyn Fairclough's says in the Mammoth Book, to be construed as evidence that the crucifix was taken from Mary Jane Kelly by James Maybrick.

If such a scenario is claimed, then by extension it is claimed that the object came from the bloody room at 13 Miller's Court. In that case, would Anne Graham, the presumed present-day owner of the crucifix, be willing to have the crucifix tested to see if it has blood on it? And if that is so, is the blood type (or DNA) that of Mary Jane Kelly's?

Chris George

 
 
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