Michael Kidney

[babybird67]

can anyone direct me to any source material which suggests that Michael Kidney was violent with Liz?

Where does our knowledge of Kidney come from? And, if he was violent, and a possible murderer, why were his whereabouts and movements on the night of her murder not investigated?

any help appreciated

[perrymason]

Hi BB,

There is evidence that in 1887 she charged him with assault, although she didnt appear at the hearing....and in July of 1888 he was charged with D & D....that alone isnt much to look at him for murder potential, but when adding in all the factors, her leaving him on the 25th, him being prone to drink and sometimes "rough"...and Liz dying on a night when it appears she may have been waiting for a date not soliciting, ....and the ultimate bit about the fact that what was done to Liz anyone with a knife and a grudge could do....he starts to fit a suspect better I think.....but for only Liz's murder I would imagine.

Cheers BB

[babybird67]

thanks Michael

that's helpful to me.

Any reason known to anyone why someone with a history of domestic violence might not be investigated in relation to the murder of the woman? Was it just that policing was in its infancy or might there have been some other reason? Of course he may well have been investigated and the paperwork lost to us (or yet unfound).

[perrymason]

Hi BB,

Im inclined to wonder whether Kidney might make a reasonable candidate for the man seen with Liz with his arm blocking her way....by James Brown at the same time as Schwartz says he saw Liz and BSM.

He seems to want her attention and she demurs with "not tonight, maybe some other night".

I could see her waiting for a date, feeling uncomfortable with him over her like that, and agreeing to a drink some other night.

What if......when he asks her if she would go somewhere with him its really only just baiting her...because he already knows or suspects she has a date with someone from the Club, a Jewish man. An ethnic group not so popular outside their own ranks at that time.

Could Kidney become homicidal with the thought that she left him for a Socialist Jew? Who knows what he was like. But if his bizarre behavior at the Inquest is any indication, he may not be stable. And with a prior assault on Liz...even one....that suspect door seems ajar with respect to him.

I think if it was just jealousy and anger, the act committed fits the emotions. Just depends whether he was "off" enough to actually kill her.

Cheers Baby Bird.

[caz]

Hi Perry,

If Kidney had assaulted Liz in front of two witnesses, and gone on to cut her throat, what do you think would have spooked him into leaving the scene immediately after inflicting just the one cut, given that he couldn't have known at the time that it would be enough to silence her for good? Why would he not have had time to make absolutely sure of it, and slash her tummy about a bit for luck, to make it look like the WM's work?

The one killer we know of, on that night, who would have seen no need to make this look like some other murderer's work was Jack. Kidney would have had every need. The police were far more used to seeing the results of domestic knife attacks than serial throat cutting.

Love,

Caz
X

[c.d.]

If Kidney was the BS man and killed Liz in a fit of rage, why does he then stick around after being seen by Scwartz and Pipe Man? Not only can they identify him but he knows that the police will show up at his door simply by virtue of him being her ex boyfriend. If I had been Kidney, I would have left Whitechapel just as fast as I could.

c.d.

[Sam Flynn]

The police were far more used to seeing the results of domestic knife attacks than serial throat cutting.

But we're talking about much more than "serial throat cutting" when it comes to Jack, though, Caz. At the very least, we're talking about "serial deep throat cutting with rapid and significant loss of blood". All that - and more! - being accomplished under significant time-pressure, where the risk of being caught in the act was very real. I can't quite see the same man, perhaps spooked by a gee-gee, giving up midway through a (comparatively superficial and solitary) wound to the throat that left his victim only slowly "oozin' life". Wouldn't a practiced killer - of any description - have made bloody sure that she was a goner before running (incontinently ) away?

[perrymason]

Hi Perry,

If Kidney had assaulted Liz in front of two witnesses, and gone on to cut her throat, what do you think would have spooked him into leaving the scene immediately after inflicting just the one cut, given that he couldn't have known at the time that it would be enough to silence her for good? Why would he not have had time to make absolutely sure of it, and slash her tummy about a bit for luck, to make it look like the WM's work?

The one killer we know of, on that night, who would have seen no need to make this look like some other murderer's work was Jack. Kidney would have had every need. The police were far more used to seeing the results of domestic knife attacks than serial throat cutting.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

I think you're assuming that cutting a throat was enough to distinguish Jack from the many types of murderous thugs that were about in the area, when in fact there were a few slit throats that year and in other years that are completely unconnected with the Ripper cases. There was a third slit throat the night of the Double Event as you know.

The slit throat might not have killed her right away, but without some assistance immediately it was enough to kill her. If he cuts her while in the yard alone with her and then leaves, he might assume that by the time someone finds her and calls for help she will already be expired. He could see that the cut was bleeding profusely.

Kidney is an interesting possibility here because it addresses one key point in this murder that has baffled all of us. Why is she holding cashous at the time she is attacked and cut? The only answer that makes sense to me is that she was at the time in the company of someone she didnt fear would try and harm her....it would appear she should have.

Cheers Caz

[Sam Flynn]

If he cuts her while in the yard alone with her and then leaves, he might assume that by the time someone finds her and calls for help she will already be expired. He could see that the cut was bleeding profusely.

Could he see that, though? It was very dark in Dutfield's Yard. Having said that, an experienced throat-cutter surely wouldn't need to rely on vision alone.

[Hellrider]

Don't forget that Michael Kidney was (more or less) your typical "guy from the neighborhood" (at least by Whitechapel standards). He was most likely inclined to drink and maybe also to drunken abuse of women, but surely not to murder. If he had cut Liz's throat in a fit of rage and afterwards realised what he's done, it's 99% (for me at least) that he would have been completely out of his mind and just trusted his heels out of pure panic. That would by far not be the only case of "accidental" domestic killings where the offender only realises what he's done afterwards and then is so overwhelmed by shock that he acts like in a trance. Surely, somebody like that would not be capable to think clearly in that instant, far less be able to concentrate is thoughts enough to think how he could make this crime look like it's been perpetrated by Jack the Ripper. That chance is bout 1% to me.

[Sam Flynn]

If he had cut Liz's throat in a fit of rage and afterwards realised what he's done, it's 99% (for me at least) that he would have been completely out of his mind and just trusted his heels out of pure panic.

How many modern "impulse killers" act like that, though? Most of them, perhaps... but nowhere near 99% of them. Exaggerated as one's perception of the "roughness" of Whitechapel might be, it was undoubtedly a society in which misogyny, depersonalisation and brutality existed at levels seldom encountered today. Yet, even today, there is a fair percentage of manslaughters/murderers who stay calm in an effort to throw the police off the scent, and some even succeed. How much more likely would such behaviour have been in the context of the Late Victorian slums?

[kensei]

A question occurs to me on the possibility of Kidney being Liz's killer. Whitechapel and its surroundings is not exactly a huge area but not exactly a small one either. I plead ignorance- without digging out my book collection- on where Liz was living after having left Kidney. If she was any significant distance from home while out working the streets, what are the odds that Kidney could have found her?

[lynn cates]

Liz's address

Hello. To add another question to that one--when was Liz living in Fashion st. with a man and working among the Jews? Was that during the 3 months previous her living and quarreling with Kidney? The Tanner testimony seems a bit ambiguous on this point.

LC

[Sam Flynn]

I plead ignorance- without digging out my book collection- on where Liz was living after having left Kidney.

My book collection is under wraps at the moment, Ken (I'm decorating), but from memory she was lodging on and off in Flower & Dean Street, possibly alternating between there and 36 Devonshire Street, where she and Kidney had moved a few months prior to her death. (Before then, the couple had lived next door at 35, Devonshire Street for over two years.)

If she was any significant distance from home while out working the streets, what are the odds that Kidney could have found her?

Not as low as one might think, if one considers that Stride and Kidney had lived for a considerable time in Devonshire Street, a few hundred metres from Dutfield's Yard.

Stride was no stranger to the neighbourhood of St George-in-the-East, owing to her frequent begging missions to the Swedish Church in Wellclose Square, some 7 minutes' walk away from, and practically due South of, Dutfield's Yard. She may have had regular haunts in the vicinity of which Kidney, or any other acquaintance from her Devonshire St circle, could have been aware.

[c.d.]

[QUOTE=Sam Flynn;100263 Yet, even today, there is a fair percentage of manslaughters/murderers who stay calm in an effort to throw the police off the scent, and some even succeed. How much more likely would such behaviour have been in the context of the Late Victorian slums?[/QUOTE]

Hi Sam,

But in Kidney's case, if he had been the BS man, why in the world would he stick around after being identified by Schwartz and the Pipe Man? Throw in his documented history of violence towards Liz and it would have been enough to put a rope around his neck. To me, not fleeing Whitechapel under those circumstances would make him either extremely arrogant or extremely stupid.

c.d.