Exhumation of the victims today.

[mpriestnall]

It sounds like she was perhaps only ever witnessed inside a hall of mirrors.....!

Nice one!

++

I don't believe for minute that Kelly was the Miller's Court victim.

Further Wicks post #215 on the "The Legend of Mary Jane Kelly" in response to mine.

Identifying the victim by the eyes and ears of a brutally mutilated face seems a highly unreliable means of identification.

Using the blood splattered hair wouldn't have been much better.

Surely the remains of the arms and legs would have provided better evidence for identification? If the body was shown to JB
or anyone else, wrapped up in a shroud as Wicks seems to suggest, and thus hiding this better means of identification, was that because the authorities was trying to pass off A.N Other as MJK?

Was the authorites adding smoke to the mirrors? I thank you!

[Ms Diddles]

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Jane_Kelly:

Daily Telegraph of 10 November 1888 described her as "tall, slim, fair, of fresh complexion, and of attractive appearance" and Wikipedia states:
"Contemporary reports estimated Kelly's height at 5 feet and 7 inches (1.70 metres)."

Tall, slim and short and stout at the same time...Kelly was a true legend!

It sounds like she was perhaps only ever witnessed inside a hall of mirrors.....!

[Columbo]

Illustrated Police News 17-11-1888: https://www.casebook.org/press_repor.../il881117.html

"Maurice Lewis, a tailor, living in Dorset-street, stated that he had known the deceased woman for the last five years. Her name was Mary Jane Kelly. She was short, stout, and dark.

For various reasons it's difficult to be confident when making a visual comparison between the IPN picture of Kelly and the pictures of the butchered Miller's Court victim. But those obvious reasons not withstanding, I'm not seeing a short, stout, dark woman in the Kelly picture. I referring in particular to that "Kelly" picture as on Andrew Cook's book.

Appreciate any comments from ya' all.

Not sure about the dark part. I thought she had long red hair. She also looked pale in the Miller's Court crime scene photos.

Never the less, no good would come from exhuming the graves. Maybe you would find a relative who may have an old photo that might be her, but would it really be worth disturbing all these other graves on the hopes of that? If they did would they just toss aside whomever else is buried there and not find out who they are? It's just not worth it when nothing of value can be yielded from it concerning who did this to her, or to just satisfy a bunch of researchers who in all accounts will probably never solve this crime.

[mpriestnall]

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Jane_Kelly:

Daily Telegraph of 10 November 1888 described her as "tall, slim, fair, of fresh complexion, and of attractive appearance" and Wikipedia states:
"Contemporary reports estimated Kelly's height at 5 feet and 7 inches (1.70 metres)."

Tall, slim and short and stout at the same time...Kelly was a true legend!

[mpriestnall]

Illustrated Police News 17-11-1888: https://www.casebook.org/press_repor.../il881117.html

"Maurice Lewis, a tailor, living in Dorset-street, stated that he had known the deceased woman for the last five years. Her name was Mary Jane Kelly. She was short, stout, and dark.

For various reasons it's difficult to be confident when making a visual comparison between the IPN picture of Kelly and the pictures of the butchered Miller's Court victim. But those obvious reasons not withstanding, I'm not seeing a short, stout, dark woman in the Kelly picture. I referring in particular to that "Kelly" picture as on Andrew Cook's book.

Appreciate any comments from ya' all.

[mpriestnall]

My view on finding Kelly at St Patrick's Cemetery:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1lxDjd_fi8

"There wasn't a breath of wind last night yet the sails of the windmill went round and round and round".

Enough said.

[Fantomas]

I wonder, then, if elimination could be the way forward in using what can possibly be used of the bodies/murder weapons/props. Is there a sophisticated enough technique that could see DNA or other evidence from the possessions/corpses of the main suspects compared and contrasted with any of the biological or other physical evidence from the crime scenes. For example if Tumblety's DNA is not even in trace evidence on a few key artefacts, he can't be JtR?

[clark2710]

I'm a little late responding to this one . I asked a very similar question and did a bit of reading on my own on this very topic. First the DNA. It's important to note that DNA lasts a very very long time if the body is buried down a few feet. Having said that, Lets use Mary Kelly as the example here, that speaks to Mary's DNA, any DNA from the killer would be almost certainly gone depending on anything present in the grave or on her body or what have you and how she was buried that the killer left his DNA on...i.e. was she wrapped in something or put in a pine box or whatever along with an article of clothing the killer may have left DNA on. All of this is assuming you could find her in the first place. Her original burial site was lost to time and even if you found it, correct me if I'm wrong, but her grave site was reused so has graves atop it; or am I mistaken? At any rate there would be a great and I mean GREAT deal of luck involved in simply finding her grave, not to mention because there are no living relatives to ask permission from you'd have to seek help from the government and even then the cemetery itself may have recourse to say; nope not gonna happen. I don't know the laws concerning these things if exhumation were granted by the government and the cemetery didn't wish it happen. At any rate the only people that it would help to find Mary Kelly's actual grave site and body, dig her up, run DNA and so on, would be to be able to knock on someone's door and say; guess what you're a direct descendant of the final victim of Jack the Ripper. In the case of the other victims where their burial sites are known, they have families living today or what have you; here's the issue. Put simply so much time has passed that the graves, I don't believe, would hold anything of value that would point to the killer.

[mpriestnall]

It just needed to be said, in my view.
Far too many nonsense-based conspiracy theories these days. I have to wonder what the world is coming to. This was such a minor example but Kattrup nailed it.
Don't take it personal Martyn.

No Kattrup did not nail it. But I respect both your and Kattrup views and we just have to agree to disagree on whether there was a conspiracy/cover up or not..

Regards

Martyn

[Wickerman]

It just needed to be said, in my view.
Far too many nonsense-based conspiracy theories these days. I have to wonder what the world is coming to. This was such a minor example but Kattrup nailed it.
Don't take it personal Martyn.

[mpriestnall]

One fine example of level-headed thinking, well done that man!

Not so level-headed when Kattup argued against a point (reason for non-exhumation) that no one actually made and that everyone already generally accepted.

[mpriestnall]

1. I'm constantly amazed by people's belief in present-day governments being willing to risk their political life for safeguarding a supposed, unprovable conspiracy that happened more than a century ago.

2. Seems like an awful lot of paperwork and bureaucracy to keep track of "untouchable" graves over a span over 130 years, in order to maintain a secret that no-one in government cares about. Frankly, I think the UK government has more worrying concerns than covering up an ancient conspiracy. Which also never happened anyway.

3. The reasons for not exhuming the bodies seem pretty clear: it's highly unlikely that MJK's body will be found, and one would have to disturb 10-20 other graves in order to attempt it. Plus the potential benefit (DNA-analysis of MJK) is very small and unlikely to bring any furtherance of the ends of justice - while she might potentially be better id'ed, there's absolutely no reason to think that analysing her DNA would bring her killer to justice.

Thanks for sharing your opinions on my opinions.

To be clear, I didn't state that the only reason exhumation will not be take place is because the authorities didn't want the "Kelly"'s body identified to protect the JTR conspiracy. I am like everyone else reading this thread are already aware of the impracticabilities of exhumation. I was merely adding another reason why it wouldn't go ahead.

Martyn

[Wickerman]

I'm constantly amazed by people's belief in present-day governments being willing to risk their political life for safeguarding a supposed, unprovable conspiracy that happened more than a century ago.

Seems like an awful lot of paperwork and bureaucracy to keep track of "untouchable" graves over a span over 130 years, in order to maintain a secret that no-one in government cares about. Frankly, I think the UK government has more worrying concerns than covering up an ancient conspiracy. Which also never happened anyway.

The reasons for not exhuming the bodies seem pretty clear: it's highly unlikely that MJK's body will be found, and one would have to disturb 10-20 other graves in order to attempt it. Plus the potential benefit (DNA-analysis of MJK) is very small and unlikely to bring any furtherance of the ends of justice - while she might potentially be better id'ed, there's absolutely no reason to think that analysing her DNA would bring her killer to justice.

One fine example of level-headed thinking, well done that man!

[DJA]

Meh,Freemasons

[Kattrup]

Notwithstanding one should never say never, the authorities will never allow the exhumation of the supposed body of Kelly to avoid the possibility of DNA being extracted from it and used to prove it wasn't Kelly after all.

I'm constantly amazed by people's belief in present-day governments being willing to risk their political life for safeguarding a supposed, unprovable conspiracy that happened more than a century ago.

Seems like an awful lot of paperwork and bureaucracy to keep track of "untouchable" graves over a span over 130 years, in order to maintain a secret that no-one in government cares about. Frankly, I think the UK government has more worrying concerns than covering up an ancient conspiracy. Which also never happened anyway.

The reasons for not exhuming the bodies seem pretty clear: it's highly unlikely that MJK's body will be found, and one would have to disturb 10-20 other graves in order to attempt it. Plus the potential benefit (DNA-analysis of MJK) is very small and unlikely to bring any furtherance of the ends of justice - while she might potentially be better id'ed, there's absolutely no reason to think that analysing her DNA would bring her killer to justice.