Coincidence?

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Hi Tristan

I think you are probably correct, but I still think it worth exploring. There is lots of room for lots of thread here and I'd be happy to contribute to any you start - what is it that you want to examine more closely?

What about - Was Mary Jane Kelly Jack The Ripper? The REAL MJK, not the poor victim found in Mitre Square. She faked her own death. The evidence is there if we look hard enough! Or make it up, whichever's easiest.

[Losmandris]

Hi Tristan

I think you are probably correct, but I still think it worth exploring. There is lots of room for lots of thread here and I'd be happy to contribute to any you start - what is it that you want to examine more closely?

Hi Etenguy,

Sorry my attempt at a little joke to try and get things back on track. Big ask I know but I think it would be great for thread authors to bring threads to a halt once they go off track with a bit of a conclusion based on what has been said or talked about. After a few months maybe the admins could move this summary to the start of the thread to give a new reader an overview before diving into it? Lots of work I realise and I don't know how possible it would be, especially when some threads have lots of pages and tonnes of opinions and info, but it could be really handy!

Tristan

[etenguy]

the answer is Yes. Can we start a new thread now please?

Tristan

Hi Tristan

I think you are probably correct, but I still think it worth exploring. There is lots of room for lots of thread here and I'd be happy to contribute to any you start - what is it that you want to examine more closely?

[Sam Flynn]

Then there's the fact that Catherine bought boots from Florence Pash's cousin when she went hopping and Florence Pash said she knew Mary Kelly.

The bit about Eddowes buying the boots is possibly true, but the bit about Florence Pash's alleged claim that she knew Mary (Jane) Kelly is rather dubious, tied up as it is with the Sickert saga.

I say "possibly true" because, whilst John Kelly/Eddowes bought the boots at Arthur Pash's shop, I don't see how this means that Pash himself, as opposed to a shop assistant, sold the boots to them. Even if they'd dealt with Pash personally, I find it extremely unlikely that he'd tell his (presumably) insider story about the Ripper to a couple of raggedy strangers who'd dropped in to buy a pair of cheap boots. If he told them, then he must have been in the habit of telling many others, yet we only know about (Florence) Pash's alleged insider info from one or two decidedly iffy sources, and then only in connection with various Sickert theories.

[etenguy]

Okay, etenguy! Well, if there is a reoccurring trait in studying the Ripper, this is it - what seems to be (and may be) coincidences arrive thick and fast. And being human, we are all looking for patterns, to try and understand as best as we can what happened. To me, this has always meant that I try not to overinvest in these kinds of things. And I try not to speak of coincidences when there is nothing coinciding as such - the Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Friday thing is not something that stands out to me as coincidental at all, I´m afraid. There are too few occasions for the sequence not to look completely innocent to my eyes, and weekends were always ripe with crime anyway. Furthermore, Eddowes´man was named Kelly, and that tends to blunt that coincidence rather badly.

The Gill date, however, was something that made me raise my eyebrows when I read it. It is kind of eerie, and in that case, the sequence must be regarded as beyond trivial. Way beyond it, actually. Well spotted, and very interesting per se.
However! Before it can become truly useful in our search, one must accept that a common killer was into some sort of magical numerical thinking, and I have a really hard time trying to accept that. Therefore, I tend to accept that although the sequence stands out as truly remarkable, what is seems to imply sounds very improbable to my ears.

So I end up with a stance of the whole thing amounting to nothing - and the reassuring thought that there was a Pickfords depot in Bradford, should I be wrong...

Thanks Fisherman - in my more sober moments I agree with you, for god's sake we can find patterns in clouds if we look hard enough. I think the one thing that would convince me that this is more than just coincidence is if we found that Johnny Gill was a ripper victim - but that is not proven and in fact the more I look into that murder, the less likely it seems (there is a suspect in the frame who was not prosecuted but is none the less a strong candidate). However, since there is not too much information easily available about the Johnny Gill murder it is hard to tell - some primary research is needed. I am motivated enough to undertake that, it is just finding the time and the opportunity to go to Bradford - which (coincidently) I will be doing in a few weeks for completely different reasons.

[Losmandris]

Is it purely coincidence that the last two generally accepted Ripper victims used the names Jane Kelly - an alias of Catherine Eddowes and of course Mary Jane Kelly?

There is debate about the Stephen Knight theory (for another thread), but his suggestion that Catherine Eddowes was mistaken for Mary Jane Kelly seems plausible. At least to me. However, that would suggest the victims were not random - or at least the final two were not random. Could Mary Jane Kelly have been the murderer's intended victim and the others used to obscure the fact? That would point to some kind of conspiracy - I know they don't go down well here generally - but it is a bit of a coincidence.

the answer is Yes. Can we start a new thread now please?

Tristan

[etenguy]

Eddowes gave the name "Mary Ann Kelly" when she was released from the drunk tank, not "Jane Kelly" (I'm unaware of her giving Jane Kelly at any point, but I could simply be unaware of that information). I'm not sure the Kelly part of the name indicates anything other than the fact that Kelly was her boyfriend's last name. Given Mary was a very common name, we're not left with all that much overlap with Mary Jane Kelly. I have some memory of other women also using Mary as an alias from other Whitechappel murder case of the time, but I can't recall if it was other victims or witnesses, or both - and I'm not entirely sure that memory is accurate and wish I could give an example. In lieu of being able to do so, it might be useful for us all to scour our collective knowledge and see how common Mary was used as an alias. "Mary Ann" of course, has connections to "Mary Ann Nichols", with two of the names in common as per "Mary Jane Kelly." And that comparison doesn't have the obvious connection with one of the names, that of Kelly, to Eddowes' personally (her boyfriend). Whether that points to an increase in coincidences, or points to just how common those names are (and I think of "Mary Ann" from Giligan's Island as suggesting that combination is probably not particularly uncommon) I'll leave open for discussion. It also might be that with the prior murders (Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman) both being in the public spotlight, that her random name picking was, indeed, influenced by those names being highlighted in public discourse. I don't mean she intentionally chose them for that reason, only that because of their recent salience, they could be more apt to be picked (yes, our random choices are influenced by such things, it's referred to as implicit tests of memory, where exposure to prior information will influence choices even if one doesn't explicitly recall the information. Whole areas of psychological research on long term memory are devoted to such things and implicit tests of memory tend to result in demonstrations that a lot of information gets encoded and stored that we might not be able to explicitly recognize or recall later. I'll not bore you with the details other than to say this is not the notion of "repressed memories" but an entirely different construct).

The day pattern (Fri-Sat, etc), has indeed often been suggestive of pointing to JtR being employed (obviously in an occupation where those days were "days off"), paricularly once bank holidays are included. Other, non-C5 cases, also have been pointed to (Tabram I believe) as fitting this pattern.

Personally, I do think we can find patterns in numbers that would be hard, if not nigh on impossible, for a serial killer to conform to. Is the pattern they were working to 1-3-5, as in 1+2 = 3, 3+2 = 5, so every two weeks, or was it 0+1=1, 1+2=3, 3+2=5, making the predicted next murder on 4+5=9, rather than 5+2=7? Or is it a listing of prime numbers (also suggesting the next at 7, but after that not until 13). The Johnny Gill murder, at week 7, is an interesting find, but it requires leaving the vicinity and victim details out (both of which are also very consistent in the C5 - destitute women in the vicinity of Whitechappel who were in need of money and possibly engaged in prostitution as the only means by which they could obtain it). That doesn't mean it's not worth looking into, but make sure you don't draw a conclusion that is based on how the Johnny Gill murder fits the pattern, rather look to see how probable that the Johnny Gill crime is by JtR and forget about the pattern. If you end up convinced it is part of the series, the pattern then emerges, but it should not be the pattern that determines your conclusion of inclusion, if you get my drift.


Anyway, those are just a few thoughts that occurred to me from reading your post that you may, or may not, find useful to consider.

- Jeff

Thanks Jeff, an interesting post.

I believe that Jane Kelly was the name Eddowes used for pawning some boots and gave an address of 6 Dorset Street. So then using Mary Ann Kelly when leaving the police station, is just another coincidence.

Part of my work involves research (medical - though I am not a medic) and I appreciate that patterns sometimes emerge that are just coincidence as well as the temptation to make data fit the pattern once one emerges. I will avoid that temptation. It is difficult to find too many details about the Johnny Gill murder, though a poster here, Dr Strange, did post a great article on another thread. There is a strong suspect for the Johnny Gill murder (non ripper) but not proven. I will carry on trying to find more details, but prima facie the murder seems very similar to ripper murders (maybe a copy cat) even an ear cut off - but the big differences are he was a young lad and it happened in Bradford. I think some primary research is required to better understand the likelihood of his being a ripper victim or not - I have reason to visit Bradford in a few weeks, so that might be timely. It is odd how it fits the timing pattern so precisely - but these types of coincidences do happen.

[FISHY1118]

I

n short, the Royal Conspiracy requires everyone involved - conspirators, killers, and victims to act in an incredibly stupid manner. It's patent nonsense even before we consider that the original source of the story admitted it was a hoax.

Here we go again , once a poster quotes the original source admitting the whole thing was a hoax , you just know they havent researched the case in great detail . So be it . Probably just another Druitt enthusiast.

[Fisherman]

Hi Fisherman

The coincidences exercising me at the moment are:

1. Eddowes used the alias Jane Kelly and the next victim was Mary Jane Kelly

2. The pattern of days for the C5 killings went Fri - Sat - Sun - Fri (a pattern? work pattern perhaps.)

3. The timing between the C5 murders is 1 week, 3 weeks, 5 weeks (followed by the next day in the sequence in 2 above)

4, If Kelly was not the last victim, then if the pattern holds there would be another murder on the first Saturday after 7 weeks (and that is the day the body of Johnny Gill was discovered - he had been mutilated, eviscerated and his genitals mutilated - similar enough to a ripper murder that Phillips was asked to review (he decided it was not a ripper murder)). Not a proven ripper victim but another coincidence.

I guess you can always find patterns if you look hard enough - and likely these are just coincidences - but if there was a pattern, then these were not random murders. I have no theory - just observations.

Okay, etenguy! Well, if there is a reoccurring trait in studying the Ripper, this is it - what seems to be (and may be) coincidences arrive thick and fast. And being human, we are all looking for patterns, to try and understand as best as we can what happened. To me, this has always meant that I try not to overinvest in these kinds of things. And I try not to speak of coincidences when there is nothing coinciding as such - the Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Friday thing is not something that stands out to me as coincidental at all, I´m afraid. There are too few occasions for the sequence not to look completely innocent to my eyes, and weekends were always ripe with crime anyway. Furthermore, Eddowes´man was named Kelly, and that tends to blunt that coincidence rather badly.

The Gill date, however, was something that made me raise my eyebrows when I read it. It is kind of eerie, and in that case, the sequence must be regarded as beyond trivial. Way beyond it, actually. Well spotted, and very interesting per se.
However! Before it can become truly useful in our search, one must accept that a common killer was into some sort of magical numerical thinking, and I have a really hard time trying to accept that. Therefore, I tend to accept that although the sequence stands out as truly remarkable, what is seems to imply sounds very improbable to my ears.

So I end up with a stance of the whole thing amounting to nothing - and the reassuring thought that there was a Pickfords depot in Bradford, should I be wrong...

[Fiver]

What people call a thoroughly discredited story , is in fact a thoroughly researched theory which stands up today , just as it did when it was written in 1976 .

Knight's 'Royal Conspiracy' requires
* A group of semi-homeless alcoholic prostitutes decide to blackmail the British government over something provably false.
* The British government decides this is a serious threat to the monarchy.
* With the full resources of the British government at their disposal, the conspirators put together a kill squad made up of a man who wasn't in England, an elderly stroke victim, and a coachman.
* The men assigned to eliminate the blackmailers decide the best way to do this is to murder them in a way that turns the women from nobodies to household names, implicates the Masons, and undermines public confidence in the authorities.
* The British government agrees this is the best way to quietly and secretly eliminate the blackmailers.
* The victims fail to notice or respond when only members of their blackmail club are being messily butchered by the Ripper.
* Over a year after the doctor has stopped murdering or doing anything to implicates the conspiracy, the conspirators decide that he is a threat.
* Rather than kill the elderly doctor, the British government decides to fake his death and put him in an asylum, even though he was well known in the medical community and his picture had appeared in the newspapers.
* The painter then spends decades hiding a child from the authorities and leaving still more clues that implicate the Masons. The conspirators do not decide he is a threat and do nothing to stop the painter.
* The coachman, even though no one else cares, spends more than a decade repeatedly and ineptly failing to kill the painter and the child.

In short, the Royal Conspiracy requires everyone involved - conspirators, killers, and victims to act in an incredibly stupid manner. It's patent nonsense even before we consider that the original source of the story admitted it was a hoax.

[Trapperologist]

Is it purely coincidence that the last two generally accepted Ripper victims used the names Jane Kelly - an alias of Catherine Eddowes and of course Mary Jane Kelly?

There is debate about the Stephen Knight theory (for another thread), but his suggestion that Catherine Eddowes was mistaken for Mary Jane Kelly seems plausible. At least to me. However, that would suggest the victims were not random - or at least the final two were not random. Could Mary Jane Kelly have been the murderer's intended victim and the others used to obscure the fact? That would point to some kind of conspiracy - I know they don't go down well here generally - but it is a bit of a coincidence.

Then there's the fact that Catherine bought boots from Florence Pash's cousin when she went hopping and Florence Pash said she knew Mary Kelly.

[jerryd]

...it might be useful for us all to scour our collective knowledge and see how common Mary was used as an alias. "Mary Ann" of course, has connections to "Mary Ann Nichols", with two of the names in common as per "Mary Jane Kelly." And that comparison doesn't have the obvious connection with one of the names, that of Kelly, to Eddowes' personally (her boyfriend). Whether that points to an increase in coincidences, or points to just how common those names are (and I think of "Mary Ann" from Giligan's Island as suggesting that combination is probably not particularly uncommon) I'll leave open for discussion.

- Jeff

Hi Jeff,

Alice McKenzie was known to Mrs. Smith (her employer at the Baths in Castle Alley), by the name of Kelly.

[JeffHamm]

Hi Fisherman

The coincidences exercising me at the moment are:

1. Eddowes used the alias Jane Kelly and the next victim was Mary Jane Kelly

2. The pattern of days for the C5 killings went Fri - Sat - Sun - Fri (a pattern? work pattern perhaps.)

3. The timing between the C5 murders is 1 week, 3 weeks, 5 weeks (followed by the next day in the sequence in 2 above)

4, If Kelly was not the last victim, then if the pattern holds there would be another murder on the first Saturday after 7 weeks (and that is the day the body of Johnny Gill was discovered - he had been mutilated, eviscerated and his genitals mutilated - similar enough to a ripper murder that Phillips was asked to review (he decided it was not a ripper murder)). Not a proven ripper victim but another coincidence.

I guess you can always find patterns if you look hard enough - and likely these are just coincidences - but if there was a pattern, then these were not random murders. I have no theory - just observations.

Eddowes gave the name "Mary Ann Kelly" when she was released from the drunk tank, not "Jane Kelly" (I'm unaware of her giving Jane Kelly at any point, but I could simply be unaware of that information). I'm not sure the Kelly part of the name indicates anything other than the fact that Kelly was her boyfriend's last name. Given Mary was a very common name, we're not left with all that much overlap with Mary Jane Kelly. I have some memory of other women also using Mary as an alias from other Whitechappel murder case of the time, but I can't recall if it was other victims or witnesses, or both - and I'm not entirely sure that memory is accurate and wish I could give an example. In lieu of being able to do so, it might be useful for us all to scour our collective knowledge and see how common Mary was used as an alias. "Mary Ann" of course, has connections to "Mary Ann Nichols", with two of the names in common as per "Mary Jane Kelly." And that comparison doesn't have the obvious connection with one of the names, that of Kelly, to Eddowes' personally (her boyfriend). Whether that points to an increase in coincidences, or points to just how common those names are (and I think of "Mary Ann" from Giligan's Island as suggesting that combination is probably not particularly uncommon) I'll leave open for discussion. It also might be that with the prior murders (Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman) both being in the public spotlight, that her random name picking was, indeed, influenced by those names being highlighted in public discourse. I don't mean she intentionally chose them for that reason, only that because of their recent salience, they could be more apt to be picked (yes, our random choices are influenced by such things, it's referred to as implicit tests of memory, where exposure to prior information will influence choices even if one doesn't explicitly recall the information. Whole areas of psychological research on long term memory are devoted to such things and implicit tests of memory tend to result in demonstrations that a lot of information gets encoded and stored that we might not be able to explicitly recognize or recall later. I'll not bore you with the details other than to say this is not the notion of "repressed memories" but an entirely different construct).

The day pattern (Fri-Sat, etc), has indeed often been suggestive of pointing to JtR being employed (obviously in an occupation where those days were "days off"), paricularly once bank holidays are included. Other, non-C5 cases, also have been pointed to (Tabram I believe) as fitting this pattern.

Personally, I do think we can find patterns in numbers that would be hard, if not nigh on impossible, for a serial killer to conform to. Is the pattern they were working to 1-3-5, as in 1+2 = 3, 3+2 = 5, so every two weeks, or was it 0+1=1, 1+2=3, 3+2=5, making the predicted next murder on 4+5=9, rather than 5+2=7? Or is it a listing of prime numbers (also suggesting the next at 7, but after that not until 13). The Johnny Gill murder, at week 7, is an interesting find, but it requires leaving the vicinity and victim details out (both of which are also very consistent in the C5 - destitute women in the vicinity of Whitechappel who were in need of money and possibly engaged in prostitution as the only means by which they could obtain it). That doesn't mean it's not worth looking into, but make sure you don't draw a conclusion that is based on how the Johnny Gill murder fits the pattern, rather look to see how probable that the Johnny Gill crime is by JtR and forget about the pattern. If you end up convinced it is part of the series, the pattern then emerges, but it should not be the pattern that determines your conclusion of inclusion, if you get my drift.


Anyway, those are just a few thoughts that occurred to me from reading your post that you may, or may not, find useful to consider.

- Jeff

[jerryd]

Katherine Eddowes son was George Conway, not Thomas.

George,Thomas and Annie. Thomas being the older of the boys. And one other that we know of, that Debs found, Frederick William.

[Fiver]

Kate's eldest son was Thomas Conway .
The same age as the Thomas Conway who was a procurer for the Cleveland Street brothel.
Kate's son was living less than a mile away in York Street ,Marylebone at the time with his father and brother and is one of only two Thomas Conway's to be close enough in age ,the other was 4 years older .

Katherine Eddowes son was George Conway, not Thomas.