Coincidence?

[JeffHamm]

I did of course mean the sharing of the names Mary and Ann is associated with the four victims when you include the alias that Catherine Eddowes used.

Yes, I got that.

Oh, and there's also Mary Ann Cox, neighbor of Mary Jane Kelly.

So now we have:
Mary Ann Conolly (Pearly Poll; friend of Martha Tabram)

Mary Ann Nichols (Polly Nichols)
Annie Chapman
"Mary Ann Kelly" (Eddowes alias)
Mary Jane Kelly
Mary Ann Cox (neighbour of Mary Jane Kelly).

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

JTR: Hello, down-and-out forty-something woman. I'm Jack.
Woman #1: Hello. I'm Mary.
JTR: Die, stumpet!

Three hours and another dead Mary later...

JTR: Hello, down-and-out forty-something woman. I'm Jack.
Woman #3: Hello. I'm Emily.
JTR: What a pretty name! Well, I bid you a good night.

Yes, I know, it's not a very believable notion (I don't really believe it myself, just seeing what might be the most plausible type of connection between the names, and then see if that makes for a plausible scenerio when all the evidence comes to bear. So far, anything we've come up with that suggests the commonality between names is "by design" ends up in very implausible explanations; your example above points that out nicely, Sam.

- Jeff

[Sam Flynn]

JTR: Hello, down-and-out forty-something woman. I'm Jack.
Woman #1: Hello. I'm Mary.
JTR: Die, stumpet!

Three hours and another dead Mary later...

JTR: Hello, down-and-out forty-something woman. I'm Jack.
Woman #3: Hello. I'm Emily.
JTR: What a pretty name! Well, I bid you a good night.

[etenguy]

The coincidences in this case keep piling on - the names Mary and Ann were common in that area at that time, but even so, if Elizabeth Stride was not a JtR victim, it does stand out that four victims in a row share one or both of those names. It does make you think there is some pattern to these killings, but if there is, it eludes me.

I did of course mean the sharing of the names Mary and Ann is associated with the four victims when you include the alias that Catherine Eddowes used.

[etenguy]

But no, I don't believe this. Because 1) the soldier would have seen Pearly Poll, and so would know what she looked like, roughly, and the C5 victims are not similar looking to each other. Also, if he's just trying to eliminate a witness, sticking around to mutilate her is unnecessarily risky (and goes against a methodical plan of witness elimination), and so forth. - Jeff

The plethora of Mary Anns amongst the C5 victims is striking. I remember reading somewhere, but for the moment I cannot recollect where, that Catherine Eddowes often used the name Mary Ann Kelly which was the name of John Kelly's first wife. I'll have to see if I can find that again to judge how much credence to give it.

I agree with you that the murderer of Martha Tabram would be unlikely to be tracking Pearly Poll through the name Mary and/or Ann, as he would recognise her and he would have been able to find her without too much difficulty, I think. Also, as you say, it would not explain the mutilations.

The coincidences in this case keep piling on - the names Mary and Ann were common in that area at that time, but even so, if Elizabeth Stride was not a JtR victim, it does stand out that four victims in a row share one or both of those names. It does make you think there is some pattern to these killings, but if there is, it eludes me.

[JeffHamm]

Hmmmmm,

Ok, etenguy, I just thought of something. And no, not really pushing this but your idea that JtR went on to kill Mary Jane Kelly because of a link to an alias used by Eddowes, and my above post noting how at least one of the names "Mary" or "Ann" is connected to 4 of the C5, with only the most unsure victim, Stride, being left out.

What if we think back to Martha Tabram's case. And the witness, "Pearly Poll", who's real name was Mary Ann Connolly!

And the next victim is of course, Mary Ann Nichols, also known as Polly Nichols.

I think, if one were to consider the notion that JtR was hunting down anybody, then perhaps the strongest arguement would be that he was hunting down Pearly Poll, but of course never finds her. This, of course, would require the assumption that Martha Tabram was, in fact, a victim of JtR and that she was killed by one of the soldiers. He's then worried that she will eventually identify him, and he remembers her name was "Mary" or "Ann" or "Mary Ann" something.

It also, of course, requires one to assume that Pearly Poll gave out her real name that night at some point, that Eddowes used the name "Mary Ann" when she meets him (and that now could be by chance even) that night (JtR is, presumably prowling the streets, chatting up women until he finds a prostitute named "Mary Ann" or "Mary", etc), and lots of other things, none of which we have a shred of evidence for. Furthermore, the fact that we have yet another Mary Ann, indicates how common the pairing of those two names was.

So again, if we drop Stride from the series and decide she's not a JtR victim, then we now have:
Mary Ann Conolly (Pearly Poll)

Mary Ann Nichols (Polly Nichols)
Annie Chapman
"Mary Ann Kelly" (Eddowes)
Mary Jane Kelly

But no, I don't believe this. Because 1) the soldier would have seen Pearly Poll, and so would know what she looked like, roughly, and the C5 victims are not similar looking to each other. Also, if he's just trying to eliminate a witness, sticking around to mutilate her is unnecessarily risky (and goes against a methodical plan of witness elimination), and so forth.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff

That was the most difficult part of constructing this scenario. I did consider it and the longer version of the below paragraph is the one to which you refer.



The expanded version:



So when he meets and kills Eddowes he thinks he is killing Jane Kelly who he met in the pub earlier. He then finds out he killed someone called Catherine Eddowes. So he tries to track Jane Kelly down again thinking he has made a mistake which the woman he meet in the pub encouraged him to believe in order to get free drinks. He finds out the Jane Kelly that had spoken about knowing the identity of the murderer lived in Dorset Street which leads him to MJK.

Having gone through the process of outlining a possible scenario which explains the coincidence in terms of a possible link, I ask myself, is this scenario really possible? My answer is yes, it's possible if you accept the initial assumptions. I then ask myself which is more likely - a remarkable coincidence or a scenario such as the one I imagined and I think the coincidence is more likely. The reasons for that are, for the scenario to work:
1. I had to have the murderer and Eddowes act in a certain way, which I am not convinced they would.
2. While the evidence used is not contradicted by the scenario, nor is it compelling in support of the scenario.
3. For this scenario to be true, I think we would need to either accept Stride was not a Ripper victim or that he was confident enough to plan to kill two victims that night.

Hi ettenguy,

Yah, I think I agree with your final conclusion that a coincidence is the more plausible explanation. I do like the approach you've presented though. However, someone else has pointed out that there were quite a few people reported as saying they thought they knew who JtR was, so why Eddowes in particular (or "Jane Kelly", let's say) should be looked for starts requiring even more speculation and assumptions.

If we drop Stride from the series and decide she's not a JtR victim, then we have:
Mary Ann Nichols
Annie Chapman
"Mary Ann Kelly"
Mary Jane Kelly

and we see that at least one of Mary or Ann, and occasionally both, show up in every victim's name. Now, either that's just because those were very common names and are often used in aliases (since people argue that Mary Jane Kelly wasn't her real name after all, making it an alias), so those are all coincidences, or we start to wonder if JtR was either looking for "Mary and/or Ann" or perhaps he routinely engaged in these services, but the name somehow sets him off?

Perhaps suspects who have a connection to a Mary and/or Ann whom they might be argued to be vengeful against would gain some greater consideration?

I'm not sure even the above is anything more than a coincidence though, in part because it hinges on Stride being out consideration. When she's added back in as a JtR victim, we now have Elizabeth Stride, with neither a Mary nor Ann in sight, and the "pattern" goes up in a puff of evidential smoke. Since we can consider Stride as "not in the series" or we can consider her "part of the series", our pattern blinks on and off with that decision. And of course, if Martha Tabram was an early JtR victim (which some argue for), the pattern gets lost again, as would including Alice McKenzie, or Fances Coles, etc. And, as we've been discussing, it also would depend upon assuming that Catherine Eddowes used the alias "Mary Ann Kelly" when talking with JtR, and as far as we know, she just made it up on the spot to give to the police and may have never used it again.

- Jeff

[Michael W Richards]

It can be constructed out of a pawn ticket and an alias given to a police officer, but it requires picking only the parts you want and only in the order you want, while ignoring Ann, Fashion, 13, Millers, and Court. Even if the Ripper had been in the police station when Eddowes was released and took the time to riffle though her pockets, read the pawn tickets, and then put them back, he would had 3 names and addresses as Eddowes also carried a pawn ticket for Emily Birrell, 52 White's Row. the Ripper would have no way of deriving 'Mary Jane Kelly, 13 Millers Court' from the available information, nor any reason to seek out any of the aliases of a woman he had just murdered.

You are trying to treat this as a whodunnit and assuming a one time alias and one of the two pawn tickets must be clues, while ignoring the other pawn ticket because it doesn't fit your theory. Real people worried about becoming a crime victim don't get themselves arrested and pawn items to leave a trail of breadcrumbs that don't clearly lead to anyone or anywhere. Nobody except Eddowes even knew about the different fake addresses until the information appeared in the newspapers.

If Catherine Eddowes was in fear of her life because she knew who the Ripper was, she would have told John Kelly, not left him clues to track down after she was murdered. If she chose to blackmail the Ripper, she would not have met him alone at 1:30AM unless she was terminally stupid.

If the Ripper had heard that a Jane Kelly or a Mary Ann Kelly claimed to know who he was and decided the correct solution was homicide, he might have tracked down and killed Mary Jane Kelly, but not Catherine Eddowes. If the Ripper was present at the pawnbroker's or the police station when Eddowes used either Kelly alias and at the Casual Ward when she claimed to know who he was, then he might have followed Eddowes and killed her, but that would give him no reason to specifically track down Mary Jane Kelly. Reports of Eddowes inquest appeared in The Daily Telegraph, on October 5, 1889, where the Ripper would have learned she lived with a man named Kelly at 55 Flower and Dean-street, based on the testimony of John Kelly, Eliza Gould, and Frederick Wilkinson. From The Daily Telegraph, October 12, 1888, the Ripper would have known that Eddowes used the name and address Mary Ann Kelly, No. 6, Fashion-street, Spitalfields. The East London Observer of 13 October 1888 would have told the Ripper that he got the woman claiming to know he was the killer.

At which point the Ripper would not have the information Jane Kelly of 6 Dorset Street, nor any reason to look for her. Plus, Mary Jane Kelly was killed 27 days after the Ripper had all this information, 40 days after he killed Eddowes. Why would a man worried about his murderous ways being exposed give the last possible threat to his exposure a month or more to go to the authorities, the vigilance committee, and/or the newspapers?

Your whole post suggests that Mary Jane Kelly would ONLY be known as being in Millers Court, on that small point I heartily disagree. Mary Jane Kelly just off or on Dorset street would be enough to find her. OR in Millers Court...the second doesn't negate the first. If she intended to overtly name and locate someone she would have of course done just that, its the fact that its within 2 names and addresses that makes it something that only someone knowing to look for that in the first place, would find. I suggest the reason its not overt is because she didn't want it to be.

Hey, Ive just pointed out that within 1 character the complete name and address of Mary Jane Kelly is in those 2 aliases. The address being Dorset Street is no less specific than Millers Court in that regard. Ive lost interest in making what seems to me to be an obvious and if nothing else a very coincidental connection between presumed victim #4 and presumed victim #5. Its not for sale, Im not entertaining offers on who will buy this. So I don't have any stake in who else agrees. So why am I arguing about it again.....oh yeah, for no reason.

[Abby Normal]

I saw Steelyard Snorkel live in their glory days. Hardcore.

hahahaha al and Fiver. too funny

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

None of the anagrams of "Jane Kelly Six Dorset Street" seem especially helpful.

RATTLED SKELETON SIX JERSEY?

DO STERNLY LIKE TAXES JESTER?

STATIONS SELL EXERTED JERKY?

STEELYARD SNORKEL EXIT JEST?

I saw Steelyard Snorkel live in their glory days. Hardcore.

[Fiver]

So, just to make it clear, your not convinced by the anagram?

None of the anagrams of "Jane Kelly Six Dorset Street" seem especially helpful.

RATTLED SKELETON SIX JERSEY?

DO STERNLY LIKE TAXES JESTER?

STATIONS SELL EXERTED JERKY?

STEELYARD SNORKEL EXIT JEST?

[etenguy]

Hi etenguy,

Interesting idea, which I'll have to ponder more, but one question comes to mind. If JtR met Eddowes in the pub, where she's using the alias Jane Kelly, then regardless of what her name ends up being in the paper, doesn't he know he's killed the right one since he met the one who was in the pub saying she knew JtR? It seems to me if he met her earlier in the day, he can't be confused if it was her later.

I'm also not sure that asking the time when in the drunk tank is all that indicative of having a meeting to go to, but it's not inconsistent either I suppose. Anyway, I think the general idea is not too far fetched particularly with regards to JtR possibly seeking out Eddowes (if she did make boasts of knowing JtR's identity). It's the subsequent flow on to then MJK being selected next that starts feeling more "iffy". I'll give it some more thought though. Thanks for sharing.- Jeff

Hi Jeff

That was the most difficult part of constructing this scenario. I did consider it and the longer version of the below paragraph is the one to which you refer.

On 29^th September, Eddowes leaves John Kelly at 2.00pm in Houndsditch and she is next recorded as being found in a drunken stupor at 8.30pm in Aldgate and is taken to the drunk tank at Bishopsgate. When she left John Kelly she had no money, so how she managed to find money to buy enough drinks to get into such a state is unknown. One possible explanation is she earned a small amount (sold something or took a client) and headed to a pub to spend it o:n drink. The murderer having heard a rumour of a Jane Kelly claiming to know his identity discretely tracks Eddowes down to the pub and she is pointed out to him as Jane Kelly. He approaches her and makes an appointment with her to meet him in Mitre Square for ‘business’ at 1.30am.

The expanded version:

On 29^th September, Eddowes leaves John Kelly at 2.00pm in Houndsditch and she is next recorded as being found in a drunken stupor at 8.30pm in Aldgate and is taken to the drunk tank at Bishopsgate. When she left John Kelly she had no money, so how she managed to find money to buy enough drinks to get into such a state is unknown. One possible explanation is she earned a small amount (sold something or took a client) and headed to a pub to spend it on drink.

The murderer having heard a rumour of a Jane Kelly claiming to know his identity thinks one of two things. Either something like:
'lying bitch, I'll do for her'
OR
'I don't know what she knows, but I'd better shut her up just in case.'

He does not know her or where she lives, but knows she has been talking in the Whitechapel area. He decides to track her down and
discretely asks a few people if they know her. He doesn't want to raise suspicions in people so does not make any reference to the murders. After a while he discretely tracks Eddowes (as Jane Kelly) down to the pub. He asks a couple of lone guys if they know anyone called Jane Kelly and she is pointed out to him by one of them.

He approaches her and starts a conversation (For this to work he has to start the conversation with something which includes her alias - maybe something like 'Hi, you're Jane Kelly aren't you? Would you like a drink?') and buys her a few drinks. He prods a bit, discretely and not directly for fear of scaring her off, but gets no information about her knowing about the murderer. He tells her he would like to meet her later and makes an appointment with her to meet him in Mitre Square for ‘business’ at 1.30am.

So when he meets and kills Eddowes he thinks he is killing Jane Kelly who he met in the pub earlier. He then finds out he killed someone called Catherine Eddowes. So he tries to track Jane Kelly down again thinking he has made a mistake which the woman he meet in the pub encouraged him to believe in order to get free drinks. He finds out the Jane Kelly that had spoken about knowing the identity of the murderer lived in Dorset Street which leads him to MJK.

Having gone through the process of outlining a possible scenario which explains the coincidence in terms of a possible link, I ask myself, is this scenario really possible? My answer is yes, it's possible if you accept the initial assumptions. I then ask myself which is more likely - a remarkable coincidence or a scenario such as the one I imagined and I think the coincidence is more likely. The reasons for that are, for the scenario to work:
1. I had to have the murderer and Eddowes act in a certain way, which I am not convinced they would.
2. While the evidence used is not contradicted by the scenario, nor is it compelling in support of the scenario.
3. For this scenario to be true, I think we would need to either accept Stride was not a Ripper victim or that he was confident enough to plan to kill two victims that night.

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

It can be constructed out of a pawn ticket and an alias given to a police officer, but it requires picking only the parts you want and only in the order you want, while ignoring Ann, Fashion, 13, Millers, and Court. Even if the Ripper had been in the police station when Eddowes was released and took the time to riffle though her pockets, read the pawn tickets, and then put them back, he would had 3 names and addresses as Eddowes also carried a pawn ticket for Emily Birrell, 52 White's Row. the Ripper would have no way of deriving 'Mary Jane Kelly, 13 Millers Court' from the available information, nor any reason to seek out any of the aliases of a woman he had just murdered.

You are trying to treat this as a whodunnit and assuming a one time alias and one of the two pawn tickets must be clues, while ignoring the other pawn ticket because it doesn't fit your theory. Real people worried about becoming a crime victim don't get themselves arrested and pawn items to leave a trail of breadcrumbs that don't clearly lead to anyone or anywhere. Nobody except Eddowes even knew about the different fake addresses until the information appeared in the newspapers.

If Catherine Eddowes was in fear of her life because she knew who the Ripper was, she would have told John Kelly, not left him clues to track down after she was murdered. If she chose to blackmail the Ripper, she would not have met him alone at 1:30AM unless she was terminally stupid.

If the Ripper had heard that a Jane Kelly or a Mary Ann Kelly claimed to know who he was and decided the correct solution was homicide, he might have tracked down and killed Mary Jane Kelly, but not Catherine Eddowes. If the Ripper was present at the pawnbroker's or the police station when Eddowes used either Kelly alias and at the Casual Ward when she claimed to know who he was, then he might have followed Eddowes and killed her, but that would give him no reason to specifically track down Mary Jane Kelly. Reports of Eddowes inquest appeared in The Daily Telegraph, on October 5, 1889, where the Ripper would have learned she lived with a man named Kelly at 55 Flower and Dean-street, based on the testimony of John Kelly, Eliza Gould, and Frederick Wilkinson. From The Daily Telegraph, October 12, 1888, the Ripper would gave known that Eddowes used the name and address Mary Ann Kelly, No. 6, Fashion-street, Spitalfields. The East London Observer of 13 October 1888 would have told the Ripper that he got the woman claiming to know he was the killer.

At which point the Ripper would not have the information Jane Kelly of 6 Dorset Street, nor any reason to look for her. Plus, Mary Jane Kelly was killed 27 days after the Ripper had all this information, 40 days after he killed Eddowes. Why would a man worried about his murderous ways being exposed give the last possible threat to his exposure a month or more to go to the authorities, the vigilance committee, and/or the newspapers?

So, just to make it clear, your not convinced by the anagram?

[Fiver]

Semantics Sam. As I said, 22 of 23 characters in the 2 aliases Kate used in her last 24 hours before she is murdered...can be constructed to create almost all of Mary Jane Kellys complete name and address. The next victim, assumed to be in sequence in a series. Its the cumulative, not just the isolated details that are suggestive that she at the very least knew Mary Jane Kelly in Dorset Street.

It can be constructed out of a pawn ticket and an alias given to a police officer, but it requires picking only the parts you want and only in the order you want, while ignoring Ann, Fashion, 13, Millers, and Court. Even if the Ripper had been in the police station when Eddowes was released and took the time to riffle though her pockets, read the pawn tickets, and then put them back, he would had 3 names and addresses as Eddowes also carried a pawn ticket for Emily Birrell, 52 White's Row. the Ripper would have no way of deriving 'Mary Jane Kelly, 13 Millers Court' from the available information, nor any reason to seek out any of the aliases of a woman he had just murdered.

You are trying to treat this as a whodunnit and assuming a one time alias and one of the two pawn tickets must be clues, while ignoring the other pawn ticket because it doesn't fit your theory. Real people worried about becoming a crime victim don't get themselves arrested and pawn items to leave a trail of breadcrumbs that don't clearly lead to anyone or anywhere. Nobody except Eddowes even knew about the different fake addresses until the information appeared in the newspapers.

If Catherine Eddowes was in fear of her life because she knew who the Ripper was, she would have told John Kelly, not left him clues to track down after she was murdered. If she chose to blackmail the Ripper, she would not have met him alone at 1:30AM unless she was terminally stupid.

If the Ripper had heard that a Jane Kelly or a Mary Ann Kelly claimed to know who he was and decided the correct solution was homicide, he might have tracked down and killed Mary Jane Kelly, but not Catherine Eddowes. If the Ripper was present at the pawnbroker's or the police station when Eddowes used either Kelly alias and at the Casual Ward when she claimed to know who he was, then he might have followed Eddowes and killed her, but that would give him no reason to specifically track down Mary Jane Kelly. Reports of Eddowes inquest appeared in The Daily Telegraph, on October 5, 1889, where the Ripper would have learned she lived with a man named Kelly at 55 Flower and Dean-street, based on the testimony of John Kelly, Eliza Gould, and Frederick Wilkinson. From The Daily Telegraph, October 12, 1888, the Ripper would have known that Eddowes used the name and address Mary Ann Kelly, No. 6, Fashion-street, Spitalfields. The East London Observer of 13 October 1888 would have told the Ripper that he got the woman claiming to know he was the killer.

At which point the Ripper would not have the information Jane Kelly of 6 Dorset Street, nor any reason to look for her. Plus, Mary Jane Kelly was killed 27 days after the Ripper had all this information, 40 days after he killed Eddowes. Why would a man worried about his murderous ways being exposed give the last possible threat to his exposure a month or more to go to the authorities, the vigilance committee, and/or the newspapers?

[Michael W Richards]

It's not semantics... it's two entirely different addresses and the bloody twenty is missing from both! The only thing that's common to the two (different) names is bloody Kelly, and she'd been dating/cohabiting with a Mr Kelly for SEVEN YEARS.

For God's sake!!!

Sam, the blatantly obvious parallel escapes you, or is denied by you, but whatever....I don't need to change your beliefs to have my own. Im passing on further discussion on this point, I don't see the need to re-iterate the same document based facts over and over again.