Why not McCarthy ?

[Tom_Wescott]

Gene, McCarthy's life is pretty well documented, he was well known in the area,and there is nothing to suggest that he had sociopath tendencies or any need to chop up women.
Lechmere led a blameless life but he is still being fingered as a suspect.
McCarthy was an man of property who had some standing in his community, with various business and money making schemes,some like the boxing, not legal , but far too shrewd a man to kill girls in his property.
He was very successful in his business and personal life. There is nothing about him that suggests the personality of a serial killer.

Serial killers are not' normal ' they are either psychopaths or socialpaths and have tendencies which develop at quite an early age.
Miss Marple

I'm not saying I disagree with you at all, but to be fair, you pretty much described John Wayne Gacy.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[miss marple]

Gacy up to a point, difference is abusive father, feelings of insecurity, wanting to prove himself, by getting involved in community stuff and trying to conform, hiding his homosexuality, getting married, but that broke up/he could not be described as sucessful in his personal life unless raping and murdering teenage boys on the quiet and doing drugs is sucessful/
He was accused of things before everything came out, A creepy guy and the clown is very creepy. a way of ingratiating himself with kids. America is very conformist
Not like McCarthy at all except they were both well known in the community.

Miss Marple

[Gene Lewis]

French doctor Petiot was well known in his community, despite he murdered whole families without any regrets or nothing... He looked like à very respectable neighbour...

[miss marple]

Oh Petiot, gassed in 1 st world war, mentally unstable, drug addict, stint in mental hospital, dealer in illegal drugs, embezzler of town funds and of course,
serial killer.

I 've said it before serial killers are not normal, they have usually led unstable or criminal lives before actually murdering people. Efforts to hide their weirdness by intergrating with society in order to 'appear normal' or gain some status in order to further their criminal activity is usually only partially successful.

Miss Marple

[Gene Lewis]

Since when do we need "a motive" for serial killers murders ? ???

[Austin]

Whoever copy cat`d Kelly must have been some kind of Ripperologist as he certainly croseed every T and dotted every I in the few weeks in which he had to prepare.

**Looks at Lynn...** You seem to know an awful lot about it NOT being MJK...Where were you on Nov. 9, 1888???

[lynn cates]

alibi

Hello Austin. Can't speak for Jon, but I was with my mate Aaron Kosminski. He was crying over a dead cat. I told him to get a grip. May have misunderstood.

Cheers.
LC

[Gene Lewis]

Long time not being on that thread, but it seems it turned to other questions that my original one, like the dead girl in MC NOT being MJK, or reasons why the killer DID such a scenic crime...
Second point: a serial killer has his own motives, I suppose, that are not exactly the same as ours, am I right ?
First point: ( I whispered that track before): the girl in the bed, in room #13, was not Mary Jeanette Kelly: she was actually a young woman that, by chance, bore exactly the same name… ;-)

Regards
Gene Lewis

[Chava]

Came across this and had to reply! I was part of a bunch of Ripperologists who met every week during the '80s and early '90s. We had McCarthy for MJK although we weren't convinced he killed the others. Mainly the missing 'landlord's key' and the fact she owed him so much back rent. Seems he let that go on longer than we would have expected him to.

I still like McCarthy for MJK if she was not a Ripper victim he had means and opportunity. May well have had motive if she was blackmailing him to let her run the rent up. Also he specifically sent his man there to check up on her. I would as well, if I knew what lay behind that broken window! But I just don't think he's in the frame for the others. For a start he was very well-known in the area so he ran the risk of being recognized when he chatted-up a victim. Also he doesn't seem to have resembled any of the witness descriptions of men seen with the victims before they were killed. And the clincher for me is that he was still in situ running his unsavoury rents and his shop in 1909. I don't think killers like the Ripper stop unless they are stopped. And the Ripper killings did stop a long time before 1909!

[lynn cates]

extensive damage

Hello Chava. This is much more plausible than casting about for why he killed the others.

But it would seem that, given he wished to kill "MJK," he would cut her throat like Liz; or, make a few perfunctory cuts in emulation of Polly?

Cheers.
LC

[Chava]

Hi Lynn,

Yes, that was another point in the 'no' file. If you were going to copycat the Ripper, all you'd need to do would be to cut the throat and make a few aimless passes with a knife in the abdominal area. The cops would have bought it I'm sure. However the one thing that has always struck me about the MJK murder was the sheer hatred of it. It seems to me to be personal whereas the others don't. He tore that poor woman apart long after he needed to. And he didn't take her uterus either. He took her heart. That's why, even though Mr Blotchy is my current favourite for MJK and the others, I think there is an outside chance that MJK was a one-off and that her killer took advantage of the Ripper killings to make an end of her. And if that was the case, McCarthy was definitely on the scene. Lizzie Prater puts him at his store around 1.30 am.

[Abby Normal]

Hi Lynn,

Yes, that was another point in the 'no' file. If you were going to copycat the Ripper, all you'd need to do would be to cut the throat and make a few aimless passes with a knife in the abdominal area. The cops would have bought it I'm sure. However the one thing that has always struck me about the MJK murder was the sheer hatred of it. It seems to me to be personal whereas the others don't. He tore that poor woman apart long after he needed to. And he didn't take her uterus either. He took her heart. That's why, even though Mr Blotchy is my current favourite for MJK and the others, I think there is an outside chance that MJK was a one-off and that her killer took advantage of the Ripper killings to make an end of her. And if that was the case, McCarthy was definitely on the scene. Lizzie Prater puts him at his store around 1.30 am.

Hi Chava
Blotchy is my favorite for all also. I cant help but think if the others were also killed in a private room they would have more mutilations like MK as the killer would have more time and safety. Plus there is the escalation factor that many serial killers exhibit.

As for McCarthy being on the scene and being a suspect-I dont think so. he was a landlord who was married owned the shop right there and rented the rooms in the court out to prostitutes-would he really take the risk of killing in his own backyard? Could he really have held off so long?

In terms of being on the scene and being more of a suspect I would point to Barnett and Bowyer. Barnett (if he was the killer) may have finally realized it was over between him and MK after visiting her that night-and it was her heart that was taken.

Bowyer, in an article that Debra Arif found, is directly quoted in a newspaper saying he was in the court at approx 3:00am the night MK was murdered. I thought it was pretty significant find at the time, but for some reason it generated little interest.

[Chava]

Bowyer, in an article that Debra Arif found, is directly quoted in a newspaper saying he was in the court at approx 3:00am the night MK was murdered. I thought it was pretty significant find at the time, but for some reason it generated little interest.

Hi Abby,

I think that's an extremely important point! I didn't know Bowyer was around at that time. Can you post a link to the article? Bowyer was never on my radar and now he is!

As to your point about the freedom of being in a room. I agree. But if it was a question of being able to...er...fully express yourself in a room, I suspect he would have picked up women who did have rooms. I don't know the figures but I imagine that a number of women had cribs and used them for the purposes of prostitution. He could simply have asked when he picked one up if she had somewhere completely private they could go. Like a room. If not, walk away from her and on to the next one. But he didn't. I think his record suggests he was more interested in the kind of woman he wanted than the circumstances where he killed her. The other 4 victims are very similar in age, physicality and circumstances. MJK is the only different one.

Of course, after 17 rousing choruses of 'Twas Only A Violet', even a saint would have wanted to kill MJK...

[Sally]

Hi Abby

As for McCarthy being on the scene and being a suspect-I dont think so. he was a landlord who was married owned the shop right there and rented the rooms in the court out to prostitutes-would he really take the risk of killing in his own backyard? Could he really have held off so long?

I agree. I'm also not sure what he would've had to gain by killing Kelly? It seems a little extreme to do it for the sake of a bit of back rent. He was a 'Big Man' in the locale - he had much more to lose than gain.

Bowyer, in an article that Debra Arif found, is directly quoted in a newspaper saying he was in the court at approx 3:00am the night MK was murdered. I thought it was pretty significant find at the time, but for some reason it generated little interest.

Do you know where that was from Abby? It sounds interesting. Of course, just because it was printed in a paper doesn't make it true - then again it was Bowyer who found Kelly.

[Chava]

I agree. I'm also not sure what he would've had to gain by killing Kelly? It seems a little extreme to do it for the sake of a bit of back rent. He was a 'Big Man' in the locale - he had much more to lose than gain.

There may have been something more personal. If he did kill MJK--and I think it's a remote possibility but a possibility non-the-less--I doubt it would just be for the back-rent.