picture of mary kelly's room

[Mitch Rowe]

Hi Richard, I have always thought that it is a line of blood that has run around her leg before congealing.

That was my thought on it too. Marys leg must have been relatively straight when the blood dripped. It probably happened before the Ripper gets to the stomach. He is probably doing the facial mutilations first so maybe then.

Anyway..The blood dries when her leg is straight.

[Robert]

Hi Stewart

Well, Dew has Beck staggering back from the window. And doesn't Dew say that it was the most harrowing memory of his career?

Also (speculation here) wouldn't there be a difference between, say, a policeman coming upon an isolated murder, and a policeman coming upon a murder committed by someone whom he'd been trying to catch for the last few weeks? Wouldn't everything become more personal?

[Stewart P Evans]

Hi Stewart
Well, Dew has Beck staggering back from the window. And doesn't Dew say that it was the most harrowing memory of his career?
Also (speculation here) wouldn't there be a difference between, say, a policeman coming upon an isolated murder, and a policeman coming upon a murder committed by someone whom he'd been trying to catch for the last few weeks? Wouldn't everything become more personal?

I fear that this may well have been dramatisation for his book by Dew, writing some 40 years after the event. At the time of this murder Dew was a very young constable, whilst Beck was a uniformed inspector and would have been around the block a few times. It would certainly have made an impact on Dew because of his tender years but, any seasoned policeman would have been no more affected than, say, a doctor. Also, individuals do react differently to this sort of thing, some being affected more than others. As I said, I have seen worse in my time.

[mac-the-kipper]

Ok so let's all believe for a second that Maybrick was the killer. He (supposedly) writes his wife's initials on the wall in blood to, 'show her what he's capable of', as someone wrote. How is she supposed to see this? Was there a mail order service of murder scene photo's in the 1880's? Did he take his own polaroid snaps or did he use his mobile and txt her the images?

[Robert]

OK Stewart, thanks.

[Mitch Rowe]

Abberline seems to have been affected. He claimed he was walking around giving money away to keep the girls off the streets.
These girls were the most unlikely victims. I say this because there is really nothing to gain by killing one of them. its sort of like the Lacy Peterson case. No one kidnaps a pregnant Woman. Especially 9 months.

So..Probably the first question Police asked themselves is why? Having no answer they will probably have compassion for the victims. They died a sensless death.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Stewart,

I dislike being referred to as someone who started a "fad".

In 1988 all most of us researchers had to work on were printed [published] reproductions of the MJK photographs.

I saw what I thought I saw and discussed it privately and in all good faith with a close coterie of Ripper luminaries [one of them being your co-author on a couple of books].

Allow me to quote you something I wrote to Nick Warren [Editor of Ripperana] on 10th November 1995. I have a copy of the letter in front of me—

"My 'discovery' was pounced on with enthusiasm, but try as we may none of us could decipher the initials, let alone fit them to a suspect. And there, as far as I was concerned, the matter was dropped."

None of this entered the public domain.

"An initial here, and an initial there."

I'll leave you to work out the rest.

Regards,

Simon

[Stewart P Evans]

Fad

Hi Stewart,
I dislike being referred to as someone who started a "fad".
In 1988 all most of us researchers had to work on were printed [published] reproductions of the MJK photographs.
I saw what I thought I saw and discussed it privately and in all good faith with a close coterie of Ripper luminaries [one of them being your co-author on a couple of books].
Allow me to quote you something I wrote to Nick Warren [Editor of Ripperana] on 10th November 1995. I have a copy of the letter in front of me—
"My 'discovery' was pounced on with enthusiasm, but try as we may none of us could decipher the initials, let alone fit them to a suspect. And there, as far as I was concerned, the matter was dropped."
None of this entered the public domain.
"An initial here, and an initial there."
I'll leave you to work out the rest.
Regards,
Simon

Hi Simon - but it is a fad, like it or not. And it was Messrs Begg, Fido and Skinner who ensured its immortality by publishing the idea in the A-Z in 1994. Feldman picked up on it for the 'diary' and it never looked back.

But my reference to you being the first to note this idea was not meant to be derogatory in any way and I have long admired your early exposure of some of Stephen Knight's wangling. I am well aware of what was available to researchers in 1988 as I was one myself and had been since the mid-1960s. But, of course, there are no initials, which is probably why you could not decipher them. Me, well I'm just a cynical old ex-police officer and have no time for fantasies.

[Dan Norder]

What is so compelling about the 'FM' under discussion is that when people see them they are always in the same place.

Actually, this is untrue. A long time ago, before I paid too much attention to the Diary claims, when people talked about the FM I found two different parts of the photo that I thought people were referring to as the FM, and neither one wa the one they were looking at.

Years later, in 2004, after I had mentioned that I could see all sorts of different "writing" on the wall that I thought were artifacts in the way the photo had been treated over the years, I posted some photos illustrating what I meant:

[ATTACH]3193[/ATTACH][ATTACH]3194[/ATTACH]

In that first photo at the top I circled one of the areas I originally thought people were referring to as an FM, and the lower right is the area that is the main one people talk about as an FM. I also further underlined what appears to me to be sections that could be interpreted as writing. It's important to note the differences between the two versions. The one on the left is the one Don Rumbelow had found and that had been used by police for years as part of training materials or documents. It appears to have the most damage, the most contrast (probably from multiple copies of copies) as well as a major blemish (the glob of white to the immediate left of the main "FM", which obscure most of the similar features on the photo -- whatever the "FM" is, it's not on its own but part of a longer stretch of similar looking tonal variations that stretches to the left in the photo).

Also, people have in the past interpreted some light spots on the headboard as being the "FM" other people were talking about. So it's clearly not something that is only seen in one area.

Also, further up the wall on the place where the supposed crucifix was thought to be, there are similar tonal variations that take on shapes like writing (these were also posted many years ago):

[ATTACH]3195[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH]3196[/ATTACH]

Here, by changing the tonal conditions of the image in Photoshop, I can see what looks like the end of a word, partly obscured by the vertical line in the partition wall. To me it looks like the word "death". The "FM" when blown up actually looks to me more like an "Ast." (with the s and t merging with a longer line in the background on the wall to look more like an M). Some other areas look like numbers, including lots of "8"s (as in 1888), and someone else once thought they saw a "Mary".

My theory is that, if there is something other than random blotches on the wall that we are just accidentally interpreting as letters thanks to our brain's desire to bring meaning out of randomness, what we are actually seeing is slight remnants of letters embedded into the picture from when police were writing notes on papers sitting on the photos, and that these indentations only show up where contrast in the photo is strongest and most able to see these slight variations.

I'm not sold on the theory, but clearly the photo that spent the longest time in actual use by the police has more such marks than the other versions, and I think if we need for something to be there that this makes more sense than that there was actual writing on the wall that the police never took notice of.

[Mike Covell]

My theory is that, if there is something other than random blotches on the wall that we are just accidentally interpreting as letters thanks to our brain's desire to bring meaning out of randomness, what we are actually seeing is slight remnants of letters embedded into the picture from when police were writing notes on papers sitting on the photos, and that these indentations only show up where contrast in the photo is strongest and most able to see these slight variations.

I'm not sold on the theory, but clearly the photo that spent the longest time in actual use by the police has more such marks than the other versions, and I think if we need for something to be there that this makes more sense than that there was actual writing on the wall that the police never took notice of.

Hi Dan,

It's a similar condition to what we refer to in the paranormal investigations field as "Matrixing"= The want/need to see something, when there is nothing there but random, natural things.
For example, I recently took several snaps along a disused railway line, and when developed they showed what appeared to be a face coming from the tree's, the problem was, it was nothing more than being in the right place at the right time to photograph vegitation moving in such a fashion, that for many, it resembled a face!

I have also seen images where they have been touched, folded, and stored incorrectly. The passage of time and aforementioned activities, make it appear as if "something" is there. Closer inspection of the negatives reveals nothing but a blank wall!

[Soothsayer]

Hi Dan,

It's a similar condition to what we refer to in the paranormal investigations field as "Matrixing"= The want/need to see something, when there is nothing there but random, natural things.
For example, I recently took several snaps along a disused railway line, and when developed they showed what appeared to be a face coming from the tree's, the problem was, it was nothing more than being in the right place at the right time to photograph vegitation moving in such a fashion, that for many, it resembled a face!

I have also seen images where they have been touched, folded, and stored incorrectly. The passage of time and aforementioned activities, make it appear as if "something" is there. Closer inspection of the negatives reveals nothing but a blank wall!

Come on over to the 'Incontrovertible' thread, guys - we've got loads of people admitting to being able to see the letters. It's magic!

[Omlor]

"...we've got loads of people admitting to being able to see the letters."


Uh, no. We don't.

--John

[Soothsayer]

One or two anyway - all diehard anti-diarists too!

[Omlor]

"loads of people"

"one or two"

Fascinating.

--John

[Soothsayer]

You say tomato.
I say banano!