Did the 5 canonical victims know each other?

[Chris Scott]

Monty
many thanks for that
and "Phoebe" makes a lot more sense than "Whoshe"!

[Monty]

Chris,

This also appears in the Irish Times report of 1st Oct 88.

Part of which reads...

.....

The public were not admitted to the square until late in the afternoon, after an official plan of the square had been made for production at the inquest. Up to a late hour in the evening the woman had not been identified, although several people have been to the Bishopsgate street police station and have seen the clothing. Two women who inspected this and also saw the corpse were certain that it was the body of a woman named Jane Kelly, but subsequently on inquiries being made, it was found that this individual was alive. A man who saw the body said he was sure it was that of a woman known as "Phoebe the Jewess," but the inquiries in this case are not yet complete.

Here is the link....

http://www.casebook.org/press_reports/irish_times/18881001.html

Monty

[Chris Scott]

With regard to Eddowes and the use of the name Kelly, this from an article I am currently transcribing may be of interest

Chris


The Scotsman
1 October 1888

Regarding the identification of Eddowes's body:
Up to a late hour in the evening the woman had not been identified, although several people had gone to the Bishopsgate Street Police Station and had seen the clothing. Two women who inspected this, and also saw the corpse, were certain that it was the body of a woman named Jane Kelly, but subsequently, on inquiries being made, it was found that this individual was still alive. A man who saw the body said he was sure it was that of a woman known as "Whoshe the Jewess," but the inquiries in this case care not yet completed.

[Sasha]

Michael,

There are no 'coincidences' here - what you describe are attributes that would fit hundreds of women only in Whitechapel alone.
The killer most likely chose his victims of preferences based on their vulnerability (due to their 'occupation') and their presence in the area at that time of night, not on anything else. That is the ONLY link.

The name 'Mary Kelly' can hardly be of any substantial importance - Eddowes called herself Mary ANN Kelly, and both it should be noted that Eddowes male companion John Kelly HAD KELLY AS SURNAME!
To even try to establish a link to Mary JANE Kelly is totally fruitless.

Again - the idea that the victims would know each other - and idea for which which I'd say there is little support - is totally irrelevant because if it would mean anything for why they would be singled out as victims, you would also need to establish a link that proves that the killer knew them all as well on a personal basis.

So - as I have said millinions of times - if they knew each other: SO WHAT?

I am not debunking this silly notion because it consists of 'conicidences' because there are no 'odd coincidences' here at all. I am debunking it because it is irrelevant.

Nor do this has anything to do with the Canonical Five.
You know very well that I am not a Canonical Five supporter so I fail to see what that has got to do with the issue at all. I believe Nichols, Chapman and Eddowes were killed by the same man - the other murders might have had other motives and murderers, but I certainly don't believe the victims would have needed to know each other in order to reach such a conclusion.

All the best

Glenn, I get where you're coming from. For me, it is more pertinent if the victims knew (or thought they knew) the killer rather than each other but it is interesting to speculate. Four of the victims were in their forties - which is, and forgive the judgement here, pretty old to be on the game. It is also easier to profile Jack for these - if you believe he was in his twenties for example and had a problem with his mother. Also if they were on the game in the same area for all their lives, they were more likely to know each other - at least on sight. This would be less true of MJK who was much younger and - from my understanding - relatively new to the area. Again this is all very interesting but more important for me is their relationship to the killer than to each other. I think the latter case leads to conspiracy theories - which is fraught with danger but I am still very interested in entertaining such theories if they help shine a light on what might have happened.

Sasha

[mikey559]

Just a question??

Did Henry VIII marry his wives based on their names? Or was it just coincidence? I think it's a very important discussion to have. I mean, did they all know each other? They definitely moved in the same circles. At least five of them did. Only one was a Princess in her own right, and yet, she shared the same name as 2 of Henry's other wives. Maybe only folks in the UK will know all the names of his wives. They were:

Catherine of Aragon
Anne Boelyn
Jane Seymour
Anne of Cleves
Kathryn Howard
Katherine Parr

3 names, 6 queens.

Okay, this post has ne relevance to JTR, however we are talking about coincidence or knowledge of someones name so I thought it appropriate.

Notice how the names of the canonical victims are similar to Henry's wives AND his daughters. I wonder if this is a coincidence or if there's something here showing how the murders can all be related to a king from 350 years prior.

Mikey

[anna]

Hi everyone,
statistics,statistics,statistics.......
By the way, didn't Kate's sister live at No6 Fashion Street....
she's just swopping things around....typical Kate!....what a gal!!!
If all else fails....confuse the hell out of them.

So...nobody has thought of St Boltophs yet? Seems a good as place as any for their paths to have crossed. Even the casual prostitutes amongst them would know that clients knew this was the place to pick them up without much effort on either side....even over a few months,that's enough night time hours for the chance that they had all loitered and chatted together at some time....

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Sasha,

All the victims resided within a couple of hundred yards of each other in the Thrawl, Flower and Dean, Dorset, and Church Street doss houses off Commercial Street.

Based on the 1881 Census over 1,800 people lived in those four streets alone. If we look at some of the adjoining streets in the vicinty, we can add another 1,730 residents from Crispin Street, Fashion Street, White's Row, Brushfield Street, Bell Lane and Paternoster Row.

In that small area, clustered around Christ Church, there was a total of over 3,500 residents - and that doesn't include those who lived in adjoining Courts, listed separately from the streets in which they were found. For example - New Court, off Fashion Street, was home to 97 people in 1881; Miller's Court had 30 residents.

Taking all this together, and without going into too much minute detail, I shouldn't be surprised if rather more than 5,000 people were crammed into an area within a radius of 40 yards of the Britannia. The figures associated with East End poverty are mind-blowing, perhaps, but it's as well to bear them in mind.

all the Ripper victims were known to have drank here. Another commonality - as Michael points out.

Whilst it may be possible that the victims used the Ten Bells on occasion - which we really don't know for sure, by the way - that doesn't necessarily mean that they were "regulars", still less that they knew one another.

As I've pointed out, many of these women had only taken up residence in Spitalfields/Whitechapel relatively recently - mere months in some cases - having spent most of their lives elsewhere. Such conditions don't seem particularly conducive to one's forging friendships with the feckless nomads down the street, still less with those two blocks removed from one's lodgings.

[Chris Scott]

The map below shows just how small an area was encompassed by the five addresses of the C5
However, I have to agree that even it could be proved that 2 or more of the victims knew each other, I am not sure what this would add
Chris

[Sam Flynn]

Careful, Sam! In actuality, the only person who ever claimed MJK preferred "Marie Jeanette" was Joseph Barnett; none of her other acquaintences used that name in any of the documented stuff we have on her.

Agreed - which is why I mentioned "Mary Jane" first, as many people seemed to know her by that name.

[CraigInTwinCities]

Hi Mike,It's worth remembering that Kate gave an alias of "Mary Ann Kelly", which suggests that it was either a totally made up name (apart from her common-law surname), or that Kate had a different Mary Kelly in mind. Either way, this "Mary Ann" is unlikely to have been "our" Mary, given that a number of people knew her only as "Mary Jane", and that she was wont to call herself "Marie Jeannette" - as opposed to "Marianne".

Careful, Sam! In actuality, the only person who ever claimed MJK preferred "Marie Jeanette" was Joseph Barnett; none of her other acquaintences used that name in any of the documented stuff we have on her. So we only have Barnett's word on whether she preferred Marie Jeannette to Mary Jane, which isn't enough as no one else testified at the inquest nor was interviewed by the newspapers as using the "Marie Jeannette" variant.

And don't put much stock into "Marie Jeanette" being on her headstone; after all, it was Barnett who influenced that, if anything.

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Glenn, Don.....If there was a knowledge of one C5 by another, then perhaps within the remaining C5, there are other such acquaintences with other C5 victims. If there were such links discovered, the enduring notion of a mad serial killer randomly selecting victims as the opportunities arose might be tested. If any links existed between any Ripper victim and another, its of paramount importance to the overall investigation.

And since it appears to me that the last victim, the second Mary Kelly killed in a row, was killed by someone other than "Mystery Jack", looking at the concept of known acquaintences might open a dialogue that more accurately reflects what we are likely looking at with these crimes, more than a Canon of 5 has done anyway.

Sense cannot be made of one killer for the Canonical 5. They are as different as they are alike. Not the victims...rather what happened, and where. But if a killer was killing specific people, not just killing to satisfy some undiscovered urges I see speculated about freely here, then the context changes, and then single throat cuts by an "abdominal mutilator" might actually make some sense.

For the sake of honest open discussion, I really dont think harping on me to tow a Canon 5 line is productive for anyone. Its solved zero questions to-date.....maybe its time to cut the Canon cord, and look at some of these...many....coincidental issues over these cases for what they say without a Canon spin on them,.. or some intellectual snobbery frankly.

I really enjoy discussing the cases with you, but I dont feel I need to justify exploring a question that is on the surface, a very odd coincidental feature of Kates and Marys given relationship, as alledged Canon 4 and 5.

C'mon....5 women who all do the same work, who had all lived in Spitalfield at one point, some shared street addresses, and they all loved to drink. Yes...there are enough clients, and enough pubs, and enough whores to say they need'nt have met...but why take that approach when there are odd coincidences that might suggest differently.

Michael,

There are no 'coincidences' here - what you describe are attributes that would fit hundreds of women only in Whitechapel alone.
The killer most likely chose his victims of preferences based on their vulnerability (due to their 'occupation') and their presence in the area at that time of night, not on anything else. That is the ONLY link.

The name 'Mary Kelly' can hardly be of any substantial importance - Eddowes called herself Mary ANN Kelly, and both it should be noted that Eddowes male companion John Kelly HAD KELLY AS SURNAME!
To even try to establish a link to Mary JANE Kelly is totally fruitless.

Again - the idea that the victims would know each other - and idea for which which I'd say there is little support - is totally irrelevant because if it would mean anything for why they would be singled out as victims, you would also need to establish a link that proves that the killer knew them all as well on a personal basis.

So - as I have said millinions of times - if they knew each other: SO WHAT?

I am not debunking this silly notion because it consists of 'conicidences' because there are no 'odd coincidences' here at all. I am debunking it because it is irrelevant.

Nor do this has anything to do with the Canonical Five.
You know very well that I am not a Canonical Five supporter so I fail to see what that has got to do with the issue at all. I believe Nichols, Chapman and Eddowes were killed by the same man - the other murders might have had other motives and murderers, but I certainly don't believe the victims would have needed to know each other in order to reach such a conclusion.

All the best

[Sasha]

It sure stirs up friction round here when someone suggests looking at things that are quite obviously very odd coincidences or something more.

As to the number of Marys, Anns and Janes during that period, Im sure thats relevant Sam, but relevance and inquiry satisfactorily addressed are not the same thing.

Im not talking about any Mary, Ann, Jane or Kelly, Im talking about the last two alledged Jack the Ripper victims, a much smaller crowd than the entire East End's occupants. Broad statistics dont answer this question.

Glenn, Don.....If there was a knowledge of one C5 by another, then perhaps within the remaining C5, there are other such acquaintences with other C5 victims. If there were such links discovered, the enduring notion of a mad serial killer randomly selecting victims as the opportunities arose might be tested. If any links existed between any Ripper victim and another, its of paramount importance to the overall investigation.

And since it appears to me that the last victim, the second Mary Kelly killed in a row, was killed by someone other than "Mystery Jack", looking at the concept of known acquaintences might open a dialogue that more accurately reflects what we are likely looking at with these crimes, more than a Canon of 5 has done anyway.

Sense cannot be made of one killer for the Canonical 5. They are as different as they are alike. Not the victims...rather what happened, and where. But if a killer was killing specific people, not just killing to satisfy some undiscovered urges I see speculated about freely here, then the context changes, and then single throat cuts by an "abdominal mutilator" might actually make some sense.

For the sake of honest open discussion, I really dont think harping on me to tow a Canon 5 line is productive for anyone. Its solved zero questions to-date.....maybe its time to cut the Canon cord, and look at some of these...many....coincidental issues over these cases for what they say without a Canon spin on them,.. or some intellectual snobbery frankly.

I really enjoy discussing the cases with you, but I dont feel I need to justify exploring a question that is on the surface, a very odd coincidental feature of Kates and Marys given relationship, as alledged Canon 4 and 5.

C'mon....5 women who all do the same work, who had all lived in Spitalfield at one point, some shared street addresses, and they all loved to drink. Yes...there are enough clients, and enough pubs, and enough whores to say they need'nt have met...but why take that approach when there are odd coincidences that might suggest differently.

For example, what about possible cultural associations?

My best regards all.

I agree, Michael. All the victims resided within a couple of hundred yards of each other in the Thrawl, Flower and Dean, Dorset, and Church Street doss houses off Commercial Street. Based on the following addresses, you could assume that Polly Nichols, Liz Stride and Cathy Eddowes were familiar with each other. Similarly, it seems Annie Chapman and Mary Kelly would have crossed paths.

• Polly Nichols used to reside at 18 Thrawl Street; just before her death she was evicted and moved into the White House at 56 Flower and Dean Street, a doss house that slept both men and women.

• Annie Chapman's primary residence was Crossingham's Common Lodging House at 35 Dorset Street.

• Elizabeth Stride occasionally lived in a common lodging house at No. 32 Flower and Dean Street, and reportedly was there the night of her murder.

• Catherine Eddowes usually stayed in Cooney's Lodging House at No. 55 Flower and Dean Street, and had slept there two nights before her murder.

• Kelly lived and died in McCarthy's Rents at 13 Miller's Court, off Dorset Street (it was actually the back room of 26 Dorset Street, situated across the road from Crossingham's Common Lodging House). She had previously resided in George Street, between “Flowery Dean” and Thrall Street. Kelly was seen picking up a man on Commercial Street between Thrall and Flower and Dean Streets the night of her murder.

These residences were suspiciously close to each other, covering less than 1.5% of the total hunting area.

Two blocks north of Flower and Dean Street was the Ten Bells Pub (now known as the Jack the Ripper Public House) on Church Street and Commercial Street, across from Spitalfields Market; all the Ripper victims were known to have drank here. Another commonality - as Michael points out.

Maybe there were plenty of clients to share among all these women but you would assume that could be competition among them for the "better" clients.

As to "cultural" associations, I'm not sure what Michael means by this exactly. What crossed my mind however was the possibility of a doctor working in the area "pro bono". The women would have most certainly had STDs and/or backyard abortions that may have meant they knew each other? Maybe Jack was a backyard abortionist and one of his clients was threatening to report him to the police but he didn't know which so he killed them all? Just spiff-balling here! Be gentle - I'm a newbie!

It sure stirs up friction round here when someone suggests looking at things that are quite obviously very odd coincidences or something more.

As to the number of Marys, Anns and Janes during that period, Im sure thats relevant Sam, but relevance and inquiry satisfactorily addressed are not the same thing.

Im not talking about any Mary, Ann, Jane or Kelly, Im talking about the last two alledged Jack the Ripper victims, a much smaller crowd than the entire East End's occupants. Broad statistics dont answer this question.

Glenn, Don.....If there was a knowledge of one C5 by another, then perhaps within the remaining C5, there are other such acquaintences with other C5 victims. If there were such links discovered, the enduring notion of a mad serial killer randomly selecting victims as the opportunities arose might be tested. If any links existed between any Ripper victim and another, its of paramount importance to the overall investigation.

And since it appears to me that the last victim, the second Mary Kelly killed in a row, was killed by someone other than "Mystery Jack", looking at the concept of known acquaintences might open a dialogue that more accurately reflects what we are likely looking at with these crimes, more than a Canon of 5 has done anyway.

Sense cannot be made of one killer for the Canonical 5. They are as different as they are alike. Not the victims...rather what happened, and where. But if a killer was killing specific people, not just killing to satisfy some undiscovered urges I see speculated about freely here, then the context changes, and then single throat cuts by an "abdominal mutilator" might actually make some sense.

For the sake of honest open discussion, I really dont think harping on me to tow a Canon 5 line is productive for anyone. Its solved zero questions to-date.....maybe its time to cut the Canon cord, and look at some of these...many....coincidental issues over these cases for what they say without a Canon spin on them,.. or some intellectual snobbery frankly.

I really enjoy discussing the cases with you, but I dont feel I need to justify exploring a question that is on the surface, a very odd coincidental feature of Kates and Marys given relationship, as alledged Canon 4 and 5.

C'mon....5 women who all do the same work, who had all lived in Spitalfield at one point, some shared street addresses, and they all loved to drink. Yes...there are enough clients, and enough pubs, and enough whores to say they need'nt have met...but why take that approach when there are odd coincidences that might suggest differently.

For example, what about possible cultural associations?

My best regards all.

[j.r-ahde]

Hello Glenn!

I personally find it, in fact, probable, that "Mary Jane Kelly" was just a pseudonyme!

Since, like you said, none of us trying to find her real backround, hasn't succeeded without the eternal "yes, but..."!

All the best
Jukka

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Just another thought to throw in the pot as it were. I wonder if Mary Kelly was to victorian streetwalkers what Joe Bloggs or John Doe would be to us? Just a usefull name to use when all else fails?

Quite possible, John.

In any case, Don has a point - it is certainly worth contemplating that Mary Kelly may indeed have chosen her own name.
Since we can't be sure of her personal history, and all attempts to trace her genealogically have been fruitless, we may have to accept the fact that 'Mary Jane Kelly' may have been an alias she took according to those traditions and not her real name.

All the best