Mary Jane Kelly (Another) New Theory

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Hi Graham,

Barnett, of course, has to be a suspect since he was the male person closest to the victim. He also had left her a week prior to the murder and there had been a row; those are often factors that in the end turns out to be important of any domestic killing. Barnett's 'alibi' is of course impossible to evaluate today, since so little information about this remains. As you yourself imply, if he was the killer, disappearing would be the worst thing he could do and would only increase the suspicions against him, especially since he was known to such many people.

Fleming has to be considered of greatest interest because of the nature of his relationship to the victim, and because of his character traits. I disagree that we don't know much about him; actually, we do know enough today in order to see indications or at least treat him as a suspect.

Hutchinson, of course, has to be treated as a suspect as well since he admitted that he was near the crime scene that particular night and also delivered a very dodgy testimony. The problem with him, though, is exactly the same thing you said about Fleming: namely that we know practically nothing about this man (we know much less about him than Fleming).

Good point about Astrakhan looking like a music hall- character. Although I believe the man in question was a creation based on news reports about the murders and certain individuals appearing in that context (the red neckerchief = the Lawende sailor; the wrapped parcel = the man carrying a newspaper parcel in the Stride murder).

All the best

[Graham]

Hi Glenn,

Sorry, I wasn't suggesting that Barnett, Fleming or Hutchinson should be ruled out as suspects. Of course they're suspects. But we still should give the police some benefit of the doubt, as they interviewed both Barnett and Hutchinson and decided there was no evidence against either of them. Not to suggest that the police should be viewed as 100% efficient, but they were on the ground at the time and obviously unable to obtain a confession (about the only way murder suspects were nailed in those days) out of either of them.

As for Fleming, I don't think he ever was interviewed by the police or by the newspapers so far as I know. Apparently he still visited Kelly to give her money after their 'relationship' was over, and when she was living with Barnett, so they must have known each other very well. I don't think we know anywhere as much about him as we know about Barnett.

Good thread.

Cheers,

Graham

[Ben]

Hi Graham,

I never have figured out why GH gave such a detailed and very unlikely description of the man he saw with Kelly, until I realised that it might just be possible that he was deliberately throwing the police off the scent. If this has been suggested before, I apologise. But again, why should he do so?

Self-preservation, most probably.

He came forward with his dubious account as soon as it was made public that Sarah Lewis had spotted a man loitering opposite - and apparently preoccupied with - Miller's Court an hour of so before Kelly was murdered therein. That coincidence of timing suggests very strongly that he realised he'd been seen by Lewis and felt compelled to invent an "I was there because..." story to legitimize his presence at a crime scene. We don't know if the police ever suspected him, although they were exhibiting an obvious preference for foreigners and those with obvious mental problems and/or medical knowledge at the time (as witness Puckeridge, Isenschmidt etc), and even if they did suspect him, they could do little more than keep him under surveillance Kosminski-style.

But I agree, "typical Victorian music-hall villain" sounds about right!

Joseph Fleming was said by Julia Venturney to have been physically abusive towards Kelly because she was living with Barnett. He was reportedly in the habit of visiting her and giving her money. He was packed off to a mental institution in 1892 where he spent the rest of his life; diagnosed with general "mania" and paranoia. He moved into the heart of the murder district in August 1888, aged 29 and 5"7' in height, and was using the alias "James Evans" by at least 1889.

All the best,
Ben

[Graham]

Hi Ben,

Are we sure that the "Joseph Fleming a.k.a. James Evans" who died in Claybury Hospital in 1920 is "our" Joseph Fleming? I always thought it had never been proven.

Cheers,

Graham

[Ben]

Hi Graham,

Yep, same bloke alright. The chances of finding another Joseph Fleming born in Bethnal Green, working as a mason's plasterer and having a mother called Henrietta is very slim, I'd say. Unfortunately, the crucial Fleming thread was lost in "the crash", but I imagine Chris Scott or someone still has the relevent details.

All the best,
Ben

[Dan Norder]

I could care less what profilers think.

And I'm sure they couldn't care less what you think.

[Graham]

Hi Graham,

Yep, same bloke alright. The chances of finding another Joseph Fleming born in Bethnal Green, working as a mason's plasterer and having a mother called Henrietta is very slim, I'd say. Unfortunately, the crucial Fleming thread was lost in "the crash", but I imagine Chris Scott or someone still has the relevent details.

All the best,
Ben

Hi Ben,

The only written word I have about JF is the A-Z, and here it says that Mark King (who he?) discovered a Joseph Fleming a.k.a. James Evans who died in 1920 at Claybury Mental Hospital, and that JF's mother who was called Henrietta (love that name...) had her name and address on his records as next of kin. The A-Z says that King only speculated that this was 'our' JF.
Has it therefore been proved since that 'our' JF's mother was called Henrietta, etc? Be interested to know. I do remember the thread on the old boards, but forget the details.

Cheers,

Graham

[Fisherman]

Ben writes:

"one has to wonder just how much this Astrakhan character's chest protruded if his waiscoat and "red stone seal" were visible in the dark under two dark overcoats!"

Who says those overcoats were buttoned up? Maybe the were open, or at least unbuttoned at the top half. No way of knowng, but when you can see a waistcoat under an overcoat, that overcoat would not be buttoned up all the way, would it?

Next, I write:

"The human brain has the capacity to take in lots more than the bits Hutch picked up"

...and you answer:

True, just not at the same time.

Our opinions differ on that point, Ben. Science tells us that the human capacity of picking up details is enormously ill used; we actually are born with the capacity to "photograph" the whole content of a page in a book, for instance, by just taking one quick look at it, a matter of a few seconds. Autistic people can go through their lives without loosing that capacity, and you can train it to levels that exceed ordinary memory in an astonishing way. So the possibility IS there that Hutch could have managed it all, actually. But statistically, only the fewest of people can do it, and that is why I say that it remains utterly impossible that Huthch was one of these people. It is far more asonable to believe that he served Abberline a story that has no background in reality whatsoever.
Which is why I believe you are right when you say that Hutchīs story was in all probability bogus, whereas I will not say that it was an impossibility - it was not, as far as a I understand.

The best, Ben!

Fisherman

[Graham]

Fisherman,

In so many words, you are saying that Hutch was a bullshitter, yes?

Graham

[perrymason]

And I'm sure they couldn't care less what you think.

Im sure youre correct Dan, ...but regardless of what their opinions would be of my opinion, it still leaves me and all profilers tied as far as results go... with zero Canon crimes solved.

I think on Graham and Glenns suggestions, lest we not forget Blotchy Face Man, as of this date, the last man accepted by the authorities as seen with Mary Kelly alive.....and he didnt need much local knowledge to get in....(window/latch for example)...he was invited in. And we dont know when he left...only that he did sometime before Bowyer looked in the window.

If its a "close circle" murderer, he has to be counted in based on his proximity and access the night in question. Likely grouping him with Fleming, Barnett, Daniel Barnett, and maybe Bowyer or McCarthy. The only ones we know got close to her, and that room. Daniel being the exception as far as the room goes, we know that she was seen with him without Joe around, but not in her room.

To run through the possibilities with Astrakan is to denounce the decision by the Police to revert to Blotchy Face Man as Last Man Seen with Mary as early as 3 days after his initial storytelling visit. Why he was discarded, or how or why Astrakan was created is unknown, that the police didnt believe it any longer by the 16th is known.

I think the reluctance to explore Blotchy Face is similar to the lack of focus on Broadshouldered Man, despite the fact that these two men were seen with the victims at or on the eventual murder scene, and were the last men to be seen with the 2 dead women.

Best regards all.

[Ben]

Who says those overcoats were buttoned up? Maybe the were open, or at least unbuttoned at the top half.

Doesn't matter, Fisherman.

Buttoned or unbuttoned, a pocket handkerchief will not be visible under two overcoats. Unless this fella was suffering from a severe case of pectus carinatum, you'd see a glimpse of waiscoat over the abdomen at the very best.

Science tells us that the human capacity of picking up details is enormously ill used; we actually are born with the capacity to "photograph" the whole content of a page in a book, for instance, by just taking one quick look at it, a matter of a few seconds

With respect, Fisherman, it has nothing to do with opinion.

It has everything to do with what's possible and what isn't possible, and a claim to have both noticed and committed to memory all that Hutchinson claimed in the time and conditions available belongs in the "isn't possible" category. Ivan Milat's "witness account" was initially chalked up to "photographic memory" by police investigating a series of brutal murders of backpackers in Australia, but Ivan Milat did not have a photographic memory. Ivan Milat was the Austrialian backpacker murderer hoping to confuse police with a spurious "witness" account.

I don't really wish to get bogged down in an "impossible versus highly improbable" debate, though. I will cheerfully settle for "in all probability bogus" if it means avoiding unnecessary sparring. Broadly speaking, we seem to be in agreement.

All the best!
Ben

[Ben]

Hi Graham,

I wasn't aware that Mark King only advanced his Fleming candidate on a speculative basis, but subsequent sleuthing efforts have more or less cemented the identification of Claybury Joe with Kelly's beau. I'll see if I can dredge up some of the valuable "Alias Fleming and Hutch?" content.

All the best,
Ben

[Graham]

[QUOTE=Ben;28187]Hi Graham,

I wasn't aware that Mark King only advanced his Fleming candidate on a speculative basis, but subsequent sleuthing efforts have more or less cemented the identification of Claybury Joe with Kelly's beau. I'll see if I can dredge up some of the valuable "Alias Fleming and Hutch?" content.

All the best,
Ben[/QUOTE

Hi Ben.

My A-Z may well be out of date, but the entry under 'Fleming' does suggest that Mark King (who he?) was merely speculating.

Cheers,

Graham

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Hi Graham,

When was the latest edition of A-Z published?
'Fleming' has no entry at all in my copy.

I believe Mark King initially presented his research in Ripperana nr 13, but i think from some in-depth discussions here on a couple of threads not too long ago that it finally was fairly established - although not with 100% absolute certainty - that Fleming and 'John Evans' were one and the same. At least the indications are very strong that this was the case.

All the best

[Fisherman]

Since Graham asks me if I used all the words of a post to say that Hutch was a bullshitter, and since Ben is touching on that self same subject, I will just mold my answers together.
No Graham, I did not use all those words to see Hutch off as a bullshitter. I used them to point out that there is eminent sense but no certainty in such a stance.
Which is where I get back to Bens post, where he says "a claim to have both noticed and committed to memory all that Hutchinson claimed in the time and conditions available belongs in the "isn't possible" category", only to point out that this is wrong. It can be done, there is no doubt about that - but it can be done only by the smallest of percentages of us, although the capacity lies slumbering within most people, if I have read up correctly on the subject.

But since Ben states that he will settle for a sentence of "in all probability bogus", I will cheerflly join in.

On the subject of the red hanky being visible from that pocket or not, I will stand by what I have said; of course the hanky could have been visible from such a position. We do not know exactly where such a pocket was positioned on the waistcoat, and we do not know the exact design of the coat Astrakhan man wore, just as we do not know to what extent it was buttoned or not, and to say that such things "doesnīt matter" is simply to disregard things that cannot be disregarded. For that matter, we are not forced to accept that the hanky was positioned in the waistcoat pocket - that is just a sensible possibility - it may of course have been visible from a pocket in the outer garments. The essence of it all is that we know (if we believe Hutch) that he and Astrakhan man passed each other at a distance from which it was possible (again, if we believe Hutch) to identify the colour red (a red stone was spoken of).

This has a little too much of the taste of playing the devils advocat for me. I am a firm believer of Hutchs testimony being crap. I actually very much doubt that he was at the venue at the time. Still, that does not mean that we can disregard his story totally, since it is not beyond possibility that it may have been true.

Canīt be clearer than this, I think!

The best, Graham, Ben!

Fisherman