Is There Really Still an Unpublished MJK Picture?

[spyglass]

Hi,
Author and ripper historian Stewart Evans believes that more than three were taken, and he's friend from whom he aquirred the Littlejohn letter from ( sorry but name escapes me ) claims he had them in his possession.

One thing that I do find strange is why clearer photo's taken in the mortuary didn't seem to be taken.

Regards.

[Mayerling]

Hi,
Author and ripper historian Stewart Evans believes that more than three were taken, and he's friend from whom he aquirred the Littlejohn letter from ( sorry but name escapes me ) claims he had them in his possession.

One thing that I do find strange is why clearer photo's taken in the mortuary didn't seem to be taken.

Regards.

Is it possibly because even after "repair surgery" on the corpse it was still too horrific to be viewed? Look at how long before the Kelly photos we have showed up, and they are horrible as they are. Possibly the worse atrocity photos ever taken.

A number of years ago, I knew a little girl, the sister of one of my sister's friends, who had good features. She grew up to become a lawyer, and was severely beaten up by a gang stealing her car. Her face was smashed, but she survived - and her face went through many operations. She resumed her professional career. I met her again about eleven years ago - her face resembled what I recalled of her little girl face, but I could see how terrible the damage had been in the attack - even after those operations. Looking at the Kelly photos we have, even if they had Dr. Joseph Lister or some comparable figure of the day (Sir William Ostler for example) performing the surgery, it would have been horrific to see that corpse when reassembled.

Jeff

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi,
Author and ripper historian Stewart Evans believes that more than three were taken, and he's friend from whom he aquirred the Littlejohn letter from ( sorry but name escapes me ) claims he had them in his possession.

One thing that I do find strange is why clearer photo's taken in the mortuary didn't seem to be taken.

Regards.

Oh okay, yes, I interviewed Stewart Evans for Ripper Notes. In the interview, Stewart stated that Eric Barton, the bookseller from whom he bought the Littlechild Letter, possessed "a full set of the crime scene photos of Miller's Court and Mary Jane Kelly" but that they were lost when the old retired bookseller died.

Stewart told me:

"An intriguing footnote. . . was that on meeting Eric Barton at his home I found it to be a veritable 'Aladdin's Cave.' In telling the story of his purchase [of the letter from Chief Inspector John George Littlechild to writer G. R. Sims], Eric revealed that also with Sims' letters was a full set of the crime scene photos of Miller's Court and Mary Jane Kelly! He had never sold them and they were still in his home somewhere. I kept in contact with Eric hoping that he would find these photos which he said I could have. Unfortunately Eric died before the photographs were located. (It will be remembered that Sims was a friend of Macnaghten and it is from him that Sims undoubtedly obtained the photos)."

The entire interview is at http://www.casebook.org/authors/inte...t_evans.2.html

Best regards

Chris

[Andrea_P]

Personally I would rather a photo of her when she was alive would surface. That being said if other crime scene photos surface or a mortuary one I know I would have to look no matter how horific.

[spyglass]

Is it possibly because even after "repair surgery" on the corpse it was still too horrific to be viewed? Look at how long before the Kelly photos we have showed up, and they are horrible as they are. Possibly the worse atrocity photos ever taken.

A number of years ago, I knew a little girl, the sister of one of my sister's friends, who had good features. She grew up to become a lawyer, and was severely beaten up by a gang stealing her car. Her face was smashed, but she survived - and her face went through many operations. She resumed her professional career. I met her again about eleven years ago - her face resembled what I recalled of her little girl face, but I could see how terrible the damage had been in the attack - even after those operations. Looking at the Kelly photos we have, even if they had Dr. Joseph Lister or some comparable figure of the day (Sir William Ostler for example) performing the surgery, it would have been horrific to see that corpse when reassembled.

Jeff

Hi,
I can't believe that mortuary photos weren't taken because they were two horrific.
After all, none of these photos were meant for public viewing, and I'm sure people like Baxter and Bond could handle the gore.

Regards.

[Robert]

I think Stewart mentioned on the Forums that there are a couple of exteriors - photos of the court - in the hands of a private collector.

[MsWeatherwax]

I think Stewart mentioned on the Forums that there are a couple of exteriors - photos of the court - in the hands of a private collector.

I would be so interested to see those, as I'm sure many other people would be.

I'm not one of those who think that the case will ever be definitively 'solved', so my interest, I suppose, is purely historical. I certainly don't think that there is anything in the remaining photo/s of Mary that will solve the case, and certainly not in the pictures of the court.

[Robert]

Hi Ms Weathermax

I'm not sure, but I think Stewart may have said that he'd seen the photos. Anyway, he certainly didn't indicate that they could affect our thinking about the case.As you say, it's unlikely any such image would help us, but it would be nice to see it just the same.

[Pierre]

Hi Ms Weathermax

I'm not sure, but I think Stewart may have said that he'd seen the photos. Anyway, he certainly didn't indicate that they could affect our thinking about the case.As you say, it's unlikely any such image would help us, but it would be nice to see it just the same.

And it doesn´t matter since people on this forum never manage to agree about the photographs.

[Magpie]

Wasn't there also talk of her eyes being photographed, in case an image of the murderer was visible in them? I know the doctor's said that wouldn't show anything, but can't remember off the top of my head whether the photo was taken anyway.
I also seem to remember reading somewhere that six photos were taken. Possibly 'up to six'. So possibly 'up to four' more missing photos.

The story comes to us from Walter Dew. I wrote an essay on this years ago arguing that what he witnesses was the photographer taking close up pictorues of her facial injuries (at the scene or in the mortuary) and put that together with the popular myth of optograms and assumed that's what they were doing. Yes, optograms are useless, but even if they tried it out of desperation, that's not how they were made, so that can't be what Dew was describing.

[Andrea_P]

I'm not sure that I would want to see a close up of her face or what was left of it I think the one we have is bad enough also not sure how close up lenses could go then as most were fixed focal length and had no close up function - would be interesting to use a a camera from that period and experiment with differnt focal lengths

[Harmonica]

What are the chances of said picture ever actually coming to surface then? Are there people in certain circles aware of such things in circulation?

[Michael W Richards]

I thought is was a case of one (or more) glass slides being marked x if 6.

X of 6 GUT.

[GUT]

X of 6 GUT.

Yep...

Phat phingers

[AuroraSarintacos]

I found, what appears to be, a Newspaper depicting the murder of Mary Kelly.

Whether or not I can vouch for its authenticity I can not say; it has a look about it that would suggest "fan-made".

I tried to find where this could possibly have come from. I browsed this website for instance, and could find nothing that would correlate to the headline, as well as nothing that could match it as I did an image search online specifically.

Very unique illustration if I do say so myself. I think it may be for a promotion of sorts related to the Whitechapel killer; in other words, fiction.