"Murder...!" cry

[Wickerman]

To summarize, your suggestion that she brought a client in is without substantiation and contrary to the way she has lived in that room, your suggestion that arterial spray isnt easily located is incorrect, and your suggestion that people wouldnt undress when going to bed in their own private room is ludicrous.

Michael, when you make all your replies within a previous quote the return quote function does not work.

Regardless, Barnett said in his police statement that he left her on Tuesday (6th), for two reasons, the 2nd reason was due to her resorting to prostitution.
So you have no case to say she had never done this before.
Barnett is saying she had returned to her old ways three days before she was murdered.

[Wickerman]

Invaluable as Dr Bond's report is, it's sadly not perfect. A major omission is that it doesn't even record the direction in which Kelly's throat was cut.

Bond does mention that the throat was too lacerated to tell. When there are a series of cuts at the same location it is not always possible to determine which came first, or in which direction they were all made.

It does record, however, that Kelly sustained a nick to her thumb which, for reasons I've already outlined, makes more sense to me as a defensive wound sustained by Kelly than as a deliberate, or accidental, wound inflicted by the killer.

How could she cut the end of her thumb?
The palm of her hands maybe, or slashes across all her fingers, if she tried to grab the knife. But how on earth does she 'only' nick the end of her thumb in a panic defense against a knife?

And, assuming this killer pulled out a knife in front of her then why isn't she screaming enough to wake the street?
A simple faint "oh murder" is hardly sufficient to raise the alarm when he pulls out a knife?
We have been told how feisty she could be when drunk, and she was no weakling. Kelly was no shrinking violet by all accounts. I can't see her just sticking her thumb up to deflect the knife

[Sam Flynn]

The second photo, the close-up of the pubes, looking towards the door, is clearly taken after the bed is moved away from the wall.

I don't at all agree that the bed was "clearly" moved away from the wall for the second photo but, even if it were, it was only by a small amount. Besides, as I've said, whatever happened prior to the second photo has no bearing on the disposition of the body/body-parts in the first photograph anyway, which would seem to have been arranged in pretty much the same way as described in Bond's notes.

[Sam Flynn]

No mention of her fingernails being stressed (turgid) as in the case of Chapman, who is believed to have defended herself.

Invaluable as Dr Bond's report is, it's sadly not perfect. A major omission is that it doesn't even record the direction in which Kelly's throat was cut.

It does record, however, that Kelly sustained a nick to her thumb which, for reasons I've already outlined, makes more sense to me as a defensive wound sustained by Kelly than as a deliberate, or accidental, wound inflicted by the killer.

[Wickerman]

What have you got against Kelly trying to defend herself anyway?

I'm not so much against her defending herself, my point is the suggestion she did is not based on anything conclusive. And, even if she did, this killer did not attack his victims with a knife, so there wouldn't be any cuts, bruises maybe, but not cuts.
No mention of her fingernails being stressed (turgid) as in the case of Chapman, who is believed to have defended herself.
They were all unconscious when he pulled out the knife. So how could Kelly cut herself?

[c.d.]

"So you can create a pickup storyline that ignores all the above or you can try using just the trusted witnesses and just follow the physical evidence. Its not going to lead you to a killer who kills on the streets, and who only ventured as far as a backyard from the streets before."

Hello Michael,

What would prevent a killer who had previously only killed on the streets from killing indoors? It's not like that violates the laws of physics.

And as for no record of Mary bringing a client back to her room, even if true, what prevents her from doing so once Barnett has left?

I think it is safe to say that Mary never engaged in prostitution until the first time she did so. So why are all the things that you bring up somehow written in stone?

c.d.

[Michael W Richards]

It seems generally accepted to speculate and guess what may have happened in any particular circumstance if the end result supports a Jack the Ripper killer. Its a ridiculous situation and an obstacle to any real truth being discovered.

The baseline for Mary Kelly is this....she was seen by a courtyard resident at 11:45 entering her room with someone, she is heard singing off and on in the room until after 1am, her room is dark and quiet by 1:30. She is found in the morning after 11am when the handyman came to collect rent and pushed aside her window covering.

There is no client pickup, there is no client brought to the room, there is no proof that anyone who says they saw Mary Kelly alive after 11:45 actually even knew her or would recognize her in the middle of the night, there is proof that someone who claimed to have known her and seen her with someone out after midnight is later discredited and there is physical proof that she was killed before Carrie Maxwells supposed sighting of her out of the room.

So you can create a pickup storyline that ignores all the above or you can try using just the trusted witnesses and just follow the physical evidence. Its not going to lead you to a killer who kills on the streets, and who only ventured as far as a backyard from the streets before.

[Robert]

Hi Jon

There is a Reynolds sketch which shows Kelly's shoes in front of the fireplace. If the artist had them in their original position (which may be a big if) you wonder why Kelly would place them in such a position that she'd be obliged to pad across a filthy floor in bare feet to reach them. Surely she'd have had them by her bed, ready to slip into - unless the fire was alight and the shoes needed to dry out from rain/puddles.

Again, you say that you think the killer burned Harvey's clothing, but why did he not burn Kelly's too - unless it was damp?

And if Kelly was cold after Mr A left, how would she be any warmer by donning damp clothing?

[Michael W Richards]

She is not asleep Michael.
Kelly brought her client back to her room.

Not once has she done that before, not at room 13, and Barnett has only been gone for a few days. There is NO record of Mary bringing anyone into the room other than Blotchy for a seranade over an hour long.

She is undressed because she was about to entertain her client. Had she been alone and simply going to sleep she would have kept her clothes on like the poor of her class normally did.

A woman wouldnt undress in her own room, a room in her own name? Wonder where you got that idea.

She is on the bed with her client, which is why she is nearest the wall. As the most popular method for safe-sex was 'rear entry', her client is behind her - that is when he attacked.

If she is nearest the wall and being entered from behind, then she is facing the partition wall, just like I said, and nothing like the image you provided. the notion that this was a client is your own presumption and again, contrary to the way she was and had been living.

The head of the bed was not against a wall, so we do not know where else any spray might have been found.

Wrong yet again. The spray on the partition was was assumed to be arterial spray from the throat cut.

To summarize, your suggestion that she brought a client in is without substantiation and contrary to the way she has lived in that room, your suggestion that arterial spray isnt easily located is incorrect, and your suggestion that people wouldnt undress when going to bed in their own private room is ludicrous.

[Sam Flynn]

As to the cut on the thumb, there were many meaningless cuts, lots of them.

But how does the knife accidentally hit the flesh of the thumb? Not impossible, I suppose, but it's a very small target, and there's not much else of interest down there. Yes, there were cuts to the backs of the hand and the forearms, but the thumb points in the other direction.

What have you got against Kelly trying to defend herself anyway?

[Sam Flynn]

The second photo, the close-up of the pubes, looking towards the door, is clearly taken after the bed is moved away from the wall.

I honestly don't think the bed was moved, Jon, or only a little if it were. Even then, whatever happened to prepare the second photo doesn't materially affect the disposition of the body and the organs in the first one - especially since, as you suggest, the bed was moved after the first photo was taken.

[Wickerman]

Hi Jon

Could I have your position on the rain, please, since I think it's a material factor. Did you recently say that you didn't think there was much rain?

Hi Robert.

I think you are referring to my point that only Cox mentioned rain that night.
I am intrigued why there are points in Cox's evidence that seem to run counter to what other witnesses say.
Given the coming's and goings of Lewis, Kennedy, Hutchinson, Prater & Bowyer it is surprising that none mention rain.
I'm not sure how that plays into any particular scenario though, could you expand on that?

[Robert]

Hi Jon

Could I have your position on the rain, please, since I think it's a material factor. Did you recently say that you didn't think there was much rain?

[Wickerman]

The autopsy would require the doctors to examine the organs, which would necessitate moving them around, ideally - perhaps necessarily - in a location more suitable for such an examination to take place (i.e. off-site). Furthermore, the way Bond describes the body (and the disposition of what body parts we can see) tallies very closely with what appears in the photo. Taking all that into account, I've little doubt that it was taken before the autopsy.

As to the cut on the thumb, there were many meaningless cuts, lots of them.

The second photo, the close-up of the pubes, looking towards the door, is clearly taken after the bed is moved away from the wall. Yet organs & flesh are still laying around.
There is nothing in either photo to indicate when the photo was taken, except with respect to the position of the right arm, as I mentioned earlier.

[Wickerman]

Jon, she may have been naked simply because she had recently entertained a client, i.e. Mr A. She may then have not felt like getting up and dressed just so she could lie down again.

I think we might try to put ourselves in that cold and drafty room after midnight.
It can't have been warm enough to sleep in a flimsy nightgown. The fire might be key to understanding this. From what we are told there was only the remains of clothing found in the grate. Is it rationale to believe Kelly would make a fire using her own clothes?
Or, is it more rational to say it was the killer who made the fire using clothes she is obviously not going to need anymore.

The latter would suggest that the fire was only made after she was killed, which would suggest the room would have been cold for sleeping in only a nightgown.
So, on balance, I would say it unlikely she fell asleep undressed in a cold room with broken windows.