Was it mary kelly?

[claire]

I just enjoyed your mysterious turn of phrase...must be a Finnish thing! But I knew what you meant!

[j.r-ahde]

Hello Claire!

Heheh, in potentially solving that, Jukka, you make it sound even more mysterious and conspiratorial!

Oh-oh, you are too clever for my brain-cells!

What I meant, was: the letter could have been from any relative of hers, not necessarily from her mother.

Maybe from some relative, who happened to see her in London. This relative X could have kept this piece of information within oneself, while returning to Ireland. Thus; no parents or siblings aware of MJK's whereabouts...

Does this make more sense?!

All the best
Jukka

[Debra A]

Thats the first time I ve heard about 'peculiar shape of the ears' which makes me wonder if she had attached lobes. The top of her ears were cut, but attached lobes are distinctive and less common than loose lobes. Attached lobes are hereditary which could be a clue to her family. Miss Marple

He he, this made me laugh MM! I have attached lobes and never even realised until I went to check in the mirror just now! I've never looked at the rest of my family's either...must do that! I've never considered my ears peculiar shaped or more distinctive and neither has anyone else....not to my face anyway
It's just the result of inheriting two recessive genes, one from each parent I presume if it's less common than loose lobes?

[claire]

Heheh, in potentially solving that, Jukka, you make it sound even more mysterious and conspiratorial!

[j.r-ahde]

Hello Claire!

Yes, that is definitely a difficulty with the "she had a pseudonyme" -theory!

But who really mailed the letter to MJK?

She told the letter to be from her mother. But since she wasn't quite honest with her past, she could have been slightly dishonest also with this matter and probably she burnt the letter in the fire-place. Since Joe didn't know about it.

All the best
Jukka

[miss marple]

Thats the first time I ve heard about 'peculiar shape of the ears' which makes me wonder if she had attached lobes. The top of her ears were cut, but attached lobes are distinctive and less common than loose lobes. Attached lobes are hereditary which could be a clue to her family. Miss Marple

[claire]

Hi Jukka,

The only thing that gives me pause about your explanation, as plausible as it is, was the suggestion from her landlord that MJK was receiving mail from her family, albeit c/- her landlord, which would suggest they knew roughly where she was living.

Gizmo...the French sounding moniker is said to come from the period that MJK allegedly spent in Paris.

[j.r-ahde]

Hello gizmo!

If I remember correctly, according to Joe MJK preferred herself to be called "Marie Jeanette"!

All the best
Jukka

[gizmo]

Nom de plume ?????

Hiya, Can anyone please elaborate to me where the name, Marie Jeanette Kelly originated from? From all acccounts that I have read, Mary Jane Kelly was the commonly attributed name affixed to "our" Mary. On whose say so, information or paperwork was the death certificate noted as Marie Jeanette. This name has an obvious French connotation and I am having difficulty with understanding why an Irish catholic lass from Limerick would go by such in east end London.

[j.r-ahde]

Hello Jerry D!

There is the following thing;

Mary Jane Kelly covered her tracks so well, that no-one has ever tracked down her real origins. Even some of us have made efforts to track down "our Mary", so to say. The only thing being a few very good "maybes".

So, when this is the case, probably finding their daughter wouldn't have been much easier for her family. Whoever they really were.

If she used "Mary Jane Kelly" as a pseudonyme - like some people thought right from the start - finding her real backround would be even a bigger search-a-needle-from-a-haystack. Kelly was the second most common last-name in Ireland and Mary was the most common girl's first-name. There are still loads of Mary Kellies in the UK, Ireland, US, Australia, etc.

Then, even they would have found some cracks fitting their child, they could still have let it be. Since they could have wanted to remember "their Mary", not the Ripper victim...

All the best
Jukka

[jerryd]

Mary Kelly's murder was all over the papers and the talk of the town. The press reports about anything ripper related hit every news stand in the world.

With that in mind, wouldn't you think that Mary's relatives would have noticed her murder at some point and contacted the authorities? Why did they not? Her murder after all, was the most prolific of all.

[Dan Norder]

Oh, and of course thanks to Stewart for posting that, since I thanked Debs above...

Geez, it's to easy to just count on Stewart to pop out of nowhere now and then to clear things up and forget to thank him for taking the time to post here. Few of the more established authors bother to do that here, and it's always appreciated even if the acknowledgment is forgotten.

[Dan Norder]

Hi Graham,

I believe I heard that from Stewart before, but clearly if I had it had slipped my mind, as I would have brought it up. Now that it's mentioned I remember the reference to the "shape" of the ears. I really need to start keeping notes on these things.

I clearly was unaware that some papers had actually published "hair," so thanks to Debs for pointing that out. The only two I can pull up in a search are the Echo and The Illustrated Police News -- the latter I should have known about considering I own a reprint of the issue it ran in.

Don't worry about the mix up, Graham, as I made some here also. Since it was printed as hair in at least a few papers, it's obvious that reporters could mishear the word. So your theory about the word being reported incorrectly is correct, it's just that they misheard the opposite way that people were suggesting. I was too quick to dismiss it, and from my search above to try to find newspapers that listed hair I see that Sugden outright in his book declared that it was hair and left it for a footnote to explain that the reports said ear but that he (Sugden) thought it must have been hair. You were in good company on your thought process.

[The Good Michael]

The only possibility, if it wasn't MJK who was murdered, was that Barnett was involved. He identified her conclusively. There is no doubt of that. There are no other realistic options. Then that means the police agreed with his alibi and allowed an accomplice to murder (at minimum) to go free.

I don't believe that for a minute.

Mike

[Elias]

I dont think it was Mary Kelly because how could anyone really identify the body as being hers? You hear of alot of stories that she was seen after the murder! Why did the police just agree to saying that it was her?

Hi muffcake,

Well, there weren't a lot of stories, Mrs. Maxwell was, I believe, the only person called to the inquest who said she saw MJK that morning and there is much more reliable evidence from other witnesses and doctors to suggest she died earlier than the Maxwell sighting.

What motive would MJK have to disappear if she wasn't killed? As I said earlier, if it was a cover up, maybe to get out of paying debts, why did she go for a drink the following morning and hang around talking to friends? Maxwell's claim is one of the most puzzling aspect of the whole case, but the fact is, after that, no-one ever saw her again - as Frank Skinner once said about Elvis, "I think he is dead, I've spoken to some of his friends and they haven't seen him in ages!"