Marking November 8th, 1888

[Guest]

Hello all,

120 years ago today, at 11:45pm London time, Mary Jane Kelly stepped in from the cold and left her small world behind to become what for some, is the central victim in the brief but all too bloody reign of terror that has been linked to Jack the Ripper. Her demise is the final in the suggested "series", and without a doubt, was the most appalling spectacle of all 5 murders for investigators.

Although 2 witnesses, one at the Inquest, stated that they had seen Mary Jane alive and out of her room after 11:45pm on Nov 8th, there is good reason to suspect that one, if not both stories, were dismissed by investigators as irrelevant or inaccurate by November 16th.

Leaving us with the "accepted" story by Mary Ann Cox that had Mary and a Blotchy Faced Man both entering Marys room at approx 11:45pm, and that Mary was particularly inebriated.

We do not know when Blotchy Face left the room...only that he did eventually.

Without providing an alibi, witnessed departure or explanation for Mr Blotchy Face, he would have to be considered as the number 1 suspect....even to this day. At least modern police would start with that premise I believe.

Can a Ripper explanation be proven without providing proof first that Blotchy left before she died?.....I dont think so.

So, considering any maniac with a knife and a body could conceivably do similar mindless destruction, if so pre-disposed......and we do have a torso creator on the loose at that very moment in time, plus murderers using knives that killed the other unfortunates Jack seems to have missed..., and considering that this was a new venue, with a new attack methodolgy...knife before strangling or choking, and considering that there is not one known bit of circumstantial or physical evidence that links her death to a known human being, or any other victim....how can Mary Jane Kelly remain as a viable Ripper victim without first clearing Blotchy Face?

My best regards all.

[Sam Flynn]

how can Mary Jane Kelly remain as a viable Ripper victim without first clearing Blotchy Face?

...which leads to the obvious question: What if the Ripper was Blotchy Face?

(I don't believe that he was, by the way, but I'm just going with your scenario, Mike.)

[perrymason]

...which leads to the obvious question: What if the Ripper was Blotchy Face?

(I don't believe that he was, by the way, but I'm just going with your scenario, Mike.)

I believe that is the only reasonable explanation at this time for her killer to have been "The Ripper" Sam, so, no issues. Since there decided differences in what was done with Marys body and what was done with the priors, I agree with you on the second point....I dont think he was either.

But as Sailor Hat Man is with Kate, and Broadshouldered Man is with Elizabeth, Blotchy Face is the last generally accepted suspect/date/client/friend seen with the victim before she dies. And we have a press account of that same week, from the Monday on, stating that a man matching the description of Blotchy Face was seen, that fact brought to the attention of a constable when he bolted, and the constable suggested that they were looking for someone quite different as the culprit. An astrakaned cuffed man, because this happened before the 16th...when the official suspect on paper became Blotchy Face, after Hutchinson's story was disbelieved.

My point is, since we know who is on record being believed by police as having been seen with Mary Jane last...and that her company was a Blotchy Faced Man, and that to this day there has never been a witness account suddenly appear that shows that conclusion to be questionable, nor has a satisfactory explanation been provided to explain the revision in suspect to Blotchy Face by November 16th as anything other than disbelief of George Hutchinsons story, how can a supposition be made that Jack the Ripper did this without him being Blotchy Face? Or without Blotchy Face as the "accomplice".

To my eye, there has never been a satisfactory reason given to link the killings to Jack that explains what happened to Blotchy Face if he was not Jack, so perhaps that is what the police thought as well.

All the best Sam

[Chava]

A dissertation on this board puts Kelly's time of death at around 3.00 am, which would mean that Blotchy-Face hung around for a while before killing her. My first reaction to this was 'well the Ripper didn't hang around long before he killed them, ergo BF isn't the Ripper.' But actually, the only victim we know for sure he didn't spend a fair amount of time with would be Catherine Eddowes, and she was a default, since his primary target had been Elizabeth Stride. We don't know what Nicholls did for an hour and a half before she died. Chapman goes missing around midnight and turns up fairly freshly dead at around 6.00 am. It's possible that the killer spent time with his victims before he killed them. I don't think we can rule BF out. Certainly Kelly sounds too drunk to go out again after she slams the door on Cox and starts singing. I doubt she'd sober up fast enough to deal with BF, get him out the door, and then go out again on the stroll. He's an excellent candidate in my opinion.

[perrymason]

Hi Chava,

Although I agree with some points you made there, I dont think we have the evidence to suggest that Annie's killer took any great length of time, nor would Pollys venue be a good one for lingering,.. it was on the sidewalk, not in an alley. We dont know that Liz's killer didnt have 5-10 minutes or more alone with her, but we do have reason to think Kate's killer had very little time. Im not so sure we do have any evidence that he craved extended periods, nor took them.

But with Blotchy, we also have her light out and singing stopped before 1:30,... and Mary Ann still coming and going. That would mean if Blotchy is still there, he may be an invited guest for the evening. Maybe the delay in killing her is due to having sex with her first. Im pretty sure there was absolutely no way to check that little factoid with what remained of Mary intact.

All the best.

[Wickerman]

...when the official suspect on paper became Blotchy Face, after Hutchinson's story was disbelieved....

Walter Dew, in his Memoirs published in 1938, says that he rejected the evidence given by Mrs Maxwell & Geo. Hutchinson, ascribing their mistakes to either wrong time or wrong date.
The person you call 'blotchy' was known as the 'billycock hat' man, and Dew writes:

Was the man in the billycock hat Jack the Ripper?
"In spite of contradictory evidence to the contrary (Maxwell & Hutch') which came to light later, and in spite of a departure from his method of swift and sudden attack, I think he was, always providing Mary Cox was correct in what she said" (p. 152).

I just mention this in passing..

Regards, Jon.S.

[anna]

Thinking of you on your 120th Anniversary,


MARY JANE KELLY..an


Rest in peace forever,

ANNA.




(Funnily enough there was torrential rain in London last night,stretching into the early hours...)

[Limehouse]

Regardless of who was responsible for Mary's death, he/she ended a life that was not theirs to end. It is so easy to forget that all of these women were real. Much is made of their lifestyles and their fall into deprivation but none of us truly knows what the triggers were for their fall. I hope all of them found eventual peace.

[Natalie Severn]

Thankyou for opening this thread Mike, to commemorate the dreadful murder of Mary Kelly.I would like to echo Limehouse here,these were a horrofic series of crimes against women,regardless of who it was who was responsible.

[Mathilde]

The death of Mary Jane...

Hello everyone!
Beeing a member today, I want to say 'hello' to all of you! I t looks like we are many people who are interested in this case...-Jack the Ripper, and his victims! Poor victims!

Registrating the date of yesterday, I am wondering...: What if there is a context between the death of Mary Jane, and the Kristall Nacht??

Just a thought...!

[Canucco dei Mergi]

Registrating the date of yesterday, I am wondering...: What if there is a context between the death of Mary Jane, and the Kristall Nacht??

Just a thought...!

How interesting!
Of course one should first understand what's the meaning of the weird "there is a context".
Are you suggesting the Crystal night being a commemoration of the murder of 'Mary Jane Kelly' ?
Interesting again. Never heard before. What a marvelous and original way to interpret history.
Of course one should neglect a little mismatch of yours: that the 'Kristall Nacht ' began in the early hours of the 10th.

What about the murder being the commemoration of Pope Martin the 4th excommunicating Peter the 3rd of Aragon (happened the 9th of November 1282) or the Family of 'Dei Medici' becoming rulers of Florence (9th Nov. 1494) or Robert Blum execution in Vienna (9th Nov. 1848) or the removal of the general McClellan from chief of the army of the Potomac (1862, 9th Nov.) or that when the 9th of Nov. 1960 Robert McNamara was named President of Ford co. he was so in the commemoration of the last 'known Ripper murder) ?

All informations here above taken from Wikipedia which erroneously report the 9th of November as the date of Krystall Nacht which no doubt is the source of 'Mathilde' confusion.

[paul emmett]

Welcome to the Message Boards, Mathilde.

[Canucco dei Mergi]

All that can we commemorate on this date of 1888 is that in Whitechapel the body of a (young) woman was found cut to pieces on a bed in a room at Miller's court which had been rented for a certain time before that to a young woman who told the neighbourhood and her friends her name was 'Mary Jane/Jeannette Kelly' and who was seen alive after her death by at least another woman who expressed the fact and supported it in a very circumstantiated (and checked up positively by the police) testimony.

Serious researchers, after having tried to locate somewhere and sometimes in history a young woman called Mary Jane/Jeannette Kelly by the meager but precise facts given by the man who was living with her, cannot but reaching the conclusion that a young woman with such a name of whom we know such facts can never have come to existence.

If one believe that the body on the bed was at least the one of that mysterious young girl, he must - once again and as usual in classical Ripperology - but chose if to lean on a mistake or on incompetence or simply on coincidence to support the case for this mysterious girl being one and the same with the girl who told her name was Mary Jane/Jeannette Kelly.

The face was, of course, conveniently smashed away beyond recognition.
Many people suggest that it is not a problem because her lover was able to identify her anyway.
But this is only what he said: that he was able to identify her.
A point that has never been put forward is that once he had identified her (the identification of the suspicious Hutchinson does not change anything to it) the smashed face could have prevented any other person to put in doubt his testimony.

What the use of smashing a face beyond recognition if you do it to the victim in her own room in her own garments ?
No use of course, victim will be recognized anyway.
But what if the victim is not the victim ?
What if the body on the bed has the same hair, the same physical features, the same kind of skin as the pretended victim thatr you want people to believe has been murdered ?
Well, the face would be the problem of course.
With a different face nobody could believe what you want them to believe.
Solution: eliminate the only possible source of problem.

Oh, but how stupid.
I forgot the most obvious: if 'Mary Jane Kelly' was murdered is because 'Jack the Ripper' killed her. And he being what he was the slashing of the face was logically his demonstration that he took the victim under his power and vindicated himself of his mother (or was it his aunt ?).
And that no doubt this caused him a sexual satisfaction of some sort (what sort ? some. Oh! I see.)

[Limehouse]

Surely, the important thing today is that we are remembering the death of a young woman. Whoever she was, whoever, killed her and whatever his/her motive was is unimportant today. A young woman died. Someone killed her in a most horrific and destructive way. Today, for me at least, all theories and arguments about the whos, whys and wherefores are irrelevant.

[Suzi]

Hi all- November 9th-120 yrs ago tonight quite a chilling thought-

- I wonder how many people will take it upon themselves to venture past the site of Miller's Court tonight- Quite a few I would imagine-and probably not for the best of reasons some of them, I'd suspect.

Now as to Blotchy- Mary Ann Cox has this as her man- I wonder how many men could have been described as 'blotchy' at that time- quite a few I suspect-for a variety of reasons- and the 'carrotty ' moustache....Hmmmmm distinctive without a doubt- maybe just too distinctive (as in removable!) does spring to mind. (NOT venturing into Patsy territory here I hasten to add!).

Now he is seen entering Miller's Court and presumably Mary's room at 11.45 ish -Mary was 'off on a sing' between 12.00 and 1.00 am now IMHO it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that MB joined her in that-saw off the quartern of ale or whatever-did 'the business' (maybe or maybe not) and shuffled off into the night (and obscurity- well apart from his blotchy/carrotyness!).

Then of course we have Mr Astrakan (maybe) at 2.00am according to Hutch- he could of course exsisted and been 'seen to' and out of the door in a fairly short time.

I would like to imagine that Mary then pulled what was left of herself together- and tottered off out again-it's not beyond belief is it that the 5 am footsteps could have been Mary herself stumbling out of her door and maybe bouncing off of the walls of the alleyway a few times, as she left the court to either 'earn a few coppers' or for a 'top up'.

Such an evocative situation with so many questions,and so few answers-just more unanswered questions - If indeed it were she who went by the name of Mary Jane/Marie Jeanette Kelly who was so memorably/hideously destroyed 120 years ago tonight

- We have 'That Photograph' of course to remind us- sadly many women die anonymously in horrendous situations today without that evidence.

RIP Mary

Suzi