Kelly photo 1 enhanced - graphic

[Blackkat]

where the arrow is above, is skin. It's ripped, there isn't any fat beneath it to hold the shape. The dark coloring is consistent with the dark bloodied area around the femur bone. The light area is still the same color as her skin. The dangling skin has the appearance of being ripped or shredded actually. This is the top layer of skin without muscle or fat attached to it underneath which is the reason it just hangs. For a sock, even a wool one, the depth of skin dangling is too thick for even a sock. It's tissue. One reason I say this is due to a accident I had and how my skin layered and looked once cut.

I do tend to look at the colouring of both legs and there isn't a difference. Does this mean that if some say it's a sock or stocking that the stocking cuts off, where her skin ends and the mutilation begins? (where you see her femur)then the top part of the stocking that would be cut or torn by her thigh (upper area above her knee) would be tattered or shredded and that's not the case.

[claire]

Difficult working from photos like this, but in both the enhanced and unenhanced versions (or copies of copies of versions) that I have seen, the edges of that black hoop around the right leg seem too poorly defined for it to be a garter, makeshift or otherwise. It doesn't look like it stands in any relief to the surface below it, which one would expect (particularly if it was a bootlace or similar, which it would most likely be, given the width of it...)

I'm also, with due respect, not convinced that there is a pattern from wool there along the lower leg: those striations look like they could be an artefact of the print or copy quality. There doesn't seem to be a gradation in colouring between lower leg and the knee that one might expect to find if she was wearing socks/stockings. The smears that were mooted to be consistent with those we might expect to find on fabric are also evident in type with those on the wall...I think they could, more readily, be consistent with smearing on a smooth surface.

To my mind, it just looks like a long drip of blood that could have found its way there through a number of means (ante- or perimortem severing of the femoral artery; splashes from a moving knife; large open area immediately to the rear of it). Wasn't this proposed on another thread a few months ago?

Fantastic work on the enhancements here; I'm very impressed (if a little unsettled).

[Blackkat]

Jane,
Heya good points, but if the makeshift garter would have come down sometime during the night it wouldn't have stayed in the place where some think it may be in the photo. Thus is would have not held up a stocking or sock that well. Also to have it in the place on the leg shown in the photo it would have had to have been tied way too tight for comfort.

There is no color difference between her skin and what is suppose to be a sock or stocking. One leg is bare and matches in colour the other leg. If there is a sock of any kind why isn't there a difference in heigth (being that it may have been wool and a thicker sock)between what might be something tied around her leg and where the sock is at? I can look at my socks that are dress socks for slacks and there is still a difference between my leg and where the sock begins.

Now I'm not saying you aren't correct - heck no, because I just would like to know is there one or not, I'm not trying to discredit you, I'm just going back and forth with all the theories to try and find out. I rather like the idea that there is a difference of opinion it helps us think.

Do we have a reference that confirms that the "folded" clothes were indeed Marys?

We have some shirts unaccounted for, left by Maria, and I believe some other odds and ends including the Pilot Jacket, isnt it more likely that anything folded was done so, or left as such, when Maria was there that afternoon?

It doesnt seem to me like she was very wide awake when undressing, and I suppose ritual habits or something of the sort might have her folding things mechanically...but I think with whats left on her person it doesnt indicate she completed undressing....so she was either halted, or fell asleep.

Best regards all.

[Jane Coram]

Blow up of knee of MJK2?

Hi Chris,

I don't know if it's possible, but you couldn't put an enhanced close up of the knee area in MJK2 up could you?

Hugs

Jane

xxxx

[Jane Coram]

Hi Blakkat,

From what we think we can see there, it is very consistent with knitted stockings/overknee socks during the Victorian period. They haven't actually changed much in their history......bit like crocodiles. Lol.

Great that you are getting some pictures of them to post -- I think they will be very helpful, if they don't come through I've got some pics somewhere that I can put up, but I'm sure theirs will be better and I don't know where I've put mine!

I think (if my memory serves me) that when this was being discussed before that several posters suggested that the garter was possibly a make shift one, and that it might well have started higher up the leg, but ended by rolling itself down the leg to below the knee at some time during the course of the night. This would probably have been more likely if hyperthetically Mary was trying to get it off, but was too drunk/ tired to manage it.

I have to say, that if it is a garter then it slipping down over a period is a distinct possibility. Many moons ago, in the 1960's I used to wear over the knee knitted sock/stockings, almost identical to the one I believe we are seeing in the photo, and used an elastic band to keep them up as I had such skinny legs and the bloody things were always ending up round my ankles! Normally though, you are right, it would have been worn above the knee.

Just as an aside, some of the posters that thought that Mary did have a sock/stocking on her right leg, suggested that the other stocking was draped over the rolled up bedding behind Mary's right leg. Looking at the photo, I can see why that has been suggested, and can't disagree with it.


I still do feel quite strongly that she is wearing a stocking on her right leg....not only because the knitted stitches are clearly visible, especially over what would be the knee area......and because just above the knee in the larger photo, (MJK2) you can see the shredded remnants of the stocking at the top, dangling down underneath the denuded femur. That can't be skin, as skin doesn't fold and shred like that when cut. Whatever it is, it's fabric.

I'm sure that some of the other posters will remember the discussion better than me and be able to refresh our memories.

Hugs

Jane

xxxx

[Ben]

Hi all,

Not having involved myself much in victim photo-related discussions over the years, I'm probably not as clued-up as I should be when it comes to what can be seen where, but I'm personally struggling to see anything resembling a stocking/garter/sock in the main Kelly #1 image.

All the best,
Ben

[Sam Flynn]

Also information on the placement of garters.

I'm not so sure that asking about the "official" or "accepted" means of wearing a garter applies in this case, Kat - at least not in terms of etiquette or fashion statements. We're talking about the bottom end of the social pyramid where, in much the same way that trousers could be held up by a length of string, a shoelace might be employed to stop a knackered, sawn-off stocking from slipping down too far.

[Sam Flynn]

I've started a new thread on the subject of what the piccies might tell us about Kelly's last moments. A subject worthy of a thread in itself, I feel.

[Fisherman]

Michael writes:

"I think its only feasible if you want to suggest that on this particular killing he didnt mind having his trousers, shirt cuffs and sleeves as well as hands and arms covered in blood. If he knelt between her legs while stripping her right thigh of flesh, and emptying her midsection, I think the residual blood left in organs and arteries would get on him.

If he is left handed, and standing, its an easy pivot for him when removing "materials" from Mary and placing them about, like onto the nightable, and reaching up while kneeling between her legs to lift her head and place a breast there doesnt seem to me a likley scenario. If your right, then we have a killer who matches an analogy Ive used about that night frequently, he was like a child playing in a bloody sandbox.

I dont believe victims 1-4 show that at all. He had objectives....whether the cutting or the organs, he went to work...he didnt "play"."

Fair points about the breast under the head and the swiwel movement towards the table, Michael. But I really donīt see any impossibility in leaning in over her from a position between her legs, grabbing her by the hair to lift the head, and then tucking away the items under her head that were subsequentially found there. Slightly awkward, perhaps, but then again what he was up to on the whole was awkward, was it not? He would also, I believe, be able to reach the table from such a position, without any swiwel movement called for.
All of this may of course be academic questions, since there is no need to accept that he must have been in the same poisition throughout the whole process, is there?

As for the comparison with the other victims, the fact that he did not go to the same lenghts there, may of course be an issue of time. He was so much more pressed for it when he killed in the streets.

The best, Michael!
Fisherman

[Blackkat]

Could someone tell me what Senor Crocodile [or Mr. Bolster] is? Sorry if I'm not up to par on that.

[Blackkat]

If Mary had been singing, and she was the one that folded her clothes neatly placing them on the chair, and seeing that she wasn't new to drinking - then why wouldn't she have taken off her left sock. She seemed to be "with it" enough to sing, and possibly fold her own clothes. She would have been able to take off both socks.

Also, going on the theory that she had a wool sock on her left leg, there isn't enough material (height) after the "garter", there isn't enough color difference between her knee and the "sock", and in that time the garter, or makeshift garter as a shoestring would be tied or placed in the wrong area for the "black circle" around and beneath the knee area for placement of such an accessory.

Doesn't make sense.

Okay I've put in some questions to a costumer, and a museum on era clothing. They are going to send some pictures of socks for this time period. Wool, silk etc. Also information on the placement of garters. At this point all that I've found with women using anything in place of a garter was tied above the knee , not below. The lady I spoke with said that the garter can't be placed too far under the knee, because it would have been be entirely too tight in order to stay, and it would be uncomfortable. I'll post everything when I get the info.

[Blackkat]

If Mary had been singing, and she was the one that folded her clothes neatly placing them on the chair, and seeing that she wasn't new to drinking - then why wouldn't she have taken off her left sock. She seemed to be "with it" enough to sing, and possibly fold her own clothes. She would have been able to take off both socks.

Also, going on the theory that she had a wool sock on her left leg, there isn't enough material (height) after the "garter", there isn't enough color difference between her knee and the "sock", and in that time the garter, or makeshift garter as a shoestring would be tied or placed in the wrong area for the "black circle" around and beneath the knee area for placement of such an accessory.

Doesn't make sense.

Michael writes:

"I really cant imagine him kneeling on her bed between her legs doing his dirty work"

Why is that, Michael? Surely it is a very feasible suggestion?

The best!
Fisherman

Hi Fisherman,

I think its only feasible if you want to suggest that on this particular killing he didnt mind having his trousers, shirt cuffs and sleeves as well as hands and arms covered in blood. If he knelt between her legs while stripping her right thigh of flesh, and emptying her midsection, I think the residual blood left in organs and arteries would get on him.

If he is left handed, and standing, its an easy pivot for him when removing "materials" from Mary and placing them about, like onto the nightable, and reaching up while kneeling between her legs to lift her head and place a breast there doesnt seem to me a likley scenario. If your right, then we have a killer who matches an analogy Ive used about that night frequently, he was like a child playing in a bloody sandbox.

I dont believe victims 1-4 show that at all. He had objectives....whether the cutting or the organs, he went to work...he didnt "play".

On Mary maybe passing out while undressing....I think thats very feasible, and when you consider that she was very drunk when arriving, and that she was singing off and on, likely without any more booze other than Blotchys pint of ale, then you can imagine a pretty tired, begininning a hangover, woman. I dont believe she was with company though when she passed out...I think thats just how she was for her late arrival...half dressed and half awake.

Best regards all.

[Blackkat]

I should clarify. I didn't mean to say that Jack would take them off himself. That was to simply make a point. I don't think Jack would have taken off her socks. I think she was able to do that herself given her line of work.

Mary not getting her other sock off because she was drunk? That does make sense seeing they all seemed to be lushes. I could see that. If that is another sock, I could understand that. However, I still don't think she's wearing a sock on that left leg.

As for the fibers that if not wool would make for very hairy legs? Well looking at the picture taken that is looking towards the door - the same "fibers" on the sock are right beside her leg closest to the wall. (covers or something) Those "fibers" on her leg that are suppose to be a sock could very well be artifacts in the picture.

And again as some have stated, we are dealing with a very old picture, that is NOT the best resolution. If the statement says she wasn't wearing anything but a chemise, then I'd guess they would know.