What the photos may tell of her last moments

Hi Michael

Agreed, the killer entered her room while she was asleep. But, she's so tired that she falls asleep while undressing - and then wakes up because of a tap at the door? He waits for her to fall asleep before striking? If he knew her that well, he could have let himself in through the window while she was asleep originally. It would have been quicker for him. The downside is he wouldn't have got his smoke by the fire.

We know that Joe Barnett knew of the window pane Robert, and we know that as a former live-in he would perhaps be allowed to let himself in on occassion. We do not know who else, if anyone besides Bowyer and McCarthy, knew. And a man she might let in and a man she lets come in himself, are two different animals. She might have a fondness for someone, and allow him to enter if he knocks politely, even late, but what would she do if its not Joe Barnett using the window pane and opening the door?

We are missing two things,....yelling and screaming, and chairs and tables moved about....so the attack had to be sneaky, from inside the room.

Cheers Robert.

Hi Frank,

I mentioned she would have twisted her upper body to meet the threat, thereby getting both hands in the air, but no use of her legs to kick. I think the left arm is extensively damaged as you say, but I would say that there is a decent chance the two diagonal slash type marks we see there may have been a result of a defensive posture. If her left arm is bent, the hand by her face, and he slips the knife in between to get at her throat, it could cause those. Plus, I think he slashed his way to kill her, theres no indication he just "slit her throat".

Cheers Frank.

[Robert]

Hi Michael

Agreed, the killer entered her room while she was asleep. But, she's so tired that she falls asleep while undressing - and then wakes up because of a tap at the door? He waits for her to fall asleep before striking? If he knew her that well, he could have let himself in through the window while she was asleep originally. It would have been quicker for him. The downside is he wouldn't have got his smoke by the fire.

[FrankO]

The photograph show us that:

- Her left forearm got in the way of some slashes, perhaps blocking attempted face, or throat, slashes.

Hi Michael,

To me, it seems very unlikely that the wounds to her left arm were caused while she was still alive, in the way you describe.

Firstly, while there's much blood around, no blood seems to have been flowing out of those arm wounds. In other words, what we see in the photo fits post-mortem wounds.

Secondly, those wounds don't appear to be mere slashes, it rather seems like pieces of flesh are cut off altogether. Bond described the wounds to both arms as "extensive & jagged".

Thirdly, Bond's reports only explicitly describes the incision and abrasions on the right hand as showing "extravasation of blood in the skin", which means that they were inflicted while she was alive. Since he did explicitly mention this condition with regards to these wounds only and made no mention of this in connection to the wounds on her arms, it seems likely that only those wounds to her right hand were inflicted while she was still alive.

Lastly, the wounds on her left arm might fit a scenario in which she tried to protect herself while she was lying on her right side, but how would the wounds on her right arm fit such a scenario? If she were to receive similar wounds to her right arm while alive, she would need to have lain more or less on her back. But if that would have been the case, those wounds on her left arm just wouldn't fit a scenario in which she used her arms to ward off the knife, because the location of those wounds would be wrong. They would have been on the inside of her wrist and elbow side, not on the side of the arm that would have been closest to the body.

All the best,
Frank

Sam,

The item between the bed and wall might well have been rolled up at the foot of the bed, an extra thin ticking filled bedroll, or a quilt or blanket...and the photographer cleverly thought that if he placed the bed"thing" there, he could shoot from across her right side, without having to move the bed at all. The item would wedge down as a platform, but essentially not disturb the wall to bed ratios.

Cheers Gareth.

Hello all,

Ive never met a group so determined to find an explanation for something other than that which is within most of our own experiences...passing out after having too much alchohol. No only do people sometimes fall asleep with a single sock on, or still in a business suit or party dress, but they also fall asleep while undressing too.

Ive watched a female fall asleep while taking off stockings after a party we went to,....falling back on the bed after just taking off her dress and then a stocking, and placing it beside her...then nodding off. If I wasnt there, she would have slept like that for hours.

As Mary most likely did, since her room is only dark, and only quiet, for the balance of the night after 1:30am. Its wise to remember that the only sound we have a record of occurring is a cry that may not have even been Mary. It came from the court, not her room specifically. So in essence, we have no recorded sounds or lights for over 2 hours before the cry is even heard,......so why in gods name would anyone think she remained dressed for that time in her room, while on the bed and in the dark?

This is far less complicated than its been made out here. She goes in with Blotchy at 11:45pm, sings off and on for over an hour, and a witness first notices her room dark and quiet at 1:30am, another witness confirms this state a little later on. Mary is asleep...with Blotchy or without. At around 3:45am someone she knows taps on the window or door, Diddles wakes upstairs, Mary answers the door in her partially dressed state, and hungover exclaims "oh-murder", which is heard by two witnesses,.... when she sees who's at the door. She turns her back to him and she shuffles back to bed, letting the man "she knows" enter and close the door himself, she falls back onto the bed, moving over to the right side to allow for her guest to climb in when ready, maybe spoon position, right side, and she dozes off again before he slips into bed. Thats because he is probably having a smoke of the clay pipe, and warming by the fires left over heat sitting in the chair....waiting for her to fall back asleep. When he sees she has faded off, her draws his knife and moves to the bed, and when kneeling on the bed with one leg, he slices at her throat...left handed, holding her down with his right hand, she wakes after a cut has landed, spraying the wall, and puts up her left forearm to block more slashes, as she is lying on her right side, her upper body now twisting to meet the threat....and the killer continues to slash at her throat and face, cutting her and the sheet, and soon Marys lungs are filling with blood and that prevents her from getting a yell out. His body weight on her prevents her or the bed from moving much. Once she has finished resisting, slipping into unconsciousness, he takes off his coat, pulls her into the middle of the bed, and begins. I believe he begins to replicate a Ripper crime the best way he knows how, based on what he has read...but to each his or her own.

He even dis-engages the spring latch when he leaves, so it will lock behind him.

All signs point to Mary being asleep, and her killer being someone who could arrive in the middle of the night at her door, knowing that even reluctantly...( perhaps with a comment like "oh-murder, I was sleeping"), he would be let in and allowed to stay...and he uses the fact that she knows and trusts him to get close enough to kill her.

Why? Well...lets see, one recently jilted live-in lover, and another on the side.... that at one point wanted to marry her, who maybe asked to move in when Joe leaves, and is rebuffed. Thats just the two men closest to her, and both were giving her money. Oh yeah....and one of them will soon be declared insane.

Her face, her pretty face according to all, is ruined by her killer...and her heart is taken away. Both things would be no surprise at all....if her killer was in love with her, and felt discarded by her and/or used by her.

He wanted to own her heart, to be her one true love....and when she wouldnt give it to him, he took it and left her a horror to look at.

Not what most want to hear as a scenario....because it doesnt need to involve Jack the Ripper, or a "client", but based soley on evidence and accepted witness testimony, it is a scenario that fits the occassion and the details of the night.

All the best.

[Robert]

Hi Chava

Are you suggesting that said Barnett replacement was the killer? She certainly hadn't found anyone to look after her by 2 AM when she asked Hutchinson for sixpence.

[Chava]

Well wait a second. We don't know that she was interested in being a full-time hooker. Look at the facts--or at least the version given by Barnett. If he's remotely telling the truth, she first lived with a man called Morganstone and then she lived with a man called Fleming. She met Barnett himself one evening and, according to him, they moved in together on the night they met. She wasn't out on the stroll then, at least it doesn't sound like she was, although she was friendly with prostitutes and helpful to them. I suggest that Kelly was someone whose preference was to live with and off some guy, and when those relationships broke down, she went back on the game to keep body and soul together until she found another sucker to keep her. I think that's what she was really interested in. If she was a full-time pro, she wouldn't have been hanging around drunk in her room, wasting valuable time serenading her latest punter. She'd bring him in, take care of business, and send him on his way as soon as possible so she could go out and find another trick. Look at Cox's testimony. Mary Ann Cox states that she is an 'unfortunate' ie a prostitute. She comes back to warm up and maybe use the pot, in her room at 11.45 pm. She is out again at 12.15 am. She's back again around 1.00 am. She stays in her room for a minute and then goes right out again. One account has her back in and out around 2.00 am, but she states at the inquest that she finally turns in around 3.00 am. Now that is a working hooker! I don't think Kelly was as focussed as this. I think she was out to get what she could, and maybe find a new keeper. She would have been extremely vulnerable to someone who suggested he could replace Barnett and move in with her.

[Robert]

Hi Jeff

I'm not suggesting she was killed in front of the fire, just that the table might originally have been in front of the fire, and that the Ripper then moved it beside the bed, in order to use it to place stuff on.

Why would Kelly need a bedside table anyway? Nowadays we tend to have such tables to put a lamp on, maybe a book, cup of tea....none of that applied to Kelly.

Positioned beside the bed, the table would surely have been a nuisance. It got in the way of the door. If Kelly threw out her arm in her sleep, she'd have knocked it over. I mean, the bed wasn't exactly big to start with. Why should she hem herself in like that?

I assume that if she had to get up in the night for a call of nature, she would have used some kind of pot rather than go out to the loos at the back of the court, especially in cold and rain. The safest place for a pot would have been tucked under the bed. It could also have served as a vomit receptacle - for the times the drink didn't agree with her. If it was me, I'd have the pot under the bed where I could just reach down and hook it out. But the table would have got in the way of that.

What about Harvey's clothes? The best place to air those would have been on a table in front of a fire.

It's only speculation, but I do feel the table was more likely put there by the killer than by Kelly.

[Fisherman]

Jeff writes:

"If jack strips off and goes to bed with MJK what does he do with the knife? and why take the time?
Mary stops singing about 2 am and it seems attacks at 4 am. That's nearly two hours? twiddling his thumbs...weird."

Only if we work from the presumption that Jack had the same agenda for Kelly as he did for the others, Jeff! I donīt think that was the case.

The best!
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Ben!

This is what Phillips had to say about it; he was pretty adamant:

"I am sure that the body had been removed subsequent to the injury which caused her death from that side of the bedstead that was nearest the wooden partition, because of the large quantity of blood under the bedstead and the saturated condition of the sheet and the palliasse at the corner nearest the partition."

What we do not find here is an exact and measured description of where the sheet and the paliasse were blood-saturated, but the only way Phillips could be sure (not inclined to believe - sure) would be if there was a distance between Kellys head and the blood saturation that was comparatively dry. And I think there is every reason to accept that this was the case, for if linen and paliasse had been drenched in blood from Kellys neck as she lay when she was found and all the way to the partition wall, then Phillips would have had no quibble with you, Ben. Then it would all be the case of obvious arterial spray shooting.

But, as you notice, he speaks not of that whole distance as being blood-saturated - he very distincly points out only the corner nearest the partition.

The best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

PS Ben, you dont know what money she was offered?

Hi Jeff - the amount of money required for an "all-nighter" would have been beyond the means of the average East-Ender, and the Blotchy bloke in particular was unlikely to have splashed out. When you think of the money she could have earned by servicing as many clients on the streets where she found them - if she was inclined - she'd need a fairly whopping financial incentive to forgo all that in favour on battening down the hatches with one man.

I think she was killed on the far side. There was a pool of blood under the corner of the bed.

Probably the result of arterial spray, Robert. If I hold a water pistol and fire continually at a wall five feet away, the water is likely to pool directly beneath that wall. It doesn't mean the pistol itself needed to be right up against it.

Best regards,
Ben

[Jeff Leahy]

Problem is I dont remember the exact dementions off the top of my head

But I think the Room was 12' x 10'...the fire place was rather large for such a small space, hence the suggestion it was originally the kitchen.

If the room was 10' wide and the bed 4' wide that leaves about the correct distance between door 3' wide and bed... table 2' approx

In the middle to the room, probably more under the second window than first you have a table and chairs, bottom bed next to large fire place, you have a small cupboard....

Personally I think the table in front of the fire would clash with Table and chairs, however its not impossible.

If MJK was killed in front of the fireplace would there not be some evidence for this? the coroners report seems to suggest to me she was killed on the bed and moved to the middle of the bed by the killer.

Yours Pirate

[Robert]

Hi Jeff, Ben

Why not have the table in front of the fire?

I think she was killed on the far side. There was a pool of blood under the corner of the bed.

[Jeff Leahy]

I'm not certain on that Robert..I built a 3D model of MJK bedroom, actually its more than likely the original kitchen..

I just dont see where else the table would have gone, unless your suggesting to the right of the fireplace?

Remember at the foot of the bed was a small cupboard ie to left of fire place and a table and chairs...remember this room was tiny..

Pirate

PS Ben, you dont know what money she was offered? could have sounded like a good deal, which he never intended to keep?