What the photos may tell of her last moments

[Robert]

One thing that the photo does for me, is confirm the evidence of the other murders - this wasn't some totally out-of-it nutter madly flinging organs over his shoulder. The whole scene looks almost neat, if you'll forgive the word. It was a bloodbath, but it was a controlled bloodbath. I suspect that each time he pulled something out, he studied it, scrutinised it, then put it carefully down.

[Sam Flynn]

This thread's about the photos

All

Please, please see my post above. I only just started this topic, and already it's in danger of shooting off in all directions.

The clue is in the title: What the photos (not the screams in the court, not what we think might have happened based on witness timings) tell us about Kelly's last moments.

Thanks for your cooperation in advance, all.

[perrymason]

Ill just limit it, sorry Sam. The photographs show a woman in bed partially undressed. Her actual pose cannot be used I would assume, so Ill just add that she probably had a cotton nightdress or something other than underwear to wear at night and didnt get to use it. Based on her intoxication at 11:45pm on the 8th, and the subsequent entertaining with little or no more booze, my guess is that is how she fell asleep.

I might just add one more bit, by the fact that the bedding doesnt seem to be used by her conventionally, that the room may have been unusually warm due to a low fire all Thursday for boiling water for washing clothes

Best regards.

[Robert]

One thing that the picture does NOT contain : all the time in the world yet he leaves no obvious message.

[perrymason]

One thing that the picture does NOT contain : all the time in the world yet he leaves no obvious message.

Not in words anyway, but perhaps in actions or deeds, a message he might not know he left.

Cheers Robert.

[Supe]

Sam,

What the photos (not the screams in the court, not what we think might have happened based on witness timings) tell us about Kelly's last moments.

And, I would guess, similarly no further renditions of "This is the way we wash our clothes, wash our clothes, wash our clothes . . ."

Anyway, this is a worthy enough thread topic . . . may it stay that way.

Don.

[Sara]

It tells us that she had removed all her lower garments as if for intercourse - leaving on her chemise to cover her upper half (it was November after all) - this reading confirmed by the doctor's and police reports (her boots were set by the fireplace). I don't believe penniless ladies of the night had nightdresses then, esp ones owing rent

It confirms that the murderer had a sense of order and maybe even ritual, as demonstrated by the disposition of the flesh and organs.

I'm always struck by the fact that in ??all (or nearly all) the murders, the right arm is laid across the body. Why? it's very unlikely it got there in all cases on its own! In this case, it must have been put here - Could the murderer have done his work without disturbing it, even if it fallen in that place when he rolled the body over from its original murder position closer to the wall? I don't think so. It's almost as if he is trying to recreate a scene, an image, which resonates with him

We also learn the bedclothes etc have been laid neatly to one side - whether by victim or assailant we don't know. (MJK' clothes are also folded on the end of the bed, but I don't think we can see these in the photo).

As Robert has pointed out, there is visible method in this madness.

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Sara,

Good stuff - although I see no particular ritual in the disposition of the organs. Besides, in the context of this thread, the point is moot. Not only has the distribution of the organs more to do with the killer's (as opposed to Kelly's) last moments in 13 Miller's Court, but the only organ we can clearly see in the photo is the liver, and that's plopped onto the mattress near Kelly's feet. Likewise, the positioning of the arm was something the killer probably did quite a while after Kelly died, and has little to do with the events that led up to her death. My fault, if I didn't make the purpose of this discussion clearer at the outset.

Also moot - and not for this thread - is the issue of the "(neatly) folded clothes at the end of the bed". Not only can't we see them in the photo, but this seems to have been a myth concocted at some point after the mid 20th Century. I searched a while back, and found no contemporary reference to it at all.

[Sara]

OK about the clothes, I'm too new to all this to have that kind of detailed research info. What I do have is a fresh 'eye' on stuff you've all been rolling around for years LOL!

The disposition of the organs and flesh does have a ritual appearance to me, but as you say that has nothing to do with *MJK's* final moments. It was the left arm of course not the right arm - but it's a detail which always fascinates me!

As a woman, and one who had a lot of fairly casual lovers in my 20s (it was late 60s/early70s after all) I'd say the victim is undressed for a sexual encounter in winter: naked below - but something on above to keep the shoulders warm! I don't think there is much else the photo CAN tell us about MJK, as opposed to JtR

[perrymason]

So I can appease both Sam and Don,

The photograph show us that:

- The killer moved her body to the middle of the bed, or it happened when he attacked her.
- She was only partly dressed, we have no way of knowing when she began undressing.
- He did not remove her remaining clothes before starting the mutilations.
- Her left forearm got in the way of some slashes, perhaps blocking attempted face, or throat, slashes.
- The blood on the wall suggests she was on the right side of the bed when arteries get cut. There would be no reason for her to be on the right side of the bed, the upper portion, if there was no-one about to, or that has been, sleep/sleeping with her. Hence, she was aware before she was attacked that someone else was present....and she may have allowed for that person to sleep on the left side of the bed.

I think some of this evidence suggests she had someone in the room with her, with her consent, and she was attacked when she had her guard or defenses down. Since she is in bed when attacked, not taking off her other stocking while sitting in a chair, its not unreasonable to suggest she was in bed sleeping or just after or about to have sex. Either way the man is there with her consent.

Best regards

[Sara]

Good summing up Michael.

For me, the JrT murders show all the signs of being done whilst the victim is prepared for intercourse from the rear, which would be typical of sex with a man you didn't know - it's less personal, and easier if upright. And easier for an attacker to draw his knife too

In this case she might have already had sex, and turned over to sleep, esp if the killer was known to her - but my guess is that they lay down 'spoons' and instead of taking her from behind in the way she expected, it was done in the fatal manner.

But I don't believe JtR was interested in actually having sex with his victims

[Cap'n Jack]

Yeah Sam, like I go into the co-op to buy a leg of lamb and then I want a story of how that lamb was a'gambolling across some meadow, or maybe in a stall awaiting some ram to service her, or had just been sheared, or maybe exported to the Middle East after Halal slaughter, or maybe a shocet had shicated it... the girl was slaughtered.
How, why, whom are immaterial.
Was she ready for sex or bed?
How banal and turgid is that?

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

One thing that the photo does for me, is confirm the evidence of the other murders - this wasn't some totally out-of-it nutter madly flinging organs over his shoulder. The whole scene looks almost neat, if you'll forgive the word. It was a bloodbath, but it was a controlled bloodbath. I suspect that each time he pulled something out, he studied it, scrutinised it, then put it carefully down.

I totally disagree with that.
There is an element of arrangement if we take the body part stuffed under the head into account, but besides that it is a scene of total butchery and certainly NOT neatness. On the contrary, the scene points at a total amateur and is in no way dissimilar to crimes commited by poeple who do this stuff under a psychotic episode. There is nothing controlled about it.

All the best

[Natalie Severn]

Are you sure about that Glenn? I ask only because I havent ever been able to study this photo in all my time on the boards ,it is just too gruesome to bear. However,a psychotic episode produced in one person I know a small painted antique wooden statue seriously burned down one side,destruction of limbs down one side and the middle of the head dented.No rhyme or reason at that stage of the psychosis.

[Robert]

Hi Glenn

Apart from the heart, the organs were all there in one place. It was as if he was taking an inventory.