Was Bond right about the cut linen?

[Fisherman]

Sam writes:
"Bond speculates that the sheet was pulled over her face before the facial wounds were inflicted. If that were the undersheet, he'd have to have reached over the struggling Kelly, pulled the sheet out from the top right-hand corner and over her head with one hand, presumably restraining her with the other hand. Where and how, in the midst of all this cloth origami, does he get out his knife?"

This all, Sam, works from the presumption tat he first pulled the sheet, and then started cutting. My take on it is that he first cut her throat, and only thereafter pulled the sheet over her face and cut it. Thus no resistance from Kelly - she was very still and very dead as he started to cut her, I believe.

"I'm simply saying that a killer capable of flensing a human being from the breasts downwards isn't going to baulk at a cut face to the extent where he feels compelled to cover it up"

I once gain direct you to my words on the different importance of the face as opposed to any other features of the body. All the smiles and all the tears you have shared with someone, is something you have shared by a face-to-face dialogue.

The best,
Fisherman

[Sam Flynn]

Bonds suggestion is everything but a "tedious distraction" by the way - it belongs to that very small pile of evidence that actually could be used to argue a connection between Kelly and her killer.

One could argue that, Fish, without resorting to the dubious premise that covering a face is in any way indicative of a connection between killer and victim.

[Sam Flynn]

Sam writes:

"This game of "peek-a-boo" might make more sense if he hadn't hacked her to oblivion anyway"

Are you suggesting that he must have rolled her entire body into a sheet to make Bonds suggestion viable?

No, Fish - I'm simply saying that a killer capable of flensing a human being from the breasts downwards isn't going to baulk at a cut face to the extent where he feels compelled to cover it up.

[Sam Flynn]

Sam writes:

"Speculation aside, it remains apparent from the MJK1 photograph that the only sheet near the top right-hand corner of the bed was, in fact, the undersheet."

Yes? And?

Bond speculates that the sheet was pulled over her face before the facial wounds were inflicted. If that were the undersheet, he'd have to have reached over the struggling Kelly, pulled the sheet out from the top right-hand corner and over her head with one hand, presumably restraining her with the other hand. Where and how, in the midst of all this cloth origami, does he get out his knife? At some point, he must have brought one or other of his hands free to do so - yet, whichever hand he frees (the one holding the cloth over her face or the one restraining her), it's almost inevitable that Kelly would have forced herself into a more upright position in an effort to defend herself. That being the case, the sheet is unlikely to have remained anywhere near her face for long - and certainly not long enough for the killer to have inflicted the throat wound(s) and to have started hacking at her features through the cloth.

[Fisherman]

Sam writes:

"This game of "peek-a-boo" might make more sense if he hadn't hacked her to oblivion anyway"

Are you suggesting that he must have rolled her entire body into a sheet to make Bonds suggestion viable? The facial features hold a somewhat different meaning to most people than does, for example, the calves, would you not say? And it is common knowledge that killers may need to dehumanize their victims before they can actually kill them. Of course, she would have been dead as he cut her face, but the dehumanization involved in denying her the facial features may well have been the door he needed to open before he could set about the annihilation of the rest of her body.
I see nothing tedious or uninteresting at all about this, Sam. I really don“t.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Sam writes:

"Speculation aside, it remains apparent from the MJK1 photograph that the only sheet near the top right-hand corner of the bed was, in fact, the undersheet."

Yes? And?

Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Medical men, Sam,are not only interested in medical matters, though it is their speciality. They are highly educated men, more often than not displaying high intelligence and good gifts of problem-solving. They actually do not need to have any upholstering experience to understand that a knife that travels through a sheet but NOT through the fabric of the mattress under it means that they are looking at a sheet that lay elswhere when it was cut.
Actually, quite a lot of doctors equal any seamstress (in the true meaning of the word) when it comes to understanding what happens when you shove a needle through one material into another one laying under it.
Bonds suggestion is everything but a "tedious distraction" by the way - it belongs to that very small pile of evidence that actually could be used to argue a connection between Kelly and her killer. To call that tedious is to for some reason disregard something that may hold a very important key to understanding what happened in Millers Court.

The best
Fisherman

[Sam Flynn]

if the killers reason to cover her face was not to have to look at her features as he cut, then he may well have removed the sheet from her face after his initial onslaught on her face, only to make the more specific cuts afterwards - by that time her features would have been gone, and it would be like cutting in a bowl of mince-meat

This game of "peek-a-boo" might make more sense if he hadn't hacked her to oblivion anyway. Anyone capable of filleting a woman's thighs and genitals, or turning her chest into a crimson xylophone doesn't strike me as the type to get queasy at the sight of a cut throat or a sliced eyebrow.

Speculation aside, it remains apparent from the MJK1 photograph that the only sheet near the top right-hand corner of the bed was, in fact, the undersheet.

[Sam Flynn]

Would you not say, Sam, like I did on the thread I used earlier, that the mistake of not checking the mattress under the sheet for corresponding cuts, would be a very clumsy and ignorant mistake to make for a man of Bonds experience?

Hardly, Fish - given that he was primarily a medical man and not an upholsterer. NOT a glib answer, by the way - all I'm saying is that, as he was a doctor, we should concentrate more on his description of the wounds. Bond's speculative musings on the disposition of the linen while the killer blow was struck have little material (pardon pun) bearing on matters - in fact, as I believe, his observations have proven a tedious distraction ever since.

[Fisherman]

I notice that Harry made the point that some of the wounds were of such a character that it would have been hard to make them under a sheet.
But one must of course realize that if the killers reason to cover her face was not to have to look at her features as he cut, then he may well have removed the sheet from her face after his initial onslaught on her face, only to make the more specific cuts afterwards - by that time her features would have been gone, and it would be like cutting in a bowl of mince-meat.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Having moved here from the thread "The night she died", I notice, Sam, that you never actually gave your opinion as to whether you believed that Bond had checked the mattress under the sheet for cuts or not. Are you actually and really of the opinion that he may have missed this?
Your original stance was that the sheet Bond was speaking about was somehow gone, and it therefore seems that you were of the meaning that the sheet spoken of was not the one under her? It must have been though, and therefore it must also be accepted that the rough distance between the cuts in the fabric and Kellys face probably corresponded well with Bonds suggestion.
Would you not say, Sam, like I did on the thread I used earlier, that the mistake of not checking the mattress under the sheet for corresponding cuts, would be a very clumsy and ignorant mistake to make for a man of Bonds experience?

The best,
Fisherman

[Bailey]

I sense that anyone who can fillet a person from thigh to thigh, slicing away their genitalia in the process, is hardly going to quail at slashing their features.

Thighs and genitals are much less personal than the face, though. You recognise a person by their face - within in a few basic variations, genitals all look pretty much the same and you'd be hard pressed to pick someone you know out of a lineup from them (barring some unique feature I don't care to imagine!). With her face covered and / or slashed up, her genitals, thighs, internal organs, etc, become anonymous.

So maybe, knowing her or not, he kills her, then perhaps for some reason becomes distracted or uncomfortable with her "watching" him. He pulls the sheet over the face and gets to work further down. Then at some stage, maybe he still feels watched, or the frenzy mode kicks in or something, so he slashes at the sheet covered face and eventually decides hell with the sheet and works on the face directly. Just a thought...

Anyhoo, Merry Christmas!

B.

[Sam Flynn]

I'm by no means convinced that Mary's face was covered at any point. But it might have helped her killer if the sheet was over her eyes when he struck, so she wouldn't see the knife coming.

Bond seems to suggest that there were a number of cuts to the linen, so they'd have continued long after the initial cut to the throat. So, what we're left with - it seems - are a number of cuts to a dead person's face. I see no practical, or emotional, reason why the killer should have felt compelled to cover her face once he'd inflicted the coup de grāce; especially given that he rendered the features into mincemeat and wrought such utter carnage on the body elsewhere. I sense that anyone who can fillet a person from thigh to thigh, slicing away their genitalia in the process, is hardly going to quail at slashing their features.

[caz]

Hi All,

I'm by no means convinced that Mary's face was covered at any point. But it might have helped her killer if the sheet was over her eyes when he struck, so she wouldn't see the knife coming.

I also think an argument could be made for the killer not wanting to see her face as he struck, ie while she was still alive, whether he had ever met her before or not. If he was a young man who was normally attracted to women of his own age (and maybe hadn't set out to kill this specimen, for that very reason), it's possible that she would have reminded him of the kind of women he usually bedded, or even of one particular woman who actually meant something to him. It could have been hard for him to have to look at her living face as he struck. Once she was dead, any such obstacles seem to have melted away and left him liberated to do his worst to date. Dead, Mary meant no more to him than Kate Eddowes, which doesn't suggest 'personal' to me.

Love,

Caz
X

[Sam Flynn]

Very good point, Harry. Given that it appears that the partial removal of Kelly's right eyebrow resulted in a sizeable chunk of flesh being loosened, and bearing in mind that the flesh is quite thin in that area, this would have been nigh-on impossible to achieve without the blade "snagging" in the cloth. In addition, the numerous cuts inflicted on the lips - not to mention the other irregular cuts skating all over her features - suggest very strongly that the blade was moving with comparative freedom. A sheet would not have allowed the knife much leeway to "travel" - if any at all. Even if one were to ignore this, such a devastating assault would have left a great big hole in anything that covered the face.