Was Bond right about the cut linen?

[harry]

The face was gashed in all directions,the nose,cheeks,eyebrows and ears being partially removed.These findings were from the post-mortem.As I see it, the face must have been uncovered to inflict some mutilations to it,so the sheet over the face to hide the features doesn't seem to make sense.Or is it to be assumed that the partial removal of the eyebrows,for example,through the sheet can be put down to extreme luck?

[Bailey]

"b] Her Killer was the man Mrs Maxwell [alleged] saw talking to Kelly at 845am on the morning of her death."

Richard - So you would put the time of death at....?

B.

[Sam Flynn]

But I much preferred the game where you drop a handful of wooden sticks in a pile... "Plocke-pinn" - thatīs what we call it here in Sweden.

What a fabulous language!

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
For many years It has been believed the Whitechapel Murderer, only ceased his killing spree, because he was dead, or in some kind of instituation.
It has also been said that killers of this nature simply do not stop, they cannot.
I would agree to a point, however if there was a motive behind these murders, and not simply a case of a sadistic, sexual ,serial lunatic, then that general opinion would not necessary be correct.
I am of two opinions .
a] The person who killed Mary Kelly was also JTR, and he was known to her intimately, he therefore would be either Barnett, Fleming, the mysterious Lawrence, or even someone she had wronged[ like the man McCarthy was alleged to have sent packing from the court].
b] Her Killer was the man Mrs Maxwell [alleged] saw talking to Kelly at 845am on the morning of her death.
I am with the handful of Casebook members that share the view that events at Millers court show a destinct domestic trait.
Regards Richard.

[Fisherman]

Thanks for the advice, Sam - and for your nice words on my article. But I am moving with my own convictions here, and I would not let go of the covered face for a minute.

If you need to show that the Ripper was not squeamish, I think that Tabram, Nichols, Chapman and Eddowes will prove that point excellently. But not Kelly - I actually believe that he WAS squeamish in that case if you take my meaning. I believe that he was just as horrified by what he did to her as he was satisfied by what he did to the others. If you will excuse me a touch of sentiment, I think that the blood was mixed with tears in Millerīs Court. And I think that offers a reasonable explanation to why the killings seized after Mary - it burnt up his inner fuses, and the drive was gone.
He stayed on the loose for a number of years after it, but he did not resort to ripping again, it would seem. The drive was gone, if it was Fleming, we know that much. And there would have been a reason, Sam!

I have played "Ker-Plunk", Sam, just as I have played "Buckaroo". But I much preferred the game where you drop a handful of wooden sticks in a pile, only thereafter to remove them without making any other stick move than the one you are trying to pick from the pile. Sometimes it seems impossible to do, but the only way you can gain points in it, is to do the tough sticks too, not just the ones that seem easy and obvious. "Plocke-pinn" - thatīs what we call it here in Sweden.

The best, Sam, and once again thanks for your kind words. I truly appreciate them.
Fisherman

[Sam Flynn]

Ker-Plunk and Buckaroo

And why am I saying this? I am saying it because I donīt think that the solution to the covering of her face lies in any practicality but the one that it saved Joe Fleming the sight of Kellys face being destroyed.

Presumably he kept his head averted from the mess he'd made after the blanket was removed, Fish? I just don't see Jack - or whoever did that to Mary - being that squeamish, frankly, considering the utter carnage he inflicted upon her body elsewhere. I read your Ripperologist article, and thought it excellent - an interesting contribution to a very interesting edition of the magazine all round. It's just that I don't think you need to justify Bond's loopy conjecture in order to make your case, and subtracting this one point from your argument doesn't diminish it in any way. Quite the opposite, in fact. I'll elucidate...

Popular Ripper theories strike me as conforming to two basic models, what I like to call "Ker-Plunk" and "Buckaroo":

Ker-Plunk was a popular game in the 70s, where a marble was suspended on top of a cylinder spiked through with sticks. Each player took turns to remove a stick from under the marble, and you lost the game if you removed the crucial stick that held the marble aloft. "Ker-Plunk" Ripper theories are those whereby it only takes one minor mistake to be discovered for the whole edifice to come crashing down.

Buckaroo, another 70s game, involved loading more and more baggage onto a plastic donkey; the losing player was the one who put just that little extra piece onto the donkey's back, causing it to "buck" and jettison its load. "Buckaroo" Ripper theorists are those that heap on as much speculation or psychobabble as they can, in the mistaken belief that they're strengthening their case by doing so. It's a tactic of diminishing returns however and, to me at least, the arguments become less believable as a result.

Now, your argument as set out in Ripperologist clearly isn't of the "Ker-Plunk" type, but be careful of turning it into "Buckaroo"!

[Fisherman]

Sam asks:

"Again - why would the killer do that? What purpose does the sheet serve in all this?"

Sam, you are a practical no-nonsense guy, and Iīm well aware of that. All in all, it is a good approach, I believe - hte best, actually. Then again, it will not readily allow for the touch of drama that must have been there to some degree. There were yearnings and convictions inside the Ripper that may have led him to do things that were not only practically called for, just like there are such convictions inside us all. In hte case of serial killers, it is such things that may lead to staging of victims and such - things that make us ask "What purpose did it serve?" just like you are doing now.
The answer is, of course that the practicality of it all is that it satisfies the convixtions and yearnings within the killer.

And why am I saying this? I am saying it because I donīt think that the solution to the covering of her face lies in any practicality but the one that it saved Joe Fleming the sight of Kellys face being destroyed. I believe he was obsessed with Kelly, and that he nursed a hope to live with her, just as I believe that he did not set out as the Ripper with any intent to kill her.
If you care to have it all in more detail, itīs in the latest issue of Ripperologist, Sam. And if you need me to elaborate on any further point, I will happily do so.

The best!
Fisherman

[Sam Flynn]

Then he probably straddles the body, and sitting on top of her he pulls the sheet over her face, tightening it with his right hand and cutting away with his left.

Again - why would the killer do that? What purpose does the sheet serve in all this?

[Fisherman]

Sam writes:
"I can't see why on earth the killer would have lifted the sheet up and towards him - or up and away from him, for that matter - in order to inflict the wounds. He was already in an awkward position to begin with, without having to fumble with the furniture trimmings as well."

Hereīs my take on the practical matters, Sam:

He is in the bed as he cuts her in the top corner. The blood gushes out, hits the wall and drenches the bedlinen and palliasse in the corner. After that, he either gets up from the bed, onto his feet, and drags her in position for mutilating her, or he never leaves the bed, rolling her over to that mutilating position anyway. Then he probably straddles the body, and sitting on top of her he pulls the sheet over her face, tightening it with his right hand and cutting away with his left. The other way around is less of a probability, though not an impossibility - he may have arched his left arm over her, holding onto the linen with it and pressing it down on the side of her face closest to the forefront of the bed.
After he has cut the face, he folds the linen back down again, and moves further down the body, enabling him to get at the abdomen and her organs, as well as to cut away her breasts.
If this is a viable scenario, then we should prepare for accepting that for example the liver was put in place AFTER he had finished cutting.

Of course, if he was left-handed, he may have been able to carry out the evisceration bit standing by the side of the bed. But I would favour him being in bed with her most of the time as he cut.


The best,
Fisherman

[Sam Flynn]

Fish,

I can't see why on earth the killer would have lifted the sheet up and towards him - or up and away from him, for that matter - in order to inflict the wounds. He was already in an awkward position to begin with, without having to fumble with the furniture trimmings as well.

My suggestion is that he cut her neck in the top corner, and then he moved her to the middle to facilitate the mutilations he was planning.

I agree, but where in all this the sheet-across-the-face episode happened is completely baffling; and why it should have happened even more so.

[Fisherman]

Hi Michael!

Many points of agreement here - the focus being that the man who killed Kelly would more probably than not have been an aquintance of hers, and that she was probably having sleep, not sex, on her mind.

The best!
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

No, Sam - I mean that Bond solved it, nothing else.

Why would the killer hide the face as he cut? Why would anyone cut out the heart of a woman and fillet her legs? We are clearly not dealing with rational driving forces only, are we? But in this case, such a force can be sensed. My suggestion is that the reason for it all was because Kelly was killed by Fleming, and that the deed was something he really never wanted to do - though in the end he felt he was compelled to.

Therefore, I suggest that he did not want to see her face as he cut it. It was due to the fact that her killer was a personal relation, a lover, something that may well also be implied by the venue and her overall appearance, undressed as if she had gone to bed, suggesting that she was perhaps not prostituting herself as she was killed.

Hereīs a few things that deserve mentioning alongside the rest.

The oversheet-undersheet thing: If he had used an oversheet, then that would have been laid loosely on her face, and that means that he would have faced difficulties cutting through it, Fabric needs to be stretched if you need to cut into tissue under it, and that stretch was provided by Kellys own body when he used the undersheet, pulling it over the face.

Also, there is the question of WHEN her face was cut during the process. If the cuts in the linen was a biproduct of slashing at her face, then we must accept that both the neck-cutting and the face-slashing was performed as she was positioned up in the corner. It does not fit if she was lying as we see her in the pic, with her face perhaps some thirty centimetres from the foremost edge of the bed, does it?

To make Bonds suggestion a viable one, we need to move her far to the right on the bed before there is enough material free to her other side to lift up over the face. And that was where she was moved!

My suggestion is that he cut her neck in the top corner, and then he moved her to the middle to facilitate the mutilations he was planning. To have her lying far away in the corner would be a more awkward starting point.

The best, Sam!
Fisherman

Hi Fisherman,

I dont think we need to presume the sheets actually were over her face, or head, just that she perhaps had a linen sheet up over her left shoulder as she lay on her right side facing the partition wall, and when she is attacked from above and to her left, the twisting of her upper body to the threat brought the knife in contact with the sheet, and blood from her face and neck. Just raising a sheet covered left arm to block a slash might have been enough...it would be at face level.

When she is flipped over, to her left, she rolls over on most of that stained and cut sheet.

I believe what your looking for here is that she very likely was on her right side facing the wall, towards the upper right corner, either indicating her killer was being offered the spoon position to join her in bed, or sex from behind her. Since she is wearing the chemise, and perhaps a single stocking, this does'nt ring true to me as a sex gesture. We also know that at the time we assume we last hear from Mary, after she stops singing after 1am, the next sound that may be her is the cry at 3:45am. If she was inside the room all that time, I would think she must be assumed to have been sleeping for the greater part of that 2 hours. And since we know her room has been dark and quiet for perhaps that 2 hours when she gets her late visitor, I think its more likely that he was supposed to sleep with her, literally.

Mary could ONLY, and I cant stress this point enough, ...have been killed quietly because her guard was down, and she reacted slower than she was overpowered. If she had been able to kick, scream, shove a chair at him...I believe Elizabeth would have heard that, still being awake for some minutes after the "cry". She stated she could hear things moved about in Marys room. So the ONLY way a man could get into her room at almost 4am, to get close enough to her to kill her, while she is in bed undressed, is either a lover, or someone she is having sex with for money. Someone whom she might fall asleep on with her back turned towards them I believe fits the scenario we are left with.

The second option, is less viable because it seems pretty clear that she did'nt leave the room again, and therefore would likely have been sleeping. Since she did'nt need doss money, and she is likely passed out from too much booze last night, ..I think that leaves a lover as a primary suspect, because she doesnt need to take a client in at that point in the evening.

Cheers FM

[Sam Flynn]

After that, he would have grabbed hold of the sheet in itīs left side, by the partition wall, and folded it over her face as he cut. Then he would fold it back down again, leaving the sheet cut, and the paliasse under it uncut

Again - why on earth would he have done that? Did he do the same for every other part of Mary Kelly's body that he mangled to destruction? I doubt that a man capable of doing all that would have felt the need to hide the knife-cuts as he made them. He clearly didn't mind seeing the end result in all its g(l)ory after he'd finished slashing her features, so why the Red Indian "smoke signal" routine whilst he was inflicting the facial wounds?

seemingly a riddle, but a riddle that Bond provides the solution to.

...a riddle Bond created, you mean.

[Fisherman]

There would have been no professional agreement of the sheet having been over her face, Iīd think. Thus we should perhaps not expect any such statements from Phillips.
And I am not looking for any oversheet, Sam - I think that the undersheet was what he used. Kelly is lying close to the front edge of the bed, and she would have been moved there after having had her throat cut in the vicinity of the corner of the bed. It left a long stretch of the undersheet to the left of her, between head and wall. After that, he would have grabbed hold of the sheet in itīs left side, by the partition wall, and folded it over her face as he cut. Then he would fold it back down again, leaving the sheet cut, and the palliasse under it uncut - seemingly a riddle, but a riddle that Bond provides the solution to.

The best,
Fisherman