The Night She Died

[Robert]

Hi Gareth

Yes, I don't know of any contemporary source for the rags. The pilot coat, of course, is fine.

Chava and Ben, I agree that she was already undressed. I don't think that Jack spent any time at all getting to know the other victims. I think that Kelly was asleep when he came in, and he stabbed her face through the sheet.

[Sam Flynn]

On balance, therefore, I incline to the 'he jumped 'em as fast as he could' school of belief. And given that, I don't understand how Kelly managed to get undressed if he was in the room with her at the time.

Bear in mind that this was quite possibly the first opportunity he'd had during his reign of terror to actually watch a woman get her kit off, as opposed to her "assuming the position", fully clothed against a wall, in dim light. It's conceivable that the extra arousal he may have experienced at this private peep-show contributed to a heightened desire to mutilate.

[Sam Flynn]

Re the "rags stuffed into broken windows" - references to that phenomenon were made, separately, in general discourses on London poverty by Booth and Arthur Morrison (and many other chroniclers, I dare say). It may thus have seeped into our collective unconsciousness for, as Good Ripperologists™, we might have come across such references elsewhere. However, I don't think that any specific mention of Kelly's window being thus "stuffed" was ever recorded.

[Ben]

However we still are left with the following: if Kelly brought her client back home with her, and if he was the Ripper, why did he wait until she was undressed until he killed her?

Unless she had merely undressed down to her night shirt preparatory to going to sleep, Chava, and was found in that state by the killer when he gained entry.

[Chava]

Hi Chava

I hope this link comes out :

http://www.casebook.org/forum/messages/4921/6424.html

If you go to Victims/Kelly/The Mystery of the Key you'll see what I mean.

I don't think there were any rags in the hole in the window, were there?

Robert, I believe there were rags in the hole and a pilot coat hanging over the window to obscure vision into the room. Really the issue of the key is a bit of a red-herring, since there are conflicting reports all over the case as to what kind of a lock it was, and you're right, we do know--and I noted elsewhere--that Cox makes no mention of Kelly doing anything unusual when she entered her room. She opens the door, the couple go through, and the door bangs behind them.

However we still are left with the following: if Kelly brought her client back home with her, and if he was the Ripper, why did he wait until she was undressed until he killed her? We could say 'we don't know how long he spent with Nichols, Chapman and Stride before he killed them. Stride was seen with men--and they could all have been the same man--for an hour or so before she was murdered. They were 'kissing and carrying on'. Chapman was missing for ages before she was killed. Nichols was out of sight for about an hour and a quarter. It's possible he spends time talking to them and getting to know them before he kills them, in which case he could have done the same for Kelly. Except I find it difficult to believe that he kept someone like Chapman talking and walking for a couple of hours at least and likely more like 4 hours before he kills her. If he had taken her home, then maybe. But it doesn't look like he did. He kills her in public. She was old and tired and sick and probably not up to traipsing the streets with him. Nichols and Stride weren't in great shape either.

On balance, therefore, I incline to the 'he jumped 'em as fast as he could' school of belief. And given that, I don't understand how Kelly managed to get undressed if he was in the room with her at the time.

[Ben]

Absolutely, Gareth, and I believe the same to be true of Jack, of course.

By point was that a difference in crime venue will often call for a difference in approach.

All the best,
Ben

[Sam Flynn]

A sleeping victim is far easier to subdue that an awake one - and again the Bundy example is a good one here

Didn't Bundy claim significantly more of his victims while they were awake, though, Ben?

[Ben]

If she was that security-conscious, I doubt she'd leave her door open and I assume it was bolted.

I don't see much evidence that Kelly was especially security-conscious, Chava. If anything, the evidence points in the opposite direction. There was no evidence of any jiggery-pokery with the window when she returned home with the Blotchy client, which meant she must have left the door unlocked and on the latch when she was out. Naturally, this invites the possibility that she never disengaged the latch that night, especially if she was drunk. There's no evidence that the door was bolted.

He didn't need to be sure if Kelly was asleep, if it was just a question of pushing the door open as Bob and Rob suggest. A sleeping victim is far easier to subdue that an awake one - and again the Bundy example is a good one here - and risking the slim possibility that she might be awake is better than trying to dispatch her in the certainty that she was awake.

The lock didn't need to be of a "deadbolt" or mortoise variety for the killer to gain entry simply by pushing the door open. That could be acheieved easily if the door was a fitted with a spring lock and was left on the latch.

Best regards,
Ben

[Robert]

You need to click The Mystery of the Key to see the other two pages.

[Robert]

Hi Chava

I hope this link comes out :

http://www.casebook.org/forum/messages/4921/6424.html

If you go to Victims/Kelly/The Mystery of the Key you'll see what I mean.

I don't think there were any rags in the hole in the window, were there?

[Chava]

Hi Chava

Re the knocking on the door, Bob Hinton has argued that Kelly's door/lock arrangement would have been the kind that you simply open. If Kelly omitted to secure the door after Mr A left, there would be nothing to stop anybody coming in.

Fisherman, so you think that perhaps Kelly cried "Oh murderer"?

If Kelly's door/lock arrangement had been a deadbolt--ie you need a key to lock it as well as unlock it--it's true that the murderer could just walk in given that she had lost the key. But apparently it also had a bolt, and she did reach through the broken window to pull it back when she left. If she was that security-conscious, I doubt she'd leave her door open and I assume it was bolted. It's true that the killer could have pushed or pulled the rags out of the window to get at the bolt and then put them back before starting work. But the room was effectively obscured by the rags and the coat etc. So he would have to be absolutely certain that his victim was asleep. Because if she was awake she could scream and bring other people into the court and he could be caught very easily in there. I don't see how he could have been that sure. So I think he was let in by Mary Jane and she was in a state of undress at the time. Now no one heard anyone at her door, so she may have been expecting him and he need not have knocked very loud, or he could just have called her name out quietly. I entirely discount the evidence of the man Hutchinson. So I don't believe in the existence of Mr A. However there have been conflicting accounts as to whether the door was locked after the murderer left. If that were so either Kelly found her key or the murderer had it. If Kelly had not found her key, and if the door was locked on the deadlock, then that would suggest to me that the murderer had prior dealings with the victim.

As to Fisherman's idea about her killer, I agree. If Kelly was a Ripper victim, I think she was killed for other reasons, or reasons over and above her gender and occupation.

[Robert]

Hi Chava

Re the knocking on the door, Bob Hinton has argued that Kelly's door/lock arrangement would have been the kind that you simply open. If Kelly omitted to secure the door after Mr A left, there would be nothing to stop anybody coming in.

Fisherman, so you think that perhaps Kelly cried "Oh murderer"?

[Fisherman]

Chava writes:

"I don't necessarily believe that the murder of Mary Jane Kelly was sexual as I'm not completely convinced she was a victim of the Ripper. However I do believe that the other canonicals were sexual murders. One of the reasons why I'm not sure about Kelly is the general pattern of wounding rather than the concentration on the generative organs we see in the others. "

Iīm with you on most points here, Chava; the murders leading up to the Kelly deed seem to be of more exclusively led on by some sexually connected urge, whereas that is somewhat diluted by the mass-distirbution of wounds in the Kelly case. The one thing where we differ is tat I think they are all Ripper deeds just the same. My suggestion is that Fleming killed Tabram, Nichols, Chapman and Eddowes for some sort of sexually connected gratification, but that he killed Kelly for another motive altogether - I suggest that he did it because he thought that he was about to be exposed as the Ripper and wanted to save Kelly the shame, or, as an alternative, that his being convinced that he would be exposed led him to tell Kelly who he was, only to get the wrong reaction from her; one of horrification.

I think that the chance that two killers were on the prowl in that district, able to commit those kinds of deeds, and also making the very same moves to a significant extent (as evinced by a comparison Kelly/Chapman), is very, very slim. I also think that there are a number of factors that speak for the Kelly deed having been perpeetrated by somebody who was well-known to her.
If I am right, we can actually narrow down the possible Rippers to the amount of men that would have access to an undressed Kelly within her own quarters in the middle of the night, and they would not have been very many. And since Fleming moved to the heart of the district in august 1888, and was incarcerated, diagnozed with mania and delusions of persecution later on, I think he is as good a bid as we are ever going to find. Add to this that we have a Joseph Fleming, burglar at the age of fourteen back in 1872, and an assertion from his mother that lunacy ran in the family since way back, and I really donīt see how Fleming could NOT be our number one suspect.
Others can, though...!

The best, Chava!
Fisherman

[Sam Flynn]

...she may have put it there to keep it off dirty flooring.

Why not simply put it on the bed, therefore, Mike?

if Marys head is propped up by a breast....then its most likely the bolster wasn't under her at that time,...which would reasonably suggest that she had placed it there herself earlier....

Indeed - I presume you mean she herself had placed the bolster there earlier, not the breast

before getting ready to sleep lying flat.

Or not sleeping at all, which is arguably more probable, as people tend not to sleep lying flat, in the main.

Why would the killer have moved it if he wanted her head propped up anyway...

A very good point.

[Ben]

Hi Chava,

I believe she was either surprised in her sleep by someone breaking in--which could argue a stalker, and we don't know for sure, but it doesn't look like the others were stalked

No particular reason to think they weren't either, though, Chava. Different crime venues will naturally call for different approaches. Robert Napper may have encountered Rachel Nickell by chance on Wimbledon Common, but when it came to the indoor location of the Samatha Bissett murder, he stalked her and killed her only after a period of prior surveillance outside her home. Bundy resorted to a similar tactic prior to committing the indoor Tallahasee murders, which deviated from his usual approach to victims outdoors.

Regards,
Ben