The Night She Died

[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"?

[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

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]

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

[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

[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]

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

[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]

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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Ben]

Indeed, Robert.

That would be my interpretation too.

Cheers,
Ben

[perrymason]

Hello again,

Although I agree with the conclusions that suggest Mary knew her killer, I think there are unnecessary and unwarranted jumps being made to piece his arrival and entrance together.

Mary was more than likely awakened by the arrival of her killer. The chances are that the voice at 3:45 was hers, and the noise that caused the cat upstairs to get near Elizabeths neck and face was the killer arriving and making some sort of noise. If the cry was from a whore and client sneaking in to use the courtyard, she would have come forward after learning the cry was assumed to have been Mary's. She is in no legal trouble by doing so anyway. And we can safely assume that the only female in that courtyard that wasnt interviewed was Mary Kelly herself....and none of the others claimed that cry.

If that window that we have seen directly above Marys is in fact the back window of Praters room, one of Marys windows would be right below it, and the door just around the corner so. A tap would have sufficed I think...diddles wakes, Mary wakes, Diddles wakes Elizabeth, Elizabeth hears Mary meeting her guest....so does Sarah.

I believe thats more workable using the known data... than explaining how someone she didnt know gets in and starts to kill her before she can scream her lungs out.

I think whether you see Jack or not, you have to concede its far more likely his entrance to the room was by invitation in. If Mary wakes while anyone is fussing with the latch through the window, or just opening the door, he cannot get to her before she could have screamed...with clear intent in her voice.

Cheers all.

Best regards.

[Sam Flynn]

I believe thats more workable using the known data... than explaining how someone she didnt know gets in and starts to kill her before she can scream her lungs out.

What explanation do we have for the other victims, whom we know the Ripper picked up outdoors (and who presumably didn't know their killer), not screaming their lungs out?