MJK photo 4 enhanced

[CountessHappyBunny]

another question

hey - can anyone tell me what the line is that appears to encircle her right leg, just above her calf muscle? It almost looks like the bottom of a stocking or a bloomer or something. Is that a cut? it seems so precise, comparatively.

also, on a related but different note - is there any description of the defensive wound on her hand? is that in the coroner's report? Is there any speculation how it got there? (i.e. did she put up her hand to ward off an attack, or was it someone out of control with a knife and it just happened to hit her hand after she was already dead)

as always, thanks for any help with this!

[Sam Flynn]

oh wow....many thanks for this! good job

Indeed, but that's emphatically not a split femur in the Kelly photograph.

[galadrijella]

oh wow....many thanks for this! good job

[Snicket-Dweller]

Hi Sam,

These are the closest I can find to what I see. They are not perfect but most of the images are just illustrations and the real fractured/cut bones that are listed are bleached and or boiled for teaching purposes etc.

I will keep an eye out for a better match but for tonight this lady must catch up on her beauty sleep.

Thanks Archaic for the torso thread I'll have a hunt when I'm not so bleary eyed.

Sweet dreams to all.

Helen x

P.s Ignore the white lump in the middle of the colour image it's a cancerous lesion see I said I was struggling to find images LOL

[Archaic]

Hi, Helen & Sam.

The thread I'm thinking of was about Mary Kelly, but members were speculating as to the Ripper wanted to completely dismember her and got a good start on the legs by de-fleshing them, etc., but then perhaps realized there wasn't time or that he didn't have the right cutting implements with him.

There was a discussion of several Torso cases, including the "Whitehall Mystery" Torso.

I'm sure someone will come up with it eventually...
I just thought you'd enjoy reading it, Helen.

Best regards, Archaic

[Sam Flynn]

I'll have a trawl of the medical texts and see if I can find a closer fracture match to what I THINK I can see LOL

I might make some scans from my copy of Grey's Anatomy... but as it's the big, modern version, it'd probably take too long and the pages wouldn't fit on my scanner

[Snicket-Dweller]

Hi Sam,

Thanks for that. This is more the type of femoral neck fracture I was thinking of.

The other blue dotted line is the other fracture along the shaft I can see. "Marrow cavity" was the wrong expression what I meant was the I think I can see a difference between the bone wall (so to speak) and what looks like the internal structure which is of a different density.

The break along the femoral neck is the weakest point of the femur so he ability to cleave through it is not impossible.

I'll have a trawl of the medical texts and see if I can find a closer fracture match to what I THINK I can see LOL

Helen x

[Sam Flynn]

When you say "the cut neatly through practically the entire length of the thickest bone in the body" Do you mean through the femur hip end to knee end?

Given the perspective of MJK3 - that "split femur" is pointing away from us, remember - the "cut" would have travelled a fair length along the bone, Helen. Not the entire distance from the head of the femur to the knee, evidently, but that's easily 6 or 7 inches we're looking at there... again, it's worth remembering that those 6 or 7 inches would have travelled through the toughest bone in the body. No glancing blow with a knife is going to do that, and a cleaver would just as much shatter the bone as split it in one sweep. There'd certainly be evidence of bone-fragments in the photo if that were the case.

No, you'd probably need a bone saw to produce a cut such as that, and even that would require that the femur was completely disarticulated from the pelvis, which it doesn't seem to have been based on the evidence of the other photograph and the medical notes taken at the time.

On an anatomical note, the imagined head of the femur in MJK3 appears to be hollow, like a "marrow-bone" would be. Trouble is, the head of the femur doesn't look like that - the hollow bits start further down, whereas the head itself contains rather densely-packed bone tissue, as can be seen from this longitudinal section:



That's not a split femur-head in MJK3, believe me

[Snicket-Dweller]

Hi Archaic,

Do you mean the Pinchin Street torso murder? If so, I know a little of it from general reading. Perhaps the thread you mention was one of the ones that got deleted a while back.

Helen X

[Archaic]

"Did Ripper Intend To Dismember Kelly" Thread???

I remember some past threads which discussed the notion that the Ripper may have intended to partially or completely dismember Mary Kelly's body, but perhaps ran out of time.

The Torso Murders were also discussed, a subject I am particularly interested in.

But I can't seem to find the thread in question in order to share it with Helen; can anybody remember which one it was?

I scanned the numerous Kelly threads with no luck, so the thread I'm thinking of might have begun as a discussion of something else & may have a different title.

If anybody finds it, a link would be most appreciated.

Thank you, Archaic

[Snicket-Dweller]

Hi Jason,

I know which is why I wrote:

"the medicos either ignored the these huge injuries (unlikely as the photographer obviously spotted them) or they deliberatley withheld this information."

Helen x

[jason_c]

None of this was reported in the autopsy notes.

[Snicket-Dweller]

Hi Sam,

When you say "the cut neatly through practically the entire length of the thickest bone in the body" Do you mean through the femur hip end to knee end?

[Sam Flynn]

Hello again, Helen

I think it would be possible to carve through the ball end of the bone if the blow was inflicted whilst she was lying on the bed with her legs wide apart. As if he/Jack wanted to literally hack out the lower ab/upper leg area, the blow would land to the inside line of the pelvis, thus glancing the ball and socket joint.

I think he'd have stood more of a chance of dislocating his own wrist to hold the blade at the angle necessary to do so, never mind the force he'd then have had to exert to carry the cut neatly through practically the entire length of the thickest bone in the body.

I suppose we would need a forensic scientist or possibly a forensic artist to confirm or deny if the dimensions, proportions are correct for an adult female femur.

I don't think that would be necessary, provided one could think oneself into reconstructing how such a wound could have been inflicted. I firmly believe that it couldn't be done whilst the femur was still "hinged" between the pelvis and the tibia.

[Snicket-Dweller]

Hi Sam,

I think it would be possible to carve through the ball end of the bone if the blow was inflicted whilst she was lying on the bed with her legs wide apart. As if he/Jack wanted to literally hack out the lower ab/upper leg area, the blow would land to the inside line of the pelvis, thus glancing the ball and socket joint.

I suppose we would need a forensic scientist or possibly a forensic artist to confirm or deny if the dimensions, proportions are correct for an adult female femur.

Thank you Archaic for the warm welcome.

Helen x