Mary Kelly-By Luck, or Design?

[Ben]

I have to wonder how the police reacted when Hutch put two fingers up at them by going straight to the papers with a different complexion and moustache for his suspect. Could they not have dug a little deeper and found he had been in Romford on the night in question, for instance?

Why would a recognition that Hutchinson gave conflicting reports to police and press somehow mutate into a realization that "he had been in Romford on the night in question", Caz? That's rather a speculative leap even as a "for instance". A crucial and oft-overlooked point in these discussions is that a police force can only "dig" as deeply as their resources might allow and still fail to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion, regardless of the indefatigability of the investigators. Let's take it to the extreme, and assume for one crazy moment that the police interpreted those press/police contradictions as a sure indicator of guilt. How would they have gone about converting those suspicions into ironclad conclusions?

Answer: not very easily at all.

If you're arguing that the killer needn't have known Kelly personally, you won't find any argument from me. There's no compelling evidence to suggest that Robert Napper was personally acquainted with Samantha Bissett either, although it did transpire that he had kept her under discreet surveillance for some time prior to the murder, just as Dennis Rader had monitored the Otero family from a vantage point in the early 1970s. It shouldn't require any great stretch of the imagination to envisage a similar scenario in the case of Mary Jane Kelly.

Best regards,
Ben

[richardnunweek]

Hi.
When investigating any murder case, the most logical start is to identify the last person the victim was seen with, who then may be able to help the police with their enquiries.
In the case of Mary kelly we have one Mrs Maxwell, who not only made a statement to the police, but attended the inquest , and on oath repeated that statement.
She claims that she witnessed Mjk talking to a stout man , aged around thirty years, of market porter appearance, at around quarter to nine[ am].
This on record is the last reported sighting of Mary, and it is therefore extremely important, regardless of many disbelievers.
If the market porter was her killer, it would point to a killer of opportunety, and poor Mary just happened to meet the wrong man , and whats more inviting him back to her room was icing on the cake for him.
One however must take on board that if this happened , it would seem that she initially returned to her room alone, which could explain her state of partial undress.
One must also address the point , if the porter was the killer, would he have his knive/knives on him at that hour?
If he returned to his place of work/ lodgings to retrieve them, it would suggest that he resided . or worked in that very area,,, spitalfields market would be the obvious.
I must say that I find this[ alleged] stout market porter , aged around thirty years a huge contender for the infamous 'Jack The Ripper', his descripton fits the bill, ie thirty/stout.
Regards Richard.

[babybird67]

Ricahard...

If Mary was as unwell as Mrs Maxwell testifies that she appeared to be, vomiting in the gutter from drink etc, would she have been in any state to be inviting strange men back to her room?

Also, if she had been killed after Mrs Maxwell saw her, after vomiting as she had, why would there have been signs of a recent fish meal in her stomach? I don't think she would have felt like eating immediately after vomiting, or at that time in the morning.

I agree Maxwell's testimony is irreconcilable with other witness testimony...but i believe the witnesses who independently heard the cry of murder at around 3.30-4.00 am that morning...that this was the best estimate of time of death that we have and consistent with MJK's stomach contents etc and that Mrs Maxwell was merely mistaken.

[caz]

Hi Ben,

Sorry, I thought my "for instance" made it clear I was merely speculating.

Under any normal circumstances, if a suspect sighting is considered to be potentially of great importance, and then the star witness goes straight to the papers with a completely different facial description of his suspect, the police are going to take a bit of a dim view and will want to know what the hell is going on. If Hutch disappears from the record as soon as his account is dismissed as worthless, this could indicate a couldn't-care-less attitude on the part of the police, but then again it could indicate that further enquiries had revealed that he had lied or been mistaken about even being in the area on the night in question. Who knows? We certainly don't.

But imagine the scenario: Hutch has been taking the cops round the area looking for a man with a certain complexion and moustache, then the same cops open their newspapers and find they've been led a right old dance. Is it likely that they will just shrug it off and chalk it up to one of those things? They were obviously hoping that Hutch would be their means of getting the ripper into court and convicted, and now there wasn't a hope in hell, even if he led the cops straight to the man's lair. The defence would have made mincemeat out of Hutch's reliability in seconds.

The very least that would have happened is that the cops would have tried to ascertain where Hutch had really been from 2am that morning, and what he had really seen, if not Mary and her last client. If they had failed to establish his movements, I would have expected him to remain a person of interest, and to have appeared in the records as someone who had yet to be eliminated, given all the circumstances.

How many killers or witnesses do you know who came forward to claim they knew a victim personally when they didn't know her at all?

A serial killer stands much more chance of getting away with his crimes if he attacks victims who are not known to him and cannot be connected back to him in any way. I realise there are exceptions, but I wouldn't expect a killer to toss away such a huge advantage by coming forward and a) claiming to have known his latest victim personally if she was as much a stranger to him as all his previous victims were, or b) volunteering the information that he knew her personally if that was the truth. He's meant to be deflecting suspicion, not inviting it.

It's hardly the wisest move to say he knew the deceased, whether he did or didn't, but especially if he didn't. It just makes it less plausible that he didn't give her safety a second thought, even when her panto villain failed to emerge satisfied from her bedroom after nearly an hour.

If Hutch knew Mary, I think it's highly unlikely that he killed her or was the ripper. I just don't see Jack willingly putting himself in such a vulnerable position, when there were so many more unfortunate fish in the sea all around him, who need not have known him from Adam.

If Hutch didn't know Mary, what possible advantage was it to claim otherwise, if she was just another stranger that he had murdered? Do you not think his imagination would have stretched to adapting his account to make both Mary and her client strangers to him, whose encounter roused his curiosity sufficiently to follow them?

Once again, do you know of any killer who came forward and claimed to know a victim personally when he didn't know her at all?

And can you help me steer this back to the subject of 'luck or design' while you're at it?

Love,

Caz
X

[perrymason]

I can see youre trying to right the thread ship Caz, so Ill see if I can contribute.

IF....the existing records and recorded opinions of the witness testimonies are accurate and well founded respectively, concerning the activities of Mary Kelly and her room after her arrival home at 11:45 Thursday evening, then it would strongly suggest that the killer came to her room. Without Hutchinson,...or witnessed time out of her room by an accredited believed witness, there is very little material with which a suggestion she did leave the room can be sustainable.

If this was the case.......and Mary was in her room, more than likely sleeping as her light was out by 1:30am, and no noise that could be stated absolutely from Mary Kelly was heard from shortly after 1am onward......then does this appear more like a chance opportunity scenario by a man who was a stranger to Kelly and that room.....or a situation where the man who came to the room was likely known by Mary Kelly?

I personally think its the second, and that would leave open the possibility that he went to kill her specifically, which would involve some....even if not overly so, "design".

All the best.

[Ben]

Hi Caz,

If Hutch disappears from the record as soon as his account is dismissed as worthless, this could indicate a couldn't-care-less attitude on the part of the police, but then again it could indicate that further enquiries had revealed that he had lied or been mistaken about even being in the area on the night in question.

But again, you're forgetting that crucial third possibility; the one that emerges as by far the most likely explanation given the press commentary on the subject - that the police had a very professional attitude, noticed the discrepancies between police and press accounts, wondered "what the hell is going on", but couldn't prove that Hutchinson either lied or was gravely mistaken?

This explanation gets my vote by a long sea mile. It's the only explanation that doesn't require the investigating police force to have been incompetent, or the positing of some "proof" or "alibi" that somehow eliminates Hutchinson from the suspects list. I realise you were only speculating, and it's only fair to acknowledge that we cannot rule out something as conclusive as that, but we certainly shouldn't assume that anything "major" of that nature occurred. Both Packer and Violenia were dismissed as witnesses, but not because they were proven to have lied. The police simple came to the conclusion that they did, based on the dubious nature of the evidence they provided.

It is very common practice for an investigating police force to use their own discernment when separating the wheat from the chaff in terms of eyewitness "evidence". Of course, it would be ideal if they were in possession of proof to bolster their suspicions, but in the majority of cases, it just isn't there. It doesn't mean they've "shrugged off" anything or acted in a lackadaisical fashion. It just means they lacked evidence.

If they had failed to establish his movements, I would have expected him to remain a person of interest, and to have appeared in the records as someone who had yet to be eliminated, given all the circumstances.

Well, if they suspected him (which remains a fairly hefty "if" given the absence of evidence in this regard), I'd agree that he'd remain a person if interest for some time afterwards, but as for expecting an appearance in the records to have survived, no, I'm afraid that's a lot less realistic. A great many people were suspected during the course of the Whitechapel murders, and the vast majority have doubtless been lost to posterity.

Since Hutchinson conveyed no external menace, was neither foreign nor mad, and had no pretensions to medicine or animal butchery, he wasn't likely to have been a priority. If you examine the suspects whose names have survived, they pretty much all meet one of these criteria.

How many killers or witnesses do you know who came forward to claim they knew a victim personally when they didn't know her at all?

Not many. More commonly, a serial killer will insert himself into an investigation under a false guise out of fear that the victim will provide an incriminating link, courtesy of their acquaintance. Nathanial Code's final victims were his step-grandfather and young grandchildren, and it was only in the wake of these murders that he played the "false cooperative" hand. The others were ostensibly strangers. Gary Ridgway contacted the Green River Task Force with "information" on a victim with whom he was genuinely acquainted. Roger Fain injected himself into the investigation of Darlene Anderson's death. The two were acquainted. Then there's Arthur Gary Bishop:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Gary_Bishop

So there's nothing remotely "unlikely" about Hutchinson murdering Kelly if he was acquainted with her, nor is it "exceptional" for serial killers to target non-strangers on occasions. Quite often, it's the murder that leads to their downfall, but they do it all the same. I'm inclined to suspect that Hutchinson and Kelly were not complete strangers, but even if they were, it wouldn't remotely detract from the premise that Sarah Lewis' evidence compelled him to take pre-emptive action.

And can you help me steer this back to the subject of 'luck or design' while you're at it?

That depends on your response...

As it stands, I'm happy to return to the orginal premise of the thread.

All the best,
Ben

[babybird67]

something just occurred to me...

ooops will repost elsewhere

[Jane Welland]

Yes

Perhaps so.

Sarah Lewis said the man she saw appeared to be waiting - and sure enough, that was what Hutchinson said when he gave his statement - that he was waiting to see if Mr A and Mary Kelly would come out of Millers Court again. How lucky! It all fits very well, doesn't it?

Perhaps it does, but then, once again I think you go back to why he didn't come forward sooner. Ok, so maybe it all was legitimate - I know it cannot be proven one way or the other now.

Maybe though, he hardly even noticed Sarah Lewis, or the other people on the street at the time that he omitted to mention when he gave his statement to the police - but whom Sarah Lewis saw?

And - to speculate wildly for a moment - maybe that was due to the fact that he was waiting - not for Mr A to emerge - but to make sure Mary was asleep and that the street was empty before he entered the room.

Because, whilst Sarah Lewis may have seen him waiting, nobody saw him leave, did they?

Jane x

[Sam Flynn]

You angels, be careful there with your knives and forks!

Please can we take any discussions re. Hutchinson's alibi (Lewis etc.) onto the Hutchinson-related thread that BabyBird has kindly just set up... "Hutch and an alibi?".

Ta. Let's not turn this Kelly thread into (yet) another Hutch-fest.