Did Mary know her attacker?

[Observer]

Hi Perry

Speaking of tigers my great great great grandfather was the inspiration for Blake's poem Tiger Tiger Burning Bright, he was an amatuer poet with a fascination of all things oriental, his original poem (which Blake nicked from him) began.

Tiger Tiger burning bright

In the forests of the night

Stalking prey on your endless journey

Did you eat a chap named Ernie.

I am not telling porkies, this is the absolute truth........hic

Observer

[Ben]

11:30pm is about right for Kelly's supper, in which case she probably ate it (in a pub?) before arriving home with Blotchy. Sleep and booze slow down the digestive process.

[Observer]

Hi again

On a serious note though.

Wind swept rainy November night, no Ripper murders for 6 weeks, the harlots of Whitechapel go about their buisiness with renewed vigor, do they care a jot about the time? I think not. However, Kelly could have ventured out unnoticed after 11:45 a.m. , missing Prater, and Cox by split seconds. It is possible.

Observer

[Observer]

Hi again

On a serious note though.

Wind swept rainy November night, no Ripper murders for 6 weeks, the harlots of Whitechapel go about their buisiness with renewed vigor, do they care a jot about the time? I think not. However, Kelly could have ventured out unnoticed after 11:45 a.m. , missing Prater, and Cox by split seconds. It is possible.

Observer

[Dan Norder]

The idea that the Ripper knew Kelly and/or broke into her room is not new. It is certainly plausible, but it is far away from being the most likely option based upon both the direct evidence in this case and the general evidence of how prostitutes work in the real world as compared to how they do things in some artificially constructed argument for the purposes of wasting time on a message board.

The evidence clearly shows she did take at least one strange man to her room that night, perhaps two. Arguing that there is no evidence she entertained clients in her room is nothing but sheer stubborn and purposeful ignorance of both the case evidence and the history of prostitutes both in general and in the area. Kitty Ronan, for example, lived in a neighboring room and can be proven to have taken a client home instead of entertaining him in an alleyway somewhere... and she was killed for it also. To argue that Kelly for some reason would not do such a thing is, frankly, pretty idiotic.

"Perrymason" just jumped to a rather implausible idea -- that Kelly was different and killed by someone else -- and now is willy nilly trying to cook the evidence to support that conclusion. In the process he's falsely claiming that everyone else is ignoring the evidence despite it being made clear that the exact opposite is the case.

[Observer]

Hi Ben

It never ceases to fascinate me why there are no reports of Kelly prior to her 11:45 retirement. As you say where did Kelly consume her supper? More to the point where did she purchase it? Where did she and Blotchy drink that night? where did Blotchy purchase hais pail of ale? Surely someone noticed Kelly and Blotchy as the night progressed? Of course the inquest was finalised with such haste that the answer to those questions might just have been in the process of being corrolated. Were such records ever compiled? I think so. More to the point where are they now?

Observer

[Chava]

Hi Ben

It never ceases to fascinate me why there are no reports of Kelly prior to her 11:45 retirement. As you say where did Kelly consume her supper? More to the point where did she purchase it? Where did she and Blotchy drink that night? where did Blotchy purchase hais pail of ale? Surely someone noticed Kelly and Blotchy as the night progressed? Of course the inquest was finalised with such haste that the answer to those questions might just have been in the process of being corrolated. Were such records ever compiled? I think so. More to the point where are they now?

Observer

I like the poem!

I understand that drink can slow down the process of digestion. However if sleep slows down the process, then she was likely sleeping at some point during the night. Like perhaps when she was attacked!

I've also always thought it strange that no one saw Kelly that night except Cox. It's possible that the food was eaten in her room at the time Cox saw her. She could have crammed a chip or two in the old cakehole in between bellowing stanzas of her song. She may have been the one carrying the fish and chips while Blotchy carried the pail of beer, and Blotchy may have been the one who actually went into the chippy to buy the food, so no one would have seen her in there with him. However she'd clearly been drinking ahead of going home with Blotchy, so had been in a pub somewhere.

I wish we could at least agree to disagree on the possibility of Kelly being killed by someone she knew. Just as I wish we could agree to disagree on the possibility of her not being a Ripper victim. The evidence suggests that she could have been, and maybe she was, but it's far from being conclusive. Apart from any other consideration, the Ripper was clearly interested in taking female internal genital organs as trophies. He does this twice. In Eddowes he takes a kidney as well, but he makes sure he gets the uterus. Kelly's uterus has been removed, but it's on site. Her heart is apparently missing. If her heart was missing along with everything else, I'd say 'OK, Ripper victim'. But it isn't. So while we all hold opinions as to Kelly's killer. I don't think any of us can say categorically that she was killed by the Ripper. There's evidence for that, and evidence against it.

[caz]

Hi Chava,

Yes, it is suspect, I’m afraid, to state that Mary’s clothes were found ‘folded’ on a chair. The earliest mention Sam found that they were folded came in much more recent years and from a dubious source, while a contemporary illustration showing the clothes suggests they were draped rather than folded.

I think the onus of proof is on you if you want to claim that Mary possessed a nightgown. The photos and all reports suggest she was wearing the remains of a rather flimsy chemise that left little to the imagination. I can’t prove she didn’t possess one, but I don’t believe that what she wore when her killer struck would have been of any practical use as a nightgown on that damp November night in her little room with broken window panes. If she was alone when she undressed, and wasn’t too cold to remove every stitch and then put on a flimsy form of nightgown, she was arguably too drunk to bother.

I’m now struggling with your comparisons between Sutcliffe and the ripper. You originally argued that because Sutcliffe, in common with a lot of other serial killers, regularly picked up prostitutes for sex, in between picking them up to kill, then ‘there’s nothing wrong with suggesting’ that the Ripper did, and that he may have picked up Mary for sex.

I assumed - wrongly as it turns out - that you simply meant he could have picked up Mary for sex and/or violence, in the one encounter that left her dead and horribly mutilated. I agreed that it was a possibility, but pointed out that this would imply a degree of self control if he allowed himself the time to enjoy a ‘normal’ sexual encounter (whatever ‘normal’ may have been to him) before going for the kill - something you had argued was not feasible.

Now you appear to be saying that self control had nothing to do with it because Sutcliffe had sexual encounters when he set out looking for sex, and violent ones when he set out in the mood to kill, and never the twain ever met. In short, if he didn’t already feel like killing when he picked up a prostitute, nothing that happened during the encounter would have put him in the mood or induced him to go on the attack. But if he set out to kill, he would be compelled to do so without preamble and at the earliest opportunity, regardless of the circumstances.

Now this may all be true, although I hope it doesn’t rely solely on Sutcliffe’s word for it. But it certainly doesn’t follow that if the ripper picked up unfortunates for sex on occasion, including Mary, he must have had identical thought processes, urges or behaviour patterns to Sutcliffe and would have paid for sex acts with her and not even thought of getting his knife out, but been compelled for whatever reason to attack her the moment he got her alone on that November night. No two serial killers are the same, and there is nothing in the ripper case evidence that says he couldn’t have ‘hired’ Mary for purposes other than murder initially, or simply kept his options open, and at some point felt it would be rude not to take full advantage of the circumstances in which he found himself, once alone with her in that room.

We have absolutely no reason to believe he would hang about and 'savour the moment' because his prey was so young and pretty etc etc etc. That's the kind of thinking that sets my teeth on edge because it's part of the unnecessary romanticization of Mary Jane Kelly. If you look at Sutcliffe's women, some were extremely unattractive, some were very pretty, some were ordinary-looking women. And he killed them all without any hesitation or 'patience' or whatever as fast as he could. Let's not have any more lip-smacking over Mary Kelly the Spitalfields Stunna than is absolutely necessary, shall we?

Give me a break, Chava. You’ve had no lip-smacking from me and you won’t get any. As far as I’m aware Mary could have looked like the back end of a bus and the ripper would not have been put off an encounter with her, either sexual, murderous or both. It’s hardly romanticising her to suggest that if he did use her for sex, her age (which would have been immediately apparent) and private room (which he may not have known about until she took him back there) were arguably positive factors for him, which could both have led to sexual encounters as lengthy or even lengthier than the violent encounter to end all encounters. That’s no more than common sense.

The definition of romanticising is Perry Mason talking about Sweet Mary Kelly, God’s gift to men who like a woman who is not only young, but pretty, sexy, curvy, attractive - you name it, Perry has said it about Mary. Pity he has also said she had the gold-digging ability to leave the men in her life panting for more, with their mouths and their wallets open, just in case she feels like offering them a peek of a bare ankle. On balance I think it’s more charitable to see her as a woman with nothing but age on her side and a willingness to be nice to men in all the usual ways, in return for the booze she craved, which would soon have cost her any great beauty she might otherwise have possessed. Nothing very attractive about anyone, once they are sloshed into near oblivion, unless that’s how the ripper liked ’em best.

And you were the one who implied early on in this thread that Mary was soooo much younger and more attractive than the previous four victims that she was more likely than them to be singled out by the discerning punter, and possibly the ripper too, for repeat servicing - the kind of thinking you now say sets your teeth on edge. Set your own teeth on edge with these:

…She was certainly much younger than the other four poor women and therefore probably somewhat more attractive. I don't see any reason why she couldn't have had repeat customers…

Even Kelly was a fair way from Miss Whiplash. But the same applies to her and perhaps more so, because she was more attractive and younger. It's possible she had repeat clients. It's possible that the Ripper was someone who had patronized her before.

...In numerous posts I've said I thought that the first four were probably killed by someone they had never encountered before. Even if they had met him, they probably wouldn't have remembered him…

…But I also think it's not unlikely given the circumstances that Kelly was killed by someone she knew or had met before. Regular client? Maybe, in the sense that she done business with him before...

...I wasn't referring to the Ripper, but to any punter who picked up any of the first 4 women. I doubt they would be pricing their charms very highly, and probably performed for the price of a tot of gin...

Love,

Caz
X

[Observer]

Hi Chava

I like the poem

Thank you, you know, you wouldn't believe it, but it took Blake many sleepless nights and much soul searching to compose his now famous poem, whereas I knocked that little ditty up in mere minutes.

Observer

[Chava]

OK Caz, let me make myself clear.

(1) Mary Jane Kelly was an habitual prostitute with a room where she may not--but probably did--take customers. It is certainly possible that she may have met the Ripper previously and had normal relations with him.

(2) Mary Jane Kelly was younger than the others and had more to offer. (see 1 above. She had a room.)

(3) Mary Jane Kelly as I took pains to say on numerous occasions broke the Ripper's choice pattern in many ways, including the fact that she was younger and seemed to have all her teeth. Therefore, yes, she was probably more attractive than the other four. However this does not mean that I think or ever thought that she was the Belle of Whitechapel, or the Houri of Hackney Wick. However she had worked as a prostitute for long stretches of time and may well have had repeat customers along the way. The other four women may also have had repeat customers, but they were purely transient hookers and did other stuff as well, whereas Kelly was established in her neighbourhood and by the way, did I forget to mention it? She had a room. So punters who patronized her knew they weren't going to have to settle for a knee-trembler against a back-alley wall unless they wished it to be that way. I'm sure she did knee-tremblers as well. But she didn't have to. That puts her one-up on the other four.

So yes, she was younger and that may have given her an edge of attractiveness. But no, I don't think she was anything more than a streetwalker of average looks. With a room.

Now let's get to Sutcliffe. I don't see where anything I said about him could be confusing but you are clearly confused so here goes:

Sutcliffe was known in the red-light districts of the mill towns as a punter. He patronized prostitutes and was well-known to do so. However he was not known in those circles as a 'bad trick' so I assume his relations with these women were normal by their standards. That held true all through his killing cycle. There is no reason whatsoever to assume that all the prostitutes he killed were complete strangers to him. They may have been or they may not.

You say we shouldn't take Sutcliffe's word for what happened when he killed women. Why shouldn't we? Wasn't he the guy doing the killing? Or do you think that he was possessed by some other thing that meant he had no recollection of what had occurred and was making the whole thing up. The forensic evidence supported Sutcliffe's account of his kills. He did claim voices told him to kill. But he never suggested he was unconscious during the process.

Now let me make myself clear. I think it is possible that Kelly had picked up the man known as the Ripper before and had had normal relations with him. I'm not saying I know this as fact, I merely suggest the possibility. And that possibility has nothing to do with her perceived fatal attraction for men. And everything to do with the fact that of the women killed, she seems to be the most focussed and experienced prostitute. Chapman hooked as well as selling tzatzkes. Nicholls did some charing. As did Stride. Eddowes picked hops. Only Kelly seems to have supported herself entirely by prostitution and so her client base was probably bigger.

As for the nightie--I really don't care that much. Say it's her undergarment, say what you like. But I believe she was sleeping in it.

[caz]

Hi Perry,

What? No response to my point about 29 Hanbury looking for all the world like an indoor location when the ripper reached the front door with Annie? You were quite adamant that he ripper chose only to operate outdoors. So did she tell him beforehand about the backyard or did she just lead him through to it and he was pleasantly surprised? Did he say at the front door: “If you’re taking me inside forget it”?

You wrote:

My bet is Blotchy Face wasnt the looker Joe may have been though.

How shallow and cynical is that?? Do you honestly believe that a man’s looks were more important to ‘women like Mary’ than the attention and support he could give her, or the kindness he could show her, or the way he appreciated her, or a host of other qualities, all more enduring than physical appearance?

I maintain that women who were known to meet strangers and become their common law wives in the space of 24 hours could have gone from stranger to danger in the space of 4 with no trouble at all.

If you go back to my post, you will find that I never said a word about Mary going out again post Blotchy, but I may as well have done since you read it so carelessly that you assumed that was what I was arguing from the outset. So I am happy to put that right and say it is another perfectly plausible scenario, given that if Blotchy could leave without being seen then so could Mary, either with him or separately, and she could have returned with a Blotchy mark 2, and even a mark 3, with nobody any the wiser.

Frankly Caz, Ive known a few women who flirt to get what they want, who flatter, and some that use sex to get what they want. Though none none were poor, starving whores who were alcoholics. I think when it comes to the various ways that women like Mary get what they want it should be , it should be clear to those that have met "Mary's", that they take without offering something in return....."hey Hutchinson, give me some money"...Mary is pissed, full, and safely at home drunk....and she was broke going out. I bet Mary paid what she thought was her bill by being nice to a rough dirty stranger ....letting him bask in her company....something only her boyfriend and her clients get, time alone with Mary. Guys like Blotchy buy beer all night for women like that, spend whatever is on them....just for the hope that he might get lucky with a woman beyond his means, or have her treat him as special. I suggest an arm in his when arriving home happy illustrates that nicely, so does singing. Mary has been a Brothel Lady, and perhaps a consort in France...shes not regular street stuff. Like the middle aged women Jack the Ripper killed.

I have no argument with the first part being a distinct possibility, except that again, it’s an assumption you make about Mary’s character with nothing of any substance to back it up. And it’s actually far harsher and more negative about this murder victim than simply suggesting she may actually have done what it said on the tin and given her customers exactly what they thought they had paid for - no more, no less. Women like Mary - like you knew her personally and can sum her up.

The second part is just the kind of romanticising that Chava is now blaming me for. According to you, guys like Blotchy - again, you think you can sum him up - would have considered the ‘sexy curvy lady’ (your words from a subsequent passage that you will be relieved to hear I have no wish to dwell on), that was a woman like Mary, to be ‘beyond his means’?? Get real. How do you know they were not using each other or that Blotchy hadn’t taken ‘using’ to an entirely new level by the time her singing days were over? If she had a drinking habit to feed, one drink was too many and ten were not enough, so she would have fitted the profile of the women of your acquaintance who did sleep with men in order to keep vital funds constantly topped up.

*romanticising alert for Chava*

…shes not regular street stuff. Like the middle aged women Jack the Ripper killed.

The only definitely ascertained difference was the age of the goods, Perry. And if I am the one ‘romanticising’ by suggesting that your average regular user of prostitutes from the beginning of all time would very probably plump for youth over middle age if given the option, then certain posters here don’t know the meaning of the word and I’m not one of them.

Well, she apparently asked Hutch for money, offering nothing,...

What? So now you are using Hutch’s account to support your character assassination of Mary, when previously you walloped Dan for pointing out to you that, whether or not you choose to dismiss Hutch’s account entirely, he did claim Mary went out post Blotchy. Mary didn’t get the chance to offer Hutch anything in return for borrowing sixpence, because a) he didn’t lend her anything if he was telling the truth and b) he didn’t lend her anything if he was lying. Take your pick, it’s still the same - no sixpence handed over, therefore no offer required, and nothing here to back up your notion of ‘women like Mary’. Conversely Mary doesn’t need Hutch at all to have stayed in or gone out post Blotchy.

Blotchy had Mary to himself...imagine, a grubby old fella being treated so nicely by a young pretty lady......sometimes those feelings alone are a type of sex....satisfaction, contentment, feeling wanted. Blotchy got lots more than a regular paying client I think...and I believe Mary was lonely.

Priceless - romanticising to the max, you finally concede that what you wrote previously was rubbish: ‘Dont make me defend her obvious relationship with Blotchy Man, which was that of a friend or acquaintance…’

Now you have Blotchy being the total stranger I said he could easily have been - as well as a satisfied punter who paid for what he got and got what he paid for. Whether the service she gave involved grubby sexual relief this time or merely the joy of each other’s company is beside the point. Either way, you are arguing here for a ‘punter meets prostitute and pays’ scenario - the very thing you don’t want if your theory that Mary knew her killer depends on her having no paying clients that night, and only entertaining a friend or acquaintance or two in her room, including her killer.

If you also need the romantic and entirely speculative ‘grubby old fella meets young, pretty but lonely lady’ angle to make even this ‘paying for company, not sex’ argument work, it still sounds a tad unrealistic to me - sorry.

So what I was saying.... is that very smart logical people can screw themselves if the principles they found their opinions on are unsustainable, or flawed.

But what opinions are these? Mainly, your opponents merely suggest that there are other possibilities besides your own fixed opinion that Mary knew her killer and he must have come to her room by himself and was not the same man who killed Kate and Annie and Polly. It’s such a common fallacy - but an extremely irritating one - that people who point out other possibilities to those with fixed opinions are expressing fixed opinions of their own. We don’t all have the same confidence in our ability to reach certain conclusions from the case evidence that you evidently have in yours.

…this particular crime can never make sense, the assumptions must be flawed if only extensions of known, flawed, evidence.

You said it.

That is precisely why you are being cautioned against thinking you can make sense of it all regardless, and come up with a ‘most likely’ scenario, while the poor fools around you acknowledge that the evidence is insufficient to allow them to do so without the addition of bloody great dollops of personal speculation.

Please read what I have actually written this time if you intend to respond, and make sure you don’t respond to points or arguments that I haven’t even made. It shouldn’t be hard if you stick to addressing the content of direct quotes.

Love,

Caz
X

[Observer]

Hi Chava

Unless I'm misinterpreting the given evidence, then yes, I'm pretty sure that Kelly (considering her tipsy behavior, and singing mood) and Blotchy enjoyed a night out together prior to their 11:45a.m. retirement. What are the alternatives? Blotchy entertained her in his own room all night? No, I'm surprised that nothing has come down to us regarding Kelly's movements that night prior to her retirement with Blotchy. I'm pretty sure someone would have remembered them that night.

I'll contradict myself here, the 64,000 dollar question is would the police have given a toss? I'm not saying that they didn't do their utmost to catch the killer, but it could well be that in the subsequent weeks after Kelly's death when no further murders came to light, they might not have persued Kelly's movements that night with the vigour displayed earlier in the inquiry.

Observer

[Observer]

One Moment

Blotchy could well have been a casual punter, on his way home with a pail of ale, Kelly propositions him in the street, and they retire to chaise Kelly. If this be the case it still wouldn't explain Kelly's tipsy state though, where did she get the booze to render her tipsy? It was the day before The Lord Mayors show, no work the next day for a lot of workers, I'd still plump for Kelly spending some of the night in the local boozer's. Surely she was seen.

Observer

[Chava]

Observer, she could have gotten drunk ahead of meeting BF, or she could have gotten drunk with him. She needs money, so I would assume she was working earlier in the evening, and may have managed to get the odd client to buy her a drink. She brings Blotchy home along with his jug of ale, so she may have spent a bit of time with him/knew him before. Although she was drunk that night, she doesn't seem to be an alcoholic. I agree it's odd that no one claims to have seen her ahead of Cox in the late evening, but I imagine that her earlier punters--if they knew who she was--may have been reluctant to come forward for all sorts of reasons. One of the anomalies of the case is that no one seems to have seen Nicholls or Chapman for quite a long time before they were killed. We know from evidence that they were on the streets, but there seems to be a couple of hours at least in Chapman's case that are completely unaccounted for.

[Chava]

What? No response to my point about 29 Hanbury looking for all the world like an indoor location when the ripper reached the front door with Annie? You were quite adamant that he ripper chose only to operate outdoors. So did she tell him beforehand about the backyard or did she just lead him through to it and he was pleasantly surprised? Did he say at the front door: “If you’re taking me inside forget it”?

Caz, one small point: it was apparently common knowledge in the area that the front and back doors of 29 Hanbury St were always unlocked, and that the backyard was frequently used by prostitutes and their tricks. That comes up at the inquest in John Richardson's testimony. He says he had often turned men and women out of there during the night. It's possible that the Ripper picks Chapman up and she says 'I know a quiet place. Just here. We can go through to the back yard and no one will know the difference.' I'm not holding any brief here one way or the other. But since hookers also brought their tricks into the stairway and first floor landing, it's possible that Chapman said they could be indoors or outdoors there, and he expressed a preference.