MJK Murder

[harry]

Whilst in the military,I was shown many ways to kill a person,but not one in bed with the clothes around them,but if one had to improvise for that eventuality,then I think I would choose to stab to the heart area,that is if I had run out of bullets.
However a person in bed with the bedclothes around the body, and hands and arms under the clothes,and with a solid body on top straddling,is well nigh defenceless if attacked suddenly,while the attacker can still retain the use of both hands.It might still give the victim a fleeting chance to cry out "Murder",and would not be dependent on the attacker being in bed with the victim immediately prior to the assault.

[kensei]

Just a couple of thoughts/comparisons here, playing catchup- when a thread takes off, checking in every 24 hours just isn't enough!

On the possibility that the Ripper himself may have been slightly drunk when he committed his murders- it's a little known fact that Ted Bundy usually was, needing a little liquid courage to psyche himself up. As for George Hutchinson not mentioning that Mary was drunk, if the theory that he had great affection for her is true then he may not have wanted to say anything unflattering about her.

And about Caroline Maxwell, the witness who said she saw MJK alive at 8:30 a.m.- I've always assumed that she simply had the date wrong, and once she'd convinced herself she was right no one could dissuade her. There is precedent for this. In the Yosemite Park murders of 1999, there was a shopkeeper who insisted she'd seen Carole and Juli Sund and their friend Silvina Pelosso in her shop on a date after they'd gone missing. She even remembered Silvina talking about how she was from Argentina. When everything came out, it turned out the women had definitely all been dead at the time and the shopkeeper was simply dead wrong in spite of how absolutely certain she'd been. How can you explain it? It's freaky, but it happens. Mary Kelly was most likely dead by around 4 a.m., and probably well before then as I believe the Ripper left at that time and the mutilation would have taken at least an hour, because you have to consider not just the time it took to do it but also the savoring of it.

[richardnunweek]

Hi Kensei,
With Reference to Maxwell, we have the fact that her statement of returning plates that morning checked, and confirmed, also she was interviewed on the very same day as the sighting.
Also there surely is no chance of mistaken identity, she knew Barnett had left her recently, she described clothing found in room 13.
And I cannot imagine that she was not taken to view the body , before the inquest, to confirm, which would give her every chance to accept a mistake, and prevent embarrassment to the police doctors.
Hutchinson was asked to view the body , to make sure of the correct identification, so surely Mrs Maxwell especially as she was to attend the inquest.
Regards Richard.

[Rubyretro]

It's one of those weird inexplicable things that there are witness statements
of different murder cases where someone swears blind that they saw the
victim at the time that they were proved to be already dead;

I remember vaguely one (it could be Jason Swift ?), where a witness swore that she had seen him in a café sitting between two men, and he had already been murdered by that time.

I don't really believe in psychic phenomena (you can nearly always find a rational explanation), but there are alot of people that swear blind to have seen a deceased person shortly after their death. It's surely in their imagination -but I think that the brain can make you genuinly 'see' things that aren't there (witness people hypnotised to 'see' things, or people on
LSD, or people on the point of dying 'seeing' dead members of their family).

I think it is certain that Caroline Maxwell truly believed that she saw an MJK
who was certainly already dead, and it's just another one of those strange
things that we can't elucidate.

[kensei]

Well, of course there are those who say that Maxwell may have actually had a run-in with Mary Jane's ghost, freshly out of her body and staggering about in a state of extreme trauma. Who are we to say?

[Ben]

Hi Chava,

And if he did get in through the door, he would have had to know about MJK's habit of drawing the bolt in order to let himself in.

I'm not sure which habit you're referring to here. While it is true that Barnett testified to gaining access to the room via the window method when the spring lock was engaged, this wouldn't have been necessary when the door was left on the "latch", as it appears to have been when Kelly arrived home with her blotchy companion shortly before midnight. If the lock remained in that condition for the rest of the night - which is plausible, considering Kelly's intoxicated condition - any subsequent intruder could have gained entry simply by pushing open the door. A light outside room #1 (opposite Kelly and occupied by Julia Venturney) would have illuminated the scene to a sufficient degree.

Best regards,
Ben

[Rubyretro]

Kensei -apparently Maxwell said that MJK looked none too well (that would have been one hell of a hangover for Mary's ghost !)

[Jane Coram]

Hi Richard,

You are totally forgiven for mentioning the bolster.

Hi Harry,

Funnily enough, I was thinking of you when I thought about someone that might have had experience in the military. There were a couple of others, like Bob Hinton, who might well have helped out, but I think you are spot on with what you've said in your post, assuming of course that Mary was actually lying on the bed when she was attacked. (See next post)

It was a chilly night, and Mary would almost certainly not have been lying on that bed with no covers over her, even if she was expecting company -- she would have been perished. With the covers pulled up, she would have been nigh on helpless, if her killer used his knees to pin the covers down over her.
Okay, there was a little fire going in the hearth, but it wouldn't have been nearly enough to make that room warm enough.


Much love

Janie

xxxx

[Jane Coram]

Hi,

Sorry for the double post, but it would have got a bit complicated.

Hi Chava,

Just going back to what you've said, I think you have a good point that Mary's killer might have had some problem with killing the poor woman in the position she was in, although we can't do more than guess really.

He customarily killed his victims with them leaning to the left to some lesser or greater extent, cutting their throats from left to right.

Of course, with Mary facing to the right, he was almost certainly forced to cut right to left -- although Bond states that because of the state of the wound, he couldn't tell which way the cut was made for certain. He seems to indicate that he thinks it was right to left though by mentioning the arterial spray on the wall, suggesting that the knife tip entered the right side of the neck first.

If Mary's killer did have to attack from the left, instead of his customary right, it might have been more awkward for him. So yes he might have preferred to attack and kill Mary a different way. Having said that, we don't know if Jack was ambidexterous and it didn't bother him on jot. Like everything else in this case, very little is solid fact, most of it is just conjecture. There are always ifs and buts.

The other thing is that a lot of people seem to just assume that Mary was attacked whilst she was in the position she was killed. It's a natural assumption -- that she was lying on the bed more or less where she was killed when her murderer first attacked her. We don't actually know that for certain though. It could be that he did attack her while she was standing up at the edge of the bed about to get in, using his normal technique of rendering the victim unconscious and then threw her onto the bed, and went in and cut her throat.

I'm not saying that's what I think happened, I personally think she was attacked where she was found, but as I've just said, there are almost always ifs and buts, so all we can do is guess really.

Hugs

Janie

xxxx

[Chava]

However she is still killed facing down and towards the wall. So I'm pretty sure he jumped her from behind. It's possible someone just tried the door and walked in. But he'd still have to be absolutely sure what he'd find there. If someone did creep in on MJK, he would have had prior knowledge of her: where she slept; the fact that she was not putting up Maria Hervey that night; that she was completely alone. All of which puts the finger squarely on whoever was hanging around the entry to Millers Court that night and was seen there by Sarah Lewis. And I know that the Kudzu Fanciers are gonna come out by the cart-load! But this does not exclude Barnett. Nor does it exclude Blotchy-Face, who spent some time with her--we don't know how long--that night and whose description is remarkably similar to descriptions of other men seen with other victims shortly before their murders.

That having been said, I think it's very unlikely that a practised killer would just walk into a dark room like that and hope his next victim is too drunk to fight. Especially a woman as tall as MJK. I think she let him in. I think he at least made noises about staying the night. I think she had her back to him when he attacked her.

While we're at it, there is no mention as far as I can gather of foot or boot prints or blood smears left by the killer. If he also undressed before attacking MJK, he could have left his clothes and boots by the door so that they didn't get any blood on them. As has been said often enough, she was a prostitute, so having a man in her bed would have been nothing new. But the lack of staining left by the victim does argue to me someone who killed while naked or as near naked as possible. I don't see someone breaking in, stopping to undress and then attacking his victim...

[Jane Coram]

Hi Chava,

I think I agree with all of that. I know I play Devil's Advocate a lot, and chuck spanner's into the works if I can just to be naughty, but I think you're pretty on the money really. It's no fun if you don't try and stir things up a bit now and again is it?

I wouldn't exclude Hutchinson or Fleming from the suspect list either.

As to the footprints and clothes. I would say you're right and he left them on a chair close to the door or on the other table, so that he could retrieve them when he left, with no chance of getting blood on them. Some newspaper reports say that there were two chairs, and some only one, but whatever, I think he would have taken his boots and clothes off and left them close to the door. It's possible that's why there were some of Maria's clothes burnt on the fire -- if he was naked, he must have been bloody frozen!

Much love

Janie

xxxxx

[Phil Carter]

I know I play Devil's Advocate a lot, and chuck spanner's into the works if I can just to be naughty.... It's no fun if you don't try and stir things up a bit now and again is it?

Hello Jane,

Not little innocent you, surely? Well I never..
I, on the otherhand...

Something about "Mary's" death was different methinks. 7 doctors attended the aftermath in Miller's Court...not bad for an "ending" to the affairs of the murderer, if one believes what one is told afterwards, eh?

best wishes

Phil

[Chava]

The other thing is that a lot of people seem to just assume that Mary was attacked whilst she was in the position she was killed. It's a natural assumption -- that she was lying on the bed more or less where she was killed when her murderer first attacked her. We don't actually know that for certain though. It could be that he did attack her while she was standing up at the edge of the bed about to get in, using his normal technique of rendering the victim unconscious and then threw her onto the bed, and went in and cut her throat.

I think it's entirely possible he banged her on the head or throttled her while she was in a vulnerable position and then threw her down on the bed and cut her throat to drain where it would do him the most good. He's not gonna step in a blood pool that's under the far end of the bed! However there's no suggestion of a blow to the skull, nor is there any evidence of asphyxiation. This doesn't mean it didn't happen. But there's no medical evidence to bear that out...

She certainly wasn't killed in the position that she was found in. I'm starting to strongly think that the man who killed Kelly was shorter than she was and so had to kill her on the bed. Which puts my pal Blotchy in the frame, since he's being described as around 5'5" tall...

[Garry Wroe]

We know from the PM etc and the in situ evidence that MJK was killed while facing somewhat downwards on the far right hand side of the bed in her room. There is arterial splatter on the wall beside this side of the bed and it's in line with her neck as she is found in the bed. She's either killed while face-down or facing that wall. Chances are she was slashed while face-down and moved afterwards so that arterial blood splashes on the wall.

With the greatest of respect, Chava, I’m at a loss to understand how the arterial blood-spray pattern on the partition wall indicates that Kelly was either facing the wall or lying in a prone position at the moment her throat was incised. The height of the blood-spray, for example, is indicative that Kelly’s head was close to the mattress as the initial wound was inflicted. This, it seems logical to suppose, not only mediates against the possibility that Kelly was on all fours at the time, it would also have left precious little room between the mattress and her throat had she been lying flat and face-down, thereby presenting unnecessary practical difficulties for a man who at this juncture had become an accomplished killer.

Likewise, I’m unsure as to how the blood-spray would have jetted against the wall had Kelly been lying on her side. In order for this to have occurred, the carotid artery would need to lie in an anterior position, running downwards over or close to the throat. But it doesn’t. It is lateralized and runs down the side of the neck from a position more or less beneath the earlobe. Hence, when it is severed, blood sprays to the side rather then the front. Had Kelly been facing the wall at the moment of incision, therefore, blood would have sprayed either on to the pillow (from the right carotid artery) or towards the foot of the bed (from the left). As an illustration of this process, Annie Chapman was lying in a supine position when her left carotid artery was severed, with the result that blood immediately sprayed to her left and splashed the boundary fence approximately eighteen inches above ground level. As such, and again with respect, I see nothing in the way of ‘evidence’ that Kelly was either in a prone position or facing the partition wall at the moment her throat was cut.

However there's no suggestion of a blow to the skull, nor is there any evidence of asphyxiation.

On the contrary, Chava. According to Dr Bond, ‘The skin cut in front of the neck showed distinct ecchymosis.’ In other words, Kelly had sustained bruising to her throat of a type which is consistent with strangulation. Thus if, as the evidence would appear to suggest, Kelly had indeed been subject to at least partial strangulation, her death conformed to the pattern that is clearly discernible in the attacks on Nichols, Chapman and Eddowes before her. If so, she was immobilized before her throat was cut. And if this was the case, I can see no reason why her killer would have departed from what was a lethally efficient modus operandi by inflicting throat wounds from the rear or side. To my mind, such a deviation makes no sense from a practical standpoint and is not supported by the available evidence.

Best wishes.

Garry Wroe.

[SaraCarter33]

I hope that poor woman was'nt alive when she was so ghastly disfigured.