MJK Murder

[Rubyretro]

can't you calculate how long a fire has been burning, & a body been dead by decomposition in the heat though ?

[richardnunweek]

Hello Everyone.
We are touching some well discussed points once again,
My version is rather different then most, believing that MJK was killed around 9am, on the 9th,and she was despatched by the man that Maxwell saw around 845am.
I believe the Ripper was a middle aged stout man, that worked at Spitalfields Market, and Kelly was approached by him near Ringers around 830am, he made his sexual intentions clear, and Mary unfortunetly was taken off guard and offered herself, and gave the killer directions to her room.
'I have always suggested that she may have spoken the words 'All right my luv, down the court up the road, second door on the right, give me a bit of time to get ready, just come straight in.
She walked back to her room , took off her boots, and undressed down to her chemise, the bedroll was already rolled, because Mary had been up some time, even the bolster[ sorry Jane[ was placed on the table,[ used as a draught excluder, from either the door, or the window]
My scenerio is as Mjk sat on the bed , she was about to pull off her left stocking ,when the door opened, and as she twisted her body to dangle that item over the bed roll, she was attacked without warning.
This morning scenerio explains a lot, and gives a explanation why the police had Caroline Maxwell give evidence at the inquest , even if it went against their own doctors medical reports.
Mary was awoken by Catherine pickett at 730am , after she banged her door, she got out of bed , lit the fire with the little fuel she may have had, and rolled up her bedroll.
The killer kept the fire going by burning several garments in the room.
Why if it was daylight?
To give the impression that it was a night murder, the police would see a woman on her bed , her clothes draped, her boots by the fire, and to all intent and purposes the woman appeared to have been killed many hours before.
Mayby the killer had a night alibi?
Regards Richard.

[Rubyretro]

I would say though, just logically, that he'd killed all of the other victims whilst they were lying down, so he would have been much more familiar with that technique and he never had any trouble killing the other victims whilst they were on the ground, so why would he have a job with Mary?

I've never killed anyone -but I have been a sheep farmer in my life and have been called upon to dispatch the odd sheep (they were organic & free range).

I can assure you that a large lamb of 40kg (to my 55-60 at the time) is difficult -see the beginning of the Ken Loach film, 'Raining Stones' if you want an illustration.

The method (if you don't have the stamina to run after it), is to trick it into an enclosed space and then immobilise it by getting it on the ground..
(I would sit on it !).

[Chava]

The suggestion has always been that he attacked while the victim was upright--often strangling first. Then cutting possibly while the victim was comatose or near death on the ground. The arterial spirt in Chapman's case is very slight considering the circumstances of the body, and she may well have been near to death before he took a knife to her.

If I were to attack someone I would definitely do it from behind while the victim is standing. Grab the neck and pull it up with one hand, slash with the other; or grab the victim's neckerchief and yank really hard. Almost impossible to defend yourself in those circumstances. Then lower the victim down to the ground and have 'fun'. Killing a supine sleeping victim from behind her on the bed is much harder than one might think. For a start, how do you sleep on your side? Do you lie in a straight line with your upper hand along your body? Or do you pull your shoulder over and lie your shoulder, arm and hand forward on the bed which will allow you some balance in that position? If the latter--and I humbly submit that this is how people do sleep on their side--it would be beyond hard to get at a woman's neck to strangle her or slash her without disturbing her sleep and risking her fighting back. Add to that your own precarious position on the bed and I would argue that the killing-rom-behind-while-both-supine-on-the-bed theory holds no water at all. He could well have knelt behind her, pulled her up, and slashed her that way. I think he did. But he's still in bed with her choose how. And I don't see the Ripper allowing things to get that far before his kill.

As for the firelight theory, I'm sorry but I disagree. She may be visible 'sleeping' in the bed, but the watcher can't be sure she actually is asleep enough for him to come in on her even if she is snoring (and if she snores enough to be heard from across the room, she snores enough for Prater to report hearing it. And she doesn't). It's extremely unlikely he got in through the window. 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. One mistake as he balances across a broken piece of glass to draw that lock back, and he is caught.

[Rubyretro]

Remember, he was supposed to be dead broke.....of course he could have
lied about that too!

He might have been broke because he'd spent all his money on drink, of course !

Let's just say that I have no firm conviction on whether he was drunk or not -I was just trying to demonstrate to Garry that he could have been and that would explain why he didn't 'notice' how drunk Mary was.

As to what a 'drunk' would be capable of -there are examples in the papers every day. One that stood out for me was of a woman who was arrested at the ferry for having an unbelievable quantity of alcohol in her -turned out that she'd driven from Scotland whilst swilling neat vodka behind the wheel
during her trip -THAT takes alot of concentration;

I've worked as a painter on a building site here (yes, I've done alot of things) and seen the workmen drink pastis from 11H30 and then red wine with lunch, (all illegal), and do complicated calculations and move heavy bits of stone into place in dangerous & delicate situations..and the work looks perfect afterwards.

I havean open mind on this ...

[GregBaron]

Mjk..........

Well Ruby, GH certainly had a good eye for detail while drunk....
doesn't seem likely to me....perhaps he had a buzz or was a bit tipsy
but that's quite different than slurry, blurry, wobbly drunk...
Remember, he was supposed to be dead broke.....of course he could have
lied about that too!
I believe others described Mary as drunk which is usually recognizable
even by the tipsy....

As to Mary's demise, I imagine she could have been lying flat like
the others may have been and if the intial cut is on the side of the
wall the pressured blood may spew in that direction even if she wasn't
facing it...then the blood could also rush out of that side(her right)
onto the bed...either that or she was lying on her side when he pulled
her head back and slit across her throat....by the way, both of these
scenarios appear to me to be the work of a left hander whereas it seems
to me Chapman was the work of a right hander...hmmm....I may be trashing
my own belief that MJK was the Ripper's work....Oh I know, he was ambidextrous, why not?

There's been some discussion of throat slicing techniques on other threads
and of course few agree.............

I do agree that we can't really determine if someone snuck in on a passed
out Mary or a punter took his time as she passed out after their rendezvous...


Greg

[Rubyretro]

It's possible she might just have liked sleeping on that side of the bed. If she was used to sharing it with Joe, then that might have been 'her side' of the bed -- and probably was, if Joe had to get up to go out to work at an early hour of the morning. He wouldn't want to have to scramble over Mary to get out of bed. I think most married couples have 'their side of the bed' and stick to it out of habit, even if their partner isn't there.

That is just so true !!

I'm typing this in my bedroom, and behind me is my spacious double bed :
my husband is away during the week at the moment, and I am looking at all the pillows squashed over to 'my' side.

Of course we sleep on the side which is practical for the morning..

[Rubyretro]

It was likely dying down because she wouldn't have been able to afford the coal to keep it going for long. I remember coal fires. They don't shed a lot of light when they are turning to ash as this one would have been.

Chava-I use both wood and coal to heat my downstairs all winter.

I never said that the fire was blazing, and I too imagine it very low & glowing.

That's enough to make out dark grey shapes, and you can see that someone isn't moving, is prone, and well generally -asleep.

Let's say that with a broken window you can here sleep-noises (if not heavy snoring).

I feel fairly confident that with that tiny room, I could make a good judgement, from the window, as to whether Mary was asleep.

[Rubyretro]

I think that there's some really intersting things coming out in this thread now!
(and not least, how we girls look at personal experience when judging the veracity of the detail and men look at an overall 'big picture' : I think that it's the same with artists -but that's another story).

So..
Gary

. Or are we to believe that the hyper-observant Hutchinson was able to recollect the microdetail of Kelly's punter but failed to notice that Kelly herself was drunk to the point of near-incoherence?

I had reason to mull over this point at the weekend, because I was at a big party where lots of people had been drinking.

I think that the point is whether Hutch had been drinking himself.
I was sober myself at the party, but when I discussed the details of the evening with my husband and some girlfriends, I saw that they were totally incapable of objectively judging whether someone they had chatted with was p***ed or not -because they had been totally rat-arsed themselves at the time.

Also, it's amazing to see how someone who appears paralytic one moment, can rally and seem much more sober the next....I think that the cliché 'drink yourself back sober' has a veneer of truth.

I'm really beginning to ask myself if JtR didn't commit his crimes whilst on a bender (I think that substance abuse can have a role in the functioning of serial killers).

If both Mary & Hutch were both used to drinking alcohol, and both 'under the influence' that night, then I don't think it incredible that he didn't think it important to notice just how drunk she was -he might have been concentrating alot on himself getting his sentances straight-she might have made an effort to seem sober when talking to him-they might have fooled each other.

[Jane Coram]

Hi Chava,

Well, I'm not so sure it would have been easier to kill her standing up. Hopefully there is someone on here that knows a bit more about how to kill people than I do.

I can see a few problems with cutting someone's throat standing up from an amateur point of view, but I'm obviously just guessing.

I should have thought that the arterial spray would have gone everywhere if the victim were standing up. Lying down the spray could be directed into the ground, or in Mary's case the wall so that the blood spray was restricted.

The victim's head would fall backwards with nothing to hold it in place if the throat was cut that severely, causing even more blood spillage on the killer.

The dead weight would literally be a real beggar to move without getting blood all over him.

I could well be wrong on all counts.

I would say though, just logically, that he'd killed all of the other victims whilst they were lying down, so he would have been much more familiar with that technique and he never had any trouble killing the other victims whilst they were on the ground, so why would he have a job with Mary?

Her estimated height was 5' 7" btw.

Now we just need someone that knows about cutting people's throats to set us straight. You're going to tell me you are a trained SAS assasin now aren't you? Lol.

Much love

Janie

xxxx

[Chava]

I agree with everything you say, Jane. However it still would have been easier and more efficient to kill her from behind while she was standing rather than to kill her from behind while she is lying down. Much, much easier to control the victim, catch her by surprise and control the knife slash. The only way he waits until she is lying down is if he's shorter than her. And that would be a valid reason to wait. How tall was MJK again? I seem to recall 5'6" but I'm not sure...

[Jane Coram]

Hi All,

I don't think there can be much question that Mary was killed whilst she was lying on the bed, facing the wall, (at least to some extent) and fairly close to it, from what Bond says in his report to the Home Office.

'. . . arterial blood was found on the wall in splashes close to where the woman's head must have been lying.'

I don't know if it's possible to say if her killer actually got into bed with her, or even if she was expecting him to because there just isn't enough to go on really.

It's possible she might just have liked sleeping on that side of the bed. If she was used to sharing it with Joe, then that might have been 'her side' of the bed -- and probably was, if Joe had to get up to go out to work at an early hour of the morning. He wouldn't want to have to scramble over Mary to get out of bed. I think most married couples have 'their side of the bed' and stick to it out of habit, even if their partner isn't there.

Having said that, there's no reason at all I can see why she couldn't have got into bed and moved to that side because she had a customer with her.
So six to one and half a dozen to the other really.

A few things though -- The item of clothing that Mary was wearing the night she was killed was a chemise and not a nightgown. Dr Phillips states in his inquest testimony that it was 'her linen undergarment', which seems to suggest it might have been her one and only undergarment.

In her drunken state, I think she got the top layers off and just slumped on the bed. In the newspaper sketch mentioned, her boots do look as if they are lying where they fell, and her clothes really are more or less dangling over the chair in a real old heap -- so I'd guess she just chucked them anywhere because she was so drunk.

I personally don't think that her killer broke in for the reasons already given. I think she either let him in, or she had left the door on the latch and he simply walked in. I honestly don't think it's possible to say if she knew him or not.

There is a possibility that Mary was aware of what was happening to her and put up some sort of a struggle, as there were what might be defensive wounds on her arms and hands, although Bond states that he believes there was no struggle by any of the victims, which presumably includes Mary. He does say though that the corner of the sheet may have been over her face at the time of the attack. It has to be possible though that it was just dangling over the edge of the bed onto the floor and was trailing in the pool of blood.

Best guess I can make is that she was lying on the far side of the bed, leaning towards the wall, half dozing and very drunk. She may or may not have been expecting anyone to join her. Her killer knelt on the bed, knife in hand and cut her throat before she had much chance to realise what was going on. She may have put her hands up to feebly defend herself. Obviously because knife tip went in on the right side of her neck, the spray hit the wall and the blood poured down onto the floor. Then her killer rolled her over to perform the mutilations, moving her further into the middle of the bed for easier access. Basically, I don't think anyone can do more than hazard a guess at what happened that night, because there just isn't enough to go on!


Just a thought to leave you with. Why was the bedding rolled up neatly at the end of the bed, and why is there something white draped over it that looks very much like stocking. That should cause a bit more thinking.

Hugs

Janie

xxxxx

[Chava]

That's the point. She was drunk and vulnerable as hell. So why did he wait until she was in the bed to kill her? Because she was definitely killed in that bed. And, pace Kensei, she was killed on the far right side of it. That is where the large blood pool was. There wouldn't have been nearly so much blood during the mutilations because she'd basically bled out after death.

The Ripper appears to have killed very quickly after meeting his victim. Probably at the first opportunity he had. MJK would have given him a lot of opportunities long before she made it to the bed. Let's suppose he knocks on the door while she's in her nightgown and she lets him in. He could kill her quickly and quietly the first time she turns her back on him. But he waits until she's all tucked-up in bed.

I've got to say here that I totally discount the idea that the killer crept in on her while she wa sleeping. first off, there is no evidence to suggest that fire was blazing while she was in bed alone. It was likely dying down because she wouldn't have been able to afford the coal to keep it going for long. I remember coal fires. They don't shed a lot of light when they are turning to ash as this one would have been. So the killer would not have been able to look through the window and see her condition. And even if he could, all he would have noted would have been a sleeping woman. If he tries to break in on her, and she is just dozing, or she's a light sleeper, she screams her head off, people come running, and he's caught with a bloody great knife trying to break into a prostitute's room. I wouldn't fancy his chances in that scenario with a bunch of prostitutes all round him. Our Boy is brighter than that.

He went into her room because she let him in. After that door is closed he can kill her at any time he wishes. But he waits until she (and, I believe, he) are both in bed. There's a reason for that.

[Garry Wroe]

Therein lies the problem, Kensei. You argue on the one hand that Kelly was killed by the Jewish-looking pick-up, then assert on the other that she was drunk. But the one and only source we have for the Jewish-looking pick-up is Hutchinson - and Hutchinson claimed that Kelly was sober when he encountered her. Or are we to believe that the hyper-observant Hutchinson was able to recollect the microdetail of Kelly's punter but failed to notice that Kelly herself was drunk to the point of near-incoherence?

As for the substance of Chava's original post, this is a sequence of events that I examined in some detail in my book. Suffice to say, I think it unlikely that Kelly was in a prone position when she was killed. The arterial blood-spray pattern on the partition wall, for example, is almost identical to that which was discovered on the Hanbury Street boundary fence - and we may be relatively certain that Annie Chapman was lying in a supine position when her throat was cut.

Regards.

Garry Wroe.

[kensei]

I just wanted to reiterate here that I think that how drunk Mary Jane was is of key importance in understanding what happened. Inhibitions are lowered, reason goes out the window, and one is much more easily influenced when in that state. Her actions in such a condition do not need to make sense to us. I think she brought two complete strangers to her room that night and that even if she had lived she would have had only fuzzy memories of either of them, at best.