MJK 1 Colour version - WARNING - GRAPHIC IMAGE

[Phil Carter]

Hello John,

Whilst I am one of those who can be regarded as "different" in my interpretations of some things, as Steve himself knows, it must be pointed out that Jane Coram has WORKED in the genre of forensic reconstruction for decades, before she retired. I do not think her paintings claim to be of that genre, but an extension from it, an artistic extension if you will. Also, and more importantly, some of those paintings are her enlivening the known sketches of persons involved from newspaper articles etc. She enterprets the living images of the people who were once alive from what we have. She brings to life a name, a real person. That is not forensic reconstruction per se. Jane Coram has never, as far as I am aware, made those those claims either. Her words here were..

"...I did it because these women were living, breathing women, with lives and families, who should be remembered as they were in life as well as in death."

I believe a private pm or email to Jane Coram may be the order of the day, as well as the apology which you have again given in open forum...which is to your credit. I respectfully ask you to consider the former action as well.
Describing someone's words as the "biggest pile" has to be countered with pretty damning factual evidence. It has caused much stir, to those whom Jane Coram is a dear friend and acknowledged expert in her field. She is also a "diamond" in a field of rocks. I suggest you get to know the lady. She is second to none. Period.

best wishes

Phil

[sgh]

What I mean by doesn't prove a thing is just that. doesn't prove to me she did any legitimate forensic studies. It just shows she is a terrific artist and I totally appreciate that. Not trying to be insulting to her, just stating my obnoxious opinion. But I will move on as not to upset anyone.

Yes John, move on if you say so, but before you go you owe my good friends a proper apology for the disgraceful words and accusations you have written here.

Jane is one of the most well respected honest and decent researchers there is.

Steve

[Steven Russell]

John

"The proof is in the pudding". No it isn't. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Are you by any chance a football manager?

Steve.

[John Winsett]

What I mean by doesn't prove a thing is just that. doesn't prove to me she did any legitimate forensic studies. It just shows she is a terrific artist and I totally appreciate that. Not trying to be insulting to her, just stating my obnoxious opinion. But I will move on as not to upset anyone.

[John Winsett]

Hello Archaic,
I would love it if anyone would be able to bring something new to the table. I think, again, that I didn't express my self correctly and don't want to be obnoxious.
I won't belabor the point but digging up MJK and doing a forensic sculpture would add to our understanding of this killer. why did he select her? Was there something about her that he saw? was she similar in looks to the rest? There are always good reasons for wanting to know all about the victims.
What I can't understand is why people are so busy painting her corpse and not tracking down her family! I truly believe there is an image of her out there in some old photo album waiting to be discovered. If I could spend my energy doing that instead of wasting time at work posting this I would. Coloring these pics and doing facial reconstructions based on these photos are at best complete interpretation and will never come close to being accurate. As Ms. Coram said on her thread with her MJK pics; it's 90 percent guesswork when doing a pic of MJK, and as beautiful an artist as Ms. Coram is I don't take any of her pics as nothing more than interpretations of the events and they really add nothing of evidentiary value to this case.
So I will leave it at that and again I apologize to Ms. Coram as I did find her work very nice. I may not see it as forensic reconstructions as some of you but they are good and she is very talented.

[Archaic]

Hello John. Thank you for apologizing to Jane.

But I'm really not sure what your next sentence with the phrase "doesn't prove a thing" means.

Surely you are not again accusing her of misrepresenting her professional credentials?

Best regards,
Archaic

[John Winsett]

My apologies to Jane

Thanks Stephen, Jane my apologies. Your pics were very nice. Doesn't prove a thing but nice. I liked them alot.

[Archaic]

The fact of the matter is people, including myself, are fascinated by MJK because we don't know what she looks like...

I find it extremely strange that someone would take this pic, and with probably no real expertise in forensic reconstruction try to reproduce it in color, or piece together the face.

There's no evidentiary point to it because it's not accurate and will never be accurate.

I would very much like to see MJK exhumed and a forensic sculptor rebuild her face...

John, I find your last post highly offensive. My good friend Jane Coram has a very long and distinguished career in Ripperology and a sterling reputation- how dare you accuse her of lying about her credentials?? You insulted Jane in public and you owe her a public apology. Every single poster on this thread has responded courteously to you and have done their best to answer any points you raised, yet you have replied in a truly obnoxious manner with both collective and individual insults.

You are also completely wrong if you think that people on this forum are obsessed with how Mary might have looked in life. The people who have attempted to reconstruct Mary's facial features have done so because her killer deliberately ravaged Mary's face and body in a loathsome and perverted effort to destroy her identity, humanity, individuality, and womanhood.
Murderers often destroy personal features in an effort to utterly "dehumanize" their victim, and forensic reconstructionists labor to restore those personal features with as much accuracy as possible in order to help restore the victim's identity and human dignity. It's part of the effort to restore the unique personhood of the victim, as is researching the details of Mary's short life. You have NO right to cast aspersions upon these people simply because YOU fail to understand their true motives.

Frankly, your bizarre statements have only led me to wonder about your own motives for being on this thread and for belonging to this forum. If the rest of us wished to emulate you, perhaps we could speculate that you are engaging in what psychologists term 'transference', and merely ascribing to others your own low motives?

Your statement "I would very much like to see MJK exhumed and a forensic sculptor rebuild her face" utterly sickened me. You would like to see a human grave disturbed because YOU "would very much like" to see her face reconstructed??? Not only is that SICK, it betrays YOUR OWN prurient interest in this matter. Thank God no judge in the world would consent to the violation of a human grave based upon the personal "likes" of a person such as yourself.
Photographic reconstruction is a completely non-invasive procedure that can be updated and improved as photographic methods advance. Disturbing a grave and disinterring a body is the height of invasiveness. Your logic in this matter is sadly flawed.

And by the way, disinterring the body of Mary Kelly in order to attempt to rebuild her facial features is an endeavor entirely devoid of what you term "evidentiary value", which is another reason why it would never be permitted by a court of law. Disturbing Mary's 122-year-old grave in order to attempt to physically reconstruct Mary's facial features will never constitute "evidence" in this case; how could it?? Even if Mary's skull was still intact, no results we could obtain would justify such wanton desecration. Do you think if we can see her face we can somehow identify her killer? Flawed reasoning again.

Disturbing the sanctity of Mary's grave after 122 years and disinterring whatever might be left of her poor bones won't lead us to a better understanding of her killer's sick motives, but analyzing the crime scene photos taken on the very day of her death and examining the types of wounds inflicted upon her might.

John, I am in complete agreement with Steve, Ken, Jane, Phil, Jen, Loublin and Stephen on this matter, and so far not a single poster on this thread is in agreement with you. You have stated your personal opinions, and we have listened and responded courteously. For you to make further postings in the same vein would be both redundant and obnoxious. The polite and mature thing for you to do now is as others have suggested: find another thread whose content you prefer.

Or perhaps you could even exert yourself to do as many others do, and put in some personal time and effort in order to find some item of historical material worth contributing to this field of study- hopefully something that goes far beyond your own personal "likes" and "dislikes".

Best regards,
Archaic

[Loublin]

I personally found the picture helpful. To be honest I have always had difficulty identifying what that particular picture was of.

[Stephen Thomas]

that was about as big a pile as you could get. Really retired from forensics? from where? Proof is in the pudding. I'm not going to argue the inconsistencies of your remarks but come on. I always love the remark about if you can't handle it find another past time. Why? Because I disagree with this crap? and what victims have you taken a crayon to? I think you're full of it and don't know a thing about which you speak, and the people who, including myself, have such a vested interest in this case they can't see beyond their noses and let their egos in the way of common sense.
Retired from forensic reconstruction!

Try this, Mr Winsett

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=2757

And what's a past time?

[babybird67]

John

you may have an opinion about the worth and motivation behind work like Steve's and that is fair enough. I happen to disagree with you and have found Steve's work illuminating and helpful to me to understanding what happened to Mary. If you don't find the same benefit then you are welcome to ignore the postings and the pictures.

Attacking Jane's character is another matter as you have virtually accused her of lying. I am honoured to consider Jane a friend. Not only that I value her contributions to Casebook very much and consider her a person of talent and integrity.

Please, don't make comments about her which are derogatory without any cause. It really isn't nice.

Jen

[Phil Carter]

Hello John,

I must say that Jane Coram is a very distinguished artist.

You may find much to see though Casebook from her outstanding collection of oils and paintings.

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=2757

She also happens to be one of the kindest, most genuine and generous people on this entire website. She is also a genuine cockney, and of long cockney decent. She has also added great understanding and knowledge to many through her perception and knowledge. I think that of all people on here, she deserves great kudos and respect.

best wishes

Phil

best wishes

Phil

[John Winsett]

that was about as big a pile as you could get. Really retired from forensics? from where? Proof is in the pudding. I'm not going to argue the inconsistencies of your remarks but come on. I always love the remark about if you can't handle it find another past time. Why? Because I disagree with this crap? and what victims have you taken a crayon to? I think you're full of it and don't know a thing about which you speak, and the people who, including myself, have such a vested interest in this case they can't see beyond their noses and let their egos in the way of common sense.
Retired from forensic reconstruction!

With Warmest Regards,
John

[Jane Coram]

Hi John,

Well, as one of those who 'took a crayon' to try to reconstruct what the victims looked like - all of them by the way and not just Mary - I can tell you why I did it.

I did it because these women were living, breathing women, with lives and families, who should be remembered as they were in life as well as in death. I don't find anything in the least bit strange about that. The National Portrait Gallery has its halls full of dead people's portraits, including Charles I and several hundred, if not thousand people that met violent and tragic deaths. I don't think many people would consider viewing them unnatural.

As to Steve's work. I worked in forensic reconstruction for decades before I retired and can state quite categorically that Steve has not 'rearranged' or second guessed anything. What he's put above is an excellent piece of reconstruction (bearing in mind that it's a test run and might need some fine tuning) If I'd seen anything that didn't look quite right, I would have pointed it out, and I daresay so would almost everyone else that thought there might be a need for relooking at a certain part of it. I know Steve would be happy for any input that anyone wanted to give him. That's the point of a board like this, to get input from others, share research and get things right.

He took the trouble to put up the techniques he used to illustrate that he was not tampering with the image, but using methods that were totally non-invasive. Black and white or sepia photos can be coloured extremely accurately using black and tonal levels. It is not painted over using paint of any kind. It's a very sophisticated technique that needs great skill to execute, because the method actually converts the black and white image to colour using the tonal values, pixel by pixel.

Why do it? Investigative teams use photographic techniques all the time of crime scene photos to try and find clues that have been overlooked. It's standard practice. In this instance, Steve has brought out details that might make a lot of difference in working out how Mary died and if she did, in fact, have defense wounds on her lower arms, or if they were mutilations. Important stuff I'd say.

There may well be one or two ghouls around that like looking at the photos because they get their jollies from it, but the vast majority of people on these boards are sensible, serious researchers that just want to find out about the case for any number of valid reasons.

If you fit into neither of these groups, then maybe you should take up a different pastime!

Kind regards

Janie

[John Winsett]

I expected the responses...

Well, I think there is a misunderstanding and I probably should have expressed it a little more clearly. The pictures mentioned are gruesome and sad but I've seen alot worse so the idea that I get "grossed" out by them is overstated and incorrect.
I personally do find it strange that we are so fascinated by this case. It's over a hundred years old, there is really no way to find out who did it unless we get very lucky. But yet hundreds of books and dozens of video/movies are made about it, people do walks to crime scenes, and some people with too much money believe they can get meaningful DNA from remnants of letters, etc. If you don't find it at least unusual that we are hanging around this website then you may be a little off.
When I see this particular picture, which over the last 30 years is probably a hundred times, I think 1. how sick the person who did this was and I wished he would have gotten caught, and 2. That the only remaining evidence that MJK was a person are these sad pics. I don't think I ever once thought I needed to take a crayon to it, or do some sort of reconstructive surgery on her to do some half assed attempt to see who she really was.
The fact of the matter is people, including myself, are fascinated by MJK because we don't know what she looks like so we try to make her more real than this corpse. But I don't see anyone doing this for Eddowes. Why hasn't someone removed the stitches and cleaned her up? Because we kinda know what she looks like and there's no glory in that is there?
I find it extremely strange that someone would take this pic, and with probably no real expertise in forensic reconstruction try to reproduce it in color, or piece together the face. There's no evidentiary point to it because it's not accurate and will never be accurate. At best it's a mediocre interpretation and should not be viewed as correct and true to the real crime scene. I would very much like to see MJK exhumed and a forensic sculptor rebuild her face, but I doubt if she's even in the same grave anymore.
So if it bothers you that you're not getting a pat on the back from everybody for obsessionally coloring a dead woman, too bad. And if none of you realize how strange it is, then that's really sad isn't it mate?
Oh, and for those of you who asked me why I looked, it's because I wanted to read the reason why SGH did it, not the pic itself. If anything it makes the pic look less real, which is really a disservice to MJK. She was, after all, a real person.