Those letters

[lynn cates]

a hope

Hello Ms W. Thanks. Yes--or in a musty archive.

Cheers.
LC

[MsWeatherwax]

I sincerely hope you're right.

Who knows, the answer could be sitting in a box of papers in the attic of someone who has no idea of their significance.

[lynn cates]

optimistic

Hello Ms W. Thanks.

"It does feel very much like she's lost to time. It would be lovely to think that with so many fantastic researchers out there, that one day her identity can be confirmed, but it looks highly unlikely, doesn't it?"

That's a tad pessimistic for me. Hopefully, we'll find her--once we look in the right place.

Cheers.
LC

[MsWeatherwax]

Hello Ms W. Thanks. (Not sure if I've welcomed you to the boards yet. Please consider that done.)

I dismiss most of the "MJK" identification stories in light of the news cutting ("The Echo" I think. Perhaps "Lloyds") in which "Mary" was as big a question mark then as she is now. Literally, not a trace of her origins.

Cheers.
LC

Thanks for the welcome, Lynn.

It does feel very much like she's lost to time. It would be lovely to think that with so many fantastic researchers out there, that one day her identity can be confirmed, but it looks highly unlikely, doesn't it?

[Michael W Richards]

The ashes in the grate at Millers Court were possibly first searched on Friday while the body was in the room, then subsequent to the long autopsy early Saturday morning, Phillips, Macdonald, Bond, Abberline, Moore and Reid all returned in the afternoon, this time to sift the ashes.
The press conjectured they were looking for remains of organs due to the body being found incomplete after the autopsy.


The investigation made by the doctors yesterday was not the final one, mainly because the room was ill-adapted for the purpose of carrying out a complete autopsy. The post-mortem examination-in-chief was only commenced this morning, at the early hour of half-past seven, when Dr. Phillips, Dr. Bond, Dr. Hibbert, and other experts attended. Some portions of the body are missing, and, says an Echo reporter, writing at two o'clock this afternoon, Dr. Phillips and Dr. Bond, accompanied by Inspector Moor, Inspector Abberline, and Inspector Reid, are again paying a visit to Miller's-court, in order to examine the ashes found in the grate, as it is thought small parts of the body may have been burnt.
Echo, 10 Nov. 1888.

Regards, Jon S.

Hi Jon,

The press conjecture aside....since its meaningless,.... there are reports that stated Abberline and his small group, which included Reid and Godley and a Pearce, were sieving ashes Saturday morning....ergo, as the autopsy was being performed. So no looking for traces of organs which would certainly have been found Friday afternoon anyway.

I believe what the Inspectors return to the room suggests is that he believed that minute fragments of something might still be found there and be used later as evidence. Such as ...letter fragments, stamps, money. Although its not mentioned, nor would it have been, its possible that the Post Office Robbery the night of the Double Event allowed the burglars to obtain the plates used to print paper currency for HMG. Its a fact that their manufacture of paper currency was not centralized as it is today, and currency plates were shipped around the realm to allow local printing of money. Maybe that why a Senior Post Office Official showed up in Millers Court Monday morning. Withe RIC and a member of parliament.

A stamp, or money, has many identifiable characteristics..even when one only has a very small piece of them to examine.

Sieving ashes is just what it suggests.....running the ashes through a sieve to filter out larger pieces of materials. The fact that nothing was obtained but a hat rim and a piece of fabric Friday afternoon just about dismisses the idea completely that anyone would believe re-sieving them Saturday morning would produce any human remains.

All the best

[lynn cates]

no trace

Hello Ms W. Thanks. (Not sure if I've welcomed you to the boards yet. Please consider that done.)

I dismiss most of the "MJK" identification stories in light of the news cutting ("The Echo" I think. Perhaps "Lloyds") in which "Mary" was as big a question mark then as she is now. Literally, not a trace of her origins.

Cheers.
LC

[MsWeatherwax]

Hello Ms W.

"surely for her brother to be located, there must have been some truth to the story she told people about her back story?"

If the story is correct, yes. Put please to recall that there was a story in the papers in which her family were in London at the time.

The papers fired many blanks about "MJK."

Cheers.
LC

Thank you for responding, Lynn. I thought it sounded a bit too good to be true! What a pity...poor Mary. It's so sad that (probably) all we'll ever know of her are the awful photographs taken after her murder.

[Wickerman]

The ashes in the grate at Millers Court were possibly first searched on Friday while the body was in the room, then subsequent to the long autopsy early Saturday morning, Phillips, Macdonald, Bond, Abberline, Moore and Reid all returned in the afternoon, this time to sift the ashes.
The press conjectured they were looking for remains of organs due to the body being found incomplete after the autopsy.


The investigation made by the doctors yesterday was not the final one, mainly because the room was ill-adapted for the purpose of carrying out a complete autopsy. The post-mortem examination-in-chief was only commenced this morning, at the early hour of half-past seven, when Dr. Phillips, Dr. Bond, Dr. Hibbert, and other experts attended. Some portions of the body are missing, and, says an Echo reporter, writing at two o'clock this afternoon, Dr. Phillips and Dr. Bond, accompanied by Inspector Moor, Inspector Abberline, and Inspector Reid, are again paying a visit to Miller's-court, in order to examine the ashes found in the grate, as it is thought small parts of the body may have been burnt.
Echo, 10 Nov. 1888.

Regards, Jon S.

[Michael W Richards]

[QUOTE=Edward;249257]Hello All -

I was always under the impression that they were looking for traces of something they thought the killer had burned.

Perhaps they were looking for post marks of (possibly) burned letters? I seem to recall that some postal officials were present during the second visit by detectives.

Edward

Hi Edward, Rivkah,

Since both you and Rivkah referred to this point I thought Id address the comments together.

The ashes in the fireplace were searched Friday afternoon, they were noted as "warm" and in them were found a hat rim and a piece of fabric, velvet I believe. They were sieved. Nothing of substance was reported as found. Why then would Abberline spend valuable investigative time re-sieving ashes that had been shown to be bereft of value Saturday morning? He would have had to remove the boarded up door or windows to enter the room.

I believe it may be for a reason Edward mentions. The visit at the height of the crowds Monday morning to Mary Kellys murder scene by a member of parliament, some Royal Irish Constabularies, and a Senior Post Office official.

Whether they arrived together, or shared a common objective isnt clear. But a suggestive mix of officials at a time when just policing the street would have been difficult.

Best regards

[Edward]

Post Marks?

Hello All -

[QUOTE=RivkahChaya;249255]I was always under the impression that they were looking for traces of something they thought the killer had burned.

Perhaps they were looking for post marks of (possibly) burned letters? I seem to recall that some postal officials were present during the second visit by detectives.

Edward

[Edward]

Speech Impedment

Hello all -

The idea that MJK had a speech impediment seems to have been started by this newspaper report:

Evening News
London, U.K.
10 November 1888

"Mrs. Caroline Mapwell,(sic) of 14 Dorset street, the wife of a night watchman at Commercial Chambers, a common lodging house able to shelter 244 persons, and which is opposite the scene of the murder, said: "I have known the murdered woman well for the past six months. This (Friday) morning, as near as possible about half past eight, I saw Mary Jane (the murdered woman) standing outside the court. I said, "What brings you out so early, Mary Jane," and she answered, "I feel very queer. I cannot sleep. I have the horrors of the drink on me, as I have been drinking this last day or two." I said, "Well, I pity you, " and passed on. I then went to Bishopsgate; and on my return, just after nine o'clock, I saw Mary Jane talking to a man at the end of the street. Who he was I do not know. He was a short, stout man, about fifty years of age. I did not notice what he had on, but I saw that he wore a kind of plaid coat. I then went indoors to go to bed, as I had been on duty all night. Mary Jane (I only know her by that name) was a pleasant little woman, rather stout, fair complexion, and rather pale. I should say her age was be about 23. I had no idea she was an unfortunate, for I never saw her with any one, nor have I ever seen her drunk. She was a very quiet young woman, and had been in the neighbourhood about two years. She spoke with a kind of impediment. She belonged, I think, to Limerick, and had evidently been well connected."

Here's a thread that previously discussed speech impedimemt.

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=3409

Best Regards,
Edward

[RivkahChaya]

Inspector Abberline and the small group of men assigned to him to conduct interviews returned Saturday morning to Marys room, to re-sieve the ashes in the fireplace.

Its unknown whether they were looking for minute traces of physical evidence related to the murder, or something else that they expected to find in that room. Mary something that they believed Mary was in possession of.

Cheers Jon

I was always under the impression that they were looking for traces of something they thought the killer had burned. The fire had been hot enough to melt solder-- which isn't as hot as it sounds, if you are thinking of it being hot enough to melt iron, but it's still hotter than a fire would normally get, unless the kettle fell over, and was lying in the flames. What probably happened was just that the flames were very high, and got as high as the spout, when they normally wouldn't even be as high as the bottom of the kettle. They were looking for traces of whatever the killer wanted to destroy enough that he super-heated the room, or they were looking for traces of some kind of fuel other than wood or coal, that might be unusual enough to give them a lead.

Maybe that's wrong, though. But I'm pretty sure what made them focus in on the fireplace was the fact that someone had made a pretty big fire-- although, I'm not sure how they'd know the spout solder was melted that night, unless it was lying in the ash in such a way that it was obvious.

[RivkahChaya]

I know I keep saying this (on various threads) but has any comment been made in any witness statements tha MJK had an accent? It is said that she had been in London a few years, but surely if she had been raised in Ireland or Wales she would have had an accent? If she was raised by Irish parents, partly in Ireland and partly in Wales she would definitely have had at least a trace of an Irish accent with perhaps some Welsh overtones.

But it's her family surroundings, i.e. the people she was around most of the time, that would have the biggest influence on how she talked, not the place they moved to. Thus her growing up with a fairly standard Irish accent seems likely to me.

I can answer this, because my mother is a dialectologist. Children are much more influenced by the larger community, than they are by their parents, in the way they pronounce words. They pick up their parents pronunciation only if they are isolated (such as when their parents speak a different language to them than the larger community).

If Mary moved to Wales before she was six or so, and stayed there until she was an adult, and particularly if she went to some kind of public school there for a few years, she would speak with a Welsh accent. The exception would be if the place where she lived was mostly non-English speaking, and she spoke English only at home with parents who spoke with Irish accents. It's my understanding that schools in Wales educated only in English then, though.

It seems that quite a lot of people in Whitechapel were transplants, so maybe someone with an Welsh or Irish accent wasn't all that remarkable. Speaking Welsh, on the other hand, was, and that was, in fact, remarked on.

Hello All. If I recall properly, there was a story going about that MJK had a slight speech impediment. For a while, it was argued by some that this was a misreport of her accent.

I recall reading that she had ill-fitting, false front teeth. That will cause a sort of speech impediment-- there's a term for mispronunciations that are the result of dental work or tooth loss, as opposed to a primary speech pathology, but I can't remember it right now, and my mother's phone is busy. Anyway, if she really did have ill-fitting, false teeth, I'd be surprised if she didn't had trouble pronouncing some sounds.

[Cogidubnus]

Romantic invention?

I can't really see that anything MJK possessed would be of much interest to a brother in the army...and I can't really see John McCarthy spending much to post it off to him either...thus I think the account evidently handed down through the McCarthys to the Kendalls may be a little fanciful...

After all, a few clothes and personal effects, (vide the possessions of the other canonical victims), presumably largely blood-spattered...what would they be worth to anyone?

I suspect what the police didn't take was eventually ditched...sure there's no proof of it, but I think it's likely.

All the best

Dave

[Michael W Richards]

Someone did ask what became of her possessions, and where would the police send them?
I don't recall that specific quote offered above.

Regards, Jon S.

Hi Jon,

Interesting question, and since many dont seem to realize this judging by their posts, we do not know what possessions Mary actually had and if they were all in that room with her. Oddly, the items that Maria brought in to the room are itemized, ....and the records that supposedly itemized Marys belongings are some of the lost, stolen or discarded records.

Whenever a key question arises it seems that mention of missing records does as well.

Inspector Abberline and the small group of men assigned to him to conduct interviews returned Saturday morning to Marys room, to re-sieve the ashes in the fireplace.

Its unknown whether they were looking for minute traces of physical evidence related to the murder, or something else that they expected to find in that room. Mary something that they believed Mary was in possession of.

Cheers Jon