Could MJK have survived Miller's Court

[Michael W Richards]

How many "identities" in the Ripper crimes have remained unknown after decades of vigorous searches by skilled and committed researchers of the existing records? How many have eluded all those sleuths?

After you fill in that blank, ask yourself why that might be.

2 of them are named in the Kelly murder investigation, a victim, and a "witness".

Cheers

[DVV]

Hi Jon
I like Mary Williams (and old sailor's tales).

[Wickerman]

Hello Jon.

"On balance there seems to be precious little left to argue with that Mary Kelly was not her real name."

Except that crack researchers like Debs and Chris cannot find a trace of this person. If, however, her records are located, I would agree.

Cheers.
LC

Hi Lynn.
Agreed, but that "apparent" fact is not sufficient reason to claim the name was false. What we "know" is always a temporary state of affairs.

Regards, Jon S.

[Jason]

have to make an admission here....when i saw this thread on the main forum menu, i actually thought someone was asking if "MJK could have survived her injuries with greater medical care".....in which case i would have to say "Probably not "....

[Michael W Richards]

Hi all,

I think we may have had one clue all along that has been either ignored or misinterpreted, the "oh-murder" near 4am. 2 witnesses were awake enough at the time to notice the cry and the volume of the call seems to be directly linked to the proximity to the witness. Sarah heard it "as if at the door", and Elizabeth heard it "as if from the court". Hence, we have a courtyard warbler.

I have an idea. Thats our accomplice. Thats the reason the pardon was issued. Because the evidence suggests that there was no more noise after that cry out, so, no attack commencement as many have simply assumed,...and the medical opinion has Marys death at an earlier time than 4am. So, it likely wasnt Mary that cried out "oh-murder". Not if Mary Kelly was the one found dead in the bed.

Likely a woman, by both witness accounts. In the courtyard at 4am. At the very least someone may have peeked in the window and received the shock of their life and kept silent about it later on...or perhaps someone was shown the scene and reacted accordingly. And in the company of a murderer or conspirator, she had to keep quiet.

Best regards

[lynn cates]

no trace

Hello Jon.

"On balance there seems to be precious little left to argue with that Mary Kelly was not her real name."

Except that crack researchers like Debs and Chris cannot find a trace of this person. If, however, her records are located, I would agree.

Cheers.
LC

[Wickerman]

Ah, but here are a couple of issues with that conclusion. Firstly, how do we know that she was really called Mary Kelly?

We do appear to have a selection of names to consider, however, if the stories offered up are true MJK was using Mary Kelly as her real name as far back as 2 years previous at Pennington St.

And, again, accepting the accuracy of the stories, her father, and brother?, came looking for her so they must have also known her as Mary Kelly in order to ask around to locate her. Likewise, if she was receiving and sending mail to her mother, the mail must have been addressed to a Mary Kelly.

On balance there seems to be precious little left to argue with that Mary Kelly was not her real name. Unless, her family was also party to this deception, which must be considered less than likely.

Lastly, if those stories are true that some of her family did travel to be at her funeral, it is unlikely that the police would not have met with them somewhere along the line. Therefore, if Mary Kelly was not her real name these family members would have no need to maintain the pretense.

Regards, Jon S.

[miakaal4]

If it was not Kelly it must have been someone on-one knew or cared about enough to make it known. For that reason alone I hope it was Kelly.
The trouble with witness statements is that you start to get a "chinese Whisper" effect as soon as one tells another. Were the witnesses sober at the crucial times? Did they have watches? Funny how many remember a clock bell going off somewhere. Someone must have seen the murderer of the woman in Millers Court. They just didn't know what he was.

[Michael W Richards]

I'm almost with you, Mike. I feel he came forward to insert a type of suspect - a type that encompassed all the sensational press details relating to the ripper's supposed appearance, and I believe there was a twofold purpose to this: to deflect suspicion away from himself and "legitimize" his loitering antics as seen by Sarah Lewis.

All the best,
Ben

That would be a supportable assumption Ben because we all know that a discovery of a foreign Jew as the killer would have been no surprise to many locals or the authorities.

Why I mentioned my train of thought was the eerie familiarity of the description to anyone who has read Fenian Fire and is aware of Millens overall appearance in many cases.

Let me ask you this.....if it was one day discovered that a connection of some kind existed between Mary Kelly and/or Joe Barnett and Irish self rule factions would you be surprised? Wouldnt that kind of answer check many things off the list of Questions to be Answered in this particular murder case?

Cheers mate.

[Ben]

I don't see it as a 'negative' option, necessarily. Just one option.

That's just it, Sally, and as unfortunate as it may be that the option in question just happens to be a "negative" one for Hutchinson, it is also an irrefutably reasonable one from a criminological perspective. I don't know why some think only in terms of "chosing" their favourite option. That's certainly not how I operate. I simply keep the credible proposals in consideration, and the premise that Hutchinson was responsible for Kelly's murder belongs in that category.

Hi Mike,

Good to see you here too!

We do not know if George was even a George let alone if he was where hye says he was, he is not by default, based on Sarah's story, Wideawake Hat Man.

It isn't definite, but highly probable to my mind given the sheer amount of correlation between his account and that of Lewis with regard to the loitering man. While I don't rule out the possibility that he consciously borrowed the "wideawake man" detail from Lewis' account without actually being there, I see little sense in falsely appropriating the identity of a suspicious figure loitering near the crime scene unless he was that loitering figure and wanted to give the impression that he was there for an innocent reason.

That reason may well have been innocent, but we only have it on Hutchinson's soon-to-be-discredited authority that it was, and unfortunately, indoor murders by strangers tend to be preceded by pre-crime surveillance of the type that the unidentified wideawake man was ostensibly engaging in at 2:30am.

Im beginning to feel that George came forward to insert a suspect, someone he wanted incarcerated.

I'm almost with you, Mike. I feel he came forward to insert a type of suspect - a type that encompassed all the sensational press details relating to the ripper's supposed appearance, and I believe there was a twofold purpose to this: to deflect suspicion away from himself and "legitimize" his loitering antics as seen by Sarah Lewis.

All the best,
Ben

[Wickerman]

Exactly. As I see it, we have three possibilities to explain a conflict in witness statements vs. coroner's estimation of time of death, and here in my opinion, is descending order of likeliness:

1) The TOD estimate is wrong, .....

We don't actually have an official one and that's a significant problem.

If you are referring to an estimate attributed to Dr. Phillips, that she had been dead some 5 or 6 hrs before he arrived (at 10:45 am), then her ToD should be approx. 4:45-5:45 am.
The cry of murder is given as early as 1:45 am. to as late as "a little after 4:00 am", and several times in-between.
Then we have Dr. Bond with his calculated(?) ToD between 1:00-2:00 am.

2) The witnesses were mistaken in day or person, or both.

Maxwell & Lewis, yes mistaken identity. Though I admit, that solution has its own problems.

3) The body was misidentified.

Not impossible but, unlikely and too controversial to be seriously entertained.

I consider 3 by far less likely than the other two, and that's mainly because MJK never turned up.

Brymbo Mary turned up in a 1891 census, but we don't know where she was between 1886 and 1891. So, if anyone seriously thinks MJK survived, Brymbo Mary as MJK is your best bet.
And, I'll leave that one alone...

Regards, Jon S.

[Michael W Richards]

Where is the evidence that the streets were "full" of people doing what Hutchinson was allegedly doing in the small hours of a miserable November night - i.e. fixating on the entrance to a court dwelling, watching and waiting for someone? I'm not sure how the man-with-bluetooth analogy is relevent. Surely you're not suggesting that bluetooth use is the modern day equivalent of loitering outside someone's house at night? The latter occurs today too, and in murder cases that involve a victim being killed by a stranger indoors (i.e. the victim of serial crime) you will often find that the perpetrator spent some time beforehand monitoring the scene from a discreet vantage point. We have it on the "authority" of Hutchinson himself that he was loitering outside Miller's Court for a different reason to the criminal one I've just outlined, but he could be lying. It's as simple as that, and the fact that he came forward three days after the murder, and apparently only after Lewis let it be known that she saw a man loitering near the crime scene shortly before the murder, only lends weight to that possibility.

Hi Ben,

Nice to see youre still around here on occasion.

I have one point to make on the above with you.....George Hutchinson said he was loitering watching the courtyard entrance, sarah Lewis said before George surfaced that she saw someone in a Wideawake loitering and watching the entrance to the court.

We do not know if George was even a George let alone if he was where hye says he was, he is not by default, based on Sarah's story, Wideawake Hat Man.

As weve discussed before, this GH fellow could easily have used the guise provided to him in Sarahs story.

Im beginning to feel that George came forward to insert a suspect, someone he wanted incarcerated. His description is almost a match for Millen, so GH could be an self rule Irishman attempting to remove a traitor to the cause, by virtue of Millen's double agent status.

Cheers Ben

[Sally]

HI Rivkah

MJK really was on the street in the early morning, and still dead by 10:45, with the beginnings of rigor at 1:30, the earliest anyone checked rigor.

Right. So she was killed and dismembered at length during a time when everyone was up and about, going about their daily business, McCarthy was likely in his shop, just across the way - and nobody saw, nor heard, a thing?

The witnesses were mistaken in day or person, or both.

More likely

The body was misidentified.

Not that likely.

I consider 3 by far less likely than the other two, and that's mainly because MJK never turned up. The idea that she was planning on escaping, had the means to do so, then a golden opportunity dropped in her lap, strikes me as so unlikely as to be absurd.

Ah, but here are a couple of issues with that conclusion. Firstly, how do we know that she was really called Mary Kelly? In truth, we still have no idea who she was. And secondly, if she was not the woman killed in her room, why would she come forward? In the circumstances, who wouldn't have felt safer simply disappearing - something that it was a lot easier to do then than it might be now.

Also, I was unaware until this thread that Bowyer was one of the people who identified that body. It wasn't in his own interests to misidentify the body as someone who owed him money, thereby cancelling the debt. If there was any chance this wasn't MJK, and the women who owed him money was still out there, you don't think he would have hesitated? He must have been pretty certain.

She owed McCarthy money. But yes, those who knew her and identified her seemed to think that it was her. We should probably accept their word for that - whoever she really was.

[RivkahChaya]

A dramatic climax to a ripping good yarn!

From a practical point of view, no, it must be among the least likely solutions being entertained.

Exactly. As I see it, we have three possibilities to explain a conflict in witness statements vs. coroner's estimation of time of death, and here in my opinion, is descending order of likeliness:

1) The TOD estimate is wrong, and the witness times are rough, with 10-15 minutes of play on either side, and even possibly off by an hour (8:00, not 9:00), in the case of Caroline Maxwell, although the last I rather doubt. I just think she was relying on a city clock, not a personal watch, and could have miscounted bells, or asked someone else the time, who miscounted, or misremembered.

MJK really was on the street in the early morning, and still dead by 10:45, with the beginnings of rigor at 1:30, the earliest anyone checked rigor.

2) The witnesses were mistaken in day or person, or both.

3) The body was misidentified.

I consider 3 by far less likely than the other two, and that's mainly because MJK never turned up. The idea that she was planning on escaping, had the means to do so, then a golden opportunity dropped in her lap, strikes me as so unlikely as to be absurd.

Also, I was unaware until this thread that Bowyer was one of the people who identified that body. It wasn't in his own interests to misidentify the body as someone who owed him money, thereby cancelling the debt. If there was any chance this wasn't MJK, and the women who owed him money was still out there, you don't think he would have hesitated? He must have been pretty certain.

[Wickerman]

The idea that the body found in the bed was anyone except the woman who roomed there is preposterous.

Paddy

A dramatic climax to a ripping good yarn!

From a practical point of view, no, it must be among the least likely solutions being entertained.

Regards, Jon S.