Could MJK have survived Miller's Court

[Debra A]

Hello Mike. Thanks.

Fleming certainly seems to have had a criminal record. So I don't think violence can be ruled out.

Cheers.
LC

Edward Joseph Fleming b c 1859, known all his life as Joseph Fleming and a shoemaker by trade was the one with the criminal record I believe. His Bethnal Green and Poplar workhouse records show him being received from prison and leaving to enter prison on a couple of occasions when younger.
I don't recall any criminal activity for Joseph Fleming alias James Evans, the asylum inmate, apart from when I once posted the details of a burglary I thought he was involved in but that was before I realised there were two men of the same age, using the same name and living in the same area. Is there some other criminal activity mentioned somewhere that I've missed the details of?

[lynn cates]

publish before I perish

Hello Debs. Thanks. I was referring to the one who was convicted at age 14 if I recall properly.

Think you'd better hurry and write a ripper book with your research. It could speed my references.

Cheers.
LC

[Debra A]

Hello Debs. Thanks. I was referring to the one who was convicted at age 14 if I recall properly.

Think you'd better hurry and write a ripper book with your research. It could speed my references.

Cheers.
LC

Hi Lynn. Then, yes, that's the burglary I posted the details of originally before I knew we had two men with similar details. As shoemaker Joseph Fleming was the one in prison quite a lot in a similar timeframe and a similar age it seems more likely that particular convition also applied to him- to me anyway.

[lynn cates]

too bad

Hello Debs. Thanks. And since he is not a plasterer. . .

Pity.

Cheers.
LC

[Michael W Richards]

Hi Lynn, Deb,

Im glad I mentioned Fleming because I hadnt read before that Fleming had any criminal history, nor that he was particularly aggressive when Institutionalized. Your exchanges were enlightening...thanks.

As I said, I believe some of the acts committed in room 13 were angry or enraged,...particularly the slashing her face. I think that kind of anger released through aggression could come from someone who "ill uses" women he is interested in.

Cheers

[Debra A]

Hi Lynn, Deb,

Im glad I mentioned Fleming because I hadnt read before that Fleming had any criminal history, nor that he was particularly aggressive when Institutionalized. Your exchanges were enlightening...thanks.

As I said, I believe some of the acts committed in room 13 were angry or enraged,...particularly the slashing her face. I think that kind of anger released through aggression could come from someone who "ill uses" women he is interested in.

Cheers

Hi Michael,
Basically there were two men using the name Joseph Fleming in the records, both of the same age and both with links to Bethnal Green.

Earlier this year I found asylum records that stated that the Joseph Fleming who used the alias James Evans and spent time in an asylum was the son of Richard and Henrietta Fleming.

The other man who called himself Joseph Fleming was a shoemaker by trade and lived on the Bethnal Green Rd at some point when he was a shoemakers apprentice. He spent most of his life in the workhouse, mainly Bethnal Green but occasionally Poplar and Strand.

It is this second Joseph who's workhouse records show he was in trouble with police quite a bit and at a young age. Therefore, I now believe this Joseph was also the 14 year old burglar , Joseph Fleming, subject of a newspaper report I posted a couple of years back.

I have not seen mentions of violence for either man.

[Michael W Richards]

Thanks very much for that information Deb, greatly appreciated.

I was thinking about this thread yesterday and trying to remember if Ive ever read of anyone searching for a Mary Jane Kelly from Ireland or Wales who died before 1888, and I cant recall seeing such a comment.

If she used the name of someone she knew of... perhaps it was someone who was dead? Maybe the backstory she gives is based upon snippets of stories she heard growing up in one of those 2 places. Maybe if we looked for a Mary Jane Kelly from the geographical areas that have been somewhat explored looking for our MJK, but one that was deceased sometime before what, 1870-75...?

I suppose what Im suggesting would have little merit overall, because finding someone by that name from the area our MJK was from is one thing, but Im suggesting that maybe she married a name she knew of with an actual history she creatively linked with that name.

Trying too hard?....

[RivkahChaya]

Probably. Maybe we should be looking in France for a real Marie Jeanette, whose details she stole. People she knew could have Anglicized the name out of habit, but when she called herself "Marie Jeanette," that may be the name of a real French woman she knew, someone who moved from one province to another where the dialect was different, and who was widowed young, and our MJK subbed in the names of British places, and occupations she was familiar with.

No, I don't really think that, but I think it's as likely as anything else, and if we can't find what we're looking for in small areas of search, once we've decided that what we are looking at is identify theft, maybe we should just widen the search area to any place we know or reasonably suppose MJK visited.

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
The solution lies deep in the heart of knowledge the police had in 1888, whether or not it remains lying dormant , is another matter.
The police knew who the dead woman was , but it has never been revealed , that is why researchers and historians , and Casebook, are running around like headless chickens .
Will the name ever surface , it should have been a simple task of tracing her army brother, which appears to have been a matter of fact in 1888, so why not now.?
Regards Richard.

[Tecs]

A young woman assuming the name of someone she knew might not even have been aware of the father's official name, knowing him only by the called name.

curious

True,

Also, strange as it sounds I only found out the name of my Grandfather a few years ago. He died the year before I was born and I've always known about him but always just as "Grandad", the one who I never met.

there was never any reason to discuss his real name and so for over 30 years I didn't know what it was.

I imagine that in the Victorian days with less records, itinerant existance etc, it could be very easy to know somebody or of somebody, but not know their real name.

regards,

[Tecs]

Be careful when you talk about odds; you are specifying an event after it has already happened. The odds are not so staggering for an event that has already transpired.

If you randomly select two people, and without looking at any of their personal details, say "What are the odds that X, Y and Z will match?" the odds are very slim. Now, if you say, "What are the odds that of all the information I have, three things will match?" the odds are not as slim, but still medium-low.

However, if you take someone, study their details, go looking for a match, find one, and then say "What are the odds I would find a match?" the odds are 100%, because you did. It's difficult to go back and calculate what they were before you looked, but remember, in the first two situations, your pool of matches is one. It the second, it is very large.

Yes,

has everyone ever seen that stat about how many people you need to have in a room before you meet someone with the same birthday as you? It's known as the Birthday problem or something similar. Obviously, with 367 people (don't forget 29th Feb!) there is 100% chance that two people have the same birthday. But you actually get 99% probability with only 57 and 50% with 23. Statistics can be weird.

I once thought that statistics might be able to show that George Chapman was the Ripper as he was a known serial killer living at the heart of the district. As serial killers are thankfully very rare, what are the chances that two (Chap and Jack) just happened to live within yards of each other? (Assuming JTR did live in the district) Surely it is much more probable to say that they must be one and the same? Maybe a statistical analysis comparing where serial killers operate and how many there are in one area at a time could show the chances of this? The spanner in that ideas works are that the Thames torso killer was also operating, so unless we say Chap was JTR and Torso killer (Which Michael Gordon does) the theory falls immediately!

So maybe we could look at the chances of three serial killers.......


Getting back to the point in hand, unless I've missed something surely several factors on the Brymbo Mary list couldn't be altered or be variables at all? Therefore they must either be lucky facts as opposed to lucky guesses, or wrong.

What I mean is, posing as a daughter (2 on the list) Well, as a woman she could hardly pose as a son?

Saying she was born around 1860. Again as a 25 year old (ish) she could hardly claim to be 54?

Coming from Ireland. Speaking with a pronounced Irish accent ditto above
etc.

I'm not sure how this fits in exactly apart from to say that some points on the list could be removed because they are just facts and not things that could be invented. The fact that they fit could tell us that the story is more likely to be true.

On the other hand, the other invented variables are the ones that need to be tested and these are where the story falls down. ie no need to mention anything about Wales or pit accidents so these are either true additions or made up parts. These happen to be the parts that we haven't found any trace of, so maybe it points to the story more likely being untrue?

regards,

[Bridewell]

I imagine that in the Victorian days with less records, itinerant existance etc, it could be very easy to know somebody or of somebody, but not know their real name.

And if MJK was the child of a family of Irish itinerants it would explain her complete absence, under that name, from the census records; perhaps also absence from birth records if her birth was never registered.

Regards, Bridewell.

[lynn cates]

available evidence

Hello Tecs.

"So maybe we could look at the chances of three serial killers......."

Indeed. Or, perhaps just the available evidence?

Cheers.
LC

[Wickerman]

On the other hand, the other invented variables are the ones that need to be tested and these are where the story falls down. ie no need to mention anything about Wales or pit accidents so these are either true additions or made up parts. These happen to be the parts that we haven't found any trace of, so maybe it points to the story more likely being untrue?

regards,

One of the best ways to maintain a lie, is to blend it with the truth.

The problem for latter-day researchers is where to draw the line.

Not locating a marriage to a Davies/Davis; not locating medical records of a stay in hospital in Cardiff; no name on a passenger list of a ship to France (has anybody looked?), may only mean we are looking under the wrong name.

All we can claim to be aware of is that she used the name "Marie Jeanette Kelly" from her days at Pennington St. onwards.

Regards, Jon S.

[Tecs]

Who said anything about dismissing witnesses? All I asked was:-
What reason is there to believe that the woman in Mary Kelly's bed was not Mary Kelly? Which woman went missing on the night that Kelly died and never re-appeared? Are you aware of one? If not, why not accept the likelihood that the occupant of the bed was Mary Kelly?


I don't dismiss Maxwell's story.

Isn't the more credible alternative version that Bond was wrong in his estimation of the time of death? It was, at best, an approximation. That seems (to me anyway) more likely than the substitute body scenario.


Regards, Bridewell.


Hi Bridewell,

So much agreement!

I agree that an incorrect estimate of T.O.D. is more likely but opens another can of worms, namely the Ripper veering from his usual M.O. and committing murder not only in broad daylight CF Chapman, but for a length of time through the morning and the morning of the Lord Mayor's show at that, when many, many people were sure to be up and about. The chances of being seen leaving No13 if he left at 10-11 AM must have been enourmous and Jack just didn't take risks like that.

Also, the witness stories through the night seem consistent. Cry of Murder at 4ish, someone leaving the court around 5:30 (I think off the top of my head) and the doctors observation that it would take around that sort of time, 90 minutes to dissect the body and the guess that T.O.D. was some time in the night/early hours. These simple points all suggest a straightforward scenario, but then there's that damn Maxwell and her evidence!

To answer your questions directly.

What reason is there to believe that the woman in Mary Kelly's bed was not Mary Kelly?

Only really that two witnessess said that they saw her at a time which means the time of death must have been wrong if the body was MJK. So not really a massive reason to think so, but as I've said before people have been hanged on the evidence of one witness so two people telling the same story have to be taken seriously. As we've pretty much agreed, the idea that they got the day wrong is ridiculous, so either they were lying, or the T.O.D. is wrong, if the body was MJK.

Which woman went missing on the night that Kelly died and never re-appeared?

I have no idea! All we know is that other women did use the room so it is not impossible that someone else was using the room on that fateful night as we know they did in the run up to the 9th. I imagine that many of the women were also unknowns, runaways, used aliases etc so if one of them went missing at the same time would anyone actually notice or care?


regards,

PS Happy new year everyone!