was Mary Kelly really murdered

[Cogidubnus]

Any personal letters, if found, would have been listed on the inventory compiled by Abberline, and taken to the station.
If it was believed that some family members were due to arrive for the funeral then they might be kept until then to hand over.
But if no-one showed, then, who knows what the police would have done with them...

Hi Jon

Quite - and I can't see them being tamely returned to John McCarthy so that he could package them up and post them off to the family either! (As an aside whatever else, apart from letters, could she have owned that they'd have wanted anyway?)

All the best

Dave

[Wickerman]

Any personal letters, if found, would have been listed on the inventory compiled by Abberline, and taken to the station.
If it was believed that some family members were due to arrive for the funeral then they might be kept until then to hand over.
But if no-one showed, then, who knows what the police would have done with them...

[Bridewell]

I don't actually think it matters how old the letters were. If they were the only link to her past life I think it unlikely that MJK would have destroyed them or thrown them away. They would have been treasured.

[Wickerman]

That's good fun, Mike, but if these letters had been found, they would have been produced at the inquest, or alluded to in police reports.

If I recall, the reference to her receiving letters was in the past tense, it may have been years before. They may have long since vanished.

[The Good Michael]

That's good fun, Mike, but if these letters had been found, they would have been produced at the inquest, or alluded to in police reports.

What reports and what inquest testimony? None of it exists in its entirety. Also, if the letters had no bearing on the cause of death, why would they have been remarked upon?

Mike

[DVV]

That's good fun, Mike, but if these letters had been found, they would have been produced at the inquest, or alluded to in police reports.

[The Good Michael]

If her name wasn't Kelly, how could she get letters from Ireland ?
The only thing thing that surprises me, is that these letters hadn't been found in her room.
Letters were at this time more precious than e-mails nowadays.
Her murderer may have burnt them, or taken them away.

The paper would have been a better fire-starter than the clothing. You know though, we don't know that there weren't letters actually because we don;t have an inventory list that is extant. I bet they weren't burned of they existed. Kelly probably stashed them inside a copy of the Baghavad Gita knowing that the police weren't as expert at reading Sanskrit as she.

Mike

[DVV]

If her name wasn't Kelly, how could she get letters from Ireland ?
The only thing thing that surprises me, is that these letters hadn't been found in her room.
Letters were at this time more precious than e-mails nowadays.
Her murderer may have burnt them, or taken them away.

[Errata]

I would not describe the hunt for her true identity as trivia.


It matters because she was somebodys daughter. It matters because she likely has relatives alive today. It matters because there is a name on her tombstone which may not be correct. If it did not matter all tombstones would be blank.

We appear to have a similar problem in identifying Alice McKenzie, researchers have had no success in tracing her existence either, though McKenzie does not attract the same attention as Mary Jane.

Which is why I say it matters in a cosmic sense, but not necessarily in an academic sense. For example, the name of every person known to have died at the hand of the Nazis, or due to an Atomic bomb are written down. Preserved for remembrance. But if I'm looking at the question of whether or not the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki actually cost less lives than an invasion, I don't need the names. In fact getting bogged down in the personalities can cripple my judgement. If I want to know why the Nazis were so hateful and so successful, I don't need the names. I look at this from a human behavior standpoint. For me it doesn't matter if these women were properly identified. I mean, it matters, but it doesn't matter to my focus on the case.

So essentially I'm asking this: We will never know whether or not any of those women were correctly identified, much less Mary Kelly. It's 120 years later, and theoretically we have a body to do a DNA test, but no one to compare it to. We don't even know if Mary Kelly was an alias or not. So unless we find Mary Kelly's family, we can't know. And even if we know for a fact it was not Mary Kelly, we have no way of putting a name to the victim. Does the woman deserve to be properly identified? Absolutely. But the odds of it happening are vanishingly small. So if we take it as given that we can't identify the woman in Miller's Court, the question becomes is it a significant part of the case? I mean, is the argument that she faked her death? Did the killer know her and spare her? Did she set up another woman to be murdered? Does it matter that it was or was not Mary Kelly? Or is it trivia (though not trivial) given the various reasons we all got sucked into this topic in the first place?

[Wickerman]

Not to be a truly terrible human being, but does it matter whether or not it was Mary Kelly on that bed? .....
If it wasn't Mary Kelly, does it matter? Does it mean something, or is it one of those pieces of trivia that sometimes crops up in these cases?

I would not describe the hunt for her true identity as trivia.


It matters because she was somebodys daughter. It matters because she likely has relatives alive today. It matters because there is a name on her tombstone which may not be correct. If it did not matter all tombstones would be blank.

We appear to have a similar problem in identifying Alice McKenzie, researchers have had no success in tracing her existence either, though McKenzie does not attract the same attention as Mary Jane.

[Errata]

Not to be a truly terrible human being, but does it matter whether or not it was Mary Kelly on that bed? I mean certainly in a cosmic sense it matters. But we all get fascinated by this crime for various and sundry reasons, most of which have nothing to do with the actual identity of the victims. I mean, for all I know Annie Chapman was identified by someone who thought it would be hilarious to see her try and become Not Dead (which is insanely hard to prove). So if Mary Kelly was my mom, I would absolutely care if it was in fact her. But what I care about is that victim was a person. And it doesn't matter who she was or what she was doing in that room, she didn't deserve that. Beyond that... this is not the healthiest lifestyle for women. They die all the time of any number of causes, and violence or even murder was not uncommon. I'm not entirely sure that Kelly's family would not have been relieved that it was over. Not that they wanted their child murdered, but having a family member who is an addict or in a high risk lifestyle results in some very complicated emotions. Sometimes a family is relieved to find their child dead because finally they know where their child is. They don't have to fear the worst anymore, because it's happened. So if it was another woman in that same lifestyle, the only difference to the people she mattered to was that they don't know how she died (which may well be a mercy), though they would have known she was likely dead. She became likely dead the minute she started turning tricks. And I'm not sure being the victim of a serial killer is better than dying of poisoned gin, or killed in a robbery, or dead of disease, or botched abortion, or childbirth, malnutrition, or getting drunk and falling into the Thames. If it wasn't Mary Kelly, does it matter? Does it mean something, or is it one of those pieces of trivia that sometimes crops up in these cases?

[Wickerman]

Of course, the question "Was it really Mary Jane?", has developed a twist.

To be precise, was 'Mary Jane Kelly' the real name of the body on the bed?

There is growing possibility that the answer is 'no'.

So in a roundabout way SWT, your Mom may be right

[Cogidubnus]

Hi SnowWhiteTan

I believe the simplest explanations are generally the best...if Joe identified the body as Mary Kelly, then most probably it was her...as you say, despite the facial/bodily mutilations, he could probably tell...

All the best

Dave

[SnowWhiteTan]

Hi everyone! (My first post here, be gentle!)

I just had a discussion with my mum about this.

She said she doesn't think it was MJK who was murdered. (She's been reading a load of books).

But didn't Joe Barnett Identify her?

If MJK and Joe Barnett were living together and possibly in a relationship together, then he knew her well. Even if a person you know very personally is facially mutilated, you could still easily identify them couldn't you?

So either it was MJK and he made a positive identification, or it wasn't her. In which case Joe knew it wasn't her, but still lied that it was her.

So if she wasn't the victim, then Barnett knew this and lied for whatever reason. Why

[Abby Normal]

Simon
in regards to your question i have never read anything that says anything either way on the murder and wounds being from the same time but due to the late examination of the body it is possible and raises an interesting point.


Phil h
as those is not only my opinion but a well documented theory i do believe other ostensibly a possibility that the body in millers court may not have been that of MJk
in response to how the body could have been wrongly identified i think we should not be quick to look at the simplest of explanations
firstly as Mjk hair colour is well documented as having been different at various times i think it is safe to say that she likely dyed it and at the time colour choices were limited so many woman most likely had similar coloured hair, due to the amount of blood at the scene the hairs thickness and style would have been difficult to be sure of. Boy size/type also was similar amongst woman due to similar eating habits and dieting was not a concern. If you look at many descriptions of the victims there is similarity in build in a few cases. Height i agree is not as easy but as long as height was similar would anyone really notice at the time, and is the documented height not from the autopsy. So a variation of an inch or two probably wouldn't have been picked up on when viewing the body.
A brief summery of post motem wounds that were documented follows

the whole surface of the abdomen and thighs removed

breasts were cut off

face hacked beyond recognition

the face gashed beyond recognition, nose cheeks eyebrows and ears having been partly removed
lips blanched out and cut by several incisions running down to chin also many cuts across all features

take this into account and what was really left to identify. Is other much a stretch to believe that upon being confronted by such a sight that seeing Mary Kelly clothes folded near bed and the correct hair and eye colour amongst the horror inside a woman he cared fors address that Joe would have in a distraught state identified the woman he thought it must have been

as to her returning to miller court i believe the first documented sighting was her leaving and was unlucky seen, the second sighting i have my own doubts about and the witness may have been mistaken, although if she was seen i find it plausible that she could have left something in her room that she felt worth going back for, not something of perhaps great money value but maybe a sentimental item, although i do find the second sighting highly unlikely.

My comments and opinion here is not something i take as fact. Yet i like to keep an open mind on these issues as i have found in the past that being quick to discount certain theories can sometimes hinder your ability to give new info the credibility it deserves if it does not fit into a set theory that you have decided as fact

miss c

when men get intimate with women they get to know their partners body like the back of their hand very quickly. within only a couple of months(probably even sooner)of being with someone I know from many personal experiences very small details of that females anatomy-the shape of their hands, birthmarks etc and i am sure most(all) men/women are like this with their partners.
Her head could have been removed and taken away and barnett would still have been able to ID her.

From Hell was a great movie, but in reality it was Mary Kelly in that room.
There are enough real mysteries in the ripper case without needing to invent any silly ones.