A New Theory

[detective abberline]

Hi. I agree with most of your posts. But if the area was on high alert it didn't stop Jack when he perpetrated his double event. I have difficulty believing Kelly wouldn't have agreed to it against a fence if the price was right. Jack stopped because he either: a)was incarcerated b) died c) emigrated in which case you'd expect a psycho like him to start up again. I think you're wrong gifting these East End prossies with a prescient sense of self preservation. They lived in a cesspool and did what they had to to survive. They knew the risks but had to walk.

[j.r-ahde]

Hello Jeff!

If MJK was the height of his "work", he felt he couldn't go any further?!

All the best
Jukka

[Jeff Leahy]

Hi Jukka and Sasha

Yes I think thats a fair point. The whole area had been on heightened allert, which must have made things more difficult for Jack.

Jacks also an opportunist. He meets the girls and they take him to the murder site. So perhaps a combination of non availability of other victims and Mary's sense of safer location, choose Millers Court as his location.

Its always been my personal belief that jack shows Signs of a developing M.O. and that he learns from his experience.

So why stop after MJK when he learns success?

Either he throws himself in the thames or the psychotic attacks stop?

Nice talking

Jeff

[j.r-ahde]

Hello Sasha!

Yes, it's very possible, that MJK was the one JtR had been looking for all the time!

But how about this, from Mary's side anyway:

She thought herself to be safe, because she thought The Ripper to strike outdoors?!

The Ripper could have changed his tactics because of this general thinking...

All the best
Jukka

[Sasha]

Hi Sasha

I'm having a quick scive from editing so I'll attempt to answer some of your questions.

We know that MJK first got into prostitution from the evidence given by Joe Barnet. Her Husband was meant to have been killed in a mining accident so she went to live with a cousin in Cardiff, where she was first introduced to prostitution. She moved to London and may have worked in quite high class brothels. We know from other witnesses she may have travelled to France to become a prostitute but returned quickly..this was known as the procurement trade. She lived with another woman probably a madame before living with two other men..Morgonstone then flemming...she met Joe and soon moved in with him...

Joe didnt like her trade and it appears she stopped for a while, he lost his job and she was forced to return to the streets, they slit up a few weeks before she was killed.

All the other victims lived in common lodging houses..its worth finding out how these worked and the poor conditions they were forced to live in..

They would need to earn 3d for a bed for the night..

Most had had families and children and were separated. They had drink problems. Kate and Annie were both dieing.

It ws a very hard and tough life...poor meant they had next to nothing..

Hope this helps, its off the top of my head..try the FACTS by Paul Begg..

Yours Jeff

Thanks Jeff. That's my understanding of the victims as well. Again this for me sets Mary apart from the others as victims. The other victims could be more like random attacks whereas Mary would need to be more planned (ie how would he get into her home in the middle of the night and safely evade detection). This suggests to me a level of organisation and logical thinking that seems to run contrary to a serial killer who is becoming increasingly desperate, disorganised etc. Much easier surely to pick a woman on the street in a dark alley? Just some thoughts ...

Sasha

[Graham]

Has anyone ever considered that Joe Barnett claimed he tried to talk MJK out of going on the game because he was concerned he might be accused by the police of living off immoral earnings? That was considered almost as heinous offence as prostitution itself, if not more so.

I do not trust this Joe Barnett who sometimes comes across as being slightly too good to be true...but I don't think he killed her.

Cheers,

Graham

[Jeff Leahy]

Dumb question I s'pose but here it is. Do we know if MJK regularly saw clients in her room or is this a post Barnett phenomenon? What about the other victims? I am assuming they were more or less homeless or had some other reason for not working from home or maybe they wanted to keep their home and professional lives separate?

Hi Sasha

I'm having a quick scive from editing so I'll attempt to answer some of your questions.

We know that MJK first got into prostitution from the evidence given by Joe Barnet. Her Husband was meant to have been killed in a mining accident so she went to live with a cousin in Cardiff, where she was first introduced to prostitution. She moved to London and may have worked in quite high class brothels. We know from other witnesses she may have travelled to France to become a prostitute but returned quickly..this was known as the procurement trade. She lived with another woman probably a madame before living with two other men..Morgonstone then flemming...she met Joe and soon moved in with him...

Joe didnt like her trade and it appears she stopped for a while, he lost his job and she was forced to return to the streets, they slit up a few weeks before she was killed.

All the other victims lived in common lodging houses..its worth finding out how these worked and the poor conditions they were forced to live in..

They would need to earn 3d for a bed for the night..

Most had had families and children and were separated. They had drink problems. Kate and Annie were both dieing.

It ws a very hard and tough life...poor meant they had next to nothing..

Hope this helps, its off the top of my head..try the FACTS by Paul Begg..

Yours Jeff

[Sasha]

Dumb question I s'pose but here it is. Do we know if MJK regularly saw clients in her room or is this a post Barnett phenomenon? What about the other victims? I am assuming they were more or less homeless or had some other reason for not working from home or maybe they wanted to keep their home and professional lives separate?

[Chava]

That's a very interesting theory.Maybe McCarthy was acting as a sort of pimp taking a cut of everything they earned?

That's certainly a widely-held belief, and one that I subscribe to.

Getting back to the fire, now that I live in a Victorian house with a coal fire which we (carefully) use in the winter, I'm struck by how that fire got to be so fierce and so hot without burning the whole place down. Those coal grates are small. If you put too much in there it can get nasty very quickly, and the chimney sweep who checked the thing out before we used it pointed that out in no uncertain terms. I once put one too many firelogs on by accident and had to get it out really fast.

But there was tons of stuff burnt in that grate--cloth, paper, what-have-you. So I think it could only have been burnt carefully and over a long period of time. It's therefore possible, to me, that Kelly herself burnt that material.

[belinda]

That's a very interesting theory.Maybe McCarthy was acting as a sort of pimp taking a cut of everything they earned?

Good one

[Celesta]

According to Thomas Bowyer (see P. 411 in JTR Companion/Sourcebook, or his testimony in the inquest) there was a curtain over the window, and he had to pull the curtain aside to see in, the morning he discovered her. So is there a reason to assume that JTR could just stare into her window? Perhaps he was in the Court and saw the curtain ripple due to a gust of wind or something, or for some it caught his eye. Knowing prostitutes lived in the Court, perhaps he chanced a peak and saw a lone woman lying on the bed.

Antonio, Welcome to the Casebook.

[c.d.]

Hi Antonio,

Welcome to the boards. Visiting a brothel would most likely result in witnesses who could identify him so I don't think that was ever a viable option. I also think that Jack was willing to take some risks if he could have uninterrupted time to be with his victim. As to Mary's age, my personal opinion is that that was not a factor in her being selected, it was simply that she had a room of her own.

c.d.

[Antonio Sironi]

Hi C.D.

Well what you have posted in quite interesting...anyway, Whitechapel at that time was full of brothels, so I'm still wandering why the Ripper planned a murder in a very risky location as 13 Miller's Court. Miller's Court in itself was a sort of cul-de-sac, offering no way out if discovered red handed (something possible considering al the persons that passed in front of Mary's room that night). So why the Ripper murdered Kelly? She was also far much young that the other Canonical Victims...

This is something that deserves further investigations in my opinion,

Take care,
Antonio

[Jon Guy]

If Jack was looking through her window, it suggests that other people could have done so too. I have often wondered how, if there was such a fierce fire in Mary's room that it burnt the spout off a kettle, why didn't it throw light out into the Court and drawn attention? There didn't seem to be a heavy curtain in front of the window, so why didn't someone see Jack at work by the light of that fire?

Hello Limehouse

As Brad suggests, how about the killer put the clothes on the fire to kill the blaze, affording him some safety in the darkness ?

[Celesta]

I believe its likely that Kelly and JtR met as she was standing in the archway to Millers Court.

JtR is scouting for prostitutes. Prostitutes work that street by the dozen. Kelly is drunk, its raining, she stands in the arch entranceway just as Prater had done earlier. Kelly is using the archway much the same way as gals in Amsterdam work the street windows. She is showing off the goods(perhaps even a bit of leg) as JtR passes.

This also accounts for much of the clothing issues mentioned above.

Jason & Ben, I can see this, too. It would have been after Lewis passed through.

With the rain, I can see JTR suspecting that Lewis is headed indoors and following her, hoping to slip in with her, if possible.