Was Mary Kelly a Ripper victim?

[GUT]

G'day Mr Barnett

G'day GUT,

By all accounts she was the lone tenant of the property, and the only occupant at the time she was killed. A spin through census returns for the time will show how unusual that was.

Unless Jack was already aware of the fact, he was pretty lucky to hit on a Spitalfieds prostitute with her own self- contained premises.

MrB

That's why I think either he knew her, professionally or otherwise, or was very lucky just I can't decide which.

[MrBarnett]

Hi Harry,

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that the murder could not have been a crime of passion, or a certain amount of the butchery that followed it. But the sheer scale of it suggests to me more than just the handiwork of an angry spurned lover. This was someone who relished carving human flesh, and whatever the reasons for his choice of MJK, he had probably indulged in his dark pleasure before.

MrB

[MrBarnett]

G'day Gut,

On present evidence no one be sure either way, unless they have moved over to the dark side of suspect fundamentalism ( only kidding! ).

MrB

[c.d.]

Hi Harry,

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that the murder could not have been a crime of passion, or a certain amount of the butchery that followed it. But the sheer scale of it suggests to me more than just the handiwork of an angry spurned lover. This was someone who relished carving human flesh, and whatever the reasons for his choice of MJK, he had probably indulged in his dark pleasure before.

MrB

I think you are right on the money there, Mr. B.

c.d.

[DRoy]

It is quite possible McCarthy exaggerated, or even invented, the debt with the expectation her family would provide recompense.

Jon,

I agree, Barnett even states that he was surprised to hear how much they owed after McCarthy told the amount. It doesn't appear he had anything to disprove the amount but he never came right out and disputed it either.

Cheers
DRoy

[DVV]

DVV,

Apologies for not meeting your very high standards.

MrB

Accepted.

[Sam Flynn]

I think you are right on the money there, Mr. B.

So do I.

[DVV]

And what if the ex-lover was at the same time a serial killer ?
Kemper killed, raped and mutilated his mother because he was a serial killer.
And because she was his mother.

[Sam Flynn]

I suspect her 'single' condition was coincidental to her murder. She picked up her final client on the streets, in my opinion, and he likely had no knowledge of her circumstances.

Agreed, Jon. The killer was no more lucky to have found a single-occupant slum dweller like Kelly, than he was to have encountered an Eddowes who - only minutes earlier - had insisted on being released from a single-occupant cell.

[DVV]

Wrong you are, my dear Gareth. And completely so. Although I understand it's something that can be safely argued. Problem is that she's the only victim murdered indoors, far much younger than any other, and the last of the series.

[Sam Flynn]

Problem is that she's the only victim murdered indoors, far younger than any other, and the last of the series.

I don't read too much significance in either of those facts, Dave - certainly not the last two. One victim had to be younger, one victim had to be the last. The "indoor" bit doesn't worry me unduly, either. If Kelly hadn't a hovel to call her own she could have ended up as roadkill just like the others.

[DVV]

As I said, you can indeed safely argue this way.
Still, the younger victim is significantly younger than the others - she wasn't 36 but 25. And she's at the same time the only one murdered indoors and the last of the series. I thus wouldn't discard these little details as ordinary coincidences.
If only she had had a violent and insane ex-lover dossing nearby, the case would be solved.

[Michael W Richards]

The fact that all of the other Canonicals can be traced despite their using "trade names" on occasion, and the fact that what Mary told Barnett about her origins cannot be proven as accurate, leads one to consider that we do not know enough to speculate about who Mary really was and why she may have been killed. We might find ample evidence of possible motives for her demise if we had that information.

She wasn't randomly "acquired" while actively soliciting, so that doesn't meet the established preference that the killer of Polly and Annie's killer had, and she wasn't killed outdoors and left to be found by the next person who walked past the spot..another variance, and we cannot say with any certainty that she had been prostituting herself at all the weeks before her death.

If someone ever finds out who she was, then we might have some ideas about who killed her, but to just assume that she was killed by Jack the Ripper because we don't have enough info to assess is to me, poor policework.... by Professionals and amateurs alike.

Cheers

[DVV]

we cannot say with any certainty that she had been prostituting herself at all the weeks before her death.
Cheers

Hi Mike,

Have you heard of any other job she was doing before her death ?

Cheers

[Sam Flynn]

She wasn't randomly "acquired" while actively soliciting

How can we be sure of that, Michael? The other women in Miller's Court were in and out all night, and there's no reason to suppose that Kelly stayed in after Mr Blotchy. It's even possible that Mr Blotchy, whom she clearly had picked up outside - in a pub, on the street, wherever - was her killer. That's to say nothing of the stories variously told by Lewis/Kennedy and Hutchinson, for what they're worth.