Was Mary Kelly a Ripper victim?

[Michael W Richards]

Michael,

We are never going to see eye to eye on this, and I have no intention of dipping my pretty [as in pretty unsightly] toes into the realms of fantasy, so I'll just say this:

The more arguments [half reasonable, questionable or downright loopy] I see listed for MJK being a square peg in a round hole, the less credible I find the argument for another killer hoping to pull off the perfect copycat ripper murder!

Your man was clueless, wasn't he? Indoors when all the others had been out? What was his problem? Did MJK never venture out alone at night?

Left the uterus behind, when he had gone to all the time and trouble to remove it, along with the kidneys, for display purposes only? What was his problem? Pockets not deep enough? Didn't have the prescribed black bag with him?

I could go on, but I'm sure everyone would prefer that I don't.

See you all when I return from Portmeirion - if they let me return.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

It occurs to me that we have been sparring in a friendly manner here for over 10 years, its been a pleasure to debate with you.

The missing answers that you inquire about above just helps illustrate my point, the acts were performed without the requisite desire or compulsion. He didn't take the uterus because to him it had no value,..but her heart seems to have had. To Polly and Kates killer the uterus seems to have had meaning. On Mary's killer, maybe he didn't kill her outdoors because he wasnt out looking for women outdoors, maybe he was targeting just this one indoor girl.

The circumstances combined with the physical evidence tell a tale that most Ripperologists don't want to concede...among these five women there seems to be differences in the manner, the weapon, the location, the victimology, the general MO, the wounds inflicted and the circumstances in which they took place. We know 2 women were assaulted by what we can conclude was a killer posing as a client. He had specific things he did, and a focus that is evident. We dont know what the remaining 3 women were doing when they were attacked or why they were where they were. We do know that just those three are dramatic contrasts. From almost a complete dissection of the human form to a slice on the throat. Ill add that Liz had just ended a relationship, as had Mary, and Kate went the opposite direction of where we understand she knew John would likely be, and that he knew she was in jail and made no attempt to see her or wait for her to be released. A sign their relationship, one of supposed "man and wife" variety, wasn't what we are told it was at that time.

And in 2 of those 3 cases an argument can be made for superfluous cutting, something not seen in the aforementioned ladies.

[etenguy]

Michael,

We are never going to see eye to eye on this, and I have no intention of dipping my pretty [as in pretty unsightly] toes into the realms of fantasy, so I'll just say this:

The more arguments [half reasonable, questionable or downright loopy] I see listed for MJK being a square peg in a round hole, the less credible I find the argument for another killer hoping to pull off the perfect copycat ripper murder!

Your man was clueless, wasn't he? Indoors when all the others had been out? What was his problem? Did MJK never venture out alone at night?

Left the uterus behind, when he had gone to all the time and trouble to remove it, along with the kidneys, for display purposes only? What was his problem? Pockets not deep enough? Didn't have the prescribed black bag with him?

I could go on, but I'm sure everyone would prefer that I don't.

See you all when I return from Portmeirion - if they let me return.

Love,

Caz
X

But the argument you make for this being a poor copycat, also casts some doubt on including MJK as a ripper victim.

I am undecided. I hate to think it was a romantic murder that was hurriedly disguised (in some ways poorly as you say) as a ripper murder, meaning two people got away with murder. But there are enough questions that I believe you cannot completely rule out that possibility.

Balancing all we know, I think MJK probably was a victim of the Ripper, but there are niggling doubts. One of the issues that I wonder about are the mid morning sightings of MJK. If it had just been one person, then error would be the obvious explanation. More than one, as in this case, makes it more difficult to accept error as the explanation.

[AuroraSarintacos]

I agree with everything Caz has said previously. Summed up my opinion on the matter perfectly.

[caz]

Michael,

We are never going to see eye to eye on this, and I have no intention of dipping my pretty [as in pretty unsightly] toes into the realms of fantasy, so I'll just say this:

The more arguments [half reasonable, questionable or downright loopy] I see listed for MJK being a square peg in a round hole, the less credible I find the argument for another killer hoping to pull off the perfect copycat ripper murder!

Your man was clueless, wasn't he? Indoors when all the others had been out? What was his problem? Did MJK never venture out alone at night?

Left the uterus behind, when he had gone to all the time and trouble to remove it, along with the kidneys, for display purposes only? What was his problem? Pockets not deep enough? Didn't have the prescribed black bag with him?

I could go on, but I'm sure everyone would prefer that I don't.

See you all when I return from Portmeirion - if they let me return.

Love,

Caz
X

[Michael W Richards]

I strongly disagree - both with the value of trying to 'categorise' MJK in the first place, and with her being a square peg in a round hole. You'd need evidence that she was not precisely the ripper's cup of tea - being a vulnerable female, living on her wits, who had nobody with her to keep her safe when her killer encountered her.

You must have meant more evidence Caz, because the square peg and round hole analogy is certainly apt based on what we know:

-indoor kill-1st and only
-no evidence victim met killer soliciting
-no focus on female abdomen
-known to be in love triangle at the time.
-15 years or more younger than preceding victims
-had flesh cut from thighs to the bone
-left uterus behind
-did not leave body in public view, actually prevented any easy access to it.

The plethora of things that were unique in the Kelly murder have often been explained by arguments such as "well, he finally had a private venue"..."or he lost his mind committing this murder"...neither of which are anything substantiated by any real evidence. Who says outdoors weren't his objective? Who says he changed from stranger to stranger encounters with actively working prostitutes to intimate killing in the victims own private room?

All of the malarkey that attempts to connect Mary...and also Liz...with the women who were killed by someone who posed as a client and then attacked them outdoors amounts to a pile of speculation that is used to create a Canonical Group.

The women who we don't know were soliciting at the time of their murders had dumped lovers that same week or shown less than alledged commitment to their partners. That in and of itself leave room for motives that do not include drooling madmen.

[caz]

With the Ripper murders, you have the ages at 43, 47, 45, 43... and 25. And granted, Nichols was said to look about ten years younger than she was, but even so she'd be a mature adult at the most generous. If Kelly look about ten years older then that would at least be something, but her description as beautiful suggests otherwise.

Goodness, don't let Helen Mirren or Joanna Lumley see this!

And what is your evidence for MJK being 25, apart from what she may have claimed herself?

And beauty, with respects to the first four, could hardly be said to be a quality they shared with Kelly.

Oh blimey! Their killer operated at dead of night - he wasn't recruiting for Miss World with a black bag full of skimpy swimsuits.

Have you lost the plot, Karl?

Love,

Caz
X

[John Wheat]

But if the ripper had no prior knowledge about his victims, and MJK was one of them, then all they needed in common was to be where he was when the red mist came over him.

I doubt he asked for their life stories before whipping out his knife.

Love,

Caz
X

Exactly Caz

The Ripper was after easy targets and wouldn't care about the victims lives one bit.

[caz]

She had also very likely been trafficked between Cardiff, France, Kensington and the Ratcliffe Highway - very different circumstances from the other victims.

But if the ripper had no prior knowledge about his victims, and MJK was one of them, then all they needed in common was to be where he was when the red mist came over him.

I doubt he asked for their life stories before whipping out his knife.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Lynette Culver and Kimberly Leach were pre-teens, ergo they weren't killed by Ted Bundy, who killed girls in their teens or twenties. (Similar things could be said of Shawcross and Sutcliffe, among others.)

Hi Gareth,

Nice one.

Somebody has to be the tallest, the shortest, the youngest, the oldest, the most unfortunate, the least unfortunate, the fairest, the darkest, in any series of three or more murders. By itself, that doesn't give us an odd one out. It merely allows for unsupported theories about the killer or killers.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Yes, which such ghastly facial mutilations would suggest. I do not see why the killer having some personal motive should be so controversial, though.

Not so much 'controversial', Karl, as entirely without evidence that a male associate of Kelly's was a violent individual with a personal motive for killing her and wanting to inflict those 'ghastly' facial mutilations. Isn't it wanting it both ways, to argue that the ghastliness of the facial mutilation is clear evidence of a personal motive, while the ghastliness of the equally over-the-top bodily mutilation is evidence of a copy cat overdoing the ripperesque?

The ripper himself, on the other hand, was without a shadow of a doubt an extremely violent individual, who needed no more motive than his evident penchant for ripping up unfortunate women, during a limited period of time and in a very limited area of town.

Because no matter how you try to categorise MJK, she's a square peg in a round hole.

I strongly disagree - both with the value of trying to 'categorise' MJK in the first place, and with her being a square peg in a round hole. You'd need evidence that she was not precisely the ripper's cup of tea - being a vulnerable female, living on her wits, who had nobody with her to keep her safe when her killer encountered her.

You say it's the same killer because "look at all the similarities". That's interpretation.

I agree that would be interpretation, but did I actually say what you quote me as saying? How do you think I would define a significant similarity or difference?

Me, I say MJK had a different killer because "look at all the differences". That, too, is interpretation. Personally, I find my own interpretation to be much more compelling than yours.

Well obviously. I guess it's hard for any of us to have our own interpretations questioned or challenged. So we'll probably end up having to agree to disagree over this one - which is not too disagreeable, is it?

I have pointed out how MJK was completely different from the other victims in terms of victimology, and those who disagree with me not only trivialise those differences, but completely sweep them under the rug.

I'm sorry? The only ones I recall immediately are the age and height factors, which don't amount to a hill of beans without first providing the hard evidential support for how old and how tall MJK really was! She could have said she was younger than she was, and other Whitechapel victims were said to look younger than their real ages, so what would the ripper's perception have been of the difference in age, and how do you know it would have made a hap'orth of difference to him in any case, if he'd encountered MJK and done a quick mental comparison? "Oh dear me no, this one is too young [too tall/too whatever] for my tastes"? What if women out alone on the streets at night tended to be that much older, with those of MJK's age being thinner on the ground, only making up, say, 20% - or one in five?

Beyond that, the sample of victims we have to study is far too small to make any realistic judgement of the ripper's criteria and to exclude a victim on that basis. You would surely still ask any ripper suspect where he was on November 9th, even if your instincts told you MJK was killed by a different hand. That's all I'm really saying - that the ripper cannot be eliminated from this murder on the available evidence, and certainly not on the basis of personal interpretation or instincts.

I try not to be biased. And if I may place a feather in my own cap, I ask you to note that Kelly's height was one of the two main arguments (in fact the most important one of the two) that I had for dismissing her as a Ripper victim - and I was also the one to express doubts concerning Kelly's height. If I may be so forward, I haven't seen a similar degree of scepticism from those who are adamant that Mary was a Ripper victim - who indeed refuse to acknowledge even a shred of evidence for an alternative explanation.

I trust you will no longer apply the above to me, as I am 'adamant' about very little, apart from the fact that several women, living in pretty dire circumstances in a tiny area of East London, had their lives cut short for no apparent reason, each one by a man carrying a sharp knife - and all within a few weeks in the second half of 1888.

I still don't really get the height argument, even if it could be confirmed that MJK was significantly taller than all the other victims. A) Her killer could well have overpowered her as she was lying on her bed if he was vertically challenged; and B) there is no proof that the ripper allowed himself to be seen with any of his victims, and therefore he could have been any height at all.

If we say that OJ Simpson murdered his wife, does this suggest she was at fault somehow?

Of course not. Her murder was very obviously a one-off, not one of a series of similar crimes, where someone was targeting other women at random, not for who they were or for any personal motive to get shot of her.

As I said, nobody is intentionally blaming the victim here, or suggesting she 'brought it on herself', whether it's Mrs OJ or MJK. It's just the subtle implication that if someone wanted MJK dead, but only MJK, there must have been 'something about Mary' we're entirely clueless about, that made her the specific target of a man in her life. And I'm not talking hair product.

Love,

Caz
X

[Michael W Richards]

Availability might well trump aesthetics from the point of view of an opportunistic killer.

That's surely relevant Sam, and the fact that Mary was in bed undressed when she is first attacked can only be explained if she had habitually brought strangers into her room. That would enable "opportunity". Given the fact that Blotchy is the ONLY such person fitting that criteria, and that she only had the room to herself for 2 nights prior to her murder, it would seem the premise that Mary brought "clients" in to her room is nothing more than speculation.

So how does an "opportunity" killer of women actively working the streets find himself in a dead end courtyard?

Polly and Annie were working at the time, and that should be factored when looking at future murders and how the victims were accessed.

[Sam Flynn]

And beauty, with respects to the first four, could hardly be said to be a quality they shared with Kelly.

Availability might well trump aesthetics from the point of view of an opportunistic killer.

[Abby Normal]

The youngest of his possible victims was 8, but he was himself 15 at the time. In any case, they still have youth in common. Youth symbolises innocence, and by association, vulnerability. Mature women simply didn't do it for him. He wanted girls, in the age range of 15-25. Or someone who'd look 15-19. The outliers could easily have the same appearance as his preferred targets.

With the Ripper murders, you have the ages at 43, 47, 45, 43... and 25. And granted, Nichols was said to look about ten years younger than she was, but even so she'd be a mature adult at the most generous. If Kelly look about ten years older then that would at least be something, but her description as beautiful suggests otherwise. And beauty, with respects to the first four, could hardly be said to be a quality they shared with Kelly.

Hi Karl
You said previously in this thread that you wouldn't be surprised that they were all killed by different killers.

Do you still believe that?

and if so why?

[Karl]

But Bundy killed two, perhaps three, little girls, which is not to trivialise anything, merely to point out that the victim's age is not always a straightforward diagnostic criterion. Besides, any significance we read into the victims' ages is somewhat complicated by the observation that Nichols looked younger than her years, and the same has been argued for Eddowes and Stride.

The youngest of his possible victims was 8, but he was himself 15 at the time. In any case, they still have youth in common. Youth symbolises innocence, and by association, vulnerability. Mature women simply didn't do it for him. He wanted girls, in the age range of 15-25. Or someone who'd look 15-19. The outliers could easily have the same appearance as his preferred targets.

With the Ripper murders, you have the ages at 43, 47, 45, 43... and 25. And granted, Nichols was said to look about ten years younger than she was, but even so she'd be a mature adult at the most generous. If Kelly look about ten years older then that would at least be something, but her description as beautiful suggests otherwise. And beauty, with respects to the first four, could hardly be said to be a quality they shared with Kelly.

[Sam Flynn]

Jack prowled the street at night were it would be reasonable to expect the victims would be of say Polly's class rather than young prettier women who would most likely work in brothels.

Unfortunately for Mary Kelly, she was a younger woman who no longer worked in a brothel, but was compelled to walk the same streets as Polly Nichols... whether the same killer was responsible for their deaths or not.