Needle in a haystack

[The Rookie Detective]

How do we find the woman who was identified as Mary Jane Kelly?

After 137 years it would appear that we are all none the wiser as to who this woman really was.

Her identity is a complete mystery.

But why?

We would expect certain "witnesses" to be unaccounted for, i.e. Hutchinson, Lewis and Schwartz... but for an actual murder victim to be present and a murder scene, yet remain unidentified, is relatively rare.

It would also be understandable if MJK had been dismembered and dumped in various places along the Thames, but to have a full and literal body of evidence and STILL not be able to identify who she really was, then how is that even possible, and how can it be remedied?

What do we actually know for certain about her?

Is anything whatsoever that we think we know about her, have any connection to the actual truth?

Why has her true identity remained elusive this entire time?


Well, one thing IS for certain; she would appear on the 1881 and 1871 census returns.

But how do we find a proverbial needle in a haystack?

Could AI be of help?

The question is; could AI tech/algorithm be able to compile a list of all the female names on those respective censuses within the correct age range, and then discard any women who then appear on the 1891 census?

It may be a big ask, but i feel confident that over time, there must be a way to make a short list of viable candidates for the real MJK.

But before that; is there another way to find her?

Will she ever be identified?

And does the failure for anyone to have ever definitively identified her, have any connection to the idea that MJK was arguably the Ripper's swansong?

in other words, was she hiding from someone and changed her true identity to try and protect herself from the man who was chasing her?

Was she the Ripper's primary target, and did her murder appear to signal the end of the series because the killer had finally found her?


Is there anything in her past that caused her to give what seems to be a completely false identity?


Can she ever be found?

[Tom_Wescott]

What 1871/1881 census returns do you suggest her name appears on? If Ireland, I'm afraid your AI won't be of much help.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[The Rookie Detective]

What 1871/1881 census returns do you suggest her name appears on? If Ireland, I'm afraid your AI won't be of much help.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

A very good point Tom.

For me, it's the 1881 census that's crucial as it was taken only 7 and a half years before her murder.

I think the 1871 census is probably too far off in terms of timing and therfore the 1881 should be the primary focus.

I would suggest that there is also a theatrical link, especially when we combine her mentioning she had a relative in the theatre, her singing, her allegedly meeting up with the theatrical looking Astrakhan man, her distinctive hair, and the fact she was renting a private room from a landlord who was heavily involved with the theatre himself.

When we throw in a clearly fabricated identity, it all implies she was an actress and/or dancer.

So we are perhaps looking for a woman who was in hiding or running away from something that occurred in her past.

When we then add the fact that Eddowes gave the name Mary Kelly, and that Eddowes herself was a singer/stree performer, then are we looking at a case of mistaken identity?

Are the earlier murders of Nichols and Chapman simply practice runs who were chosen randomly so that the Ripper could feel confident in dispatching his primary target later on?

The fact that nobody has found an ounce of evidence as to who Mary Kelly actually was, tells us something very important; she was hiding from her past and was living a lie through a false name and identity.

There is one particular individual who I am currently researching who may just be a viable candidate for the real Mary Kelly. A woman who had a reason to be hiding away. But it's in it's early stages and; as with my Kosminski stuff that is still ongoing, I want to do it properly.

I also recall that it was reported that Mary had claimed she had gone to France, but had only stayed for a very short time; perhaps just a week?
If that is true, then looking at ship records from London to France for any young women who left and returned within 2 weeks is also a viable route for research. That would certainly require the use of an algorithm though.


Ultimately, I believe the 1881 census holds the key to it all, and I feel that in terms of playing percentages, she would certainly be listed somewhere in that census taken in England.

I would suggest that the entire Irish and Welsh links are fictitious and that there's no evidence that Mary was ever out of London, except perhaps her trip to France which may have a grain of truth in it.

The timing of Barnett leaving and her subsequent murder, s also an important factor in terms of the killer having the means and opportunity to strike.

Lots to consider.

[Doctored Whatsit]

I would suggest that the entire Irish and Welsh links are fictitious and that there's no evidence that Mary was ever out of London, except perhaps her trip to France which may have a grain of truth in it.

I think that Kelly must have had an accent, Welsh or Irish, that was clearly not a London one, otherwise she would never have been believed. She was also said to be fluent in Welsh, which someone living in Wales about 1870-1880 would probably have been, although the evidence for this is uncertain. Barnett said she had letters from Ireland. All a bit vague and unproven, I realise.

Wickerman has in interesting potential Kelly trace.

[bonestrewn]

Hi Rookie,

First, thanks so much for the many interesting topics you've been posting I think each one raises so many great questions regardless of where you fall on a given suspect, victim, etc. And it's so much more interesting than diary debates/Lechmere posting/etc!

I have some disorganized questions/thoughts and I hope it's OK if I try to pick your brain a little.

1. Assuming that "Mary Kelly" was, indeed, a fake name, does that mean she can be found at all? When did she adopt this name and when would she have used it such that it could appear in records and censuses?
2. If we assume that "Mary Kelly" is a false identity, does that mean all of the biographical details she provided Barnett were also fabrications? How do we sift useful information from falsehoods?
   1. Related question: does this mean that the identifications of "characters" from her past are inaccurate/spurious, even if they align with the biographical info she gave Barnett? E.g. the identifications made, not always in agreement, of Mrs. Buki, Mrs. Carthy, Morganstone as a "Morganstern," etc.
3. Regarding the trip to France: I think that one challenge arising here is the nature of this trip and her stay. If she was, as some people think, being sex trafficked, would she have traveled by legitimate means such that her trip was recorded? If she was, as others think, traveling either to marry or after marriage, would she have been recorded under her male partner's name? Either way, what name would she have been using, if not "Mary Kelly"?

I understand if you are keeping some cards close to the chest, as it were, so please don't feel that I'm demanding all details of your potential Mary (although I'm obviously curious!).

As to the question of AI: I think one challenge we will run into here is OCR scanning of the text. As we've seen in our latest occurrence of the "one off instance" diary debate, OCR is fairly unreliable and tends to misread words, run words together, etc. So my way of thinking is that any AI system utilizing OCR data will inherit these embedded errors and issues, such that it might not be able to accurately read and identify the names of individuals in the documents. I am not an expert on AI, though, and would welcome correction if I'm being overly pessimistic

[The Rookie Detective]

Hi Rookie,

First, thanks so much for the many interesting topics you've been posting I think each one raises so many great questions regardless of where you fall on a given suspect, victim, etc. And it's so much more interesting than diary debates/Lechmere posting/etc!

I have some disorganized questions/thoughts and I hope it's OK if I try to pick your brain a little.

1. Assuming that "Mary Kelly" was, indeed, a fake name, does that mean she can be found at all? When did she adopt this name and when would she have used it such that it could appear in records and censuses?
2. If we assume that "Mary Kelly" is a false identity, does that mean all of the biographical details she provided Barnett were also fabrications? How do we sift useful information from falsehoods?
   1. Related question: does this mean that the identifications of "characters" from her past are inaccurate/spurious, even if they align with the biographical info she gave Barnett? E.g. the identifications made, not always in agreement, of Mrs. Buki, Mrs. Carthy, Morganstone as a "Morganstern," etc.
3. Regarding the trip to France: I think that one challenge arising here is the nature of this trip and her stay. If she was, as some people think, being sex trafficked, would she have traveled by legitimate means such that her trip was recorded? If she was, as others think, traveling either to marry or after marriage, would she have been recorded under her male partner's name? Either way, what name would she have been using, if not "Mary Kelly"?

I understand if you are keeping some cards close to the chest, as it were, so please don't feel that I'm demanding all details of your potential Mary (although I'm obviously curious!).

As to the question of AI: I think one challenge we will run into here is OCR scanning of the text. As we've seen in our latest occurrence of the "one off instance" diary debate, OCR is fairly unreliable and tends to misread words, run words together, etc. So my way of thinking is that any AI system utilizing OCR data will inherit these embedded errors and issues, such that it might not be able to accurately read and identify the names of individuals in the documents. I am not an expert on AI, though, and would welcome correction if I'm being overly pessimistic

Such a brilliant post.

I think you raise some excellent points indeed.


Firstly, I have always believed that the real Mary Kelly will one day be found; call it instinct.

The question is; why would a woman give details of her past that include the likes of Morganstern, Mrs Cathy etc... that can be verified (in terms of the fact these individual did exist) but then give a false name and therefore false antecedents?

We have a conflict of information from her. Some details relating to her transient past seem likely true, while her family connections and origins seem false.
Why is that?

I think that Morganstern is perhaps one of the biggest clues as to her true identity in that he was a real person; and a particularly nasty piece of work by all accounts.

Morganstern once beat up 3 women after chasing them and vaulting over a fence to corner them. He casually removed his shirt before violently assaulting them. Cold, calculated and a proper thug.

He may indeed have been the man from whom Mary was running from, although a man like Morganstern is likely to have caught up with her at some point if that was the case.
Was Kelly a victim of Morganstern? Not referring necessarily to the assault I refer to against the 3 women, but could Kelly have been effectively pimped out by Morganstern?
He was certainly an enforcer type figure who didn't care for beating women, and the women likely were fearful of his aggressive nature.

We also have the potential earlier West End connection that also may be true. I say that because there are various newspaper reports that speak of women who had come to the East End after having fallen from their status in the West End; possibly after becoming pregnant, catching an STI, or becoming too old to demand the highest rates for selling their body.

Another key clue may lie in the fact that Mccarthy was a relatively well known and influential figure within the community. He spoke at various charity events, retired police testimonials and was a boxing promoter for over 40 years. He was also a landlord, shop owner, and owner of various other houses of ill repute. He also had a key influence in the local theatre world and was a singer, along with his son Steve.
in other words, John Mccarthy was a bigger fish than people really seem to understand.
Therefore, was the barbaric slaughtering of a woman in one of his owned properties more of a statement than we realise?
Who were his enemies?
Was the specific location of Kelly's murder more significant than we realise, and could the murder have been a retaliation against something that occurred beforehand?
Mccarthy and Crossingham ran Dorset Street and were related thorough marriage, but we also have some other big players who may have had a grievance against Mccarthy and his territory.
One of those was Fred Gehringer, who ran the area of Wentworth Street (among others) and also had a link to Mitre Street having.livied there at one time. Gehringer was another man who held power and influence, and while there's no evidence that he had an issue with others, the idea that the location of some of the Ripper attacks may have been influenced by gang territory, is an area that shouldn't be ruled out.
Gehringer's 3rd wife (his previous 2 had died) had a penchant for violence and was arrested for randomly stabbing someone. She was known as a woman not to cross and was said to have always carried a knife. Having Gehringer as a husband certainly would have made her a formidable adversary.

Another question that has always bothered me; why would a man like Mccarthy permit Kelly to stay in her room if she owed him money?
Mccarthy was by no means a pushover, and so why would he let Mary be late with giving him the money she owed?
He must have felt assured that she was a reliable source of payment and perhaps he let her stay there because he knew she would pay up at some point.
Or was there another reason?
Could MJK have had a familiar connection to the Mccarthy clan?
Was Mary allowed to run into debt because Mccarthy gave her special treatment?
Was there anyone else who lived in the court who had ran into debt?
And why did Bowyer get sent around to collet the rent?
Was Bowyer an enforcer?

We know that Kelly had spoken of being fearful of being murdered by the Ripper.and had followed the case, On that basis, could Mary have been in hiding and felt relatively safe for having been under the protection of Mccarthy?
There's no evidence that Kelly gave Mccarthy pimp money, but by staying in a room belonging to a man of such local power and influence; did Kelly feel that she was safe under the roof of one of Mccarthy's rooms?

There is so much more out there to discover; even after all this time.

Was Kelly allowed to remain in Millers Court and in debt, because she was used specially for entertaining VIP guests? I.e. Astrakhan man?

Everything about the description of Astrakhan man (albeit by the enigmatic Hutchinson) crys out either an actor or boxer...or both.

Was Kelly on familiar terms with him based on her potential link to the theatre?

Was Astrakhan man a boxer or an actor, who Mccarthy had arranged for Kelly to entertain privately in her room?

So much more to unravel here.

[Geddy2112]

Importantly if we find out who the real Mary Kelly was will this bring us closer to finding her killer? Is Mary's true identity somehow linked to the killers'?

[c.d.]

I'm sorry but maybe we need to dial it back a bit here.

Even if Mary Kelly was not her real name it doesn't necessarily mean that that is significant in relation to the Ripper case. There could be fairly innocuous reasons for her to use a fake name. Perhaps she had a jealous husband or ex lover somewhere she wanted to avoid. Maybe she had stolen from a previous employer and wanted to cover her tracks. Perhaps she was afraid of her family finding out how she earned her living. It could be any number of reasons none of them Ripper related.

I am seeing speculations here propping up other speculations and no known facts cited.

c.d.

[bonestrewn]

Such a brilliant post.

I think you raise some excellent points indeed.


Firstly, I have always believed that the real Mary Kelly will one day be found; call it instinct.

[ ... ]

So much more to unravel here.

Rookie,

I think I'm getting a better picture of your perspective on Mary and her relationships to these "characters". If I'm correct, we are likely in alignment that McCarthy played a significant part in Mary's life, for better or for worse, and that JTR, whoever he was, had some part to play in the interlocking systems of criminal power that ran Dorset Street and environs.

My personal perspective is that the victims are too tightly clustered in a specific area, and too likely to have potentially crossed paths either with each other or with the same individuals in doss houses, pubs, and local businesses, for somebody to not know something, and that raises the question, of course: cui bono?

Here are some more specific responses:

The question is; why would a woman give details of her past that include the likes of Morganstern, Mrs Cathy etc... that can be verified (in terms of the fact these individual did exist) but then give a false name and therefore false antecedents?

We have a conflict of information from her. Some details relating to her transient past seem likely true, while her family connections and origins seem false.
Why is that?

I think that Morganstern is perhaps one of the biggest clues as to her true identity in that he was a real person [ ... ]

I agree that Morganstern is a valuable clue, but if I'm interpreting you correctly, then I'm not sure how he can be a signpost for anything prior to his time in Mary's life. If the big X factor in Mary's story is her family origins, what would Morganstern have known about her, and what can we, at this distance, mine from the small amount of info we have about their connection?

But, if you mean more "Morganstern is the first verifiable piece of information we have, showing us that the biographical details of Mary's life prior to him are likely spurious" then I understand what you mean.

We also have the potential earlier West End connection that also may be true. I say that because there are various newspaper reports that speak of women who had come to the East End after having fallen from their status in the West End; possibly after becoming pregnant, catching an STI, or becoming too old to demand the highest rates for selling their body.

I agree with you here. I personally follow the narrative that Mary was trafficked into prostitution in France, and that she escaped or otherwise got herself back to London by means that her traffickers did not appreciate; hence, her need for an escort back to the West End to retrieve her dresses.

Another question that has always bothered me; why would a man like Mccarthy permit Kelly to stay in her room if she owed him money?
Mccarthy was by no means a pushover, and so why would he let Mary be late with giving him the money she owed?
He must have felt assured that she was a reliable source of payment and perhaps he let her stay there because he knew she would pay up at some point.
Or was there another reason?
Could MJK have had a familiar connection to the Mccarthy clan?
Was Mary allowed to run into debt because Mccarthy gave her special treatment?
Was there anyone else who lived in the court who had ran into debt?
And why did Bowyer get sent around to collet the rent?
Was Bowyer an enforcer?

These are many of the questions I've been asking the further I delve into McCarthy. As I mentioned before, I always come back to, "Cui bono?" Somebody had to benefit from Mary being there when she was so far in arrears. I'm glad somebody else finds the situation at Miller's Court as suspicious as I do.

We know that Kelly had spoken of being fearful of being murdered by the Ripper.and had followed the case, On that basis, could Mary have been in hiding and felt relatively safe for having been under the protection of Mccarthy?
There's no evidence that Kelly gave Mccarthy pimp money, but by staying in a room belonging to a man of such local power and influence; did Kelly feel that she was safe under the roof of one of Mccarthy's rooms?

Your first question, I think, hints that Mary understood herself specifically to be a target of JTR. Is that your perspective? (Not saying that you're right or wrong--just curious!)

I do want to add, regarding the role of McCarthy as "pimp," that IMO if he was profiting off of her presence, whether by living off of her "immoral earnings" or by using her to entertain special guests, etc., that would still fall under the role of trafficker, procurer, pimp. I think that there is a reluctance to use such terms when there's no obvious exchange of money or brutality, especially given the popular image of pimps. But the modern definition of trafficking covers many forms of coercion, including debt manipulation and the control of the victim's housing.

Was Kelly on familiar terms with him based on her potential link to the theatre?

I've gotten the impression from this and other posts of yours that you see Mary as almost certainly a theatrical performer or otherwise working in theatre. I would love to know more about why you think this, if you're able to share.

[The Rookie Detective]

I am seeing speculations here propping up other speculations and no known facts cited.

But that's precisely the point right there.

We either have no known facts and accept we know nothing, or we speculate, evaluate, reason, discuss, suggest, imply, hypothesise... etc...

...in a bid to try and seek the truth.

We either stand still and know nothing, or we look to move forward and progress, at the cost of still finding nothing.

Better to try and fail, than to not try at all.

And it sure beats wasting time on the likes of Lechmere, Maybrick, or Aaron Kosminski.

As an aside, it baffles me how Aaron remains one of the prime suspects, despite nobody ever referring to him by his real name Aaron Abrahams and the fact that everyone who spoke of this Kosminski spoke of him in the past tense as though he was dead, and yet was still alive. Clearly the wrong Kosminski.

Do I have an alternative?

Well, yes actually, but I am still working on that, eek!

But i digress...

Trying to identify the real Mary Kelly may hold the key to unlocking this case, and even though nothing could ever be proven after all this time, there is always scope to discover more clues and uncover new pieces of data that all add up to the bigger picture.

[Lewis C]

A few thoughts about various things said in this thread. First, I find some of the reasons given for suspecting a theater link to be unconvincing. I don't know why her hair would make us suspect that. As far as her singing, many people sing, but most aren't involved in theater. And if Astrakhan man was real, I don't know how we can figure he was likely to be in theater. He may have been in any occupation that would have enabled him to be well-dressed.

I don't believe that any one of the victims was the primary target. If Kelly was the primary target, why the need to kill Nichols and Chapman?

I've recently mentioned in another thread that my best guess about why McCarthy didn't evict Kelly is that he wasn't convinced that evicting her would result in him making more money. He might have had trouble finding another tenant, or if he did find another one, that one might also have had trouble paying. He might have found evicting distasteful, and might have been unwilling to do that unless he strongly believed that he would get a better tenant.