Her eyes?

[Aethelwulf]

I agree that Bury was almost certainly the same perpetrator. In the interest of speculation though, I can't completely come to terms with his behaviour after the murder (and some before). Humour me for a moment.... If Bury was not the Ripper, but had a sick obsession with the Whitechapel atrocities I think it's possible he could have, in a drunken state, decided to emulate them to reap a kind of notoriety. The reason I think this is a possibility is his bizarre visit to the police to report his wife's 'suicide' and confess his fear that he would be labelled as the Ripper. That part of the events along with the graffiti at his home lead me speculate (rightly or wrongly) that there's room for some query. I will add though that my first instinct was always that he went into a blind rage when drinking and committed the acts in a kind of disassociative state.

I agree some of Bury's behaviour in Dundee is certainly hard to explain. Why would he chalk those messages and then claim to be worried about being arrested as JtR? I think the latter claim could well be a worry based on the fact that he has repeated something he has done before and knows how it looks, so attempts a throw away comment to disassociate himself from the earlier example. As for the graffiti, there is some good analysis on the Bury website where the messages are reproduced. The PC that made the copy obviously made a fairly close study as the vertical lines of the door are also reproduced. Reading the commentary, and viewing the messages, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the same person wrote both, as there are enough similarities to give the game away. But why would he then claim to be worried about being JtR - it would be worth someone like a criminal psychologist reviewing Bury's actions to see how they square. Is the fact that there are chalk messages in a school boy hand, with an odd spelling error (seller) at a crime scene with ripper-like injuries a coincidence?

On the injuries, if he was copying, would he not have done something like McKenzie? By that I mean a lot of non specific scratches. If someone wanted to copy the ripper they would need to find someone vulnerable in the early hours (prostitute), he would then need to take them to some dark quite corner, and then to get at the lower body he would need to lift there skirts. All of that is so general, along with her injuries, that anyone who knew the basics of the case could have done it. If he wanted to copy the ripper, why didn't he also cut her throat, as that was what he was known for? On another post someone mentioned Ellen's injuries being like 'an itch he had to scratch' and I think that is probable. He is in a new area, known to be from the east end, if he had gone any further than he did, he would have been arrested as JtR, I am sure.

On a side note, one of the things I find so plausible about Bury is the front on sketch of him stood at the dock in his nice respectable suit, nicely groomed and looking every inch the picture of normality. Yet this is the man that actually went back to Ellen's body to make further incisions for the hell of it. As I said in my first post, I can so easily see all the victims being taken in by Bury and his 5.2 frame and neat dress.

[MrTwibbs]

To me the "oh murder" is a red herring. Not only it doesn't make any sense by itself, if you're going to get killed, but the testimonies of it are contradictory by design.

Back then people would say rather strange things when being murdered
Here is just one example reported by a witness of the 2nd Ratcliffe highway murder quoted from my own work:
"At the inquest, John Turner said he had gone to bed at 10:40 p.m. but shortly afterwards, he’d heard the tavern door open with a bang. Bridget cried out, “We’re all murdered!” and Mr Williamson shouted, “I am a dead man!” It’s unclear whether this just reflects the unusual turn of phrase they had back in the 1800s, or whether John Turner was imagining a more dramatic version of events"
Shortly after saying this they were indeed murdered.

There's also further examples in Jan Bondeson's Victorian crimes books.

[Meet Ze Monster]

There are so many differences in the Miller Court murder from any other murder of that period that to conclude a man who was suggested to be of surgical grade knowledge....being Annies killer...also is responsible for the mayhem in room 13 is a huge leap. There are so many odd acts that served no purpose in room 13, and in Annies case he cut where he needed to and did what was needed to obtain what he wanted. In Marys case, was it neccesary to strip her thighs, but only one completely? Was that straight line cut across the calf needed to obtain anything? Her slashed face?

I think both you and Mortis should take a closer comparative look at victims, in venue, circumstance and activities, how different Marys murder was. Then look at the skills exhibitted....no suggestion by any contemporary medical man that Marys killer was skilled or anatomically savvy. Again, that differs greatly from Annie.

I respectfully disagree. Surgical or anatomical knowledge was likely required for the simple act of knowing where to cut. He wasn't performing surgery on these women, he was butchering them with the intent of extracting as much viscera as he desired. Annie Chapman and Catherine Eddowes were killed in high risk settings allowing only moments for the Ripper to work. His ritual was cut, extract, pose, escape. Only with Kelly, he had no reason to escape. I thought it was pretty obvious that being indoors allowed the Ripper to go much further than he could before. A working girl with her own room was hardly common, thus, he made do until he encountered poor Mary and her hideaway. The differences you mention are merely elevations of what he could do rather than what he didn't do in the previous crimes.

[Meet Ze Monster]

As I and several others have mentioned before, I find this hard to bat away as a mere coincidence, especially in the light of everything else we know about him:

Ellen: ‘On the inner side of the right labium was a wound 2 inches in length, penetrating the skin. Beginning about an inch behind the anus was an incised wound running forwards and to the left, into the perineum, and dividing the sphincter muscle’.

Eddowes: ‘The incision went down the right side of the vagina and rectum for half an inch behind the rectum’.

I agree that Bury was almost certainly the same perpetrator. In the interest of speculation though, I can't completely come to terms with his behaviour after the murder (and some before). Humour me for a moment.... If Bury was not the Ripper, but had a sick obsession with the Whitechapel atrocities I think it's possible he could have, in a drunken state, decided to emulate them to reap a kind of notoriety. The reason I think this is a possibility is his bizarre visit to the police to report his wife's 'suicide' and confess his fear that he would be labelled as the Ripper. That part of the events along with the graffiti at his home lead me speculate (rightly or wrongly) that there's room for some query. I will add though that my first instinct was always that he went into a blind rage when drinking and committed the acts in a kind of disassociative state.

[Mortis]

Most prostitutes of the time offered their services as anal sex, their client being behind them, whether this was a quick 'knee-trembler' down some dark ally, or in the comfort of a bed. In this case I see Kelly facing the partition, or lying face down to provide the service. Either way she was attacked from behind, as I believe were all the other victims.

As I said, that is interesting. I'm unaware of the positions sex workers back then found preferable.

There is enough circumstantial evidence from the murder's of Nichols and Chapman to justify the theory. Stride is another possibility, but neither Eddowes or Kelly provide anything towards that idea.
The only comment I have about Kelly was the cry of "murder", if as some speculate, she did physically defend herself (ie; has defensive wounds) then we should expect considerably more vocal exclamations than a mere "oh, murder". She would have had time to scream the house down.
It is though perhaps all she could get out if she was being strangled.

Well, here's the thing. With the previous 4 victims we have a very clear evidence that the killer placed his hands on their mouth, bruising their faces. It was not in the sense of choking them but making them quiet while he cuts their throat. Mary was too butchered to understand what precisely he did apart from cutting her throat, but it is nevertheless extremely likely that after he cut her throat he placed his hands on her mouth to shut what little sound she could make.

To me the "oh murder" is a red herring. Not only it doesn't make any sense by itself, if you're going to get killed, but the testimonies of it are contradictory by design. And although I do believe Prater, her hearing the cry after waking up from being asleep is very unreliable, least of all the time she heard the supposed cry. We also have to take into account that for Kelly's throat to be cut that deep, the killer did it from behind. It really wouldn't work if he struggled with her from the front, the cut wouldn't be that deep and it'll be very problematic to be done correctly. IMO, Kelly was long dead by 4:00 AM. If I had to guess, she was probably killed somewhere before 1:30 AM but around 1:00 AM to 2:00 AM is the best guess anyone can make. This is the last time anyone of note can track her movements - the singing stops around that time, the lights go off, neither Blotchy or Kelly are seen to leave and we have only Hutchinson's testimony to go on. Problem is, Hutchinson's testimony is almost completely off for we to believe it. It's about as reliable as the women who say they saw Kelly alive 10 hours after she was already dead.

Too much to address but I would suggest that prejudicial perspectives can be paralyzing when trying to understand what the evidence is saying. For one example, the evidence is suggesting that Mary killer allowed her killer to be in that room in the first place. Just like she allowed Blotchy...who we never see leave. That means she knew him. To argue that point with me tells me that you would rather believe if the man was in the room he was there as a client. Even though thats not indicated or warranted by her history. As for left handed, try and reconstruct someone right handed getting a knife to her throat as she lay on her right side facing away from the assailant. If youve done so youd realize he almost certainly was left hand dominant, or possibly ambidextrous. Which is a very very small percentage of any given population.

We have to clear one thing out. It seems to me you're suggesting that she knew him as in being friends, albeit no evidence gathered ever suggest something of that sort. Blotchy quite clearly wasn't a friend to her, yet she invited him in her room. They might have talked for hours, gotten drunk together, etc, but that doesn't mean they were friends, otherwise Cox would have mentioned something of that sort. Barnett appears to have been the only male friend in her life (as far as recently goes).

Why is it not warranted for her to invite clients into her bed? Witnesses speak to her as being an "unfortunate", that is a prostitute. We know from Barnett that she would invite friends to sleep over in the room. Why not invite clients for sex?

Now as far as the slitting of the throat goes. If we presume they were preparing to sleep together with her on the left side of the bed while the killer on the right, obviously he wouldn't be able to slice her throat with his right-hand. But you do not need to be left-hand dominant to slice a throat. You can try to do the motion yourself. A slice to the throat doesn't require any meaningful strength, just the motion with a bit of pressure.

I realize that people like to disagree with some conclusions I make, but I am doing so without evidence review preconceptions. Feel free to review the data that way too.

On your points:
1. Agreed on the first cut decision.
2. Lost would be I think more appropriate, incomplete seemingly meaningless acts suggest that.
3. Some wounds were, the initial attack less "careful".
4. There is no discernible pattern, you cannot determine in what order certain things were done like the wounds made on Annie for example. Check the Tabram data again...he hit several major organs multiple times.
5. She may appear to have been, but when and by whom?

2. Why would you classify the acts as "incomplete" and "meaningless"? If we go by that kind of logic, all of Jack's acts in each kill were incomplete and meaningless. The guy wanted to kill and mutilate, there was no particular "sense" to his acts aside from deriving pleasure in it. What we need to understand is that he had particular goals in his mind and he accomplished them in each and every kill. You call his acts "meaningless", but they were precisely what he wanted to do and there is no evidence to suggest otherwise. He cut her in the places he wanted to cut, he took out the organs he wanted to take out, he posed them in the ways he wanted them posed, he carved her face in the way he wanted to carve the face, he sliced her flesh off and to top it all off he took her heart with him. These are not the acts of someone who doesn't know what he is doing. If you want to talk about "seemingly meaningless acts" that would be Tabram's killer that suggest an enraged person whose end goal was to kill his victim, but either didn't know how or was too enraged and the adrenaline came over him to actually do it in a calculated manner. In contrast to the Ripper's killing with Kelly, his actions are very deliberate and calculated.

3. The only thing we know about the initial attack is that her throat was cut while she was close to the partition wall. The very fact that the killer once again targeted the throat to incapacitate his victim speaks very much that this guy knew what he was about, he wasn't your random killer. We can only speculate how he cut her throat, but I firmly believe that Wickerman is right. The small evidence we have would suggest that.

4. The pattern is pretty obvious - the killer wanted the victim to be mutilated. He wasn't a sadist or wanted to "hurt" her and cause her unnecessary pain, he just wanted to play with her body, just like he did with the other victims. What this tells us is that this wasn't personal, she just happened to be at the wrong place, wrong time and with the wrong person. His butcher of her body is very specific. If we go by the face, you will notice that he left her eyes undamaged. A similar thing can be observed in Eddowes case where he, for no purpose whatsoever, cut through her closed eyes with a single cut on both eyes. The "V" marks hold a similar pattern. Her face is the way he wanted it to be. Then we go with him ripping her organs. All of them were extracted and carefully placed by her side, there was no real unecessary stabbing or anything that would suggest that this was something personal or the killer didn't know what he was doing. You go lower and her vaginal area was practically destroyed, both of her upper legs had her flesh carefully skinned down to the bone, said flesh is carefully placed on the table. The body is quite clearly posed in a suggestive manner. The crime scene speaks of a calculated killer.
5. That is the question we're all trying to answer, isn't it?

With that in mind, I wonder, Mortis, if you have an thoughts on popular suspect, William Bury and his one known victim sharing similar mutilations to the C5? ... Can he be a possible fanboy, intentionally drawing notoriety to compensate for a pathetic, cowardly existence?

To me this screams of a man that was interested in what Jack the Ripper did, but was unable to go through with it. For one, the killing itself is chaotic. He apparently smashed his wife with a blunt object to the face, then choked her out with a ligature. Looks like something done in a heat of passion, not very calculated. The abdominal incisions are too shallow and "unconvincing" for a lack of a better word. Like he doesn't have the stomach to go through it. Then, if I'm not mistaken from what I've read, the wounds do not seem to be done immediately after but of a space of time, like he is interested in desecrating the corpse, but doesn't really know "how", least of all having the stomach to do it. Post-killing he seems absolutely clueless as to what to do, whether to dump the corpse, give himself up, make the killing look like it is something it is not, further showcasing that this individual is very disorganized and has no real idea what he is doing. Bury himself looks like a mess in his private life, often beating his wife, being dirt poor, basically living off his wife. He also didn't leave in the immediate area of the Whitechapel killings. In contrast to the Ripper who would appear to be somewhat well off, would have his private life mostly in order, would appear to be a friendly person, someone you would not notice and would be hard to detect to the naked eye. Would be somewhat intelligent compared to the rest of his environment and would be a Whitechapel native or resident for a decent amount of time. Bury seems the opposite of that in every way. He mostly spent his days drinking himself into a stupor, being violent towards his wife even in public, showing himself to be very undisciplined in his private life (unable to keep his job, often lying to people about things that if caught, would get ihim in trouble, marital problems on full display to people, wasting his days in pubs, etc). He was also a very small man of 5'2 while most Ripper descriptions put him about average, slightly taller than his victims 5'7 to 5'9.

In short, I do not think Bury is the Ripper, although it is possible. The Ripper on the surface would look like a fairly respectable man, friendly to people, the good next door neighbor, maybe even married, would have a decent job that would allow him to spend money on prostitutes and on dressing fairly well. There would be hints out there that something is not right with the guy, but they'd be subtle and not all that obvious to his close circle or people around him, unlike Bury whose problems were at full display.

There was a blood on the partition wall from the arterial spray and it was determined that that throat cut was the first. The fact that she is on her back in the middle of the bed when found is indicative of him flopping her back in that position so he could do the cutting he wanted to.

Mary was not "flopped" back from that position. She was carefully posed. From what position he did that is impossible to determine. It might be you're right, it might be Wickerman is right. The arterial spray to the partition wall from her neck wound is entirely possible to be done while she was getting ready for sex and the killer slashed her neck from behind. Due to blood spatter analysis not even being in its infancy at the time, it is impossible to discern in what kind of position her throat was cut, all we know is that her neck was somewhere at the right corner of her bed and thereby her head would be there. What position she had during that time is only a matter of guessing, but either way, he didn't have to be left-handed in order to kill her, all he needed was a left-hand he could use.

There are so many differences in the Miller Court murder from any other murder of that period that to conclude a man who was suggested to be of surgical grade knowledge....being Annies killer...also is responsible for the mayhem in room 13 is a huge leap. There are so many odd acts that served no purpose in room 13, and in Annies case he cut where he needed to and did what was needed to obtain what he wanted. In Marys case, was it neccesary to strip her thighs, but only one completely? Was that straight line cut across the calf needed to obtain anything? Her slashed face?

I think both you and Mortis should take a closer comparative look at victims, in venue, circumstance and activities, how different Marys murder was. Then look at the skills exhibitted....no suggestion by any contemporary medical man that Marys killer was skilled or anatomically savvy. Again, that differs greatly from Annie.

There are no fundamental differences. Mary is absolutely consistent with the core aspects of the killer's MO. I'm also curious where do you get the killer's "purpose" from. All we know about the killer is that he enjoyed doing what he did. There is nothing to suggest he had some great goal of harvesting organs or whatever. You say he did "meaningless things" to Kelly but I see no meaningless stuff in anything he did to Kelly. You're also implying that the Ripper in Annie's case had medical knowledge but in Mary he did not. Well, how do you judge that? To me in all of the killings except Stride and Nichols (which were probably interrupted) showcased some skills in anatomy, certainly for his time. He generally seemed to know where a person's organs are and how to get them which is pretty impressive for living in a very poor and uneducated area in a time with no internet. His butchering of Mary to me indicates a person with some degree of anatomical knowledge. And what is interesting is that you have to take into account that depending on who did the autopsy on the victim, different opinions would be necessary. Bond says Kelly's killer held no real skill, yet Brown said Eddowes killer possessed a great deal of anatomical knowledge. Kelly and Eddowes killers are most certainly the same. Phillips says that Chapman's killer possesses anatomical knowledge.

Suffice to say, I think the crude way in which Kelly was butchered clouded Bond's opinion on the knowledge of the murderer's surgical skills. Nevertheless, Bond himself was absolutely convinced that all 5 of the murders were done by the same hand.

You also keep saying whether cuts were necessary or whatever... how do you define "necessary", in your mind? Was the killing and butchering of Annie Chapman "necessary"? There is nothing necessary about any of the Ripper's killings, he did them because he wanted to and wanted to mutilate their bodies. The question is not about necessity but about wanting. And as far as the stripping of her thighs go, I think he did it to both. He did expose the femur of only the right leg, but I think that may be by design. At the end of the day only JTR would know why he did what he did.

[Wickerman]

Dr Phillips' own inquest testimony is recorded as saying that "...the severance of the right carotid artery [which] was the immediate cause of her death..."

Yes, but only due to the fact her right side was nearest the partition. He is assuming she was killed on her back in the position she was found. It's the only logical conclusion anyone can arrive at if you assume she was laid on her back, but that is a detail he cannot know for sure. If, as I theorised she was face down, then the left carotid artery would have been the first cut.

[Joshua Rogan]

Dr Phillips' own inquest testimony is recorded as saying that "...the severance of the right carotid artery [which] was the immediate cause of her death..."

[Wickerman]

In Dr Bonds report to Anderson he described the throat wounds:

"...In the first four the throats appear to have been cut from left to right. In the last case owing to the extensive mutilation it is impossible to say in what direction the fatal cut was made,..."

There is also some reference to the neck wounds in Dr Bond's own post-mortem notes.

https://www.casebook.org/official_documents/pm-kelly.html

This is only Bond's own notes and not to be confused with Dr Phillips official post-mortem notes which have not survived.

[Greenway]

There was a blood on the partition wall from the arterial spray and it was determined that that throat cut was the first. The fact that she is on her back in the middle of the bed when found is indicative of him flopping her back in that position so he could do the cutting he wanted to.

I agree the throat was cut first. She may have been unconscious at the time though. Where exactly was the wound on the throat? And in what direction was the cut made? I haven't been able to find a detailed description.

[Aethelwulf]

With that in mind, I wonder, Mortis, if you have an thoughts on popular suspect, William Bury and his one known victim sharing similar mutilations to the C5? ... Can he be a possible fanboy, intentionally drawing notoriety to compensate for a pathetic, cowardly existence?

As I and several others have mentioned before, I find this hard to bat away as a mere coincidence, especially in the light of everything else we know about him:

Ellen: ‘On the inner side of the right labium was a wound 2 inches in length, penetrating the skin. Beginning about an inch behind the anus was an incised wound running forwards and to the left, into the perineum, and dividing the sphincter muscle’.

Eddowes: ‘The incision went down the right side of the vagina and rectum for half an inch behind the rectum’.

[Michael W Richards]

Very well put and much agreed. This murder scene revealed a lot about the killer, and reinforced much of what he had done before. Methodical; he was far more interested in desecration than random slashing. Quick to dispatch; I don't think he would have given the victims any time to react at all. The complete Mitre Square murder and desecration was achieved in almost no time. Same M.O.; From Chapman onwards, there was a definite ritualistic attribute to the post mortem wounds and posing. So much is speculated on over the Kelly scene, but the I think it was simply a more prolonged version of the previous killings and very much by the same hand.

I agree that to suggest it's a copycat is plainly absurd. I've seen the stats on how uncommon murder was even in the rough streets of Whitechapel, but those who suggest there was two equally disturbed minds with the same M.O. operating concurrently really need to brush up on their crime studies!

With that in mind, I wonder, Mortis, if you have an thoughts on popular suspect, William Bury and his one known victim sharing similar mutilations to the C5? ... Can he be a possible fanboy, intentionally drawing notoriety to compensate for a pathetic, cowardly existence?

There are so many differences in the Miller Court murder from any other murder of that period that to conclude a man who was suggested to be of surgical grade knowledge....being Annies killer...also is responsible for the mayhem in room 13 is a huge leap. There are so many odd acts that served no purpose in room 13, and in Annies case he cut where he needed to and did what was needed to obtain what he wanted. In Marys case, was it neccesary to strip her thighs, but only one completely? Was that straight line cut across the calf needed to obtain anything? Her slashed face?

I think both you and Mortis should take a closer comparative look at victims, in venue, circumstance and activities, how different Marys murder was. Then look at the skills exhibitted....no suggestion by any contemporary medical man that Marys killer was skilled or anatomically savvy. Again, that differs greatly from Annie.

[Michael W Richards]

Why do you think she was lying on her right side facing away from her assailant? It seems to me from the reports that I've seen, that all we can be certain of is that her neck was above the location of the big pool of blood when it was cut.

There was a blood on the partition wall from the arterial spray and it was determined that that throat cut was the first. The fact that she is on her back in the middle of the bed when found is indicative of him flopping her back in that position so he could do the cutting he wanted to.

[Greenway]

As for left handed, try and reconstruct someone right handed getting a knife to her throat as she lay on her right side facing away from the assailant.

Why do you think she was lying on her right side facing away from her assailant? It seems to me from the reports that I've seen, that all we can be certain of is that her neck was above the location of the big pool of blood when it was cut.

[Meet Ze Monster]

1. Her throat was cut first, there were no signs of a struggle, nor any struggle being heard (except a single lone cry of "oh murder", which is difficult to ascertain whether it came from Kelly's room or someplace else. And the volume of said cry is very different depending on who you believe - Lewis or Prater)
2. The killer seems anatomically fascinated by the body. It seems like a kid playing with his toy, seeing how "far" he could take it
3. Wounds are very carefully done, there is no chaotic design. The killer carefully took the organs out, posed them with the victim.
4.His knife cuts in a specific pattern. Even something as simple as ignoring the eyes to carve the rest of her face speaks volumes. In contrast to the Tabram kill in which the killer chaotically stabbed her in different places without much thought.
5. Mary was posed. Her left arm was placed on her stomach, her legs spread out in a very specific pattern, her face turned left, looking at the pounds of flesh on the table.

From this we can ascertain that the killer was not your average Joe, he knew exactly what he was doing and was doing it before. Your theory that a random shmuck could do this holds no weight. This is not your ordinary kill, this was done by someone who has been quite desensitized from the human body and killing brutally.

Very well put and much agreed. This murder scene revealed a lot about the killer, and reinforced much of what he had done before. Methodical; he was far more interested in desecration than random slashing. Quick to dispatch; I don't think he would have given the victims any time to react at all. The complete Mitre Square murder and desecration was achieved in almost no time. Same M.O.; From Chapman onwards, there was a definite ritualistic attribute to the post mortem wounds and posing. So much is speculated on over the Kelly scene, but the I think it was simply a more prolonged version of the previous killings and very much by the same hand.

I agree that to suggest it's a copycat is plainly absurd. I've seen the stats on how uncommon murder was even in the rough streets of Whitechapel, but those who suggest there was two equally disturbed minds with the same M.O. operating concurrently really need to brush up on their crime studies!

With that in mind, I wonder, Mortis, if you have an thoughts on popular suspect, William Bury and his one known victim sharing similar mutilations to the C5? ... Can he be a possible fanboy, intentionally drawing notoriety to compensate for a pathetic, cowardly existence?

[Michael W Richards]

Umm, where exactly did Bond say he couldn't? "Face hacked beyond recognition" is just that. It's not supposed to be taken literally as in "there's no way to recognize this face ever". What's astonishing to me is that you continue to spout your own beliefs in contrary to all the evidence. So Barnett said he could recognize her by her hair and eyes, yet you sit here and argue that there were no eyes to see despite the fact that the police would have mentioned something of that sort if Barnett was lying? Your arguments make no sense and I've noticed this in your other posts. You're determined to stick to your guns about the idea that there were numerous rippers in Whitechapel at the same time and that's that - to the point of ignoring reality. How would Kelly defend herself if her throat was cut to her vertebrae? Care to explain to me how that works? And why would the slashes be carefully executed rather than random cuts, shallow and deep in all possible directions, if she was struggling for the knife? The slashes on her arm point to a specific design, not to some chaotic fight. Same as the rest of her body, btw. This was a carefully done murder.


Wickerman's theory was better than mine, so I wouldn't say she was laying on the side. And even if we presume my original scenario where they were both laying next to each other, her injuries on her left arm are in no way consistent with defensive wounds. You can notice it quite easily that he cut her in very specific manner. On her upper arm he cut her in such a way to create a skin flap. Presumably the same way he cut her legs down to her femur, albeit it seems to have given up on that for one reason or another for the arms. Defensive wounds would be chaotic, they would be all over the place, they would be both shallow and deep, they would be in different places in different shapes. Here we have carefully placed wounds with approximately the same depth. The only exception would be her slight cut to her thumb.


There is no evidence he was left handed. If we go by Wickerman's theory, which is more credible, he killed her while she had her back to him, getting ready for sex. He could have done it with either hand. And if we go by your theory and mine, sure he killed her by his left hand but that doesn't make him left-handed. You can easily cut a neck with either hand, you don't have to be ambidextrous. As far as the "oh murder" shout, I do not give it much credence. For one, Sarah Lewis testimony to me is bullshit and contradicts Prater's. For me, if we go by Prater and Cox testimony, which were the most credible ones, she was killed somewhere after 1:30 AM. At this point there was no singing and apparently the lights went out from her room. As far as the "oh murder" shout, that too is debatable. Her throat was cut first, that is obvious, there is no two ways about it. If her throat was cut, she wouldn't have any opportunity to scream or say anything in particular really, just gargle sounds and moans. This would confirm Lilley's testimony, which I do believe, in Nichols murder that reports the same thing:

"It was a painful moan - two or three faint gasps - and then it passed away."

There would be no way for Mary to shout anything in particular..


Where exactly does your belief that she knew the killer comes from? We know for a fact that the only two people with Kelly that day (male wise) were Blotchy (where she was apparently already drunk) and Hutchinson's suspect (where she was apparently also kind of drunk, from what I remember). Even if you believe Hutchinson, and I don't, the suspect is still unknown to Kelly. Blotchy and Astrakhan are both clients. There is no evidence whatsoever that the guy who killed her was known to her personally. Unless you believe that somehow after Blotchy leaves someone enters her room and they happily sleep together. This doesn't work in any remote scenario before the age of cell phones and what not. She couldn't have arranged a meeting later given that by the time she goes in with Blotchy it's already close to 00:00 AM. And we know that she stayed in that house at least until 01:00 AM. So your only real thread here is that Barnett somehow visited her afterwards on his own volition and that to me is very far-fetched.


How do you think the police solves these types of crimes? By blood spatter, how the wounds are positioned and done, what wound came first based on the blood, etc. This is how police reconstruct crime scenes. And due to the mess left at Kelly we're unable to discern a lot of things, but a couple of things are to be sure:
1. Her throat was cut first, there were no signs of a struggle, nor any struggle being heard (except a single lone cry of "oh murder", which is difficult to ascertain whether it came from Kelly's room or someplace else. And the volume of said cry is very different depending on who you believe - Lewis or Prater)
2. The killer seems anatomically fascinated by the body. It seems like a kid playing with his toy, seeing how "far" he could take it
3. Wounds are very carefully done, there is no chaotic design. The killer carefully took the organs out, posed them with the victim.
4.His knife cuts in a specific pattern. Even something as simple as ignoring the eyes to carve the rest of her face speaks volumes. In contrast to the Tabram kill in which the killer chaotically stabbed her in different places without much thought.
5. Mary was posed. Her left arm was placed on her stomach, her legs spread out in a very specific pattern, her face turned left, looking at the pounds of flesh on the table.

From this we can ascertain that the killer was not your average Joe, he knew exactly what he was doing and was doing it before. Your theory that a random shmuck could do this holds no weight. This is not your ordinary kill, this was done by someone who has been quite desensitized from the human body and killing brutally.

Too much to address but I would suggest that prejudicial perspectives can be paralyzing when trying to understand what the evidence is saying. For one example, the evidence is suggesting that Mary killer allowed her killer to be in that room in the first place. Just like she allowed Blotchy...who we never see leave. That means she knew him. To argue that point with me tells me that you would rather believe if the man was in the room he was there as a client. Even though thats not indicated or warranted by her history. As for left handed, try and reconstruct someone right handed getting a knife to her throat as she lay on her right side facing away from the assailant. If youve done so youd realize he almost certainly was left hand dominant, or possibly ambidextrous. Which is a very very small percentage of any given population.

I realize that people like to disagree with some conclusions I make, but I am doing so without evidence review preconceptions. Feel free to review the data that way too.

On your points:
1. Agreed on the first cut decision.
2. Lost would be I think more appropriate, incomplete seemingly meaningless acts suggest that.
3. Some wounds were, the initial attack less "careful".
4. There is no discernible pattern, you cannot determine in what order certain things were done like the wounds made on Annie for example. Check the Tabram data again...he hit several major organs multiple times.
5. She may appear to have been, but when and by whom?