Did Mary know her killer?

[Batman]

Wouldn't that mean the Ripper didn't learn about witnesses and identifying bodies until he got to Kelly? That seems unlikely. Yes Eddowes had some facial cuts but nothing that would prevent an identification of the body.

If that was the killer's motivation he picked the worst victim to bother doing that to. Any random woman found dead in Kelly's room would have been presumed to be her before a witness was even brought in to confirm.

I think its generally a given that serial killers of prostitutes do this because they are easy targets and hard to ID and trace etc.

With Nichols there wasn't much in terms of witnesses. Chapman was another matter. She was identified very quickly and people remember seeing her with someone.

Eddowes was identified by Lewende according to the clothes she was wearing not her face and as for Kelly it doesn't matter if they suspected correctly the dead person was also the tenant. Most witnesses to the events wouldn't know the victim well and in many cases would have to ID the body to say, oh yes, that's the person I knew. It is to these 'stranger witnesses' that he can suspend/slow down the case by the act of basically cutting up the face. He doesn't have the time to remove it all but he can do it enough to the point that ID doesn't take place in regular way.

[gnote]

I think he mutilated their faces because he learned that witnesses had to view the body/ see their faces to be able to corroborate witness testimony. Otherwise they were just a Jane Doe until identified. The longer it took to identify them the longer it took police to corroborate a witness testimony with a description of JtR.

With MJK for example, by destroying her face he is preventing witnesses from being able to identify the body as the person they had seen with such and such. Only people well known to the victims would be able to offer immediate clues. Stranger witnesses often mistook the victim for someone else.

So that is the practical aspect of why JtR did that. Then there is the forensic psychology of the mutilations which is out of my hands as I don't think like these psychopaths do. My fridge made me do it. My dog made me do it. Who knows what's going inside there. I don't.

Wouldn't that mean the Ripper didn't learn about witnesses and identifying bodies until he got to Kelly? That seems unlikely. Yes Eddowes had some facial cuts but nothing that would prevent an identification of the body.

If that was the killer's motivation he picked the worst victim to bother doing that to. Any random woman found dead in Kelly's room would have been presumed to be her before a witness was even brought in to confirm.

[Batman]

Does the time spent in the room indicate the ripper knew Kelly's schedule well enough to know no one would be coming in that time frame. Mary could have invited him yes, but he's taking a great risk if her boyfriend/roomate/landlord /friend could drop in at anytime. He's trapped in a lock room unlike some of the other ripper murders were he has some means of escape. If he had the key he might be sure no one could get inside (however the broken window pokes a hole in that somewhat). It's strange the McCarthy's guy came to check on Kelly when she hadn't paid rent in so long, they choose that morning to check up on her?

This is why I speculate (and with good reason) that Hutchinson was just an attention seeker putting himself into the place of Lewis's man outside the court.

That man outside the court is JtK who already went into MJKs room and is Blotchy face. He is checking things out. He can come and go as he pleases because the door can be opened from the outside without a key and he hasn't killed her yet, just another punter taking a smoke break or something. Oh and she is well drunk too and not complaining it seems.

[Batman]

I think he mutilated their faces because he learned that witnesses had to view the body/ see their faces to be able to corroborate witness testimony. Otherwise they were just a Jane Doe until identified. The longer it took to identify them the longer it took police to corroborate a witness testimony with a description of JtR.

With MJK for example, by destroying her face he is preventing witnesses from being able to identify the body as the person they had seen with such and such. Only people well known to the victims would be able to offer immediate clues. Stranger witnesses often mistook the victim for someone else.

So that is the practical aspect of why JtR did that. Then there is the forensic psychology of the mutilations which is out of my hands as I don't think like these psychopaths do. My fridge made me do it. My dog made me do it. Who knows what's going inside there. I don't.

[Rosella]

Yes I recently read that he was at the tap around 3am In a thread. One thing that struck me as odd was the police said when he entered the station he couldn't utter an intelligible word at first. If he had knocked on Kelly's apartment late at night she knows him he could've gained entry on a false premise. Then again he may had had access to a key! It's most curious that McCarthy let the rent go for six weeks until the morning she was murdered. On the casebook page it also says there is a descripensy about bowyer stating in one version that McCarthy accompanied him to the station.

In the chapman inquest records there is talk of a pensioner and ted Stanley vehemently denies being that pensioner. Is this the same type of pensioner that bowyer was? Could he have been chapmans mysterious pensioner?

Would Maxwell have known bowyer? The Maxwell account is most strange when you take into account the letter from "how strange is this" thread.

I agree with you Abby, the fact that bowyer was there in the middle of the night means he has a chance to kill her then as well as the later time!

Bowyer, or 'Indian Harry' was an Indian Army pensioner, (English.) Walter Dew remembered him wrongly, as being a youth when he wrote his memoirs.

'A youth, his eyes bulging out of his head, burst panting into the station. For a time he was so overcome with fright as to be unable to utter a single intelligible word. But at last he managed to babble something; 'Another one. Jack the Ripper. Awful. Jack McCarthy sent me.'

McCarthy followed him to the station and led the police back to Miller's Court. Bowyer had run to him after pulling back the curtain at the window of Mary's room. He had stated to McCarthy 'Governor, I knocked on the door and couldn't make anyone answer. I looked through the window and saw a lot of blood.'

The 'A-Z' has Bowyer as 'a somewhat sharp-featured man with a coal-begrimed visage.' according to the Sunday Times.' Again according to the 'A-Z',' Bowyer was 'unable to open the spring-locked door' that morning. He lived at 37 Dorset St.

[Errata]

Not necessarily disagreeing with you, Errata, although I don't think we can read that much into the Ripper's cuts, you probably already know what I'm going to say. Had this been an isolated murder, and not on the back of a series of kills escalating in violence, then I think your argument would carry more weight. Eddowes' murder also carried facial mutilations similar to Mary Kelly, albeit less extreme, evincing the killer's desire to dehumanize his victims. If that same man found himself indoors and left undisturbed with his next prey, surely Mary Kelly's fate would not be unexpected?

Yeah this is one of those points where it's like pornography, you can't define it but you know it when you see it? I don't see a connection between Eddowes' mutilations and Kelly's. Other's do. And the only person who knows died a really long time ago. So it's the psycho murder equivalent of Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! You might see pornography, I see hilarity and send ups of mid century sexual hangups.

Clearly the two mutilations are related in that presumably they were made by the same person, and they were on the face. And there are similarities in form. As one might expect from the same killer. But the Kelly mutilations are not the natural extension of the Eddowes mutilations. Which seems an odd thing to say given the sheer amount of damage to Kelly's face. But unless he has a very particular fetish (which shows up in no other parts of the series of murders) it's not right. If you mutilate lips, the next logical step is to remove the lips. Not do the same thing again. So the progression is wrong.

Eddowes had her lids nicked and cut. Kelly's were not. When someone concentrates on the eye, there is a reason. Sometimes they are enucleators, Jack was not. But what he did to Eddowes' eyes was time consuming and required a certain amount of patience on care. He did not have time. In terms of self preservation he should not have done those mutilations. But he did. There's a reason. In an odd way he draws attention to the eyes of both women in opposite ways. He cut's Eddowes' eyelids, he leave's Kelly's untouched. Both acts send a message, but it's not the same message. Now, if the eye injuries were reversed, that would make sense given the amount of time he had with Kelly. But he didn't do it. It's about the only thing he didn't do. Same motive, same issues, same needs, we should see the same specific injuries, maybe progressed. But we don't. So if nothing else, something significant has changed between Eddowes and Kelly. It's not his needs, it's not what he gets off on, those never change. Best available answer is that his motive changed. Which makes it personal.

Also, and I think sometimes when we talk technicalities this gets shunted aside, Kelly looked like she had been flensed. Eddowes face was mutilated, Kelly's was eradicated. Now to make myself clear I have to talk in an artistic sense, which I apologize for. Everybody knows that the brightest part of an object is the place you focus on. So lets say I have a clay head. If I don't want people focusing on the head, I don't touch it. If I want people to look at certain things on that head, I paint them a bright color. Which is essentially what Jack did to Eddowes. He called attention to specific parts by "painting" them in blood. And this is not necessarily for anyone's benefit but his, but he did it. Artistically it's called an additive technique. He added cuts. Kelly was not like this. He used what is called a reductive technique. He took away everything but the eyes. If I go back to my clay head, I would be cutting off everything that makes a face a face, but covering the eyes and painting everything bright red. When I uncover the eyes, they will be intact in a bright red lump of barely recognizable head. Both methods work very well to highlight a feature. But humans are creatures of habit. Someone is either additive or reductive. In any arena. Despite the obvious reductive qualities of taking organs, Jack is essentially additive. He called attention to certain things by adding mutilations. Kelly is different. Her murder was based solely on reduction. What is absent is the focus, not what is present.

Is all this stuff some natural law? No. It's a natural guideline maybe, but not a law. But it is damned peculiar.It's not impossible, but it demands explanation. It's not about time. It's about (and I hate to say this) an artistic perspective. Which artists use for any number of things, but regular people use to judge when something is "done", or what "looks right". It's like an apartment of black modern minimalistic furniture and this one wild west whorehouse gold and red velvet throne. If something does not go, there is a reason. And Kelly does not go with the others.

I know it' a weird and terrible explanation. One should never compare murder to art. But I'm an artist, and those are the terms I understand.

[c.d.]

If Mary's killing was personal, wouldn't Kate's murder be as well? I mean is there really that big a difference between the two? Both had their faces mutilated and both had their abdomen's ripped open and internal organs removed. If you want to attach some sort of symbolism to the killer taking Mary's heart then it seems to me that you would have to do that as well with Kate's kidney.

c.d.

[Errata]

Thanks Errata. Are you a Hutchinsonian?

I'm not, though I think his story is total crap. I think he would have been perfectly capable of killing Kelly, because he clearly had very weird propriety feelings going on, but I don't see him killing the others.

[eighty-eighter]

Would the ripper have risked mutilating Kelly the way he did if someone outside had the key and could come in at anytime? Kelly didn't have a key, neither did her landlord, it is somewhat logical that the ripper might've had the only key, and if so then he knew Kelly, unless he got it thru a thrid party or stole it.

Were there not bolts on the inside of the door, or was it just a simple latch ?

[GUT]

G'day Rocky

How know thee that Javk let the rent go 6 weeks rather vthan having his man knocking on the door every day, or every week getting a penny here and a penny there but still not enough to catch up.

[Harry D]

The pose, the facial injuries, the missing heart... if you were writing a screenplay for a horror movie about an insane stalker, Mary Kelly is exactly what the murder would look like, adding only obsessive scrawling on the walls and possible a hanged culprit in the corner. Kelly's murder is different than the others, and it's about the tone and potential message sent. It feels targeted. Which doesn't mean Kelly was killed by someone else necessarily, but I think it does mean she was killed for a different reason. I mean, this guy could have sold her buttons a few times and that was enough for him to decide they were destined to be together. He didn't have to actually know her. Most stalkers don't know their victims. They make up a story. And Kelly's killer could have had some little lost girl who just needed a kind man to take her away from the squalor of her life thing going on. Pretty common fantasy. She breaks the fantasy and he kills her. It's personal because he thought he knew her. She failed him. Rationally you can't fail someone you don't know. Tell a stalker that, though.

It feels personal. That doesn't mean actual knowledge of each other. It means he saw her at some point and got insanely attached. He thought they were soulmates. Sure, it was because she smiled at him when he dropped his paper across the street from her, but for him it was enough.

Not necessarily disagreeing with you, Errata, although I don't think we can read that much into the Ripper's cuts, you probably already know what I'm going to say. Had this been an isolated murder, and not on the back of a series of kills escalating in violence, then I think your argument would carry more weight. Eddowes' murder also carried facial mutilations similar to Mary Kelly, albeit less extreme, evincing the killer's desire to dehumanize his victims. If that same man found himself indoors and left undisturbed with his next prey, surely Mary Kelly's fate would not be unexpected?

[RockySullivan]

Hi Rocky
Thanks-absolutely. Actually, whether or not Maxwell was incorrect or not, Bowyer is a person who should be looked at. Debra Arif found a newspaper article in which their is a direct quote from him stating he was in court in the middle of the night, the night she was killed.
But yes if the chance that Maxwell was true then even more suspicion would fall on Bowyer, especially if its found he went to call on her earlier.

Yes I recently read that he was at the tap around 3am In a thread. One thing that struck me as odd was the police said when he entered the station he couldn't utter an intelligible word at first. If he had knocked on Kelly's apartment late at night she knows him he could've gained entry on a false premise. Then again he may had had access to a key! It's most curious that McCarthy let the rent go for six weeks until the morning she was murdered. On the casebook page it also says there is a descripensy about bowyer stating in one version that McCarthy accompanied him to the station.

In the chapman inquest records there is talk of a pensioner and ted Stanley vehemently denies being that pensioner. Is this the same type of pensioner that bowyer was? Could he have been chapmans mysterious pensioner?

Would Maxwell have known bowyer? The Maxwell account is most strange when you take into account the letter from "how strange is this" thread.

I agree with you Abby, the fact that bowyer was there in the middle of the night means he has a chance to kill her then as well as the later time!

[Abby Normal]

Thanks Abby those are all solider reasons for suspecting Maxwell was mistaken or lying. If however on the small change Maxwell was correct, it would make me a little suspicious of Thomas Bowyer. For instance, what time did McCarthy tell Bowyer to go pay Kelly a visit?

Hi Rocky
Thanks-absolutely. Actually, whether or not Maxwell was incorrect or not, Bowyer is a person who should be looked at. Debra Arif found a newspaper article in which their is a direct quote from him stating he was in court in the middle of the night, the night she was killed.
But yes if the chance that Maxwell was true then even more suspicion would fall on Bowyer, especially if its found he went to call on her earlier.

[Amanda]

Hello Amanda.

"What if MJK's killer actually knocked, waited for her to open the door and then put his foot in it to prevent her from closing it?

If Jack was a large/strong man it probably wouldn't have taken much force to push his way in.
Supposing this to be the case, why didn't she scream for help?"

And why did she go back to bed?

Cheers.
LC

Hi Lynn,
Perhaps she got into bed trying to entice her visitor to take payment in 'kind'.

Amanda

[RockySullivan]

Hi rocky
well, since Mr Lewis says he saw her at 10:00 am in a bar drinking and her body was discovered approx. 10:45am think we can safely rule out his sighting.

I think we can rule out Maxwells sighting as well for several reasons:

1. TOD by the drs. I know TOD is not exact but I doubt they could have been that off.

2. Her account was questioned by the coroner.

3. Since marys face was so mangled, Maxwell could not have IDed her anyway as the women she saw.

4. The large fire and burnt cloths indicate a much earlier and longer time period that Mary was with her killer than what the Maxwell sighting would allow.

5. Someone so sick as mary was according to Maxwell would doubtfully be in any shape to engage clients for prostitution.

6. She admitted she didn't know her that well, so maybe she had her mixed up with someone else.

Im not sure what was going on with Maxwell but I think we can rule her out as well.

Thanks Abby those are all solider reasons for suspecting Maxwell was mistaken or lying. If however on the small change Maxwell was correct, it would make me a little suspicious of Thomas Bowyer. For instance, what time did McCarthy tell Bowyer to go pay Kelly a visit?