Suggestion

[Michael W Richards]

Apart from Mary's room,the only other chimney was at the very front of the house.
Possibly dual purpose heating/cooking.

The smaller window was four panes.

Mary's fireplace was a typical small Victorian one that accepted one or two 12" long smallish split logs.

The only street facing door was to the shed, I wonder if it was always a shed or later converted for storage use after the home was converted for multiple tenant usage. Maybe the tuck shop McCarthy ran from #27 inside the passageway might have stored goods there too.

A thing about the fireplace and the alleged fire size that night, I believe the evidence suggests that there was no identifiable light cast at 1:30am and even though Mary Ann goes out again to find clients after that, she sees no change when she returns. That suggests that if there was a large fire in that fireplace it was either out by 1:30, or re-started after Mary Ann retired for the night. The melted spout on the kettle could have been done at any time before that night, so that leaves us with 2 probable scenarios on the fire.....that Mary placed the items found in the ashes on the fire herself before 1:30am, or that Mary or someone else placed the items on the fire after 3am when she retires.

What I believe the evidence shows is that the hat and fabric were put on a fire that was low, as they were only partially burned, ..and that seems to suggest that its probable that whomever placed the items there did so when the fire was at an end. Which suggests that they were not used to create a brighter room to "work" in. Which makes sense since the killer worked with his back to the windows, he would have no warning if someone peeked in through the curtains. Why draw attention to the room with a large fire?

I believe the speculation for the large fire is erroneously based on the assumption that the spout was melted off that night, and that the killer needed light to do what he did, when in fact candle light would likely have sufficed.

[DJA]

I believe in the original layout that there would have been access to Marys room from the door inside the passageway..when it was a parlour. If you want to solve something less clear...figure out if they had a working kitchen in the original home, and where it would have been located.

As for the boarding up of the room, I believe the obvious answer is probably correct, to ensure no-one could enter or see into that room from the courtyard. But I also recall reading that its possible they removed the window closest to the front corner, the one with the broken pane in the lower right corner. I believe the windows were 3 framed panes across, and six high...or some such panel configuration.

The plain truth is that the killer either broke in or was invited in. If he broke in using the spring latch release via the window that leans towards someone known to Mary or at the very least someone who knows about her, as does the invitation scenario.

Apart from Mary's room,the only other chimney was at the very front of the house.
Possibly dual purpose heating/cooking.

The smaller window was four panes.

Mary's fireplace was a typical small Victorian one that accepted one or two 12" long smallish split logs.

[Michael W Richards]

Hi,

I have never called it a "secret door". It was the door in the doorway between the large and small room of 26 Dorset Street. You can easily see its position in the apartment plan.

I prefer to think the original door is the door we see as long as there is no evidence of another door being put there.

And Michael - why did they board up the windows in number 26?

Regards Pierre

Hi Pierre,

I presume that the issue of the door is resolved to yours and everyones satisfaction, but Ill add that there is in some enhanced images a faded # 26 visible on that door, lending credence to the story that stated the old front door was used. I believe in the original layout that there would have been access to Marys room from the door inside the passageway..when it was a parlour. If you want to solve something less clear...figure out if they had a working kitchen in the original home, and where it would have been located.

As for the boarding up of the room, I believe the obvious answer is probably correct, to ensure no-one could enter or see into that room from the courtyard. But I also recall reading that its possible they removed the window closest to the front corner, the one with the broken pane in the lower right corner. I believe the windows were 3 framed panes across, and six high...or some such panel configuration.

The plain truth is that the killer either broke in or was invited in. If he broke in using the spring latch release via the window that leans towards someone known to Mary or at the very least someone who knows about her, as does the invitation scenario.

I believe that the first 2 Canonicals victims revealed a great deal about that killer, including his choice of a homeless stranger for a target. Another revealing act was the focus of the pm mutilations. In the case of Mary Kelly we have a victim who is not homeless nor outdoors, someone who is already in their rented bed when the killer attacks. And he leaves a uterus under her head, something I believe was the primary target for Annies killer and arguably, perhaps, Polly's.

This is also the only Canonical victim who admittedly was in a love triangle prior to her death.

[DJA]

Wickerman,

Why do you appear to place so much stock in newspaper reports. These often contradict each other. Therefore how do you chose which is accurate?

Fixed

[Elamarna]

Pierre

Why do you appear to place so much stock in newspaper reports. These often contradict each other. Therefore how do you chose which is accurate?
Accepted that they are a most useful source of information and will certainly give a view of the general feeling at the time; they should however not be taken as Gospel.

The same is true of modern day newspapers, indeed it is not unknown for papers to invent stories.

[Elamarna]

Pierre

Could you please enlightened us with regards to the statement by Abberline you refer to:
I was going to copy and paste his inquest statement and ask you to highlight the part you are referring to. But quite honestly I don't see the point because there is nothing in it that matches what you are suggesting. Or is it metaphorical and we have to interpret it differently from what is actually said.

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
David is right the form book tells the facts, you can always interpret form in different ways to create a theory, but the form still remains.
Regards Richard.

[David Orsam]

Pierre's theory falls down at the first hurdle. It depends entirely on the door to Kelly's room having been barricaded by the bed and table. But we know for a fact that it wasn't. We are lucky to have one of the first people into Kelly's room, Dr George Bagster Phillips, speaking to us through the centuries and he tells us very clearly:

'On the door being opened it knocked against a table, the table I found close to the left-hand side of the bedstead and the bedstead was close up against the wooden partition...'

This was expressly confirmed by Inspector Abberline.

Confronted by the clearest possible evidence that the door was not barricaded, Pierre has to fall back on the oldest trick in the world: the doctor was lying, the police were lying, it was all a cover-up to deceive the coroner and the public. Everyone was perjuring themselves and acting illegally. This is not history, it is anti-history. By disregarding the available evidence and reading into the inquest testimony things that are not there he naturally leaps once again to false conclusions.

[David Orsam]

The point is that there must have been a reason for the statement of Abberline at the inquest

What statement of Abberline? Do you mean one you have invented?

[David Orsam]

But let´s not go into discussion about who decided what on the crime scene.

I'll bet you don't want to discuss this Pierre, now that you have realised you got it wrong about surgeons advising the police.

But we just go back to the fact that Dr Phillips advised the police not to enter Kelly's room but to wait for the bloodhounds, so that there were no "misunderstandings" about the door being locked or the key being missing as you have claimed.

The misunderstandings are all yours.

[IchabodCrane]

Pierre,
would you mind answering the following questions or do you prefer to keep ignoring them because they are inconvenient to your 'theory':

1. How about the blood splatters at the corner of the wall?
2. Did the door open into Mary's room or into 26?
Thanks a lot
IchabodCrane

[RockySullivan]

I am suggesting you are looking at the entrance door to Mary Kelly´s room from inside of it. It has hinges to the left on the photograph where the light also shines through. In front of the door is a table and the bed.

The door is often believed to having been locked. But I suggest that the killer wanted to make sure that no one could enter the room while he was at work there. So he barricaded the door with the table and the bed.

Because of this he had planned not to use this door for his escape after the crime. He escaped through the other door which is a door in the apartment of number 26. This doorway is in the apartment plan from 1890 and is showing the door being opened into number 26. It is marked "S" for shop but was often called "the shed". Prater lived above it and Mary´s room was a part of it in the apartment plan.

I suggest the killer broke up the door before the murder and closed it again so it looked normal. On the night of the 9th he opened the door when Mary Kelly was asleep and killed her in her sleep.

He got into her room, closed the door behind him and moved the table and bed in front of the door to barricade it so no one could get in.

During the inquest the coroner asked Prater if she had heard any beds or tables being pulled around in Mary´s room. So it is likely to have happened. The coroner must have gotten the information from Abberline.

This would also explain all the misunderstandings about the door being locked, the key beein missing, the police waiting for dogs and so on. The police at first couldn´t get into the barricaded room.

But since the saw the other door, leading to number 26, through the window, and since they must have been told about the entrance from the street into number 26 by McCarthy, they entered number 26 from the street.

And heaven knows what they might have found in there.

The windows in that apartment were boarded up.

In the Evening Express (I have no copy but if someone has they might want to share it) I think they wrote that the police boarded it up because they were afraid the killer would return and "use" the place.

I think Abberline kept silent about many things on this day, as did of course McCarthy (not wanting business to get any worse than it already did after the murder of Kelly) and Phillips. After all, Phillips must have taken the advice of the police.

Regards Pierre

Interesting theory, reminds me of the locked room mystery from the berner st loft

[DJA]

I agree.

But let´s not go into discussion about who decided what on the crime scene.

You clearly have little real knowledge.

I believe Dr. Phillips knew who the Ripper was and wanted the case investigated properly.

His evidence given at the inquests remains important.
Well worth a read!

He was not alone in recognising anatomical knowledge and/or technical skill.

Abberline,on the other hand,should have known the were no bloody hounds!

[Pierre]

Pierre.

...While it is true that the police take possession of the crime scene, any ingress or egress by anyone other than police is by police permission only,

A surgeon may only advise police, given the fact the police have the final say....

I agree.

But let´s not go into discussion about who decided what on the crime scene.

The point is that there must have been a reason for the statement of Abberline at the inquest and that there are reasons to believe that this reason has to do with circumstances at this crime scene that the police did not want to share with the public.

These circumstances are easy to understand to when you interpret the material, that is MJK1, MJK 3 and the apartment plan for Dorset Street.

Just beacuse the police did not give the information about the door between the shed and Mary´s room doesn´t mean it wasn´t there.

I think the police wanted the public to think what you now think and this has led to the wrong history about the murder of Mary Jane Kelly.

Of course, this is common within history writing.

The winners write history, they decide what we must think and in the end we loose our own capacity of free thinking.

Regards Pierre

[Wickerman]

Surgeons don´t advice police, David.

Police advice divisional surgeons.

Pierre

Pierre.

"...Dr Phillips asked me not to force the door but to test the dogs if they were coming,.."
Abberline, at the inquest.

While it is true that the police take possession of the crime scene, any ingress or egress by anyone other than police is by police permission only, the police are open to professional opinion.
Dr Phillips was a police surgeon, they work together as a team.

When a professional man offers advise, justified by a reason, then an officer may bow to his request in respect of his professional position.
Which appears to be the case in this example. And, in this example the Inspector, on his arrival, made the final decision.

A surgeon may only advise police, given the fact the police have the final say.