MJK's Body Identification?

[SuspectZero]

From all the census records listing someone with the given name of 'Mary' who was about the right age? I wouldn't be confident of having eliminated them all.


And that brings its own problems because we don't know for sure what her own story was, only what Barnett (with some help from others), sincerely or otherwise, claimed it to have been.

Yes. Like the Mary Kelly the servant girl, living with her aunt Catherine Kelly, in London, in the !881 Census.

[MsWeatherwax]

Sadly, I think the chief reason Mary continues to fascinate is that the possibilities are endless, and her story is (probably) never going to be resolved.

London at the time must have been rather like the internet today - once you arrive there, you can become anyone or anything you want (at least in terms of back story). At most, Mary may have been limited by her accent. Other than that, she could say what she wanted, because after all... who would be checking?

For all we know she spent her entire childhood in care and had no idea who her family were. She could have put her back story together from people she met and things she saw, like a Victorian Kaiser Soze....

[Rosella]

I think that there has been no documentation of a Kelly-Davies/Davis marriage in Wales in the relevant time span shows that Mary must have been making that up or was married under another name. Her father's job, siblings, a stay at a Cardiff clinic etc is one thing, but a wedding requires a certificate and the fact that nothing has ever been found to back it up is notable, I think.

[c.d.]

The idea of an incorrect identification by Barnett is certainly intriguing but really how realistic is it? This was a woman with whom he shared a bed. Certainly he could recognize her shape and her hair color? And if the body in the bed was not Mary then who was it? Did the deceased have relatives and friends and would they not have reported her missing? And did Mary make her escape with no clothes or money or her possessions?

Old Occam should be able to cut through this one even if his razor was on the dull and rusty side.

c.d.

[Michael W Richards]

The idea of an incorrect identification by Barnett is certainly intriguing but really how realistic is it? This was a woman with whom he shared a bed. Certainly he could recognize her shape and her hair color? And if the body in the bed was not Mary then who was it? Did the deceased have relatives and friends and would they not have reported her missing? And did Mary make her escape with no clothes or money or her possessions?

Old Occam should be able to cut through this one even if his razor was on the dull and rusty side.

c.d.

You would think cd that the man had seen every inch of Mary by that time, so why could he only identify her "air" and "eyes"? Did he see only her face in the morgue? Had they replaced the skin flap that covered her eyes by that time? Is it her hair color that he identified?

I did read that when some witnesses saw her it was only her face that was exposed, but I wonder if Barnett would have seen her in her complete state to be sure of the id....after all eye colors are hard to associate with any one person, there are plenty of blue/green/brown eyed folks around. And hair can be dyed. Seems to me that by the shot of her in bed that most of her hair was down her back at the time, would the length of her hair be an important factor to id?

[c.d.]

Hello Michael,

Let's assume for the sake of argument that Barnett was completely incorrect and the body in the bed was not Mary. Then who was she and what happened to Mary?

The problem is that you can't simply say it was not Mary and then stop in your analysis because if Barnett were wrong it brings up a whole bunch of other questions.

c.d.

[Michael W Richards]

Hello Michael,

Let's assume for the sake of argument that Barnett was completely incorrect and the body in the bed was not Mary. Then who was she and what happened to Mary?

The problem is that you can't simply say it was not Mary and then stop in your analysis because if Barnett were wrong it brings up a whole bunch of other questions.

c.d.

I was playing Devils Advocate cd, in fact I personally believe that the woman in that bed was the same woman Barnett lived with. But I do recognize that her state could have caused some issues for a certain ID.

Having said that, I dont believe the woman in the bed was named Mary Jane Kelly at birth. Like the "Marie Jeanette" for her courtesan days in Paris, I believe it was a name she adopted.

[Pcdunn]

Mary Jane or Marie Jeanette, she is certainly a woman of mystery. I've read an description by an eyewitness that she was fair-haired, but a period drawing of her in life (made following the murder) shows her with dark hair. While we can say the artist took artistic liberties, we can't help wondering if he had gotten his information from someone else, who said she was a brunette.

[ZadieWey]

Thank you all for your posts, there's a lot of great info here to think about.
To clarify the context in which I was thinking about this, I was spitballing theories with another person and we'd already talked about the possibility of MJK's body not being the woman that lived there. I was then thinking about how Kelly and Barnett had mysteriously abandoned their room before moving to the place where she was eventually murdered. Those to things sort of swirled together in my head and I blurted out this theory:

1. Mary Jane Kelly was running from someone or something. She had some past that was consistently catching up with her. (This could relate to the name/backstory conflicts, though obviously those could just be explained through her being a poor prostitute)

2. Barnett knew about this, or was also running from it, or was eventually told. MJK's past almost caught up to her and they had to abandon their home and hide in a new room.

3. Barnett left to live somewhere else. This may or may not have been related.

4. Kelly began to fear for her life once more (or maybe it was something else that was threatened by whatever she was running from) and the two of them decided that she couldn't just keep running, they had to do something more.

5. They got a body/killed a woman (this would've taken some planning in finding someone that looked similar to MJK, but they probably had time) and mutilated it in MJK's room, enough that it would be practically impossible to identify. They then burnt the extra clothes and left the body substitute naked (possibly so that her clothing wouldn't give her away as not MJK, considering how few items of clothing she owned).

6. MJK ran away (explaining the sightings of her after her supposed death) and Barnett lied to the police when identifying the body (the other man that said he knew it was her can be easily explained by shock and assumptions)

Now I know that there is obviously no evidence for this theory. I'm in no way saying that I believe it to be true. But after stewing on it for a few weeks I couldn't let it go and decided to hunt down some evidence that would prove it to be completely impossible. So far there's been nothing, but I'll continue to look just to get that nagging "but what if I'm right" feeling to go away so I can happily continue looking through the case with the knowledge that I have no clue who did it, who died, or how.

[richardnunweek]

Hi
It does not have to be Barnett and Kelly implicated in this B-movie plot.
It could be the other ''Joe'' and it was Kelly and him who were trying to persuade another ''well dressed woman'' to accompany them somewhere, in Dorset street.
It is entirely possible, that the whole episode that night had been preplanned, they arranged for a young woman of similar looks as a substitute for Kelly to stay in room 13, under some pretence.[ It was reported in the press, that Kelly had hired the room out for the night], and Mary ventured out at 2am to meet up with her accomplice , to give the opinion that she had been accosted by the ''Bogey man''.
It happened to have been Hutchinson who saw them, but Kelly was such a well known figure in the area, it would not have been hard for someone to have spied this apparent ''odd couple''.
Once inside the helpless victim, would have been at their mercy, and if anyone came to the room, Kelly would have said ''I am fine'.
Kelly and her accomplice , could have left the room early light , and vanished . leaving a badly disfigured corpse, Kelly's clothes [ Kelly left wearing the victims clothes]. nobody would have assumed anything but poor Mary Kelly , the 5th victim of a madman.
Great plot so far?
We have of course have to eliminate the witness Maxwell, and the dodgy sightings by Maurice Lewes...But hey lets not ruin a good plot..
Regards Richard.

[c.d.]

There is always the possibility that Barnett correctly identified the woman with whom he had been living. And while not nearly as intriguing as some other theories, it doesn't require the insertion of Elvis, the alien bodies at Roswell or the Kennedy Assassination into the case.

c.d.

[packers stem]

There is always the possibility that Barnett correctly identified the woman with whom he had been living. And while not nearly as intriguing as some other theories, it doesn't require the insertion of Elvis, the alien bodies at Roswell or the Kennedy Assassination into the case.

c.d.

Possible but the evidence suggests otherwise...

[packers stem]

Hi
It does not have to be Barnett and Kelly implicated in this B-movie plot.
It could be the other ''Joe'' and it was Kelly and him who were trying to persuade another ''well dressed woman'' to accompany them somewhere, in Dorset street.
It is entirely possible, that the whole episode that night had been preplanned, they arranged for a young woman of similar looks as a substitute for Kelly to stay in room 13, under some pretence.[ It was reported in the press, that Kelly had hired the room out for the night], and Mary ventured out at 2am to meet up with her accomplice , to give the opinion that she had been accosted by the ''Bogey man''.
It happened to have been Hutchinson who saw them, but Kelly was such a well known figure in the area, it would not have been hard for someone to have spied this apparent ''odd couple''.
Once inside the helpless victim, would have been at their mercy, and if anyone came to the room, Kelly would have said ''I am fine'.
Kelly and her accomplice , could have left the room early light , and vanished . leaving a badly disfigured corpse, Kelly's clothes [ Kelly left wearing the victims clothes]. nobody would have assumed anything but poor Mary Kelly , the 5th victim of a madman.
Great plot so far?
We have of course have to eliminate the witness Maxwell, and the dodgy sightings by Maurice Lewes...But hey lets not ruin a good plot..
Regards Richard.

Hi Richard
What's dodgy about Maurice Lewis compared to witnesses we've considered honest in the past?

[John G]

Possible but the evidence suggests otherwise...

What evidence?

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
Maurice Lewis sighting around 10am the 9th, would have been very unlikely, albeit just possible..I have always been intrigued by him admitting he was playing an illegal game of Pitch and toss in the court. when he saw MJK.that morning, no need to incriminate himself surely?
Regards Richard.