Alice McKenzie - some details not seen before

[Harry D]

I include McKenzie as the next to last victim of the Ripper preceding Frances Coles in February 1891 and the next murder after Mary Kelly in November 1888.

I discount Coles but include McKenzie.

The overlap between the Ripper & Torso murders is key for me.

[MrBarnett]

Hi Philip
Glad it was of use and I also am interested by McKenzie as she is even more of an enigma than Kelly, if that is possible!
I agree that the main research tool with any account like this is a large pinch of salt!
However, I will do a bit of digging around and see if anything comes up. Some of the mentions seem so specific - like her father being a postman in Liverpool - that it makes me wonder if there may be some grains of truth in it
But of course the Barnett account is an object lesson in not getting hopes up too high
Regards
Chris

It seems that McCormack's account may have contained a kernel of truth. This is from The Guardian (Boston, Lincs) of 17th August, 1889.



Many of the facts check out:

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=29363&highlight=Peterborough

[The Station Cat]

If he only received a pension for 18 months, I wonder what his injury was? Trench foot perhaps from being in the trenches around Sebastapol? I wonder whether it's possible to identify him and obtain his service papers perhaps?

[Observer]

I think the stabbing to her genital area is significant.

[Sleuth1888]

Well we're at the centivigintennial for Alice MacKenzie's slaying on July 17, the other "bracket murder" to go along with Tabram.

Ins and outs:

Another interrupted slaying like Stride?

She was also a victim like Eddowes who was not definitely proven to be a prostitute.

I think Kosminski had just been released so wouldn't that fit in tidily?

Wasn't this also where the Lodger story came from with the business about G. Wentworth Bell Smith supposedly seen washing his hands in the yard after the killing?

Maybe this murder is a little too frequently dismissed as a JtR killing.

Well there's also the similarities in terms of her injuries - throat cut, abdominal attack and a stab to to her private area (which we see in Tabram and Nichols.)

[Pettifogger]

I include McKenzie as the next to last victim of the Ripper preceding Frances Coles in February 1891 and the next murder after Mary Kelly in November 1888.

[George Hutchinson]

This is bizarre - just been looking through this thread and I have no memory of having seen it before, then noticed I'd made a post on it I don't even remember making! I wish I'd remembered this when it came to doing the revisions on TLoJtRTaN, which arrived back with the publisher today.

PHILIP

[sdreid]

Thanks Chris. I have that in my notes which only means that I read it somewhere, not that it's necessarily true. At present, I don't recall where I saw that. Anyway, Kosminski is a measure down on my suspect list so I'm not really angling for him there.

[Chris]

I think Kosminski had just been released so wouldn't that fit in tidily?

As far as I know there's no documentation on Aaron Kozminski around this time. He was in Mile End Old Town Workhouse the following July (1890).

[sdreid]

Well we're at the centivigintennial for Alice MacKenzie's slaying on July 17, the other "bracket murder" to go along with Tabram.

Ins and outs:

Another interrupted slaying like Stride?

She was also a victim like Eddowes who was not definitely proven to be a prostitute.

I think Kosminski had just been released so wouldn't that fit in tidily?

Wasn't this also where the Lodger story came from with the business about G. Wentworth Bell Smith supposedly seen washing his hands in the yard after the killing?

Maybe this murder is a little too frequently dismissed as a JtR killing.

[Chris Scott]

Hi Philip
Glad it was of use and I also am interested by McKenzie as she is even more of an enigma than Kelly, if that is possible!
I agree that the main research tool with any account like this is a large pinch of salt!
However, I will do a bit of digging around and see if anything comes up. Some of the mentions seem so specific - like her father being a postman in Liverpool - that it makes me wonder if there may be some grains of truth in it
But of course the Barnett account is an object lesson in not getting hopes up too high
Regards
Chris

[George Hutchinson]

Great work, Chris. Clay Pipe is one that's always been of interest to me too, not least because the site of her murder is so accessible to this day and, of course, the facade of the wash house next to the site still stands.

However, we know that the IPN wasn't to be taken too seriously and the mention of the blind man she lived with did also strike me as possibly - just possibly - being an incorrect reference to George Dixon and thus an indication of the reliability of the piece.

PHILIP

[Chris Scott]

Just another little something - a view of Castle Alley I'd not seen before

[Chris Scott]

Here is the section in question

[Chris Scott]

Hi Rob
Yes, that's how I read it - that he was invalided out during or immediately after the Crimean War
However, if this was due to injury he may not have been that old
Chris