Jack's been busy

[Robert St Devil]

Barring that "Lottie" was full of it, how do you interpret the bold underlined:

"I was living further up the court then. She (Mary Kelly) says `I'm afraid to go out alone at night because of a dream I had that a man was murdering me. Maybe I'll be next. They say Jack's been busy in this quarter'."

Is she saying...

-Jack's been busy in Whitechapel since August? [ie. committing murder]
-Jack's been busy around Dorset St. since September 30th? [ie. he's "known" to be trolling about the area]


ref. Kit, Kitty, Kitten by Any Aliffe

[Pcdunn]

It's a valid question.

I think the comment about her nightmare might lead us to wonder if MJK was a woman on the run from a threatening male. She does seem to have a mysterious past.

[Robert St Devil]

Hello PCDunn.

There is that shade of foretelling similar to the Elizabeth Stride account. I wonder if they confessed these ,worries, to their priest. Btw, do you know which newspaper Joe read to her?

[Pcdunn]

Hello PCDunn.

There is that shade of foretelling similar to the Elizabeth Stride account. I wonder if they confessed these ,worries, to their priest. Btw, do you know which newspaper Joe read to her?

The coincidence of Liz being identified after her death by the philanthropist as a woman he had seen in a lodging house has always intrigued me.

I don't know which newspaper it was, but probably one of the more sensational ones, if Kelly's nightmare came from the news reports.

[Robert St Devil]

Do you think her fear could be a confession that she was prostituting herself a ways prior to Joe leaving since the news reports that he is reading to her are about casual prostitutes being murdered? She obviously recognized something of herself in these women, and was afraid to be put into the same horror as them.

[Pcdunn]

I don't know, it's possible. Remember, part of Kelly's story is that she had done that sort of work earlier, and had even been to Paris. Was she afraid of the gentleman who had once taken her there? If so, why?

[Robert St Devil]

Can you imagine her horror the day that Joe reads Sgt. James Byfield,s testimony at the Eddowes inquest...

[Coroner] What name and address did she give? - Mary Ann Kelly, No. 6, Fashion-street, Spitalfields.


If her shady past was catching up with her, Pcdunn, it wouldn,t be unusual for her to be following the story in the newspaper. But then... why wait to be caught?

If she truly stated that she was afraid to go out alone at nite paired with her fear of Jack, do you think she walked the streets? Did she take her business inside as protection against Jack?

[DJA]

If she truly stated that she was afraid to go out alone at nite paired with her fear of Jack, do you think she walked the streets?

Nope.
More reason to doubt Hutchinson's statement.

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
If I remember correctly,was it not once stated that shortly before Kelly's death a man came to McCarthy and wanted to know where Mary was, he said she had something of his[ a watch I believe] and McCarthy is supposed to have sent him packing
I believe this information came from Fiona Kendall lane, and according to her, her great grandfather [ who was McCarthy] always believed he knew who her killer was.
I wonder if this was here killer, was he Hutchinson's well dressed man. did Mary believe he had forgiven her for the past, and allowed him access to her room.?
If so it cost her life.
Regards Richard.

[Robert St Devil]

Hello richardnunweek.

Mary told this to Lottie sometime in October because, up until the publication of DEAR BOSS, the Whitechapel killer was known as LEATHER APRON as evidenced by J Best. {Not unless Lottie knew another JACK.who Mary was directly referencing}.

I think there may have been some anonymity between Jack and Mary because Mary refers to him by his celebrity name. The conversation did not go:

Mary: They say Charlie,s been busy in this quarter lately.
Lottie: Who,s Charlie?
Mary: He,s Jack the Ripper

If Mary knew who he was, she could have turned a profit thru the media, vigilance committee, &etc before being murdered. She would have been aware of any rewards given if Joe was still reading her the paper.



Interesting to know why McCarthy felt the rush to send the man packing. That insinuates a foul conversation and a loss of temper.

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
I have mentioned the cry of ''Oh murder '' many times over the years, it is precisely the cry a person would utter , if they were dreaming they were being murdered, as well as actually being killed.
Mrs Prater clearly states at the inquest, the cry she heard was like someone ''Awakening from a nightmare''
It is therefore plausible that the cry heard at 4 a.m was not her actually being attacked, but a recurrence of that dream she told Lottie about.
This would give some brownie points to the witnesses, who claim to have seen Mary alive in daylight hours.
The ''Horrors of drink'' that Mrs Maxwell allegedly said Kelly spoke to her, might be a way of saying I am experiencing alcohol induced symptoms .
Regards Richard.

[Robert St Devil]

Thats clever, richardnunweek. Considering the top brass was lauding London as ,practically murder-free, "Oh murder!" must have taken on a life of its own during the hysteria of the autumn. Since constables weren,t finding murders left and right on a weekly basis, there are any number of reasons why it was being ,hoaxed aloud,. It,s somewhat cinematic to imagine Mary waking up in the early hours from that nightmare prior to her murder.

It could have also been an abuse shout. When Kitty meets Lottie, she describes her nose being kicked in by the boot of her husband. Women may have been inclined to shout "Oh murder!" when the abuse became too savage.

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=richardnunweek;393482]

Hi,
I have mentioned the cry of ''Oh murder '' many times over the years, it is precisely the cry a person would utter , if they were dreaming they were being murdered, as well as actually being killed.
Mrs Prater clearly states at the inquest, the cry she heard was like someone ''Awakening from a nightmare''

Hi Richard,

There are historical problems with the issues discussed.

Firstly, in the original inquest source, as well as in the original police inquest source, Prater does not say anything about awakening from a nightmare. The provenance are the newspapers.

Secondly, if we think the newspapers are reliable, the statement about a nightmare was an interpretation made by Prater. She was not in the room at the time of the cry. So it was an interpretation of a reason for the cry.

It is therefore plausible that the cry heard at 4 a.m was not her actually being attacked, but a recurrence of that dream she told Lottie about.
This would give some brownie points to the witnesses, who claim to have seen Mary alive in daylight hours.

It is therefore not plausible, but possible, that the cry had something to do with a nightmare. But the problem is that the source for Lottie´s statement, which is not a primary source, is later than the newspapers writing about the nightmare statement at the inquest.

Therefore we can not deduce from that secondary source to back up an hypothesis about Prater having made the correct interpretation.

Regards, Pierre

[David Orsam]

Secondly, if we think the newspapers are reliable, the statement about a nightmare was an interpretation made by Prater. She was not in the room at the time of the cry. So it was an interpretation of a reason for the cry.

We are making progress if Pierre is actually prepared to allow for the possibility of a newspaper report of inquest proceedings being accurate.

[MsWeatherwax]

I think it sounds entirely made up. I actually think she heard something much worse, but didn't want to admit that she had heard it and did nothing to help.

My personal opinion is that in that area, at that time, people were used to turning a blind eye. Culturally, at the time (and for a long time afterwards) women taking a hiding from their partners wasn't something people talked about. Prostitutes today are still routinely raped and beaten by clients. People in that Court may have been aware that Mary's partner was opposed to her selling herself and assumed that the early stages of the attack were actually what we know now as a 'domestic incident'. They may have assumed that it was an assault by a client. I don't know.

'Oh, murder' just seems trite to me. If you could see the light through the gaps in the floorboards (correct me if I have that wrong), you could almost certainly hear everything that happened in that room. I don't think that there's a big conspiracy here, just ordinary people too scared to admit that what they actually heard that night was a murder, and they did nothing about it.