Mary Kelly's Fireplace

[Aliceson]

What really bugs me about MJK's fireplace is that a fire was supposedly burning in it when MJK was murdered, yet it was still warm when Abberline touched the grate.

The spout and handle of the kettle over the fire were melted - off. That does not mean that the actual spout was melted, merely the solder that held it in place. I presume that the kettle was made of tin. Tin melts at 1350 degrees C. There is no way (correct me if I am wrong) that a fire could get that hot and maintain that sort of heat without an accelerant. There is also no way that MJK could afford to heat her room for that length of time, or that she would have that sort of heavy duty fuel available. If an accelerant was used there should have been traces from the way the fire burned on the walls of the fireplace. They would have been obvious.

Someone on the James as Jack forum site suggested that the bonnet belonging to Maria Harvey (we know it was burnt in there, Abberline found the brim) was (I think) covered in a tar light substance to keep it hard and that's what kept the fire going. Could be. Someone would need to do a field test to be sure.

If an accelerant wasn't used then it means the fire wasn't put on until later in the morning. Possibly to confuse police over time of death. Or time of death could have been much later. Remember that both Caroline Maxwell and Maurice Lewis saw MJK after the time she was supposed to be dead. (Maxwell at 8.30 and 9.00 am, Lewis at 10.00am @ the Britannica Pub). But it means that if time of death was after 10 am, the Ripper had barely finished when Indian Harry showed up - quite a tight squeeze. It also means that the medical evidence, overseen by Drs Phillips, Bond and Brown, was wrong.

So why the fire in the first place?
Abberline suggested light. Could be, I don't know. But if the fire burnt hot enough to melt the kettle, you would expect other occupants to have seen the light through the thinly partitioned walls.
Burning evidence. What evidence? Definitely not the heart, since that would not have burnt. Drs Phillips and MacDonald also sifted the ashes to check, as did Inspector Abberline. What about blood stained clothing, using Maria Harvey's clothes as kindling? I don't know.

What I do know is that it would not have been MJK that burnt the clothes. Why? Because clothing meant money and MJK was very poor. She was behind in her rent.

Please comment, even if it is to totally obliterate my arguments. Like I said, I'm not expert.
Aliceson.

[WTM]

Hello, Aliceson:

Sorry to be so long in reply, but I thought others would have jumped all over this by now.

You raise some very good points, and we have lamented these things in the past - there is such a confusion of testimony and deposition around the death of MJK that it is doubtful now that it will ever be sorted out. Truly more mystery here than you can shake a stick at.

Personally, I do not find it too difficult to credit those who say they saw MJK that morning. Risky as it sounds for JTR to be working in broad daylight, it was probably much safer than we imagine. Many people who were up and about late that night before, at the earliest suggested time of the murder, were surely sleeping in the next morning. Unemployment was rampant, so it is not like they had to get up early for a regular job. We don't know for sure, but it might have been easy for JTR to have slipped out of Miller's Court in broad daylight without being observed. I know that on a Saturday morning around here, I can slip out of my house to fetch my newspaper at 8 AM without being seen by anyone (I am often in my pyjamas).

I think the fire was lit not for light but to burn clothing and such that JTR had used to 'clean up' with or stop the blood from flowing where he was working. With all the blood that there must have been, it would surely have flooded that small area otherwise. As we have seen, JTR never left anything behind that might have offered the slightest clue, and so he must have taken precautions here. Look at the floor in the photo - there is certainly no blood in evidence, and it is hard to credit that it ALL soaked into the mattress without spilling over.

The solder of the kettle, I think, melted only because it had boiled dry. Again, there is not enough good data here, but surely the fire was not a roaring one or it would have attracted undue attention.

My thought on the matter? I think JTR probably killed MJK around 4 AM but didn't leave the room until 8 AM or so. We don't know how many sets of clothing she had for sure, but her one set of clothes was still folded in the chair. Did JTR burn any others that he had used to mop the blood? Did he wear a set himself in disguise, burning his own clothing? The possibilities are numerous, and your guess is as good as anyone's.

Maybe a few of the resident experts will chime in here and we will get a lengthy debate going.

[How Brown]

Your post reminded me of something that had puzzled me for a while. Bear with me here........Lets say that I am being assaulted( pretend that I am a woman,in this instance....). Some man is opening up a can of whoop-ass on me. I would probably scream or shriek and/or yell, "Help !".....Now,lets assume that I have been threatened with a large knife,blunt object,or know that I am about to get more than a beating. Would you, or anyone in fact, yell the word, "Murder !" ????? Details like this have been hard for me to grasp, regarding the testimony of the two "ear-witnesses". Speaking just for myself, I think it would take a degree of reflection to utter the word "murder" while the easier and more utilitarian word/phrase/outburst, would be "Help!.........I hope I don't come off as anal retentive regarding this,but it bothers me in that it does not seem to 'fit" ? Is anyone else with me on this.....or am I.....could I be....just a good old anal retentive nitpicking dude? HB................P.S. A man like D'onston or someone like him,intellectually,would automatically know the limitations of the police scientifically as he went about "doping" up a crime scene. Forensics,being pretty primitive, would make his staging at Kelly's a piece of cake.

[WTM]

Howard:

Yelling 'murder' may have been the thing to do in that day and age. I once read a story about WWI combat in the trenches, and the Germans had attacked the Yanks with potato mashers. After the attack was repulsed, one sergeant was seen to have a potato masher handle sticking out of his back, which in the heat of combat, he had not noticed. When a corporal pulled it out for him (he was still unaware of its presence), he was heard to yell 'murder' and threaten to wring the corporal's neck.

So maybe it really was just what would have been said then, although you raise good points. Never can tell about them brits, you know; one officer in Monty's army in WWII was heard to exhort his men to "hasten forward quickly there" when an American officer would have obviously said something else a lot shorter and more to the point.

[Aliceson]

The other thing that strikes me as odd about burning a fire for light is that Jack probably had a limited light supply when he killed the other victims. So why did he need light this time?
Did he have a light source when he killed the other victims?

The answer is, he didn't. I agree with the others who have replied to my original post, he needed to burn evidence.

[Birgitte]

I'm a supporter of the "MJK survived" theory, so I'd say she lighted the fire herself. Now I'll give my view on some questions raised in this thread regarding the fire:

"What I do know is that it would not have been MJK that burnt the clothes. Why? Because clothing meant money and MJK was very poor. She was behind in her rent."

How about this theory:

Is it not more reasonable to think it was Mary herself who did these things? She came into the room and laid her clothes neatly down and donned the corpse's raiment and, with the things her friend Maria Harvey had left, in the cold morning light lit a fire that disturbed no one - as those who worked had already left and those who didn't slumbered away the night's adventures - and she who mendaciously said she had lost the key locked the door behind her.

(Text taken from a dissertation in the Casebook)

"I think the fire was lit not for light but to burn clothing and such that JTR had used to 'clean up' with or stop the blood from flowing where he was working. "

Mary could have burned clothes of the victim who she found lying on the bed to swap identities and take off into freedom (without having to pay the rent). It makes sense to me and it also explains why people have seen Mary on the morning she was supposed to be dead.

Some people theorize that Mary was killed after those sightings, around 10 AM. But I've read somewhere in the casebook that there has been a study on rigor mortis and that full rigor mortis has usually set in 12 hours after death occurs. In Mary's case, looking at the coroner's report, it would imply that she died around 4 AM. That rules out the possibility that MJK was sighted the next morning. Unless it wasn't MJK in that bed...

All in all I'm still not convinced that it was actually MJK who got murdered. She rented out her room to other prostitutes quite regularly so basically it could've been anybody.

Birgitte

[How Brown]

Real good point. A real good point.....Does it really matter that the woman WAS Miss Kelly ? As Birgitte has pointed out, if it was another woman,then so be it, and to me, from my perspective,a woman was mutilated and thats all that counts. To the Barnettist's, who are numerous at other places in the cyber-world,it was MJK and it validates his candidacy based on a revenge motive. Funny that the police,eager to nab anyone for the crimes,didn't feel Joe Barnett was worthy of arresting. He happened to be the first one any cop would have pinched. Good points,Birgitte.

[Birgitte]

Funny that the police,eager to nab anyone for the crimes,didn't feel Joe Barnett was worthy of arresting. He happened to be the first one any cop would have pinched. Good points,Birgitte.

Thanks. Barnett was arrested btw, but the police released him (after intense interrogation I may add) because he had an alibi. Some argue he was JTR and the police let him slip through their fingers, but the whole "he was traying to scare Mary by murdering other prostitutes" just doesn't make sense to me.
Besides, he has no medical knowledge whatsoever so that rules him out for me on forehand.

Does it really matter that the woman WAS Miss Kelly ?

For the case it doesn't really matter who it was on that bed. A killed prostitute is a killed prostetute. But if you wish to solve the fireplace mistery it does have significant importance IMO. Same applies to the two or three witnesses who stated they had seen MJK alive the next morning. One woman who claimed she talked with her has stated this under oath. That can't be discounted as a woman talking nonsense.



I believe JtR placed items of his own clothing on the fire and then burnt clothing he had found in the room to cover up the fact.

JTR never left any clothing anywhere (okay, the leather apron maybe but I'm not sure whether that belonged to him in the first place) and why would he want to burn them at the crime scene and not at home? He got away with blood stained clothes (although I don't believe they were that blood stained) a couple of times before.

This is what the source I found in the Casebook says about it:

She was a laundress and a prostitute, and perhaps a thief who stole those clothes for Mary to sell.

The clothes MJK was wearing on the morning after the murder, when she was seen by two or three different individuals, were not her own. One witness stated she wore something she had never seen before. Mary being poor and in debt, it's out of the question that they were newly bought. These clothes could belong to the victim on the bed (which I doubt but it is a possibility) or could be clothes she received for laundry (which I find more plausible).

You can read the whole story here: http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/dst-desmary.html

Birgitte

[Garry]

Here's my little theory to what was burnt in the fireplace:-

I've had a feeling for a while that the 'Ripper' carried a change of clothing, or at least a spare pair of trousers with him. Remember the eye witness accounts of a man with a tied paper bundle or parcel?
Maybe he changed out of his trousers and burnt the blood soaked pair? An overcoat would conceal any bloodstained shirt etc. He also burnt other clothing in the room to conceal the fact that he'd burnt his own trousers beforehand?.

I think the kettle should be overlooked as we don't know when it lost its spout or whether it was still in use anymore, maybe it was planned to be used as a container for nik-naks?

Anyway, the reason I think of this is due to a report in the Oct 6th edition of 'the Illustrated Police News' - on page 2 at the bottom of column 5 (I have it in front of me as I type) there's a nice little story about a package being found in Kentish-Town. It was found in an old outhouse at the back of the Nelson Tavern on Victoria Road which was being renovated, when the owner took the builder in there to point out what needed to be done, they spotted the parcel behind the door.
It's decribed as a paper parcel and no importance was given to it at the time, an hour later the publican, Mr Chinn, was reading the newspaper and was startled to read about a similar parcel which was in the possession of a man seen with Stride. He contacted the police and an officer was sent to make inquiries.

He discovered that the parcel hadn't been picked up and had been kicked into the roadside where it had split revealing a pair of dark trousers. The fragments of paper were collected and said to be stained with blood and also had some hair attached to the congealed blood on the paper.

It also says that some boys had picked up the trousers and had dragged them off, later they said a poor man had picked up the trousers and taken them with him...so the police never actually recovered the trousers.

Another little thing that plays on my mind is the fact that the Lord Mayor of London had offered a reward for the capture of the murderer shortly after the 'double event' - then he commits his foulest murder on the day of the Lord Mayors Show - coincidence? ;)

I worked as part of the Lord Mayors Show last year in EC1 (at a solicitors building dressed as a clown - don't ask why, I'll never do it again) and at 8am it was amazingly quiet in the area as the preparations were ongoing for the Show itself and the parade which passed the building I was in.

So...all that said, is it possible that the murderer was that prepared for his activities that he did actually take along a change of clothing?
If you think of the murders that took place outside you'd expect an amount of blood and gore to end up on his knees wouldn't you as he moved his way round the body performing his actions?
Maybe the same was true if he had also knelt on the bed to carry out the mutilations? (it's pretty obvious that he moved the body at least once on the bed)

After all, with a fire there it'd be too much to resist wouldn't it? He wouldn't have to carry his bloodstained clothing in his parcel as they could be burned there and then....leaving the paper to wrap something else up in perhaps?

[Garry]

Not forgetting the eye witness account of an oilskin wrapped parcel too...did he take a paper wrapped parcel when the weather was dry and oilskin when it was wet or is it another one of those coincidences? Or maybe people reading other accounts and embellishing their own to make them sound good?

[How Brown]

Garry.......Thanks very much for the post below. I never knew that about the parcel and the pants. Much appreciated !

[Birgitte]

Barnett wasn't arrested, he was questioned by the police and he was considered a suspect - much like everybody who knew her at that point. After questioning he was considered innocent and released.

It's in all the books but I think I first read about it at the Casebook site.

Birgitte

[WTM]

If Jack did like Albert Fish did during such bloody work, he would have stripped naked so as not to soil his clothing. Thus the fire may have been necessary merely for his own warmth during the 2 hours or so he was engaged.

If so, then he no doubt would have brought something to clean himself up with, such as old rags, which would then have been burned in the fireplace once he was done.

Any opinions here?

[How Brown]

Tim....Fish was a rare bird,indeed...IMHO, the Ripper was probably naked when he killed Kelly .The reason I think so,in my humble opinion,is that this murder was celebratory *. It marked the end of his 5 planned kills.

Furthermore,as I know you are allowing for a degree of speculation, let me just add that despite NOT being able to prove it,of course, I would think that since the Ripper made it past Hutchinson, it was smooth sailing for the Ripper ( no joke or slight or pun intended.). Hell, I even see Hutchinson as a sort of Beefeater sentry. Imagine anyone asking him if Mary was around. George would have said," She's busy..".





* That is,of course,if MY personal suspect carried out the kills in the manner in which I percieve he did. Hey....what the hell do I know ?