Alice Carroll

[Adam Went]

Hey all,

This has probably been discussed at some point in the past, but a question out of curiousity: Do you have a "favourite" victim, as in a particular victim or alleged victim on JTR that, for whatever reason, you feel closest to or enjoy researching the most?

I know it's a bit of a cliche, but it's Mary Kelly for me, simply because of her youth and the fact that we probably know the least about her out of all the victims....it's amazing how these supposed low-life unfortunates could all have such interesting lives given the pieces that have been put together.

Cheers,
Adam.

Hey Adam,

Yes Mary Kelly is very romantic or I should say her legend is. No I don't have a favorite. I like something about each of them.

Kelly and Stride are the ones I am most interested in as I have seen a bit of myself and my back ground in them as I have Swedish in me like Stride.
Someone has to root for the Swedes, and I like my liquor like Kelly that wild Irish Rose. I got old irish in me. So old i canna find it. Gonna go have me a beer right now. Cheers Mary ya wild roisin, sorry that worthless beast.... tore ya all to hell, love.....

Plus given what we know about kelly I do wonder if she was a prostitute at all?

[Adam Went]

Hey George,

One could argue that outside of ABBA and Volvo, Elizabeth Stride is Sweden's biggest export.

As for Kelly, we do know that her partner Joseph Barnett didn't particularly like her selling herself on the streets, or having her prostitute friends staying in her home, something which the two had apparently fought over in the past. However, it seems likely that she was often left with no choice - she was way behind in her rent when she died, she was supposedly quite attractive and so she wouldn't have had any major difficulty in attracting customers.

Besides all of that, she lived in Miller's Court which ran off Dorset Street, a street which held the unenviable reputation of being the worst street in London, and justifiably so. Personally i'd like to think of Mary as being a charming and intelligent young woman who was simply a victim of circumstance and location during the young years of her life, but unfortunately we just don't know enough about her youth to make any definite judgements....

Cheers,
Adam.

[Stan Reid]

CE 4 me

Adam,

I knew Joseph was upset about her taking in prostitutes but didn't know that they were fighting about her being one. Your right though in that what evidence we have tends to her being a Prostitute.

Stan,
You like Catherine Eddowes, well we we're talking about her just the other night. I like she got out of London for a while and had a bit of a work holiday. Really wasn't much of a holiday but at least she got some fresh air and made some money which is more then some girls got back then.

Plus she also went under the name of Kate Kelly because of one of her common law husbands, John Kelly with ties her in with Mary and she was killed on the same night of Stride. Both were part of The Double Event, a saying which I never liked, makes 'em sound like the Tuesday night line up on NBC.

[Howard Brown]

The murder victims are all about the same in terms of my interest...but its those victims of assault ( see Trevor Bond's thread that he set up on East End assault victims for that year) on the street that intrigue me more as time goes on. There's always that outside chance that one or more of them "just missed" being a victim of the Whitechapel Murderer.
Women like that Georgina Green, for instance.

[Karen Sweet]

As a young girl of about 11, I read a newspaper article about JTR possibly being a woman (Jill The Ripper).
It was the first time I had really read anything properly about the case and I was particularly struck by the description and a drawing of Mary Kelly's crime scene (there were no photos then).
It was somewhat incorrect (as I later discovered) in that it showed and described entrails etc. hanging over picture frames, but I was enthralled and at that moment began a, so far, 40 year fascination with the case and in particular Mary herself.
My greatest wish is that a photo of Mary in life will one day be found.

[Adam Went]

Hey all,

Many thanks for the input so far.

Karen, photos are one of the few things that keep turning up these days, so you never know - she may well be in some sort of family photograph that people have looked at a thousand times and not even realised that they were looking at Mary. It's possible to get some idea of what they must have looked like in life from the mortuary photographs (and the photo of Annie Chapman in life, of course), but sadly, not for Mary - so your wish would definitely be a brilliant one if it came to happen.

Cheers,
Adam.

How,
Georgina Green indeed. Did you ever find out why she was out and about alone in Whitechapel at such ungodly hour. I think she was hunting up supper. Which depending on her luck would of either been a rat or money for food depending on her luck which seemed to have run out.

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=11762

All,
That would be grand to have a photo of Mary Kelly. Supposedly on Casebook there is a drawing of her that was posted in one of the crime newspapers of the day. She was depicted to the artist by folks who knew her, who described her as a tall fair woman. Seems Mary was a looker, or so the drawing depicts her.

[Karen Sweet]

Can I just ask if there are any of you that feel the murder victim at Millers Court was not Mary Kelly at all?