The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #88634   Message #1665904
Posted By: Muttley
10-Feb-06 - 07:40 AM
Thread Name: Folklore: Jack the Ripper
Subject: RE: Folklore: Jack the Ripper
Never been a coach driver Hoot - sounds like fun though! Actually (my fault for being unclear) I meant "computer" sites as in Casebook - Jack the Ripper - a really good site. As for the actual sites - the only one obliterated is that where Mary Jane Kelly was dismembered. Apparently (according to the tour guide we had on our "Ripper Walk") after such an horrific crime the owners of Miller's Court and the houses round about found it difficult to retain tenants and eventually the place was torn down. "housing" of sorts was then erected, but again the "ghost" of Mary Kelly's horrific end continued to dissuade people settling and that street and houses are now a multi-level parking lot. However most of the sites are still 'visitable' if only as locations. Unless your great grandparents a re Jack the Ripper??? Hmmmmmmmmmmm!
My vote is still in favour of Chapman, Maybrick or Williams - especially Williams (though Abberline believed Chapman (aka Koslowski) was, in fact, the Ripper).

There is a tour company digonally opposite a tour-bus terminal in London (can't recall their name) they run a brilliant tour - especially if Deb does the walk and they finish up with a fish supper at "The Prospect of WQhitby" - London's oldest surviving pub.
Failing that - If you go to the bookshops in that street famous for its bookshops not far from Covent Garden there is, on the right hand side as you walk uphill (very slight hill) a shop which sells crime books as a specialty. From there you can get a small red booklet entitled "the Jack the Ripper Walk". The book is produced by "Louis' London Walks". Contact is Paul Garner: Telephone 07050 224991 or the website www.lwalks.co.uk. "Louis'" produce several of these booklets.
Interstingly the site of Catherine Eddowes murder is now the location for a raised, brick flowerbed. Apparently a 'memorial' was erected to her following (and at the site of) her murder - it got souvenired. It was replaced and that was souvenired too, so they erected the garden bed which is about 10 feet square figuring not even Londoners could pinch THAT too easily!
Also when I say 'ghost' in reference to Kelly - I don't mean that literally as there has never been a reported haunting. That being said, though, quite a number of folk have reported seeing a body in "lower class Victorian dress" laying in the street at the site of Catherine Eddowes murder!

As for weelittledrummer ans alanabit Tsk Tsk Tsk - such irreverence ! Funny though - I especially liked the Murder on the Orient Express angle - but if you're gonna include Posh and Becks; you ought to include Kate Moss as well - she's go to the opening of an envelope so there's no WAY she'd miss something like a good celebrity murder!

Moleskin - according to the evidence I have read, they were all either savagely HIT in the larynx stunning the vocal chords and then slashed across the throat just below the larynx itself - rendering them silent. one evidences a right to left slash (Kelly I think) while all the others were slashed left to right - ostensibly by the killer standing behind and presumably after he had rendered them speechless and helpless.

There are about 6 to 9 other "possible victims" and at least one of them was strangled but she was the only one. The five all routinely admitted to be genuine Ripper victims were all slashed.

An interesting bylight that was thrown up in the film "From Hell" - which centres on the old and probably unreliable "Royal Conspiracy Theory"; was that Mary Kelly actually survived and that it was a different woman occupying Kelly's room as a 'sub-let' who was murdered and then incorrectly identified.

Kelly was the only one "butchered" beyond recognition: her abdominal cavity was emptied and the contents placed around her body, both breasts removed to the rib cage (including bits of ribs), the heart was removed as was the entire abdominal wall, vulval region, the front of both thighs and these all placed with other organs around the body. Can't recall if the heart was ever found. The arms were slashed and the face was slashed deeply and numerously completely obliterating her features. The only features untouched were her eyes.

However, the only positive ID was from the landlord who said only that Mary Kelly rented that room and her erstwhile and recently disposed-of live-in lover. His ID was from across the room and he only identified the corpse as Kelly because it had blue eyes - the same as Mary's. However, several VERY reliable witnesses reported having not only seen Kelly after the body was found - but to have spoken with her.

I have heard this theory several times - that Kelly actually got away and the body was mis-identified but if you care to access the "Casebook - Jack the Ripper" site. Go to "Victims" (left-hand contents column) Access "Mary Jane Kelly" when the names and portraits appear and then scroll down to the bottom; one of the articles associated is called "Did Mary Kelly Live On? (or something like it!). The guy expresses a really good case but spoils it at the end by getting all "and they all lived happily ever after" on the reader.

Anyway - keep searching.