Twenty-five-year-old Mary Jane Kelly was, after Frances Coles, the second-youngest victim of the Whitechapel rampage, and the most savaged. Unlike the other prostitutes, who were killed on the streets where they worked, Kelly had a private room. She met her death on 8 November 1888, at 13 Miller’s Court, off Dorset Street, where she was disembowelled, disfigured and dismembered in a fury of madness. The post-mortem found no defensive wounds nor any signs of a struggle. Kelly may even have been killed as she slept.
Her outer clothes were folded on a chair and she was lying on the bed wearing a light undergarment.
Kelly’s last known movements are as follows:
2am: George Hutchinson, a resident of the Victoria Home in Commercial Street, has just returned to the area from Romford. He is walking along Commercial Street and passes a man at the corner of Thrawl Street but pays no attention to him. At the junction of Flower and Dean Street he meets Kelly, who asks him for money. They have known each other for some time.
‘Mr Hutchinson, can you lend me sixpence?’ Kelly asks.
‘I can’t,’ Hutchinson replies, ‘I spent all my money going down to Romford.’
‘Good morning,’ Kelly says. ‘I must go and find some money.’ Then she walks off in the direction of Thrawl Street.
She meets the man Hutchinson had passed earlier. The man puts his hand on Kelly’s shoulder and says something at which they both laugh. Hutchinson hears Kelly say, ‘All right’ and the man say, ‘You will be all right for what I have told you.’ The man then puts his right hand on Kelly’s shoulder and they begin to walk towards Dorset Street. Hutchinson notices that the man has a small parcel in his left hand.
Later Hutchinson will state that while standing under a streetlight outside the Queen’s Head public house in Commercial Street he got a good look at the man with Mary Jane Kelly. He describes him as being of dark complexion, with a heavy, dark moustache, turned up at the corners, dark eyes and bushy eyebrows. He is, according to Hutchinson, ‘Jewish looking’. The man is wearing a soft felt hat pulled down over his eyes, a long, dark coat trimmed with astrakhan and a white collar with a black necktie fixed with a horseshoe pin. He wears dark spats over light, button-over boots. On his waistcoat there is a massive gold chain with a large seal with a red stone hanging from it. He carries kid gloves in his right hand and a small package in his left. He is five feet six or seven tall and about 35 years old.
Kelly and the man cross Commercial Street and turn down Dorset Street. Hutchinson follows them. Kelly and the man stop outside Miller’s Court and talk for about three minutes. Kelly is heard to say ‘All right, my dear. Come along. You will be comfortable.’ The man puts his arm around Kelly, who kisses him. ‘I’ve lost my handkerchief,’ she says. At this he hands her a red handkerchief. The couple then head into Miller’s Court. Hutchinson waits until the clock strikes three, leaving as it does so. It should be noted that Hutchinson did not come forward at the time to give this account but waited until several days after the murder, and his testimony was never put before the coroner.
3am: Another local resident, Mrs Cox, returns home. It is raining hard. There is no sound or light coming from Kelly’s room. Cox does not go out again but does not fall asleep. Occasionally throughout the night she hears men going in and out of Miller’s Court. Later she will tell the inquest: ‘I heard someone go out at a quarter to six. I do not know what house he went out of as I heard no door shut.’
10.45am: John McCarthy, owner of ‘McCarthy’s Rents’, as Miller’s Court was known, sends Thomas Bowyer to collect rent money from Mary Kelly. After Bowyer receives no response from knocking, and because the door is locked, he puts his hand through the broken window, pushes aside the curtain and peers inside. He sees the body of Mary Kelly. He informs McCarthy, who, after seeing the mutilated remains of Kelly for himself, runs to Commercial Road Police Station, where he informs the police, who return to Miller’s Court with him.
The police break down the front door. On entering the room, they find Mary Kelly’s clothes neatly folded on a chair. She was still wearing a chemise. Her boots are in front of the fireplace. They see her mutilated body lying on the bed.
Dr Thomas Bond, a distinguished police surgeon, was called. His report states:
The body was lying naked in the middle of the bed, the shoulders flat but the axis of the body inclined to the left side of the bed. The head was turned on the left cheek. The left arm was close to the body with the forearm flexed at a right angle and lying across the abdomen.
The right arm was slightly abducted from the body and rested on the mattress. The elbow was bent, the forearm supine with the fingers clenched. The legs were wide apart, the left thigh at right angles to the trunk and the right forming an obtuse angle with the pubes.
The whole of the surface of the abdomen and thighs was removed and the abdominal cavity emptied of its viscera. The breasts were cut off, the arms mutilated by several jagged wounds and the face hacked beyond recognition of the features. The tissues of the neck were severed all round down to the bone.
The viscera were found in various parts viz: the uterus and kidneys with one breast under the head, the other breast by the right foot, the liver between the feet, the intestines by the right side and the spleen by the left side of the body. The flaps removed from the abdomen and thighs were on a table.
The bed clothing at the right corner was saturated with blood, and on the floor beneath was a pool of blood covering about two feet square. The wall by the right side of the bed and in a line with the neck was marked by blood, which had struck it in several places.
The face was gashed in all directions, the nose, cheeks, eyebrows, and ears being partly removed. The lips were blanched and cut by several incisions running obliquely down to the chin. There were also numerous cuts extending irregularly across all the features.
The neck was cut through the skin and other tissues right down to the vertebrae, the fifth and sixth being deeply notched. The skin cuts in the front of the neck showed distinct ecchymosis.The air passage was cut at the lower part of the larynx through the cricoid cartilage.
Both breasts were more or less removed by circular incisions, the muscle down to the ribs being attached to the breasts. The intercostals between the fourth, fifth, and sixth ribs were cut through and the contents of the thorax visible through the openings.
The skin and tissues of the abdomen from the costal arch to the pubes were removed in three large flaps. The right thigh was denuded in front to the bone, the flap of skin, including the external organs of generation, and part of the right buttock. The left thigh was stripped of skin fascia, and muscles as far as the knee.
The left calf showed a long gash through skin and tissues to the deep muscles and reaching from the knee to five inches above the ankle. Both arms and forearms had extensive jagged wounds.
The right thumb showed a small superficial incision about one inch long, with extravasation of blood in the skin, and there were several abrasions on the back of the hand moreover showing the same condition.
On opening the thorax it was found that the right lung was minimally adherent by old firm adhesions. The lower part of the lung was broken and torn away. The left lung was intact. It was adherent at the apex and there were a few adhesions over the side. In the substances of the lung there were several nodules of consolidation.
The pericardium was open below and the heart absent. In the abdominal cavity there was some partly digested food of fish and potatoes, and similar food was found in the remains of the stomach attached to the intestines.
The inquest into Mary Jane Kelly’s death was presided over by Dr Macdonald MP, Coroner for North East Middlesex.
Monday, 12 November 1888
… Joseph Barnett: I was a fish porter, and I work as a labourer and fruit porter. Until Saturday last I lived at 24, New Street, Bishopsgate, and have since stayed at my sister’s, 21, Portpool Lane, Gray’s Inn Road. I have lived with the deceased one year and eight months. Her name was Marie Jeanette Kelly with the French spelling as described to me. Kelly was her maiden name. I have seen the body, and I identify it by the ear and eyes, which are all that I can recognise; but I am positive it is the same woman I knew. I lived with her in No. 13 room, at Miller’s Court for eight months. I separated from her on October 30th.
Coroner: Why did you leave her?
Barnett: Because she had a woman of bad character there, whom she took in out of compassion, and I objected to it. That was the only reason. I left her on the Tuesday between five and six p.m. I last saw her alive between half-past seven and a quarter to eight on Thursday night last, when I called upon her. I stayed there for a quarter of an hour.
Coroner: Were you on good terms?
Barnett: Yes, on friendly terms; but when we parted I told her I had no work, and had nothing to give her, for which I was very sorry.
Coroner: Did you drink together?
Barnett: No, sir. She was quite sober.
Coroner: Was she, generally speaking, of sober habits?
Barnett: When she was with me I found her of sober habits, but she has been drunk several times in my presence. …
Coroner: Have you heard her speak of being afraid of anyone?
Barnett: Yes; several times. I bought newspapers, and I read to her everything about the murders, which she asked me about.
Coroner: Did she express fear of any particular individual?
Barnett: No, sir. Our own quarrels were very soon over. …
Mary Ann Cox: I live at No. 5 Room, Miller’s Court. It is the last house on the left hand side of the court. I am a widow, and get my living on the streets. I have known the deceased for eight or nine months as the occupant of No. 13 Room. She was called Mary Jane. I last saw her alive on Thursday night, at a quarter to twelve, very much intoxicated.
Coroner: Where was this?
Cox: In Dorset Street. She went up the court, a few steps in front of me.
Coroner: Was anybody with her?
Cox: A short, stout man shabbily dressed. He had on a longish coat, very shabby, and carried a pot of ale in his hand.
Coroner: What was the colour of the coat?
Cox: A dark coat.
Coroner: What hat had he?
Cox: A round hard billycock.
Cox: I did not notice. He had a blotchy face, and full carrotty moustache.
Coroner: The chin was shaven?
Cox: Yes. A lamp faced the door.
Coroner: Did you see them go into her room?
Cox: Yes; I said ‘Good night, Mary,’ and she turned round and banged the door.
Coroner: Had he anything in his hands but the can?
Cox: No. …
Coroner: What would you take the stout man’s age to be?
Cox: Six-and-thirty.
Coroner: Did you notice the colour of his trousers?
Cox: All his clothes were dark. …
Caroline Maxwell (of 14 Dorset Street): My husband is a lodging-house deputy. I knew the deceased for about four months. I believe she was an unfortunate. On two occasions I spoke to her.
Coroner: You must be very careful about your evidence, because it is different to other peoples. You say you saw her standing at the corner of the entry to the court?
Maxwell: Yes, on Friday morning, from eight to half-past eight. I fix the time by my husband’s finishing work.When I came out of the lodging-house she was opposite.
Coroner: Did you speak to her?
Maxwell: Yes; it was an unusual thing to see her up. She was a young woman who never associated with anyone. I spoke across the street, ‘What, Mary, brings you up so early?’ She said, ‘Oh, Carrie, I do feel so bad.’
Coroner: And yet you say you had only spoken to her twice previously; you knew her name and she knew yours?
Maxwell: Oh, yes, by being about in the lodging-house.
Coroner: What did she say?
Maxwell: She said, ‘I’ve had a glass of beer, and I’ve brought it up again’; and it was in the road. I imagined she had been in the Britannia beer shop at the corner of the street. I left her, saying that I could pity her feelings. I went to Bishopsgate Street to get my husband’s breakfast. Returning I saw her outside the Britannia public house, talking to a man.
Coroner: This would be about what time?
Maxwell: Between eight and nine o’clock. I was absent about half-an-hour. It was about a quarter to nine.
Coroner: What description can you give of this man?
Maxwell: I could not give you any, as they were at some distance.
Inspector Frederick G. Abberline (Criminal Investigation Department, Scotland Yard): The distance is about sixteen yards.
Maxwell: I am sure it was the deceased. I am willing to swear it.
Coroner: You are sworn now. Was he a tall man?
Maxwell: No; he was a little taller than me and stout.
Inspector Abberline: On consideration I should say the distance was twenty-five yards.
Coroner: What clothes had the man?
Maxwell: Dark clothes; he seemed to have a plaid coat on. I could not say what sort of hat he had. …
Dr George Bagster Phillips: I was called by the police on Friday morning at eleven o’clock, and on proceeding to Miller’s Court, which I entered at 11.15, I found a room, the door of which led out of the passage at the side of 26, Dorset Street, photographs of which I produce. It had two windows in the court. Two panes in the lesser window were broken, and as the door was locked I looked through the lower of the broken panes and satisfied myself that the mutilated corpse lying on the bed was not in need of any immediate attention from me, and I also came to the conclusion that there was nobody else upon the bed, or within view, to whom I could render any professional assistance. Having ascertained that probably it was advisable that no entrance should be made into the room at that time, I remained until about 1.30p.m., when the door was broken open by McCarthy, under the direction of Superintendent Arnold. On the door being opened it knocked against a table, which was close to the left-hand side of the bedstead, and the bedstead was close against the wooden partition. The mutilated remains of a woman were lying two thirds over, towards the edge of the bedstead, nearest the door. Deceased had only an linen under garment upon her, and by subsequent examination I am sure the body had been removed, after the injury which caused death, from that side of the bedstead which was nearest to the wooden partition previously mentioned. The large quantity of blood under the bedstead, the saturated condition of the palliasse, pillow, and sheet at the top corner of the bedstead nearest to the partition leads me to the conclusion that the severance of the right carotid artery, which was the immediate cause of death, was inflicted while the deceased was lying at the right side of the bedstead and her head and neck in the top right-hand corner. …
Inspector Abberline: … I arrived at Miller’s Court about 11.30am on Friday morning. … I agree with the medical evidence as to the condition of the room. I subsequently took an inventory of the contents of the room. There were traces of a large fire having been kept up in the grate, so much so that it had melted the spout of a kettle off. We have since gone through the ashes in the fireplace; there were remnants of clothing, a portion of a brim of a hat, and a skirt, and it appeared as if a large quantity of women’s clothing had been burnt.
Coroner: Can you give any reason why they were burnt?
Inspector Abberline: I can only imagine that it was to make a light for the man to see what he was doing. There was only one small candle in the room, on the top of a broken wine glass. An impression has gone abroad that the murderer took away the key of the room. Barnett informs me that it has been missing some time, and since it has been lost they have put their hand through the broken window, and moved back the catch. It is quite easy. There was a man’s clay pipe in the room, and Barnett informed me that he smoked it. …
Coroner (to the jury): … It is for you to say whether at an adjournment you will hear minutiae of the evidence, or whether you will think it is a matter to be dealt with in the police courts later on, and that, this woman having met with her death by the carotid artery having been cut, you will be satisfied to return a verdict to that effect. …
The Foreman, having consulted with his colleagues, considered that the jury had had quite sufficient evidence before them upon which to give a verdict.
Coroner: What is the verdict?
Foreman of the jury: Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown.
If the killer had not removed the organs from the previous victims after being accused of this he perhaps decided to mutilate her body and try to remove them to add momentum to his crimes. Perhaps his thinking was, ‘If I have been accused of removing the organs, I might as well try to remove them myself this time.’
Of all the Whitechapel murders I find Mary Jane Kelly’s the most interesting as it both raises new theories and gives further food for thought about theories I have already advanced in this book.
Was Kelly murdered by the same hand as the other victims discussed so far? I would say that there is a strong possibility that they were all, except for Emma Smith, killed by the Ripper.
Let’s look at the similarities that link Kelly’s murder to those of all or some of the other victims.
• All the victims were prostitutes whose throats were cut.
• All the murders were committed within a short distance of one another and all occurred in the early hours of the morning.
• All the victims were killed with a knife and, except for Nichols and Tabram, savagely mutilated. One explanation for the lack of direct mutilation and the non-removal of organs in these two cases could be that they were early victims and the killer later performed far more savage mutilation as, with each murder, his confidence and grisly desires grew. This theory is supported by the ferocious savagery he inflicted on the body of Mary Kelly, the last of the five canonical Ripper victims.
• There are certain similarities in the wounds inflicted on Kelly and Eddowes, such as the cutting and nicking of the eyelids and the mutilation of the upper thighs. Also, in both cases (and in that of Nichols) internal organs were removed from the body, although in Kelly’s case they were not taken away from the murder site.
• All the victims could have been rendered unconscious before being killed, although in Kelly’s case she could have been asleep when killed, having drunk too much alcohol.
• All the victims appear to have been available for business when they encountered their killer. And, although all the previous victims were murdered outside in the street and Kelly in her own room, no great play should be made of this. I believe the killer was walking the streets looking for prostitutes and struck lucky in coming across Kelly. For she had a room to take him back to, where, with less chance of being disturbed, he could indulge in even greater savagery than with the previous victims.
However, there are a number of puzzling facts about Kelly’s murder. The first is that she had obviously undressed before being murdered, which suggests sex was about to take place. With the exception of Martha Tabram, it is not evident that any of the other victims before Kelly had undressed. When the victims went with the killer they were presumably expecting sex, but that is as far as it appears to have got. Here we have a victim methodically undressing. Could she have known the killer? If so, she would have felt at ease in his presence. Was the killer a man of substance, as I suggested earlier, who had promised to pay her well? In any event, Kelly’s murderer, for whatever reason, chose to let her undress and possibly even let her lie on the bed before killing her. This may suggest sexual activity linking some of the murders.
Another point to consider is the removal of the organs. We know that a person with anatomical knowledge removed organs from Eddowes and Nichols at some stage, despite both victims being savagely mutilated, as Mary Kelly was. But, in Kelly’s case, although some of her organs were removed there was no evidence that this was done with anatomical knowledge, or that the organs were taken away from the murder scene. So what can be deduced from this?
The answer is that if I am correct about the other victims’ organs being removed at the mortuary, we can say that the same killer was responsible for the murders of Kelly, Nichols, Chapman and Eddowes and possibly Tabram, but not Smith and Stride. If my theory is not correct, someone else killed Kelly and made it look like the work of the other killer.
Mary Jane Kelly is said to have been the last of the Ripper’s victims. But my investigation uncovered several other murders of prostitutes in the Whitechapel area that are worthy of consideration in deciding whether the Ripper continued killing after Kelly.