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Friday, November 9th, 1888
One hundred thirty-four years, today, Mary Jane Kelly was murdered, by the assailant that History has dubbed "Jack the Ripper," sometime after two in the morning (as I write this, this very moment is twelve fifty-one a.m.).
Sonce 1974, I had studied on, and off, the details of this particular murder---having made a promise, to a person toward whom I felt the tenderest of affections, to contribute something, even it if only be a footnote, to the study of the Ripper murders, particularly the fifth.
During my first weekend at college, I stayed up all night---Friday, September 9th, and until the first faint light of dawn on Sathurday September 10th, 1976---reading the late Tom Cullen's masterful monograph, When London Walked In Terror.
In my opinion, his book is the gold standard of ripper studies.
The fifth murder presents five unusual, and even unlikely, anomalies:
1. The murders and the taunting letters ceased entirely after November 9th, 1888.
2. The venue of the fifth murder was indoors (the previous four had been outdoor incidents)l and the damgage inflicted upon the victim was far more extensive than in the previous four; and seemed, even to Chief Inspector Abberline, to have been inflicted by the hands of another, not the ripper's.
3. Although Mary Kelly had told a certain few, in August, 1888, that she was pregnant, an autopsy on what was left of the body determined that the womb had never hosted an embryo or fetus.
4. During the subsequent investigation, five credible witnesses claimed to have seen Mary Kelly, alive and well, during the late morning of November 9th. Two of these were interviewed officially by police; one of the two also testified at the Coroner's inquest sfter the autopsy. Chief Inspector Abberline interviewed two of the three; and then was instructed not to interview the other three.
5. The door to Mary Kelley's apartment was locked, from the outside.
These facts can be culled easily from the enormous amount of literature about the ripper. However, prior to January of 2001, no theory existed that explained all of the anomalies. Several explained two, even three; but not all five.
Although I know, and knew, nothing about Physics, I was aware that Albert Einstein had sought for, and failed to find, a single theory that would explain the four fundamental forces in the universe. I thought, perhaps, such a theory could be constructed to explain all five of the anomalies of the fifth ripper murder. On Friday, December 22, 2000, I was sitting in our living room with my spouse; the room was mostly illuminated by the lights of our Christmas Tree. I had been thumbing through a book---I now forget which, but not Cullen's---reading about the fifth murder, and looking, somewhat gingerly, at the photographs of the mutilated body the ripper had damaged so extensively. Although photograpy was, in 1888, still rather primitive, the photographs of the corpse found at 13 Miller Court are horrifying; I do not recommend looking at them. As my spouse sewed a button on a shirt, I broke the silence and said---"That's not Mary Kelly's body in that photograph." My spouse replied, "Then whose is it?" And I said, "The Ripper's." This theory of mine, which suggests that Mary Kelly was not murdered by the Ripper, but murdered the Ripper, who would have had to be female for this theory to work, and mutilated the body beyond recognition. (At that time, no fingerprints or dental records existed. Identiification of an anonymous corpse would have been made on appearance only. The face of this corpse had been completely obliterated.)
Mary Kelly was said to have had a petite, but curvy, physique; delicate looking, but when inebriated, she was able to summon enough strength to act violently when provoked. At the time of her confrontation with the ripper, she was awaiting a trial on the charge of battery, having beaten up a sailor outside her favorite pub, the Ten Bells (which still stands and, as of my last knowledge, still does business); the sailor had attempted to touch her inappropriately when she was not ready. I asked a friend of mine, who had earned a degree in psyhology, if one could plausibly suggest that, in a confrontation with the ripper, Mary Kelly's survival instinct, and the instinct to protect her unborn child, combined to give her sufficient strength, temporarily, to murder the ripper in self-defense. My friend suggested that such an explanation was entirely plausible.
My theory has been, in late 2001 or so, plagiarized by another poet on the internet, and steps had to be taken to compel an acknowledgement in the posted material.
Starward
Not what I'd imagine looking into beside the Christmas tree!
Hugely fascinating, none the less. Did you ever consider putting your theory together into a book publication?
Thank you for the reply.
Thank you for the comment. First let me apologize for the typo in her name, which I have just now corrected. My theory would not support a book's length; it is presented in a short poem which was posted to this site; and its original posting was on the premiere Ripper website, Casebook Jack the Ripper, in London, in January 2001. That was my first ever poem posted on the internet.
Mary Kelly is a fascinating person, even with what little we know of her. We know she was considered very beautiful, was of small stature, but curvy. She was not a streetwalker; she was what we would now term an "outcall" girl. Though she lived in East London, several of her clients resided in the more affluent West end; some people believed that one of her clients was a member of the Prime Minister's cabinet. She was fluent in French and Welsh, as well as English, and one of her landlords remembered a crate of books which accompanied her to the various residences she occupied during her brief adult life: these books were fine editions of the nineteenth century novels that we now teach in our high school English courses. Her "outcalls" were not always just for sex: she was also invited to fine dining, and to West end theaters. She was, apparently, very good company. From time to time, she worked as a model for the painter, Walt Sickert; in the 1940's, when Sickert's son, Joe, was on his deathbed, he said that his father had fallen in love with Mary Kelly sometime before the Ripper attack; and that every female Sickert ever painted after 1888 was Mary Kelly. I believe Sickert knew that she had killed the Ripper in self-defense, and helped her to escape the country---most likely to France, which was a country she had visited during a vacation in 1887, where she was fluent in the language. I believe that there is yet an old trunk in some old house, up in the attic, covered with dust, which, when opened, will give to us a diary, or letters, or some indication of what happened to her after 1888.
Starward
Thank you for sharing further
Thank you for sharing further insight. I enjoyed reading it earlier, but in squeezing reading time between a very physically taxing day, haven't really mustered the energy for the type of response I'd like to give. Just getting done for the day (or perhaps I should say 'night') in the wee hours, but will revisit tomorrow. Thanks again, it's quite fascinating.
p/s No worries about the typo.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Starward
Mary Kelly's proximity to the
Mary Kelly's proximity to the prostitution circles that The Ripper targeted were enough to make her a target, and perhaps - as you posit - accidental bait for the demise of the mysterious serial killer. In considering your theory, which I'd have to agree is very plausible, I've been considering what the motives of a female Ripper might be. Perhaps one betrayed and scorned lover of a man whom had been with prostitutes behind her back? Perhaps a woman from a home broken in such a manner? Though I'd anticipate that a woman with children would have a difficult time, in that day, leaving into the night to go on a murderous rampage. Unless, perhaps, herself the grown daughter of a family in which she watched such unfold between her parents? Or perhaps religious or cultural zealotry gone too far? Well, it goes without much saying that going on a killing spree would be going much too far in any of these scenarioes. Any specific thoughts, yourself, on a character profile of your Ripper?
I remember reading, and separately seeing in a documentary, once upon a time a theory that the Ripper was from a prominent family, and thus why he (or, as you make a strong case for, she) was never identified. Perhaps that's part of the truth - and if Mary Kelly did survive and escape - might have further afforded her being left to start a new life, as reporting her alive would have led to the obvious question: whose body was dismembered?
Thank you for that reply, and
Thank you for that reply, and for raising some very interesting questions. Because I have narrowed my interest to just Mary Kelly and her situation, I have not explored the implications of who the "Jill the Ripper" might have been or what might have motivated her. I read---and now cannot remember whose work---a suggestion that a female ripper would have had a less threatening approach to the victims. Through the almost three months of the killing spree, Mary Kelly had been extremely fearful and cautious---even asking her landlord to secure her apartment's windows by nailing them shut from the inside. Yet, despite her precautions and her fear (often stated at the Ten Bells pub) of the possibility of attack, she allowed someone to come into her apartment with her.
Lacking fingerprints and dental records at that time, and given the amount of mutilation on the body (the face was almost obliterated), identification was impossible. The body was transported across London, to a different coroner's jury (and the jury foreman had objected on that basis; and was threatened with incarceration if the objections continued) in a different jurisdiction. Joe Barnett, Mary Kelly's alleged boy friend, provided the "official" identification on the basis of an earlobe. The coroner's jury was so horrified by the remains that they agreed to the identification without further inquiry simply to bring the proceeding to an end.
After the funeral and burial, which was well attended by many of Mary Kelly's friends from the street and the Ten Bells, two people, who had been among the last to depart, remembered seeing a tall man, whose face they did not recognize, and who was very well dressed, approach the open grave, into which the coffin had already been lowered, and spit into it. Then he walked away. The coincidence of this is that, in the late part of the morning of November 9th, the day on which she had been supposedly murdered, Mary Kelly was seen at the entrance of the Ten Bells, speaking to a man of the same kind of description---tall and very well dressed. If this was the same man, in both sightings, perhaps he knew that the body in that coffin was a heinous murderer and the fifth victim; and knowing that might have brought forth the contemptuous gesture of spitting into the grave.
The prominence of the ripper's family is a very interesting aspect. It might account for the rather hurried way that the coroner's inquest proceeded, and for the official directive, to the lead dectective on the case, to refrain from interviewing three of the five witnesses who had claimed to see Mary alive on the morning and afternoon of November 9th. Another possible explanation of that same unusual activity is the belief, among some historians, that one of Mary Kelly's client had been a member of prime minister Lord Salisbury's cabinet---knowledge of which might have caused a political crisis in the House of Commons. The possibility of a prominent family for the ripper, and the likelihood of the social and political prominence of some of Mary Kelly's clients, explain the rather slapdash activity following the discovery of the body in 13 Miller Court.
Unfortunately, the Casebook (which, in my opinion, is the most reliable and scholarly clearing house of ripper information and ongoing research) is no longer functional for new submissions. The site's founder/administrator suffered some sort of breakdown some years ago. During the writing of this reply, I sent an email inquiry to the site's email to find out if the site is still on "pause." It has such a wealth of information on it, and its present inactivity has been a very sad development in ripper studies. The Casebook was my first internet publisher, so I have a special place in my heart for it.
Starward