Mary Jane Kelly
Mary Jane Kelly (* 1863 ; † November 9, 1888 in Whitechapel , London ) is considered the fifth victim of the series of murders attributed to Jack the Ripper in 1888.
General
Mary Jane Kelly was 25 years old and impoverished at the time of her death.
Reports from this time estimated her height at 1.70 meters. The information about her hair color is contradicting itself. She is referred to in reports as both blonde and redheaded . Some newspapers claimed that Kelly's nickname was "Ginger" because of her reddish-brown or reddish-yellow (English ginger ) hair. However, this has not been proven either. The color of her eyes was blue. Melville Macnaghten of the London Police Department reported that Kelly was known to be comparatively handsome and attractive by the standards of the time. She is also said to have spoken fluent Welsh .
Earlier life
In comparison to the other victims of the woman killer, Kelly's origin is unclear and not documented. Much may have been glossed over. According to Joseph Barnett, with whom she lived recently before she died, Kelly had told him that she was born in Limerick , Ireland . It is not known whether this meant the county or the city. Her family moved to Wales around 1863 when Kelly was young.
Barnett said Kelly told him her father was John Kelly and worked in the ironworks , allegedly in either Caernarfonshire or Carmarthenshire counties . Barnett recalled Kelly mentioning having six or seven brothers and at least one sister. A brother named Henry Kelly was believed to have served in the 2nd Scots Guards Battalion . She informed her personal friend Lizzie Albrook that a family member was employed by the London theater stage . Kelly's landlord, John McCarthy (1851 - June 16, 1934), claimed that she had rarely received mail from her mother in Ireland until 1888. However, this was denied by Barnett.
Both Barnett and former roommate Carthy claimed Kelly came from better-off families. Carthy also described Kelly as "an excellent student and an artist of considerable proportions" (orig. An excellent scholar and an artist of no mean degree ).
Marriage and children
Mary Jane Kelly is believed to have been married to a miner named Davies around 1879, who was killed in an explosion in a mine two or three years later . No researcher has been able to prove the accuracy of this information.
An 1888 London newspaper report on Kelly reported that she was a mother. It is therefore widely believed that she gave birth to a son between 1879 and 1882. Many sources consider the newspaper report to be dubious, especially since it contained some factual errors.
Your life in london
Kelly is said to have lived with a cousin in Cardiff for a while . It is believed that she started working as a prostitute there. However, there are no certificates of her stay in Cardiff. Kelly herself claimed to have spent most of her time in a hospital .
Kelly apparently left Cardiff in 1884 and found work in a brothel in the more affluent West End of London. A customer is said to have invited her to France . However, she quickly returned as she did not like her life there. Still, after this experience she liked to call herself Marie Jeanette Kelly .
For reasons unknown, Kelly was drawn to the poor East End of London. There she is said to have lived with a man named Morganstone near the gas works in Stepney and later with the bricklayer Joe Flemming.
When Kelly was drunk she was either heard singing Irish songs or she became argumentative and abusive.
Kelly first met her last significant other, Joseph Barnett, on April 8, 1887. They had lived together since their second meeting on April 9, 1887. From the beginning of 1888 they lived at 13 Miller's Court on Dorset Street in Spitalfields . Joseph Barnett was a fish carrier in the harbor. When he was fired from his permanent position and tried to make money as a porter in the market, Kelly turned back to prostitution. The two of them quarreled when Kelly shared her room with another prostitute. Barnett left her on October 30, 1888, more than a week before her death. But he continued to visit her.
There are various eyewitness accounts of their activities on Dorset Street in the late hours of the 8th and early hours of November 9, 1888. Barnett last visited Kelly on November 8, 1888, between 7:30 pm and 7:45 pm. He met her in the company of another woman. The company could have been either Lizzie Albrook or Maria Harvey. Both were friends of Kelly. Barnett left around 8:00 p.m. to return to his apartment and play whist . He played cards until he went to bed around 12:30 a.m. Sources are unsure where Kelly was in the hours that followed. According to an unconfirmed report, she was staying at the Britannia Tavern, where she drank in the company of Elizabeth Foster.
Companion and prostitute Mary Ann Cox said she saw Kelly return home with a man around 11:45 p.m. Cox said good night to Kelly. She returned the greeting and began to sing the song A Violet from Mother's Grave (English "A violet from the mother's grave"). She was still singing when Cox went out to look for customers around midnight. Kelly probably stopped singing a little later when she ate a fish dish with potatoes.
Her neighbor, Catherine Picket, who lived by her, felt disturbed when Kelly started singing again around 12:30 a.m. She wanted to complain, but her husband convinced her to leave Kelly alone. It started raining around 1:00 a.m. Cox returned to get an umbrella. At that point, she could still hear Kelly singing.
A George Hutchinson reported that Kelly met him around 2:00 a.m. and asked him for a loan. He claimed he was broke and saw Kelly find a "Jewish looking" customer. Hutchinson later gave police an extremely detailed description of the man, including the color of his eyelashes. Kelly and this man went to their room. Hutchinson claimed he followed them but couldn't give a reason. He reported that he overheard their conversation outside the door. Kelly allegedly complained about her lost handkerchief and the man gave her one of his own, a red handkerchief. The description of Hutchinson is doubted by many experts today, since, among other things, the darkness of the night gave little opportunity to notice such details.
Cox came back around 3:00 a.m. She reported that no sound or light was coming from Kelly's room. That night, Cox appeared to be suffering from insomnia . She said she heard people walking in and out of the courtyard all night. She also said she heard someone leave the apartment around 5:45 a.m. The two neighbors Elizabeth Prater and Sarah Lewis reported hearing the faint scream "Murder!" At around 4:00 am. They took the scream as a general comment, however.
The discovery of the corpse
On the morning of Friday 9 November 1888, the annual day of celebrations in honor of the London Mayor , Mary Jane Kelly's landlord sent his assistant Thomas Bowyer to collect the rent. Kelly was a few weeks behind on her rent. Bowyer knocked on the door and got no response. He reached through a broken window, pushed aside a cloak that served as a curtain, and peered into the room. There he discovered the cruelly mutilated corpse .
Kelly was found on the bed in her room shortly after 10:45 am. The throat had been cut, heavily mutilated her face and chest and her abdomen cut open. Many of her internal organs had been removed and were scattered around the room. Muscle meat had also been cut off from some of her limbs and other parts of the body. Your heart has not been found. It is believed that it was taken away by the killer, burned in the fireplace, or perhaps boiled and eaten. Based on the statements of the neighbors, who reported a single scream that night, the time of death is estimated at 4:00 a.m.
A woman named Caroline Maxwell claimed she saw Kelly alive on the street around 8:30 a.m. She did admit, however, that she had only met her once or twice before, and her description did not match what was portrayed by those who knew Kelly better. Tailor Maurice Lewis reported seeing Kelly in the pub around 10:00 a.m. Both statements were rejected by the police because they did not match the determined time of death and they could not find anyone at the specified locations who could confirm this information. There were many people in the specified places.
Kelly's body was found by Dr. Thomas Bond and Dr. George Bagster Phillips autopsies . Her death certificate was registered on November 17, 1888. In it she was named as "Marie Jeanette Kelly possibly Davies" (orig. Marie Jeanette Kelly otherwise Davies ). Mary Jane Kelly was buried in Saint Patrick's Roman Catholic Cemetery in Leytonstone on November 19, 1888 .
A minority believe that Mary Jane Kelly was likely not the victim of the same killer as the other Whitechapel murders . This is justified with the significantly younger age of Kelly compared to the other victims. Kelly was around 25, the other victims over 40. The mutilations inflicted on her were far more pronounced and of a different nature than those of the other victims. She was also the only victim killed in isolation in a room instead of outdoors. Kelly's murder also took place five weeks after the previous murders. It is partly believed that her significant other, Joseph Barnett, was Kelly's killer.
The murder of Mary Jane Kelly, on the other hand, seems to fit into the pattern of the woman murderer. This is supported by the time, the method of killing, the social class of the victim and, above all, the assumption that the murderer carried out greater mutilation of his victims with each murder. The ever louder public outcry for the protection of the population, warnings about the murderer and precautionary measures taken after the previous murders undoubtedly made it difficult for the perpetrator to carry out his crimes in public. In a private room he had enough time and peace for far more extensive mutilations of his victim.
Trivia
- The band Volbeat named one of their songs on their album Seal the Deal & Let's Boogie after Mary Jane Kelly.
literature
- Philip Sugden: The Complete History of Jack the Ripper. Carroll & Graf Publishing, New York NY 1995, ISBN 0-7867-0276-1 .
- Hendrik Püstow, Thomas Schachner: Jack the Ripper. Anatomy of a legend. Militzke Verlag, Leipzig 2006, ISBN 3-86189-753-9 .
- Hallie Rubenhold : The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper. Doubleday, 2019, ISBN 978-0857524485 .
Web links
- Mary Jane Kelly . In: jacktheripper.de
- Mary Jane Kelly . In: casebook.org (contains numerous English-language articles on the case and reproduces many original sources)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Karyo Magellan, in by ear and eyes - the Whitechapel Murders, Jack the Ripper and the murder of Mary Jane Kelly ( ISBN 0-9550240-0-5 )
- ↑ Bruce Paley, in Jack the Ripper: The Simple Truth ( ISBN 0-7472-5218-1 )
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kelly, Mary Jane |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Victim of the serial killer Jack the Ripper |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1863 |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 9, 1888 |
| Place of death | Whitechapel , London |