Mary Jane Kelly
This is a modern reconstruction of the below picture. This is what was left after the Ripper had finished with her, November 9th 1888.
Those are her breasts and other parts piled on the table next to her head. As can be seen, this was a crime of appalling savagery.
Another angle of the above.
13 Miller's Court. 9 November 1888, 10:45, Indian Harry comes to collect Mary's overdue rent. We know what he found there.
She may have looked like this, but I think this is idealized. She was described as very pretty. Of the five for sure victims, she was the only one with a place to live. Burned cloth in the fireplace testifies to the killer having the time and need for illumination for a more extensive session with a victim.
No one has any idea who the ripper was. No one has ever named him with any certainty. There were five victims, no more. There was also an attack on a Martha Tabram that could very well have been a first attempt by a novice murderer. He never communicated with anyone about his crimes.* He was not a doctor, or royalty, or socially connected in any way. There have been scads of books about this most interesting of killers, some very decent indeed. But- he is only interesting as a mystery.
The cops were not stupid. They knew this was a sex crime. "The Juwes are the men what will not be blamed for nothing", the chalk writing found near a piece of bloody apron erased on orders of the chief, had absolutely no connection to the ripper, although it was ill advised not to photograph the writing. The ripper was not a Mason, a doctor, heir to the throne, schoolteacher, midwife, none of that.
These poor women living on the fringe in that awful industrialized social Darwinism heartless port were not the embodiment of anything but the will to live. Gin was the crack cocaine of it's day, and heaven knows these girls could use a drink. How sad.
A team of doctors at Houndsditch mortuary worked very hard to put Mary back together enough for a photo. Although purported to be Mary Kelly, I suspect this is a picture of Catherine Eddowes, as there is no way this is a picture of the body as we have just seen it.
Immortality can be had at the caprice of fate, and it is by no means always to be wished for.
There are some very mean people out there.
From hell.
Mr Lusk,
Sor
I send you half the Kidne I took from one women prasarved it for you
tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise. I may send you the bloody
knif that took it out if you only wate a whil longer.
signed
Catch me when you can Mishter Lusk
*The 'From hell' letter. It was accompanied by half a kidney taken from an alcoholic woman. It was postmarked October 15 1888 and delivered the 16th. George Lusk was the chairman of the Whitechapel Vigalence Committee, and started to throw the letter away. It is almost certainly a hoax performed by medical students. The letter is written in stage Irish and goes out of it's way to be illiterate and barely readable. While I don't think any of the Ripper communications are authentic, this is the one that would have the most serious police attention today.
O have you seen the devle with his mikerscope and scalpul a-lookin at a kidney with a slide cocked up.
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