By this time,people began to fear coming out at late nights especially women.On a Friday on 9th November,another prostitute called Mary Jane Kelly was murdered in the single room where she lived at 13 Miller's Court, behind 26 Dorset Street, Spitalfields.The room at #13 Miller's Court was actually a converted bedroom from number 26 Dorset Street, which opened to the street just beyond the courtyard. A passageway into Miller's Court from Dorset Street led to Kelly's little room, which had a door on one side and two windows around the corner from the door. Tenement apartments lined the rest of the courtyard, and nothing else stood inside but a water pump and a dustbin.
On the morning of 9th November 1888, the day of the annual Lord Mayor's Day celebrations, Kelly's landlord, John McCarthy, sent his assistant, ex-soldier Thomas Bowyer, to collect the due rent. Kelly was six weeks behind on her payments schedule, owing 29 shillings. Shortly after 10:45 a.m., Bowyer knocked on her door but received no response from her. He then looked through the keyhole, but could not see anybody in the room. Pushing aside the clothing used to plug the broken windowpane, Bowyer peered inside the room and that's when he discovered Kelly's extensively mutilated corpse lying on the bed.
Bowyer reported his horrifying discovery to McCarthy, who first went to look for himself and verified his claims, then instructed Bowyer to inform the Commercial Road Police Station as soon as possible. Bowyer ran to the police station, stammering the words: "Another one of Jack the Ripper.Mr McCarthy sent me" to fetch Inspector Walter Beck".Beck accompanied Bowyer to Miller's Court, and immediately requested the assistance of police surgeon Dr. George Bagster Phillips. He also gave orders preventing any individuals from entering or exiting the yard. Beck also arranged for news of the murder to be telegraphed to Scotland Yard, and requested the assistance of bloodhounds.The scene was attended by Superintendent Thomas Arnold and Inspector Edmund Reid from Whitechapel's H Division, as well as Frederick Abberline and Robert Anderson from Scotland Yard.
Rather than immediately break the door down, however, the officer and medical investigator had been instructed to wait for the arrival of two police bloodhounds, Burgho and Barnaby. Using dogs to sniff out murderers was a new and untested technique, but the Home Office of Scotland Yard had been eager to show the public that they were taking the Whitechapel murders seriously.
The two-hour wait signalled a considerable breakdown in communication within the police force, though. A few weeks earlier, the dogs' owner, a breeder named Edwin Brough, had reclaimed his hounds from the police when it became clear that Scotland Yard would neither be paying nor insuring him for their services. Nobody told this to Abberline, however, and in the interim two hours, he could do little more than block off Miller's Court to pedestrians and wait.
Finally, Superintendent Arnold arrived at 1:30 pm in the afternoon, ordering the door to be broken down. John McCarthy used a pickax to chop the front door down. The scene inside, which they had only glimpsed at before, would haunt them forever.
Mary Jane Kelly was a familiar face around Whitechapel. Detective Constable Walter Dew, one of the responding officers, said that she was rarely seen without an entourage of other women, or at least arm and arm with two or three friends. She was often seen around the neighbourhood, always dressed in her signature white apron.
By the accounts of those who knew her, Mary Kelly was the youngest and the most attractive of the Ripper's victims. She was born around 1863 in Limerick, Ireland, making her 25 at the time of her death. She was tall about 5 feet 7 inches and had blonde hair, with blue eyes, and fair skin.
Mrs. Kennedy was one of the witnesses whose name appeared in many newspapers in the aftermath of the murder of Mary Kelly.
her parents actually lived in Miller's Court and, in the early hours of the day of the murder, she had gone to stay with them.
She was one of the neighbours who was quoted as saying that she had heard a faint cry of "Murder" at between 3.30am and 4am on the morning of the 9th of November, 1888.
However, she knew nothing of the murder until she tried to leave Miller's Court later that morning and found that the police were preventing anyone from doing so.
Another crucial witness is Sarah Lewis, a laundress of 24 Great Pearl Street, having argued with her husband, decided to spend the rest of the night with her friend Mrs. Keyler and her husband at number 2 Miller's Court, which was a first floor room.
According to her police statement which she gave on the day of the murder, as she approached the court there was a man standing against the lodging house on the opposite side of Dorset Street, although she was unable to describe him. This man may well have been George Hutchinson.
Mary Kelly's friend and Neighbour,
Lizzie Albrook is one of those witnesses who may, or may not, have existed.
She is mentioned in numerous newspapers, in articles that were published in the wake of the murder of Mary kelly, which took place on Friday, 9th November, 1888, but the story of her statement is obviously a syndicated article, which several newspapers attributed to the Central News.
According to the article, as it appeared in the newspapers, Lizzie Albrook was twenty-years old, resided in Miller's Court, and worked at a common lodging house in Dorset Street.
She claimed to have been on friendly terms with Mary Kelly, on account of the fact that they were "near neighbours."
She had, allegedly, told the reporter who had interviewed her that, she had spent time with Mary kelly on the evening before her murder. As they chatted, Mary had warned her against going out on the streets, as she had done. Mary, so Lizzie recalled, was heartily sick of the life she was leading and lamented the fact that she didn't have the money to give it up.
On 10 November, Dr. Bond wrote a report officially linking Kelly's murder with four previous ones to occur in and around Whitechapel.These five murders were officially recorded as the Canonical five.Bond also provided an offender profile of the murderer, which suggested the perpetrator was a solitary, eccentric individual who was subject to periodic attacks of homicidal and erotic mania, and who had been in an extreme state of satyriasis as he performed the mutilations upon Kelly and the four previous victims.
Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, published the story of Lizzie Albrook on Sunday, 11th November, 1888.In her statement she said,
"I knew Mary Jane Kelly very well, as we were near neighbours.
The last time I saw her was on Thursday night, about eight o'clock, when I left her in her room with Joe Barnett, who had been living with her.
The last thing she said was, "Whatever you do, don't do wrong and turn out as I have."
She had often spoken to me in this way, and warned me against going on the streets as she had done.
She told me, too, that she was heartily sick of the life she was leading, and she wished that she had enough money to go back to Ireland, where her people lived.
I don't believe she would have gone out as she did if she had not been obliged to do so in order to keep herself from starvation.
She had talked to me about her friends several times, and, on one occasion, she told me that she had a female relation in London who was on the stage."
The Salisbury Times, was one of several newspapers that on Saturday, 17th November, 1888 gave a detailed account of what Mrs Kennedy had seen:-
Mrs. Kennedy, who was on the day of the murder staying with her parents at a house facing the room where the mutilated body was found, made an important statement.
She said that about three o'clock on Friday morning she entered Dorset Street on her way to the house of her parents, which is situated immediately opposite that in which the murder was committed.
She noticed three people at the corner of the street near the Britannia public-house.
There was a man - a young man, respectably dressed, and with a dark moustache - talking to a woman whom she did not know, and also a female poorly clad, and without any headgear.
The man and woman appeared to be the worse for liquor, and she heard the man say, "Are you coming'?", whereupon the woman, who appeared obstinate, turned in an opposite direction to which the man apparently wished her to go.
Mrs. Kennedy went on her way and nothing unusual occurred until about half an hour later.
She stated that she did not retire to rest immediately she reached her parents' abode, but sat up, and between half-past three and quarter to four she heard a cry of "murder"; in woman's voice proceed from the direction in which Mary Kelly's room was situated. As the cry was not repeated, she took no further notice of the circumstance until the morning, when she found the police in possession of the place preventing all egress to the occupants of the small houses in the court.
When questioned by the police as to what she had heard throughout the night, she made a statement to her previous effect.
She has now supplemented that statement by the saying:-
"On Wednesday evening, about eight o'clock, my sister and I were in the neighbourhood of Bethnal Green Road, when we were accosted by a very suspicious looking man about 40 years of age. He was about five feet seven inches high, wore a short jacket, over which he had a long topcoat. He had a black moustache, and wore a billycock hat.
He invited us to accompany him into a lonely spot, as he was known about there, and there was a policeman looking at him."
She asserts that no policeman was in sight.
He made several strange remarks, and appeared to be agitated. He was very white in the face, and made every endeavour to prevent them looking him straight in the face. He carried a black bag.
He avoided walking with them, and led the way into a very dark thoroughfare at the back of the workhouse, inviting them to follow, which they did.
He then pushed open a small door in a pair of large gates, and requested one of them to follow him, whereupon the women became suspicious.
He acted in a very suspicious manner and refused to leave his bag in possession of one of the females.
Both women became alarmed at his actions, and escaped, at the same time raising the alarm of "Jack the Ripper."
A gentleman who was passing is stated to have intercepted the man, while the women made their escape.
Mrs. Kennedy asserts that the man whom she saw on Saturday morning with the woman, at the corner of Dorset Street, resembled very closely the individual who caused such alarm on the night in question, and that she would recognize him again if confronted with him.
There is no cause to doubt this woman's statement. The stories told by both those women are certainly the most important points that came to light on Saturday."
By the time of Mary Kelly's inquest, Mrs Sarah Lewis had evidently given more thought to what she had seen, and went into a lot more detail in her testimony:-I visited a friend at Miller's Court on Friday morning at half-past two o'clock. I saw a man standing on the pavement. He was short and stout, and wore a wideawake hat.
I stopped with my friend, Mrs Keyler. I fell asleep in a chair, and woke at half-past three. I sat awake till a little before four.
I heard a female voice scream, "Murder," loudly. I thought the sound came from the direction of the deceased's house. I did not take much notice, for such cries are often heard.
At eight o'clock on Wednesday night, when with a female friend, I was accosted in Bethnal Green Road by a gentleman who carried a bag. He invited one of us to accompany him. Disliking his appearance we left him. The bag was about nine inches long.. The man had a pale face, dark moustache, wore dark clothes, an overcoat, and a high felt hat.
On Friday morning, when coming to Miller's Court, about half-past two, I met that man with a female in Commercial Street. As I went into Miller's Court they stood at the corner of Dorset Street. "
Most of what was known of her backstory came from her partner, Joseph Barnett, and that story was based on what Kelly herself had told him. It was also with gaps and small mysteries of its own.
Though Irish born, Mary Kelly spent most of her early years living in Wales. Her father was John Kelly, an ironworker. Kelly told Barnett that she had six or seven siblings. Landlord John McCarthy said that in the time that Kelly lived in Miller's court, she had received one letter from her mother, but otherwise had not been in close correspondence with her family.
Both Barnett and a former landlady named Mrs. Carthy hinted that Kelly's family had been well to do. Carthy also said that Kelly was, "an excellent scholar and an artist of no mean degree."
Kelly only spent a little time in Cardiff, and spent much of that time ill and in an infirmary. She moved to London in 1884, and may have stayed in a charitable house, the Providence Row Night Refuge, and worked as a charwoman. Not long afterward, she left this place too and moved into a house in the West End.
In the West End, Kelly worked and lived in a high-class brothel, which The Press Association reported was run by a French Woman. It was said that during this time, Kelly had added some exoticism by her own name by going by "Marie Jeanette". Kelly told Barnett that she had often ridden in a carriage, and that at one point she had even been taken to Paris. She had not liked Paris, however, and returned to London after just two weeks.
She then moved to a house in the East End on St. George's Street. She was quickly ejected from that house for drinking too much and possibly using other intoxicants besides alcohol.
At this point, Kelly moved in with Mrs. Carthy, who would be one of the few people that could illuminate Kelly's background for investigators.
Joseph Barnett entered Kelly's life on Good Friday, April 8, 1887. Barnett was also from an Irish background.His parents came to England in search of jobs.He was born and raised in London. He worked as a labourer on the docks and a market porter for Billingsgate Fish Market. The two first met on Commercial Street, and then went out for a drink, agreeing to meet the next day. They decided, after meeting only twice, to move in together.
Barnett and Kelly lived first on George Street, then Dorset Street, from which they were evicted for not paying rent and for being drunk. In fact, the Thames Magistrate Court fined Kelly for being drunk and disorderly behaviour on September 19, 1888.
The couple had to move two more times before August of 1888, and during that time Kelly had been working odd jobs. Then life took a big turn for the couple. Barnett lost his job. They began to struggle to make ends meet.With weeks of rent fees piling up as well as debts to the state for public drunkenness, it was up to Mary Kelly to bring in money. Much to Barnett's chagrin, Kelly resumed prostitution.
By the fall of 1888, the relationship between Mary Kelly and Joseph Barnett had become strained by their financial situation as well as the latter's disapproval of Kelly's lifestyle. The reign of Jack the Ripper overshadowed Whitechapel with fear, and Mary had begun to allow other prostitutes who had nowhere to go in the evenings to stay with the couple in their tiny room at Miller's Court.
At an inquest Joseph Barnett said,"She only let them because she was good hearted and did not like to refuse them shelter on cold bitter nights," Barnett told the inquest. "We lived comfortably until Marie allowed a prostitute named Julia to sleep in the same room; I objected: and as Mrs. Harvey afterwards came and stayed there, I left and took lodgings elsewhere.
Sure enough, Elizabeth Prater of Miller's Court ,who lived directly above them reported that on October 30th, sometime between 5 and 6 pm, the couple had an argument. And at one point Barnett left Kelly to live at Mrs. Buller's boarding house. Kelly had been drunk and angry as she broke two of the windowpanes that looked out on the courtyard.
A charwoman who lived at Miller's Court, Julia Venturney, says that Barnett was known to have treated Mary well, and gave her money whenever he could. This did not stop after he moved out. He disapproved of her prostitution and did not want her to live that way, and he continued to visit her every day up until the evening of November 8th.
In the meantime, Kelly continued to allow other women including Mrs. Harvey and "Julia". Harvey slept over there until she took up lodgings on Dorset Street on November 7th. On November 8th, Barnett visited Kelly at 7 pm, then left on good terms at about 7:45 pm.
At this point, witness testimonies diverge. One thing is for sure, however, and that is that the next time Barnett saw Kelly, he could identify her only by her eyes and her hair.
The mutilation of Kelly's corpse was by far the most extensive of any of the Whitechapel murders, likely because the murderer had more time to commit his atrocities in a private room, without fear of discovery over an extensive period of time, as opposed to in public areas.Another possible suggestion later,justified was that,the derranged killer could not see her beauty and so he did the worst to her.
There were conflicts as to Kelly's time of death between the medical contingents. The confusion was made worse by the long delay between the discovery of Kelly's corpse and the ability for investigators to examine the body. Dr. Thomas Bond held that the murder took place at 1 or 2 am. Based on witness testimony, Metropolitan Police believed it took place around 3:30 or 4 am. Dr. Phillips, who had responded to other Ripper murder scenes, asserted that the time of death was 5 or 6 am. Authorities had to slough through myriad stories from neighbours, many of whose stories also conflicted with one another. What follows is a general picture pieced together from these accounts.
Dr. Thomas Bond and Dr. George Bagster Phillips examined the body. Phillips suggested that the extensive mutilations would have taken at least two hours to perform, and Bond noted that rigour mortis set in as they were examining the body, indicating that death occurred between 2 and 8 a.m.Bond's official documents pertaining to his examination of the decedent, the crime scene, and subsequent post-mortem state,
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 including 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.
Following Kelly's murder, extensive house-to-house enquiries and searches were conducted by police.As the investigators questioned through many of the close friends of Mary Kelly,they got more suspicious of Joseph Barnett.Its highly possible,Joseph Barnett was growing tired of Mary Kelly prostituting herself to other men. He was very much in love with Kelly, and believed that if he could support her through his own work, she would not have to resort to a life on the streets. The loss of his job as a fish porter in June of 1888 brought this dream to an end. Kelly returned to the streets in order to provide for herself, and Barnett became infuriated. In an attempt to "scare" Kelly off the streets, it's possible that Barnett raged through Whitechapel and murdered a handful of prostitutes in the autumn of 1888. And perhaps when his plot didn't succeed, the tempers boiled. Perhaps realizing that his love for Kelly was not completely requited, Barnett murdered her on November 9th with a frenzy only a scorned lover could possess.Moreover the appearence of Barnett somehow matches the description.But still there were no concrete evidence to justify the fact.