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THE MURDER OF MARY JANE KELLY

10 November 1888

During the early hours of yesterday morning another murder of a most revolting and fiendish character took place in Spitalfields. This is the seventh which has occurred in this immediate neighbourhood, and the character of the mutilations leaves very little doubt that the murderer in this instance is the same person who has committed the previous ones, with which the public are fully acquainted.

The scene of this last crime is at No: 26, Dorset-street, Spitalfields, which is about 200 yards distant from 35, Hanbury-street, where the unfortunate woman, Mary Ann Nicholls, was so foully murdered. Although the victim, whose name is Mary Ann (or Mary Jane) Kelly, resides at the above number, the entrance to the room she occupied is up a narrow court, in which are some half-a-dozen houses, and which is known as Miller’s-court; it is entirely separated from the other portion of the house, and has an entrance leading into the court. The room is known by the title of No. 13. The house is rented by John M’Carthy, who keeps a small general shop at No. 27, Dorset-street, and the whole of the rooms are let out to tenants of a very poor class. As an instance of the poverty of the neighbourhood, it may be mentioned that nearly the whole of the houses in this street are common lodging-houses, and the one opposite where this murder was enacted has accommodation for some 300 men, and is fully occupied every night. About 12 months ago Kelly, who was about 24 years of age, and who was considered a good-looking young woman, of fair and fresh-coloured complexion, came to Mr. M’Carthy with a man named Joseph Kelly, who she stated was her husband and who was a porter employed at the Spitalfields Market. They rented a room on the ground floor, the same in which the poor woman was murdered, at a rental of 4s. a week. It had been noticed that the deceased woman was somewhat addicted to drink, but Mr. M’Carthy denied having any knowledge that she had been leading a loose or immoral life. That this was so, however, there can be no doubt, for about a fortnight ago she had a quarrel with Kelly, and, after blows had been exchanged, the man left the house, or rather room, and did not return. It has since been ascertained that he went to live at Buller’s common lodging-house in Bishopsgate-street. Since then the woman has supported herself as best she could, and the police have ascertained that she has been walking the streets. None of those living in the court or at 26, Dorset-street saw anything of the unfortunate creature after about 8 o’clock on Thursday evening, but she was seen in Commercial-street shortly before the closing of the publichouse, and then had the appearance of being the worse for drink. About 1 o’clock yesterday morning a person living in the court opposite to the room occupied by the murdered woman heard her singing the song, “Sweet violets,” but this person is unable to say whether anyone else was with her at that time. Nothing more was seen or heard of her until her dead body was found.

During the autumn of 1888, a series of murders of women in the poverty-ridden East End of London became ascribed by the police and the public alike to a single killer. He was known, from a letter claiming responsibility for the crimes, as Jack the Ripper.

Mary Jane Kelly was the fifth and last of those thought most likely, from the brutal nature of their deaths, to have died at the same hand. Despite their customary characterisation, she was also the only one of the women to have worked regularly as a prostitute. Little else, including her true name, is known for certain about her life, the details of which she may have embroidered to evade a gang that had trafficked her to Paris.

The Ripper murders are usually held to have stopped after Kelly’s death and were never solved. They lived on, however, in popular culture, in voyeuristic tourism and in an abundant literature about the killings, notable for dwelling more on the possible identity of the murderer than on the fate of the victims.