Mary Jane Kelly: Jack the Ripper's final victim
Mary Jane Kelly is thought to be the fifth and final canonical victim of Jack the Ripper. However, she was somewhat different from the other four victims who came before her.
Mary Jane was attacked and killed inside, which was not the case with the other victims. She was also mutilated more violently than any other victim.
Despite these differences, Mary Jane’s death told a similar tale of the plight of poverty-stricken women in Victorian London. Their vulnerabilities made them targets of the Ripper, leading to their deaths at the hands of one of the most famous killers of all time.
Join us here at Crime+Investigation as we dive deeper into the life of Mary Jane Kelly, the victim of the Ripper’s most vicious murder.
Mary Jane Kelly’s early life
Another significant difference between Mary Jane Kelly and the other canonical Ripper victims is that her early life is much more difficult to pin down. Even her name comes into question, as she went by various nicknames, such as Ginger, Fair Emma, and Maria Jeanette Kelly.
Very little can be confirmed to be one hundred percent true when it comes to Mary Jane Kelly’s life, as she told different people different things. There is also no documentary evidence that confirms a lot of what she claimed. However, there is also no evidence to the contrary, making it impossible to know the truth.
Before her death, the person she had most recently been living with was a man named Joseph Barnett. His accounts are the only information source that seems to have come straight from Mary Jane herself.
According to Joseph, she told him she was born around 1863 in Limerick, Ireland. She also told him that her family moved from Ireland to Wales when she was a child. Inconsistencies come into play even with this information, as Mary Jane didn’t confirm whether she meant the county of Limerick or the city of Limerick. She also did not specify an exact date of birth.
Mary Jane claimed that her father, John Kelly, was an ironworker in a foundry, but nothing is known about her mother. She also told Joseph she had at least one sister and seven brothers. Her family was described to him as somewhat wealthy. Another acquaintance stated that Mary Jane told them she had been disowned by her parents for unknown reasons, but that she was still close with her sister.
When Mary Jane was around 16 years old, it was reported that she was married to a coal miner. However, it is thought that he died in a mining explosion a few years later. She had to relocate to Cardiff and live with a cousin as she had no financial support.
It is in Cardiff that Maey Jane turned to sex work to make money. However, there are no contemporary Cardiff records that prove her presence, nor are there any arrest records for prostitution.
Mary Jane Kelly’s life in London
Around 1884, Mary Jane moved to London and worked briefly in different roles – such as a domestic servant – before she found work in a brothel in the West End. She reportedly went to France with a client, but returned two weeks later as she didn’t like living there. However, she did retain the French name, ‘Marie Jeanette’, that she adopted during her brief stay.
Mary Jane met Joseph Barnett in 1887 and moved into a small room in Spitalfields. The two argued when she allowed prostitutes to sleep in the room on cold nights. He moved out just over a week before her murder.
The murder of Mary Jane Kelly
On the evening of 8th November 1888, Joseph saw Mary Jane for the final time between 7pm and 8pm. Mary Jane visited the Ten Bells public house and was seen drunk and going home with a man at around 11:45pm. She was heard singing, but the singing had stopped by 1:30 am.
Around midday on 9th November, Mary Jane’s landlord visited her room to collect her rent. He looked through the window when there was no response at the door, and it was then that he saw her body.
She had been mutilated to the point where she was no longer recognisable. Her abdomen was cut open and her organs were placed around her room. Her throat was slashed down to her spine, and her face was destroyed. Her heart was also missing, likely taken by the Ripper.
Mary Jane Kelly’s vicious murder is one of the reasons why she is believed to have been the Ripper’s final victim. The extent of the violence against her seems to have been a culmination of the Ripper’s violent desires.
No other murders fitting the Ripper’s modus operandi occurred afterward either, suggesting that she was indeed the final canonical victim.
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