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Welcome to the Serial Killer Podcast. The podcast dedicated to serial killers. Who they were, what they did, and how. I am your Norwegian host, Samas Vyborg Thun.
As promised last week, tonight, you can once again breathe in the chill London evening air, feel the cobblestones beneath your leather boots, and see the dim gas-lit streetlights through the yellowish smog.
We find ourselves back in the Belle Epoque and watching old Jack the Ripper do his final known pièce de résistance, the gruesome murder and evisceration of Mary Jane Kelly. Please, to fully understand Jack's actions, you need...
to have listened to part one through four of this series before you listen to this one. If you haven't done so yet, do so now. The Serial Killer Podcast is brought to you by Quip. Quip was designed to make brushing your teeth more simple, affordable, and even enjoyable. I know that I had problems with my gums often ending up bloody from my rough brushing.
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Serial. S-E-R-I-A-L. This podcast has in excess of 7 million downloads in total. But both my Patreon page and my Facebook page are only visited by a few thousand.
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a derelict and cramped tenement building complex in Whitechapel, London. As he perused his accounting books, John, a.k.a. Jack McCarthy, could not overlook the fact that his tenant, Mary Jane Kelly, was six weeks behind in her rent.
He had allowed the fees to accumulate, and this morning decided that it was time to see if Kelly could pay up to asking his shop assistant, Thomas Boyer, with catching Kelly before she left her room for the day.
"'Kelly, like many others in the city, "'was planning to observe the procession "'of Right Honourable James Whitehead "'as he drove to the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand "'to be sworn in as mayor. "'The room at No. 13 Millers Court "'was actually a converted bedroom from No. 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 the water pump and the dustbin. When Boyer arrived at No. 13 Miller's Court, he knocked on the door twice.
Receiving no answer, he rounded the corner of the yard to see that a couple of glass window panes were broken. He reached in through the knocked-out glass and moved the curtain to see whether Mary Kelly was at home or not. The first thing he saw was what looked like two lumps of meat sitting on the bedside table. The second thing he saw...
sent him running back to his employer's office. McCarthy followed him back to Miller's court. He drew the curtain aside to see just what the office assistants had, a bloody corpse, mangled beyond recognition with parts strewn all over the blood-soaked bed.
"'McCarthy sent his assistant to find a constable, "'and Boyer soon came across Inspector Walter Beck "'and Detective Walter Dew chatting on Commercial Street. "'Boyer cried out to them, "'Another one! Jack the Ripper! "'Awful! Jack McCarthy sent me!' "'The officers followed him, "'observing the carnage through the broken window with queasy horror.'
They sent for Inspector Aberline, who was in charge of the Ripper case. The inspector arrived at 11.30 a.m., and Dr. George Baxter Phillips, a police surgeon who had also responded to the murder of Annie Chapman, arrived around the same time.
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, Burgo 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 dog's owner, a breeder named Edwin Brough, had reclaimed his hound from the police when it became clear that Scotland Yard would neither be paying nor insuring him for their services. Nobody told this to Aberline, 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 p.m. in the afternoon, ordering the door to be broken down. John McCarthy used a pickaxe to chop the front door down. The scene inside, which they had only glimpsed at before, would haunt them all forever. But before we get into the explicit details of the Ripper's handiwork...
Let us pause and examine a bit more about who Mary Jane was. Before we continue our story, here is a quick word from my sponsor. Madison Reed is an online hair color company built on integrity, innovation and love for you and for your hair color.
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I am truly thankful that Madison Reed would like to honor the Serial Killer Podcast's listeners with 10% off plus free shipping on their first color kit with promo code KILLER. That's code KILLER. 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-in-arm with two or three friends. She was often seen around the neighborhood, 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 all 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, blue eyes, and fair skin. 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 rife 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. In spite of this fact, Kelly seemed to be on her own in the world from a young age. In 1879, when Kelly would have been 16 years old, she married a collier named Davies. After only three years of marriage, he was tragically killed in a coal mine explosion.
Kelly did not return to her parents, but rather headed to Cardiff to live with a cousin and became a prostitute. 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 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 Frenchwoman. It was said that during this time Kelly had added some exoticism to her own name by going by Marie Jeannette.
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. She may have been another madam as well, though, because Barnett referred to the Carthy residence as a bad house. Never one to stay put for long, Kelly moved on from there to frequent Cooley's Lodging House in Thrall Street.
Spitalfields, around the end of 1886. Joseph Barnett entered Kelly's life on Good Friday, the 8th of April, 1887. Barnett also came from Irish parents, but was born in London in 1858. 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 on the 19th of September, 1888. The couple would move two more times before August of 1888, and during that time, Kelly had been working odd jobs. Then Barnett lost his job.
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 her career in the oldest profession in the world, prostitution.
By the fall of 1888, their 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. "'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. End quote. Sure enough, Elizabeth Rater of No. 20 Miller's Court, who lived directly above No. 13, reported that on the 30th of October, sometime between 5 and 6,
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This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. As a family man with three kids, I know firsthand how extremely difficult it is to make time for self-care. But it's good to have some things that are non-negotiable. For some, that could be a night out with the boys, chugging beers and having a laugh. For others, it might be an eating night.
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Visit BetterHelp.com slash SerialKiller today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash SerialKiller. 6 p.m. The couple had argued. Barnett left Kelly to live at Mrs. Buller's boarding house. Kelly had been drunk and broke two of the window panes that looked out on the courtyard.
A charwoman who lived at No. 1 Miller's Court, Julia Wentourney, 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 to live that way, and he continued to visit her every day up until the evening of the 8th of November.
In the meantime, Kelly continued to allow other women, including Mrs. Harvey and Julia, to sleep over there until she took up lodgings on Dorset Street on the 7th of November. The next day, Barnett visited Kelly at 7 p.m., then left, on good terms, at 7.45 p.m. 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. When authorities entered the room, there was a fire burning in the fireplace. Mary Jane Kelly's clothes were neatly folded on a chair, and her boots sat in front of the fireplace.
Kelly's corpse was nude, except for a loose-fitting undergarment lying in the middle of the bed that sat flush against the apartment wall. She was inclined slightly to the left side of the bed, and her head was resting on the left cheek. Her right arm had been partially disconnected from the torso. Her legs were spread wide and placed at right angles.
Attending police surgeons included Dr. Thomas Bond and Dr. George Baxter Phillips, and they made the post-mortem report. But the carnage was so great that some of this information was suppressed for the public inquest. Dr. Bond's report said as follows. 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 to the bone. Presumably, without the presence of police walking their beats, concealed in a private room, the Ripper had the time and privacy to carry his compulsions further than he had to that point.
As with previous victims, there were entrails and organs piled to the right of the body. This time, there were also other lacerations and organ displacements. Kelly's uterus, kidneys, and one breast were placed beneath her head. Her left lung was torn, and her heart was completely missing.
The Ripper had taken the flaps of skin, which he'd stripped from the thighs and abdomen, and piled them on the bedside table. Those were the lumps that Thomas Boyer had first spotted when he peeked in through the broken window. Every feature of Kelly's face was irregularly slashed.
Her nose, ears, cheeks, and eyebrows were all partially removed, and her lips were sliced multiple times. The bed was saturated in blood, and Dr. Phillips stated with confidence that the cause of death this time was severance of the carotid artery rather than asphyxiation.
Unusual for the time, there actually exists a crime scene photo of Mary Jane Kelly's corpse. It is quite graphic, but easy enough to find online if you are interested. The photo shows how the corpse lays almost invitingly with both legs spread and pulled up, and one arm outstretched, ready for an embrace.
This is sharply contrasted with the extensive mutilation done to the body, and reams of flesh and tissue hang from the body down onto the blood-soaked bed. 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 a.m. Based on witness testimony, Metropolitan Police believed it took place around 3.30 or 4 a.m. Dr. Phillips, who had responded to other Ripper murder scenes, asserted that the time of death was 5 or 6 a.m.
Authorities had to slough through myriad stories from neighbors, many of whose stories also conflicted with one another. What follows is a general picture pieced together from these accounts. Before we continue with the show, here is a brief word from my sponsor, Shudder, the premium streaming video service from AMC Networks.
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S-H-U-D-D-E-R dot com slash serial killer and use promo code serial killer. No one could confirm sightings of Mary Jane Kelly between the time that Joe Barnett left her room at 7.45 p.m. and 11.45 p.m.
Though one story had her drinking with a woman named Elizabeth Foster at the Ten Bells pub. At 11pm she was said to be very drunk, and drinking with a young, respectable-looking man with a dark moustache at the Britannia. The first confirmed sighting came at 11.45pm by Mary Ann Cox.
a prostitute who lived at No. 5 Miller's Court. Cox was returning home to get warm and saw Kelly walking ahead of her with a stout man. A gas lamp stood directly across from No. 13 and illuminated Miller's Court, so it was easy for any neighbor to see who was entering and exiting Kelly's apartment.
According to Cox, the man was short, stout, with a blotchy face. He looked to be in his thirties. He had a short, carroty moustache, a billycock hat, a longish, dark, shabby coat, and a quart pail of beer in his hand. The two stood outside of Kelly's room as Cox passed by towards her room. Cox wished them good night.
Kelly drunkenly wished her good night and slurred that she was going to have a song. The residents of Miller's Court were used to Kelly Irish songs, and they were a regular result of her drunkenness. As Cox went into her home, she heard Kelly started to sing A Violet from Mother's Grave.
Catherine Pickett and her husband, also Miller's court neighbors, remember hearing her singing at 12.30 a.m. as well. Catherine remembered that she wanted to go shut Kelly up, but her husband prevented her from doing so. At midnight, Cox went back out into the cold to solicit, and then came back an hour later after it began to rain.
At 1 a.m., the light was on in Kelly's room, and Cox could still hear her sing. She soon went out again. Around the same time, Elizabeth Prater, Kelly's upstairs neighbor, stood at the entrance to Miller's Court and waited for a man. Giving up around 1.30 a.m., she returned to her room and passed out. She did not hear any singing.
nor did she see any lights coming from Kelly's window. At two a.m., George Hutchinson was walking to his residence at a men's home on Commercial Street when he passed a man standing at a corner of Commercial and Thrall. Not giving the man a second look, he soon happened upon Kelly. Kelly asked him for a sixpence, but he declined, saying he had spent all of his money already.
Kelly departed in search of cash. Soon meeting with the man, Hutchinson had passed on the corner. The man put his hand on Kelly's shoulder, and they exchanged inaudible words and a laugh. "'All right,' Hutchinson heard Kelly say. "'You will be all right for what I have told you,' the man replied. Hutchinson watched as the man put his hand on Kelly's shoulder.
and they began to walk back toward Dorset Street, a parcel in the man's left hand. Hutchinson scrutinized the man, noticing his pale complexion, small mustache, dark hair and bushy eyebrows. He was wearing a felt hat pulled low, a long dark coat and dark spats over boots. Hutchinson summarized the unknown man's look.
by saying he had a quote-unquote Jewish appearance. Hutchinson soon followed the two all the way back to Miller's Court and stood, watching as Kelly kissed the man and let him inside. He stood outside Miller's Court until the clock struck 3 a.m., then left when nobody emerged from the room. Around the same time, Mrs. Cox was heading home once again through the rain.
She did not see any light from Kelly's room, and as she lay at home awake for the next hour or so, heard the sound of men walking in and out of the courtyard. Elizabeth Prater was awakened at four a.m. by her kitten, and heard someone cry, "'Oh, murder!' Sarah Lewis, who was staying with friends in the neighborhood, heard the same thing."
This exclamation was common in Whitechapel, however, and neither gave it a second thought. These testimonies gave the most weight to the Metropolitan Police's hypothesis that Kelly was killed around 3 or 4 a.m. Mary Jane Kelly was laid to rest in the Roman Catholic Cemetery at Leytonstone.
She was moved from the mortuary at Shoreditch to the graveyard at 12.30 p.m. on Monday, the 19th of November, 1888. Both Joseph Barnett and John McCarthy joined together to help ensure she was buried according to the traditions of the Catholic Church. According to the Daily Telegraph,
None of Mary's family could be found to come to her funeral. She was listed as Marie Jeannette Kelly on her death certificate. The city reclaimed Mary Kelly's grave in the 1950s, and John Morrison built a large headstone for her in 1986. It was marking the wrong grave, however, and it was later removed.
The area superintendent marked her proper grave with a simple historical grave marker in the 1990s. If you wish, you can visit her grave today. The plaque beneath the cross marking her grave reads as follows. In loving memory of Marie Jeannette Kelly. None but the lonely hearts can know my sadness. Love lives forever.
And so ends the tale of Jack's final known victim. Next week, I hope to be able to take you along on a less explored ride through the darkest recesses of what mankind has to offer. So, as they say in the land of radio, stay tuned. This podcast had not been possible if it hadn't been for my dear patrons that invest in this show via Patreon.
My special thanks go out to those of you that have stayed loyal for a long time. Those of you I would like to give an extra heartfelt thank you to are...
Your monthly contributions really helps keep this podcast thriving. You have my deepest gratitude. I have been your host, Thomas Weyborg Thu. And if you like my show, and if you're excited for Halloween, you're going to love all the thrilling shows Podcast One has to offer.
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