Abberline: The Man Who Hunted Jack the Ripper by Thurgood Peter

Author:Thurgood, Peter [Thurgood, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780752492773
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2013-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

10

The Final Ripper Victim

T he Ripper’s final victim was Mary Jane Kelly, who was approximately 25 years old at the time of her death although there doesn’t seem to be any record of her actual birth date, she would have been born sometime around 1863. She was said to be attractive to men, with blonde hair, blue eyes and a fair complexion. She was 5ft 7in tall, and described as buxom.

She was born in Limerick, Ireland, but moved to Wales with her family as a young child. By the time she was just 16 years old, she married an equally young coal miner named Davies. They were apparently happy, but just two years later Davies was killed in a pit explosion.

Kelly was distraught with grief and moved away to Cardiff, where she moved in with a cousin, who worked as a prostitute. This was probably where Kelly started out on her ill-fated career, although the Cardiff police have no record of her ever being arrested. By 1884, however, she had seemingly heard of the riches she could earn in London, and so moved there, allegedly working in a high-class brothel in the West End. There are, of course, no records to prove exactly what Kelly did, or where she actually stayed during her time in London, and it has been said that she was somewhat prone to exaggeration. Others who knew her later testified that at this time she was staying with nuns at the Providence Row Night Refuge on Crispin Street. One of the provisions for being allowed to stay at the Providence Row Night Refuge was that she would have had to scrub floors and carry out general menial tasks. Whatever the truth, Kelly was eventually placed, probably by the refuge, into domestic service in a shop in Cleveland Street, in the West End.

The other side to the story, which she often told friends, regarding her arrival in London, was that she had befriended a French woman who lived in Knightsbridge, and that it was this woman who encouraged her to pursue the lifestyle which would ultimately lead to her death. Kelly claimed that while she was with the company of this woman she would often be driven about London in a carriage. She also claimed to have made several journeys to Paris with a man she described only as a ‘gentleman’. In other words, if her story is to be believed, Kelly was at that time living the life ‘of a lady’.

For some reason, which she never explained to anyone, she met a woman named Mrs Buki, who in all probability was either a prostitute herself, a madam, or maybe even both. Mrs Buki lived in a house on St George’s Street, just off Ratcliffe Highway in the East End. Kelly moved into the house, which was a very big step downwards after living in Knightsbridge. It is thought that Kelly and Mrs Buki started working together as prostitutes. Just a week or two after moving into

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