5. Mary Jane Kelly

Mary Kelly was the final canonical victim of Jack the Ripper, and most likely the last victim, period, of the Whitechapel monster.  Because of this (as well as others reasons) she is by far the most discussed, analysed and hotly debated among all the Ripper victims.  Some believe Kelly was the Ripper’s target all along – and the reason the murders stopped – and some believe she wasn’t a Ripper victim at all.  There’s been so much written, speculated and made-up in regards to Kelly (some of it, pertaining to her background, might have even been concocted by Kelly herself) that she’s become an almost mythic figure; the ‘star’ Ripper victim, if you will, and the most romanticised.

Aside from being the last victim, she was also the youngest Ripper victim (she was twenty-five when she was murdered), and by all accounts, an attractive woman.  She was the only victim killed indoors, the most horribly mutilated, and the only Ripper victim to be photographed in situ.  It’s no wonder, then, that Kelly has been the focus of so much attention.

So, who was Mary Kelly?  Was she the Ripper’s last victim?  Was she a Ripper victim at all?

Not much is known about Mary Jane Kelly (who sometimes went by the name Marie Jeanette Kelly).  What little is known comes from second-hand information from her friends and lovers.  She was born in Limerick, Ireland, around 1863.  Around 1879, at the age of sixteen, she married a man by the name of Davies (first name unknown), but he died in an explosion a few years later.  Afterwards Kelly moved to Cardiff, Wales, and worked as a prostitute, and then, in 1884, moved to London.  Apparently she worked at a high-class brothel in the West End shortly after arriving in London, but, possibly due to her drinking habits, was made unwelcome, and she drifted to the slums of the East End, where, like the other Ripper victims and thousands of others just like them, she lived an itinerant lifestyle.  Finally, on the morning of November the 9^th, she was found murdered in her modest dwellings in 13 Miller’s Court.

So, that’s essentially it in terms of Mary’s life (to read a more detailed account of her life go here).  But what about her death?

At around 10:45 on the morning of the 9^th, Thomas Bowyer, a rent collector for the owner of the Miller’s Court building, John McCarthy, went to Mary’s residence to collect her overdue rent.  He knocked, but there was no answer.  He walked around to the broken side window, pushed aside the curtain, and peered into the small room.  There, on the bed, he saw the monstrously mutilated body of Mary Kelly.  He rushed back to McCarthy, the police were called, and a few hours later, the door (which was locked) was broken open and the full horror of what lay inside that tiny dwelling was realised.  Here is Dr. Thomas Bond’s report regarding Mary Kelly:

“The body was lying naked in the middle of the bed the shoulders flat, but the axis of the body inclined to the left side of the bed. The head was turned on the left cheek. The left arm was close to the body with the forearm flexed at a right angle and lying across the abdomen, the right arm was slightly abducted from the body and rested on the mattress, the elbow bent and the forearm supine with the fingers clenched. The legs were wide apart, the left thigh at right angles to the trunk and the right forming an obtuse angle with the pubes.

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 viz; 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 2 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 a number of separate splashes.

The face was gashed in all directions the nose, cheeks, eyebrows and ears being partly removed. The lips were blanched and cut by several oblique 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 5th and 6th being deeply notched. The skin cuts in the front of the neck showed distinct ecchymosis. The air passage was cut through at the lower part of the larynx through the cricoid cartilage.

Both breasts were removed by more or less circular incisions, the muscle down to the ribs being attached to the breasts. The intercostals between the 4 5 and 6 ribs were cut through and the contents of the thorax visible through the openings.

The skin and tissues of the abdomen from the costal arch to the pubes were removed in three large flaps. The right thigh was denuded in front to the bone, the flap of skin, including the external organs of generation and part of the right buttock. The left thigh was stripped of skin, fascia and muscles as far as the knee.

The left calf showed a long gash through skin and tissues to the deep muscles and reaching past the knee to 5 ins above the ankle. Both arms and forearms had extensive and jagged wounds.

The right thumb showed a small superficial incision about 1 inch long, with extravasation of blood in the skin and there were several abrasions on the back of the hand moreover showing the same condition.

On opening the thorax it was found that the right lung was minimally adherent by old firm adhesions. The lower part of the lung was broken and torn away. The left lung was intact; it was adherent at the apex and there were a few adhesions over the side. In the substances of the lung were several nodules of consolidation.

The Pericardium was open below and the heart absent. In the abdominal cavity was some partly digested food of fish and potatoes and similar food was found in the remains of the stomach attached to the intestines.”

And the inquest testimony of Dr. George Bagster Philips, who was also present at the scene:

“The mutilated remains of a female were lying two thirds over towards the edge of the bedstead, nearest to the door of entry. She had only her under linen garment on her, and from my subsequent examination I am sure the body had been removed subsequent to the injury which caused her death from that side of the bedstead which was nearest to the wooden partition, the large quantity of blood under the bedstead, the saturated condition of the paliasse, pillow, sheet, at that top corner nearest to the partition leads me to the conclusion that the severance of the right carotid artery which was the immediate cause of her death was inflicted while the deceased was lying at the right side of the bedstead and her head and neck in the top right-hand corner.”

Mary Kelly was positively identified later that day by her ex-lover, Joseph Barnett (by her ears and eyes, as the rest of her face was too badly mutilated).

So, here we have a fifth woman brutally murdered within the space of less than three months.  While all the doctors and police at the time seemed satisfied that Kelly was killed by the same hand that had killed at least three of the four previous victims (some of the experts disagreed over the inclusion of either Stride or Eddowes, although most agreed on Nichols, Chapman and Eddowes), there still remains some doubt in the minds of some Ripperologists.  Do I believe Mary Kelly was killed by Jack the Ripper?  Most certainly, yes.  Still, let’s take a look at some of the reasons why this doubt over Mary Kelly’s candidacy as a Ripper victim exists.

*Mary was younger and more attractive than any of the others

I simply don’t believe that age was a factor in the choice of victims.  Unlike Ted Bundy, who specifically went after a certain look in his victims, Jack the Ripper chose penniless prostitutes because they were easy targets.  The only connecting factor between any of the victims was that they were prostitutes and were in need of money.  These weren’t women working at high-end brothels, or even low-end brothels; they were street walkers, beaten down by life and drink.  That’s the kind of victims the Ripper was after, and Kelly just happened to be younger than the other four.  Furthermore, according to the East London Observer, (talking about Polly Nichols): “He [the husband] stated that she was nearly 44 years of age, but it must be owned that she looked nearly ten years younger, as indeed the police first described the body”.  Nichols was forty-three at the time of her death, but apparently looked to be in her mid-thirties.  I’m sure the Ripper didn’t ask the women their age before he murdered them, and so it’s very likely that, going by appearance, the Ripper thought Nichols was considerably younger than her real age, and therefore his next victim, forty-seven-year-old Annie Chapman, who, by all accounts, did look her age, must’ve appeared a fair bit older.  So it doesn’t seem that the Ripper was specifically targeting women in their mid-to-late 40s; most just happened to fall in that age bracket.

*Mary was killed indoors, whereas the others were killed outside

This has a fairly obvious explanation – the reason Mary was the only one killed indoors was because she was the only one of the victims to actually have her own place.  The other four victims all lived at doss houses (when they had the money) and so couldn’t take their Johns to a more private place.  They were forced to ply their trade out on the streets.  Mary, on the other hand, did have her own place (as small and dingy as it was), thus took her clients there to have sex.  I’m sure that if Annie Chapman or Polly Nichols had their own dwellings, they would’ve most certainly been found murdered there.  And it’s easy to see why Kelly would’ve taken her clients to her room to conduct business (as we know she did on at least a few occasions the night of her murder); there was the comfort of a bed, a fire to help keep warm, and privacy, so as to avoid the troublesome coppers.  The victims were simply found in areas they frequently used for sex – Mary was no different.

*Mary was considerably more mutilated than any of the other victims

Again, there’s an easy and obvious answer to this – it’s because she was killed indoors.  It’s not much of a stretch to think that a killer such as the Ripper, who obviously took great delight in mutilating the victims, would indulge in his every fantasy if given the luxuries of time and privacy.  Chapman was more mutilated than Nichols, and yet nobody disputes that they were killed by the same person.  Likewise, Eddowes sustained more mutilations than Chapman, and again, most concede they were both killed by the same hand.  Even if you don’t subscribe to the theory that the Ripper was growing more bloodthirsty, needing to commit increasing acts of violence in order to quench his blood-lust (although there does seem to be a pattern of increased violence), then consider this: the Ripper was a man who, despite the considerable risks of getting caught, violently mutilated three other women in the streets.  Anyone could’ve come by at any moment, and yet the Ripper took such risks just so he could achieve his mission: to viciously tear apart his victims.  He didn’t need to stay and mutilate their bodies for any practical purposes; he did so because he was driven to commit such atrocities.  With the case of Kelly, the Ripper simply took advantage of his good fortune, a private room in an out-of-the-way court, a place where he could take his time and not be in danger of getting caught.  Really, I’m surprised Kelly wasn’t more mutilated than she was.  Take a look at how badly the Ripper mutilated Eddowes, and the Ripper achieved that in a dark corner, in a public area, and in around five minutes.  Now think about Miller’s Court, a small room out of view from the public eye, and consider the killer had one, maybe two hours at his disposal – is it any wonder Mary Kelly was as badly mutilated as she was?

*Mary’s face was heavily mutilated, and her door was locked

These two issues are extremely contentious, and provide the basis for the theory that she was killed by someone familiar to her, someone familiar with her dwellings: i.e., her ex-lover, Joseph Barnett.

Let’s first talk about the lock issue (as the Joe Barnett issue is long and involved).  The way I’ve come to understand the lock on Mary Kelly’s door is that it was a spring-lock, one that you could either leave ‘open’ (or on the latch) thus negating the need for a key to open the door (although leaving the door unlocked would mean anyone could simply enter the room); or ‘closed’ and thus, when you shut the door, the lock engages and you’d then need a key to open the door from the outside.  However, the lock could easily be pulled back from the inside, and so if you did lose the key, then you could open the door by reaching through the window and ‘opening’ the lock.  Kelly had lost the door key some time ago, and presumably had kept the door ‘open’ whenever she left her dwellings (there was nothing of value to steal in her room, and so logically, without a key, she wouldn’t have had a problem with keeping the room unlocked).  However, due to an alcohol-fuelled argument with Barnett a few weeks prior to her death, the window closest to the front had been broken, thus allowing access from outside the room to the lock inside, and so if the door was locked (whether intentionally or by accident) then Kelly could simply reach through the hole in the window and pull back the lock, thus gaining entrance into her house without need for a key.

So, contrary to popular belief, the door wasn’t locked in the traditional sense – that is, by use of a key.  The killer needn’t have had a key in order to lock the door (as it’s been thought to have happened, thus implicating the man most likely to have the missing key – Barnett); he simply had to pull the door shut (with the lock in the ‘closed’ position) and the door would automatically be fastened and unable to be opened unless either by a key – or by reaching through the broken window and pulling back the lock.

Okay, let’s now move on to Barnett.  There are two schools of thought regarding Kelly’s ex-lover.  One is that he was Jack the Ripper and killed the women in an effort to stop Kelly from prostituting herself (and, once that mission had failed, he killed Kelly in a fit of anger and disappointment).  The second idea is that he wasn’t the Ripper, but that he did kill Kelly in a fit of rage and jealously – thus excluding Kelly from the list of Ripper victims.

Let’s take at look at the first idea.  I for one think it absurd to conclude that a man would kill and then horribly mutilate women simply for the purpose of stopping his lover from continuing as a prostitute (as far as I’m aware, no one’s ever done such a thing before).  For starters, Barnett knew Kelly was a whore – it’s how they met.  So it’s not like he wasn’t aware of her profession.  And even he if did decide to go out and risk going to prison (or death by hanging) to kill whores, why go to such extremes as to mutilate the bodies – even taking body parts away?  Surely merely stabbing the women to death, or strangling them, or beating their heads against a wall, would do the job?  Why would a man who was killing for purely pragmatic reasons stay after the women were dead to ritualistically cut and mutilate them?  At the greater risk of getting caught?  It doesn’t make any sense.  No, whoever killed those women was a serial killer; someone who delighted in the act of bodily mutilation, and who, even at the risk of being captured, stayed with the victims after death to perform the mutilations and even take away internal organs.

I also don’t believe, as some authors have suggested, that Barnett was an actual serial killer; that is, a person who needs to kill repeatedly and enjoys the act of murder – there’s nothing about his history or personality that would suggest this (for a more detailed examination of Barnett’s candidacy for being Jack the Ripper, go here to read my thoughts)

So, what about the idea of Barnett killing only Mary Kelly, in a fit of rage and jealously?  On the surface, this is a more plausible theory.  More often than not murders are perpetrated by people known to the victims; often spouses or lovers.  Barnett had been Mary’s lover up until a few weeks before her death.  And, as some people often point out, Kelly’s face had been heavily mutilated, which is often present when a person kills someone who is known to them.  However, there’s no evidence to suggest Barnett did kill Kelly, and a lot of evidence to suggest that the Ripper was responsible.

First of all, Barnett had no history of violence, nor any criminal history.  And he lived for a long time after Kelly’s murder, with a wife, and there were no known instances of violence towards his wife.  A man who could murder his lover in a fit of anger would most surely show some signs of that violence, either in his past or after the fact.  By all reports, Barnett cared a great deal for Mary, bringing her money whenever he had some to spare, and visiting her shortly before her death to let her know he had no money to give her, even though they had separated – not the kind of demeanour I’d expect from a man who, only a few hours later, would go on to brutally murder her.  Also, Barnett was the one who came forward to the police after hearing about a murder in Dorset Street – the police didn’t come looking for him.  And then he was interviewed by the police (which included famed inspector Frederick Abberline) for hours, his clothes investigated for signs of blood, and he was cleared and subsequently released, the police satisfied of his innocence.  It can be concluded that the police had no suspicions of Barnett because there have been no reports uncovered to show that the police were interested in Barnett as a suspect in the murder of Mary Kelly, or that his lodgings were watched in the weeks afterwards.

Then there are Mary Kelly’s injuries.  She was systematically ripped apart; ritualistically carved, sliced and mutilated.  There were no obvious signs of aggressive violence perpetrated against Kelly (I know that’s a strange thing for me to say, considering the extent of her injuries; but allow me to explain).  With a case of domestic violence, or any kind of violence that is fuelled purely by anger or jealousy, there are almost always signs of that anger directed towards the victim.  It stands to reason.  A person is angry, for whatever reason, at another person, and so they’re naturally going to impart that anger when inflicting injuries.  For instance, if there’s a knife nearby, then you’d expect to see multiple stab wounds; some kind of heavy object handy, a lot of bruising and perhaps fractured and/or broken bones.  No weapon close by, perhaps strangulation.  But definitely some evidence of that anger.  With Mary Kelly, there was none.  She wasn’t stabbed fifty times in the neck or abdomen.  She wasn’t beaten to a bloody pulp.  No, her neck was deeply cut, and then her body ripped open and her organs removed.  If Barnett did kill Mary as a result of his rage over her still practicing prostitution (or for whatever reason), then where’s the evidence of the argument that led to her death (there were no signs of a struggle present)?  Where’s the evidence of his rage towards her?  I can’t see a man getting violent and abusive, pulling out a knife…and then slitting her throat to the bone and then systematically slicing away at her body.

What was inflicted upon Mary Kelly was clearly done by someone with both a pathological hatred of women, as well as a deviant sexual fascination.  Mary Kelly’s breasts weren’t stabbed fifty times; they were sliced away from the chest in a perverse, almost clinical act.  Her thighs and abdomen were carved away.  Her internal organs were cut from their positions and then placed at various points on the bed.  This wasn’t the work of an angry, jealous man; this was the work of someone who enjoyed cutting up bodies.

Some people have argued that Barnett, after killing Kelly, realised what he had done and staged the scene to make it look like the Ripper had killed her, thus shifting the blame away from himself.  This may be appropriate for a pulp horror novel, but in real life?  Just stop for a moment and think about what it would take for someone to do that to another human being.  Killing another person even with something as impersonal as a gun is not something everyone can do.  It takes a lot to stand there and pull the trigger.  It’s harder still if you kill someone with your hands or with a knife.  It’s not just the physical act of committing the murder, but the aftermath, the shock and fear and repulsion.  Now times those feelings by a thousand when dealing with post mortem mutilation.  I get a touch queasy when cutting up a raw piece of steak; I couldn’t even begin to imagine cutting up a human being like what Mary Kelly’s killer did.  So we’re to assume then that, after killing Mary in a fit of anger, rather than feeling remorseful and sick over having killed the woman he loved (he had to have cared about her, or he wouldn’t have harboured such strong emotions to kill her), his thoughts went straight to not wanting to be caught, and making it look like a Ripper murder?  As easy as that?  Even if he did think such a thing, thinking it and actually carrying out such a heinous deed are two very different beasts.  Again, I ask you to ponder the scene: a man, who up until that point hasn’t displayed any known acts of violence, and who had just murdered his lover, spends the next hour or so methodically carving up said lover: cutting her throat as to almost sever the head; stripping away her thighs and abdomen; slicing away her breasts; and cutting out her uterus, kidneys, liver, intestines, spleen and heart, and placing these objects by her feet and under her head, and the strips of flesh on the table.  Could a man such as Barnett really do such a thing?  I don’t believe so.  Any person who could do that to another human being, particularly someone he cared about, is someone with deep mental problems and is most likely a psychopath in their own right.  And if that was the case, then why didn’t Barnett kill before or after Mary Kelly?

No, I’m sorry, I just can’t see any scenario that involves Barnett killing Kelly and then mutilating her to make it look like a Ripper murder.  Not only is it illogical, but all evidence points to her killer being a mentally disturbed serial killer.

But what of her facial mutilations?  Does this indicate the killer knew Kelly?  I don’t believe so.  Remember, Eddowes’s face was also badly mutilated, along with her torso.  I simply think the Ripper was taking his internalised hatred of women out on their faces, along with their bodies, either as a new development in his signature because he had discovered it also gave him pleasure, or because, in order to commit the particularly horrible mutilations on Eddowes and Kelly, he needed to depersonalise them.  With cases of domestic murder where the face is mutilated, it’s often the area most heavily mutilated.  In Kelly’s case (as with Eddowes), the face was equally as massacred as the body.  He simply attacked the whole being, and it doesn’t necessarily mean the killer was known to the victim.

So, what were the signs that Mary Kelly was killed by the murderer known as Jack the Ripper?

Well, for starters, like the other four, she was a poor prostitute killed in the early hours, in the Whitechapel district.  So, same victimology.  Robbery didn’t appear to be a motive, and her lovers and ex-lovers were investigated and cleared.  The killer murdered Kelly in an out-of-the-way spot (in this case her dwellings), and the actual cause of death appeared to be severance of the carotid artery – just like the other four victims.  So, same M.O. – even though, it should be mentioned, there were some minor variances with Kelly in this regard.  Namely, that death occurred as a result of the right carotid artery being cut, rather than the left, as was the case with the previous four victims.  This was most probably due to the fact that the right side of Kelly’s bed was resting against a wooden partition (if you were standing beside the bed facing the partition), so the killer had no room to position himself at his preferred side, the right, having instead to come at her from her left side while inflicting the fatal blow (the other times he was able to be positioned at his victims’ right side, cutting their throat with his right hand, from left to right).  The other minor variance was that there were some small nicks on Kelly’s hands and arms, possibly indicating some advanced warning of attack and an effort on her part to deflect the knife (that, or maybe the killer simply cut her fingers and arms during the extensive mutilations).  In the other cases, there was no evidence of defensive wounds.  There’s no way of knowing what took place in that tiny hovel in the early hours of that terrible morning, but Kelly was found almost completely naked (she was wearing only a chemise), her clothes folded neatly on a nearby chair, and the right side sheets were drenched with blood and the wooden partition also splashed with blood (those splashes of blood on the partition were most likely caused by arterial spray, and so along with the sheets on that side being blood-drenched, suggest the throat-wound was the first wound inflicted on Kelly).  Coupled with the cries of “murder” that several residents of the court heard (at around 4 o’clock, which may or may not have been Kelly), it’s possible then that Kelly, while lying on the bed, perhaps ready to conduct business, had advanced warning of the attack.  Still, neither of these minor variances means her killer wasn’t the same one who murdered the previous four women.  There were slight variances with all the murders, but the basic M.O. of the Ripper was still present with Kelly.  And again, the heavy mutilations, concentrating on the victim’s torso and private areas, are consistent with the Ripper’s signature (also, like with Nichols, Chapman and Eddowes, it appears that the killer made an attempt to sever the head from the body).  The position the body was left in is also reminiscent of the previous murders.  Just like the others (apart from Stride, who was found on her left side, legs drawn up), Kelly was found on her back, legs parted.  Compare the in situ sketch of Eddowes lying dead in Mitre Square with that of the famous photograph of Kelly on the bed: the two are eerily similar, right down to the way the heads are turned to the left.  Really, you could see Kelly as an extension of the Eddowes murder – similar injuries, similar position in death; just more severe mutilations.

I think it’s clear that Kelly was murdered by the same killer as the other victims: same victimology, same M.O. and same signature.  As I mentioned, the doctors (and police) at the time had no qualms about including Kelly as another Ripper victim.  Doctor Bond, who directly examined Kelly, and who examined the other four cases and submitted a report on the Ripper murders to Sir. Robert Anderson, was of the opinion that the five canonical victims were all killed by the same hand, and that the mutilations (inflicted upon Nichols, Chapman, Eddowes and Kelly) were “Of the same character”.

Taking a fascinating side-step for a moment (and yet still related to Mary Kelly’s murder), Doctor Thomas Bond wrote what is now generally considered to be the first-ever offender profile, with the aforementioned report he wrote for Anderson.  He wrote:

I beg to report that I have read the notes of the 4 Whitechapel Murders viz:-

1. Buck’s Row.

2. Hanbury Street.

3. Berner’s Street.

4. Mitre Square.

I have also made a Post Mortem Examination of the mutilated remains of a woman found yesterday in a small room in Dorset Street –

1. All five murders were no doubt committed by the same hand. In the first four the throats appear to have been cut from left to right. In the last case owing to the extensive mutilation it is impossible to say in what direction the fatal cut was made, but arterial blood was found on the wall in splashes close to where the woman’s head must have been lying.

2. All the circumstances surrounding the murders lead me to form the opinion that the women must have been lying down when murdered and in every case the throat was first cut.

3. In the four murders of which I have seen the notes only, I cannot form a very definite opinion as to the time that had elapsed between the murder and the discovering of the body.

In one case, that of Berner’s Street, the discovery appears to have been made immediately after the deed – In Buck’s Row, Hanbury Street, and Mitre Square three or four hours only could have elapsed. In the Dorset Street case the body was lying on the bed at the time of my visit, 2 o’clock, quite naked and mutilated as in the annexed report –

Rigor Mortis had set in, but increased during the progress of the examination. From this it is difficult to say with any degree of certainty the exact time that had elapsed since death as the period varies from 6 to 12 hours before rigidity sets in. The body was comparatively cold at 2 o’clock and the remains of a recently taken meal were found in the stomach and scattered about over the intestines. It is, therefore, pretty certain that the woman must have been dead about 12 hours and the partly digested food would indicate: that death took place about 3 or 4 hours after the food was taken, so one or two o’clock in the morning would be the probable time of the murder.

4. In all the cases there appears to be no evidence of struggling and the attacks were probably so sudden and made in such a position that the women could neither resist nor cry out. In the Dorset Street case the corner of the sheet to the right of the woman’s head was much cut and saturated with blood, indicating that the face may have been covered with the sheet at the time of the attack.

5. In the four first cases the murderer must have attacked from the right side of the victim. In the Dorset Street case, he must have attacked from in front or from the left, as there would be no room for him between the wall and the part of the bed on which the woman was lying.

Again, the blood had flowed down on the right side of the woman and spurted on to the wall.

6. The murderer would not necessarily be splashed or deluged with blood, but his hands and arms must have been covered and parts of his clothing must certainly have been smeared with blood.

7. The mutilations in each case excepting the Berner’s Street one were all of the same character and shewed clearly that in all the murders, the object was mutilation.

8. In each case the mutilation was inflicted by a person who had no scientific nor anatomical knowledge. In my opinion he does not even possess the technical knowledge of a butcher or horse slaughterer or any person accustomed to cut up dead animals.

9. The instrument must have been a strong knife at least six inches long, very sharp, pointed at the top and about an inch in width. It may have been a clasp knife, a butcher’s knife or a surgeon’s knife. I think it was no doubt a straight knife.

10. The murderer must have been a man of physical strength and of great coolness and daring. There is no evidence that he had an accomplice. He must in my opinion be a man subject to periodical attacks of Homicidal and erotic mania. The character of the mutilations indicate that the man may be in a condition sexually, that may be called satyriasis. It is of course possible that the Homicidal impulse may have developed from a revengeful or brooding condition of the mind, or that Religious Mania may have been the original disease, but I do not think either hypothesis is likely. The murderer in external appearance is quite likely to be a quiet inoffensive looking man probably middleaged and neatly and respectably dressed. I think he must be in the habit of wearing a cloak or overcoat or he could hardly have escaped notice in the streets if the blood on his hands or clothes were visible.

11. Assuming the murderer to be such a person as I have just described he would probably be solitary and eccentric in his habits, also he is most likely to be a man without regular occupation, but with some small income or pension. He is possibly living among respectable persons who have some knowledge of his character and habits and who may have grounds for suspicion that he is not quite right in his mind at times. Such persons would probably be unwilling to communicate suspicions to the Police for fear of trouble or notoriety, whereas if there were a prospect of reward it might overcome their scruples.

A remarkable bit of insight that predates modern criminal profiling by almost a hundred years.  In his report, Bond laid out basically everything that I (and I’m sure a lot of other researchers) believe about the canonical five and the Ripper himself.

So, in summation, I believe that Mary Kelly was murdered by the same man who murdered at least four other women.  The fact is, there was a lust-murderer stalking the streets of Whitechapel killing and then butchering lowly prostitutes in dark, out-of-the-way places.  So to say that Kelly, a lowly prostitute who was killed and then butchered in an out-of-the-way place, in an incredibly similar manner as the previous four victims, wasn’t a victim of Jack the Ripper is, to me, unfounded and goes against all known and available evidence.  I’m inclined to agree with the doctors and police of the day – Mary Jane Kelly was the victim of Jack the Ripper (whoever that was).