The Gospel According To Jack The Ripper [Part 3 of 5]

Stride died less than a block away from where he killed Mary Ann Nichols.  Would he be brazen enough to return so close to the scene of his original crime?

(And that’s a presupposition on my part.  We don’t know if Nichols was the first woman he attacked.  The era is filled with numerous reports of unescorted women being attacked but not fatally injured late at night in Whitechapel.  The killer could easily have tried killing one or two earlier victims, only to be fought off by them, thus forcing him to develop the technique described in his modus operandi.  Once he found a successful attack strategy, he'd be unlikely to abandon it.)

Others have pointed out these discrepancies and wonder if Stride was indeed a victim of the Ripper or if by coincidence, two similar murders took place almost simultaneously a little more than a mile apart.

I think the police made the presupposition that one killer attacked both women.  I’m not sure of that.  Draw a triangle from the Nichols, Chapman, and Eddowes’ murder scenes.

I strongly suspect the killer had a bolt hole in that area.

Was it his regular residence?  Was it a room he rented for the night?  I can’t say -- but I do think he had a safe place to flee to after committing a murder so he could gloat privately over his trophies.

Had he been interrupted while murdering Stride, I think he would have headed straight there, not try to find another victim on the fly.  After killing Eddowes, he headed there not aware another murder occurred at the same time.

So of the five so-called canonical victims, I think Stride is on the list by error.  Her death is no less tragic than the others, but not caused by the Ripper.

Which leads us to the final canonical victim, Mary Ann Kelly.

. . .

One of the coincidences that threaten to lead researchers down blind alley is the conflation of three names:  Mary Ann Nichols, the first victim; “Mary Ann Kelly” an alias used by Eddowes on occasion, including the name she gave police at 12:55am September 30 / October 1 when released from the drunk tank; and Mary Jane Kelly, the fifth of the so-called canonical victims.

Understand at that time England seemed awash with Irish immigrants (Mary Jane Kelly was one).  “Mary Kelly” was as generic an Irish name as one could imagine, the equivalent of “Mary Brown” in the U.S.

More than one writer has speculated the Ripper searched for a specific “Mary Kelly”. 

There’s no evidence to support this.

The not unreasonable presupposition of the police ran something like this: 

Mary Ann Nichols, the first victim, was savagely attacked.

Annie Chapman, the second victim, was even more savagely attacked, with a trophy taken by the murderer.

Elizabeth Stride, the third victim, escaped post-mortem mutilation only by her killer being frightened off.

Catherine Eddowes, the fourth victim, received the most savage attack to date, again with trophies being taken.

Mary Jane Kelly, the fifth victim, received post-mortem injuries an entire order of magnitude worse than any inflicted on the others, in an attack that must have lasted hours.

To the police, the killer grew bolder and bolder with each successive crime, until finally they burned out whatever homicidal desire powered their actions. 

This is a pattern observed in some other serial killers, and as noted, not an unreasonable supposition.

But it requires us to overlook key differences between Kelly’s murder and those of Nichols, Chapman, and Eddowes.

First, Kelly’s age.  At twenty-five, she was almost half the age of the other victims.

Second, hers is the only murder of the canonical five to occur indoors, giving the killer plenty of time and privacy to commit his crime.

Third, unlike the other murders when the killer took care to minimize getting any blood on himself, Kelly’s room was literally awash in blood when the police finally enter.

Finally, while the killer mutilated other victims, it appeared to be in an almost clinical matter, as if looking on his victims not as people but objects to be played with.

The literal butchery of Mary Jane Kelly suggests this was no psychotic curiosity but an intense, direct personal emotional attack.

While it’s been suggested all of the Ripper’s victims were prostitutes, that can’t be proven in all cases.  What is known is that all suffered from alcoholism to some degree, either being frequent binge drinkers, steady all-day drunks, or just problematic when they had one too many.

Kelly was a prostitute who went out on the cold, wet night of November 9 to find rent money (she rented a room but was in arrears; she was discovered the next morning by a rent collector who managed to open a window and peer in when she didn’t respond to his knocking).  While she obviously had an alcohol problem, when she wasn’t drinking she was reported to be quiet, pleasant person, generous to other women in the profession, noted for her scholarly and artistic personality.

She stands in stark contrast to the other four canonical victims.

As noted, she is the only canonical murder to occur indoors, while the others happened in narrow back alleys.

As posted above, I think the killer kept a bolt hole somewhere in the area.  It appears he was intimately familiar with the streets and alleys, and probably felt more secure killing in the open where he had various avenues of escape in case discovered.

I don’t think he would want to be trapped in a room if discovered by neighbors or the authorities mid-crime.

Note that the first two crimes occurred only eight days apart, the third (Eddowes) a little more than three weeks later, but then a 40-day gap before Kelly’s murder.

Again, presupposing one man committed all five canonical crimes.

I can’t help but think only Nichols, Chapman, and Eddowes were killed by the same man.  I think the killer was well aware of the uproar he created with his first two murders and waited until things calmed down a bit before going out and killing Eddowes.

What I don’t think happened was he killed Stride.  As stated above, that could be a coincidence, one which then fueled full fledged hysteria with the release of two bogus letters purportedly from the killer. 

The “From Hell” letter on October 16th may very well have convinced the killer that he needed to stop his killings for his own self-preservation.  The direct challenge to the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee was bad enough, but the human kidney accompanying it drove public Ripper hysteria off the charts. 

And if the killer is indeed the person reportedly identified by recent DNA tests, they might well have begun wondering if ///they/// weren’t the author of those letters, part of their mind trying to bring about their own downfall.

If that’s the case, it would help explain that suspect’s further mental deterioration and eventual confinement to an insane asylum in 1891 after threatening his sister with a knife. 

It’s interesting that the Metropolitan Police task force assigned to investigate the Whitechapel murders put 1981 as a cutoff date for the crimes, but we must remember correlation does not equal causation.

And while the man last seen with Mary Jane Kelly would definitely fall in the person of interest category, we must not assume he was the killer.  An insomniac earwitness renting a room in the same courtyard shared with Kelly reported hearing men coming in and out of the courtyard all night, though she didn’t report hearing any doors open.

Did someone with a grudge track Mary Jane Kelly down?  No one can say for sure at this late date, but to me that sounds no more far fetched than the killer of Nichols, Chapman, and Eddowes committing this crime as well.

So what do I think?

I think it’s entirely plausible Aaron Kominski killed Nichols, Chapman, and Eddowes.

I’m far from convinced he attacked Stride or Kelly or anyone else after Eddowes.

I do think it’s possible Kelly’s killer was known to at least one other person.

© Buzz Dixon