Finding Mary Kelly

[Columbo]

Interestingly, there are reports in various papers that say her family were expected to arrive in London for the funeral, but they don't appear to have attended. Whether they had a change of heart, or this was just paper talk we'll probably never know.

Wasn't Barnett playing cribbage in his new lodgings?

I believe he was playing cards at his new lodgings. Abberline seemed to have verified his alibi and didn't think he was responsible. I don't recall family being reported from the papers as even being notified. You would think that if family knew she was a JTR victim, there would be at least some anecdotal stories coming down the generations.

[Joshua Rogan]

I believe he was playing cards at his new lodgings. Abberline seemed to have verified his alibi and didn't think he was responsible. I don't recall family being reported from the papers as even being notified. You would think that if family knew she was a JTR victim, there would be at least some anecdotal stories coming down the generations.

Yes, it is puzzling. Here are the snippets I was thinking of;

Daily News 14 Nov
"The funeral of the deceased woman Kelly will not take place till after the arrival from Wales of some of her relatives and friends who are expected to reach London this evening."

15 Nov
"The relatives of the murdered woman, who were expected yesterday, have not yet arrived.-The funeral has been again postponed, and may not take place until Monday."

Morning Advertiser 14 Nov
"The funeral of the murdered woman Kelly will not take place until after the arrival from Wales of some of her relatives and friends, who are expected to reach London this evening. If they be unable to provide the necessary funeral expenses, Mr. H. Wilton, of 119, High-street, Shoreditch, has guaranteed that the unfortunate woman shall not be buried in a pauper's grave"

15 Nov
"Mr. Alabaster said he understood that the funeral expenses would be defrayed by the relatives and friends of the deceased, and that consequently there would be no necessity to appeal to the parochial authorities."

Perhaps the thought of paying the funeral expenses was enough to change their minds about attending?

[JeffHamm]

Yes, it is puzzling. Here are the snippets I was thinking of;

Daily News 14 Nov
"The funeral of the deceased woman Kelly will not take place till after the arrival from Wales of some of her relatives and friends who are expected to reach London this evening."

15 Nov
"The relatives of the murdered woman, who were expected yesterday, have not yet arrived.-The funeral has been again postponed, and may not take place until Monday."

Morning Advertiser 14 Nov
"The funeral of the murdered woman Kelly will not take place until after the arrival from Wales of some of her relatives and friends, who are expected to reach London this evening. If they be unable to provide the necessary funeral expenses, Mr. H. Wilton, of 119, High-street, Shoreditch, has guaranteed that the unfortunate woman shall not be buried in a pauper's grave"

15 Nov
"Mr. Alabaster said he understood that the funeral expenses would be defrayed by the relatives and friends of the deceased, and that consequently there would be no necessity to appeal to the parochial authorities."

Perhaps the thought of paying the funeral expenses was enough to change their minds about attending?

Interesting, those are new to me. There were large crowds on her funeral parade, reported in the 1000's. Quite possibly the family did not wish to have their grief on such public display, particularly as there would be some amount of shame and stigma associated with Mary Jane being involved in prostitution. Perhaps they were provided with a more private farewell ceremony on some day prior to the actual burrial, although in The Times it is reported that "...The car (hearse) was followed by two coaches containing mourners, among whom was Joseph Barnett...." There may be more details about who the mourners were, which may rule out her family, but perhaps we don't know who those mourners were, making it possible it was her family and somehow they were afforded privacy, even to the point the press did not mention them at all other than in this cryptic way?

I'm sure it's clear I have no idea if that's true, but it's a tantalizing suggestion that her family may actually have been located in Wales. If those mourners have been identified elsewhere, though, then that would shut down this line of thought. Given the attention at the time, we shouldn't exclude the possibility that only one family member went to the burial site, so unless we're sure of the identities of all of the mourners alluded to above, ... (and I note no number is put to that; all we know for sure is one of them was Joseph Barnett).

- Jeff

[Columbo]

Yes, it is puzzling. Here are the snippets I was thinking of;

Daily News 14 Nov
"The funeral of the deceased woman Kelly will not take place till after the arrival from Wales of some of her relatives and friends who are expected to reach London this evening."

15 Nov
"The relatives of the murdered woman, who were expected yesterday, have not yet arrived.-The funeral has been again postponed, and may not take place until Monday."

Morning Advertiser 14 Nov
"The funeral of the murdered woman Kelly will not take place until after the arrival from Wales of some of her relatives and friends, who are expected to reach London this evening. If they be unable to provide the necessary funeral expenses, Mr. H. Wilton, of 119, High-street, Shoreditch, has guaranteed that the unfortunate woman shall not be buried in a pauper's grave"

15 Nov
"Mr. Alabaster said he understood that the funeral expenses would be defrayed by the relatives and friends of the deceased, and that consequently there would be no necessity to appeal to the parochial authorities."

Perhaps the thought of paying the funeral expenses was enough to change their minds about attending?

I didn’t know this either. Very interesting. So can we extract from this info that her real name was Mary Kelly since family was contacted? And she must’ve had something like a letter with their information in order for them to be contacted.

I still find it interesting no legends have come down a family tree about her. Other victims have living relations. I believe Polly Nichols does?

columbo.

[Wickerman]

There is another press report that her family is expected to arrive in Liverpool, but nothing further happened.

There is also a press report that Scotland Yard had communicated with Limerick police, but they knew nothing about anyone named Mary Jane Kelly.
I never saw anything about police communication to Wales.

[Wickerman]

I didn’t know this either. Very interesting. So can we extract from this info that her real name was Mary Kelly since family was contacted? And she must’ve had something like a letter with their information in order for them to be contacted.

We don't know if the family was contacted. If the press heard that the police had reached out, they may have assumed they had been contacted.
There's nothing in the press to indicate the family had received any communication.

[Wickerman]

A Limerick telegram states that inquiries made in that city had failed to identify the latest Whitechapel victim as a native of that town. The Limerick police were reported to have been communicated with by the London police regarding Kelly's antecedents, but the report was unfounded. It is believed that if Kelly belonged to the city, she left it with her people many years ago.
Morning Advertiser, 12 Nov. 1888.

[GBinOz]

Hi
it is also possible that the killer of Kelly, was not the Ripper, just a copycat, and the killer of the other women, either killed himself , or wes committed after Mitre square. If Mary was killed by a jilted lover , he would have no reason to kill again.

When commenting on the Stride murder, Coroner Wynne Baxter thought the Eddows murder was also a copycat : "There had been no skilful mutilation as in the cases of Nichols and Chapman, and no unskilful injuries as in the case in Mitre-square - possibly the work of an imitator". The Eddows and Kelly murders have in common the facial lacerations absent from the previous murders. Profilers suggest that facial attacks indicate that the purpetrator knew the victim. Eddows claimed to have known the identity of JtR and was using the name "Mary Kelly" at the time.

Cheers, George

[Jurriaan Maessen]

I would guess that considering the other canonical victims did, in a sense, use their real names, or as close as possible enough to be positively identified, Mary Kelly would do the same, except they found no family and no one ever came forward as family. But for most of what we know she didn't use a different name that I recall. Barnett calling her Marie Janette I thought was him playing up the Paris trip she said she took and made her sound a little more respectable.

It's doubtful Barnett killed her. Not impossible but given the circumstances we know of, I don't see him capable of inflicting that kind of mutilation on her. Maybe I'm naive?

Columbo

It has been argued, and perhaps rightly so, that even if Mary only assumed the Kelly-name áfter her departure from Wales (which I, personally, find more than plausible), the particulars from the rest of the story- such as the husbands name- would have rung some bells in the minds of any family members of the deceased Welsh collier, as the name 'Davies' was widely publicized throughout the Kingdom in the days and weeks following the murder. On the other hand: the connection would not necessarily be obvious, especially since the papers circulating in the South Wales area (and specifically South-East wales, where there was by far the most mining employment) would carry the name of Carmarthen and/or Carmarthenshire from the Barnett inquest testimony as possible places where the deceased might have resided before her husband's death. It would not only explain why no family members would have come forward to claim kinship, it would also explain why queries by reporters and the police to locate family members failed to produce results. They would really only have had Barnett's statements to work with. There is also the possibility that her Irish parents (or mother) had already moved back to Ireland by the time of the murder in Miller's Court, if we choose to lend any credence to the statements by John McCarthy as well as the unnamed city misionary, who both mentioned that Kelly corresponded with her mother in Limerick, although the very person who would be most likely to know (Barnett) mentioned nothing about any correspondence.

[erobitha]

It has been argued, and perhaps rightly so, that even if Mary only assumed the Kelly-name áfter her departure from Wales (which I, personally, find more than plausible), the particulars from the rest of the story- such as the husbands name- would have rung some bells in the minds of any family members of the deceased Welsh collier, as the name 'Davies' was widely publicized throughout the Kingdom in the days and weeks following the murder. On the other hand: the connection would not necessarily be obvious, especially since the papers circulating in the South Wales area (and specifically South-East wales, where there was by far the most mining employment) would carry the name of Carmarthen and/or Carmarthenshire from the Barnett inquest testimony as possible places where the deceased might have resided before her husband's death. It would not only explain why no family members would have come forward to claim kinship, it would also explain why queries by reporters and the police to locate family members failed to produce results. They would really only have had Barnett's statements to work with. There is also the possibility that her Irish parents (or mother) had already moved back to Ireland by the time of the murder in Miller's Court, if we choose to lend any credence to the statements by John McCarthy as well as the unnamed city misionary, who both mentioned that Kelly corresponded with her mother in Limerick, although the very person who would be most likely to know (Barnett) mentioned nothing about any correspondence.

Interesting post. Just to note the Irish newspapers reported as much on the East End murders as the English papers did. It was all part of the same union at the time.

It does raise an interesting point I think it is worth noting based on the above. Kelly may not have been a name invented until Cardiff or even London. She could have been called entirely something else, which is why none of the related mining family came forward or even her own.

[Columbo]

Realistically though, given her age, I would guess she made almost all of her life story up. The other victims, being much older, had a history of husbands and children, etc. And Stride made up a few things of her past. I would bet if Mary had lived just 5 years more we would have a clearer path to her background and life.

[erobitha]

Realistically though, given her age, I would guess she made almost all of her life story up. The other victims, being much older, had a history of husbands and children, etc. And Stride made up a few things of her past. I would bet if Mary had lived just 5 years more we would have a clearer path to her background and life.

Barnett claimed she was married at 16. Which obviously she wasn’t or it would be on the Welsh records as such and she would have had permission from her parents. Does not mean to say she might have wanted others to believe that. James Davies was killed in Risca aged 18. He lived in a place called Factory Tip. Essentially there were some old cottages on the edge of the old factory that was there in Risca. If Davies and she were living in sin, perhaps a white lie of marriage enabled the young couple to rent one of those cottages. Interestingly I have James Davies death certificate- his mother’s address was not the same as his.

[Debra A]

The alleged grave-spitting incident appears to be an apocryphal invention, and I hope you forgive me for saying the rest of your argument seems tenuous at best. Even if Barnett harboured ill-feeling towards Kelly after his recent departure from Miller's Court (which is by no means impossible), the amount of violence used to slaughter Mary Kelly in my opinion excludes Barnett as a possible perpetrator. The extend of the mutilations would not only be an unlikely possibility for a first-time crime of passion, but a wholly negligible one. Unless of course you would speculate towards a possible ripper candidacy for Barnett, but that would be even more unlikely, wouldn't you agree?

Hi Jurriaan
I'm not sure the mutilations inflicted on MJK rule out a domestic crime of passion. In 1896 the cut throat murders of a family in Mansfield culminated in the post mortem mutilation of Mrs Reynolds by her long term lodger, her mutilations strikingly similar to those inflicted on Mary Jane Kelly. The perpetrator gave himself up and his pathetic excuse was that Mrs Reynolds had rejected his sexual advances and he felt that if he couldn't have her, no one else should. I agree with something you wrote earlier in that Barnett was probably naive and easily manipulated by Mary Jane, which, to me, would make any rejection of him, by her, very painfull?
Debs

[GBinOz]

Hi Jurriaan
I'm not sure the mutilations inflicted on MJK rule out a domestic crime of passion. In 1896 the cut throat murders of a family in Mansfield culminated in the post mortem mutilation of Mrs Reynolds by her long term lodger, her mutilations strikingly similar to those inflicted on Mary Jane Kelly. The perpetrator gave himself up and his pathetic excuse was that Mrs Reynolds had rejected his sexual advances and he felt that if he couldn't have her, no one else should. I agree with something you wrote earlier in that Barnett was probably naive and easily manipulated by Mary Jane, which, to me, would make any rejection of him, by her, very painfull?
Debs

Hi Debs,

So if MJK was killed by Barnett as a crime of passion, does that, in your opinion, reduce the likehood of his also being JtR?

At this stage I am not entirely convinced that MJK was a ripper victim, but the fact that the only facial lacerations that occured were on MJK and Eddows, has me wondering if these two exclusively were by the same hand.

Cheers, George

[GBinOz]

Hi Debs,

So if MJK was killed by Barnett as a crime of passion, does that, in your opinion, reduce the likehood of his also being JtR?

At this stage I am not entirely convinced that MJK was a ripper victim, but the fact that the only facial lacerations that occured were on MJK and Eddows, has me wondering if these two exclusively were by the same hand.

Cheers, George

Alternatively, if the canonical five are all attributable to the same killer, did he know Eddows and MJK but not the other three?

Cheers, George