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Fairy Fay was an invention of journalist Terence Robertson in an article entitled "Madman who Murdered Nine Women" that appeared in Reynolds News on October 29, 1950. The statement about the pub in Mitre Square shows how well he "researched" the piece. His description of the finding of her body appears to draw upon descriptions of the finding of other bodies during the Whitechapel murders. I covered the career of Mr Robertson and the creation of this phantom victim in "The Strange Career of Terence Robertson and the Origin of 'Fairy Fay'", Ripperologist 73, November 2006. The article can be accessed in pdf form from Adam Wood's site here.
Chris
The link above doesn't seem to be working anymore?
Could anyone tell me anything about Robertson's life? What he did in the Navy, or what he did after the war or even why he went to South Africa and then Canada?
Over on Forums, Trevor Bond has found a potential Fairy Fay in the also alliteratively named of Susannah Scanes. She was admitted to hospital on 1887 DE 26 with a lacerated scalp and died of her injuries the same day.
This my opinion and to the best of my knowledge, that is, if I'm not joking.
Music from my porch... I was having a glass of wine on the patio and these people showed up..
"Polly Wolly Doodle" is a song first published in a Harvard student songbook in 1880.
"An unknown female claimed by two authors as having been a Ripper victim in the alleys of Commercial Road on Boxing Night, 1887. The first author to claim she was a Whitechapel murder victim was journalist and historian Terence Robertson (1921–1970), who wrote in the October 29, 1950 edition of Reynolds News that "Fairy Fay" was the name given to a woman who was killed while taking a short cut home from a Mitre Square pub (although there was no such pub in Mitre Square)."
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