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Jack the Ripper’s Last Victim

Jack the Ripper’s Last Victim

Released Wednesday, 9th November 2022
 1 person rated this episode
Jack the Ripper’s Last Victim

Jack the Ripper’s Last Victim

Jack the Ripper’s Last Victim

Jack the Ripper’s Last Victim

Wednesday, 9th November 2022
 1 person rated this episode
Rate Episode

Episode Transcript

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0:00

This classic episode of History

0:02

Daily originally aired on November ninth

0:04

two thousand twenty one.

0:12

It's early November eighteen eighty

0:15

eight in Spitalfields, a slum

0:17

district in the east end of London. down

0:19

a dark alleyway, along one of the most

0:21

crime infested streets in London, sits

0:24

Miller's Court. It's a squalid

0:26

place, but to its thirty residents, It's

0:28

better than living in the streets. Midnight

0:31

approaches as a widow woman named missus

0:33

Cox lives in room number five.

0:35

returns from the privy, one of only

0:37

three outside toilets when she

0:40

sees a drunken couple approaching from the

0:42

street. Missus Cox recognizes

0:44

the woman, Mary Jane Kelly, who lives

0:46

at number thirteen. Cox likes

0:48

Mary Jane, a cheerful woman who

0:50

wears beautiful gowns even if they

0:52

are a bit worn with him and dotted

0:54

with gin stains. But missus Cox

0:57

doesn't recognize her companion, a

0:59

strange man and a bowler hat. the

1:01

blotchy face, and a black mustache. Missus

1:04

Cox calls over to Mary Jane, and as

1:06

the two women exchange pleasantries, a

1:08

man silently drinks a beer. Mary

1:11

Jane warns missus Cox that she's going

1:13

to have a song. Missus Cox doesn't

1:15

mind, she loves Mary Jane Singh. And

1:18

indeed once missus Cox is inside, she

1:20

can hear Mary Jane's voice through the walls

1:23

singing a violet plucked from my mother's

1:25

grave. missus Cox falls

1:27

asleep listening to the pretty but mournful

1:29

ballot. This is the last time

1:31

though that anyone will hear Mary Jane,

1:33

Kelly sing ever again. In

1:35

the morning, her mutilated body

1:37

will be discovered, and all of London

1:40

will be informed that another him has

1:42

fallen to jack the river.

1:52

From noisier in airship, I'm

1:54

Lindsey Graham, and this is History

1:56

Daily.

2:12

History is made every day. On

2:14

this podcast every day, we

2:16

tell the true stories of the people and events

2:18

that shaped our world. Today

2:20

is November ninth eighteen eighty eight.

2:22

Mary Jane Kelly, Jack the Ripper's

2:25

last victim.

2:29

It's November ninth eighteen eighty

2:31

eight in Miller's Court. Thomas

2:33

Bauyer, who worked for Mary James landlord,

2:36

has been sent to collect the rent. It's

2:38

Bauyer's job to get aggressive if someone

2:40

doesn't pay which in this instance is

2:42

likely. Mary Jane has a bit

2:44

of a drinking problem and she's six

2:46

weeks behind on rent. Now

2:49

your bangs on the door of number thirteen

2:51

but there's no answer. He knocks

2:53

again and shouts through the keyhole.

2:56

Then he notices a crack in the window

2:58

pane that has been stuffed with rags.

3:00

Balyer pulls his out and peers inside.

3:03

That's

3:03

when he sees the mutilated body

3:05

of Mary Jane Kelly. He

3:07

staggers backwards and wretches. he

3:09

then runs to fetch his boss. John

3:12

McCarthy is not just a slumboard.

3:14

He's a pimp, a fence, and a fixer

3:16

of boxing matches. He's no

3:18

stranger to crime. But when

3:20

he's shown what's happened inside number

3:23

thirteen, he collapses in horror.

3:25

McCarthy quickly composes himself

3:27

and orders failure to fetch the police.

3:30

It's obvious to both of them who committed this

3:32

crime, the same man responsible for

3:34

a string of murders in East London over the

3:36

past few months. When Balyer

3:38

bursts through the doors of the nearest police station,

3:40

he cries out that Jack the Ripper has struck

3:43

again. The police immediately telegraphed

3:45

Scotland Yard and sooned the full

3:47

force of Whitechapel's h division

3:49

to send upon Miller's court. The

3:52

police talked to the neighbors including missus

3:54

Cox. Apparently, at three

3:56

thirty AM, many people heard a

3:58

cry of murder, but nobody

3:59

invests gated. Such

4:01

cries are unfortunately commonplace

4:04

in the area the police are told. The

4:06

police ask if the victim was close with

4:08

anyone,

4:09

not many, but there was one Joseph

4:11

Barnett, the man with whom Mary Jane

4:13

had been living until very recently. The

4:15

authorities take Barnett to shortage

4:18

mortuary, where he's shown Mary

4:20

Jane's corpse. But her body

4:22

has been so badly mutilated that he

4:24

can only recognize her eyes and

4:26

ears. Despite having an

4:28

alibi, Barnett is interviewed by the

4:30

police for over three hours. He

4:32

seems devastated by Mary Jane's death

4:34

and claims that he was still in love with her

4:37

despite their recent estrangement. But

4:39

when the police asked Barnett where the

4:41

victim was born, he can't say for

4:43

certain. It may have been Ireland,

4:45

he says, or possibly Wales. Mary

4:48

Jane played loose with details he claims.

4:50

Barnett wasn't even sure if Kelly was her

4:52

real surname. She'd

4:53

once told Barnett that her father had

4:56

been a foreman in an iron works factory

4:58

that she'd been married at sixteen to

5:00

a man named Davies who died young.

5:02

And at some point, she said she'd

5:04

lost a child but didn't elaborate

5:06

as to how. She'd also confided

5:08

to Joe that early in her life, she'd been sent

5:10

to an infirmary. This may

5:12

have meant a refuge for fallen women,

5:15

somewhere a teenage girl might be taken

5:17

if she felt pregnant to have wedlock.

5:19

At this infirmary, she met a relative

5:21

who worked as a prostitute and who

5:23

encouraged Mary Jane to travel to London,

5:25

make her living there. Mary

5:28

Jane was a beautiful young woman, and

5:30

she soon found herself in the upper echelon

5:32

of London's sex trade. She

5:34

secured lodgings in the center of town

5:36

adopted the false name Mary Jeanette

5:38

and began working in what she called a

5:40

gay house, a high class brothel.

5:43

Gentlemen were met by appointment and

5:45

would take her to dinner or the theater

5:48

before returning to her luxury rooms for

5:50

sex. She would

5:51

accept gifts from them and soon

5:53

accumulated a large wardrobe of

5:55

costly dresses. But

5:57

during this time, Mary Jane became the

5:59

victim of a

5:59

sex trafficking ring. She

6:01

was introduced to a well spoken gentleman

6:04

who offered to take her to Paris, delighted

6:06

by the opportunity she packed her bags

6:08

full of expensive dresses and set off.

6:10

But

6:10

once there, she was trapped,

6:13

held captive inside a low end

6:15

brothel treated like a prisoner and

6:17

a sex slave.

6:18

Somehow Mary Jane was able to slip

6:20

free and return to London, but

6:22

she couldn't go back to her upmarket brothel.

6:25

She was a potential witness against

6:27

sex traffickers. And if anyone were to

6:29

recognize her, she'd be in danger. So

6:32

she changed her name to Mary Jane

6:34

Kelly moved into a lower part

6:36

of town. After

6:37

that, Mary Jane was always looking over

6:39

her shoulder, fearful that someone

6:41

might come and take her life. And

6:44

tragically, on November ninth

6:46

eighteen eighty eight, someone did.

6:52

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6:52

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7:38

It's

7:40

August thirty first eighteen eighty eight

7:42

in the London District of Whitechapel, a

7:44

few months before Mary James murder.

7:47

At three forty AM, a car driver

7:49

travels along quiet thoroughfare named

7:51

Box Row. He sees a dark

7:53

shape lying in front of a stable entrance, and

7:56

as he draws closer, realizes

7:58

it's a body. He immediately

7:59

fetches a police constable who

8:02

flashes his lantern and reveals the

8:04

throat slashed corpse of missus

8:06

Nichols or Polly as her

8:08

friends called her. On the night

8:10

of her death, Polly, a forty three

8:12

year old homeless woman, tried to secure

8:14

lodgings at a nearby boarding house, but

8:16

couldn't afford it. Before leaving,

8:18

she implied that she was about to earn her money

8:20

for the night stay through sex work.

8:22

Hours later, she was dead. When

8:25

Mary Jane learned to Polly's murder,

8:27

she is drinking in the ten bell's pub

8:29

around the corner from Bucks Row. As

8:31

she scans the local newspaper reading the

8:33

details of the horrific murder,

8:35

terror grips her. Mary

8:37

Jane didn't know Polly personally. The

8:39

reading of her fate makes her cry.

8:41

and reach for another glass of gin.

8:43

Mary Jane wonders if Polly met

8:45

her death at the hands of the nickels mom,

8:48

a vicious gang who storting

8:50

money from local prostitutes. Two

8:52

other women have been killed in whitechapel

8:54

recently, their names Emma Smith and

8:56

Martha Tabbard. A among her friends

8:58

in the sex trade, it's widely

9:00

believed that the nickels are responsible

9:02

for those deaths. So

9:03

perhaps they did this one too.

9:05

Then Mary

9:05

Jane remembers a chilling incident from

9:08

some months earlier. She'd been

9:10

told that a fearsome looking man had been

9:12

asking for her in one of the rougher pubs she

9:14

used to frequent. he'd

9:16

introduced himself as her father and called

9:18

her Mary Jeanette. That

9:20

was the name Mary Jane had used when working in

9:22

the upmarket brothel. The

9:24

only reason someone from those days would

9:26

be pursuing her now would be to do her

9:28

harm. Though she'd escaped that

9:30

life, she still knew too much

9:32

about some very dangerous people.

9:34

She ponders this as she lifts

9:36

her chin glass to her lips, imagining

9:38

that whoever is perpetrating these recent

9:41

killings is perhaps searching for

9:43

her. The idea is so terrifying.

9:45

She spills some liquor on her dress.

9:50

Mary Jane hasn't worked as a prostitute

9:52

in over a year, not since

9:54

taking up with a man named Joseph Barnett,

9:56

the handsome market porter she met on

9:58

Commercial Street. Joe told

10:00

her he was immediately in love.

10:02

On just their second meeting, he

10:04

proposed that they should live together. and he'd

10:06

provide her everything. He promised

10:08

that she would never need to sell her body

10:10

again. But in the year

10:12

that followed, Joe and Mary Jane

10:14

were evicted from three separate

10:16

addresses. They were both heavy

10:18

drinkers and would frequently fall

10:20

behind on the rent. Finally,

10:22

they moved to thirteen Millers Court in

10:24

Spitalfields around the same

10:26

time that Jack the Ripper began to wreak

10:28

havoc on East London. One

10:31

month after Polly's death, Mary Jane

10:33

learned of the death of yet another woman.

10:35

Annie Chapman, a mother of

10:37

three in her late forty When

10:39

her slotted body is discovered in the

10:41

backyard of a nearby house in spittle

10:43

fields, it causes public hysteria.

10:46

Chackman's wounds are even more vicious

10:48

than those sustained by Poly Nichols.

10:51

Mary Jane and Joe read about

10:53

Annie's murder in their small and sparse

10:55

furnished room. The horror of her

10:57

fate is worsened by the realization that

10:59

Mary Jane must soon return to sex

11:02

work. Joe's just been fired

11:04

from his job, and they can no longer

11:06

afford to pay the rent. The

11:08

tension between them eventually boils over

11:10

into an argument. Mary Jane

11:12

throws a company, I'm furious, that

11:14

he's broken his promise to always support

11:16

her, especially during such a

11:18

perilous time. But the cop flies

11:20

right past Joe's head and smashes

11:22

the window pane. They

11:23

stuffed the hole with rags to keep out

11:25

of draft. On

11:27

September thirtieth, two more bodies

11:29

are discovered in East London, Elizabeth

11:32

Stride and Katherine Meadows are killed on

11:34

the same night, sending shock waves

11:36

through the community. Fearing for the

11:38

lives of her friends, Mary Jane

11:40

invites two prostitutes to live with her until

11:42

the perpetrators caught. Unhappy

11:44

with the arrangement, Joe Barnett leaves

11:46

Mill court and Mary

11:48

Jane for good. Despite the

11:50

terrible danger, Mary Jane is

11:52

drastically short of money, so

11:54

she puts on one of her gear

11:56

dresses and ventures out into the

11:58

night. In doing so, she will

12:00

seal her fate and become the last

12:02

known victim of

12:04

Jack Theurer.

12:14

It's November ninth eighteen

12:16

eighty eight, the day Mary Jane's

12:18

body is discovered at the shortage mortuary.

12:21

It takes two and a half hours for the

12:23

doctors to complete their autopsy on

12:25

Mary Jane's money. The mutilation

12:27

she sustained or nightmarish, even

12:29

more severe than those of the previous ripper

12:31

victims. Because she claimed to

12:33

be Irish, Mary Jane is laid

12:35

to rest in a Roman Catholic cemetery,

12:38

Saint Patrick's in Laytonstone. On

12:40

the day of her funeral, Mary Jane's

12:42

body is placed inside a polished oak

12:44

coffin and led through the streets of White

12:46

Chapel in an open hearse, decorated

12:48

with floral wreath. As

12:50

the procession travels, crowds

12:52

trail the morning carriage. Men

12:55

remove their hats. Women and

12:57

children watch from doorsteps and windows.

12:59

Hub patrons stand outside and raise

13:01

their glasses. Well represented

13:03

among this gathering are the local

13:05

sex workers They followed the

13:07

procession all the way to the cemetery, paying

13:09

their respects to a woman who suffered

13:11

a death that could easily have been

13:14

their own. Mary Jane's

13:16

killer, most likely the man they called

13:18

Jack the Ripper, was never brought to

13:20

justice, and his identity was

13:22

never known. But his

13:24

name is not nearly as important as the

13:26

names of the innocent women. Though the

13:28

exact number of victims is disputed,

13:30

the canonical five as these women

13:32

are sometimes called are poly nickels,

13:35

Annie Chapman, Elizabeth

13:37

Stride, Catherine Meadows,

13:39

and on this anniversary of her death, Mary

13:41

Jane Kelly.

13:47

Next, on History Daily,

13:49

November tenth eighteen seventy one.

13:51

After going missing, Scottish

13:53

physician doctor David Livingston,

13:55

found in the jungles of Tanzania. From

13:59

noiser and airship, this

13:59

is History Daily, hosted,

14:02

edited, and executive produced by me,

14:04

Lindsey Graham. audio editing by

14:06

Molly Bond,

14:07

sound design by Derek

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