Profile of Jack the Ripper

"Catch Me"

Then there was another communication. Two weeks after the "double event" came a letter and box "from Hell" to the head of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, with a grisly trophy: half of a kidney preserved in wine. The organ turned out to have been from someone afflicted with Bright's disease—a disorder from which Eddowes was believed to have suffered. The note's author indicated that he'd fried and eaten the other half, which was "very nise." It was believed that this note was from the killer (if not a medical student) and he even offered to send "the bloody knife" in due time. He closed with the taunt, "Catch me if you can," indicating his utter arrogance about what he was doing and his intent to repeat his bloody deeds. No knife was forthcoming.

There were no more murders of that same type for October — at least not on the East End. On October 3, as the New Scotland Yard was being constructed, someone had deposited the headless, limbless corpse of a woman inside a vault in the foundation. The arms were found in the Thames. She was not linked to the other murders because she'd been fully dismembered.

Then the Ripper apparently went after another woman, Mary Kelly, 24, who took the brunt of his frenzy. She lived with a man with whom she frequently quarreled; he left, although she was three months pregnant. Kelly drank heavily and was usually in need of money.

On the evening of November 8, Kelly was drunk and apparently invited a man into her rented room and closed the curtains. The man seen was short and stout, with a blotchy face and mustache. He was poorly dressed and carried a quart can of beer. It's not clear whether he was her killer, because another witness said he saw her later with a well-dressed man with a mustache with whom she seemed friendly. He was in his mid-thirties and reportedly had a Jewish look. He also carried a parcel and acted as if he were on familiar terms with Kelly.

Whoever it was, at some point in the room — probably around 3:30 or 4:00 A.M. — he pulled the sheet over Kelly's head to stab her through it. Then he slashed open her throat, ripped her lower torso, cut off both breasts, skinned the forehead, pulled out her intestines, and skinned her chest and legs, spattering blood all over the room. The left arm and head hung from the body by the skin only.

Body of Mary Kelly, Victim

When police arrived the following morning, they found a severed breast on the bed table, decorated with the tips of her nose and ears in the mocking rendition of a face. The contents of her abdomen were spread over the bed and thrown around the room. The liver was between her feet. Her heart was missing and flesh had been cut from her legs and buttocks clear to the bone. One of her hands was pushed into her open stomach. Doctors who were called to the scene estimated that this frenzy had gone on for at least two hours. The victim's clothing lay folded neatly on a chair, and other clothing had been burned in the grate — a skirt and a hat.