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Robert Hale 1993 (hardcover)
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This is the full-text of A.P. Wolf's Jack the Myth, originally published by Robert Hale in 1993. It is reprinted here in its entirety, with new revisions, by the kind permission of A.P. Wolf. You may start reading it from the beginning, or you can jump to specific chapters by clicking the links below.
Mary Jane Kelly was murdered - on Friday 9 November at Miller's Court, Dorset Street - in the most horrible circumstance that can be imagined. Although it was never the intention of this book to go into the gruesome details of the Ripper murders, there are some very curious points about Kelly's death that deserve to be mentioned in fair pursuit of the Ripper, and his possible motives. Out of the four, five or six victims of the Ripper, Mary Jane Kelly was without a doubt the most badly mutilated, but even that word fails to convey the almost total destruction of her body which seemed to have been the murderer's intention. Suffice to say that one of the doctors, Dr Bond, who was called to inspect her remains, afterwards suffered years of insomnia and depression and finally threw himself out of a window in 1901. To fully understand the horror of what was visited on Mary Jane Kelly on that November night in 1888 it is necessary to look at the reports given by eyewitnesses and other sources at that time:
'She had been completely disemboweled, and her entrails had been taken out and placed on the table... The woman's nose had been cut off, and her face gashed and mutilated so that it was quite beyond recognition. Both her breasts too had been cut clean away and placed by the side of her liver and other entrails on the table.'
(John MacCarthy, landlord of Miller's Court, where Kelly was murdered)
'We are able to state, on good authority, that notwithstanding all that has been said to the contrary, a portion of the body organs was missing.'
(Daily Telegraph, 13 November 1888)
'The throat had been cut right across, nearly severing the head from the body. The abdomen had been partially ripped open, and both of the breasts had been cut from the body, the left arm, like the head, hung to the body by the skin only. The nose had been cut off, the forehead skinned, and the thighs down to the feet, stripped of the flesh. The abdomen had been slashed with a knife across downwards, and the liver and entrails wrenched away. The entrails and other portions of the frame were missing, but the liver, etc., it is said, were found placed between the feet of the poor victim. The flesh from the thighs and legs, together with the breasts and nose, had been placed by the murderer on the table, and one of the hands of the dead woman had been pushed in her stomach.'
(Illustrated Police News, 17 November 1888)
All in all a gruesome sight, and no wonder Dr Bond never recovered from the experience. One only needs to take a quick glance at the photographs showing the remains of what used to be Mary Jane Kelly to understand the overwhelming horror that the discoverers of her body must have felt. But the photographs of Kelly taken at the time do show that there are some inconsistencies in the reports. The flesh from her cheeks is also missing and it is only Kelly's right thigh that has been stripped down to the bone.
Another statement from John MacCarthy illustrates the horror of that night only too well:
'The sight we saw I cannot drive away from my mind. It looked more like the work of the devil than of a man. I had heard a great deal about the Whitechapel murders, but I declare to God I had never expected to see such a sight as this. The whole scene is more than I can describe. I hope I may never see such a sight as this again.'
MacCarthy felt it was the work of the 'devil' and declared to 'God' that he had never expected to see such a sight, but in hindsight perhaps he should have rather appealed to the 'devil', for the terrible crime that was committed on Mary Jane Kelly that night in 1888 may have had some very ancient precedents. Precedents that go back as far as the history of man has been recorded, as written down in the book of man's origins and beliefs: the Bible. But before attempting to demonstrate this curious connection between the murder of a prostitute in Whitechapel in 1888 and a holy book with its origins in the mists of time, it is necessary to summarize the peculiar mutilations carried out on Kelly's body by her murderer:
The majority of writers have seen this killing as random carnage, carried out by a killer in a fury of blood lust, and there is no doubt that it was the work of a maniac, but a maniac with a peculiar system and, believe it or not, a maniac who was following, almost exactly, a ritual for slaughter that was laid down in the time of Moses and other Old Testament law makers and prophets.
It is now time to quote the relevant passages from the Bible and to compare them to the five points mentioned above.
'Take from this ram the fat, the fat tail, the fat around the inner parts, the covering of the liver, both kidneys with the fat on them, and the right thigh...'
(Exodus 29:22-33)
'From the fellowship offering he is to bring a sacrifice made to the Lord by fire: all the fat that covers the inner parts or is connected to them, both kidneys with the fat on them near the loins, and the covering of the liver, which he will remove with the kidneys. Then Aaron's sons are to burn it on the altar on top of the burnt offering that is on the burning wood, as an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the Lord.'
(Leviticus 3:3-5)
'He slaughtered the ox and the ram as the fellowship offering for the people. His sons handed him the blood, and he sprinkled it against the altar on all sides. But the fat portions of the ox and the ram - the fat tail, the layer of fat, the kidneys and the covering of the liver - these they laid on the breasts, and then Aaron burned the fat on the altar. Aaron waved the breasts and the right thigh before the Lord as a wave offering as Moses commanded.'
(Leviticus 9:18-22)
Obviously we are discussing the ritual slaughter of animals here as opposed to humans, but that is not the point. The point is that we have here a ritual that describes the slaughter of a living creature to an exact degree. The inner parts are removed, the 'fat that covers the inner parts or is connected to them, both kidneys, the covering of the liver' are removed and burnt. The liver is not burnt. The right thigh and breasts are removed, but not burnt.
Using other original sources we are able to follow this ancient ritual even further. From the 'Temple Scroll 11QT:ii-xxiv' (one of the Dead Sea Scrolls):
'Behold, I will make a covenant. For it is something dreadful I will do to you. This is what you shall offer on the altar, they shall offer to YHWH the right thigh of the ram, as a holocaust and the fat covering the entrails and the two kidneys and the fat on them and on the loins and the whole fat tail close to the backbone and the appendage of the liver. This is a holocaust, an offering by fire, of soothing odour before YHWH. They shall burn everything on the altar over the holocaust to complete their ordination. He shall offer on the altar and burn the fat, all the fat on the entrails and the appendage of the liver and the two kidneys. They shall offer to YHWH an offering from the rams and the lambs, the right thigh, the breast, the cheeks, the stomach and the foreleg as far as the shoulder bone, and they shall wave them as a wave offering. They shall take away the right thigh and the breasts.'
(Although the 'Temple Scroll' was not discovered until 1956 and remained unread until 1967, the slaughter ritual matches exactly to that described in Exodus and Leviticus and also forms part of the strong oral traditions of the Talmud.)
Compare this to the five points we listed earlier associated with Kelly's death. The right thigh of Kelly was stripped of flesh to the bone, the breasts were removed, the innards were taken out with the kidneys and somehow destroyed or taken away, but the liver was left intact, the flesh of her face was removed, her left arm (the equivalent of a foreleg) was removed as far as the shoulder bone... and it seems highly likely that the killer lit the fire to burn the missing parts of her body. The killer laid the breasts, nose and the flesh from her thigh carefully on the table and he placed her liver either between her legs or again on the table in accordance with the instructions in the ritual.
'Behold, I will make a covenant. For it is something dreadful I will do to you.'
Prophetic words from a book of prophets, for what happened to Mary Jane Kelly was indeed a dreadful thing. But then her killer wouldn't have seen it like that at all, if he did carry out the murder of Kelly according to the slaughter ritual repeated at least four times in the Bible, then he must have been familiar with the holy book and its recommendations as to the treatment of prostitutes. Which of course Kelly was.
In a letter supposedly from the hands of Jack the Ripper himself, the writer says that he has 'a down on whores and shan't quit ripping them apart till I do get bucked'. A 'down on whores' was nothing new in 1888. Ezekiel had a similar 'down on whores' in about 600 BC as is evident from his writings in an address to Oholibah the prostitute:
'I will direct my jealous anger against you, and they will deal with you in a fury. They will cut off your noses and ears, and those of you who are left will fall by the sword'. (Ezekiel 23:25-26)
Remember Kelly's nose was removed. The Ripper also wrote in the same letter that he would 'clip the lady's ears off' and her certainly tried to do that when he murdered another prostitute, Catherine Eddowes. But let us return to our Old Testament prophet, Ezekiel:
'Therefore, you prostitute, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Because you poured out your lust and exposed your nakedness in your promiscuity with your lovers... therefore I am going to gather all your lovers, with whom you found pleasure, those you loved as well as those you hated. I will gather them against you from all around and will strip you in front of them, and they will all see your nakedness. I will sentence you to the punishment of women who commit adultery and who shed blood: I will bring upon you the blood vengeance of my wrath and jealous anger. Then I will hand you over to your lovers, and they will... strip you of your clothes and take your fine jewelry and leave you naked and bare. They will bring a mob against you, who will stone you and hack you to pieces with their swords... and inflict punishment on you in the sight of many women. I will put a stop to your prostitution... Then my wrath against you will subside and my jealous anger will turn away from you.'
(Ezekiel 16;35-43)
And:
'But righteous men will sentence them to the punishment of women who commit adultery and shed blood, because they are adulterous and blood is on their hands'.
(Ezekiel 23:45)
Ezekiel even praised the weapons to be used in such a mass slaughter of prostitutes and dictated their use:
'A sword, a sword, sharpened and polished - sharpened for slaughter, polished to flash like lightning - The sword is appointed to be polished, to be grasped with the hand; it is sharpened and polished, made ready for the hand of the slayer. Let the sword strike twice, even three times. It is a sword for slaughter - a sword for great slaughter... O sword, slash to the right, then to the left, wherever your blade is turned.'
(Ezekiel 21:9-18)
The prophet Ezekiel's down on whores is shared by writers of the New Testament and we are assured in Hebrews (10:22) as a general rule that: 'In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness.'
A sentiment that a Ripper with a down on whores would no doubt have fully sympathized with, especially when he was specifically told in Colossians (3:5) that he should: 'Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry'. Corinthians 6:13-17 also has words of succour for those with a down on whores:
'The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her body? '
Revelations 2:20-3 shows quite clearly how prostitutes should be dealt with by a 'good' and 'pure' follower of the faith: 'You tolerate that woman Jezebel... she misleads my servants into sexual immorality. I have given her time to repent of her immorality but she is unwilling. So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely.'
'The beast and the ten horns you saw will hate the prostitute. They will bring her to the ruin and leave her naked; they will eat her flesh and burn her with fire.'
(Revelations 17:16)
'She (the prostitute) has become a home for demons and a haunt for every evil spirit. Give her as much torture and grief as the glory and luxury she gave herself.'
(Revelations 18:2-8)
Powerful words of hate and destruction, words that justify any believer to have a down on whores, to cast them on a bed of suffering and to give the whores much torture and grief, to shed their blood by hacking them to pieces and cutting off their nose with his sword, polished for great slaughter and to strike twice even three times. He is justified, he knows that, for he is assured by the good book that the body is not meant for sexual immorality and it must be put to death for he knows that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
This is a recipe for murder, and no mistake.
The importance of this digression into Biblical rituals and attitudes is that it not only dramatically illustrates how some of the experts can deliberately mislead their readers in the case of Jack the Ripper, because there is an obvious connection between the ritualized murder and mutilation of Mary Jane Kelly and the Mosaic sacrificial laws.
Much more importantly it shows that Jack the Ripper was a very particular type of killer and our suspect from the earlier chapters, Michael Kidney, does not fit this profile at all. To try and come closer to the Ripper it is now necessary to look at the behaviour of other criminals and the horde of suspects that the Ripperologists confront us with.