PRESS RELEASE: Pawn Stars debuts tonight!
New York, November 2009 – For thousands of years, people all over the world have found themselves with one problem in common: the need for fast cash. Long before banks, ATMs, and check-cashing services, pawnbrokers have provided monetary loans in exchange for personal items of value, and are still helping everyday people make ends meet today. The fascinating world and history of the pawning business is revealed in the hit HISTORY television series, PAWN STARS, with all new episodes premiering on Monday, November 30 at 10pm ET on HISTORY.
PAWN STARS takes viewers inside the doors of the only family-run pawnshop in Las
Vegas, where three generations of men from the Harrison family— grandfather
Richard, son Rick and grandson Corey— jointly run the business, with clashing and camaraderie every step of the way. This family lives and breathes the pawning business, using their sharp-eyed skills to carefully assess the value of items their colorful customers bring in, objects ranging from the obscure to the truly historic. Their pawnshop shelves are filled with an eclectic array of items— each with its own unique story and past. From a 15th century samurai sword to a Picasso painting and vintage cars, there isn’t much these guys haven’t seen or heard, inevitably making them experts in rare collectables and negotiating, as they must carefully appraise the worth of each item, determine if it’s real or fake and then reveal the often surprising answer to, “What’s it worth?” And, when these amateur historians don’t have the answer, they call upon their network of experts for help.
Each episode of PAWN STARS features an array of quirky characters attempting to sell, purchase or pawn items. Everything and everyone has a story and it’s the Harrison family’s job to decipher fact from fiction, because in this business the customer isn’t always right. The PAWN STARS mini-site (www.history.com/pawnstars) will feature new, online only short form video, as well as updated episode guides, photos and more. Additionally, HISTORY is challenging its viewers to become “PAWN STARS” with a new online game (http://www.history.com/pawnstars-game). Developed by Arkadium, the animated Flash game features items from the show, which players must match with their correct price in order to earn “PAWN STAR” status. Fans can also join the official Facebook Fan Page (http://www.facebook.com/pawnstars).
Topics: History Channel | No Comments »
A&E set to debut new season of The First 48
Any follower of Jack the Ripper would probably realize the truth behind The First 48: the first 48 hours after any murder or other major violent crime are often the most key to capturing the guilty party. After that, the chances of it becoming a cold case skyrocket. That’s what fascinates about Jack the Ripper: it’s one of the longest-standing cold cases in modern history.
Topics: Thoughts | No Comments »
AxMen Season 2 on March 2
I’ve always wondered what AxMen had to do with history. Not that it’s not interesting, but History Channel seems to be going away from history a bit, though the show’s fun.
Topics: History Channel | No Comments »
Great Video from History Channel on Lincoln CGI
Those interested in Stealing Lincoln’s Body might find this video quite interesting! I know I did!
Topics: Abraham Lincoln | No Comments »
Preview: Stealing Lincoln’s Body
As a student of history, I love watching History Channel as well as History International. I was sent this press release by the History Channel folks and since it’s a program I would want to watch, I figured there would be no harm in sharing it with the audience of this blog.
Set your DVRs if you can’t watch it live. Or watch it live. Or both.
—–
STEALING LINCOLN ’S BODY
On HISTORY™ on Monday, February 16, at 9-11 pm ET
* Featured in special are new digital visualizations of Lincoln that show him moving and walking for the first time.
NEW YORK, JAN. 21, 2009 – As millions celebrate the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln this year, HISTORY™ presents perhaps the last unknown story of our 16th president – the shocking plot to steal his body.
Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865 plunged the nation into mourning. After lying in state at the White House and at the Capitol (the nation’s first presidential state funeral), Lincoln’s body was carried by train in a grand funeral procession through several states and nearly two thousand miles, arriving in his hometown of Springfield, Illinois on May 4. However, his final burial would not take place until 1901, thirty six years later.
Before Lincoln finally came to rest in a steel-and-concrete-reinforced underground vault in Springfield , the President’s body was repeatedly exhumed and moved, his coffin frequently opened. An astonishing and macabre series of events also included a diabolical bodysnatching-for-ransom scheme. This remarkable final chapter is the subject of the gripping two-hour special STEALING LINCOLN ’S BODY on HISTORY™ on Monday, February 16 at 9pm ET.
STEALING LINCOLN’S BODY examines the extraordinary confluence of historical trends and cultural movements that prompted this forgotten moment in American history—the age of counterfeiting, the birth of the Secret Service, the popularizing of the science of embalming (from the Civil War), the importance of secret societies in American life (including the one that was formed to safeguard Lincoln’s body through the ages), and the advent of the rural cemetery movement.
Bringing this astounding story to life like no other before it, the program features moving images of Abraham Lincoln, digitally created from actual historical photographs. For the first time, Lincoln walks and moves according to the historical record. The moving images and some of the stills showcase the first “virtual photography” of Lincoln and the only “virtual motion” pictures of him ever created. Using computer-generated imagery, it illustrates key sections of the story and brings them to life, often with startling effect.
These new photographs and moving images of Lincoln highlight a level of historical detail and information never seen before. Ray Downing of Studio Macbeth, who created these digital effects for STEALING LINCOLN’S BODY, explains the technique began as a kind of experiment using contemporary film technology. It gives the modern audience an opportunity to “gaze upon the noble face of our most beloved president, to see him walk down the street, to see him alive again…. Today’s technology allows us to achieve a level of photographic realism previously unattainable, with the added bonus of motion graphics.”
Author and Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer , who is interviewed in STEALING LINCOLN’S BODY, says: “The result—an uncanny, believable, realistic, living Lincoln—moving before our eyes as he must have in life, wholly imagined yet based on actual photos—took my breath away. Here is the man who lived, laughed, spoke, walked, for precious seconds practically born again.”
In 1876, 11 years after Lincoln ’s assassination, a band of Chicago counterfeiters devised a fantastic plot to steal Lincoln ’s body and hold it for ransom. They wanted $200,000 and the release of the gang’s master engraver who was in prison in Illinois . The Secret Service – recently formed to deal with the country’s ballooning counterfeiting problem – infiltrated the gang with an informer. Yet it also set in motion a cringe-inducing chain of events in which a group of well-intentioned, self-appointed guardians took it upon themselves to protect Lincoln ’s remains by any means necessary.
Some efforts to protect the remains of the 16th President of the United States would prove to be equally misguided and macabre. Finally, in 1901, thirty six years after Lincoln ’s assassination, Robert Todd Lincoln had the body of his father interred in a massive concrete vault. The contrast between the nation’s reverence for Abraham Lincoln and the shocking manner in which his body had been treated is striking. This strange story of Lincoln at un-rest reveals how important this man was to so many, and perhaps our reluctance to let such a beloved and visionary leader go. This may indeed be the last, unknown chapter in the story of Abraham Lincoln.
Throughout 2009, History™ will proudly commemorate the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth with a new initiative entitled GIVE A LINCOLN FOR LINCOLN. In association with the National Park Foundation and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, this program encourages Americans to donate Lincoln-head pennies, five dollar bills, or make larger donations online to help preserve six key sites associated with Lincoln ’s life and legacy. The six sites are:
· Lincoln ’s birthplace in Kentucky
· His boyhood home in Indiana
· The Lincoln Home in Springfield , Illinois
· Lincoln ’s Cottage in Washington DC
· The Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC
· Fords Theatre in Washington , D.C.
Teacher and student contests, original short form video about Lincoln ’s life and Presidency, related lesson plans, as well as instructions for how to donate to this campaign will be available online at www.history.com/lincoln. Log on today to learn how you can help save Lincoln ’s legacy!
STEALING LINCOLN’S BODY is produced for HISTORY by Left/Right. Executive Producer for History is Carl H. Lindahl. Executive Producers for Left/Right are Ken Druckerman and Banks Tarver.
Topics: Abraham Lincoln, history | No Comments »
The title of my next Ripper article revealed!
Not to be a tease, but my next article looks like it already has a print destination. That’s a relief because it gives me a deadline and a reason to get crackin’ on the writing of the thing.
This piece will be much longer than my Mary Kelly piece in Ripper Notes #28. It will also be more in my main line of research into Ripper studies. Which means, yes, it will be a comparative study between Jack and some other serial killer.
I can’t and won’t reveal too much just yet; I’m in the middle of writing the piece and it’s all a bit early to be revealing too much. So I won’t yet reveal who I’ll be comparing Jack to.
But I will reveal, at this time, the working title of my next article (though I’m withholding the giveaway subtitle). Consider it a taste-test to stir up interest. And of course, the title may change between now at the time it sees print; I may find a more suitable title later in composition, or during the editing process with my editor.
But for now, here it is, not to be taken overly-literally: BROTHERS BY BLOOD!
Keep in touch, folks!
Topics: Jack the Ripper, Other serial killers | No Comments »
First-person sources
It’s no secret that I’m working on more articles on the Jack the Ripper crimes. I hesistate to spill the beans on the results of my latest research before the essay is finished and accepted for publication, but I am too excited not to say anything.
I just landed an exciting one-on-one interview with a first-person source for my next article. If all goes as planned, not only will the insights gained be beneficial to my article, but the interview itself will become a sidebar article which ought to be of considerable interest.
I won’t say just now who the interview is with, but I will tease this much: the focus of my next article is a comparative study between Dennis Rader of the BTK murders, and Jack the Ripper. My source will be an eye-popper, I promise.
Stay tuned!
Topics: Jack the Ripper, Other serial killers | 1 Comment »
The pitfalls of Ripperology
While researching my next article, I came across this insightful quote. It comes from Wichita homicide investigator Ken Landwehr, the man who headed up the effort to capture the BTK Strangler, and who ultimately succeeded. It’s no easy task solving any murder, but serial murder is perhaps the hardest of all to solve. So when someone like that offers advice, it’s usually worth one’s time to listen to him. While he is speaking to a fellow detective on how to approach solving the BTK case, I believe his insights can be applied, usefully, to Ripperology as well.
“Here’s where detectives get themselves lost,” Landwehr told Relph the day they first talked about BTK. “They get lost on some guy’s story. A guy looks good as a suspect; if you have maybe twelve criteria for being the right guy for a crime, and this guy meets ten of the twelve, then he’s looking good. And so the detective gets enthralled, chases his story – and goes off on a tangent, a wild goose chase. Because if the guy’s DNA doesn’t match the DNA from the crime, it’s not him. And then you have to drop him like a rock.”
Relph began to apply this advice while reading about BTK and working on other cases.
“How do you not get lost in all these thousands of pages of evidence,?” Relph asked.
“Don’t try to get into all that peripheral evidence,” Landwehr said. “Just read the actual case files. Focus on the essentials.”
(Wenzel, Potter, Kelly and Laviana, “Bind, Torture, Kill: The Inside Story of the Serial Killer Next Door,” HarperCollins, p. 145, 2007.)
Although DNA is not a useful reference in the Ripper killings, the rest of Landwehr’s insights could help dispense with a lot of wasted effort in the field of Ripperology, I believe. How often to authors and researchers get so caught up in the story of a suspect, they begin to ignore the evidence in the Ripper crimes that does not support the conclusion that their pet suspect was the Ripper? More often than most of us would like to believe; it’s a common mistake of most suspect-oriented books in this field.
Also, many Ripper researchers similarly fall into the other pitfall Landwehr warns against: obsessing over the peripheral evidence. It’s often hard to know what peripheral evidence is relevant and what peripheral evidence is not, but it can serve as a great distraction. The best way to approach the Ripper case, then, is to stay focused on the essentials and the case files (such as they survive to this day.)
Good advice from a fellow who actually led a successful effort to capture a serial who nearly got away with it, like our man Jack did. Words we in the field of Ripperology might all do well to heed in our own research and writing.
Topics: Other serial killers | No Comments »
Challenges to writing history
Every writer and every blogger face the same exact challenge each day: the terror of the blank screen (or page). For bloggers, the satisfaction point is reached far more easily. Scan a favorite newspaper, magazine, Web site or message board and, BANG, you have something to react to.
That’s the essence of blogging. Reacting to something someone else wrote. Spouting off an opinion that may or may not be based in careful consideration of and research into the item to which one is responding. That’s where the challenge of the person who dabbles in history is a bit more daunting.
History, or even the true-crime spin-off of history I am currently dabbling in with my Jack the Ripper research, is not written via off the cuff remarks in knee-jerk fashion. It requires careful, sometimes exhausting as well as exhaustive research, and quite a bit of analysis and thought, before one can be certain enough of the prevailing facts to even begin to speak authoritatively on anything.
That’s where blogs and history crash, and probably why there’s not too many blogs dedicated to the study of history. Either the research has already been done any it is in a textbook somewhere, or the research is incomplete and it’s far too soon to speak authoritatively on the subject.
Even in Ripperology, there are plenty of good examples. As Tom Wescott pointed out on the Casebook: Jack the Ripper message board recently, few Ripper researchers discount Mary Jane Kelly as a Ripper victim and only one researcher he is aware of even attempted to do so based on the evidence: Stewart Evans, in the course of investigating Ripper suspect Dr. Francis Tumbulty. Even then, Evans did so hesitatingly and only called it a remote possibility. Wescott further pointed out that further research proved Tumbulty may have been out of custody after all at the time of the Kelly murder, and quickly added Kelly back into the canon of Ripper victims.
Such caution is worthwhile when dealing with history; conclusions, especially if they contradict previous understandings and interpretations, should not be asserted too hastily. Yet it happens daily on sites like the message board. Without a whisper of research or understanding of the prevailing facts, all too often Ripper enthusiasts will boldly proclaim they’ve discovered an incontrovertible fact that sheds new light on everything and their word is Gospel.
Of course, upon further questioning, some of these folks are merely smoke-blowers; they want to fit in with the research heavyweights, but are unwilling to do the work themselves, instead challenging others to “prove me wrong.”
Sorry, but it’s not our work to prove you haven’t done yours. Most of the minds in Ripper research are bright, well-reasoned, careful folks who, sure, want to write an essay that garners them some attention, but more importantly, want to be sure that if they do discover something new about the case, it is something that won’t be easily dismissed or disproved. Too often, these “overlooked facts” that “shed a whole new light on the case” are things most Ripper scholars have known for a long time but realized were either untrue myths that grew up around the facts of the case, or not of any real significance.
It takes time, caution and diligence to put together a solidly-researched historical essay, even of the true-crime variety. Yet some less-restrained message board boasters are more than willing to rip such work to shreds on a whim, rather than look into any of the evidence the author researched to at least see if there is another way to interpret it.
While such an atmosphere makes for a lively message board community, I fear that it can grow out of control and draw precious time away from researchers who would be better off checking for the real birth records of Mary Jane Kelly or something else far more useful than quarreling with a simple attention-grabber addicted to contradiction.
Writing and maintaining a history blog promises similar challenges and pitfalls. It will be interesting to see if I maintain the slow, careful pace of my research and still find things to blog about at a pace that makes search engines happy.
Topics: Jack the Ripper, history | No Comments »
Final Draft: Romanticizing Mary Jane Kelly
The following is the final draft of the manuscript that first appeared as the debut blog entry on HistoryHype.com. It has been accepted for publication, the details of which will soon be announced on this site.
Now a bit longer by about 1,000 words, more thoroughly researched and end-noted, it is a better effort than the more casual version first posted here, with all the details included and researched and done “the right way.” Look for it to appear in print soon!
==
I can think of few pursuits in historical studies more heartless than the romanticizing of Mary Jane Kelly. Kelly, allegedly 25 and a native of Whitechapel, London, England, at the time of her death on November 9, 1888, is often called the last of the so-called “canonical five” victims of the Whitechapel fiend known as Jack the Ripper.
More than any other victim of this 19th-century murderer, Kelly is the subject of the most fascination, romanticizing of whom she was and inexcusable speculation in all of Ripperology. Frequenting sites dedicated to the study of the so-called “Jack the Ripper” crimes, and specifically Mary Jane Kelly herself, one finds all sorts of ideas about who Kelly was and what became of her that cold, fateful Whitechapel night.
Several factors fuel this fascination.
First, Mary Jane Kelly was younger by far than all the other “canonical” Ripper victims. She was reportedly aged 25, whereas the rest of the canonicals were in their 40s.
Also, Mary Jane Kelly, primarily because of her youth, had not been used up by a life of poverty and prostitution quite so much as other victims, and therefore was considered attractive, at least in comparison to her older competitors for alleyway trysts. She may have even been the subject of anywhere from one to perhaps even three marriage proposals in her Whitechapel years, yet it is believed she had been married only once, to a collier named either Davis or Davies(1), who died shortly after the marriage in a mine explosion. Kelly thus seems doubly tragic, as a woman with options who never utilized them.
Finally, very little about her is known and reliably verified.
Perhaps this last point is what so captures otherwise brilliant minds to draw them off-focus. Human intellect is stimulated by mysteries, and aside from the Ripper’s actual identity, there is no mystery in the Jack the Ripper case greater than Kelly herself. It might be best to approach this point by outlining some of the things folks commonly think they know about Mary Jane Kelly, which actually are not certain at all.
The victim’s name was Mary Jane Kelly
False! Accounts of her name vary greatly. She is said to have referred to herself as Mary Jane Kelly, Mary Anne Kelly and Marie Jeanette Kelly. Other names proposed for her include “Lizzie Fisher, Mary Jane Lawrence, Fair Emma, and Ginger.(2)” Author Tom Cullen also claims she was known as Black Mary(3). Of course, Mary Kelly and variations thereof were common names in London in the 1880s. Some researchers and case enthusiasts on the Casebook: Jack the Ripper Web site have recently even put forward the theory that “Mary Jane” was 19th century slang referring to female genitalia(4), in much the same way that “John Thomas” was used as slang for male genitalia. Overall, Mary Jane Kelly could have been a chosen pseudonym, or a street name; such is not an uncommon practice in prostitution, even back in 1888.
One earlier Ripper victim, Catherine Eddowes, also used the name “Mary Ann Kelly” on the night of her murder when being released from Bishopsgate Police Station after an arrest for being drunk(5). Eddowes likely used the surname Kelly due to her association with John Kelly, himself no known relation to Mary Jane Kelly. However, this coincidence has prompted much useless and distracting speculation that Mary Jane Kelly was the killer’s target all along due to some conspiracy, usually royal in nature, against her, and that the killings stopped when the conspirators offed “the right Mary.”
Hogwash. What few folks realize is if you want coincidences in this case, there are many if you care to obsess over useless trivia spurred to life simply by the use of common names.
For example, one of Mary Jane Kelly’s aliases as cited above is “Lizzie Fisher.” Ironically enough, Catherine Eddowes had a real sister named Elizabeth Fisher, a married woman who lived at 33 Hackliffe Street, Greenwich(6). She, however, used the nickname Eliza rather than Lizzie. Not that such details would matter to one looking hard enough for coincidences that support a conspiracy theory. None of it, however, is research that will help us arrive any closer to the truth.
MJK was 25 at the time of her death.
False again. Mary Jane Kelly’s age has always been just an estimate with no real, trustworthy, official source to back it up. The estimate is believed to have come from Joseph Barnett, likely Kelly’s last regular lover – as opposed to customer – prior to her death. The estimate also may have come from the coroner. Whatever the source, it appears to be either an estimate or someone repeating what Mary Jane Kelly told them about herself while still alive. There is nothing official, like a birth certificate, to establish the veracity of her age.
So how do we deal with the veracity of the age estimate of Mary Jane Kelly?
Since Barnett has come under the radar of some Ripperologists as a Jack suspect –or at least as a potential murderer of Mary Jane Kelly – should his inquest testimony be considered reliable? If Barnett was the one who killed her – whether he was Jack or not – then all his statements about Kelly should be called into question, even on matters as trivial as age.
Let us suppose for a moment Barnett is not a reasonable suspect in Mary Jane Kelly’s death. Even if Barnett was being honest, the next question must be, was Mary? Shaving years off one’s age is not uncommon among those in the prostitution trade. Believing a prostitute is young can extend her appeal until the ravages of time on the street and in poverty catch up and rob her of her youthful charm. It is also possible that, depending on her true life circumstances, she may have grown up on the streets long enough not to know her own true age.
Although Kelly and Barnett were lovers and perhaps even common law spouses, there is no certainty she would have told him her true age. After all, they originally met in the circumstance of Barnett being a client of hers before deciding that they ought to stay together, according to Barnett’s inquest testimony. Kelly could easily have been as old as 35, or as young as 20, a fifteen-year spread. We must also question Kelly’s honesty with Barnett based on his testimony that she told him her name was Marie Jeanette Kelly with “the French spelling, as described to me.(7)” The vast majority of testimony about her suggests Kelly was Irish, not French; so it appears Kelly was attempting to make herself appear more exotic to Barnett initially, by insisting on the French spelling of her name. While “Marie Jeanette” may have been the version of her name she preferred, it does reveal a tendency by her to play around with names, calling into question whether any of them were genuine.
No birth certificate ever found verifies Kelly’s date of birth. The search is more difficult for the fact that we do not necessarily know her given name. Until a birth certificate is found that establishes her identity and date of birth beyond reasonable doubt, we shall never know whether Kelly was 20, 25, 30, 35 or somewhere in between.
Mary Jane Kelly was born in Limerick, Ireland
Kelly told Barnett this was the case but his trustworthiness, as pointed out above, is at least plausibly in question. The closest we can get to the truth here, I believe, is that Kelly’s hair was reportedly red or “ginger(8)” and considered by those who knew her to be among her best features. Accounts of her hair color vary quite a bit, just like every other account of the woman, ranging through blonde(9), ginger, light(10) and dark(11). However, ginger or red-colored hair seems to be the most commonly accepted tradition, so for our limited purposes here, I shall go with it, just as I continue to use the non-de-plume Mary Jane Kelly, even though her name is equally uncertain.
While red or ginger-colored hair is not uncommon among Irish women, obviously not all redheads come from Ireland. As we lack birth records or even a verifiable name for Kelly, we again cannot be sure of this.
Some argue that, given the tension between England and Ireland in the 1880s, there would be no advantage for Kelly to claim Irish heritage if it was untrue; not necessarily. Although by the end of her life she had stepped down into the level of an unfortunate, Kelly’s prostitution career allegedly began in a slightly more upscale bordello, which means she was likely trained in some of the basics of slightly-more-upscale prostitution.
Part of such training is to indulge the fantasies of men, rather than disabuse them. If a young woman had ginger hair and a client wanted to believe she was Irish, why correct him? If believing Kelly was Irish turned a one-nighter into a repeat customer, so much the better. Kelly could have learned to allow the clients to fill in the details of who they wanted her to be, offering only the mildest of hints to indulge whatever fantasies kept them coming back.
Given such training, everything Joe Barnett thought he knew of Mary Jane Kelly, and indeed testified to at her inquest, could easily be – even without him realizing it – more his invention of exotic fantasy than her confession of truth. A basic fact too many Ripper researchers tend to brush past is that prostitutes are not in the truth-telling business; they are often desperate women looking to make a living, even if it is just doss money to keep them indoors and warm at night, or in Kelly’s case, rent money, which she was in serious arrears over.
It is unlikely Kelly had many close friends, even among those who shared her profession, if the inquest testimony of Caroline Maxwell has any truth to it. At the inquest, Maxwell testified, “She was a young woman who never associated with any one.(12)” If that was the case, it is entirely possible no one was close enough to Kelly to ever earn the trust required for her to take them into her confidence. She might never have told anyone her real name, age, or place of birth. If we do not even know that, and it is likely we do not, how can anything else we believe we know of Mary Jane Kelly be considered reliable?
Other elements of Kelly’s mystique
Among the many elements Joe Barnett contributed to Kelly’s mystique include her being widowed at an early age. The idea of a young widow creates sympathy, and sympathy is one of the best ways to form an emotional bond that keeps a first-time customer coming back.
Barnett also introduced the “fact” that Kelly had been to France with a suitor, but that it did not agree with her and she returned. This creates a touch of the exotic to a woman otherwise completely unfortunate and on a rapid spiral downward. Even if a suitor paid her way to France, upon rejection it is unlikely he would have paid her way home, so how would she have obtained the funds to return, and why return to Whitechapel, of all places? It is an element of Kelly’s invention that stretches credulity.
This and many other elements, including having a brother in the military and a relative in the world of theater, could all be fabrications Kelly herself spread to draw clients as well as casual friends to her. Call it deception or a survival tactic, but truth is not always the friend of a person struggling to survive.
None of these fanciful flourishes to Mary Jane Kelly’s life have, as far as I am aware, been verified outside the testimony of Joe Barnett and one or two of her Whitechapel acquaintances; and they were only repeating what Mary allegedly told them about herself.
The cruelty of speculation and false compassion
Here’s the stark truth: we know less of Mary Jane Kelly than we know of Jack. The only truths we can verify beyond doubt are the tragic pair of photos of the scene of her death. They bear incontrovertible testimony of a life come to a sudden, violent end.
The deeply cruel element emerges when some researchers speculate Kelly escaped her attacker, that she was out when Jack arrived and it was some anonymous French prostitute, not Mary, butchered in her bed. This is no mere fantasy of some lone, obsessed Ripperologist no one respects, but the closing minutes of the movie, From Hell, hardly a source for well-researched, accurate portrayals of any of the victims, but especially not in the case of Kelly.
Even if it were some other women on that bed at 13, Miller’s Court, how exactly does this make the death of the woman on the bed less tragic? Could anyone be crueler than to wish Kelly’s fate on one prostitute over another? Does it ease the minds of some researchers with an almost necrophilic obsession for Kelly that they would prefer to see some other unfortunate inherit her fate? This wishful thinking is as dark, cruel, and thoughtless as any of Jack’s crimes.
It smacks of false compassion, as well. How many Ripperologists have ever sought to lend real aid to the poverty-stricken prostitutes of today’s London, or held a benefit for them? Hired them for legitimate work? Offered them a meal with no “profession courtesy” strings attached? How many have even talked to one? I suspect the answer is, “very few.”
The world is full of Mary Jane Kellys and yet the only one most Ripper researchers seem to care about is long dead. Do they care about these modern-day Mary Jane Kellys only when they become crime victims? If Mary Jane Kelly walked by most Ripperologists today, would they even give her the time of day, let alone some sign of genuine compassion? I suspect not.
The real Mary Jane Kelly is, in all honesty, as much a ghost as the woman Mrs. Maxwell claims to have seen the morning following the murder, heaving her guts out in the street to the “the horrors of drink.”(13) Mrs. Maxwell incorrectly believed that woman to be Mary Jane Kelly – or whatever this Jane Doe’s name really was. Maxwell believed her to be the same Mary Jane Kelly who had spent several months living with Joseph Barnett before tiring of him and kicking him out; but “our” Mary Jane Kelly had almost certainly been dead several hours by then, as Kelly’s completely anonymous spirit departed from this mortal coil.
Mary Jane Kelly has been accused of being the mastermind of a blackmail scheme against the royal family(14) and an alleged spy for the Fenians(15), as though simply being who she was – a down-on-her-luck-and-sinking-fast unfortunate, was not sufficient. They would rather imagine her as a woman who cheated fate by not being in the room at the time, by surviving to escape – on what resources, heaven only knows – to live a long and pleasant life raising many children, anywhere from the shores of her native Ireland, to Scotland, to France, to as far away as the imagination of morbidly-obsessed Ripperologists can dream her; far away from that awful, bloody scene in 13, Miller’s Court.
Where, in one of the only facts I believe we really can be sure of, the real Mary Jane Kelly, whatever her name, age and country of origin really were, died a most horrible death, and even to this day has never truly been allowed to rest in peace.
Endnotes
1 Paul Begg, Jack the Ripper: The Facts, Barnes and Noble Books, 2005, p. 267.
2 Dan Souden, “The Murder In Cartin’s Court,” Ripper Notes #21, January 2005, Inklings Press, p. 4.
3 Tom Cullen, When London Walked in Terror, 1965, Boston, MA, Houghton-Mifflen.
4 “Celesta,” “About the real age of Mary Jane Kelly,” Casebook: Jack the Ripper, July 14, 2007, URL: http://forum.casebook.org/archive/index.php/t-4507.html.
5 Begg, ibid, p. 169. “On being asked her name, she said, ‘Mary Ann Kelly’ and gave her address as 6 Fashion Street.”
6 Begg, ibid, p.166.
7 The Daily Telegraph, Tuesday, November 13, 1888. As found on the Casebook: Jack the Ripper Web site, URL: http://www.casebook.org/official_documents/inquests/inquest_kelly.html.
8 Manchester Guardian, Western Mail, November 10, 1888. “Barnett ‘at once identified the body as that of Kelly, of “Ginger,” as she was called, owning to the color of her hair.”
9 “Victims: Mary Jane Kelly,” Casebook: Jack the Ripper. URL: http://www.casebook.org/victims/mary_jane_kelly.html.
10 The Daily Telegraph, November 10, 1888.
11 Maurice Lewis, Illustrated Police News, November 17, 1888. “She was short, stout and dark.” Most Ripperologists believe Lewis to have been describing someone other than Mary Jane Kelly in a case of mistaken identity.
12 The Daily Telegraph, Tuesday, November 13, 1888. Ibid.
13 Kelly Inquest Records, pp. 11-12, 28-29.
14 In the works of Stephen Knight, Alan Moore and filmmakers Albert and Allen Hughes, among many others, who support and promote the Royal Conspiracy Theory.
15 “jerryd” and “Graham,” “About the real age of Mary Kelly,” Casebook: Jack the Ripper Forums, July 14, 2007. URL: http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=4507
Topics: Jack the Ripper, history | 5 Comments »
Romanticizing Mary Jane Kelly
I can think of few pursuits in historical studies more heartless than the romanticizing of Mary Jane Kelly. Kelly, allegedly 25 and a native of Whitechapel, London, England at the time of her death on November 9, 1888, is allegedly the last of the so-called “canonical five” victims of the Whitechapel fiend known as Jack the Ripper.
More than any other victim of this 19th-century murderer, Kelly is the subject of the most fascination, the most romanticizing of whom she was and the most inexcusable speculation in all of Ripperology. Frequenting sites dedicated to the study of Victorian England, the poverty of late 19th century Whitechapel, the so-called “Jack the Ripper” crimes and specifically Mary Jane Kelly herself, one finds all sorts of ideas about who Mary Jane Kelly was and what became of her after that fateful Whitechapel night.
There are several factors that fuel this fascination. They include:
1) MJK was younger by far than all the other “canonical” Ripper victims. She was reportedly aged 25, whereas the rest of the canonicals were in their 40s.
2) MJK, primarily because of her youth, had not been used up by a life of poverty and prostitution quite so much as other victims, and therefore was considered attractive … at least in comparison to her older competitors for alleyway trysts. She may have even been the subject of anywhere from one to perhaps even three marriage proposals, none of which she apparently accepted.
3) Very little about her is actually known and verified independently.
Perhaps it’s that last bit that so captures otherwise brilliant minds to draw them off-focus. Human intellect is stimulated by mysteries, and other than the Ripper’s actual identity, there is no mystery in the Jack the Ripper case greater than the real identity of Mary Jane Kelly herself.
Perhaps it is best to approach this point by outlining the things folks commonly think they know about Mary Jane Kelly, which we actually don’t; at least, not beyond reasonable doubt. Three examples should be enough to get the point across here.
A) The victim’s name was Mary Jane Kelly.
False! Accounts of her actual name vary greatly. She is alleged to have referred to herself as Mary Jane Kelly, Mary Anne Kelly, Marie Jeanette Kelly and one newspaper contemporary to the time even reported that her actual name was believed to be Lizzie Fisher. Considering her name was quite common in London at that time, it could very well have been a chosen pseudonym, or street name, a not-uncommon practice in prostitution even back in 1888.
One earlier Ripper victim even used the name “Mary Ann Kelly” on the night of her murder, prompting much useless and distracting speculation that Kelly was the target all along due to some conspiracy, usually royal in nature, against her, and that the killings stopped when they finally got “the right Mary.” Hogwash.
B) MJK was 25 at the time of her death.
Again, false! Our only source on her age, at least according to Paul Begg in Jack The Ripper: The Facts, is the inquest testimony of Joseph Barnett. Since Barnett has come under the radar of some Ripperologists as a Jack suspect – or at least as a potential murderer of Mary Jane Kelly – how reliable should his testimony be considered?
Even if Barnett was being honest, was Mary? After all, shaving years off one’s age can keep the clientèle of her profession interested. Although she and Barnett were lovers and perhaps even common law spouses, there’s no certainty that she would have told him her true age, especially since they initially met in a “professional” encounter. Kelly could easily have been as old as 30, or as young as perhaps 20. That’s a 10-year spread.
The fact of the matter is, there is no birth certificate that has ever been found that verifies Mary’s date of birth. It’s a search made more difficult for the fact that we don’t necessarily know her given name.
C) MJK was born in Limerick, Ireland
Well, that’s what she told Barnett, whose trustworthiness, as pointed out above, is at least plausibly in question. The closest we can get to the truth here, I believe, is that MJK’s hair was reportedly red and among her best features.
While red hair is certainly a not uncommon Irish trait, not all redheads come from Ireland. Since we lack birth records or even a verifiable name for Kelly, we again cannot be sure of this.
Some argue that, given the tension between England and Ireland in the 1880s, there would be no advantage to Kelly to claim Irish heritage if it was untrue. To the contrary.
Although by the end of her life, she had stepped down into the level of an “unfortunate,” Kelly’s prostitution career allegedly began in a slightly more upscale bordello, which means that she was probably trained in some of the basics of slightly-more-upscale prostitution.
Part of such training is to indulge the fantasies of men, rather than disabuse them. If a young woman had red hair and a client wanted to believe she was Irish and that made him a customer, or even a repeat customer, why disabuse him of the notion? Allow the clients to fill in the details that make you more desirable and go along with it, offering up only the mildest of hints.
Given such training, everything Joe Barnett thought he knew of Mary Jane Kelly, and indeed testified to at her inquest, could easily be – even without him realizing it – more his invention of exotic fantasy than her confession of truth.
Among the many elements Joe Barnett contributed to the MJK mystique include her being widowed at an early age, which creates sympathy, one of the best ways to form an emotional bond that keeps a first-timer from being a one-time client; that she had been to France with a suitor, but that it didn’t agree with her and she returned, which creates a touch of the exotic to a woman otherwise completely unfortunate and on a rapid spiral downward, as well as making her seem patriotic, another way to create more psychological attachment to at least some clients; and even that she had a relative who was a notable person in the world of theater, which also adds a touch of the exotic to her image.
Of course, all of these seem a bit far-fetched for a woman quickly on her way to becoming as old, alcoholic, sick and near death as were the other four victims of Jack the Ripper. None of these fanciful flourishes to Mary Jane Kelly’s life have, as far as I am aware, been verified outside the testimony of Joe Barnett and one or two of her fellow street-walkers – and even they admitted they were only repeating what Mary allegedly told them about herself.
But the stark truth is, we really know less of Mary Jane Kelly than we know of Jack himself. The only truths we can verify are the tragic pair of photos of the scene of her death that bear testimony that her life had come to a sudden, violent, terrible end.
The deeply cruel element here is when some speculate MJK escaped her attacker, that she was out when Jack arrived and attacked, that it was some anonymous French prostitute in her bed and not Mary Jane Kelly herself.
How, exactly, does this make the death of the woman on the bed any less tragic? Could it be any crueler to wish her fate on one prostitute over another? Does it somehow ease the minds of some twisted-thinking researchers with an almost necrophiliac obsession with MJK, that they’d prefer to see some other unfortunate take on her fate? This wishful thinking is as dark and cruel and thoughtless as any of Jack’s crimes.
“Our” Mary Jane Kelly is, in honesty, as much a ghost as the woman Mrs. Maxwell claims to have seen the morning following the murder, heaving her guts out in the street to the “the horrors of drink,” whom she incorrectly believed to be a Mary Jane Kelly – or whatever MJK’s name really was – who had spent several months living with Joseph Barnett before tiring of him and kicking him out, and who had been dead several hours by the time Mrs. Maxwell claimed to her deathbed that she had seen long after her almost completely anonymous spirit had departed from this mortal coil.
Mary Jane Kelly has been called the mastermind of a blackmail scheme against the royal family; an alleged spy for the Irish resistance; a woman who survived an attack against her by not being the woman in the room at the time, surviving to escape (on what resources, heaven only knows) to live out a long and pleasant life raising many children, anywhere from the shores of her native Ireland, to Scotland, to France, to as far away as the imagination of morbidly-obsessed amateur Ripperologists can dream her, away from that bloody scene in Miller’s Court.
Where, in one of the only facts I believe we really CAN be sure of, she died a most horrible death, but has never truly been allowed to rest in peace.
Topics: Jack the Ripper, history | 20 Comments »
Welcome to History Hype!
Welcome to History Hype!
I have interest in a lot of historical topics and rather than go all “special interest” on them, I felt it would be a better use of bandwidth, and well within the interest of keeping the blog active, if I put all my history-directed thoughts in one repository rather than several.
So that’s what you can expect here: lots of history. At least six thousand years of human history, if you’re a “young Earth” Biblical conservative on the topic, or “billions and billions” of years of history, if you’re a Carl Sagan liberal on the topic.
Bottom line? If it happened, I’ll probably talk about it here at some point or another.
Topics: history | No Comments »
