Jack The Ripper - Mark Whitehead [30]
Following their separation, Barnett moved into lodgings in Bishopsgate. Despite their differences they remained friends and Barnett continued to visit Kelly, giving her money when he could. Barnett testified that he visited her on the evening of 8 November to apologise because he couldn’t give her any money as he had no work.
Barnett visited her between 7.30 and 7.45pm. Maria Harvey, who had been visiting, left at that point. It seems likely that Harvey was not the prostitute who caused Barnett to leave in the first place, but a second guest whom Kelly had invited to stay. Harvey had stayed on the Monday and Tuesday and had then moved to a room at 3, New Court, Dorset Street. Also present, according to a press interview, was Lizzie Albrook, a friend of Kelly’s who lived in Miller’s Court. She left after Barnett’s arrival. Barnett’s statement mentions only ‘a woman,’ so someone was lying. The next time we hear of Kelly, she is ‘intoxicated’. At midnight, Mary Ann Cox, another prostitute, who lived at 5, Miller’s Court, met Kelly at the entrance to the court.With Kelly was a short (about 5 feet 5 inches), stout man, wearing a longish, shabby, dark coat and a hard, black billycock hat. He had a blotchy face, full carroty moustache and a clean chin. Cox bade her good night and the couple went into number 13. Kelly was heard to start singing. Cox stated that she would know the man again. She left her own room again at 12.15am to look for customers. It was a bitter night and raining most of the time.When she returned at 1.00am to warm herself before setting out once more, Kelly was still singing.
The next witness to enter the scene is Elizabeth Prater from 20, Miller’s Court, which was the room above Kelly’s. From 1.00am she had been waiting outside 27, Dorset Street for the man that she lived with to appear. At 1.20am she gave up and went upstairs to her room.Through the partition she could see a glimmer of light but heard no singing nor sounds of movement. Nervous of the Ripper, she put two tables against the door and, slightly drunk, retired to bed.
Sarah Lewis was a laundress who lived at 29, Great Pearl Street.After ‘words’ with her husband, she went to stay with friends on the first floor room of 2, Miller’s Court. She heard the clock of Christ Church, Spitalfields, strike 2.30am as she arrived. Standing alone in the doorway of a lodging house opposite the court was a man. She described him as ‘not tall, but stout,’ with a wide-awake black hat. She did not notice his clothes. He was looking up the court ‘as if waiting for someone to come out’. Mary Cox returned home at 3.00am.The light was out at number 13 and she heard nothing the rest of the night.
Around 3.30am Sarah Lewis, who had been dozing in a chair, awoke. At about the same time, Elizabeth Prater was woken by her kitten climbing over her neck. Both of them testified that shortly afterwards they heard a woman cry ‘Oh! Murder!’ It was faint but seemingly nearby. Neither of them checked, however. Prater went back to sleep. Lewis stayed awake until five.
At 8.30 that morning, Caroline Maxwell, the wife of a lodging house deputy in Dorset Street, saw Mary Kelly outside Miller’s Court. She testified that she had known her for four months but only spoken to her twice during that time. Maxwell asked Kelly why she was up so early, and was told she had the ‘horrors of drink’ upon her. Later, returning from Bishopsgate at around 8.45am she saw Kelly again outside the Britannia pub talking to a man. Although she only saw them from a distance she was certain that it was Kelly. The man was not tall, and wore dark clothes and a plaid coat.
Whether you accept Maxwell’s testimony (which, given the coroner’s estimate of time of death, means that it verges on the Fortean), depends on whose theory you are accepting. There are theories for all aspects, including one that suggests the state of rigor mortis could mean that Kelly wasn’t killed until 10am that morning. Maxwell was