page_title: Mary Jane Kelly
section_title: 13 Miller's Court
hierarchical_section_title: Mary Jane Kelly / 13 Miller's Court
caption_attribution_description: English: 13 Miller's Court, Spitalfields. Circa 1890-1900.
context_page_description: Mary Jane Kelly, also known as Marie Jeanette Kelly, Fair Emma, Ginger, Dark Mary, and Black Mary, is widely believed to have been the final victim of the notorious unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper, who murdered and mutilated a minimum of five women in the Whitechapel and Spitalfields districts of London from late August to early November 1888. At the time of Kelly's death, she was approximately 25 years old, working as a prostitute, and living in relative poverty.
  Unlike the other four canonical Ripper victims—each of whom had been murdered outdoors and whose mutilations could have been committed within minutes—Kelly was murdered within the sparsely furnished single room she rented at 13 Miller's Court, affording her murderer an extensive period of time to eviscerate and mutilate her body. Kelly's body was by far the most extensively mutilated of the canonical victims, with her mutilations taking her murderer approximately two hours to perform.
context_section_description: In early 1888, Kelly and Barnett moved into 13 Miller's Court, a small, sparsely furnished single room at the back of 26 Dorset Street, Spitalfields. This room had once been the back parlour of 26 Dorset Street, and was partitioned by a wooden wall. The weekly rent for this room was 4s 6d.
  Number 13 Miller's Court was a single twelve-foot square room, with a bed, three tables and a chair. Above the fireplace hung a print of "The Fisherman's Widow", and a small tin bath was beneath the bed. Two irregularly sized windows faced the yard, in which the dustbin and water tap serving the property were located, and the door opened directly into the twenty-six-foot-long arched passageway which connected Miller's Court with Dorset Street. This door was illuminated at night by a gas lamp located almost directly opposite the door to the property.
  Kelly had lost her door key. She failed to inform her landlord of the loss, instead bolting and unbolting the door from outside by putting a hand through a broken window beside the door. A German neighbour, Julia Venturney, claimed Kelly had broken this window when drunk, and that a man's coat was frequently placed in this broken windowpane to both act as a curtain and prevent draught from entering the room.
  According to Kelly's friend and neighbour, Lizzie Albrook, Kelly was "heartily sick" of the life she was leading by 1888 and wished to return to Ireland "where her people lived". Her landlord, John McCarthy, later recollected: "She was a very quiet woman when sober but noisy when in drink."
  Barnett lost his employment as a fish porter in July 1888, reportedly due to committing theft. As a result, Kelly again resorted to prostitution. According to Barnett, she began to allow other prostitutes to sleep in their room on "cold, bitter nights" as she did not have the heart to refuse them shelter. Initially, Barnett was tolerant of this until he and Kelly quarrelled over her sharing the room with a prostitute he knew only as "Julia". Barnett subsequently left 13 Miller's Court on 30 October, more than a week before her death, taking lodgings at 24-25 New Street, Bishopsgate. Nonetheless, between 1 and 8 November, Barnett visited Kelly on an almost daily basis, occasionally giving her money.
caption: The passageway leading to Miller's Court, Spitalfields
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