Please be advised the following episode contains scenes of an extremely graphic nature that may be distressing for some listeners. You're listening to Unexplained with Me Richard McClane Smith, Season three, episode twelve, The Square, Part two. Although the disturbing Dear Boss letter, as it will come to be known, was received at the Central News Agency on September twenty seventh, it is a further two days before it is passed on to the police, who swiftly dismiss it as a hoax.
Later that evening, back in the Whitechapel district of East London, p C. Lewis Robinson is patrolling Aldgate High Street when he sees a crowd of people gathered around something on the ground. Drawing near, he realizes it is a woman sprawled out on the pavement drunk. PC Robinson pulls her up and implores her to stand, but as soon as he lets her go, she slumps against the wall and
slides down slowly back to the ground. Half an hour later, with the help of a colleague, Robinson takes the woman to Bishopsgate Police station and places her in a cell for the evening. When they ask her name, she tells them only it is nothing. Minutes later, she is fast asleep. It has just gone midnight when station jailer George Hutt here's the unknown woman, singing softly from her cell. When he checks on her, she asks to be released, but Hut insists that she remained there until she is able
to take care of herself. Outside, a storm is brewing above the streets of Whitechapel shortly before one am, As a heavy rain starts to fall, local resident Israel Schwartz turns into Berner Street, just south of Whitechapel Road. Up ahead, he notices a couple standing outside the entranceway to Dutfield's Yard, overlooked by the International working Men's Educational Club next door.
One of the pair is a man roughly five and a half feet tall, with dark hair and a small brown mustache, wearing a black felt hat with a wide brim. He is standing in front of a woman who he tries to pull into the street, but she resists. Enraged, he throws her onto the pavement and she lets out three short screams. Schwartz, who had seen the whole incident, responds by crossing the road and walking away. Hearing the man calling out to someone on the other side of
the road. Schwartz turns to find a second man is now following him. He breaks into a run, making a sharp exit from the scene. Back at Bishopsgate Police Station Hut, the jailer has been instructed to make more room in the cells. Deciding the unknown woman is now sober enough to be released, he agrees to let her go in return for her giving him her name. She replies it is Mary Anne Kelly, though in truth it is Kate Edos.
The forty six year old Edos was originally from Wolverhampton in the Midlands of England, but had spent the last seven years living at Cooney's lodging house in Flower and Dean Street, where she later met and fell in love with a man called John Kelly. Only the previous day, Edos and Kelly had been forced to pawn a pair of Kelly's boots to afford their last meal. I should get a damn fine hiding when I get home, says Edo's as she leaves the police station and steps into
the night. Good Night. Old cock Hut watches as she heads off in the direction of Aldgate High Street, where she had been found earlier. Minutes later, back on Berna Street, twenty six year old Lewis Deemschutz, an educated immigrant from Russia forced to flee from the recent pogrums, now working as a part time jeweler, rides his cart into Burna Street, with voices of song drifting down from the working Men's club above. He turns through the open gates into the
pitch black of Dutfield's yard for his pony to rear up. Unexpectedly, something was lying on the ground just in front of the cart. Probing at it with his whip, he found it to be soft and lumpen, before realizing it was a woman lying unresponsive and probably drunk, he thought. Jumping down from the cart, he lit a match and held it into the gloom, having just enough time to confirm it was indeed a woman lying there before the wind
blew it out. After unsuccessfully trying to rouse her, Louis grabbed a couple of members from the club to give him a hand. Stepping back into the yard a moment later, Lewis is a little surprised to find the woman exactly as he had left her. One of the men took another match, lighting it before holding it down to the
woman's face and dropping it with a scream. The flame flickered gently on the ground, illuminating the horrific glistening tear across the throat, from which her blood was still oozing
out onto the road. They also saw a black crepe bonnet lying in the mud beside her, and a bunch of grapes clutched in her hand, before a sudden wind snuffed out the match and restored the darkness, lighting another They checked for any signs of life, but found none, though the body was still warm, suggesting death had occurred only minutes before A doctor arriving minutes later, pronounces the woman dead at the scene, having suffered two deep cuts
to her throat, similar to Polly Nichols and Annie Chapman, but something of the scene suggest the killer might have been disturbed before they had completed what they had started. Policeman arriving soon after, waste little time in corralling all members of the nearby working Men's Club into Dutchfield's yard and ordering them to stay put until they were satisfied they had not been involved. That the members of the club were largely Jewish, Socialist or Irish did little to
dampen police suspicions of their possible guilt. Meanwhile, a mustachioed man late thirties to early forties, wearing a loose fitting pepper colored jacket and a peaked gray cloth cap, is walking swiftly through the streets of the East End, moving west from the vicinity of Berners Street toward Duke Street.
Just after one thirty three, men stepping out at the Imperial Club on Duke Street, barely ten minutes walk from Bishopsgate Police Station, spot the man with the gray cloth cap talking to Kate Edo's before they disappear together into the shadows towards Mita Square. Only fifteen minutes later, p C. Edward Watkins, walking his usual beat, steps into the darkness of Mita Square and shines his light into it, angling
the beam into the far corner. He is moving it slowly from one side to the other when he picks up the body of Kate Edos. The body was lying on its back, the clothes having been thrown up, and the upper part of a dress being ripped open. Like all the other victims, there was little blood on their clothes, suggesting she had been bled to death before she was mutilated. Edoes had been disembowed, while her uterus and a kidney had also been completely removed. Both her eyelids had been
cut through and the right ear partially amputated. As had been predicted in the Dear Boss letter. An incision had been made in each side of the cheek, which peeled up the skin and created a triangular flap. It seemed ritualistic. Some have suggested the triangular cuts were reminiscent of compass legs or the set square of Freemason symbolism. Curiously, part of Edoz's apron, which she wore over her dress, had
been cut off. An hour later, PC Alfred Long is walking down Gholston Street, only five minutes from Miter Square, when he notices a scrap of fabric on the ground in front of a doorway. Pointing his torch toward it, he realizes it is covered in blood. Moving the torch to the door, he discovers some graffiti written in chalk that he is convinced had not been there when he came by thirty minutes ago. It reads, the Jews are
the men that will not be blamed for nothing. Long heads immediately to the nearest station to report his find. The scrap of blood stained material is later identified as likely being from the apron that Kate Edo's had been wearing. Two hours later, Sir Charles Warren, Commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police and prominent freemason, is woken up with news of
two further possible victims of the apparent East London serial killer. Strangely, however, rather than head directly to the crime scenes, he heads instead to the doorway on Ghulston Street. After taking a while to analyze the peculiar message, he orders it immediately to be scrubbed off. Shortly after, he has led to the scene of the Knight's first murder, where five separate witnesses tell him the victim had been holding a bunch
of grapes when she was murdered. Later that morning, before news of the murders has hit the newsstands, a postcard arrives at the offices of the Central News Agency, reading, I was not kidding, dear old boss when I gave you the tip you'll hear about Saucy Jackie's work to morrow. Double event. This time number one squealed a bit, couldn't finish straight off. Not the time to get ears for belief. Thanks for keeping the last letter back till I got
to work again, Jack the Ripper. Are you always taking care of your family? Do you often take care of others and not yourself? Now it's time to take care of yourself, to make time for you. You deserve it. Tell a Doc gives you access to a licensed therapist to help you get act to feeling your best to feeling like yourself again. With teledoc, you can speak to a licensed therapist by phone or video. Therapy appointments are available seven days a week from seven am to nine
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podcast Today to get started. That's teladoc dot com slash Unexplained Podcast. The following day, an inquest is held for the woman murdered in Dutfield's yard. She is identified as forty four year old Elizabeth Stride born Elizabeth Gustaf'sdotter. She had moved to England in eighteen sixty six from Sweden and married John Stride three years later. The pair successfully managed coffee shops for a number of years before the
marriage fell apart. By the mid eighteen eighties, she was struggling to stay afloat, moving from workhouse to lodging house when she can afford it. In eighteen eighty five, she begins a relationship with Michael Kidney, who worked on the docks in the East End, but three years later it two is on the rocks, having grown tired of his beatings. It was on September twenty fifth, eighteen eighty eight, she left their home for good, vowing never to go back.
Five days later she was dead. At the inquest, Thomas Bates, the night watchman of the lodging house where Elizabeth had been staying on the night of her murder, explained with sadness that even when she could get no work, she had done the best with her living and anita and cleaner woman had never lived. What wasn't mentioned At the inquest, however, which was presided over by lawyer and also prominent freemason Wind Baxter, were the grapes that had been seen in
Stride's hand by five different witnesses. It was an admission made all the more intriguing since only two doors down from where Stride's body had been found off Burner Street, was a greengrocer's which coincidentally sold grapes. With the possibility that the shopkeeper might have sold the grapes to Elizabeth, or more likely whomever had given them to her, there was a good chance he had seen the killer. Strangely, for some reason, the police seemed little interested in this
line of inquiry. Two days later, however, an extraordinary story as published in the London Evening News. The article owes much to the work of two private detectives, who, having decided to conduct their own investigations into the crimes, took the trouble to interview the greengrocer on Berner Street. What he told them was startling. As it turned out, the shopkeeper, Matthew Packer, had indeed sold a man and a woman a bunch of black grapes at eleven forty five pm
only a short time before the murder. More to the point, he was absolutely convinced that the woman in question was Elizabeth Stride. He described the man as being quite well to do in his late thirties to early forties, around five foot seven, with a mustache, and wearing dark clothes and a wide brimmed hat. The police never contacted him
for a statement. The very next day, as if in response to the article, Doctor Phillips, the police surgeon, is hurriedly recalled to the inquest to make the claim that there was no evidence that the deceased had swallowed either the skin or seed of a grape, making no mention of the five separate individuals who had seen her dead body with a bunch of them clenched in her hand. Elizabeth Stride was buried at the East London Cemetery in
Plistow on Saturday, October sixth. Soon, public anger was growing at the apparent ineptitude of the police, seemingly unable to stop the murderer, who appears now to be operating in plain sight. The publishing of the jack the Rippolettas serves only to intensify the fear and anxiety. In early September, the White Chapel Vigilance Committee had been formed by a small group of East End business men concerned that the
recent murders were bad for local business. The committee, led by George Lusk, would meet at the Crown Pub on Mile End Road at nine p m each evening and from there begin their patrols of the local streets until the early hours of the next morning. On October sixteenth, George Lusk received a small cardboard box in the mail. He opened it to find half a human kidney preserved
in wine. A letter accompanying the gruesome gift read from hell mister Lusk, Sir, I send you half the kidney I took from one woman and preserved it for you. The other piece I fried and ate and it was very nice. I may send you the bloody knife that took it out if you only wait a while longer. Signed catch me when you can mis de lust. The piece of kidney was taken to nearby London Hospital where
it was examined by surgeon doctor Thomas open Shore. He identified it as human and from the left side of the body, similar to the one that had been removed from Kate Edoes's body in the weeks that followed, the press and police receive a number of letters purportedly written by the apparently self styled Jack the Ripper, but few,
if any, are given any credibility. More importantly, with no further attacks recorded throughout the rest of October, it appears the supposed serial killer haunting the streets of Whitechapel has gone to ground. On November ninth, at two a m. In the morning, Whitechapels, George Hutchinson is walking past Flower and Dean Street when he is approached by Mary Jane Kelly,
a young woman he knew from the area. The twenty five year old Kelly asks Hutchinson if he can lend her some money, but he is unable to spare any, saying there goodbyes, he watches her approach a man further down the street. He is just over five and a half feet tall, in his late thirties, with dark hair and a slight mustache turned up at the sides, wearing a long dark coat and a soft felt hat pulled
down over his eyes. Before long, the two are laughing together and a moment later, placing a hand on Mary Jane's shoulder. The man is leading her off toward Dorset street. Concerned for his friend, who he knew to be an occasional sex worker, Hutchinson followed Mary Jane and the mysterious man all the way to Miller's Court, where the woman lived. Hutchinson waits there until three am, when he had satisfied she was not in any lethal danger, and makes his
way home. Mary Jane had shared the flat with her on off boyfriend Joseph Barnett, but the two had broken up recently due to her habit of inviting friends to stay when they had nowhere else to go. Mary Jane was six weeks behind on the rent and had little choice but to work that night. At ten forty five the next morning, Thomas Bowyer, assistant to the landlord, arrived
at Mary Jane's apartment to collect her overdue rent. After knocking at the door but getting no response, he reached through a crack in a window and pushed aside a coat that had been placed there as a curtain, finding behind it a scene of unimaginable horror. What was left of Mary Jane Kelly's body lay on the bed at the back of the small single room, with her clothes
neatly folded on a chair to the side. The entirety of the abdomen and surface of the thighs had been carved away, so much as to reveal the thigh bone. The muscle and skin that had been removed was piled up on a side table. Her uterus, kidneys, and one breast had been placed under her head. The other breast was cut off and placed at her feet, as was her liver. Her intestines and spleen had also been removed
and placed outside the body. Her face had been entirely mutilated beyond recognition, and her heart that was never found removed from her chest. At her quest, a devastated Joseph Barnett chastised himself for getting annoyed at her for letting her friends stay in their apartment, recognizing that she only did it because she was goodhearted and did not like to refuse them shelter on cold, bitter nights. Mary Jane Kelly was buried on nineteenth November in Saint Patrick's Cemetery
in Leytonstone. No family could be found to attend the funeral. Kelly is widely thought to be the fifth and final victim of the murders associated with the name Jack the Ripper, though many believe a number of attacks prior to the murder of Polly Nichols, including the murder of Martha Tabrom in August eighteen eighty eight, could well have been perpetrated by the same man, the identity of whom remains to this day unknown. Next week's episode extra will conclude season
three of Unexplained. Fear not, however, it will be only the briefest of pauses before we return for season four. Thank you once again for all your support and encouragement for the show, and as ever for taking the time to listen. If you enjoy listening to Unexplained and would like to help supporters, you can now go to Unexplained podcast dot com forward slash support. All donations, no matter how large or small, are massively appreciated. All elements of
Unexplained are produced by me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes, and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like to share. You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com or on Twitter at Unexplained pod Now. It's time to take care of yourself, to make time for you. Teledoc gives you access to a licensed therapist to help you get back
to feeling your best. Speak to a licensed therapist by phone or video anytime between seven am to nine pm local time, seven days a week. Teledoc Therapy is available through most insurance or employers. Download the app, or visit teledoc dot com Forward slash Unexplained podcast today to get started. That's t e l a d oc dot com slash Unexplained podcast