cover image Prisoner 1167: The Madman Who Was Jack the Ripper

Prisoner 1167: The Madman Who Was Jack the Ripper

J. C. H. Tully, James Tully. Carroll & Graf Publishers, $24 (416pp) ISBN 978-0-7867-0404-0

Will the real Jack the Ripper please stand up? According to Ripper-ologist Tully, the London madman who set the grim standard for future serial killers was one James Kelly, an escapee from the Broadmoor asylum for the criminally insane. Tully begins with a biography of Kelly, an itinerant upholsterer who showed signs of mental illness throughout his entire life. After making his way to London as a youth, Kelly married, only to kill his wife while under the psychotic delusion that she was a prostitute. Convicted of the murder and judged to be deranged, Kelly was sent to Broadmoor (as Prisoner 1167). In 1888, he escaped. A few months later, the Ripper murders began. Tully makes extensive use of archival documents and testimony concerning the slayings given at coroners' inquests. He shows that the Ripper slayings, which are recounted in gruesome detail from postmortem exams, bear a striking resemblance to the manner in which Kelly killed his wife. And the last, most horrific murder took place only days before Kelly fled England--first for France, then to America and Canada--before returning voluntarily to Broadmoor, where he died in 1929. Tully not only builds a good case against Kelly but also provides a colorful look at the squalid lives of the poor in London, which was at that time the hub of the largest, wealthiest empire on Earth. He concludes his book, a must for Ripper buffs and good fare for any armchair detective, by raising serious questions about the role of police and politicians in covering up Kelly's identity. (Sept.)