Jack l'Eventreur: Le Secret de Mary Jane K.
Philippe R. Welté
Alban, 2006. 249pp., illustrated, bibliography.
ISBN: 2-911751-33-7
Casebook Review:
Reader Review: (102 votes)
A non-fiction book in name only. According to Welté, Mary Jane Kelly murders Martha Tabram in self-defence. Polly Nichols witnesses the murder and then proceeds to blackmail Kelly with the knowledge. Vincent, a doctor and Mary's French paramour, then "silences" Nichols, and attempts to incriminate Michael Ostrog by murdering another prostitute in a similar fashion. (He selects Annie Chapman because he discovers her terminal illness and considers it more of a mercy killing than a murder.) Eddowes is slain next because of her alleged comment about knowing the identity of the Whitechapel murderer. Finally, Vincent stages another "mercy killing" by murdering a terminally ill woman who resembled Mary Kelly in 13 Millers Court, allowing the two to escape undetected and live out the rest of their lives in peace.
Hardly any attempt is made to actually back up these claims as fact. This book would have been much more successful as a novel. As non-fiction, it is a flop.
