Did Kelly Have a Heart? - A Follow-Up
by Dave Yost
Letter to the Editor - First published in Ripper Notes, Vol 1, No 2, Sep 1999


To Editor of Ripper Notes,

I beg to report that since the publication of the previous issue of Ripper Notes, wherein I wrote the article, "Did Kelly Have a Heart?" deducing that Mary Jane Kelly’s heart was not only absent from her body, but also removed from the room, I have received additional information, courtesy of Stewart P. Evans, on this topic. Since this is important to our studies, I wish to pass it along for your readers. (Notes: I will be providing various extracts and ask for your indulgence, as this will most likely be rather lengthy. Items places in brackets "[ ]" within a quoted text are my comments and/or corrections.)

In my essay, I made reference to The Observer article of November 18, 1888, page 5:

‘Though the coroner prevented most of the medical evidence from coming out, it is believed that much of it will be of a curious nature. According to one report published on Friday it seems that the assassin cut the woman’s heart out and carried it away, and if he did not carry away the other parts of the body, it was supposed that he was either disturbed or that he forgot them in his hurry to escape. That he cut the heart out from below instead of cutting the diaphragm does not, as some argue, show that he is an ignorant person…’

The particular statement of interest is, ‘That he cut the heart out from below instead of cutting through the diaphragm…’ As I previously wrote, this phrasing is too similar to that given in Dr. Bond’s report, "The Pericardium was open below & the Heart absent", (MEPO 3/140, f220-223). I had argued that if the reporter did not actually see Dr. Bond’s report then he was informed of the autopsy results from someone who was at the post-mortem. Apparently, this seems to be the case, but new data has come to light which does more than merely corroborate that Kelly’s heart was not to be found within her chest cavity.

In the 1998 winter issue of the Criminologist, ("Another Look at Mary Kelley’s Heart", pages 238-248), Stephen Gouriet Ryan previously expounded upon the subject even further with some very interesting documentation & new information. As we might recall, Ryan published earlier work on this topic in the Criminologist, 1997, Vol 21, No 1, pp.53-62, "Mary Kelly’s Heart: A ‘Curious Item’ ", and in Ripperana, #13, July 1995, pp.16-17, "Dr. Bond’s Report Leaked".

To start, I would like to applaud Mr. Ryan for his research & dedication to this aspect of extreme interest. Ryan’s information known to most on Kelly’s death (inquest records, media coverage, MEPO 3/140 files on Kelly, especially f.220-223, & Home Office files, especially HO 144/221/A49301C/21), but also from what might be considered lesser reviewed files (MEPO 3/3153, f.10-18 & MEPO 3/1410, f.150-157), and from discovering & studying various newspaper reports, such as the aforementioned Observer article.

Ryan begins his treatise by referring to the date of the surviving Bond report. It [Bond’s report] ‘was not the one described as "annexed" to the general report of November 10 (MEPO 3/1410, ff.220-223) [sic, should be MEPO 3/140], but as a separate entity submitted to Anderson on or shortly before November 16…The matter is surely clinched by a note of a telephone message, dated November 9, 1888, from Anderson to the Home Office reporting Kelly’s murder [MEPO 3/3153,f.18], the pertinent section of which states: "Dr Bond is at present engaged in making his examination but his report has not yet been received. Full report cannot be finished until medical officers have completed inquiry"…Anderson expected a preliminary report first, then a fuller report, on the Kelly remains. A copy of the general…together with the preliminary findings…was duly forwarded to the Home Office (received November 13)…I suspect the full report on Kelly (MEPO 3/3153) was not finished until November 15.’ Ryan then refers to the comments made in Philip Sudgen’s book regarding this topic (Complete History of Jack the Ripper, hard cover, 1994, p.514, n.16). ‘…dating the full report to November 10 cannot be right. The date "Nov 16." Was written in Anderson’s own hand on the file-cover, albeit with a question-mark preceding. He would have known to put November 10 if it had been "annexed" with the MEPO 3/141 report originally. Secondly, the timing of the November 16 scoop only makes sense if the journalist "eyeballed" the report shortly before the submission…Thirdly, since the doctors were still examining and testing Kelly’s remains after the 12th, it is quite possible for the full report on Kelly to have been submitted to Anderson annexed with the general report of the 10th…any report made on the 10th would have been a preliminary, not "full". The full report probably was not submitted until November 15 or 16.’

Ryan next refers to ‘newly-discovered information’ which is in a chapter on identifying dead bodies in A System of Legal Medicine, a forensic textbook published in the US in 1894 by E.B. Treat of 5 Cooper Union, New York edited by Dr Allan McLane Hamilton and Lawrence Godkin, a New York Lawyer. (This book was also published in London in 1895 by F.J. Rebman.) The text was written by Dr. Francis A. Harris, "Death in its Medico-Legal Aspects," wherein Harris explicitly describes the Kelly remains, (adding ‘new and startling’ details) but does not specifically name her. The text (which is too lengthy to place in this letter) includes quoted material from other reports. The part which primarily concerns us here is, ‘In this case, to be sure, all the organs except the heart were found scattered about the room’:

Even though Harris did not state the victim’s name for us (and was not obliged to do so on at least legal and ethical grounds), he does name his source on Page 59 in the aforementioned book, "I am in debted to Dr C.A. Hebbert for a very great assistance in the preparation of the portion of this article relating to this question of identity. His experience with Mr Bond of London renders his work of great value, and several cases cited by him in the Westminster Hospital reports are exceedingly interesting". Additionally on page 8 in the preface, Dr Hamilton wrote, "Thanks of the editor are due to Dr Hebbert, lately associated with Mr Bond, the coroner [sic] of London, England, who has, in conjunction with DR F.A> Harris, presented for the first time in a book of medical jurisprudence the records of the Whitechapel Murder cases, and the deductions therefrom, which must in the future play a great part in the determination of the identity of the dead body."

Dr Hebbert is known to many via The Jack the Ripper A To Z, (2nd ed, pages 412, 519) as Dr C.A. Hebbert and in the MEPO 3/140 files covering the Pinchin Street murder, f141-147, and is sometimes referred to as Dr Hibbard in the press. Dr Charles Alfred Hebbert became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1880 and of the Royal College of Physicians in 1884. He is listed in the Medical Register in 1884 as working at Westminster Hospital (where Dr Bond had quarters). Bond has described Hebbert as the "Demonstrator of Anatomy" at Westminster Hospital during the Rose Mylett inquests in January 1889. It should also be mentioned that Bond had sent Hebbert in his stead initially to the Mylett murder scene and even used Hebbert’s notes during a second post-mortem examination. (The autopsy report by Hebbert on the Pinchin Street Torso is still extant within the MEPO 3/140 files, and Dr Bond had worked on this case, also.) Ryan states that Hebbert had ‘impeccable credentials as a highly credible source’ and that he [and] Bond had a close working relationship. Hebbert was also known for a ‘new method of calculating the height of a body from incomplete remains’, and Ryan cites further advances of Hebbert’s medical career up to 1910 when he had become professor of Anatomy at Bishop’s College.

To continue, Ryan does properly question ‘how Dr Harris came to get Dr Hebbert to oblige him by sending details – or even copies of notes or reports – on the cases cited in the text.’ After discussing the ‘path’ most likely taken by Harris to obtain such information for his text, Ryan references several items: 1) Hebbert was one of the editors of the medical journal Westminster Hospital Reports, during 1884-1889, (the journal is cited by Harris, also on page 52); 2) Hebbert wrote an article for this journal, "An Exercise in Forensic Medicine (Two cases of Mutilation of the Human Body; Difficulties of Identification)", Vol.IV, pg49-60 with a follow-up article published in Vol.V, pp,151-169 (1189) of the same journal, "AN Exercise in Forensic Medicine Part II (Instances of Mutilation)"; 3) From the text of the aforementioned Hebbert articles, Ryan has concluded that the "leak" to the Observer did not come from either of these two articles. Since there is no reference to the Kelly case in either one, but they are almost ‘word for word the same as the text in the Harris chapter…on other mutilation victims murdered in London between 1887 and 1889’; and, 4) In each article, Hebbert cited Dr Bond, "In conclusion, I have to thank Mr Bond for the opportunity of aiding at the post-mortem examinations and for permissions to make use of his notes and to publish the cases." And, "I have again to thank Mr Bond for his kind permission to make use of these cases."

I agree with Ryan that Bond not only knew of but approved Hebbert’s publication of the autopsy reports. Ryan has also concluded that Hebbert most likely sent Harris information on the Kelly case in addition to his two articles, but questions if Bond might have been aware of this. Ryan thinks it is unlikely that Bond would have given permitted this information to out since an official request for such information was denied by the Home Office in 1892, and Bond himself ‘deflected’ a similar request by a Dr Gustave Ollive of Nantes, France (who was investigating a ripper-like murder near there) to the Home Office in November 1894. Ryan thinks that Bond may have referred Harris’s request to Hebbert, who might have viewed the Kelly case as Bond’s and with an ‘excess of professional pride and enthusiasm’ sent along the information to Harris which Bond ‘may not have intended should be published’.

Ryan admits that there is ‘no evidence’ to link Hebbert to the Observer’s source "report" of November 16, 1888 and adds that a mere slip to a reporter or an overheard comment would not account for the "published report" mentioned in the Observer article. Ryan believes, as I do, that if the Observer’s reporter did not actually see Dr. Bond’s report then he was informed of the autopsy results from someone who was at the post-mortem. Additionally, Ryan concludes that Kelly was neither pregnant nor sodomized, else this information would have been mentioned by Hebbert.

Given the above information, I agree with Ryan’s conclusions that Harris was indeed referring to Kelly’s remains and that Harris’s information gives us a ‘fair idea of the contents of the missing pages of MEPO3/3153,ff.10-18.’ Ryan’s final conclusion should put to rest the matter regarding the absence of Kelly’s heart, ‘for both the Observer’s piece (based on a leak from Bond’s report), Bond’s own words, and from Hebbert’s revelations, show that the doctors knew that the heart was missing from the room’.

If there was any doubt, there should be none know – Kelly’s killer had taken her heart with him.

Sincerely,
Dave Yost



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