PRISONER 1167. The Madman Who Was Jack the Ripper

Presents, for the first time, evidence that suggests British authorities had Jack the Ripper in custody but released him and deliberately ignored information that might have led to his arrest and conviction for a string of murders of prostitutes.

By turns ponderous and lurid, this book details the careers of Jack the Ripper and asylum fugitive James Kelly without ever making a strong case that the two men are one and the same. Like many a Ripperologist before him, Tully has his own theory concerning the identity of 19th-century London's infamous slasher of prostitutes: James Kelly, ``the only convicted, lunatic, throat stabbing woman killer who was known . . . to have been at large during 1888.'' In the book's most satisfying sections, based on exhaustive original research, Tully documents the life of this little-known Victorian, an upholsterer of illegitimate birth who manages a wily escape from Broadmoor Asylum, where he was sentenced for murdering his wife, only to discover he prefers his cell. Roaming Europe and America for decades, he periodically tries to give himself up but is foiled by the ``Keystone Kops'' incompetence of the authorities until at last, in old age, he returns home to Broadmoor to die. That story would have made a nice moral tale in its own right, but it is followed by a tediously lengthy recap of every bit of evidence about the Ripper murders--mostly old news that does not add substantially to the case against Kelly. When the author finally gets to that case, it boils down to the fact that Kelly was available and had already stabbed one woman; why not more? No positive evidence links Kelly to the crimes, and as the author himself depicts him, Kelly seems too pathetic and half- hearted a player to cast as the granddaddy of serial killers. The claim of an official cover-up also lacks plausibility; the chief evidence is the unsurprising fact that some of the century-old files on Kelly have been partially destroyed. For those who can't get enough of the Ripper, this book will stuff the belly until the next one, with the next theory, comes along. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

After 15 years of research, Tully, a Ripperologist, reveals that James Kelly (1860-1929) was the notorious Jack the Ripper. Convicted of killing his wife in 1883 and sentenced to death, Kelly got a reprieve when he was certified insane. He was sent to the Broadmoor Asylum until he escaped on January 23, 1888. He disappeared until he showed up at the gate of the Broadmoor Asylum on February 11, 1927. Officials there claimed they didn't know where he'd been for the past 39 years. Tully's investigation attempts to show otherwise. In trying to prove his case, Tully gets bogged down in providing meticulous details of Jack the Ripper's crimes, including the coroners' inquests on each of the eight victims. His reasons for doing so are to point out that one victim, Elizabeth Stride, was not killed by Jack the Ripper but by someone else who made it look that way. Although most of the files have been made public, we will have to wait until 2030 to see whether Tully has correctly identified Prisoner 1167 (the number assigned to Kelly at Broadmoor) as Jack the Ripper. Government files on Kelly are sealed until then. Recommended only to those who have a strong interest in the Ripper.?Michael Sawyer, Clinton P.L., Iowa
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Tully's authoritative inspection of one suspect in the Jack the Ripper affair is fascinating but almost indecently graphic. James Kelly, an upholsterer, was the convicted murderer and documented eviscerator of his wife, who he believed, on the apparent basis of his acquaintance with the local strumpetry, was a prostitute. That accusation was false, but it dovetails with the Ripper's supposed motives, since his victims were all prostitutes. Further, Kelly's trade gave him experience with sharp implements, if not the Ripper's seeming surgical dexterity and anatomical knowledge. Ultimately, there is no way of unequivocally proving that Kelly or any other suspect was the Ripper. Tully gives us rip-roaring true crime reading, at any rate, for all its earnestness and documentation. Bear in mind that the descriptions of Kelly's as well as the Ripper's enormities are explicit to the point of inducing real queasiness. Mike Tribby