James Kelly's Emphatic Denial

The following article, I consider a very rare, fascinating and extraordinary find. It goes to show that Tully may have not been entirely correct when he stated that James Kelly kept turning himself in to the authorities and confessing to the Ripper's crimes. Basically, what Kelly is saying in this article, according to his statement, is that although he is not perfect or law-abiding, he had no connection to the Ripper case at all.

THE JACK THE RIPPER CASE.

James Kelly (East Kirupp) writes to us in reference to the Jack the Ripper case, but as he incidentally mentions that he is going to law over the matter we cannot allow him to use this paper for the purposes of comment on a case which will, as he says himself, be dealt with by the Supreme Court. He gives, however, one emphatic denial, which we are perfectly willing to allow him, in the following sentence: - "I don't wish to make myself a member of the church in this matter, but all the M'Donalds and "Sunday Times," and Andrews and Woods can't prove that I had anything to do with "Jack the Ripper." We presume our correspondent knows what his reference to the church means, for we don't.

Source: Sunday Times, Sunday 1 December 1912, page 2

Also, this article states that James Kelly had been in Broadmoor Lunatic Asylum since 1865!!! How could a man who has been in Broadmoor since 1865 have committed the Whitechapel murders in 1888?!! What's more, on the Casebook website, it is erroneously claimed that James Kelly was born on April 20th, 1860, so if that is true, then he murdered his own wife at the age of 5??!!!!! lmao

47 YEARS IN BROADMOOR.
Death of a Murderer Tried in 1865.

Acquitted on the ground of insanity of the murder of his wife 47 years ago at Manchester Assizes, James Kelly, aged 76, has just died in Broadmoor Lunatic Asylum, where he had been detained ever since. It was a gruesome tragedy, and there was no doubt about the state of Kelly's mind. His wife, who a few days before he had nearly strangled, was found dead in the doorway of their cottage, terribly mutilated, a large knife and a poker lying on the body. Kelly was washing the blood from his hands in a well. Kelly made his living by playing the accordion and concertina on the Hollingworth Lake, a reservoir of the Rochdale Water Works, where there were water carnivals. His talk was often that of a religious maniac. After the murder he said he could smell sulphur and that he was one of the devil's children. At one time he travelled the country addressing temperance meetings. His trial, which took place nearly half a century ago, throws the mind to a year of striking events in the world's history, including the assassination of President Lincoln, the deaths of Richard Cobden and Lord Palmerston; the American Civil War. Two years later the New Reform Bill received the Royal Assent, the Tichborne case began, and the first stone of the Albert Hall was laid by Queen Victoria.

Source: The Brisbane Courier, Saturday 30 November 1912, page 17