East End Murders

by Neil Storey

  The sight that met them was beyond human imagination – the walls were splashed up like an abattoir and on the blood-soaked mattress was a raw carcass, a mass of human evisceration that was once Mary Kelly. Those who saw this horror – Inspector Walter Beck, Inspector Frederick Abberline, George Bagster Phillips, the H Division surgeon, and even young PC Walter Dew (who would later become world famous as the man who arrested Dr Crippen) – would never forget what they saw at Miller’s Court.

  Dr Thomas Bond also attended the scene and recorded the state of the body of poor Mary Kelly:

  The body was lying naked in the middle of the bed, the shoulders flat but the axis of the body inclined to the left side of the bed. The head was turned on the left cheek. The left arm was close to the body with the forearm flexed at a right angle and lying across the abdomen.

  The right arm was slightly abducted from the body and rested on the mattress. The elbow was bent, the forearm supine with the fingers clenched. The legs were wide apart, the left thigh at right angles to the trunk and the right forming an obtuse angle with the pubes.

  The whole of the surface of the abdomen and thighs was removed and the abdominal cavity emptied of its viscera. The breasts were cut off, the arms mutilated by several jagged wounds and the face hacked beyond recognition of the features. The tissues of the neck were severed all round down to the bone.

  The viscera were found in various parts viz: the uterus and kidneys with one breast under the head, the other breast by the right foot, the liver between the feet, the intestines by the right side and the spleen by the left side of the body. The flaps removed from the abdomen and thighs were on a table.

  The face was gashed in all directions, the nose, cheeks, eyebrows, and ears being partly removed. The lips were blanched and cut by several incisions running obliquely down to the chin. There were also numerous cuts extending irregularly across all the features.

  The neck was cut through the skin and other tissues right down to the vertebrae, the fifth and sixth being deeply notched. The skin cuts in the front of the neck showed distinct ecchymosis. The air passage was cut at the lower part of the larynx through the cricoid cartilage.

  Both breasts were more or less removed by circular incisions, the muscle down to the ribs being attached to the breasts. The intercostals between the fourth, fifth, and sixth ribs were cut through and the contents of the thorax visible through the openings.

  The skin and tissues of the abdomen from the costal arch to the pubes were removed in three large flaps. The right thigh was denuded in front to the bone, the flap of skin, including the external organs of generation, and part of the right buttock. The left thigh was stripped of skin fascia, and muscles as far as the knee.

  The left calf showed a long gash through skin and tissues to the deep muscles and reaching from the knee to 5in above the ankle. Both arms and forearms had extensive jagged wounds.

  The pericardium was open below and the heart absent.

  Inspector Abberline also commented during his inquest deposition:

  I agree with the medical evidence as to the condition of the room. I subsequently took an inventory of the contents of the room. There were traces of a large fire having been kept up in the grate, so much so that it had melted the spout of a kettle off. We have since gone through the ashes in the fireplace; there were remnants of clothing, a portion of a brim of a hat, and a skirt, and it appeared as if a large quantity of women’s clothing had been burnt.

  The coroner enquired if Abberline could give any reason why the clothing had been burnt. Abberline replied, ‘I can only imagine that it was to make a light for the man [the killer] to see what he was doing.’

  Mary Jane Kelly is widely regarded by crime historians as the last of the canonical five victims of Jack the Ripper. Poignantly, the resignation (tendered on 8 November) of Sir Charles Warren, the man many held responsible for the failure of the police to capture Jack the Ripper, was accepted and announced on this day. But the investigation carried on and the following notice was issued:

  MURDER-PARDON

  Whereas on November 8 or 9, in Miller Court, Dorset Street, Spitalfields, Mary Jane Kelly was murdered by some person or persons unknown, the Secretary of State will advise the grant of her Majesty’s pardon to any accomplice not being a person who contrived or actually committed the murder who shall give such information and evidence as shall lead to the discovery and conviction of the person or persons who committed the murder

  (Signed) CHARLES WARREN, the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, Metropolitan Police Office, 4, Whitehall, November 10, 1888.

  Even Queen Victoria sent a telegram from Balmoral to the Marquis of Salisbury, the Prime Minister, expressing her concern and suggesting actions to apprehend Jack the Ripper:

  This new most ghastly murder shows the absolute necessity for some very decided action. All courts must be lit, & our detectives improved. They are not what they should be…

  One of the first ever police crime scene photographs: the hideously mutilated remains of Mary Kelly. (Stewart P. Evans)

  The Illustrated Police News recalls the recent murders and shows a depiction of the supposed ‘Whitechapel Monster’ based on the description given by George Hutchinson.

  The killer known as Jack the Ripper was never brought to justice, but the case remained open, and a few suspects contemporary to the crimes were named by senior police officers in the years immediately after.

  In 1891 a certain Thomas Henry Cutbush was taken into Lambeth Infirmary and detained as a lunatic. He escaped within hours and over the following four days until he was captured he stabbed Florrie Johnson in the buttocks and attempted to repeat the deed on Isabelle Anderson. Charged with malicious wounding, Cutbush spent the rest of his life in Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, where he died in 1903. In February 1894 the Sun newspaper made the suggestion that Cutbush and Jack the Ripper were one and the same. This matter was thoroughly investigated and Cutbush was not considered a likely suspect at all. This investigation did however result in Sir Melville Macnaghten, Assistant Chief Constable CID, writing his confidential and now infamous report. Although not in post in 1888, he was appointed in 1889 when the crime, and what evidence there was available, was still fresh. He stated:

  The Whitechapel murderer had 5 victims – & 5 victims only, – his murders were:

  (1) 31st August, ’88. Mary Ann Nichols – at Buck’s Row – who was found with her throat cut – & with (slight) stomach mutilation.

  (2) 8th Sept. ’88 Annie Chapman – Hanbury St.; – throat cut – stomach & private parts badly mutilated & some of the entrails placed round the neck.

  (3) 30th Sept. ’88. Elizabeth Stride – Berner’s Street – throat cut, but nothing in shape of mutilation attempted, & on same date

  Catherine Eddowes – Mitre Square, throat cut & very bad mutilation, both of face and stomach.

  (4) 9th November. Mary Jane Kelly – Miller’s Court, throat cut, and the whole of the body mutilated in the most ghastly manner –

  Sir Melville Leslie Macnaghten. (Stewart P. Evans)

  The last murder is the only one that took place in a room, and the murderer must have been at least 2 hours engaged. A photo was taken of the woman, as she was found lying on the bed, without seeing which it is impossible to imagine the awful mutilation.

  With regard to the double murder which took place on 30th September, there is no doubt but that the man was disturbed by some Jews who drove up to a Club, (close to which the body of Elizabeth Stride was found) and that he then, ‘mordum satiatus’, went in search of a further victim who he found at Mitre Square.

  It will be noted that the fury of the mutilations increased in each case, and, seemingly, the appetite only became sharpened by indulgence. It seems, then, highly improbable that the murderer would have suddenly stopped in November ‘88, and been content to recommence operations by merely prodding a girl’s behind some two years and four months afterwards. A much more rational theory is that th
e murderer’s brain gave way altogether after his awful glut in Miller’s Court, and that he immediately committed suicide, or, as a possible alternative, was found to be so hopelessly mad by his relations, that he was by them confined in some asylum.

  No one ever saw the Whitechapel murderer; many homicidal maniacs were suspected, but no shadow of proof could be thrown on any one. I may mention the cases of three men, any one of whom would have been more likely than Cutbush to have committed this series of murders:

  (1) A Mr M.J. Druitt, said to be a doctor & of good family – who disappeared at the time of the Miller’s Court murder, & whose body (which was said to have been upwards of a month in the water) was found in the Thames on 31st December – or about seven weeks after that murder. He was sexually insane and from private information I have little doubt but that his own family believed him to have been the murderer.

  (2) Kosminski – a Polish Jew – & resident in Whitechapel. This man became insane owing to many years indulgence in solitary vices. He had a great hatred of women, specially of the prostitute class, & had strong homicidal tendencies: he was removed to a lunatic asylum about March 1889. There were many circumstances connected with this man which made him a strong ‘suspect’.

  (3) Michael Ostrog, a Russian doctor, and a convict, who was subsequently detained in a lunatic asylum as a homicidal maniac. This man’s antecedents were of the worst possible type, and his whereabouts at the time of the murders could never be ascertained.

  Macnaghten also went on to discuss other murdered women alleged to have been victims of Jack the Ripper:

  (1) The body of Martha Tabram, a prostitute was found on a common staircase in George Yard buildings on 7th August 1888; the body had been repeatedly pierced, probably with a bayonet. This woman had, with a fellow prostitute, been in company of 2 soldiers in the early part of the evening: these men were arrested, but the second prostitute failed, or refused, to identify, and the soldiers were eventually discharged.

  (2) Alice McKenzie was found with her throat cut (or rather stabbed) in Castle Alley on 17th July 1889; no evidence was forthcoming and no arrests were made in connection with this case. The stab in the throat was of the same nature as in the case of the murder of

  (3) Frances Coles in Swallow Gardens, on 13th February 1891 – for which Thomas Sadler, a fireman, was arrested, and, after several remands, discharged. It was ascertained at the time that Saddler had sailed for the Baltic on 19th July ‘89 and was in Whitechapel on the nights of 17th idem. He was a man of ungovernable temper and entirely addicted to drink, and the company of the lowest prostitutes.

  Montague John Druitt.

  Police Gazette wanted notice for Michael Ostrog. (Stewart P. Evans)

  Another suspect was advanced by Chief Inspector Frederick Abberline, the officer who led the Ripper investigation ‘at ground level’ in Whitechapel. He retired in 1892 and a few of his reminiscences were recorded to mark the occasion in Cassell’s Saturday Journal. He sums up his views on the Ripper murders with ‘…we were lost almost in theories; there were so many of them.’ But in 1903 Abberline recorded his own theory for the first time in Pall Mall Gazette. With George Chapman (AKA Severin Klosowski) ‘The Borough Poisoner’ under sentence of death when the reporter called on him, Abberline was planning to write to Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Melville Macnaghten ‘…to say how strongly I was impressed with the opinion that “Chapman” was also the author of the Whitechapel murders.’ Drawing on a sheaf of papers and cuttings, Abberline passed his conclusions, which he had intended to send to Macnaghten directly, to the reporter. The letter covered a page and a half of foolscap paper and it outlined the coincidences, especially how the murders had continued in America (Chapman had emigrated to New Jersey in 1891), how they mirrored Chapman’s movements and how struck he was with how Chapman could fit the descriptions they had of the Ripper at the time.

  Sadly, most of Abberline’s thoughts about Chapman as the Ripper do not withstand close scrutiny. Chapman was indeed a killer, but he was a poisoner and probably was not Jack the Ripper – but if it gave Abberline peace of mind in his declining years that his old comrade Detective Sergeant Godley had been the man to catch Jack the Ripper, who are we to judge?

  Then there is the Littlechild letter. Discovered by crime historian Stewart P. Evans in 1993, it is a letter written on 23 September 1913 to the noted author, playwright and journalist George R. Sims from ex-Chief Inspector John Littlechild, the former head of Special Branch from 1883 to 1893. In the letter Littlechild discusses the infamous Jack the Ripper letter sent to the Central News Agency in 1888, which gave the murderer the most notorious nom de plume in history:

  With regard to the term ‘Jack the Ripper’ it was generally believed at the Yard that Tom Bullen [sic] of the Central News was the originator, but it is probable Moore, who was his chief, was the inventor. It was a smart piece of journalistic work. No journalist of my time got such privileges from Scotland Yard as Bullen. Mr James Munro when Assistant Commissioner, and afterwards Commissioner, relied on his integrity. Poor Bullen occasionally took too much to drink, and I fail to see how he could help it knocking about so many hours and seeking favours from so many people to procure copy.

  George Chapman.

  But, more significantly, Littlechild named another suspect:

  Knowing the great interest you take in all matters criminal, and abnormal, I am just going to inflict one more letter on you on the ‘Ripper’ subject. Letters as a rule are only a nuisance when they call for a reply but this does not need one. I will try and be brief.

  I never heard of a Dr D. in connection with the Whitechapel murders but amongst the suspects, and to my mind a very likely one, was a Dr T. (which sounds much like D.) He was an American quack named Tumblety and was at one time a frequent visitor to London and on these occasions constantly brought under the notice of police, there being a large dossier concerning him at Scotland Yard. Although a ‘Sycopathia Sexualis’ subject he was not known as a ‘Sadist’ (which the murderer unquestionably was) but his feelings toward women were remarkable and bitter in the extreme, a fact on record. Tumblety was arrested at the time of the murders in connection with unnatural offences [according to Tumblety himself in an interview in the New York World of 29 January 1889, he was actually arrested in Whitechapel on suspicion of being Jack the Ripper] and charged at Marlborough Street, remanded on bail, jumped his bail, and got away to Boulogne. He shortly left Boulogne and was never heard of afterwards. It was believed he committed suicide but certain it is that from this time the ‘Ripper’ murders came to an end.

  Cover of the ‘Kidnapping of Dr Tumblety’. (Stewart P. Evans)

  In fact ‘Dr’ Francis Tumblety had not committed suicide, but having been arrested for an act of gross indecency with other men on 7 November 1888 he had jumped bail and fled to America under the assumed name Frank Townshend. Tumblety was an Irish-American quack doctor and braggart known to have a hatred of women; he was followed to the States by Inspector Andrews, who failed to locate him. A convincing suspect who fits the modern ‘profile’ of a serial killer, it is worthy of note that such killers often take trophies. The Ripper’s second victim, Annie Chapman, was known to wear two brass rings – they were noted as missing when her body was found in the back yard of 29 Hanbury Street in 1888; when Tumblety finally died of a heart condition at St John’s Hospital, St Louis in 1903, among his few effects were ‘two imitation rings worth $3.’

  It was not long before Jack the Ripper entered into folk legend as a popular bogeyman-like monster to frighten children if they misbehaved. Many a parent was known to threaten ‘Jack the Ripper will get you!’ Residents, those on business, and even casual visitors to London would often weave tall tales for fascinated young family members how they saw Jack the Ripper when they were in London during the autumn of 1888. These stories have been passed down generations and there are still a few households who can tell of how Great Aunt so-and-so or Great-Great Grandad saw Jack the R
ipper flit among the shadows or run past them on the street complete with his top hat, sweeping cape, face partially obscured by an upturned collar, and eyes that ‘burned like coals from hell itself.’ In the quieter corners of the East End pubs there was many a tale told with hushed voices and narrowed eyes of how the huddled figure of Polly Nichols, emitting a ghoulish green glow, had been seen lying in the gutter of Buck’s Row, and even how the horrible death-rattle and groans of Annie Chapman had been heard on old Hanbury Street. Jack the Ripper’s legacy beyond the grave even extends to the skipping chant of East End children, and they state the only thing we can say for sure about Jack the Ripper today:

  Jack the Ripper’s dead,

  And lying on his bed

  He cut his throat

  With Sunlight soap.

  Jack the Ripper’s dead.

  5

  JACK’S BACK?

  The Murder of Frances Coles, 1891

  Early on Friday 13 February 1891, PC Ernest Thompson 240H, a young officer who had been on the force barely two months, was on his first solo night duty. Thompson had been on duty since 10 p.m. the previous night; his beat was to patrol Chamber Street and Prescott Street. He started from his point at the bottom of Chamber Street, patrolling up that street, and then along Prescott Street, passing small portions of Mansell and Leman Streets as he did so. There were three passageways formed by railway arches leading from Chamber Street to Royal Mint Street.

  At about 2 a.m. Thompson was proceeding along Chamber Street from Leman Street. There was no one about, but when he was about 80 yards from the railway arch passageways opposite the Catholic Schools his attention was drawn by the sound of retreating footsteps, undoubtedly those of a man, travelling at a walking pace in the distance, apparently heading toward Mansell Street. As a good policeman he duly noted the steps and even looked at the clock on the top of the tower of the Co-operative Stores in Leman Street, noting it was very near 2.15 a.m., however, he did not consider them suspicious enough to pursue them. This was a decision Thompson would regret for the rest of his life.