On the last night of her life, she reeled into her favoured lodging house at 18, Thrawl Street, where, until the previous week, she had shared a bed with Holland. The deputy turned her out because she did not have the requisite four shillings for her bed. She was good-natured and confident that she would soon have the fee. She drew attention to her new bonnet, saying, “See what a jolly bonnet I’ve got now.” At 2:30 A.M., Holland saw her again, now staggering, at the corner of Brick Lane and Whitechapel High Street. Holland tried to persuade her to return to Thrawl Street, but Nichols informed her that she had earned her “doss money” three times over that day, but had spent it. At 3:40 A.M. or thereabouts, Charles Cross and Robert Paul, carmen, discovered her body at the entrance to the stableyard in Buck’s Row. She was dying or newly killed.
The post-mortem report on Mary Ann Nichols by Dr. Rees Ralph Llewellyn demonstrates the killer’s savagery and familiarity with the process of killing with the knife. He slashed Nichols’s throat with the cutting edge of the blade, whereas anyone who had never killed an animal by this means, or wanting confidence in his knife, would have gouged with the point and ripped in order to be sure at once of achieving his ends and of the victim’s silence. It is possible that the killer was interrupted in his work, and might otherwise have extended his exploration of his victim’s viscera, but the cuts in the abdomen, though deep, are curiously many and random and want deliberation. The emotive language used by the Star, which helped to establish the legend, bears little relation to Llewellyn’s account: “No murder was ever more ferociously or brutally done. The knife, which must have been a long and sharp one, was jabbed into the deceased at the lower part of the abdomen and then drawn upwards not once but twice. The first cut veered to the right, slitting up the groin and passing over the left hip, but the second cut went straight upwards along the centre of the body, and reaching to the breastbone.”
Dr. Llewellyn’s autopsy report:
Five of the teeth were missing, and there was a slight laceration of the tongue. There was a bruise running along the lower part of the jaw on the right side of the face. That might have been caused by a blow from a fist or pressure from a thumb. There was a circular bruise on the left side of the face, which also might have been inflicted by the pressure of the fingers. On the left side of the neck, about 1 in. below the jaw, there was an incision about 4 in. in length, and ran from a point immediately below the ear. On the same side, but an inch below, and commencing about 1 in. in front of it, was a circular incision, which terminated at a point about 3 in. below the right jaw. That incision completely severed all the tissues down to the vertebrae. The large vessels of the neck on both sides were severed. The incision was about 8 in. in length. The cuts must have been caused by a long-bladed knife, moderately sharp, and used with great violence. No blood was found on the breast, either of the body or clothes. There were no injuries about the body until just about the lower part of the abdomen. Two or three inches from the left side was a wound running in a jagged manner. The wound was a very deep one, and the tissues were cut through. There were several incisions running across the abdomen. There were also three or four similar cuts running downwards, on the right side, all of which had been caused by a knife which had been used violently and downwards. The injuries were from left to right, and might have been done by a left-handed person. All the injuries had been caused by the same instrument.
Annie Chapman
This autopsy disposes of two myths which should never have come into being. The first is that of the ritualistic ordering of Chapman’s rings and a variable number of shiny farthings, at her feet. There were no farthings, and the three brass rings which Chapman habitually wore were not found at the scene of the murder. They may have been removed by the murderer. The second is the notion of the left-handed Ripper, introduced but subsequently rescinded by Dr. Llewellyn at the Nichols inquest. Had there been any doubt with Nichols, there was none here. Chapman was killed as she lay on the ground. As to how she was persuaded or forced to lie on the ground in silence, it is worth referring to Mark Daniel’s theory relating to the “two distinct bruises, each the size of a man’s thumb, on the forepart of the top of the chest.” For difficulties relating to the timing of the murder, and discrepancies between Dr. Phillips’s estimate of the time of death and that fixed upon by the coroner, see our comments on the statement of Elizabeth Long.
Chapman’s inquest also gave rise to the most pervasive and enduring of all the Ripper myths, that of the Ripper as a surgeon. Only Wynne Baxter, again flying in the face of expert testimony, believed that the Ripper had expert anatomical knowledge, basing his supposition on the discredited notion that the killer had been hunting for uteri to sell to an unknown American (Tumblety?). The Central Officers’ Special Report, headed, “Subject: Hanbury Street murder of Annie Chapman” is still more specific than is the autopsy with regard to the killer’s want of discrimination in his collecting of organs: “the following parts were missing: part of belly wall including naval [sic], the womb, the upper part of vagina, and greater part of bladder.” Ever since Stephen Knight’s fanciful and ingenious Final Solution, there has been an attempt to afford significance to the placing of the intestines at one or other shoulder. In fact, the murderer, who plainly wanted to remove the guts in order to obtain unhindered access to the viscera, placed “a flap of the wall of the belly, the whole of the small intestines and attachments” above Chapman’s right shoulder, while “two other portions of wall of belly and ‘pubes’ were placed above left shoulder in a large quantity of blood.”
Dr. Phillips’s autopsy report, as given before the coroner:
He noticed the same protrusion of the tongue. There was a bruise over the right temple. On the upper eyelid there was a bruise, and there were two distinct bruises, each the size of a man’s thumb, on the forepart of the top of the chest. The stiffness of the limbs was now well marked. There was a bruise over the middle part of the bone of the right hand. There was an old scar on the left of the frontal bone. The stiffness was more noticeable on the left side, especially in the fingers, which were partly closed. There was an abrasion over the ring finger, with distinct markings of a ring or rings. The throat had been severed as before described. The incisions into the skin indicated that they had been made from the left side of the neck. There were two distinct clean cuts on the left side of the spine. They were parallel with each other and separated by about half an inch. The muscular structures appeared as though an attempt had been made to separate the bones of the neck. There were various other mutilations of the body, but he was of opinion that they occurred subsequent to the death of the woman, and to the large escape of blood from the division of the neck. At this point Dr. Phillips said that, as from these injuries he was satisfied as to the cause of death, he thought that he had better not go into further details of the mutilations, which could only be painful to the feelings of the jury and the public. The Coroner decided to allow that course to be adopted. Witness, continuing, said,—The cause of death was apparent from the injuries he had described. From these appearances he was of opinion that the breathing was interfered with previous to death, and that death arose from syncope, or failure of the heart’s action in consequence of loss of blood caused by severance of the throat…
This evidence could only be reproduced in The Lancet:
The abdomen had been entirely laid open and the intestines severed from their mesenteric attachments which had been lifted out and placed on the shoulder of the corpse; whilst from the pelvis, the uterus and its appendages with the upper portion of the vagina and the posterior two thirds of the bladder had been entirely removed. Obviously the work was that of an expert—or one, at least, who had such knowledge of anatomical or pathological examinations as to be enabled to secure the pelvic organs with one sweep of the knife.
Elizabeth Stride
There are several oddities about Stride’s killing. Several authorities, indeed, are prepared to assert that this was a domestic m
urder and does not properly belong in the canon. Preferring, however, to rely on contemporary primary sources and experts, we have little doubt, as had the police and the doctors at the time, that Stride was the victim of “the Knife,” as the Whitechapel Murderer was known until the publication of the “Jack the Ripper” letters. The most striking common factor, which must have influenced the police at the time, is the killer’s technique of compelling the victim to lie down on her back, then slashing, not stabbing, the throat. It may be, as is generally assumed, that Louis Diemschutz, returning home, interrupted the murderer and prevented him from performing his usual mutilations. It may be, however, that he was interrupted rather by Schwartz and the man leaving the pub in Schwartz’s testimony, and that Schwartz, then scared off by the other man, witnessed the last seconds of Stride’s life. With his victim able to identify him, and with two witnesses to his assault on her, the murderer had to rapidly kill the woman and vanish before the witnesses’ return.
The witnesses to Stride’s activities before the murder are several, although we know nothing of her movements for five days prior to this. We know that she was in the Queen’s Head public house at 6:30 P.M. At 7 P.M., she was back at her lodging house, where she entrusted “a piece of velvet” to Catherine Lane’s safekeeping. At 11 P.M., J. Best and John Gardner saw her leaving the Bricklayer’s Arms in Settles Street with a “clerkly” young man. At 11:45 P.M., William Marshall saw her with a man in Berner Street. At some time between 11 P.M. and midnight, the unreliable Matthew Packer claims to have sold some grapes to her companion and to have watched them for a full half hour outside Dutfield’s Yard. PC William Smith saw her again with a man outside Dutfield’s Yard at 12:30 A.M., then we have Schwartz’s account and that of James Brown, one of which places Stride outside Dutfield’s Yard, the other on Fairclough Street at 12:45 P.M. Diemschutz found her at about 1 A.M., killed mere minutes earlier. Although the weather cleared later, there was heavy rain until 1:30 A.M. One cannot but wonder just why Stride was, apparently, loitering on the streets for so long in these conditions.
Dr. Phillips’s autopsy report:
The body was lying on the near side, with the face turned towards the wall, the head up the yard and the feet toward the street. The left arm was extended and there was a packet of cachous in the left hand…The right arm was over the belly. The back of the hand and wrist had on it clotted blood. The legs were drawn up with the feet close to the wall. The body and face were warm and the hand cold. The legs were quite warm. Deceased had a silk handkerchief round her neck, and it appeared to be slightly torn. I have since ascertained it was cut. This corresponded with the right angle of the jaw. The throat was deeply gashed, and there was an abrasion of the skin about 1½ in. in diameter, apparently stained with blood, under her right brow. At 3 P.M. on Monday at St. George’s Mortuary…Dr. Blackwell and I made a postmortem examination…Rigor mortis was still thoroughly marked. There was mud on the left side of the face and it was matted in the head…The body was fairly nourished. Over both shoulders, especially the right, and under the collar-bone and in front of the chest there was a blueish discoloration, which I have watched and have seen on two occasions since. There was a clean-cut incision on the neck. It was 6 in. in length and commenced 2½ in. in a straight line below the angle of the jaw, ½ in. over an undivided muscle, and then becoming deeper, dividing the sheath. The cut was very clean and deviated a little downwards. The artery and other vessels contained in the sheath were all cut through. The cut through the tissues on the right side was more superficial, and tailed off to about 2 in. below the right angle of the jaw. The deep vessels on that side were uninjured. From this it was evident that the haemorrhage was caused through the partial severance of the left carotid artery. Decomposition had commenced in the skin. Dark brown spots were on the anterior surface of the left chin. There was a deformity in the bones of the right leg, which was not straight, but bowed forwards. There was no recent external injury save to the neck. The body being washed more thoroughly I could see some healing sores. The lobe of the left ear was torn as if from the removal or wearing through of an earring, but it was thoroughly healed. On removing the scalp there was no sign of bruising or extravasation of blood…The heart was small, the left ventricle firmly contracted, and the right slightly so. There was no clot in the pulmonary artery, but the right ventricle was full of dark clot. The left was firmly contracted so as to be absolutely empty. The stomach was large, and the mucous membrane only congested. It contained partly digested food, apparently consisting of cheese, potato, and farinaceous powder. All the teeth on the left lower jaw were absent…Examining her jacket, I found that while there was a small amount on the right side, the left was well plastered with mud…
Catherine Eddowes
Eddowes was the fourth of the Whitechapel Murderer’s victims, the most savagely mutilated to that date and the subject of the most thorough and detailed autopsy yet surviving. Dr. Brown’s precision leaves little room for parsing or construing. He concludes, however, that the murderer possessed anatomical knowledge and surgical skill, basing this assumption upon the notion that the killer set out to extract a kidney, as Wynne Baxter had assumed much the same on the assumption that the killer sought a uterus. It is rather safer to assume, as, it appears, did Sequeira and Sanders (Phillips also attended the postmortem) that, having removed the obtruding intestines and being given liberty to plunder what he could in the crimson cavern of the abdomen, the killer excised stray treasures at will and without prior design. Even Brown concedes, “Such a knowledge might be possessed by someone in the habit of cutting up animals,” while Sequeira, asked if the deed had been perpetrated by an expert, was unequivocal; “No,” he said, “not by an expert, but by a man who was not altogether ignorant of the use of the knife.” With this more temperate verdict we can with assurance concur. The part of the lobe of Eddowes’s ear which was cut off may well have been an accidental casualty of the cutting of her throat, especially in that the remainder of the facial mutilations were symmetrical.
Dr. Brown’s autopsy report:
The body was on its back, the head turned to left shoulder. The arms by the side of the body as if they had fallen there. Both palms upwards, the fingers slightly bent…Left leg extended in a line with the body. The abdomen was exposed. Right leg bent at the thigh and knee…
The throat cut across…
The intestines were drawn out to a large extent and placed over the right shoulder—they were smeared over with some feculent matter. A piece of about two feet was quite detached from the body and placed between the body and the left arm, apparently by design. The lobe and auricle of the right ear was cut obliquely through.
There was a quantity of clotted blood on the pavement on the left side of the neck round the shoulder and upper part of arm, and fluid blood-coloured serum which had flowed under the neck to the right shoulder, the pavement sloping in that direction.
Body was quite warm. No death stiffening had taken place. She must have been dead most likely within the half hour. We looked for superficial bruises and saw none. No blood on the skin of the abdomen or secretion of any kind on the thighs. No spurting of blood on the bricks or pavement around. No marks of blood below the middle of the body. Several buttons were found in the clotted blood after the body was removed. There was no blood on the front of the clothes. There were no traces of recent connection.
When the body arrived at Golden Lane [mortuary] some of the blood was dispersed through the removal of the body to the mortuary. The clothes were taken off carefully from the body. A piece of deceased’s ear dropped from the clothing.
I made a post mortem examination at half past two on Sunday afternoon. Rigor mortis was well marked; body not quite cold. Green discoloration over the abdomen.
After washing the left hand carefully, a bruise the size of a sixpence, recent and red, was discovered on the back of the left hand between the thumb and first finger. A few small bruises on right shin of older date. The ha
nds and arms were bronzed. No bruises on the scalp, the back of the body, or the elbows.
The face was very much mutilated. There was a cut about a quarter of an inch through the lower left eyelid, dividing the structures completely through. The upper eyelid on that side, there was a scratch through the skin on the left upper eyelid, near to the angle of the nose. The right eyelid was cut through to about half an inch.
There was a deep cut over the bridge of the nose, extending from the left border of the nasal bone down near to the angle of the jaw on the right side of the cheek. This cut went into the bone and divided all the structures of the cheek except the mucous membrane of the mouth.
The tip of the nose was quite detached from the nose by an oblique cut from the bottom of the nasal bone to where the wings of the nose join on to the face. A cut from this divided the upper lip and extended through the substance of the gum over the right upper lateral incisor tooth. About half an inch from the top of the nose was another oblique cut. There was a cut on the right angle of the mouth as if the cut of a point of a knife. The cut extended an inch and a half, parallel with lower lip.
The Big Book of Jack the Ripper Page 10