Naming Jack the Ripper: The Biggest Forensic Breakthrough Since 1888

by Edwards, Russell

  Three days later, a coroner’s inquest was convened, the purpose of the proceedings being to find the cause of death (rather than the identity of the perpetrator). It was here that the last hours of Emma Smith were brought to light. On the evening prior to the attack, the Easter bank holiday Monday, she had left the George Street lodging house at about 6 p.m. which was not unusual, for Emma was a woman of regular habits. At some point she had made her way to Poplar, near the docks, where she was seen on Burdett Road by fellow lodger Margaret Hayes, who was leaving the area after being punched by a man in the street a short while before. It was 12.15 a.m. and Emma was apparently talking to a man of medium height, who was wearing a dark suit and white silk handkerchief round his neck. The next time she was seen was when she arrived at the lodging house in distress. The inquest lasted a day and the coroner recorded a verdict of ‘wilful murder against some person unknown’.

  The police were not informed of the attack on Emma until the day before the inquest, when there was little hope of finding the perpetrators – some reports suggest this was because Emma herself asked for them not to be told. The official reports into what was obviously now a murder case have since gone missing, but notes were taken from some of them prior to their disappearance, notably by Detective Inspector Edmund Reid of the Metropolitan police’s H, or Stepney, Division.

  In his notes, Reid recorded some biographical details about Emma Smith; she apparently had a son and daughter living in the Finsbury Park area of north London. She had been lodging at 18 George Street for about eighteen months and was in the habit of going out at around 6 p.m. every night, often returning to the dosshouse very drunk. Newspaper reports at the time stated that when drunk she could sometimes behave like a ‘madwoman’ and on one occasion came home to the lodging house claiming to have been thrown out of a first-floor window. She often had cuts and bruises from drunken brawls. Although these accounts reveal a belligerent and boisterous character, it is about as much as is known about Emma Smith, apart from the suggestion that she was a widow and that more than likely she was a prostitute. Other women who knew her had the impression she had known better days. Inspector Reid noted that there was a touch of culture in her speech, unusual in her class.

  Naturally, the death of Emma Smith was covered by the press, where it was described as the ‘horrible affair in Whitechapel’ and that Emma had been ‘barbarously murdered’. In his summing up at the inquest, even coroner Wynne Baxter was moved to comment that, ‘It was impossible to imagine a more brutal and dastardly assault.’ However, Emma’s attackers were never caught. Her story is a mysterious one, with a number of questions that remain unanswered. Why did it take her so long (about three hours) to travel the 300 yards from the scene of her attack to her lodging house? Why did none of the policemen on the beat in the area see or hear anything about the attack at that time? And why did Emma appear reluctant or unable to describe the men other than mentioning that one was quite young? Was she telling the truth?

  One theory is that the men who attacked her worked for her pimp, or that she had failed to pay them protection. Another version is that they were one of the gangs of youths who roamed the East End, always willing to use violence to rob their victims. The gangs were nicknamed ‘High Rip’ gangs, a name originally adopted by a gang in Liverpool, but which had become common coinage across the whole country. The High Rip gangs were known to use extreme violence for the sake of it, regardless of whether or not they intended to rob their unfortunate victims – but even by their standards, the attack on Emma was particularly vicious.

  It has been suggested that the Ripper was part of the gang that carried out the attack, choosing later to work alone, but it is merely supposition unsupported by hard evidence, and it flies in the face of what we know about serial killers, who are almost always loners. The suggestion by some researchers that Emma Smith may have been attacked by the Ripper working alone, and that she used the gang story to deflect attention from the reality that she was soliciting that night, doesn’t add up: why, at death’s door, would she go out of her way to fabricate a cover story? I’m very keen to stick to the facts and not get involved in wild supposition: I believe that Emma Smith was attacked by a gang of youths, as she claimed, and that this attack had turned into a murder, probably not intended – the use of the stick may have been intended to humiliate her rather than cause death.

  Perhaps the answers to all or some of the questions about Emma’s murder would be revealed if the original investigation reports were still available. But I believe we know enough about it to discount any involvement of the Ripper.

  The next murder, a few months later, is harder to understand, and it is the one I am happy to accept, despite the opinions of many of the Ripperologists, as the first excursion of Jack the Ripper.

  Bank holidays were clearly a time when prostitutes could easily find punters from among the large number of men who, enjoying a rare day off from the grind of work, would frequent the pubs and the music halls. Loosened up by alcohol and a sense of freedom, these men could have the pick of the local unfortunates who solicited along the streets, the pubs and the riverside areas of the East End. Criminals also profited by the number of prostitutes around, who offered easy pickings, especially after they had been drinking. The women had to have their wits about them to avoid being robbed of their pennies or ill-used by their clients. It is therefore unsurprising that the next Whitechapel murder took place, like the first, after a bank holiday Monday.

  The victim was Martha Tabram, found dead in the early hours of Tuesday, 7 August 1888. Her body was found only thirty seconds walk from where Emma Smith was attacked four months earlier: I know, because I have walked all the sites of the Ripper’s crimes and timed all his routes. I have walked them quickly and slowly, and recorded all the possible variations. But this of course came later, when I found out who he was and where he most likely lived . . .

  Martha Tabram was thirty-nine years old at the time of her death. She was born Martha White in Southwark in 1849 and she had married Henry Tabram, a foreman furniture packer, in 1869, when she was twenty. He worked steadily and provided for her and their two sons. But after only six years of marriage the couple separated because of Martha’s continuous heavy drinking. Henry initially supported his estranged wife financially, and reasonably generously, at twelve shillings a week, but he dropped the amount to two shillings and six pence after she drunkenly accosted him in the street. He stopped supporting her completely when he discovered that she was co-habiting with a carpenter named Henry Turner, a man with whom she lived, on and off, for twelve years. He was described as short, dirty and slovenly in appearance.

  To earn their living, Turner and Martha hawked trinkets at the markets and on the streets, and by 1888 they were living in a room in a house at Star Place, Commercial Road. But Martha’s drinking affected this relationship too – she was given to fits when very drunk – and sometimes she and Turner would separate, during which time he had no idea how Martha conducted herself. With no other way of supporting her serious drink habit, she probably turned to casual prostitution. In July 1888, the couple parted for the last time. After Turner left her, Martha left the house in Star Place without paying the final rent and took up lodgings in Spitalfields, at 19 George Street, the dosshouse next door to where Emma Smith had been living.

  At the time of her murder, Martha was described as plump, 5 foot 3 inches tall with a dark complexion and dark hair. At approximately 4.50 a.m. on 7 August 1888, she was found by John Reeves, a dock labourer, lying on her back in a pool of her own blood on the first-floor landing of a tenement block where he lived, known as George Yard Buildings. This was in Whitechapel’s George Yard, which today is called Gunthorpe Street, and is still one of the narrow cobbled alleyways that survive from the old East End.

  When he saw the body, with her skirt pulled up to her waist and her stomach exposed, Reeves ran to find the nearest policeman, who turned out to be PC Thomas Barrett, on duty in Wentworth
Street close by. After rushing to the murder scene, PC Barrett immediately sent Reeves to fetch Dr Timothy Killeen from his surgery at 68 Brick Lane. The doctor arrived at 5.30 a.m. and pronounced Martha dead at the scene.

  The body was soon taken to the mortuary in Old Montague Street, where a photograph was taken and a post-mortem conducted. In his report, Dr Killeen observed that Martha had received thirty-nine separate stab wounds to various areas of her body, including one to ‘the lower part’, and apparently there was a great deal of blood between her legs. This three-inch wound was, in all probability, to her genitalia. The lungs were pierced multiple times, as well as her heart, liver, spleen and stomach. Dr Killeen also believed that two different weapons had been used; one was a small pen knife, no bigger than a few inches, which had caused thirty-eight of the wounds, the other weapon was a large knife around six inches long or more, thought to be similar to a bayonet. It was the cause of a single injury which had penetrated the breastbone, and according to Dr Killeen this wound alone was sufficient to kill her.

  But there is evidence she may have been strangled before she was slashed, which fits in with the Ripper’s pattern. The Illustrated Police News of 18 August 1888 reported that she had received severe injuries to her head, the result of ‘being throttled while held down, the face and head so swollen and distorted that her real features are not discernible.’ The number of wounds and the savagery of the attack put the case outside the normal run of East End violence, and provoked a growing public alarm.

  George Yard Buildings had many residents and it’s remarkable that nobody in the tenement heard any cries or commotion during the night, which I believe supports the theory that she was strangled before the stabbing occurred. Significantly, just over an hour before Martha’s body was found, a young cab driver named Alfred Crow had climbed the staircase and seen somebody lying on the first-floor landing, but as he was used to seeing people sleeping rough there, he took little notice. The lights inside George Yard Buildings were turned off at 11 p.m., so it was probably not light enough for him to see that Martha Tabram was dead. Earlier, at 2 a.m., she was not there: another couple passed the landing and saw nothing, so the time of her death could be narrowed down to between 2 and 3.30 a.m.

  With an obvious murder having been committed, potential witnesses were sought by the police, but the only one who was able to shed any light on the last hours of Martha’s life was another ‘unfortunate’ by the name of Mary Ann Connelly, commonly known as ‘Pearly Poll’. After hearing of the murder, she went to Commercial Street Police Station and claimed that she and Martha had spent much of the previous night visiting the pubs of Whitechapel. They had met two soldiers at about 10 p.m., one a corporal and the other a private, in the Two Brewers pub. They continued to drink together in other local pubs including the White Hart, which still thrives today and is a regular point of interest on the Ripper tours.

  At approximately 11.45 p.m. the two women and their soldiers split up on Whitechapel High Street. Pearly Poll saw Martha going with the private into George Yard. Pearly Poll went with the corporal into Angel Alley, a few yards away, probably for sex. That is the last she saw of her friend, and is the last confirmed sighting before the murder. Both these passageways were narrow and poorly lit and had mean reputations, making them ideal hiding places for criminals and perfect venues for prostitution. Pearly Poll told the police that she would be able to identify the two soldiers.

  Detective Inspector Edmund Reid headed the murder investigation and arranged an identity parade at the Tower of London on the strength of her claims. All the soldiers from the Grenadier Guards regiment who had been on leave that evening were brought for inspection. The parade was attended by PC Barrett, who said that at about 2 a.m. on the morning of the murder he had seen a private of the Grenadier Guards standing at the corner of George Yard and Wentworth Street; when questioned, the soldier said that he was waiting around for his ‘chum’. At the parade, Barrett picked out a private before changing his mind and selecting a second man, who, it transpired, had a strong alibi for that fateful night. Pearly Poll failed to turn up.

  She was eventually found by Sergeant Eli Caunter staying with a cousin near Drury Lane and so a new parade was arranged for 13 August, which she did finally attend. She failed to pick out the two men that she and Martha were with that evening, but belatedly mentioned that they had had white bands around their caps, meaning they were from the Coldstream Guards, not the Grenadiers.

  So another identity parade was arranged, and two days later, Pearly Poll was taken to Wellington Barracks where she picked out two soldiers, known as George and Skipper, whom she said were without doubt the two men that she and Martha had been with. Both the soldiers were interviewed and insisted they were nowhere near the Whitechapel area on the night of the murder. After extensive investigation, the police concluded they were telling the truth. Other soldiers were investigated, having their bayonets checked and their whereabouts on the night of 6/7 August ascertained.

  After all reasonable enquiries into the murder of Martha Tabram were exhausted, the investigation appeared to fizzle out. At the inquest, the jury delivered a verdict of ‘wilful murder, by person or persons unknown’ yet again. The deputy coroner at the inquest said, ‘It is one of the most terrible cases that anyone can possibly imagine. The man must have been a perfect savage to have attacked the woman in that way,’ and Inspector Reid described the case as ‘almost beyond belief’.

  The murder of Martha Tabram typified the difficulties that the police at the time faced. Evidence was often built on vague eye-witness statements that could not be confidently corroborated and as a result the police had no further reliable information to go on. Whether the two unidentified soldiers were involved is doubtful, as the murder happened more than two hours after Pearly Poll saw Martha go into George’s Yard with one of them. And you have to remember that Pearly Poll, like Martha, had had a great deal to drink that night, which may have compromised her ability to identify them.

  The murder of Emma Smith, four months previously, had obviously stuck in the minds of the local people and the press, and the fact that these two murders were committed within very close proximity, on bank holiday weekends, that they were of the same class and lived in the same disreputable neighbourhood, struck a chord. I am certain that these two murders were not committed by the same person (or persons), but the similarities started the furore that would eventually engulf the East End. Martha’s murder, in particular, appeared to be random and savagely brutal and in some ways matched the killings of the later Ripper victims.

  Although there was no skilful mutilation as there was in the next five, I believe there were enough common factors for this to have been his first attempt, a ‘try-out’, probably very hurried as he was testing out how much time he would have to carry out his mission and then escape. Like the others, the death occurred at a secluded spot, in the small hours of the morning, and the victim was an impoverished prostitute. It is probable that among the many wounds inflicted on Martha, at least one was to her genitals. We know today that while serial killers often develop a ‘signature’ or style of killing as their headcount increases, they do not always display that signature from the word go. So Martha Tabram’s murder is definitely more likely to have been one of his than Emma Smith’s and, although many experts will disagree, I will stick my neck out and declare that in my opinion she was the first Jack the Ripper victim.

  But even if he was not involved, there is a possibility that the publicity surrounding the deaths (and the press coverage was bordering on frenzied) triggered in him a desire to emulate these savage attacks, and launched his grisly career. In the years since I became fascinated by the case, I have acquired various items dating back to 1888, and among these I have the original newspapers covering Martha’s death. The East London Advertiser reported, ‘The virulent savagery of the murder is beyond comprehension.’

  Yet in the next five murders, which are definitely accepted as Jack the Ri
pper’s (they are known to experts on the case as ‘the canonical five’, meaning that they belong together and are the work of one person), this ‘virulent savagery’ would be a common factor, and the press and the public would find their comprehension stretched even further.

  Polly Nichols

  Annie Chapman

  Elizabeth Stride

  Catherine Eddowes

  Mary Jane Kelly

  Goulston Street, where the bloody apron was found

  Sion Square

  Greenfield Street

  CHAPTER THREE

  A NAMELESS MIDNIGHT TERROR

  The Deaths of Mary Ann Nichols and Annie Chapman

  At 3.40 a.m. on the morning of 31 August 1888, Charles Cross walked along Buck’s Row, a quiet, dark street behind Whitechapel Underground Station, bordering the Jewish Cemetery. Cross was on his way to work at Pickfords in Broad Street, close to Liverpool Street Station, where he was employed as a carman, transporting goods on the back of a hand-pushed cart. The first glimmers of dawn were lighting up the sky, but Buck’s Row, poorly illuminated like many East End streets, was still shrouded in darkness, cut off from the encroaching light by the tall walls of warehouses and terraced dwellings.

  As he approached the gates of Brown’s Stable Yard, Cross saw what looked like a large piece of tarpaulin on the ground. As he got nearer he realized that it was the body of a woman lying on her back on the pavement. While he was standing near the body, he saw another man walking down Buck’s Row, Robert Paul, who was himself on his way to work at Corbett’s Court in Spitalfields and was also a carman. Cross touched Paul on the shoulder as he passed him and asked him to look at what he had found. They both approached the body and saw that the woman’s clothes were in disarray and her skirts were pushed up to her middle. Touching her hands they realized that they were not entirely cold, and Paul thought she moved slightly and may be breathing ‘but it is very little if she is’.