Naming Jack the Ripper: The Biggest Forensic Breakthrough Since 1888

by Edwards, Russell

  At about the same time, Albert Cadosch, who lived next door to No. 29, went out to the yard at the back of the house, probably to relieve himself, and heard voices in the adjoining yard. He heard a woman’s voice saying ‘No!’, and then the sound of something falling against the five-foot-high fence which separated the two yards. Like everyone living in the area, Cadosch was used to drunks and prostitutes in the yards, and took little notice. It is more than possible that he heard the murder of Annie Chapman taking place, and had he peered over the fence he may have witnessed it.

  Half an hour later, John Davis stumbled on the body. In a state of shock, having glimpsed the horrific injuries, he ran out into Hanbury Street and came across Henry Holland, who was on his way to work. Nearby were two other men, James Green and James Kent, standing outside the Black Swan pub at 23 Hanbury Street, waiting to go to work at the packing case manufacturer’s at the rear.

  ‘Men, come here!’ Davis shouted. ‘Here’s a sight, a woman must have been murdered!’

  After seeing the body for themselves, the men spread out looking for assistance; at the end of Hanbury Street was Inspector Joseph Chandler who accompanied them back to No. 29. Chandler immediately sealed off the passageway leading from the front of the house to the back yard and sent for police reinforcements and for the divisional surgeon, Dr George Bagster Phillips, who lived at Spital Square close by.

  In his initial examination of Annie’s corpse, Dr Phillips noted the obvious injuries to her body, as well as the bruising to her chest and eye from the fight a few days earlier. Removed from, but still attached to her body and placed over her right shoulder, were her small intestines and a flap of her abdomen. Two other portions of the abdomen were placed above her left shoulder in a large quantity of blood. The uterus, the upper part of the vagina and the greater part of the bladder had been removed and were missing.

  There were also abrasions on the fingers which indicated that the two brass rings Annie always wore had been forcibly removed. Dr Phillips also noted that despite the massive injuries to her neck and torso, there was not a significant amount of blood loss from the body, and that her tongue was left protruding from her swollen head, indicating that she was strangled before being mutilated.

  Dr Phillips said that he himself, a surgeon, could not have carried out such a mutilation in less than a quarter of an hour.

  The style of Annie’s murder was clearly similar to that of Mary Ann Nichols, eight days before. Dr Phillips did not give too much away at the inquest regarding the injuries to Annie Chapman, but his findings were published in the medical journal the Lancet a few weeks later. He stated that the murderer would have had to possess some form of medical or anatomical knowledge: ‘Obviously the work was that of an expert – of 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 a knife.’ The autopsy also revealed the reasons for Annie’s apparent illness: she was suffering from advanced disease of the lungs which had begun to affect the membranes of the brain; in other words, she was already terminally ill. She would have died soon, just not so gruesomely.

  The inquest, as always, generated new information and brought forward more witnesses. A piece of leather apron was found in the back yard, leading to a minor flurry of sensation in that it was somehow linked to the mysterious ‘Leather Apron’ character. It was soon realized that it had no genuine significance as it was left there by Amelia Richardson, a resident who ran her own packing case business from the house. Testimony from her son, John, was rather more interesting. Being in the habit of checking the security of the cellar doors (in the back yard) following an earlier burglary, John had sat on the steps leading from the back door at 4.45 a.m. that morning and had seen nothing. He also commented that it was already getting light.

  One story that appeared in several newspapers claimed that Annie was seen in the Ten Bells pub on Commercial Street between 5 and 5.30 a.m. Some accounts say she was drinking with a man, others that she was alone, and that a man wearing a skull cap and no jacket popped his head in the door and called for her before immediately leaving, at which she followed him out. Apparently the description of the woman tallied with that of Annie Chapman, especially with regard to age, hair and clothing. This story is not reliable, however: there were plenty of other women who fitted the loose description.

  At about 7 a.m. that same morning, a Mrs Fiddymont, who ran the Prince Albert Pub on Brushfield Street, said that a man came into the pub and excited quite a bit of suspicion. He was wearing a dark coat and a brown stiff hat which was pulled down over his eyes. He asked for half a pint of ‘four ale’ and Mrs Fiddymont was immediately struck by the fact that there were blood spots on the back of his right hand, on his collar and below his ear, and that he behaved most suspiciously, as if he didn’t want to attract attention to himself. The man drank the beer in one gulp and left in a hurry, at which Mrs Fiddymont’s friend, Mary Chappell, followed him into Brushfield Street. She pointed the man out to passer-by Joseph Taylor who followed him in the direction of Bishopsgate before he lost sight of him.

  This was the kind of vague testimony the police became used to, as the murders created such a storm of publicity. The killer of Mary Ann Nichols was not caught, and yet another vicious murder involving horrific mutilations created a tidal wave of anger, frustration and sheer panic amongst the East End community. The fact that he had taken Annie through the passageway of a busy house, at a time when at least some of the seventeen lodgers living in the building were likely to be getting up for work, and walked back out the same way, presumably with blood on him and carrying the organs he removed from the body, without being seen, added to the escalating fear and hysteria. Newspaper reports spoke of outbreaks of unrest in the area and innocent men being targeted as ‘Leather Apron’. The police had to use precious resources and men just keeping the peace.

  Despite their problems, there was a brief glimmer of hope when, on 10 September, Sergeant William Thick went to the Whitechapel home of John Pizer, a Jewish slipper-maker, and arrested him on suspicion of Annie Chapman’s murder, and of being ‘Leather Apron’ himself. Fortunately for Pizer, despite being a person of interest to the police for some time, he could show he was elsewhere when both Mary Ann Nichols and Annie Chapman were murdered. On 31 August, he was in Holloway in north London, staying at a lodging house called Crossman’s (just over a century later, in 1989, I moved to Holloway, another of the small ways in which my own story overlaps with the history I have researched). He had even spoken to a policeman regarding the glow from a fire in the London docks that could be seen even from that distance. On 8 September he was at home, kept there by his family who felt, with the rumours flying about that he was ‘Leather Apron’, it was wise to keep a low profile. With Pizer having cast-iron alibis, there was nothing else of substance for the police to go on, and there was a growing feeling of dissatisfaction with them. The sensational newspapers summed up the situation in outlandish terms, none more so than the Star:

  London lies today under the spell of a great terror. A nameless reprobate – half beast, half man – is at large, who is daily gratifying his murderous instincts on the most miserable and defenceless classes of the community . . . Hideous malice, deadly cunning, insatiable thirst for blood – all these are the marks of the mad homicide. The ghoul-like creature who stalks through the streets of London, stalking down his victim like a Pawnee Indian, is simply drunk with blood, and he will have more.

  This kind of reporting only created more anger and panic. Accounts of public reaction to Annie Chapman’s murder make it sound as if the entire East End of London had taken leave of its senses and was gripped by hysteria. On the morning of the murder, Hanbury Street and the surrounding thoroughfares were crammed with excitable onlookers, some of whom took advantage of the large crowds by selling refreshments. Perhaps even more macabre was the ‘renting’ of the windows of those houses which looked down on the back yard of No. 29.
Residents made a tidy profit charging one penny a go, so that interested people could look down on the murder site and perhaps catch a glimpse of the bloodstains.

  Outbreaks of civil unrest occurred, usually related to sightings of men who appeared suspicious. It did not take much for somebody to be labelled a suspect, and the very word that the murderer had been seen in some part of the district caused lynch mobs to gather to seek out their quarry. One often-quoted story was that a local criminal nicknamed ‘Squibby’ was being chased by two policemen through Spitalfields on the day of the Annie Chapman murder and, when the gathered masses saw this, they automatically assumed that the officers were chasing the killer and joined in. Apparently ‘Squibby’ was quite a bullish character and it would often take more than one officer to arrest him, but on this occasion he practically begged them to get him somewhere safe as the mob howled for his blood.

  To top it all, a lady called Mary Burridge, living in Blackfriars, after reading one of the typically gruesome newspaper accounts, fell into a fit at her home. She briefly recovered but relapsed and died soon after. It appeared she was effectively frightened to death.

  In mid-September, in the absence of Dr Robert Anderson, who was still on sick leave, Chief Inspector Donald Swanson was given the important task of overseeing all information regarding the Whitechapel murders. A well-respected officer, Swanson was authorized by Metropolitan Police Chief Commissioner Charles Warren to be the Commissioner’s ‘eyes and ears’ to be ‘acquainted with every detail . . . He must have a room to himself, and every paper, every document, every report, every telegram must pass through his hands. He must be consulted on every source.’

  Because of this, the importance of Swanson in this case cannot be overemphasized, and it is fair to say that his knowledge of the crimes exceeded that of any other officer, even though he was not out on the streets involved with fieldwork. Because his was the desk over which crossed the witness statements, the pathology reports and every scrap of suspicion from every officer involved, he was the one to make and veto decisions about all the forensic work. Inspector Abberline, who joined the hunt for the Ripper shortly before, has traditionally been given the honour of being the officer in overall charge of the case; however, that role really fell to Swanson. His experience would lead to his comments about the murders, and even the identity of the killer himself, being taken very seriously in later years. I certainly feel that his words should, and do, carry enormous weight: nobody knew every dimension of the case as well as Swanson.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A MURDERER INTERRUPTED

  The Death of Elizabeth Stride

  The murderer was now developing his ritualistic style: the bodies were being mutilated in specific ways, organs were being taken as souvenirs, there was a heavily sexualized theme to the mutilations. He chose as victims women who were working in the sex trade, and after killing them he viciously lacerated their whole bodies, but particularly their genital and reproductive organs. He struck at night, he struck at seemingly random intervals. It is not surprising that fear and hysteria were escalating – but never enough for some of the unfortunates, the sad women who needed pennies for their bed and to pay for their gin, to stop plying their trade.

  Newspapers were full of theories and reports about potential arrests and incidents that were immediately seized upon as being related to the ‘Whitechapel monster’. On 27 September 1888, the Central News Agency, a press agency based near Blackfriars Bridge, received a letter, allegedly from the murderer himself and written in red ink.

  25 Sept. 1888

  Dear Boss

  I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they wont fix me just yet. I have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track. That joke about Leather Apron gave me real fits. I am down on whores and I shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled. Grand work the last job was. I gave the lady no time to squeal. How can they catch me now. I love my work and want to start again. You will soon hear of me with my funny little games. I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with but it went thick like glue and I cant use it. Red ink is fit enough I hope ha. ha. The next job I do I shall clip the ladys ears off and send to the police officers just for jolly wouldn’t you. Keep this letter back till I do a bit more work, then give it out straight. My knife’s so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get a chance. Good Luck.

  Yours truly

  Jack the Ripper

  Dont mind me giving the trade name

  Written at right-angles to the main text was a further message, written in pencil:

  Wasn’t good enough to post this before I got all the red ink off my hands curse it No luck yet. They say I’m a doctor now. ha ha

  This was not the first letter claiming to have been written by the murderer, as Commissioner Charles Warren had received one on 24 September from somebody who said he had carried out the attacks, and claiming that he would do some more before giving himself up. It was pretty much ignored, unlike this new letter which Central News sent to the police two days after receiving it, with a covering letter suggesting that it was a hoax. The police, it seems, agreed, but they took some notice of the content, deciding to keep the letter out of the public gaze until the murderer had, as he promised, done ‘a bit more work’. That moment was not a long time in coming.

  The next murders occurred in the early hours of 30 September 1888, less than three weeks after the brutal death of Annie Chapman. Two prostitutes were killed within an hour of each other and in two different locations; it would later be hailed in Ripper folklore as the ‘Double Event’. It is clear, examining the details, that the killer was disturbed at his first attempt to murder, and did not have enough time to ritually mutilate the body and was compelled to strike again: killing alone was not enough. Whatever thrill he got from his handiwork, it did not come at the moment of death, but was associated with what he did to carve up the body.

  The first victim that night was Elizabeth Stride, commonly known as ‘Long Liz’, though how she got her nickname is a mystery as she was not particularly tall. Born Elizabeth Gustafsdottir in 1843 in Stora Tumlehead, on the western coast of Sweden, she had been registered by the police in her home country as a professional prostitute by the age of twenty-two. She was plagued by venereal infections and gave birth to a stillborn daughter in 1865, not long after her mother died. With money she inherited from her mother, she managed to emigrate to London in 1866 and settled in the Whitechapel district. Her troubled life appeared to be on the mend once she married John Stride in 1869 but thanks to her heavy drinking, and her frequent arrests for being drunk and disorderly, the couple separated in 1881. John died three years later of heart disease at the sick asylum in Bromley.

  Without the support of her husband, Elizabeth returned to prostitution to support herself. From then on she found it extremely difficult to escape the hard life of an unfortunate, but she was a fantasist who embellished her sad story, probably trying to escape, if only in her boasts, the depths to which she had sunk. She claimed to have worked for a rich family, she said that her husband and two of her nine children had drowned in a famous incident where a ship sank in the River Thames (in fact he died six years later, and they had no children). She lied about her age, saying she was ten years younger than she was, and she was embarrassed about having lost her front teeth, claiming they were knocked out and her palate damaged in the riverboat sinking. The post-mortem showed no damage to her mouth apart from the missing teeth. But I can understand her need to try to build a better past for herself: maybe she even believed some of it herself by the time she had told the lies so often.

  Like the other unfortunates, she tried to support herself without patrolling the streets at night looking for clients: she worked as a cleaner and she did some sewing. But, as with so many of the others, there simply wasn’t enough work to keep her going, especially with her drink habit. She lived, like almost all of the victims, in
the temporary and affordable accommodation of the common lodging houses. She was living in Brick Lane around December 1881, but spent the Christmas and New Year in the Whitechapel Infirmary, suffering with bronchitis. After moving from Brick Lane, Elizabeth lived at a dosshouse at 32 Flower and Dean Street, staying there until 1885, when she met Michael Kidney, a waterside labourer. They moved in together at 38 Devonshire Street, Commercial Road, but their relationship was volatile: they quarrelled often and frequently separated until, on 25 September 1888, Elizabeth left Kidney for the last time and returned to her old lodgings in Flower and Dean Street. In the years 1887 and 1888, she had clocked up eight convictions for drunkenness at Thames Magistrates Court.

  On Saturday 29 September 1888, Elizabeth did her regular job of cleaning rooms in the lodging house during the day, earning a small wage. At 6.30 p.m. she was in the Queen’s Head pub on the corner of Commercial Street and Fashion Street and shortly afterwards she made her way back to Flower and Dean Street with a friend to get herself ready for the evening ahead. Her subsequent movements were reasonably well documented.

  Fellow resident Catherine Lane, a charwoman, stated that she saw Elizabeth between the hours of 7 and 8 p.m. that evening in the lodging house kitchen, wearing a long jacket and black hat and appearing relatively sober. Charles Preston, a barber, stated that he too saw Elizabeth in the kitchen that evening, lending her his clothes brush as she was preparing to go out and wanted to smarten herself up. He described her black jacket as having a fur trim and said there was a coloured, striped silk handkerchief round her neck.