It has been argued that Stride was murdered by Michael Kidney, that Schwartz witnessed the start of it and that the third man was possibly Stride’s lover, who fled rather than be exposed by the investigation. Theorists’ reasoning rests on Kidney’s violent nature and his drunken appearance at Leman Street police station on 1 October, accusing the police of being unable to catch Stride’s killer. At that point, the police were supposedly still struggling to identify Stride, hindered by Mrs Malcolm, so (the theory goes) Kidney could have only known of her death by committing it. However, The Times’ coverage of the first day of the inquest (1 October), names the victim as Elizabeth Stride. It seems likely that, by the night of 1 October, when Kidney drunkenly upbraided the police, he could have known Stride was dead by sources other than first-hand experience. All the same...
Needless to say, the jury returned a verdict of ‘Wilful murder by person or persons unknown’.
Catharine Eddowes
The Eddowes inquest, which opened on 4 October, was reconvened and concluded exactly a week later. It was presided over by the City Coroner, Mr Samuel Langham at the Golden Lane Mortuary. In one of several boundary disputes, protests were raised that Wynne Baxter should preside over the inquest as he had over the others. Langham would have none of this, stating that, as the body had been brought to a City mortuary, it was up to the City of London to hold the inquest. The brevity of the inquest aside (compared to those presided over by Baxter), witness testimony still helps us piece together Eddowes’ life and last movements before she fell to the Ripper.
Catharine Eddowes was born in 1842 in Wolverhampton. She was the fifth of eleven children born to George and Catharine Eddowes. George worked in the then-prosperous tin plate industry. Despite this, the family moved to London, settling in Bermondsey. In 1855, tragedy struck when Catharine senior died of phthisis. The family then dispersed. Catharine, or Kate as she was to be known in later life, was sent to live with an aunt in Wolverhampton. She ran away to Birmingham after supposedly robbing her employer.There she briefly lived with an uncle before falling in love, at the age of sixteen, with Thomas Conway. Little is known about him, although he was apparently drawing a pension from the 18th Royal Irish Regiment. During the time they lived together as a common-law couple, he worked as a hawker. They had three children, Annie (1865), George (1868) and another son in 1873. Conway also tattooed his initials ‘T C’ on Kate’s left forearm. Friends from this time remembered her as an intelligent woman with a fiery temper.
In 1880, the couple separated. As usual, different parties gave different reasons. Annie blamed Kate’s habitual drinking and absences. Kate’s sister, Elizabeth, attributed the split to Conway’s drinking and violent behaviour. By 1881, Kate was back in London and living with an Irish porter, John Kelly, at Cooney’s Lodging House, 55, Flower and Dean Street. During this time, she went under the name of Kate Conway. The time that they were together seems to have been happy but poverty-stricken. Kate was known by most of her acquaintances as being ‘a regular jolly sort’ and if she and Kelly quarrelled it was rare and usually the result of drink.
In 1885, Annie, her daughter, married and spent the next couple of years moving around London, generally to avoid her mother’s unannounced visits to scrounge money. However, most of Kate’s friends, along with Kelly and Frederick Wilkinson, deputy keeper of Cooney’s, were quick to state that Kate was not a prostitute and she mainly subsisted by charring and hawking. Probably she did solicit occasionally to earn money but Kelly and Wilkinson wouldn’t have testified otherwise for fear of being charged with living off immoral earnings or running a disorderly house.
In September 1888, Kate and Kelly went hop picking in Kent.They returned at the end of the month, after an unsuccessful time. During their journey they met up with Emily Birrell and her man. Birrell gave Kate a pawn ticket for a shirt, which she thought would fit Kelly. They arrived back in London on 27 September, where they spent the night in the casual ward at Shoe Lane. Next morning, realising they had no money for lodgings, Kate went to spend the night at Mile End casual ward, entreating Kelly to use what money they had for a bed at Cooney’s.
They met again the next morning (Saturday 29 September). Kelly insisted on pawning a pair of his boots for 2/6 in order to buy food. This they ate in the kitchen at Cooney’s. It is likely that they also bought liquor for, broke once more, Kate left at 2.00pm to go to Bermondsey to borrow money from Anne. Kelly recalled begging her to return home early, reminding her of the murders. Kate’s last words to him were: ‘Don’t you fear for me. I’ll take care of myself and I shan’t fall into his hands.’ She didn’t go to see her daughter.The visit would have been pointless anyway, as Anne had moved from the address at least a year before. At the time of Kate’s death, she was living in Southwark.
It is not clear where she got money from but at 8.30pm Kate was arrested for being drunk and disorderly in Aldgate High Street (Tom Cullen reports that she was impersonating a fire engine). It took two police officers to get her to Bishopsgate Police station. Here she gave her name as ‘Nothing’ and was locked in a cell. By 8.50pm she was asleep. PC George Hutt came on duty at 9.45pm and checked in on her at regular intervals during the night. By 12.15am she was awake and singing quietly to herself. At 12.30am she began to ask Hutt what time she would be released. He did so at about 1.00am when he was sure that she was sober enough.
Leaving, she gave her name as Mary Ann Kelly of 6 Fashion Street. It is this name that led Stephen Knight (in Jack The Ripper: The Final Solution) to suggest that Kate was not the Ripper’s intended victim but that the killer was misled by this alias. However, it is not stated how the Ripper would have got hold of this information, if he had known where to look for it. Hutt guided her out, asking her to close the outer door behind her. Kate’s last recorded words are: ‘All right. Good night, old cock.’
Joseph Lawende, Joseph Hiram Levy and Harry Harris left the Imperial Club in Duke Street around 1.35am. They saw a man and a woman facing each other at the corner of Church Passage, leading into Mitre Square. They were talking quietly, the woman with her hand on the man’s chest. Levy noticed that the man was about three inches taller than the woman but would later be unable to describe the couple further. Lawende saw more, being closer. The woman, he said, was wearing a black jacket and bonnet. The man he described as being about 30, 5 feet 7 inches tall, with a fair complexion and moustache. He was of medium build and wore a pepper-and-salt loose jacket and a peaked, grey cloth cap. Around his neck he wore a reddish neckerchief tied in a knot. He had the appearance of a sailor. Lawende doubted that he would be able to identify him again. Although he was unable to describe the woman, he identified Kate at the mortuary by her clothing. That Eddowes was found dead nine minutes later a few yards away, makes it likely she was Lawende’s woman. His description of the man also tallies closely with those of Schwartz’s, Marshall’s and Smith’s.
Dr Brown’s findings from the crime scene and autopsy are conflated here. From the site he noted that the body was still warm and had been there for half an hour at the most. He believed that death was caused by the throat being cut, opening the left carotid artery. Her throat was then cut from left to right, severing the larynx and neck down to the vertebrae. The abdomen had been laid open from the breast bone to the pubes by an upwards jagged incision. The liver had been slit with separate incisions.The intestines had been drawn out and placed over the right shoulder, one piece of about two feet had been severed completely and placed between the body and the left arm, apparently by design. The right ear lobe and auricle had been cut through. Further cuts were made, opening the abdomen, extending across the thighs and labia and across over the liver. The pancreas and spleen had also been cut. The left kidney had been carefully taken out and removed. (Brown notes: ‘I should say that someone who knew the position of the kidney must have done it.’) The lining membrane over the uterus was cut through and the womb cut through horizontally, leaving a stump of 3/4 inch
– the rest had been taken away. Brown would further note that the removal of the noted organs would be ‘of no use for any professional purpose’.
Eddowes was the first victim to suffer facial mutilation.The left and right eyelid sustained cuts. There was a deep cut to the bone from the bridge of the nose down to the right cheek at the jawline.The tip of the nose had been detached by a cut that also divided the upper lip. There were other cuts at the top of the nose, at the right angle of the mouth and to both cheeks raising triangular flaps of about 1.5 inches in area.
Brown concluded that the murder and mutilations must have taken place at the spot where the body was found. As with the cases of Nichols, Chapman and Stride, it was likely that the murderer had been on Eddowes’ right-hand side to avoid the worst of the blood. Brown estimated the knife to have been at least six inches long and attributed to the killer both anatomical knowledge (the kidneys, being covered with membrane, could easily be overlooked by someone without such knowledge) and surgical skill. Brown did not believe the killer was a doctor. Of the others present at the post-mortem, both Sequeira and Saunders expressed uncertainty over whether the killer had sought out the kidney or discovered it by accident but both concurred with Brown that he possessed some skill with a knife. Phillips expressed similar beliefs but saw less expertise demonstrated on Eddowes than on Chapman and thus doubted that the murders had been committed by the same man.
More recent medical testimony from examining the photographs express doubt at the killer’s surgical ability but, given the speed (he had approximately ten minutes) and surroundings (practically unlit with the constant fear of discovery) in which the killer performed his operation, it is still astounding that he managed half of what he achieved in mutilating Eddowes’ body. Dr Brown’s belief that only one person committed the murder led the inquest jury’s verdict of ‘Wilful murder by some person unknown’.
While the upper classes expressed their sympathies in the press for the two women with outraged calls for social reform, the East End did their best to show tribute in their final send-offs. Elizabeth Stride’s funeral took place on 8 October. She was buried in a pauper’s grave at East London cemetery. The funeral was sparsely attended. In contrast, Catharine Eddowes’ funeral procession from Golden Lane to the City of London cemetery in Ilford saw crowds lining most of the streets along the way and the funeral paid for by the undertaker, Mr G Hawkes of Spitalfields. In attendance were John Kelly and four of Catharine’s sisters. According to various sources, the procession was followed by a wagon holding many of Catharine’s female acquaintances from Flower and Dean Street.
A Study in Terror
‘...I try and frighten them and speak of the danger they run (they just) laugh and say, “Oh, I know what you mean. I ain’t afraid of him. It’s the Ripper or the bridge with me. What’s the odds?”
Chief Inspector Henry Moore
The day after the two murders, the Central News Agency heard from their correspondent again. This time it was a postcard, undated but seemingly bloodstained and in the same handwriting. It was postmarked the day of its delivery, October 1st, from London E. Written in red crayon, Jack was in fine gloating form:
I wasnt codding dear old Boss when I gave you the tip. youll hear about saucy Jackys work tomorrow double event this time number one squealed a bit couldnt finish straight off. had not time to get ears for police thanks for keeping last letter back till I got to work again.
Jack the Ripper
In attempts to draw fresh information from the public, the police distributed the letters to the press and posted facsimiles outside every police station. As a result, they were deluged, not merely with information but with floods of crank letters, many claiming to be from Jack himself. The decline of ‘Leather Apron’ following Pizer’s acquittal no longer mattered; the police, the press, businesses and even private individuals received letters that claimed to be from Jack. The police, fearing that passing up any one of them could cost them the lead they desperately needed, attempted to check the veracity of each letter and trace the writers, wasting many valuable man hours.
The provenance of the original letter and postcard is another area of the Ripper case that has provoked much discussion. It is likely that they are both hoaxes coming from the same source since the second apparently picks up the conversational threads of the first. Long after the Ripper scare was over both Robert Anderson and Donald Swanson wrote that the letters were the work of a journalist whom they knew.
Suggested authors include Thomas Bulling (although his handwriting differs considerably) and the unidentified Best. In 1931, Best admitted to a journalist that he was responsible for writing all the Ripper letters to ‘keep the business alive’. Maybe, but he was probably unaware of the hundreds of letters that were received. Of the first two, the second appears to display too much knowledge not to be from the Ripper, especially as the letter was postmarked the day that the press reported the story. However, several late editions on the Sunday (30 September) carried reports of the ‘double event.’ Plus, the letter was posted in East London, where the writer would, in all likelihood, have had easy access to information on the victims’ deaths because the press were already swarming around both murder sites for details from police and public alike.
From Hell
The one letter that may deserve more attention is the one received by George Lusk of the Mile End Vigilance Committee. It arrived in a small package bearing two penny stamps and an illegible postmark. Along with the letter was half a rotting kidney. The letter read:
From Hell
Mr Lusk
Sor
I send you half the Kidne I took from one women prasarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise I may send you the bloody knif that took it out if you only wate a whil longer
signed Catch me when
you can
Mishter Lusk
The kidney was taken to Dr Frederick Wiles. He was not there, but his assistant, Mr Reed, was. His opinion was that it was a human kidney, preserved in spirits of wine. He took it to Dr Thomas Openshaw at London Hospital.
Openshaw’s examination, according to Reed, revealed that it was part of a female’s left kidney. Also, it was a ‘ginny’ kidney belonging to someone suffering from Bright’s disease and that the person had died about the same time as the victim of the Mitre Square murder.The next day, Openshaw denied these claims. Dr Sedgwick Saunders pointed out that the age and sex of a kidney could only be determined if the body was present and that gin left no traces in the kidney. He further noted that Eddowes’ remaining kidney had been perfectly healthy and thus its extracted companion should be equally healthy. Saunders considered the whole thing a medical student hoax.
However, following Openshaw’s supposed verdict, Lusk’s group took the parcel to Inspector Abberline. The Met sent it to the City branch where it was examined by Dr Gordon Brown. Brown’s report has not survived and so all information about the kidney comes from surviving police reports. From these we learn that the kidney came from a human adult and that it was not charged with fluid (indicating that it had not been handed over to a hospital or medical school). The renal artery is about three inches long. Eddowes’ corpse retained two inches and the kidney had one inch attached. The right kidney was, Brown’s statement confirms, in the advanced stages of Bright’s disease and the kidney that Lusk received was in a similar condition. Most notably, of the surgeons that Brown consulted with, Mr Sutton of London Hospital (an authority on the kidney and its diseases) swore on his career that the extracted kidney had been preserved in spirits within hours of its removal, thus making it explicit that it had been removed at the scene. Organs destined for dissection would have been preserved in formaldehyde. Bodies of those dying from violence would not be taken immediately to the dissecting room but would await an inquest, held the next day at the earliest. Wynne Baxter would add a note of conjecture by stating that spirits of wine were the standard preservative
for dissecting rooms.
Of the letter, a Miss Emily Marsh of 218, Jubilee Street, Mile End Road came forward to state that on 15 October she was in her father’s shop when a tall man dressed in clerical garb entered. Pointing to the vigilance committee reward poster in the window, he asked for Mr Lusk’s address. Miss Marsh showed him a newspaper that gave the address as Alderney Road, near Globe Road, Mile End. She read it out at the man’s insistence and he wrote it down. When he left, she asked the shop boy to follow him. They described the man as around forty-five years old, 6 feet tall and slimly built. He wore a soft felt black hat, a stand-up collar and a long black single-breasted overcoat with a Prussian or clerical collar turned up. His complexion was sallow and he had a dark beard and moustache. He spoke with an Irish accent.
It’s likely that this was the man who posted the kidney, for the address on the parcel was exactly what he’d copied down, with no street number, and some of the words (‘Sor’ ‘Mishter’) suggest an Irish accent. But whether this was the Ripper is another matter entirely.
The Lusk letter has been accepted as authentic by many theorists but, like so many positive things attached to the case, it remains inconclusive. In 1974, Thomas Mann (sic), a qualified document examiner, examined the letter. From the writing style and the types of errors in the letter Mann declared the writer to be semi-literate, rather than an educated person disguising their writing characteristics. Despite such expert testimony, we can still only assume that the letter to Lusk was written by the Ripper. The evidence appears weighted in its favour but it is by no means conclusive.
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