Abberline: The Man Who Hunted Jack the Ripper

by Peter Thurgood

  The bayonet wound was not the only injury that the post-mortem revealed. It showed five wounds to the left lung, two to the right lung, one to the heart, five to the liver, two to the spleen and six to the stomach. There were also numerous smaller wounds to various parts of the body, making a total of thirty-nine in all, suggesting a frenzied attack, rather than a straightforward murder, carried out in the anger of the moment.

  According to Dr Timothy Killeen, who undertook the post-mortem, the killer focused his attack on the breasts, belly and groin area. In his opinion, all but one of the wounds were inflicted by a right-handed attacker, and all but one seemed to have been the result of an ordinary small knife, or penknife. The one, which was different was the bayonet wound, as already mentioned.

  This, then, was the basis of the case that Abberline was now confronted with. Three prostitutes mutilated and murdered, all within a very short distance of each other, and all within a period of less than six months. As intriguing as this might have sounded to Inspector Abberline at the time, nothing could have prepared him for the horrors he was to face in the months that followed.

  4

  In Charge?

  T here was no doubt, in most people’s minds that Inspector Abberline was the ideal man for this case, due to his extensive experience in the area. He was placed in charge of a team of detectives, who would be investigating what was first known as the Whitechapel murders, but would eventually become known worldwide as the Jack the Ripper murders.

  The name of the policeman most people still associate with the Jack the Ripper case is, of course, Inspector Frederick Abberline, but theoretically, the man in overall charge of the investigation into the Ripper murders was Chief Inspector Donald Swanson.

  Swanson was placed in overall charge of the investigation into the Whitechapel murders from 1 September 1888. He was freed from all other duties and given his own office at Scotland Yard from which to co-ordinate inquiries. He was given permission to see all the paperwork, reports and documents relating to the investigation. His appointment to the case was one of the few actions taken by his close friend, Deputy Commissioner Robert Anderson, between his sudden appointment to head of the CID that morning and his equally sudden departure on leave to Switzerland later that afternoon.

  Swanson, however, was not familiar with Whitechapel at all, which is why Abberline was re-assigned back to H Division in order to co-ordinate operations on the ground. As a result, Abberline ended up doing most of the actual legwork on the case and became the officer most associated with the investigation in the mind of the public.

  Abberline relished being put in charge of such a case, for what he had at first perceived to be a sole murder case, was quickly turning into part of a series of murders, and particularly grizzly ones at that, which had caught both the public’s and the media’s imagination. What he didn’t know at this point, however, was that he would be reporting all his findings to Chief Inspector Donald Swanson. Not that there was anything strange in this, for it was completely normal police procedure for someone of Abberline’s rank to have to report to a senior officer. What did rankle him, however, was the fact that he hadn’t been told that it would be Swanson whom he would be working under. In all probability, Abberline assumed that he would be directly responsible to Deputy Commissioner Robert Anderson himself, and would not need to have to report his every move to someone he classed as just a ‘personal friend’ of the deputy commissioner.

  Abberline’s first day in his new office was Saturday 1 September, just a matter of hours after Polly Nichols had been found murdered; he did not have time to settle in, go through the few facts of the case or even organise his team. He instead had to rush straight off to the Whitechapel Working Lad’s Institute on Whitechapel Road, next to the present-day Whitechapel Underground Station, where the inquest into Nichols’ death was being opened. It was noted that Inspector Frederick Abberline attended on behalf of the CID, but after all the rush to get there, he found that the inquest had now been adjourned until Monday 3 September.

  Earlier that Saturday morning, Dr Llewellyn had conducted a post-mortem on the body of Polly Nichols, in which he concluded with the following:

  5 teeth missing; slight laceration on tongue; bruise on lower part of right jaw (possibly from a punch or thumb pressure); circular bruise on left side of face (possibly also from finger pressure); left side of neck, 1 inch below jaw, 4 inch incision starting immediately below the left ear; a second throat incision starting 1 inch below and 1 inch in front of the first, running 8 inches in a circular direction around the throat and stopping 3 inches below the right ear, completely severing all tissues down to the spine, including the large vessels of the neck on both sides; no blood found on breast of clothes or of body; on the lower part of abdomen, 2 to 3 inches from the left side ran a very deep, jagged wound, cutting the tissues through; several incisions ran across the abdomen; 3 or 4 similar cuts ran down the right side of the abdomen.

  The next morning, Sunday 2 September, Abberline had to break his promise to his wife Emma to accompany her to church. Needless to say, Emma wasn’t very happy with this, as they had always attended church together. This was his first full day at his new job, and already he was breaking promises to her. Abberline had no alternative but to attend a meeting with his new team at the Whitechapel office, where he was to instruct them to take witness statements while the facts were still fresh in their minds. Every hour that was allowed to lapse could lose them valuable time, possible evidence and, most certainly, momentum.

  From the little they had gleaned so far, the officers in Abberline’s team couldn’t see his reasoning on this. There were no actual witnesses to the crime, apart from a motley collection of people, neighbours and so on who happened to be on the streets during the hours that Polly Nichols was last seen alive, and the time she was found dead. Abberline was adamant on this, reasoning with them that if they could gain two pieces of identical evidence from the people who had been on the streets that night, they might just add up to one real piece of evidence that could lead to a conviction.

  The team obeyed Abberline’s instructions and gathered every scrap of information they could, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. They interviewed three men, Henry Tomkins, Charles Brittain and James Mumford, who all worked as slaughtermen at Barber’s Knacker’s Yard, Winthrop Street, approximately 150 yards from Buck’s Row. Tomkins, Brittain and Mumford left the slaughterhouse at midnight on the 31st, and walked to the end of the street together, none of them seeing anything suspicious at the time.

  At 12.30 a.m., an un-named witness said he saw Polly Nichols leaving the Frying Pan pub on the corner of Brick Lane and Thrawl Street, and said that she was alone at the time. Sometime later, although the exact time is unknown, PC Neil passed through Winthrop Street and saw, through an open doorway, Tomkins, Brittain and Mumford hard at work.

  At around 1.20 a.m., the house deputy at 18 Thrawl Street, which was the doss house where Polly had been staying, said that she had turned up asking for her room, but he had shown her out as she didn’t have any money to pay for it. He stated that she seemed somewhat drunk, or merry, as he put it, and just smiled at him as she left, saying, ‘Don’t you go worrying about me, I’ll soon get my doss money.’ Her departing shot to him was, ‘See what a jolly bonnet I’ve got now’, referring to her new hat.

  Sometime after that, probably around 2 a.m., a huge fire had broken out at Shadwell Dry Docks, and a local woman, Emily Holland, was returning from watching the fire when she stopped for a moment to shelter from the rain, outside a grocer’s shop on the corner of Whitechapel Road and Osborn Street. She heard someone cough behind her and turned to see Polly Nichols, whom she was acquainted with, standing in the doorway behind her. She said that she felt sorry for her as she looked very drunk holding on to the wall beside her. Holland told Nichols that it was very late and tried to persuade her to go home to her lodgings in Thrawl Street, but Polly seemed oblivious to what she was telling
her and just laughed, saying that she had her doss money several times that night but had drunk it away every time. She then proceeded to show Emily, her new bonnet, saying, in a very slurred voice, not to worry about her, that she would be alright. Polly Nichols then staggered as she pushed past Holland and started to walk away, along Whitechapel Road, in the direction of Buck’s Row. That was the last time Emily Holland would ever see Polly Nichols alive.

  Sometime between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m., Police Sergeant Kerby passed through Buck’s Row and reported all to be quiet. At about 3.30 a.m., Charles Andrew Cross left his home at 22 Doveton Street, Bethnal Green, and started to make his way to work at Pickfords’ depot in Broad Street, where he worked as a car-man, or cart driver. As he walked through Buck’s Row, Cross said he saw a bundle in front of the stable yard gateway. In the darkness he mistook the bundle for an old abandoned tarpaulin; it was only as he got closer and bent down to look at it that he saw it was the body of a woman.

  This is where another witness, Robert Paul, comes into the picture. Paul was on his way to his place of work at Corbett’s Court. As he cut through Buck’s Row, he saw the figure of a man, slightly bending down, looking at something on the ground in front of him. The figure was that of Charles Cross, who turned towards Paul as he heard his footsteps on the cobbles behind him, and called to him, saying, ‘Quick, come over here and look at this, there’s a woman lying here’.

  Polly Nichols was lying on her back with her skirts lifted almost to her waist. Cross lifted one of her hands and turned again to Paul, saying, ‘She’s stone cold’. He then turned to Paul, asking him to feel, but Paul declined. He disagreed as well when Cross said they shouldn’t leave the woman lying uncovered like she was, and that they should help to cover her up before anyone else saw her.

  Paul was very reticent about doing anything like that, and could hardly bear to look at the poor woman, let alone touch her. His immediate thoughts were that they should leave her where she was and go and search for a constable without delay. Cross agreed and the two men hurried away.

  Just minutes after Cross and Paul had left the scene in their quest to find a constable, another police officer, PC Neil, happened to enter Buck’s Row completely independently, and saw the bundle lying on the pavement. When he shone his lantern upon it he discovered it to be the body of Polly Nichols. In his report, which he wrote later, he described the scene as follows:

  The victim was lying lengthwise with her head turned towards the East; her left hand touched the gate; her bonnet was off her head, lying near her right hand; her skirts were rumpled just above her knees; her throat was severely cut; her eyes were wide open and glassy; blood had oozed from her throat wounds; her arms felt warm from the elbows up; her hands were open. The gateway was 9 feet. 10 inches in height and led to some stables; they were closed.

  Unlike today, there seemed to be an abundance of police officers on the ground, and within minutes of PC Neil discovering the body, he noticed another constable, PC Thain, further along the road. Neil signalled to him, showed him the body, and told him to ‘Run at once for Dr Llewellyn’.

  PC Thain did as he was told and immediately left to fetch Doctor Rees Ralph Llewellyn, who had his surgery at 152 Whitechapel Road, just 300 yards from Buck’s Row. While he was gone, PC Neil carried out a rudimentary search of the immediate area, apparently finding nothing of any significance.

  At roughly the same time, the two men, Cross and Paul, who had first discovered the body, had now found another constable, PC Jonas Mizen, who they informed about their grizzly find. Mizen thanked the men and dismissed them, telling them they should carry on their way to work now as their presence could hamper police procedures.

  When PC Mizen arrived at Brown’s Stable Yard, PC Neil sent him immediately for an ambulance and reinforcements from J Division, Bethnal Green, as the murder had occurred on their territory. About half an hour later, PC Mizen and another officer arrived back on the scene with the ‘ambulance’, which was not an ambulance as we know it today, but nothing more than a stretcher on wheels.

  By daybreak, the area was teaming with police officers as well as a scattering of nosy neighbours, and the inevitable members of the press, who seem to smell these things out from a radius of 10 miles or more. A very tired and not too happy Dr Llewellyn had also arrived at the scene (direct from his bed) and made a very cursory examination, which he concluded as follows:

  Severe injuries to the throat; her hands and wrists were cold, yet her body and legs were still warm; her chest and heart showed life to be extinct, estimating that she died no more than a half hour prior to the examination; very little blood around the neck; no marks of a struggle or of the body being dragged.

  One of the detectives from Bethnal Green, who also arrived on the scene, was Inspector Spratling, who immediately gave orders for the nearby premises of Essex Wharf, the Great Eastern Railway, East London Railway and the District Railway as far as Thomas Street to be thoroughly searched. While this was happening, a neighbour came out into the yard with a bucket of water and started washing the blood from the cobblestones. This was obviously not considered important at that time and he was left unchecked by anyone, to wash away the evidence.

  Inspector Spratling and PC Thain then went directly to the mortuary where Polly Nichols’ body was still lying on the ambulance in the yard. Spratling made notes of her description and what she was wearing. He then recalled Dr Llewellyn for a further examination. Dr Llewellyn’s second cursory examination was noted as follows:

  Throat cut from left to right with 2 distinct cuts being on the left side and with the windpipe, gullet, and spinal cord being cut through; a bruise, possibly from a thumb, on the lower right jaw with another on the left cheek; the abdomen had been cut open from centre of the bottom ribs along the right side; under the pelvis, left of the stomach, was another wound – jagged; the omentum (One of the folds of the peritoneum that connect the stomach with other abdominal organs) was cut in several places; 2 small stabs on the privy parts; the knife used seemed to have been strong-bladed; death almost instantaneous.

  This, then, was the ‘evidence’ that Inspector Abberline was presented with: the body of a prostitute, obviously murdered; a number of witnesses as to where and when the body had been found; and detailed notes of the injuries sustained by the victim, where she was seen directly prior to being murdered and details of what she was wearing. All undoubtedly very important pieces of evidence, but a major piece was missing: was it that there was not one clue or sighting of anyone who could have possibly been the killer? Normally in murder cases, especially where neighbours pop up as witnesses, there is at least one or two names that crop up as possible suspects, but in Polly Nichols’ case, as yet, there was no one!

  Inspector Abberline attended the second and third days of the Polly Nichols inquest, which were held on 2/3 September respectively, and which, to be perfectly honest, were not exactly illuminating. A number of witnesses were called, including Inspector Spratling, Inspector Helson, PC Mizen, Charles Cross, Dr Llewellyn, PC Thain, plus a number of local people, all of whose statements Abberline had already read, and knew, by this time, almost by heart.

  There was one other witness whom he had not heard of at this point, and that was a woman named Mary Ann Monk, who was a former inmate of the Lambeth Workhouse, where she had met Nichols some time previously. She also claimed to have last seen her, recently, in a pub on the New Kent Road, where they drank together. Mary Ann Monk was the first person to positively identify Nichols’ body in the mortuary at 7.30 p.m., 31 August 1888.

  The third day of the inquest was adjourned until Monday 17 September, to allow for Nichols’ funeral, which was held on 6 September. The final day of the inquest was held on Saturday 22 September, when the coroner summed the case up with a verdict of ‘Willful murder committed by some person or persons unknown’.

  5

  Leather Apron

  B y the time the inquest into Polly Nichols’ death had concluded, In
spector Abberline was finding himself becoming deeply involved in what at first he presumed to be a singular murder case. This had quickly escalated into a triple-murder scenario, and had now turned into what the papers were describing as an ongoing series of murders, which today we would describe as serial killings. For during the early hours of Saturday 8 September 1888, yet another grizzly murder had taken place, which was that of Annie Chapman, who also worked as a prostitute in the Spitalfields area.

  The local team of officers from Bethnal Green, led by Detective Inspector John Spratling, had no success whatsoever, and to make matters worse, the local press were attributing the Nichols murder, and the two previous murders of Emma Elizabeth Smith and Martha Tabram, to a local gang. The Star newspaper, however, took up a completely different line and suggested a single killer was the culprit of all three murders. This in turn led to other newspapers taking up the storyline, with headlines such as ‘Maniac Killer at large’, and this was before the discovery of Annie Chapman’s body.

  Abberline found the pressure on him starting to grow; the press was demanding action. They wanted to know why a high-ranking police officer such as him had not come up with one single suspect, after being involved in the case for over three weeks (this was at the time of the Polly Nichols inquest). As the press and the public became more anxious, so too did Abberline’s boss at Scotland Yard, Chief Inspector Donald Swanson. What exactly did they expect Abberline to do? Abberline explained to Swanson that he was doing everything possible, including house-to-house searches and questioning literally dozens of witnesses, and possible suspects, all of whom were eventually eliminated from their inquiries after a few days at the most.