Henry Smith openly admitted that he didn’t have a clue as to who the murderer was. Donald Sutherland Swanson seemed to play a middle-of-the-road card, by not actually saying if he thought Kosminski was guilty or not, only that he was the suspect Sir Robert Anderson was writing about. Melville Leslie Macnaghten professes not to know one way or the other, as does John George Littlechild.
Sir Robert Anderson was the only officer involved in the Ripper case to state that the Ripper’s identity was known beyond any doubt. Every other officer talks of ‘a very likely suspect’ or ‘someone they had good reason to suspect’. None of them claim, like Anderson did, that the killer’s identity was definitely known.
Donald Sutherland Swanson was almost certainly correct in his assumption that Anderson was writing about Kosminski. Macnaghten mentioned Kosminski along with two other suspects, Ostrog and Druitt. Robert Sagar wrote about somebody with a name that sounded very much like Kosminski.
Inspector Abberline, of course, named one suspect and one only, and that was Severin Klosowski (Chapman), whom he firmly believed to be the killer; but could Abberline, in naming Severin Klosowski, have been referring to the same person as Anderson and Sagar had also named? In other words, a suspect with the same sounding name, beginning with ‘K’ and ending in ‘ski’.
It is very difficult to ascertain a general consensus of opinion among the police officers and their superiors of the day, as so many of their opinions were diverse in a number of areas. There does seem to be, however, one aspect of the case in which they all agreed upon, and that was a general belief that a Polish Jew was in all probability the killer. The general consensus was therefore that, according to the vast number of witness statements, their suspicions were based upon reasonable grounds.
There can be no denying that they were entitled to their suspicions, but as we all now know, these suspicions never accounted for a conviction in this case.
18
Victims
W e know of the five women who were brutally murdered in what became known as the Jack the Ripper murders, but there were six other victims as well, who were also brutally murdered in the same manner, who even to this day some say were victims of the Ripper as well. This is a list of all eleven women, in chronological order, who were murdered during the period known as the Whitechapel murders.
EMMA SMITH
Prostitute Emma Elizabeth Smith was assaulted and robbed at the junction of Osborn Street and Brick Lane, Whitechapel, in the early hours of the morning on Tuesday 3 April 1888. She had been severely injured and possibly left for dead by her attackers, but she somehow managed to survive the attack and walk back to her lodging house at 18 George Street, Spitalfields. She told the deputy keeper, Mary Russell, that she had been attacked by three youngish men. Mrs Russell took Smith to the London Hospital, where medical examination revealed that a blunt object had been inserted into her vagina, rupturing her peritoneum. She developed peritonitis and her wounds were unfortunately too severe for her to survive, and she died four days later, having never regained consciousness.
The local inspector of the Metropolitan Police, Edmund Reid of H Division (Whitechapel), investigated the attack, but the culprits were never caught. Detective Constable Walter Dew, stationed with H Division, later wrote that he thought Smith was the first victim of Jack the Ripper, but his colleagues didn’t agree with him, saying that it was the work of a criminal gang. Emma Elizabeth Smith failed to describe her attackers; this was either because of her poor condition at the time or because she was scared of recriminations. There were known gangs around at the time, who lived off the earnings of the prostitutes, and this particular group could well have been one such gang, who had decided to punish Smith for maybe not paying them or disobeying them in some way. It is widely accepted that Smith’s murder was unlikely to be connected with the Ripper killings.
MARTHA TABRAM
On Tuesday 7 August 1888, a second prostitute, Martha Tabram, was murdered at about 2.30 a.m. Her body was found in a stairwell at George Yard Buildings, George Yard, Whitechapel. She had been stabbed thirty-nine times with a short-bladed weapon. On the basis of statements from a fellow prostitute, and PC Thomas Barrett who was patrolling nearby, Inspector Reid put soldiers at the Tower of London and Wellington Barracks on an identification parade, but without positive results. The police did not connect the murder with Smith’s, but they did connect her death with the later murders. Most experts today do not connect this murder with the other killings, as Tabram was stabbed whereas the later victims were slashed; but a connection cannot be ruled out.
The following five women have already been extensively covered in this book, and are recognised as victims of Jack the Ripper:
Mary Ann Nichols 31 August 1888
Annie Chapman 8 September 1888
Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes 30 September 1888
Mary Kelly 9 November 1888
The final four women on our list have never been accepted widely as Ripper victims. They are, nevertheless, still classed as victims of the Whitechapel murders.
ROSE MYLETT
The body of 29-year-old prostitute Rose Mylett (also known as Catherine Millett and Lizzie Davis) was discovered by a police officer on Thursday 20 December 1888, in Clarke’s Yard, just off Poplar High Street, East London; she had been strangled.
Rose Mylett had lodged at 18 George Street, which was the same lodging house that Emma Smith, our first victim, had lodged in. A total of four doctors examined the body of Rose Mylett, and all agreed that she had been murdered. Sir Robert Anderson, on the other hand, thought she had accidentally hanged herself on the collar of her dress while in a drunken stupor. Anderson had no specific medical knowledge, as he was trained in law, so why his reasoning on this should have even been considered is beyond comprehension. Anderson requested another doctor, Dr Bond, to give his verdict on the case, which he did, agreeing with Anderson. Wynne Baxter, the coroner in the case, told the inquest jury: ‘There is no evidence to show that death was the result of violence.’ The jury nevertheless returned a verdict of ‘wilful murder by some person or persons unknown’ and the case was added to the Whitechapel file.
ALICE MCKENZIE
At around 12.40 a.m. on Wednesday 17 July 1889, Alice McKenzie was found murdered in Castle Alley, Whitechapel. Her left carotid artery was severed from left to right and there were wounds on her abdomen. It is not known for certain, but McKenzie was thought to be a prostitute, as all the Ripper victims had been.
Her injuries were very similar to those of the Ripper victims, apart from the fact that they were not as deep as in the earlier murders, and a shorter blade had been used. Police Commissioner James Monro was adamant that McKenzie was a victim of Jack the Ripper, as too was one of the pathologists who examined the body. Sir Robert Anderson disagreed with this, as did Inspector Abberline and another of the pathologists.
Throughout the years there has been much conjecture on this murder; some state that it was definitely a Ripper murder, and others say that the unknown murderer tried to make it look like a Ripper killing to deflect suspicion from himself. At the inquest, Coroner Wynne Edwin Baxter acknowledged both possibilities, and concluded: ‘There is great similarity between this and the other class of cases, which have happened in this neighbourhood, and if the same person has not committed this crime, it is clearly an imitation of the other cases.’
PINCHIN STREET TORSO
At 5.15 a.m. on Tuesday 10 September 1889, the grisly remains of a woman’s torso were discovered by PC William Pennett, under a railway arch in Pinchin Street, Whitechapel. PC Pennett was first alerted to a horrible stench that was emanating from what he thought was a package of some type, covered over with an old chemise. What he saw when he removed the covering made him reel back in horror, for the headless and legless body was already in an advanced state of decomposition.
An immediate search of the area was organised, but no other body parts were found, and neither the victim nor the
culprit were ever identified. The pathologists noted that the general lack of blood of the tissues and vessels indicated that haemorrhage was the cause of death. Newspapers vied with each other to be the first to publish the victim’s identity. The first name to be exposed was Lydia Hart, who had disappeared some days earlier. This was refuted, however, when she was found recovering in hospital after what she described as ‘a bit of a spree’. Another claim that the victim was a missing girl called Emily Barker was also refuted, as the torso was from an older and considerably taller woman. The age of the victim was estimated to be between 30 and 40 years old.
Donald Sutherland Swanson did not consider this to be a Ripper case. He suggested it could possibly be linked to similar dismembered body cases in Rainham and Chelsea, as well as the ‘Whitehall Mystery’. The case that became known as the Whitehall Mystery took place on 2 October 1888, during construction of Scotland Yard’s new headquarters on the Victoria Embankment near Whitehall, Westminster. A worker found a parcel in part of the old cellar which contained a female torso. It had been placed there at some point between 29 September, when one of the workmen had last been inside the unlocked vault, and 2 October, when it was discovered. The body had been wrapped in cloth, possibly a black petticoat, and tied with string.
There was indeed much similarity in the two cases, and James Monro agreed with Swanson’s assessment. These three murders and the Pinchin Street case were suggested by both men to be the work of a serial killer, nicknamed the ‘Torso Killer’, who was thought to be either Jack the Ripper himself or a separate killer of similar persuasions. Most Ripper experts today discount any connection between the Torso and Ripper killings on the basis of their different modus operandi.
FRANCES COLES
Friday the 13th has always been associated with bad luck in one way or another. In prostitute Frances Coles’ case it was very bad luck indeed, for it was on this date in February 1891 that her body was found at Swallow Gardens, a passageway under a railway arch between Chamber Street and Royal Mint Street, Whitechapel.
Her body was found by PC Ernest Thompson only moments after the attack at 2.15 a.m. She had minor wounds on the back of her head, suggesting that she had been thrown violently to the ground before her throat was cut at least twice, from left to right and then back again. There were no mutilations to her body, but this could have been due to the fact that the killer was disturbed by PC Thompson before he could complete his work.
Superintendent Arnold and Inspector Reid arrived soon afterwards from Leman Street police station, which was very close to the murder scene. Chief Inspectors Donald Swanson and Henry Moore, who had been involved in the previous murder investigations, arrived by 5 a.m. Investigation into this case started immediately, and within hours the police had the name of a suspect who had been seen with Coles earlier that night. The man was James Sadler, who was tracked down and arrested by the police and charged with her murder.
Swanson and Moore proceeded with a high-profile investigation into Sadler’s past history and his whereabouts at the time of the previous Whitechapel murders. After two weeks of non-stop intensive police work, on 3 March Sadler was released due to lack of evidence.
This was the last case in the series of murders which became known as the Whitechapel murders.
19
An Inspector Calls
I n February 1889 Inspector Abberline was called upon again, this time by the Dundee Police to investigate the case of William Henry Bury.
It seems that Bury had walked into the Dundee police station and claimed that his wife had been murdered by a burglar. When the police went to his basement flat, he showed them her body, which, according to Bury, had been placed in a trunk by the burglar, but not before she had been strangled and mutilated, with her abdomen sliced open and intestines removed.
The Dundee Police were naturally very suspicious and thought the crime was so similar to the Whitechapel murders that there was every possibility Bury might just be Jack the Ripper. They made a quick call to Scotland Yard and asked if they had any information on this man. Scotland Yard took their enquiry very seriously and immediately drafted Inspector Abberline onto the case. Abberline set forth for Dundee and interviewed Bury without delay. After listening to his side of the story for a very short while, Abberline came to the conclusion that Bury was what he described as ‘demented’.
As Abberline delved deeper into Bury’s background, facts started to appear, which reiterated his belief that Bury was demented, to say the least.
William Henry Bury was born on 25 May 1859 in Stourbridge, Worcestershire. He came from an ordinary working-class family, his father being a fishmonger. Bury had a normal schooling without any problems, and by the age of 14 went to work in a local horse butcher’s shop. The wages and the small town way of life, however, didn’t appeal to Bury, and he soon moved to a nearby town. It was, however, London that he had heard so much of and wanted to go to, so in November 1887, at the age of 28 he finally packed his bags and moved to Whitechapel, where he had been told his skills with a knife would pay him handsome dividends.
Whitechapel, however, wasn’t quite the place he thought it would be, and most butcher’s shops were run and staffed by either Jewish or Polish immigrants. Bury would have to bide his time before he could put his skills with the knife to good use.
It didn’t take long for Bury’s meagre savings to run out, and so when he was offered a job as a sawdust collector by a man named James Martin, whom he had met in a pub, Bury jumped at the chance, especially as Martin had also offered him a room in his house in Quickset Street.
What Martin had failed to tell Bury was that he also ran a brothel at his house, employing several prostitutes. When Bury found this out, far from fazing him, he quite liked the idea, and within a few weeks he had befriended Ellen Elliot, one of the prostitutes. As unlikely a liaison as it might have seemed, the couple were soon married and moved out of the brothel and into their own lodgings, courtesy of a small inheritance from Ellen’s parents.
Ellen was happy for the first few weeks of her marriage, thinking that her squalid life was now behind her and she could settle into a new life of domestic bliss. This, however, was not to happen, for she soon found out that Bury was a drunkard and a thief. What little money she did have, Bury soon stole and used it on alcohol and prostitutes. In February 1888 Bury accosted 38-year-old Annie Millwood, in Spitalfields, and asked her to have sex with him, but when she asked him for money, which he didn’t have, he suddenly became very violent and attacked her with a knife. Bury slashed at Annie Millwood’s legs and genitals, and it was a miracle that she survived. By the time the police arrived on the scene, Bury had long gone, and it wasn’t until much later that she identified him as the man that had attacked her that night.
A few weeks later, on 28 March, a penniless Bury went out looking for someone to rob. He had heard that Ada Wilson, an elderly seamstress who lived nearby, was supposed to have a hidden stash of money at her house. Bury forced his way into Ada Wilson’s home, attacked her, and forced her to hand her money over to him. The money, however, was nothing like as much as he had expected, and in a mad rage he then stabbed her twice in the throat. Fortunately for her, as with his first victim, she survived and gave the police a good description of him.
Bury’s wife, meanwhile, was going through quite a disturbing period, for not only was her husband staying out until the early hours of the morning, she had also heard that he was stealing and still going with prostitutes; if that wasn’t bad enough, she then discovered that he was sleeping with a knife under his pillow. On the night of 7 April, he came home drunk as usual, and when she tried to remonstrate with him, he took the knife out of his pocket and attempted to cut her throat. Luckily for her, he was so drunk that she managed to fight him off.
Despite this attack on his wife, and the attacks on the other women, Bury still somehow managed to evade arrest. He was still having sex with prostitutes and had now contracted syphilis, which in turn h
e had passed on to his wife Ellen.
Whether it was the syphilis that was now affecting his mind, or whether it was his madness getting worse, he was becoming more violent and unpredictable by the day. On 20 December 1888, Bury approached Rose Mylett, who was yet another prostitute, and after being turned down by her – which he saw as a huge insult to him – he strangled her and left her body in Clarke’s Yard.
Bury thought that someone had seen him commit this murder, and he was also aware that the police were looking for someone of his description in regard to the other attacks on prostitutes. He realised that he had to get as far away from London’s East End as he could, before the police put two and two together and arrested him. He told his wife that he had been offered a job in Dundee, and had to move there immediately. For some reason, which seems incomprehensible, Ellen decided to go with him, even though she knew he was a liar and a thief, and had tried to slit her throat.
In January 1889, Bury and his wife travelled to Dundee on the London packet steamer Cambria. Just a couple of weeks later, on 5 February, Bury strangled Ellen in their basement flat in the city. He then mutilated her body, slicing open her abdomen and removing her intestines. He then placed her body in a trunk.
This is when Bury decided to go to the police and make up his preposterous story about the burglar breaking in and murdering his wife. This was also when the Dundee Police decided to call Inspector Abberline in.
Abberline was astounded by the facts that Bury related to him, and began to believe that he might indeed be the elusive Jack the Ripper. Abberline obviously had a better method of coaxing information out of suspects than the Dundee Police did, for not only had Bury admitted to attacking women in London, but he also changed his story regarding his wife and her death in Dundee.
Abberline: The Man Who Hunted Jack the Ripper Page 23