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11/22/2005
Mary Kelly, part2
Things were starting to get back to normal in Whitechapel. There had been no murder for a month and the streetwalkers again began to ply their trade in force. One such woman was a good-looking young Irish girl by the name of Mary Kelly. Police officer Walter Dew knew her by sight. "She was usually in the company of two or three of her kind, fairly neatly dressed and invariably wearing a clean white apron, but no hat."
Mary had a lot on her mind at the beginning of November. She was several weeks behind in her rent and her lover, Joe Barnett, was unemployed. She rented a first floor room in Miller's Court in the back of Dorset Street.
She was born in Limerick and had lived in Wales. When she was 21 years old, she came to London and worked in a brothel. One of her clients was sufficiently taken by her to have her accompany him to France, but the relationship did not work out and she returned a couple of weeks later. Being an attractive woman, her various lovers supported her so that she did not have to live solely by prostitution.
In 1887 she met Joe Barnett, a respectable market porter, and lived with him at various locations. Every once and awhile, they would drink up the rent money and get evicted. Finally they ended up at 13 Miller's Court. Mary did not have many relationships and the one she had with Joe was a solid one. They lived together until they had an argument and he moved out. Since he did not have any work, she had been forced to return to prostitution to survive.
The cause of the argument was Mary's generosity in allowing a homeless prostitute to stay with them at Miller's Court and Mary's returning to prostitution to earn money. But this was more of a lover's spat than a break-up because they got together Thursday night, November 8, and he apologized for not having any money to give her.
People described her as "tall and pretty, and as fair as a lily, a very pleasant girl who seemed to be on good terms with everybody." One of her acquaintances said she was abusive when drunk, but "one of the most decent and nicest girls you could meet when she was sober." Another acquaintance said Mary was "5 feet 7 inches in height, and of rather stout build, with blue eyes and a very fine head of hair, which reached nearly to her waist."
Friday, November 9, 1888 was the day for the Lord Mayor's Show. This was a major festive event in the city. On that day he would be sworn into office in a style befitting a prince. Like many Londoners, Mary was planning on seeing this spectacle.
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11/19/2005
Mary Kelly
The fear that swept the East End after the "Double Event" was much intensified over the level of anxiety from the Chapman murder. Predictably for a week or so after the news got out, the streets of Whitechapel were virtually deserted after dark. Many of the prostitutes stayed off the street for as long as they could, living at various shelters and staying with family or friends.
It wasn't just the flesh trade that suffered. Londoners were avoiding that area for any kind of commerce and shopping. Trade had fallen off sharply as people from other areas were afraid to set foot in Whitechapel.
Oddly enough, the streets were, in general, safer than they had been before since everyone was in a heightened state of alert and many more forces were patrolling the streets. There was an influx of both uniformed and plainclothes police walking the streets, particularly during the night and early morning. Plus the Mile End Vigilance Committee paid men, equipped with a police whistle and thick stick, to patrol the streets for several hours after midnight.
Since there were no women on the police force during those days, at least one policeman dressed up as a prostitute and acted as a decoy. Of course, it didn't work and the poor man was rewarded with a lot of snide comments from the locals.
Police visited the common lodging houses, interviewing over 2,000 lodgers. Some 80,000 handbills were printed up and distributed in the neighborhood:
POLICE NOTICE
TO THE OCCUPIER
On the morning of Friday, 31st August, Saturday 8th, and Sunday, 30th September, 1888, Women were murdered in or near Whitechapel, supposed by some one residing in the immediate neighborhood. Should you know of any person to whom suspicion is attached, you are earnestly requested to communicate at once with the nearest Police Station, Metropolitan Police Office, 30th September, 1888.
Special investigative work was done for several occupations. Some 76 butchers and slaughterers were interrogated about their operations and employees. Sailors working on the Thames River boats were also questioned. With the blessing of Sir Charles Warren, a group of bloodhounds were trained and deployed to the area. However, there was always some doubt that with the large number of people living in Whitechapel that a dog would be able to follow a single scent, particularly without an article of clothing from the killer. At the end of October, the experiment was abandoned.
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11/17/2005
Ripper Letters: Genuine or Hoax?, Concludes
The editor treated the letter as a hoax and did not send it to the police for a couple of days. The night after the police finally received the letter, Liz Stride and Kate Eddowes were murdered. On Monday morning following the murders, the Central News Agency received another letter postmarked October 1 in the same handwriting as the September 25 letter:
I wasn't 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 couldn't 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
Police circulated the letters around and placed facsimiles of them outside every police station in case someone recognized the handwriting. Nothing came of this effort except a number of crank letters.
The third important letter was sent October 16 to George Lusk who was the head of the Mile End Vigilance Committee. This time the letter was sent with a portion of a human kidney. Lusk was extremely upset. One of the other committee members felt sure that it was an animal organ preserved in wine, so they took the kidney to Dr. Thomas Openshaw at the London Hospital to examine. Much was published on what Dr. Openshaw allegedly said about the kidney, which he repudiated later. All that can be certain of what Dr. Openshaw really established was that it was a human adult kidney, which was preserved in spirits rather than in formalin, such as what was used in hospitals for specimens.
The letter that accompanied the kidney was not written by the author of the two earlier letters signed Jack the Ripper.
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
Are any of these three letters from the real murderer? Philip Sugden presents the case against the first two letters, which are signed Jack the Ripper, being genuine even though they appear to present information that only the killer might know.
First, the claim that he will send the police the victim's ears. This was never done. While it is true that Kate Eddowes' one ear lobe was severed, the killer had plenty of time, as evidenced by his extensive mutilations of her body, to cut off both her ears and send them to the police.
Secondly, the forecast of the double event has been promoted as a reason to accept the letters as genuine. However, the letter whether it was posted from the Eastern District on Sunday night September 31 or Monday October 1 was written when the entire Eastern region of the city was abuzz about the double murder. It was well known on the streets all of Sunday. So there was nothing forecast whatsoever.
Thirdly, the claim that Liz Stride squealed a bit is not proven. Only one of several witnesses heard a woman cry out. Most witnesses heard nothing at all that night.
Sir Charles Warren who headed up the London police shared this view. So do his modern day counterparts, John Douglas and Mark Olshaker, "It's too organized, too indicative of intelligence and rationale thought, and far too 'cutesy.' An offender of this type would never think of his actions as 'funny little games' or say that his 'knife's so nice and sharp.'"
The Lusk letter is more difficult to assess. Dr. Openshaw indicated that the kidney belonged to a person suffering from Bright's Disease which, according to testimony given by Dr. Brown, the police surgeon, apparently afflicted Kate Eddowes. The possibility remains that the letter is genuine and the kidney was the victim's, but there is no way to prove it today.
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11/14/2005
Ripper Letters: Genuine or Hoax?
Hundreds of letters allegedly from the murderer were sent to the police, news agencies and individuals associated with solving the crimes. Only three of these letters have provided lasting food for Ripper scholars. Two, in particular, which are written by the same individual, actually gave rise to the name "Jack the Ripper." Before that time, the name had not been coined.
The following letter, written in red ink, gave the notorious murderer his name. It was received by Central News on September 27, 1888 and was addressed to The Boss, Central News Office.
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 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 lady's 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
Don't mind me giving the trade name
Then on the same letter, written horizontally was the following message:
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
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11/08/2005
Catharine Eddowes, concludes
Several other cuts were sustained on the face, plus the right ear lobe had been completely severed and had fallen from her clothing when she was taken to the morgue.
An important witness surfaced -- Joseph Lawende who left the Imperial Club with two friends at about 1:35 a.m. The men saw a couple conversing at Church Passage near Mitre Square. Lawende described the young man as dressed in a dark jacket, wearing a deerstalker's hat. The man was young, medium height and with a small, fair-colored moustache. He did not see the woman's face, but identified Kate's clothing. Nine minutes after this sighting, Kate Eddowes was murdered.
What about the chalk writing found over an hour later on Goulston Street under which lay a portion of Kate's bloody apron? "The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing."
Philip Sugden discusses three feasible interpretations of this message. First is that the message was not written by the murderer and just happened to be where the killer dropped or placed the bloody piece of apron.
A second possible interpretation offered by Walter Dew, a Whitechapel police officer in 1888, is that the message represents "the defiant gesture of a deranged Jew, euphoric from the bloody 'triumphs' in Dutfield's Yard and Mitre Square." One of the many problems with this interpretation is that, according to the Acting Chief Rabbi Hermann Adler, " I do not know any dialect or language in which 'Jews' is spelled 'Juwes.'"
The third possible interpretation was that the message was "a deliberate subterfuge designed to incriminate the Jews and throw the police off the track of the real murderer." This third interpretation was much favored by Scotland Yard and the Jewish community.
Whoever the author of the message was, it yielded very little in the way of identifying its writer. The belief of some authors that the word "Juwes" is a Masonic term is disputable. "It is a mystery why anyone ever thought that 'Juwes' was a Masonic word," wrote Paul Begg, an expert on the Ripper murders.
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11/05/2005
Catharine Eddowes
The woman murdered in Mitre Square was easier for the police to identify since she had some pawn tickets on her that, when publicized, brought forward John Kelly, the man she had been living with for seven years at a lodging house at 55 Flower and Dean Street.
Catharine Eddowes, called Kate by all that knew her, was a very friendly and happy woman known for her good spirits and singing. She, like the other victims, had a periodic drinking problem, which led to quarrels with her companions and family.
Kate was born in 1842. Her parents died when she was young and the household was dispersed. When she was 16, she fell in love with Thomas Conway and went to live with him as his common-law wife. They lived together some 20 years and produced three children. Conway's physical abuse and Kate's drinking caused the couple to break up in 1880. The next year she met John Kelly and remained his lover for the rest of her life. Her friends were adamant that Kate was not a prostitute, but there is some reason to believe that she did occasionally prostitute herself, perhaps when under the influence of alcohol.
The evening before her death, Kate told Kelly she was going to visit her daughter to borrow some money. Kelly warned her about the Whitechapel killer and told her to come back early. "Don't you fear for me. I'll take care of myself and I shan't fall into his hands," she reassured him.
Kate never got to her daughter's house, but she did find some money - enough to get stinking drunk and land in the jail at the Bishopsgate Street Police Station. She slept off her over indulgence until 12:30 a.m., when she asked to be allowed to go. Shortly afterwards, Constable Hutt let her go. She asked him what time it was and he told her it was just about one o'clock.
"I shall get a damned fine hiding when I get home then," she told him.
"And serve you right," Hutt told her. "You have no right to get drunk."
Mitre Square was a mere eight-minute walk away.
As in the deaths of Polly Nichols and Annie Chapman, Kate's throat had been deeply slashed from left to right and the resulting wound was the cause of death. According to Dr. Brown's testimony, "the abdomen had been laid open from the breast bone to the pubes ...The intestines had been detached to a large extent ...(and) about two feet of the colon was cut away...The peritoneal lining was cut through and the left kidney carefully taken out and removed. The left renal artery was cut through. I should say that someone who knew the position of the kidney must have done it...The womb was cut through horizontally, leaving a stump of ¾ of an inch. The rest of the womb had been taken away with some of the ligaments. The vagina and cervix of the womb was uninjured.
"The face was very much mutilated. There was a cut about ¼ of an inch through the lower left eyelid dividing the structures. The right eyelid was cut through to about ½ inch. There was a deep cut over the bridge of the nose extending from the left border of the nasal bone down near to the angle of the jaw of the right side. The tip of the nose was quite detached from the nose."
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11/03/2005
Elizabeth Stride, concludes
Another important witness was Israel Schwartz who gave this story to Inspector Swanson:
At 12:45 a.m. Israel Schwartz of 22 Helen Street...saw a man stop and speak to a woman, who was standing in the gateway. The man tried to pull the woman into the street, but he turned her round & threw her down on the footway & the woman screamed three times, but not very loudly. On crossing to the opposite side of the street, he saw a second man standing lighting his pipe. The man who threw the woman down called out apparently to the man on the opposite side of the road 'Lipski' & then Schwartz walked away, but finding that he was followed by the second man he ran as far as the railway arch but the man did not follow so far...
Schwartz identified the body as that of the woman he had seen and thus describes the first man who threw the woman down: age about 30, height five feet 5 in., complexion fair, hair dark, small brown moustache, full face, broad shouldered; dress, dark jacket and trousers, black cap with peak, had nothing in his hands.
Second man, age 35, height 5 feet 11 inches, complexion fresh, hair light brown, moustache brown; dress, dark overcoat, old black hard felt hat wide brim, had a clay pipe in his hand.
Police took the evidence of Constable Smith and Israel Schwartz very seriously. Two other important witnesses surfaced. William Marshall lived at 64 Berner Street and had been standing near the site of the murder about 11:45 p.m., approximately an hour and a quarter before the event occurred. He identified Liz as talking to a man who he described as middle-aged, wearing a round cap with a small peak, "like what a sailor would wear," about five ft. 6 inches tall, rather stout, dressed like a clerk, and speaking like an educated man. He was not able to get a look at the man's face. While Marshall's description of the man with Liz is similar to Smith's and Schwartz's, Liz could have been talking to someone entirely different than her killer an hour and a quarter before the murder
James Brown came forward with another sighting of Liz that night at 12:45 a.m., minutes before her death. When he reached the intersection of Berner and Fairclough Streets, he saw Liz talking to a man. He overheard her say, "Not tonight, some other night." The man he described was about 5 feet 7 and wearing a very long dark overcoat. Brown's timing is open to question since he was estimating rather than looking at any clock.
The descriptions of the man talking to Liz Stride given by Smith, Marshall and Schwartz may refer to the same man. Unfortunately, it did not help the police find this suspect.
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