Jack the Ripper

Identification would not be easy. All she had on her was a comb, broken mirror and a handkerchief. The Lambeth Workhouse mark was on her petticoats. There were no identifying marks on her other inexpensive and well-worn clothes. She had a black straw hat with black velvet trim.

The woman was approximately five feet two inches tall with brown graying hair, brown eyes and several missing front teeth.

But later, as news of the murder spread around Whitechapel, the police learned of a woman named "Polly," who lived in a lodging house at 18 Thrawl Street. Eventually a woman from the Lambeth Workhouse identified her as Mary Ann Nichols, age 42. The next day her father and her husband identified her body.

Polly had been the daughter of a locksmith and married William Nichols, a printer's machinist. They had five children. Her drinking had caused their marriage to break up. For the most part, Polly had been living off her meager earnings as a prostitute. She still had a very serious drinking problem. Every once in awhile, she would try to get her life back together, but it never worked out. She was a sad, destitute woman, but one that most people liked and pitied.

The inspector in charge of the investigation was a police veteran named Frederick George Abberline who had been on the force 25 years, most of which had been spent in the Whitechapel area.

The murderer of Polly Nichols left nothing behind in the way of witnesses, weapon or any other type of clue. None of the residents nearby heard any kind of disturbance nor did any of the workmen in the area notice anything unusual. Even though Polly had been found very shortly after her death, no vehicle or person was seen escaping the scene of the crime. At one point, suspicion focused upon three horse slaughterers who worked nearby, but it was proven that they were working while the murder occurred.

At the time of Polly Nichols' death, the inhabitants of London's Whitechapel area had already heard about a number of attacks on women in that neighborhood. Whether or not one or more of these attacks was perpetrated by the man who later became known as Jack the Ripper is controversial. However, in the minds of the people of Whitechapel, most of these crimes were linked indisputably.

On Monday, August 6, 1888, several weeks before Polly Nichols' murder, Martha Tabram, a 39-year-old prostitute, was found murdered in George Yard. The time of death was estimated to be 2:30 a.m. She had been stabbed 39 times on "body, neck and private parts with a knife or dagger," according to Dr. Timothy Killeen's post-mortem examination report. There was no indication that the throat had been slashed or her abdomen extensively mutilated. With the exception of one wound that had been delivered with a strong knife with a long blade, such as a dagger or bayonet, many other wounds had been inflicted with a penknife.

According to another prostitute, Mary Ann Connelly, known as Pearly Poll, she and Martha had been together in the company of two soldiers until a few hours before Martha was killed. The police took Poll to check out the soldiers at the Tower garrison, but the soldiers she identified were cleared of the crime. A constable who had been on duty in the vicinity of George Yard also saw a soldier in that area around the time of Martha's death, but this soldier was never properly identified.

Some months earlier, Emma Smith, a 45-year-old prostitute, was attacked on April 2, 1888 at seven o'clock in the evening within 100 yards of where Martha Tabram was found. Her head and face were badly injured and a blunt instrument had been rammed into her vagina. She told the woman at her lodging house that several men robbed and assaulted her.

While these incidences of violence so close together in Whitechapel were linked so firmly in the minds of their neighbors, the crimes themselves were very different. Tabram was probably murdered by one individual, while several men assaulted Smith. Robbery was clearly the motive of the Smith assault, but not the murder of Tabram. The nature of the wounds inflicted was quite different. Thus, it is not likely that the same assailant was responsible for both crimes. Only the Tabram murder bears any similarity to the work of the man eventually known as Jack the Ripper.