30-31 August 1888.

As Thursday turned into Friday the dark storm clouds rumbled overhead as lightning danced among them. It was one of the coldest summers on record and showed a glimpse of the bitter winter that was to come. Yet the cold was soon to be the farthest thing from the minds of the local residents. A killer was about to grant Whitechapel an infamous place in the international stage             

By the end of August 1888 there had been several vicious murders in the district. Assaults on prostitutes, such as the stabbing assaults on Annie Milwood in February and Ada Wilson in March, were becoming more brutal. With each ensuing case the media took more notice. When prostitutes were being brutally murdered the press were keen to give each case more and more space in the headlines. Every news article poured over the details, outlining each wound and injury inflicted on the unfortunate victims. Lines such as

‘The man at once drew from his pocket a clasp knife, with which he stabbed her twice in the throat’ [1]

‘Her face was bleeding…the deceased was admitted suffering from severe injuries…caused by some blunt instrument…She had a ruptured perineum of very recent date, and also some bruises on her head. Her right ear was torn and bleeding…’ [2]

‘The deceased was bleeding from the head and ear, and had other injuries of a revolting nature. Witness found that she was suffering from rupture of the peritoneum, which had been perforated by some blunt instrument used with great force.’ [3]

Was it possible that the news articles, which reproduced in their entirety the most intricate details of the victim’s injuries and murders, became food for thought for Jack the Ripper, a would-be killer whose fantasies about murder and violence would finally spill over into reality? Was it possible that the Ripper read about the murders of the other prostitutes and decided he could do better? Or was it possible that the other victims were also his and that he believed he deserved more publicity? Perhaps the fact that the killers of the other victims were never found proved too tempting for the would-be murderer. Was it possible for him to commit the perfect crime?

Examining the murders leading up to the Ripper murders might show us what compelled Jack to inflict his own lethal rage on his first widely accepted victim, Mary Ann ‘Polly’ Nichols.

Emma Smith

Forty-five year old prostitute Emma Smith set out into the night on 3 April 1888, Easter Monday.  A public holiday for some. For a poor unfortunate, just another night.

As she had done many nights before, Emma spent the night working the streets. She was unaware that it would be her last. The prematurely aged mother of two found herself being followed as she passed Whitechapel Church. She quickened her step as four young men followed her into Wentworth Street. As she turned into the ‘dirty narrow entrance’ [4] of Brick Lane, the gang surrounded her, intent on doing her harm.

One of the youths grabbed her purse, emptying it of its contents as the others held her down. Emma struggled against them as she screamed for help. Each gang member took turns raping the prostitute, beating her as they did so.

When they had each taken her, they increased the beating, smashing their fists and sticks down onto the poor woman as she lapsed in and out of consciousness. As a final part of their attack, one of the men rammed a stick inside her vagina, tearing away at the flesh round the orifice and causing shocking injuries.

According to witnesses, Emma dragged herself back to the George Street Lodging House where she collapsed. She was taken to hospital where she subsequently died, though not before giving police a description of her attackers.

The murder was barely mentioned in the media. A paragraph here, a few paragraphs there:

On Thursday the authorities of the London Hospital informed the coroner of the death in that institution of Emma Elizabeth Smith, aged 45, a widow, lately living at 18, George Street, Spitalfields. It appears that the deceased was out on Bank Holiday, and when returning home along Whitechapel Road early on Tuesday morning, she was set upon by some men and severely maltreated. The men made off, leaving the woman on the ground in a semi-conscious condition, and have not yet been apprehended. She was taken home, and subsequently conveyed to the hospital where she died. [5]

Another prostitute attacked was nothing new. Yet Emma’s injuries were more brutal than any of the local constabulary had seen to date. Her assailants were never apprehended. Had Jack the Ripper read the few titbits about her murder with relish and delight? Did he think he could do better? Or is it entirely possible that this victim was, in fact, practice run, the theory of a gang attack just a ruse?

Martha Tabram

Martha Tabram also found herself at the wrong end of a killer’s knife. At about 11.45 pm on Monday 6 August 1888, she bade farewell to her friend, Mary Ann Connolly, better known as ‘Pearly Poll’, as they went on their separate ways. Martha had found herself a date, as had Pearly Poll. She led her young man, a guardsman, through a brick archway into the darkness of the George Yard Buildings. There she hoped to enjoy some privacy with him.

At 4.45am, Martha’s body was found lying in a pool of blood. She was lying on her back, her hands clenched in tight fists. Her green skirt and brown petticoat were pushed up to her waist and her legs were spread open, suggesting that she had been sexually assaulted, possibly during her murder.

She had been stabbed thirty-nine times. Most of the wounds were concentrated on her abdominal and groin regions. All of them but one appeared to have been inflicted with a pen knife or a knife with a short blade. The final wound was made by a longer blade, possibly a dagger or bayonet, according to Dr Robert Thomas Killeen, the physician who conducted Martha’s autopsy. As a result of Dr Killeen’s suggestion that the murder weapon could have been a bayonet, police questioned a number of the guardsmen on leave in London, parading them in front of Martha’s friend Pearly Poll without success.

In the wake of the murder of Emma Smith and the amount of publicity her subsequent coronial inquiry encountered, the press decided to give wider coverage to this new attack. Martha Tabram’s murder and its investigation found their way into many newspapers with titillating headlines such as Mysterious Murder in London [6] or The Whitechapel Mystery: No Trace of the Murderer. [7] People were becoming enthralled by the murders that were occurring amongst the unfortunates who wandered the streets of Whitechapel.

And people began to wonder. Had police lost control of the East End of London? Was a madman on the loose?  The police had not found Emma Smith’s killer and had even less luck arresting the person who had killed Martha Tabram.  Was it possible that their killer was one and the same, the same person whose moniker still brings about images of maniacal blood-lust?

More to the point: Was killing prostitutes in Whitechapel like shooting fish in a barrel? It is open to conjecture that for someone who was inclined to commit murder in 1888, Whitechapel seemed to be the perfect hunting ground. And no one seemed more so inclined that the brutal would-be-killer. Jack the Ripper.

Polly Nichols   

One hundred and twenty years ago this month, Polly Nichols hugged her thin brown ulster against her chest. She looked up towards the storm-filled clouds, the sky red with the fires that had erupted on the docks. Polly was trying to ply her trade on a cold summer night that had sent many customers indoors.

At 12.30am on the morning of 31 August, Polly left the Frying Pan Public House in Brick Lane, worse for drink and still trying to service customers in the bowels of the East End. She found herself a few men willing to pay for sex as she stumbled and tripped her way back to the lodging house in Thrawl Street.

At some point during her travels, Polly had bought herself a new bonnet, a black straw hat trimmed with black velvet. She had paid for the hat the money she needed for her lodging, but she was unconcerned. When the deputy at the lodging house asked her for money for a place to sleep, she said she would shortly return with 4d. He watched her stumble away into the night. At 2.30am, Polly stopped to chat with a friend, Emily Holland. After telling her that she had to earn her bed money, she headed off into the darkness and into the hands of death.

A would-be killer, who had possibly read the articles about others getting away with murder, lurked in the shadows. He watched Polly as she held on to the wall to steady herself. A twopence prostitute was the perfect victim for the perfect killer committing the perfect crime.  Was Jack thinking about the press coverage his victim would receive? How the media would question the quality of the police investigators if another prostitute murder remained again unsolved?

The Discovery

Polly Nichols was found dead a little before 3.40am. Carman Charles Cross was walking through the darkened streets on his way to work when he spotted, in a dimly lit alley, what he thought was a discarded tarpaulin. The pile of rags was lying on the path near some wooden stable doors in Buck’s Row. As Cross drew nearer he saw that the mound of cloth was in fact a woman. Alarmed by his discovery, he called out to Robert Paul, another man on his way to work who was arriving on the scene, to join him.

Cross touched the woman’s body. Her hands and feet were cold but there was still warmth in her upper limbs and body. Believing that she was merely drunk rather than dying, he sent Paul for help. The poor light from the lamp at the end of the lane did not allow him to see the last rivulets of blood which flowed from the large gash in the woman’s throat.

Cross may have missed Polly’s killer by no more than five minutes. Any echoes of footfalls he heard on the surrounding cobblestoned roads may in fact have been the killer fleeing the scene. Although perhaps the killer remained in the shadows, watching the fuss his handiwork had created and enjoying the limelight.

Paul rushed for help and returned shortly afterwards with Police Constable John Neil, who worked the beat near Buck’s Row. Upon seeing the woman’s wounds, PC Neil went in search of further reinforcements, including the local doctor, Rees Ralph Llewellyn. Dr Llewellyn arrived on the scene at 4.00am, touched the woman’s body and pronounced her dead.

Polly Nichols had been found on her back, her legs slightly drawn up and her skirts and petticoats down to her knees, leading those in attendance not to think to look under them. By replacing Polly’s skirts over the wounds that he had inflicted and thus staging the scene for those who would found her, the killer saw the ferocity of his attack almost missed out in the early morning press.

As the last moments of Polly’s life slipped from her bloodied body, Dr Llewellyn made an arbitrary assessment of the injuries to her throat.  He estimated that she had lost about a wineglass and a half of blood from the wound.

At the time, the murder seemed to be a brutal yet quick attack. The woman’s neck wound, though it almost went through the vertebrae, was seen as the cause of death. Polly Nichols’s killing did not warrant the urgency that the later murders demanded.

The Wounds

When Polly’s body was moved, PC John Thain, one of the officers at the scene, noticed that a fair amount of blood had pooled on the back of her clothing. He assumed it had flowed from her neck wound and soaked into her clothing, as he was still unaware of her other injuries. Blood from under the body also flowed into the gutter and away from the scene.

Although many people stood near Polly’s body, none of the assembled crowd thought to check under her skirts for any further injuries. They assumed her killer had slit her throat and run away.  No-one realised the importance to criminology this murder would have; an importance that still echoes today, one hundred and twenty years later.

Dr Llewellyn charged his assistants to remove her to the mortuary where he would conduct a thorough examination of the victim’s wounds at a more reasonable hour. Arrangements were made and the body moved to the mortuary where it remained outside the office for almost two hours while staff were dispatched to retrieve the keys to the building.

Inspector Spratling arrived at the crime scene only to be told the body had already been moved. The blood from the scene had been cleaned away, leaving only an outlined impression where it had congealed before being cleaned. Finding nothing else of importance, Spratling headed to the mortuary to observe the body of what he thought was just another murdered prostitute. He also missed the wounds in the woman’s abdomen.

After the keys arrived Spratling watched as the workmen moved Polly’s body from the cart on to the cold concrete slab. There they undressed her, against Dr Llewellyn’s orders. It was only now that the true extent of her injuries was realised. Recoiling from the mutilations that the killer had inflicted on the body of his victim, Spratling immediately sent for Dr Llewellyn to document the newly discovered injuries. In his notes, Spratling recorded:

‘Upon my arrival there and taking a description I found that she had been disemboweled, and at once sent to inform the Dr. of it’ [8].

At 10am, Dr Llewellyn commenced the autopsy that documented the horrific injuries:

‘On the left side of the neck, about an inch below the jaw, there was an incision about four inches long and running from a point immediately below the ear. An inch below on the same side, and commencing about an inch in front of it, was a circular incision terminating at a point about three inches below the right jaw. This incision completely severs all the tissues down to the vertebrae.

The large vessels of the neck on both sides were severed. The incision is about eight inches long. These cuts must have been caused with a long-bladed knife, moderately sharp, and used with great violence. No blood at all was found on the breast either of the body or clothes. There were no injuries about the body till just about the lower part of the abdomen. Two or three inches from the left side was a wound running in a jagged manner. It was a very deep wound, and the tissues were cut through. There were several incisions running across the abdomen. On the right side there were also three or four similar cuts running downwards. All these had been caused by a knife, which had been used violently and been used downwards. The wounds were from left to right, and might have been done by a left-handed person. All the injuries had been done by the same instrument.’

The media did not disappoint the killer. If he had wanted to produce something more gruesome than Martha Tabram’s murder, he had amply succeeded. The first known press report of Polly’s body was published in the Echo [9]. It read:  ‘A tragedy, even more revolting in its details than that of George Yard ...’ (where Tabram had been found).  They called the killer a ‘madman’ whose crimes ‘were of a character too horrible to mention in detail.’ It was enough to send the entire country, and soon the world, into a frenzy. Was the press feeding the fantasies of a killer who may have wanted to get away with multiple murder?

The Rings

Though this detail was not mentioned at the inquest on Polly’s death, one of the journalists that had viewed Polly’s body recalled seeing the impression of a ring on one of her fingers. His article suggested a ring had been removed, possibly by her killer, but perhaps by a light-fingered mortuary attendant. 

Though no-one could recall whether Polly wore rings on the night of her murder, the fact that another of the Ripper’s victims, Annie Chapman, had her rings forcibly removed by her killer suggests that Polly may have also had her rings removed. Was the theft of her ring a final offence by her killer, stealing the only thing of any value she owned?

The killer would have passed the final moments of his time with his victim replacing her skirts and listening to her final gasps for air through the massive, gaping hole in her throat. He would have been alert for footsteps telling him that his time with this victim was already over. Their time together lasted no more than ten minutes at most. The killer may have looked down at her and regretted the end of these fleeting moments that were already etched into his brain. He would have wanted more time with her to help him relive the murder later, when adrenalin was not throbbing in his heart and his ears.

Did he take her ring knowing it was easy to conceal into a secret pocket should he be questioned?  That he could walk the streets of Whitechapel of an evening, eyeing possible victims while he fingered the ring in his pocket?

We may never know. We may never know either if Tabram or Smith, or both of them, were also the unfortunate victims of Jack the Ripper. We do know, however, that as the killer returned to Whitechapel’s streets to kill again and again, his murders escalated in viciousness. The wounds inflicted on his victims became more focused. Gone were the superficial cuts made on Nichols which traversed the two major wounds. Instead, Jack the Ripper chose to cut purposefully, wielding his knife as an artist does a brush.

Bibliography:

Begg, Paul: Jack the Ripper (2006)

Casebook.org (Accessed August 2008)

Gibson, Dirk Cameron: Clues from Killers (2004)

Notes:

[[1]] Ada Wilson attack. East London Observer, 31 March 1888

[2] Emma Smith murder. East London Advertiser, 14 April 1888

[3] The Times, 9 April 1888

[4] Mackay, John Henry: The Anarchist (1891)

[5] Eastern Post & City Chronicle, 7 April 1888

 [6] Bradford Observer, 8 August1888

[7] Echo, 9 August 1888

[8] Inspector Spratling’s notes 31 August 1888

[9] Echo 31 August 1888