Still today I am reluctant to go outside alone at late night.The cries of dogs and cats and the wicked calmness of the night frightens me.I was just an ordinary person living a poor and miserable life.I came to the city with hopes of a better future ,but the city was as wicked as the story.Before I came to Whitechapel ,I was living with my parents in Nottingham.My father used to work  at a retail store,dealing with fish and crabs.Our little  life was good and healthy.We indeed were not rich but we were happy.I even went to school for sometime,but then one night changed our life forever.My father died of a heart attack,and me and my family were left homeless .We had to constantly struggle for survival.My mother went at her native home with my elder sister.She was living with her brother,who at times would act so rude,that would make her cry.Soon my sister got married ,but life was yet to give a surprise.On the December of 1881,my mother passed away.For sometime ,I was living up with my uncle.Eventually I was getting fed up of the situation. .I could not see this situation so I came here,but didn't have any money or a place to stay with all that in my mind I reached Whitechapel in the August of 1883.For,the first two weeks I was struggling and  begging for money so that I could eat something.I remember the countless nights I had to spend starving with nothing on my stomach.One day,a shop owner noticed me,and gave a job as a cart driver.My job was to supply fresh produces into the nearby shops.I had a poor but good enough lifestyle, living in the lodging house near the East end,until one night when I encountered a terrible event.

By the  late Victorian era in 1888, London was the largest capital in the world and the center of the ever-increasing British empire. Queen Victoria had been on the throne for over 50 years and the public face of Britain reflected Victoria’s lifestyle which was proud, dignified and above all, proper. It was the center of empire, culture,finance, communication and transportation, with a new emerging mass media called the new journalism.

However, right on its doorstep in the East End lay the district of Whitechapel. Seedy by any standards, it was a crime-ridden sordid quarter, where more than 78,000 residents lived in abject poverty. It was an area of doss houses, sweatshops, abattoirs, overcrowded slums, pubs, a few shops and warehouses, leavened with a row or two of respectably kept cottages.

Whitechapel housed London’s worst slums and the poverty of its inhabitants was appalling. In fact, malnutrition and disease was so widespread that its inhabitants had about a 50/50 chance of living past the age of five years old.

The West End of London was undergoing massive renovation and prosperity, opening up new concert halls, music halls, restaurants and hotels. As the city expanded , cheap housing was now being demolished to make way for warehouses and business offices, which forced more people into smaller areas.

Overcrowding and a shortage of housing created the abyss of Whitechapel. For most of the population in the East End,they lived and died in the same neighborhood in which they were born.People there did not have any hopes of a better future.

The East End consisted of a maze of entries, alleyways and courtyards which  were all lit by single gas lamps, giving out light to about 6 feet that at times were so thick, that you would have to struggle to even see your own hand in front of your face. The whole neighbourhood was filled with dirt and debris.Sanitation was practically non-existent and people would throw their raw sewage into the street, making the stench of the whole district unbearable.

Although some areas of Whitechapel during this time were relatively crime-free and had law-abiding citizens, there’s no denying that its overcrowded  slums were some of the worst places in the city. Around 15,000 of Whitechapel’s residents were homeless and unemployed, and the little money they had often went to drowning their sorrows in the area’s countless different pubs.

Not just limited to poverty and crime rates, Whitechapel was so overcrowded in its poorer areas,that up to two or three entire families would often be crammed into one small room just because they couldn’t afford to pay rent anywhere else.

Whitechapel was considered to be the most notorious criminal rookery in London. The area  was described as "perhaps the foulest and most dangerous street in the whole metropolis".Robbery,violence,prostitution and alcohol addiction was a common thing .The district was characterised by extreme poverty, sub-standard housing, poor sanitation, homelessness, drunkenness and endemic prostitution.

Whitechapel was known as  the immigrant district mostly due to the large influx of Jewish, Irish and Russian immigrants and refugees. The potato famine had seen a large influx of Irish immigrants in the mid 1800′s along with the Jewish population who arrived in thousands whilst fleeing persecution in Russia, Germany and Poland. In only a single decade, the Jewish population in Whitechapel rose  to over 50,000. With so many different nationalities and cultures there was a constant conflict and confusion among them.The only thing that they all had in common was the struggle for survival.Every day was a struggle for rights and survival in Whitechapel.There was a large scarcity for available resources such as education,health and housing.

For people like me,the poor and destitute, common lodging houses offered a bed for the night.By law every one of these common lodging houses had to be licensed and was subjected to strict police supervision.Most of the lodging houses were owned by middle-class entrepreneurs and investors, the majority of whom lived well outside the area and entrusted the day to day running of the businesses to "wardens" or "keepers." Many of these had criminal backgrounds and operated on the periphery of the law. They would turn a blind eye, probably in return for a share of the proceeds, to illegal activity and blatantly flouted the regulation stating that men and women, unless married, must be kept separate.

Each one had to display a placard in a prominent position stating the number of beds for which it was licensed, a number that was calculated on the basis of a minimum allowance of space per person.

Bed linen had to be changed weekly, and the windows had to be thrown open daily at 10am to ensure that the rooms were well ventilated.Men's and women's dormitories were meant to be separate, and rooms for married couples were meant to be separated.

Here you would be cramped up into a small dormitory with up to 80 others and for 4 pence you could get a bed which was practically a coffin lying on the ground.This lodging houses never had a sense of cleanliness.Most people would wear the same clothes everyday. They were always dirty and filled with rats.The walls had holes in them,and there were times we used them as secret compartments to hide our smaller ,yet valuable items.As rainy seasons approached,the ceiling leaked and we would gather around our pots to hold the water for future use.We males still had our jobs mostly at dockyards  and could manage ourselves ,unlike women who literally had no jobs and single or divorcees had to face the worst situations.

According to one account, the women of the East End at the time were so destitute that they would sell themselves for as little as three pence, or a stale loaf of bread. In the census record of Oct 1888, the Metropolitan police estimated there were just over 1,200 prostitutes working the streets in Whitechapel alone. This was almost certainly an underestimate, for sheer want drove many more to occasional prostitution.These women's who are often regarded as fallen women,looked nothing like films and books that portray them.Most would look like they were in their 40s despite not being over the age of 20.There was no policy or jobs for them.Although it appears they were rather forced to it,It's certain that,they could have a better future,if only they tried a bit harder.

However there was one guy who tried to make some difference.His name was Frederick Charrington.He was the son and heir of a partner in one of London's largest breweries, the Charrington Brewery.

Throughout the winter of 1887/88 Frederick Charrington,

 spearheaded a determined campaign to rid the East End of vice.He wanted to develop the lifestyle of the people living in the East End,but to no surprise it also had some rather disappointing results.

He opened The Great Assembly Hall in Mile End, a huge undertaking, which could accommodate some five thousand East Enders and which was crammed to the rafters on Sundays, when the local poor and destitute would arrive to enjoy tea and sustenance, prior to attending the evening service.

He abhorred the number of brothels in the area and used the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, under the terms of which a citizen could report any house suspected of operating as a brothel to the police in return for a reward  to launch his own private crusade to close them down.

Armed with a large black book to note down suspect houses, Charrington cut a swathe through the East End flesh trade that saw brothel after brothel closed down. Indeed, according to his biographer, Guy Thorne, he succeeded in closing down around 200 East End brothels.However even though his bold move was to save the East End.It was a very likely reason for these fallen women in particular ,who now were an easy target for the notorious gangs.

Whitechapel was already making headlines for how cruel the situation was in.But what truly made it a legendary location was not it's poor and filthy condition but the infamous Jack the ripper.It  is generally believed,that  Jack the Ripper had only five victims also known as Canonical five, then he wasn't a particularly prolific murderer, compared to many who have come since, and the fact that his so called reign of terror lasted a mere twelve or so weeks means that he wasn't at large for a particularly long period of time.

Yet there is little doubt that he is the one of the  most famous serial killer.A killer whose works are so frightening ,that we still remember his name,and the place itself bears his scars.

It should be remembered that the Jack the Ripper murders occurred in a part of London that suffered a very high rate of crime. Domestic violence was commonplace as were attacks on people in the streets.

Much of the areas never ending  violence was a direct  result of the drunkenness that was endemic in certain sections of East End Society. Other attacks were carried about by the sizable population of lunatics and other fringe characters to whom the streets of Whitechapel and Spitalfields were the place of last resort.

Then of course there was robbery with violence as the district's sizable criminal population went about their nefarious business, stealing from those who were less able to defend themselves.

So, violence wasn't uncommon in the area. Indeed such were the number of attacks that caused victims to cry "Murder!" that such cries were heard many times in a night and the populace at large had long grown used to ignoring such cries, believing them to be either the result of drunken brawls or domestic violence.

So, attempting to isolate particular cases of violence in an area that was rife with such cases is a little like trying to locate a needle in a haystack.

But, by looking in particular at stranger attacks, it is possible to point the finger at a handful of cases in the first half of 1888 which, if not carried out by Jack the Ripper, certainly bore similarities to his later crimes.

It all begun on one Saturday.It was February 25th and the year was 1888.I along with some of my fellow men ,were smoking,outside our lodging house,when we heard the news of a 38 year old widow named Annie Millwood being brutally stabbed.She lived in White’s Row, Spitalfields,and quite often was seen with strangers at lonely places.She was quite familiar to us.The news came ,that she  was admitted to the Whitechapel Workhouse Infirmary.She was suffering from stab wounds to her legs and the lower part of her abdomen.The following day,while I got some free time at my work I found the newspaper report where the accounts of this horrific attack was written.It simply wasn't new to us.There were multiple gangs who operated in here and we were forced to give them protection money.They would terrorise the people living in here and whoever failed to give them money was beaten and often injured with knives.But her story was different.In her testimony,she said,that she had been attacked by a single man whom she did not know, and who stabbed her with a clasp knife which he took from his pocket.According to the 7th April edition of the East London Post and City Chronicle, Annie Millwood:-

...stated that she had been attacked by a man who she did not know, and who stabbed her with a clasp knife which he took from his pocket.

No one appears to have seen the attack, and as far as at present is ascertained there is only the woman’s statement to bear out the allegations of an attack, though that she had been stabbed cannot be denied.

After her admission to the infirmary the deceased progressed favourably, and was sent to the South Grove Workhouse, but while engaged in some occupation at the rear of the building she was observed to fall, and on assistance being given it was found that she was dead...”.Very little is known about this incident.My boss was not a big fan of reading newspapers,and I couldn't waste my money on them.But there was community walls,where newspapers would be hanged for people of the community to read and know,what is happening around them.According to a report ,her statements were not exact as she couldn't quite recall the incident.But it might have been ,the beginning of an unforgetting era.

In the very early stages of the investigation into the Jack the Ripper murders, there appears to have been a consensus that the crimes were the work of one of the local gangs attempting to extort money out of the prostitutes of Spitalfields and Whitechapel.

As a result of this, the press began to take an interest in the problem of the gangs, and it soon became apparent that London as a whole was being terrorised by gangs, who, when they were not fighting each other, were happy to pick on innocent bystanders who they might rob and assault with seeming impunity.

Indeed, it looked as if the police tried to avoid the gangs,and there are accounts that the gangs often would attack patrolling officers, in some parts of London, the police were as scared of the gangs as any of the ordinary citizens of the Victorian metropolis were.

On a Tuesday on 3rd April 1888, following the Easter Monday bank holiday, 45-year-old Emma Elizabeth Smith was assaulted and robbed at the junction of Osborn Street and Brick Lane, Whitechapel,In the early hours of that morning. Although injured, she survived the attack and managed to walk back to her lodging house at 18 George Street, Spitalfields. She told the deputy keeper of the lodging house, Mary Russell, that she had been attacked by two or three men at the most, one of them was a teenager. Russell took Smith to the London Hospital, where a medical examination revealed that a blunt object had been inserted into her vagina, rupturing her peritoneum. She developed peritonitis and died at 9 am the following day.

The inquest was conducted on 7th April by the coroner for East Middlesex, Wynne Edwin Baxter, who also conducted inquests on six of the later victims. The local inspector of the Metropolitan Police, Edmund Reid of H Division Whitechapel, investigated the attack but the culprits were never caught. Walter Dew, a detective constable stationed with H Division, later wrote that he believed Smith to be the first victim of Jack the Ripper, but his colleagues suspected her murder was the work of a criminal gang. Smith claimed that she was attacked by two or three men, but either refused to or could not describe them beyond stating one was a teenager. East End prostitutes were often managed by gangs, and Smith could have been attacked by her pimps as a punishment for disobeying them, or as an act of intimidation. She may not have identified her attackers because she feared reprisal.

The incident gradually seemed to sink down just like thousands of such stories in the neighbourhood.One month passed away after that little disturbing incident on the late February when on March 28th 1888, just a little over midnight ,A woman called Ada Wilson,a dress maker, heard a knock at the door,so she went to check,who it was.

When she opened the door, she saw a man standing outside.The man demanded money from her and threatened to kill her if she didn’t give him money.When Ada refused, he took out a clasp-knife and stabbed her twice in the throat.Her screams disturbed her upstairs neighbour,Rose Bierman, who came down to investigate the scream,and found Ada Wilson in a state of near collapse in the hallway.Seeing her shout the young man disappeared into the street.I happened to cross that road minutes after the incident.When I crossed the road,two officers held me in and asked if I saw something or not.According to eyewitnesses and the victim,Ada wilson  reported that the man in his early 30s,who was around five foot six in height, and had a fair moustache and a sunburnt face standing outside.His wore a dark coat, light trousers and a wide-awake hat.When the man saw,her scream he fled into the darkness of the alleyway.

Her attack, however, did bear certain similarities with the later attacks of Jack the Ripper. She was undoubtedly a prostitute, and Jack the Ripper would later exclusively target prostitutes.

The description of her attacker resembles later descriptions given by eyewitnesses of later victims who may have seen the ripper with his victims. Ada's assailant not only used a knife, but also targeted her throat, just as the Ripper would with his acknowledged victims.

Given these similarities it is possible that the violent assault on Ada Wilson may have been an early attack by Jack the Ripper carried out before he progressed to the horrific mutilations that were the hallmark of his later crimes.

Less than three months after that incident.On a  Tuesday on 7th August, following a Monday bank holiday,a lady,called Martha Tabram, was murdered at about 2:30 am.That morning I was going to my work and I remembered that I was getting late,so I took a shortcut though George Yard.Just when I entered the street,I saw multiple officers gathering up and questioning people about a murder.The following day, the news of this incident made its way into the headline on our local news paper.Her body was found at George Yard Buildings, George Yard, Whitechapel.In the early hours of the following morning, a resident of the Buildings, called Mrs. Hewitt, was awoken by cries of "Murder!", but domestic violence and shouts of that nature were common in the area,So she ignored the noise and went back. At 2:00 a.m in the morning, two other residents, husband and wife Joseph and Elizabeth Mahoney, returned to the Buildings but  saw no one on the stairs. At the same time, the patrolling beat officer,PC Thomas Barrett was walking his beat around 2 a.m. on the morning of August 7th when he passed by the North entrance to George Yard on Wentworth Street. Since the day before had been a bank holiday, the night had been more active than usual, with the streets full of merry-makers and no shortage of fights.

Barrett noticed a soldier loitering at the entrance to the yard who he assumed had been out taking advantage of the festivities as well. He then approached the soldier and asked if it was about time for him to be getting back to his barracks. The soldier told him he was waiting for a ‘chum’ who had gone inside the yard with a girl. It was a good enough answer for Barrett, and he continued on his way.Nearly one hour later at about 3:30 a.m., a resident of that street,Albert George Crow returned home after a night's work as a cab driver and noticed Tabram's body lying on a landing above the first flight of stairs.

The East London Observer, published the following synopsis of his inquest testimony on Saturday, 11th August, 1888:-

I live at 37, George Yard Buildings, and am a cab driver, my number being 6, 609.

I came home at half-past-three on Tuesday morning, which is about my usual time, although I am on day duty. I went straight up to my lodgings. I had no light with me, and went up the same staircase as the last witness.

On my way up I noticed that there was somebody lying on the first landing.

My eyesight is very good, and I noticed a body lying there, just as I turned the landing. I am accustomed, however, to find people lying sleeping there, and so I took no notice at the time - not even to ascertain whether the body was that of a male or female.

I don't know, therefore, whether the deceased was alive or dead at the time I saw her.

I went to bed, and did not come out again before half-past nine, and up to that time I heard no noise at all of any kind.

When I went down the stairs then, the body was gone, and I did not know what had been done with it.

When I first saw the body, I took so little notice that I am not prepared to say whether or not it was the body of this female at all."

It was not until just before 5:00 a.m. that another resident who was coming down the stairs going on his way to work, as a dock labourer,that's when John Saunders Reeves saw the body, and quickly realised that she was dead.

Reeves fetched Barrett, who sent for Dr. Timothy Robert Killeen to examine the body. Killeen arrived at about 5:30 a.m. and estimated that Tabram had been dead for around 3 hours.Her killer had stabbed her 39 times in the body and neck, including nine times in the throat, five in the left lung, two in the right lung, one in the heart, five in the liver, two in the spleen, and six in the stomach, also wounding her lower abdomen and genitals.

The local inspector of the Metropolitan Police Force, Edmund Reid of H Division Whitechapel, was in charge of the investigation. He arranged for PC Barrett to visit the Tower of London on 7th August in the hope that Barrett could identify the man he had seen standing in the street. Barrett did not recognise any of the men.A parade of soldiers who had either been absent or on leave at the time of the murder was arranged for August 8. As he described in a report to the police commissioner, Reid cautioned Barrett to ‘be careful as to his actions because many eyes were watching him and a great deal depended on his picking out the right man and no other.’ Barrett viewed all the men in the lineup, selecting one with medals on his chest. When Reid reminded him to be very careful in his choice, he picked out a different man with no medals on his chest. He said later that he picked the second man after remembering that the man he had seen in George Yard had not had any.

Her body was formally identified on 14 August by her estranged husband,Henry Samuel Tabram.He testified to the police that Martha was married to him when she was 20 years old but the two only stayed together for six years as Martha was already drinking heavily.Although he tried to make her quit these bad habits but it came of no use. Following these circumstances He decided to leave her alone.Despite being separated he still continued to pay her an allowance until he discovered that she was living and having an affair with a carpenter called Henry Turner. By the time 39 year old Martha was murdered, her relationship with Turner had reached its end as well.In his testimony,Turner said,Martha would often disappear for an entire night and blame her long absence on a “hysterical fit” that caused her to lose her memory. Turner admitted that while he had seen her go into a “fit” in the past, he had no idea whether they were genuine or not.

The testimony of the residents and Dr Killeen indicated that Tabram was killed somewhere between 2:00 a.m. and 3:30 a.m.After the inquest, there were reports that someone who'd attended had identified the as-yet-unknown victim as Emma Turner. On August 11th, officers tracked down the person who claimed to have spent the evening with “Emma” Turner on the night she was murdered: Mary Ann Connelly, better known as Pearly Poll. She was the only one who called Tabram by that name, and Henry Turner had never met her before. Connelly's whereabouts after the inquest were unverified, though she claimed to have been staying at a cousin’s house. Despite her elusiveness, Connelly’s account of what occurred that night would become the most often repeated storyline.

Connelly claimed that she had spent the evening at a bar drinking with Tabram, having made friends with her while they both lived in a lodging house. The two had picked up a couple of soldiers while out and about, with Martha pairing off with one soldier at the entrance to George Yard around 11:45pm. Connelly and the other soldier went on to Angel Alley, returning to George Yard about half an hour later, at which point Connelly waited briefly and went home when Martha didn’t show up.

Whitechapel police set up two separate identity parades of soldiers, first bringing her to the Tower and then later to the Wellington Barracks at Pimlico. At first, Reid reported that she had behaved in a “flamboyant” way, shouting, “He ain’t here!” when pressed and asked to identify someone.However at the second identity parade she was more subdued and nervous, but made an unsettling move by identifying two military men without hesitation. To both the press and the police, it appeared that she had just walked up and chosen two random people. The soldiers' alibis checked out and they were pursued no further.

Pearly Poll’s odd, shifty behavior made her testimony difficult to use, and the case never yielded a prosecutable suspect.Reid told local papers that he believed that the killer of Martha Tabram was probably “belonging to the same miserable class” as Pearly Poll, but had been intimidated into reporting what they knew by some “scoundrels of the locality.”

By the end of August in 1888, the summer weather was long gone. The night of the 31st was drenched in rain and shocked by the flashes and claps of a thunderstorm.About 3.45am in the morning,while most of the neighbourhood was still sleeping.

It was exactly a quarter to four when I passed up Buck's-row to my work as a carman for Covent-garden market.  It was dark, and I was hurrying along,that's  when I saw a man standing where the woman was.  He came a little towards me, but as I knew the dangerous character of the locality I tried to give him a wide berth. Few people like to come up and down here without being on their guard, for there are such terrible gangs working in and around the location. There have been many incidents of people being knocked down and robbed at that spot.  The man, however, came towards me and touched my shoulder and  said, 'Come and look at this woman." So, I went and found the woman lying on her back. I laid hold of her wrist and found that she was dead and her hands were cold. It was too dark to see the blood on her body. I thought that she had been outraged, and had died in the struggle.  I was obliged to be punctual at my work, so I went on and told the other man it  would be better to find a policeman and inform him.

So I arranged her clothes to cover her body and went on our way.

I saw one Police officer  in Church-row, just at the top of Buck's-row, who was going round calling people up, and I told him what I had seen, and I asked him to come, but he did not say whether he should come or not. He continued calling the people up, which I thought was a great shame, after I had told him the woman was dead.  The woman was so cold that she must have been dead some time, and either she had been lying there, left to die, or she must have been murdered somewhere else and carried there.  If she had been lying there long enough to get so cold as she was when I saw her, it shows that no policeman on the beat had been down there for a long time. If a policeman had been there he must have seen her, for she was plain enough to see.

By this time we met PC Mizen,Interestingly enough the other man rushed towards him and informed him of the gruesome discovery.

The following day,I fulfilled my duty and contacted the press regarding this event.

From there I got to know constable John Neil,who was patrolling the area,discovered the body.He was looking down at the body,when he noticed PC John Thain passing the end of the street and flashed his lantern to attract his attention.He asked Thain to fetch doctor Llewellyn.

Mrs. Emma Green's house in Buck's Row, overlooked the spot where the body of Mary Nichols was found at 3.40am on the morning of August 31st, 1888.

Her house was the last one in the line of houses on the south side of Buck's Row, and it adjoined Brown's stable yard, in the gate of which the body of Mary Nichols was found.

Mrs Green, who was a light sleeper, had heard nothing, despite the fact that her bedroom, which she shared with her daughter, almost overlooked the murder site.

Indeed, the first she knew of the murder was when Constable Neil knocked on her door to ask if the family had seen or heard anything.

On Sunday, 2nd September, 1888, Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper published the following article about her experience that morning:-

Buck's-row is a short street occupied half by factories and half by dwellings.

Half-way down the street is the house of Mrs. Green. Next to it is a large stable-yard, whose wide closed gateway is next to the house. In front of this gateway the woman was found.

Constable Neill, who was the first policeman to see the body, immediately woke the Green family, and asked them if they had heard any unusual noise.

Neither Mrs. Green, her son, or her daughter, all of whom were sleeping within a few feet of where the body lay, had heard any outcry.

All agreed that the night was unusually quiet.

"I should have heard it had there been any I think", said Mrs. Green, when interviewed, "for I have trouble with my heart and am a very light sleeper.

My son went down as soon as the body was taken away and washed away the bloodstains on the pavement. There was quite a little pool, though I understand most of it soaked into the woman's dress.

I looked out and saw the body as it lay there. It was lying straight across the gateway, its head towards me. It was not lying in a heap as if it had fallen, but on its back and straight as if it had been laid there.

I could not tell at first whether it was a man or a woman; but James, my son, who went downstairs, returned and told me it was a woman. This was four o'clock on Friday morning."

When Dr Llewellyn arrived at around 4am, he declared her dead.On closer examination he also observed that the deceased's body and legs were still warm, although her hands and wrists were quite cold.According to him,she died just half an hour ago.

Her throat had been slit twice from left to right and her abdomen was mutilated by a deep jagged wound. Several shallow incisions across the abdomen, and three or four similar cuts on the right side were caused by the same knife used violently and downwards.

At first the police had no idea who the victim was.Identifying the woman, so disfigured by her attacker, was daunting at first. She was about five feet two or three inches tall with dark hair, eyes and skin. Her hair was beginning to go gray with middle age, and she was missing three teeth. Her clothing was well worn, indicating that she was likely a woman down-on-her luck. This assumption was supported by a helpful find of her petticoat which showed the mark of ‘Lambeth Workhouse, P.R.’. Investigators called for someone from the workhouse on Prince’s Road to come to the mortuary and help identify the body. Mary Ann Monk, arrived and recognized the body in the morgue as Mary Ann Nichols, who had lived in that workhouse months earlier.

Soon several other women had come forward and identified her as a Polly ,who had been living at a nearby lodging house at number 18 Thrawl Street.The last person to see her alive, apart from the murderer, was her good friend Mrs Emily Holland, who met her at 2.30am outside a grocery shop at the junction of Osborne Street and Whitechapel Road.Mary was obviously drunk and was leaning against the wall. Emily Holland tried to persuade her to return to the lodging house, but Nichols refused.

Further investigations with her fellow women and her relatives revealed that Nichols was born to Edward Walker, a locksmith, and his wife Caroline on 26 August 1845. She went on to marry a man called  William Nichols, a machinist for a printer, in 1864. They were together for over fifteen years and had five children Edward John Nichols, Percy George, Alice Esther, Eliza Sarah and Henry Alfred. Then, around 1880, the marriage fell apart.Polly’s father, Walker, was incensed by the break-up and passed around rumors that William Nichols had been responsible for the dissolution of the marriage. He claimed that Polly had been confined with ill health, and her husband had taken up with her nurse. Nichols did not deny the affair with the nurse, only the idea that this affair had been the reason for the marriage’s demise.

Walker’s rumor, however, was so widely believed that it was addressed at the inquest into Polly’s death. Nichols claimed that, though there had been an affair, it had occurred after Polly herself had left the marriage. He produced a birth certificate, testifying that his son with his mistress was born after Polly had left.

Regardless of when Nichols became involved with another woman, it is clear that Polly had plenty of demons of her own. Alcohol addiction interfered with her domestic life, her relationship with family members and her ability to keep her head above water in a financial sense. During their marriage, Nichols claimed, Polly had left him “five or six times” until finally leaving for the last time in 1881.

All five children remained with their father, and William used to pay Polly for two years. He found out, however, that Polly had been living as a prostitute, and discontinued payments. Polly sent summons for him to keep sending her money, but William was able to win his case by proving she was living with another man. From 1882 onward, Polly drifted from one workhouse to another, at some points completely disappearing from view of her family and public record. At the time of her death, William Nichols had not seen his wife in over three years.

As the murder occurred in the territory of the J or Bethnal Green Division of the Metropolitan Police, it was at first investigated by the local detectives. They focussed their attention on the area of Common Lodging Houses where Nichols,Tabram and Smith had been staying at the times of their deaths. Initial investigations into the murder had very little success, although, the press linked it to the two previous murders of Martha and Smith and suggested the killing might have been perpetrated by a gang.However,the style of the murder was completely different this time.Patrick

Mulshaw, a night watchman, who was

working at the nearby sewer works gave a seemingly astonishing clue.He said that, at around twenty minutes to five o'clock,a passing stranger had told him,that there's a dead body down the street.However,he was quite drunk and didn't quite remembered his face.Investigating officers reported that there was no trace of blood on the spot,which could mean that the murder took place on somewhere else and that the body was later dumped here.This killer or killers wanted to show his hatred,and he went away with a trophy,as a memorial for his work.The Star newspaper suggested that a single killer was responsible and other newspapers took up their storyline.

Suspicions of a serial killer at large in London led to the secondment of Detective Inspectors  Frederick Abberline, Henry Moore and Walter Andrews from the Central Office at Scotland Yard.

Inspector Frederick George Abberline was 45 years old in 1888. He was a portly and balding officer who wore a thick moustache and bushy side whiskers.

Inspector Abberline was first called in to give an opinion on the crimes in the immediate aftermath of the murder of Mary Nichols, which took place on 31st August, 1888.

The St James's Gazette mentioned his involvement in the case in its edition of Saturday. September 1st, 1888:-So far the police have satisfied themselves, but as to getting a clue to her murderer they express little hope. The matter is being investigated by Detective. Inspector Abberline, of Scotland-yard, and Inspector Helson, J division.

Abberline was evidently much involved with the investigation into Mary Nichols's murder at this point, and was, according to the following article, which appeared in The East London Observer, on Saturday, 8th September, 1888, and which concerned his appearance, on Saturday, September 1st, 188, at the first day of the inquest into the death of Mary Nichols, busily following up leads and tracing witnesses in the days immediately proceeding the murder:-

Detective-inspector Abberline asked for an adjournment of some length, as certain things were coming to the knowledge of the police, and they wished for time to make inquiries.

The coroner required that on Monday he would like to hear on Monday the two butchers who had been referred to…

Inspector Abberline having stated that the butchers had been summoned, a juryman asked if the husband could be produced?

"Yes," said Inspector Abberline, and, immediately after the inquiry had been adjourned till Monday he proceeded to find the husband and brought him to the mortuary.

So soon as the lid of the shell had been removed, he looked at the contents, and then, with a shudder, turned to Inspector Abberline and said it was his wife…

He had already spent fourteen years as a detective with H division and had gained an unrivalled knowledge of the area’s streets and criminals.

Meanwhile, police enquiries amongst the local prostitutes had yielded up a likely sounding suspect in the form of a man whom the local streetwalkers had nicknamed “Leather Apron.”They reportedly stated that,he sometimes wore a deerstalker hat, and that he was running an extortion racket,

demanding money off the prostitutes, and beating up those who refused.

Saturday , Jun 12 , 2021 Site Author and Publisher Richard Jones Richard Jones

HENRY TOMKINS

A definition of witness.

HENRY TOMKINS

Horse Slaughterer Working In Winthrop Street

Henry Tomkins was a horse slaughterer, employed by Barber's Knacker's Yard, which was located one street along from Buck's Row, where the murder of Mary Nichols occurred on August 31st, 1888.

He and his workmates, Charles Brittain and James Mumford, were at work at the time that the murder occurred, and they were, he said, told of the crime by Police Constable Thain at around 4.15am on the morning of August 31st.

His evidence suggests that Thain may have been in the habit of taking a break from his beat at their slaughterhouse, since he stated that Thain actually called at that time to "called for his cape"

The East London Observer published his inquest testimony in its edition of Saturday, 8th September, 1888.-Henry Tomkins, a rough looking man, was next called.

He was a horse slaughterer, he said, and he lived at 12, Coventry-street, Bethnal Green. He was in the employ of Mr. Barber, and was working in the slaughter-house, Winthorpe street, from between eight and nine o'clock on Thursday night till twenty minutes past four o'clock on Friday morning.

He and his fellow workmen generally went home after ceasing work, but that morning they did not do so. They went to see the dead woman because Police-constable Thain had passed the slaughter-house about a quarter-past four and told them that a woman had been murdered in Buck's-row.

Two other men besides the witness had been working in the slaughterhouse. They were James Mumford and Charles Britten. He and Britten had been out of the slaughterhouse previously that night - namely, from twenty minutes past twelve till one o'clock, but not afterwards till they went to see the body.

The distance from the slaughterhouse to the spot where the deceased was found was not great, Buck's-row being behind Winthrope-street, and both running in the same direction.

The Coroner:- "Is yours noisy work?"

Witness:- "No, sir: very quiet."

The Coroner:- "Was it all quiet on Friday morning - say after two o'clock?"

Witness:- "Yes, sir quite quiet. The gates were open, and we heard no cry."

The Coroner:- "Did any one come to the slaughterhouse that night?"

The witness replied that nobody passed except the policeman.

The Coroner:- "Are there any women about there?"

Witness:- "Oh, I know nothing about them. I don't like 'em."

The Coroner:- "I don't ask whether you like them. I ask whether there were any about that night?"

Witness:- "I did net see any."

The Coroner:- "Not in Whitechapel Road?"

Witness:- "Oh, yes, there, of all sorts and sizes. It's a rough neighbourhood, I can tell you."

The Coroner:- "If anybody had called for assistance from the spot where the deceased was found would you have heard it in the slaughter-house?"

The witness replied that it was too far away.

When he arrived in Buck's-row with the intention of seeing the deceased, the doctor and three or four policemen were there. He believed that two other men that he did not know were there also. He waited till the body was taken away, but that was not long. Ten or a dozen people came up before it was done. He heard no statement as to how the deceased came into Buck's-row

The Coroner:- "Have you made any statement in the newspaper that there were two people besides the police and the doctor in Buck's-row when you arrived?"

Witness:- "I can't read, sir."

The Coroner:- "Then you did not see a soul from one o'clock on Friday morning till a quarter past four, when the policeman passed your slaughterhouse?"

Witness:- "No, sir."

A Juryman:- "Did you hear any vehicle pass the slaughter-house?"

Witness:- "No, sir."

A Juryman:- "Would you have heard it if there had been one?"

Witness:- "No, sir."

The Coroner:- "Where did you go between twenty minutes past twelve and one o'clock?"

Witness:- "Me and my mate went to the front of the road."

A Juryman:- "Is not your usual time of leaving off work six o'clock in the morning, and not four?"

Witness:- "No, it is according to what we have to do. Sometimes we finish at one time; sometimes at another."

The Coroner:- "What made the constable call to tell you about the murder?"

Witness:- "He called for his cape."

On Monday, 3rd September, 1888,the other guy,present on the site that night  appeared as a witness at the second day of the inquest and his testimony was reported by The East London Observer on Saturday, 8th September, 1888.His name was Charles Cross.In his inquest he stated that,

On Friday morning he left home about half-past-three to go to work, and passing through Buck's Row he saw on the opposite sound something lying against a gateway. In the dark, he could not tell at first what it was. It looked like a tarpaulin sheet, but walking to the middle of the road he saw that it was the figure of a woman.

At the same time, he heard someone about forty yards away coming up Buck's Row in the direction that the witness had come from.

He stepped back and waited for the new-comer, who started on one side, as if he feared that the witness was about to knock him down.He said to the man "Come and look over here. There's a woman."

We both went across to the body, and the witness took hold of her hands, while the other man stopped over her head to look at her. The hands were cold and limp, and the witness said to the other man, "I believe she's dead." Then he touched her face, which felt warm.

I placed my hand on her heart, saying, "I think she's breathing, but it's very little if she is."

I suggested that they should "shift her" - meaning in the witness's opinion that they should seat her upright.

The witness replied, "I am not going to touch her."

The woman's legs were uncovered. Her bonnet was off, but was close to her head. The witness did not notice that her throat was cut, as the night was very dark.

He and the other man left the deceased, and, in Baker';s Row, they saw the last witness, Police Constable Mizen, whom they told that a woman was lying in Buck's Row. The witness added, "She looks to me to be either dead or drunk," to which the other man replied, "I think she's dead." The policeman answered "All right."

The other man left the witness soon afterwards. He appeared to be a carman, but He had never seen him before.

The Coroner begun to ask him more about the incident to which he replied,

The Coroner:- "Did you see Police Constable Neil in Buck's Row?"

The Witness "No Sir. I saw no one after leaving home, except the man that overtook me, the Constable in Baker's Row, and the deceased. There was nobody in Buck's Row when we left."

The Coroner:- "Did the other man tell you who he was?"

The Witness "No Sir. He merely said that he would have fetched a policeman, but he was behind time. I was behind time myself."

A Juryman:- "Did you tell Constable Mizen that another policeman wanted him in Buck's Row?"

The Witness "No: because I did not see a policeman in Buck's Row."

On 7th September 1888 The Weekly Herald published an article , commenting on the police investigation into the Jack the Ripper murders which at that point were known as the "Whitechapel Murders" reported on the murder of Mary Nichols, that:-The officers engaged in the case are pushing their inquiries in the neighbourhood as to the doings of certain gangs known to frequent the locality, and an opinion is gaining ground amongst them that the murderers are the same who committed the two previous murders near the same spot. It is believed that these gangs, who make their appearance during the early hours of the morning, are in the habit of blackmailing these unfortunate women, and when their demands are refused violence follows, and in order to avoid their deeds being brought to light they put away their victims. They have been under the observation of the police for some time past, and it is believed that, with the prospect of a reward and a free pardon, some of them might be persuaded to turn Queen's evidence, when some startling revelations might be expected."

The investigation was still fresh,when on 8th September another body was found.The victim was Annie Chapman whose body was found on the ground near a doorway in the backyard of 29 Hanbury Street, Spitalfields,during a routine patrolling.According to the newspaper reports,She was 45 years old, and for four months prior to her death had been living at Crossingham’s lodging house at number 35,Dorset Street.In 1869, she married John Chapman at the age of 28.At that time John worked as a coachman and in other service positions.They had three children Emily Ruth, Annie Georgina and John Alfred. A happy family life was not in the cards for the Chapman’s, however. Emily Ruth died of meningitis in 1882 at the tender age of 12 and John Alfred was born disabled and surrendered to a charity school for care.

Possibly due to these tragic strains on their marriage, both John and Annie Chapman became heavy drinkers. Annie was arrested several times for public drunkenness in Windsor, and a police report blamed her “drunken and immoral ways” for the end of the Chapman’s’ marriage around 1884 or 1885. John was no teetotaler himself, however, and soon died on Christmas of 1886 due cirrhosis of the liver and dropsy.

Despite their earlier estrangement, Annie was hit hard by the loss of her husband. Annie’s friend Amelia Palmer said that after John’s death, even until she died, “she seemed to have given away all together”.

Just after 5.30am, Mrs Elizabeth Long, also referred to as Elizabeth Darrell, turned out of Brick Lane and walked along Hanbury Street en route for Spitalfields Market.She noticed a man and a woman talking on the right-hand pavement a little before she reached the door of number 29. She didn’t see the man’s face, only his back, but she described him as being of foreign

appearance with a dark complexion. He was of shabby appearance, aged about forty, and not much more than five foot in height. He had on a dark overcoat, and wore a brown deerstalker hat.Since the woman was facing her, she saw more of her and, when taken to see Annie Chapman’s body at the mortuary, was certain that she was the woman,she saw.

Albert Cadosch lived at number 27 Hanbury Street.According to him,he heard something or someone falling against a fence.Based on his reports , Annie may have already been dead when Elizabeth Long claimed to have seen her in the street outside 29 Hanbury Street.

The Morning Post published his testimony on Thursday, 20th September, 1888:-

I live at 27, Hanbury-street. My occupation is that of a carpenter; 27 is next door to 29, Hanbury Street.

On Saturday, the 8th Sept., I got up about a quarter-past five in the morning. I went through the yard of my house to the far end of the yard farthest from 29. It was then about 20 minutes past five.

As I returned towards the back door I heard a voice say "No" just as I was going through the door. It was not in our yard, but I should think it came from the yard of No. 29.

I went indoors, but I came back again into the yard about three or four minutes afterwards, and proceeded to the end of the yard.

On coming back, I heard a noise which sounded like a fall against the fence which divides my yard from that of 29. It seemed as if something seemed to touch the fence suddenly.

The Coroner:- "Did you look to see what it was?"

No, sir. I then went into the house, and from there into the street to go to my work. It was about two minutes after half-past five as I passed Spitalfields church.

By A Juryman:- I informed the police the same night, after I returned from my work.

The Foreman:- "What height are the palings?"

About 5ft. 6in. to 6ft.

The Foreman:- "And you didn't have the curiosity to look over?"

No. sir, I did not as it is usual for people to be in the yard next door. They are very early risers.

The Foreman:- "Is it usual for thumps against the palings?"

They are packing-case makers, and now and then there is a great case that goes up against the palings.

By The Coroner:- I did not see any man and woman in the street when I went out. I did not see Mrs. Long, one of the witnesses here today. I saw a workman passing by on the other side."

Another witness to the story,

Eliza Copper was a fellow resident of Annie Chapman at the lodging house at 35, Dorset Dorset Street. She later stated that she had known Annie Chapman for fifteen months, although their relationship shortly before Annie's death had, evidently, not been a cordial one.

Interestingly, there are mentions in the newspapers of September 1888 that - along with another resident of 35 Dorset Street, Elizabeth Allen - Eliza Cooper had given crucial information to the police regarding a potential suspect.

She said,

I lodge at 35, Dorset-street, Spitalfields. I have done so for the last five months. I knew Chapman.

I had a quarrel with her the Tuesday before she was murdered. On the previous Saturday she brought Mr. Stanley into 35, Dorset Street. She came into the kitchen, and asked the people there to give her some soap. They told her to ask "Liza." She came to me, and I opened the locker and gave her some.

I afterwards asked for the soap, but she did not return it. We quarreled, and we went out to the Ringers public-house, and continued the quarrel. She slapped my face, and said, "Think yourself lucky I did not do more."

I struck her in the left eye, I believe, and then in the chest.

I afterwards saw that the blow had marked her face.

I last saw her alive on Wednesday night. She was wearing three rings on the third finger of her left hand. They were all brass.

The Coroner:- "Has she ever had a gold wedding ring to your knowledge?"

Witness "No, not since I have known her. I have known her for about 15 months. She is associated with Stanley, "Harry the Hawker," and several others.

A little before 6am John Davis, an elderly resident of 29 Hanbury Street came downstairs, walked along the narrow passageway and opened the back door. He was frightened to see the brutality of the scene.He began to shout and gather people around the neighbourhood.

Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, published his inquest testimony on Sunday, 16th September, 1888:-John Davies, a carman, employed at Leadenhall Market, and who had lodged at 29, Hanbury-street for a fortnight, deposed:-

"I occupy the top front room on the third floor with my wife and three sons, who live with me.

On Friday night I went to bed at eight o'clock, and my wife followed about half an hour later. My sons came to bed at different times, the last one at about a quarter to 11.

There is a weaving shed window, or light, across the room. It was not open during the night.

I was awake from three a.m. to five a.m. on Saturday, and then fell asleep until a quarter to six, when the clock at Spitalfields church struck.

I had a cup of tea and went downstairs to the back yard.

The house faces Hanbury-street, with one window on the ground floor and a front door at the side leading into a passage which runs through into the yard. There is a back door at the end of this passage opening into the yard.

Neither of the doors was able to be locked, and I have never seen them locked. Anyonez who knows where the latch of the front door is could open it and go along the passage into the back yard.``

Coroner "When you went into the yard on Saturday morning was the yard door open or shut?"

Witness "I found it shut. I cannot say whether it was latched - I cannot remember."

Coroner "Will you describe the yard?"

Witness "It is a large yard. Facing the door, on the opposite side, on my left as I was standing, there is a shed, in which Mrs. Richardson keeps her wood. In the right-hand corner there is a closet. The yard is separated from the next premises on both sides by close wooden fencing, about 5ft. 6in. high."

Coroner "I hope the police will supply me with a plan. In the country, in cases of importance, I always have one."

Inspector Helson "We shall have one at the adjourned hearing."

On the Next hearing the Examination resumed:-

John Davis:"There was a little recess on the left. From the steps to the fence is about 3ft. There are three stone steps, unprotected, leading from the door to the yard. which is at a lower level than that of the passage.

Directly I opened the door, I saw a woman lying down in the left-hand recess, between the stone steps and the fence.

She was on her back, with her head towards the house and her legs towards the wood shed. The clothes were much disarranged.

I did not go into the yard, but left the house by the front door, and called the attention of two men to the circumstances. They work at Mr. Bailey's, a packing-case maker, of Hanbury-street. I do not know their names, but I know them by sight."

Coroner "Have the names of these men been ascertained?"

Inspector Chandler "I have made inquiries, but I cannot find the men."

Coroner "They must be found."

Witness "They work at Bailey's; but I could not find them on Saturday, as I had my work to do."

Coroner "Your work is of no consequence compared with this inquiry. You must find these men out, either with the assistance of the police or of my officer."

On the third hearing the Examination resumed:-

Jon Davis continues :"Mr. Bailey's is three doors off 29, Hanbury-street, on the same side of the road.

The two men were waiting outside the workshop. They came into the passage and saw the sight. They did not go into the yard, but ran to find a policeman. We all came out of the house together.

I went to the Commercial-street police-station to report the case.

No one in the house was informed by me of what I had discovered. I told the inspector at the police-station, and after a while I returned to Hanbury-street, but I did not re-enter the house.

As I passed I saw constables there."

Coroner "Have you ever seen the deceased before?"

Witness "No."

Coroner "Were you the first down in the house that morning?"

Witness "No; there was a lodger named Thompson, who was called at half-past three.""

The morgue examination revealed that part of her uterus was missing.Her throat was cut from left to right. She had been disembowelled, and her intestines had been thrown out of her abdomen over each of her shoulders.

The pathologist, George Bagster Phillips, was of the opinion that the murderer must have possessed anatomical knowledge,as the organ was removed with just a single movement.It suggested two possibilities that either the killer was a physician or a butcher,in order to get such clean cuts.

In the aftermath of the murder of Annie Chapman, several women came forward to give accounts of meetings with sinister strangers in the neighbourhood where the murder had occurred.

One of these was a young woman who had encountered man in the, to say the least, gave her cause for concern in the Queen's Head pub on Commercial Street.

The Fife Herald published the following account of the encounter:-A representative of the Press Association, in pursuing his investigations in the same district on Sunday night, heard the following statement made in the presence of the police.

The informant, he says, was a woman named Lyons, of the class commonly known as unfortunates.

She stated that at three o'clock on Saturday afternoon she met a strange man in Flower and Dean Street, one of the worst streets in the East End of London. He asked her to go to Queen's Head public-house at half-past six and drink with him.

Having obtained from the young woman a promise that she would do so he disappeared, but was at the house at the appointed time.

While they were conversing, Lyons noticed a large knife in his right hand trousers pocket, and called another woman's attention to the fact.

A moment later, Lyons was startled by a remark which the stranger addressed to her. "You are about the same style of woman as the one that's murdered," he said. "What do you know about her?" asked the woman, to which the man replied, "You are beginning to smell a rat. Foxes hunt geese, but they don't always find 'em." Having uttered these words, the man hurriedly left.

Lyons followed until near Spitalfields Church, and turning round at this spot, and noticing that the woman was behind him, the stranger ran swiftly into Church street, and was lost from sight.

One noteworthy fact in this story is that the description of the man's appearance is, in all material points, identical with the published description of the unknown and, up to the present undiscovered, Leather Apron."

Apparently, this man was known to try to extort money from them by pulling out a knife and threatening to "rip them apart" unless they handed over what cash they had made in the course of their nighttime activities.

Following the investigation,on 10th September, the police arrested a guy called John pizer,who was also known as Leather Apron as a suspect,but after investigating,it was found that he wasn't present at the place during the murders.Investigating officers later found out that,the killer has taken her brass ring,probably mistaking it to be gold.

On 13th September 1888 London police arrested a man called Jacob Isenschmid,at his home in Milford Road, in the Holloway neighborhood. The arrested man was a butcher.

A couple of days ago, on 11th September, two Whitechapel doctors had denounced him because of his strange habits, suggesting he could be the killer who was operating  in the region. In the first attempted arrest, authorities were greeted by Isenschmid's spouse, since he was not present at the time.

Even more convincingly, the complaint of the doctors would result in the suspect's own wife's statements. The woman alleged that two months ago, her husband had left their home, and only returned sporadically without any notice. She stressed that he had a violent and ungovernable character, and used to carry large and sharp knives on him - even when it did not require practise of his trade. She also claimed that he had threatened to kill her once.

Apparently, the butcher had normal behavior until the previous year, when the failure of his business plunged him into serious depression. The following year, still in that state, he would become aggressive, committing wild attacks against women in the area.

It was learned that Isenschmid had undergone prolonged hospitalization in a hospice, because he suffered from severe psychiatric disorders. A new medical review found him completely demented, and examining forensics diagnosed him as insanely dangerous. After his arrest, the justice ordered that he be imprisoned in a mental institution, and was referred to the hospital on Fairfield Road.

As soon as his arrest reached the ears of the press, the version that, without a doubt, the prisoner was the fierce criminal, and that the savage mutilations inflicted on the bodies were due to his mental disorders.

With sensational headlines, the newspapers reported on the apprehension of the offender who was nicknamed "The Whitechapel Killer" at that time, and made sure that the killer of the prostitutes was none other than "The Crazy Butcher".

The serial murders caused a widespread panic in London.A mob attacked the Commercial Road police station, suspecting that the murderer was being held there.Samuel Montagu, the Member of Parliament for Whitechapel, offered a reward of £100 after rumours that the attacks were Jewish ritual killings.Local residents founded the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee under the chairmanship of George Lusk and offered a reward for the apprehension of the killer,however the Metropolitan Police didn't like this decision if theirs and stood against it, because it could lead to false or misleading information.Nevertheless the Committee employed two private detectives to investigate the case.

The falsity of such accusations would soon be exposed, given that the suspect was imprisoned when the murders of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes occurred, in the early hours of 30 September 1888; then he was definitely ruled out as the serial killer.

On the streets of Whitechapel the police were battling to bring the killer or killers to justice and were coming in for an awful lot of press criticism for their inability to do so.

However, their increased presence appears to have deterred the killer and, by the end of September, the people of the area had begun to relax, with many of them believing that the murder spree had ended.

Thomas Eade appeared as a witness at the inquest into the death of Mary Nichols when it resumed on Monday, 17th September, 1888.

Strangely, his testimony would seem to be more pertinent to the murder of Annie Chapman than to that of Mary Nichols, but, for some reason, he was a witness and Mary Nichols's inquest.

The Pall Mall Gazette published his brief testimony in its next day's edition:-

Thomas Eade, a signalman, stated that on Saturday, September 8, he was going down the Cambridge-road, towards the Whitechapel- road, when he saw a man who attracted his attention, as he was holding his arm stiffly.

As he moved his arm, the witness saw the blade of a knife sticking out of his trousers pocket.

Witness told some men of what he had seen, and then followed the man for some distance, intending to give him into custody, but he lost sight of him.

He looked like a mechanic, and was about 5 ft. 8 in. in height, and thirty-five years of age. He wore a dark brown jacket, a pair of white overalls, and a double peaked cap. He had dark whiskers and mustachios."

Thomas Eades was recalled at the resumed inquest into the death of Mary Nichols, which took place on Saturday, 22nd September, 1888.

The Morning Post published the following brief account of his inquest testimony on Monday, 24th September, 1888:-

The inquest on the body of Mary Anne Nichols, 47, who was found murdered in Buck's-row, Whitechapel, early on the morning of the 31st inst., was resumed on Saturday afternoon before Mr. Wynne Baxter, the district coroner, at the Working Lads' Institute, Whitechapel.

The only further evidence taken was that of Thomas Eades, the signalman, who had previously deposed to having seen a man carrying a knife near the scene of the murder.

Eades now testified that, since last giving evidence, he bad identified John James, of Hackney, as the man whom he had seen with the knife.

The Coroner observed that the man in question was a harmless lunatic, and then proceeded to sum up."

A woman called Rosetta Anderson claimed that on the evening of Wednesday, 19th September, 1888, she had encountered a "curious and mysterious man" on her doorstep.

Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, carried the story of her encounter in its edition of Sunday, 23rd September, 1888:-

On Thursday morning Rosetta Anderson made a statement to the effect that on Wednesday evening a "curious and mysterious man," as Mrs. Anderson herself describes him, placed himself on her doorstep, looked around him, and behaved in such an eccentric manner that she thought he was a maniac.

He intently watched every woman as she passed, but, observing that he was himself an object of suspicion, he suddenly darted out of sight up a court nearby.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Mrs. Anderson believes that this man was the murderer.

His appearance in almost every respect answered the description of the foreigner seen talking with the deceased woman ,Annie Chapman in Hanbury-street on the morning of her death.

The police are investigating the matter.

Strange to say, his appearance tallies somewhat with that of the man already alluded to."

On Sunday 30th September, the body of another prostitute,called  Elizabeth Stride was discovered at about 1 am in Dutfield's Yard, inside the gateway of 40 Berner Street, Whitechapel.Not much is known about her,the police were only able to take testimonies of the general public records but none of the information was ever verified.

Elizabeth married John Stride on March 7, 1869 at the age of twenty-six. They moved to East India Dock road. The two operated a coffee shop together on Poplar, moving from their first location to another one on the same street. In 1875, the business was taken over by a man named John Dale. Little is known about the Strides’ marriage aside from their co-ownership of the coffee shop. Kidney said that Elizabeth claimed to have given birth to nine children in her life, but there are no surviving records of the children born from the Strides’ marriage.

In 1878, a saloon steam ship called the Princess Alice crashed into the Bywell Castle steamer on the Thames River. Between 600 and 700 people were killed in the disaster. When asking for financial assistance at the Swedish Church in 1878, Stride claimed that the accident had killed her husband and children and that she had also suffered an injury to her palate while struggling to escape. Investigators have determined that this was a complete fabrication, though; in fact, John Stride actually was alive and well in 1878 and did not pass away until dying of heart disease in 1884.

This lie would lead us to believe that Elizabeth was having troubles in her marriage that led to a separation from her husband. In that case, she used the Princess Alice story to cover up her separation and to garner more sympathy so that the church would give her more money.The last time Elizabeth was listed in a census as living with her husband was 1881, but after that they no longer lived together.

Elizabeth, or “Long Liz'', Stride spent the last afternoon of her life cleaning rooms in the lodging house at number 32 Flower and Dean Street, where she had lived on and off for the previous six years. The deputy keeper, Elizabeth Tanner, paid her sixpence for the chores and by 6.30pm Elizabeth was slaking her thirst in the nearby Queen’s Head pub at the junction of Fashion and Commercial Streets.By 7pm she had returned to the lodging house,and was, according to fellow resident Charles Preston - from whom she borrowed a clothes brush - dressed “ready to go out.” It rained heavily that night and the next sighting of her was at eleven o’clock when J. Best and John Gardner were certain that they saw her sheltering in the doorway of the Bricklayer’s Arms on Settles Street. She was in the company of a man who was about 5’ 5 inches tall. He had a black moustache,sandy eyelashes and was wearing a black morning suit together with a billycock hat. The most important witness to have seen Elizabeth Stride, in the 30 minutes before her body was discovered in Dutfield’s Yard, was a Hungarian Jew by the name of Israel Swcharz. He turned into Berner Street at around 12.45am and noticed a man walking ahead of him. The man stopped to talk to a woman who was standing in the gateway of Dutfield’s Yard. Later, Schwartz was emphatic that the woman had seen was Elizabeth Stride. At 1 a.m. Louise Diemshutz, the steward of the International Working Men's Educational Club, returned to Dutfield’s Yard from Westow Hill Market, near Crystal Palace,where he had spent the day hawking the cheap jewellery.As he turned his pony and cart into the yard his pony shied to the left and refused to go any further.When he went to check what was spooking the horse,he saw a woman lying on the floor.She was lying in a pool of blood with her throat cut from left to right. She had been killed just minutes before, and her body was otherwise unmutilated. It is possible that the murderer was disturbed before he could commit any mutilation of the body by someone entering the yard, perhaps Louis Diemschutz, who discovered the body.

J. Best and John Gardner were quoted in The Evening News, on Monday, 1st October, 1888, as having seen Elizabeth Stride in the company of a man in the doorway of the Bricklayers Arms, at a little before 11pm on the night of Saturday, 29th September, 1888.

Best stated that he and his friends had been surprised by the way in which the man was "going on with the woman". He claimed that he was so suspicious of the man that, if he had seen a policeman, he would have had the man arrested.

The article in The Evening News read:-

J. Best, 82, Lower Chapman-street, said:-

"I was in the Bricklayers Arms, Settles-street, about two hundred yards from the scene of the murder on Saturday night, shortly before eleven, and saw a man and a woman in the doorway. They had been served in the public house, and went out when me and my friends came in.

It was raining very fast, and they did not appear willing to go out. He was hugging her and kissing her, and as he seemed a respectably dressed man, we were rather astonished at the way he was going on with the woman, who was poorly dressed.

We 'chipped' him, but he paid no attention.

As he stood in the doorway he always threw sidelong glances into the bar, but would look nobody in the face.

I said to him "Why don't you bring the woman in and treat her?", but he made no answer.

If he had been a straight fellow he would have told us to mind our own business, or he would have gone away.

I was so certain that there was something up that I would have charged him if I could have seen a policeman.

When the man could not stand the chaffing any longer he and the woman went off like a shot soon after eleven.

I have been to the mortuary, and am almost certain the woman there is the one we saw at the Bricklayers Arms. She is the same slight woman, and seems the same height. The face looks the same, but a little paler, and the bridge of the nose does not look so prominent.

The man was about 5ft. 5in. in height. He was well dressed in a black morning suit with a morning coat. He had rather weak eyes. I mean he had sore eyes without any eyelashes. I should know the man again amongst a hundred. He had a thick black moustache and no beard. He wore a black billycock hat, rather tall, and had on a collar. I don't know the colour of his tie. I said to the woman, "that's Leather Apron getting round you." The man was no foreigner; he was an Englishman right enough."

John Gardner, who was one of the men with J. Best, confirmed everything that his companion had told the reporter, and stated that, like his friend, he had also viewed Elizabeth Stride's body at the mortuary:-

John Gardner, labour, 11 Chapman-street, corroborated all that Best said respecting the conduct of the man and the woman at the Bricklayers Arms, adding, "before I got into the mortuary today., I told you the woman had a flower in her jacket, and that she had a short jacket.

Well, I have been to the mortuary and there she was with the dahlias on her right side of her jacket.

I could swear she is the woman I saw at the Bricklayers Arms and she has the same smile on her face now that she had then."

Interestingly, the police do not seem to have interviewed either of the men, and, as far as can be ascertained, neither of them was called to give evidence at the inquest into the death of Elizabeth Stride.

Another witness to the story,

James Brown, a resident of Fairclough Street, went out to get some supper a little before a quarter-to-one, on the morning of Sunday, 30th September, 1888.

As he made his way along Fairclough Street, he passed a man and woman standing by a wall.

When taken to see the body of Elizabeth Stride at the mortuary, he identified her as the woman he had seen, and, in consequence, he appeared as a witness on the fourth day of the inquest into her death.

The Scotsman, published an account of his testimony in its edition of Saturday, 6th October, 1888:-

I live at Fairclough Street. I am a dock labourer. I have seen the body at the mortuary. I do not know the woman. I saw her on Sunday morning about a quarter before one o'clock.

I was going from my own house to get some supper at a chandler's shop at the corner of Berner Street and Fairclough Street. I was in the shop for three or four minutes, and then went back home.

On my way I saw a man and woman standing against the wall by the Board School in Fairclough Street. I heard the woman say, "No, not tonight, some other night."; That made me turn around, and I looked at them. I saw enough then to enable me to say that I am almost certain the deceased was that woman. I did not notice any flower in her dress. The man was standing with his arm leaning against the wall. The woman was standing with her back against the wall facing me.

The Coroner:- "Did you notice the man?"

Well, I noticed that he had a long coat on, which reached very nearly down to his heels. It appeared to be an overcoat. I could not say what kind of hat or cap he had on. They were in a rather dark place. He was wearing a dark coat. I saw nothing light in colour about either of them. He was leaning over her. It was not raining at the time.

I went on and indoors.

When I had nearly finished my supper, I heard screams of "police" and "murder." There had been an interval of about a quarter of an hour between my getting home and these screams. When I came in at twelve o'clock I did not think it Was raining.

The Coroner:- "Did you notice the height of the man?"

I should think he was about the same height as myself - 5 feet 7 inches. He was of average build.

Neither of them seemed the worst for drinking. The speech of the woman was as if she were sober. I did not notice any foreign accent about the woman's remark.

When I heard the screams of "murder" and "police" I went up to the window and looked out, but I did not see whence they proceeded. They ceased when I got to the window.

The cries were those of moving persons going in the direction of Grove Street. Shortly afterwards, I saw a policeman standing at the corner of Christian Street."

But there was something rather unusual about this day.The same day at 1:45 am Catherine Eddowes's mutilated body was found by PC Edward Watkins at the south-west corner of Mitre Square, in the City of London, about 12 minutes walk from Berner Street.

Based on the accounts of her friends and family, Kate was well liked. Old friends described her as an “intelligent, scholarly woman, but of fiery temperament.” Frederick Wilson, the deputy of Cooney’s Lodging House, described her as a “very jolly woman, always singing”, which seemed to be corroborated by George Hutt’s experience with her in the jailhouse.

Her family moved from the countryside to London in 1848, where she was educated at St. John’s Charity School until her mother died in 1855. Some newspaper accounts claimed that both of Catherine’s parents died in 1851. In any case, after she was orphaned, she moved to Bison Street in Wolverhampton where she attended Dowgate Charity School.

Eddowes was about 21 and living in Wolverhampton when she met and became involved with a man named Thomas Conway. He was a military pensioner from the 18th Royal Irish Regiment. Not too much is known of their life together, but it is believed that they made their money in Birmingham selling cheap novels as well as writing popular songs called “gallows ballads.” They never married, but did live together for about 20 years and had three children in 1865, 1868 and 1873, two boys and a girl named Annie. A tattoo found on Eddowes’ arm reading “TC” was believed to represent Conway’s initials, and was very helpful when her body had to be identified later on.

In 1881, the couple split, according to Annie Phillips, “entirely on account of her drinking habits.” Conway was a teetotaler, according to his daughter, while Kate was in the habit of drinking excessively. Eventually, the conflict became too great, and Eddowes moved into Cooney’s Lodging House at 55 Flower and Dean Street. Annie soon married and moved in with her husband, Louis Phillips. She spent the next several years moving from one place to the other in attempts to avoid her mother’s “scrounging” and asking for money.

While staying at Cooney’s, Catherine met an Irishman named John Kelly, who worked in the markets, often for one of the local fruit vendors. The two were close for the next seven years, until police found Eddowes’ body in Mitre Square. Taking on the surname of one’s partner, even if marriage had not officially taken place, was a common practice for lower class women at the time. Catherine, therefore, was also known as Kate Kelly.

Her friends and family members were adamant that Kate was not a prostitute, and that she made her money from doing honourable jobs such as hawking and doing odd jobs around town. The Cooney house deputy, Frederick Wilkinson told the police that he, “never knew of her being intimate with anyone but Kelly” and that she was usually home and to bed by nine or ten in the evening. It is very unlikely, though, that anyone in Catherine’s life would wish to speak ill of the dead. On the other hand, it is likely that Eddowes, like Annie Chapman, had engaged in prostitution from time to time when she needed the money.

Late summer in England was hop-picking season, where many of the poor would go to the countryside to find work collecting the hops that would be used by nearby breweries. John Kelly and Catherine Eddowes went to the countryside for the hop-picking season in 1888, which they had done for the previous several years. Having little success getting work and with no money for a ride, the two struck out for London on foot.

On the road, they came across a man and a woman. The woman offered Eddowes a pawn ticket she had for a flannel shirt. The woman’s name was Emily Birrell, and the pawn ticket would be found on Eddowes’ person in Mitre Square.

On September 29th, John and Kate arrived back in London. Having no money when they got to the city, John managed to earn 6d so they could get lodging for the night. A bed at their usual lodging house, Cooney’s, was 4d, so Kate volunteered to take the remaining 2d and sleep in the casual ward that night.

When interviewed, a superintendent of the casual ward reported that Eddowes had said, “I have come back to earn the reward offered for the apprehension of the Whitechapel murderer. I think I know him.” He warned her to watch out or the killer might murder her too, to which she replied, “Oh, no fear of that.”

This story was not corroborated by anyone else and could well have been a complete fabrication, but the quote added to the sensationalism of and public reaction to the coming double homicide. The following morning of September 29th, Kate was kicked out of the casual ward for an unknown reason, never to return.

They met at 8 am near Cooney’s Lodging House, and Kate took a pair of Kelly’s boots to a pawnbroker on Church Street named Jones. She pawned the boots under the name of “Jane Kelly” for the price of a meal. Frederick Wilkinson saw Eddowes and Kelly later, between 10 and 11 am, having breakfast in Cooney’s kitchen. Still completely broke, the hunt began for money for food and lodging for the rest of the day.

Eddowes told Kelly that she would try to get some money from her daughter, Annie. Kelly was worried about separating from her and reminded her of the killer. The two parted in Houndsditch and she would be home no later than 4 pm. “Don’t you fear for me. I’ll take care of myself and I shan’t fall into his hands,” were her parting words to him.

Nobody is quite sure what happened in between the time they parted and the time that PC Robinson found Eddowes lying drunk on Aldgate Street. John Kelly would not see her again alive.

She had been killed less than 10 minutes earlier by a slash to the throat from left to right with a sharp, pointed knife at least 6 inches long.Her face and abdomen were mutilated, and her intestines were drawn out over the right shoulder with a detached length between her torso and left arm. Her left kidney and most of her uterus were removed.The examining pathologist, Dr Frederick Gordon Brown, believed the perpetrator "had considerable knowledge of the position of the organs" and from the position of the wounds on the body he could tell that the murderer had knelt to the right of the body, and worked alone.However, the first doctor at the scene, local surgeon Dr George William Sequeira, disputed that the killer possessed anatomical skill or sought particular organs.His view was shared by City medical officer William Sedgwick Saunders, who was also present at the autopsy.Because of this murder's location, the City of London Police under Detective Inspector James McWilliam were brought into the enquiry.

At 3 am a blood-stained fragment of Eddowes's apron was found lying in the passage of the doorway leading to 108 to 119 Goulston Street, Whitechapel, about a third of a mile from the murder scene.At the doorway,there was a message,"The Jews are the men that will not be blamed for nothing".Clearly the killer,had some issues with the Jews.At 5 am, Commissioner Warren attended the scene and ordered the words erased for fear that they would spark anti-Semitic riots.

Goulston Street was on a direct route from Mitre Square to Flower and Dean Street, where both Stride and Eddowes lived.

A Middlesex coroner, Wynne Baxter, believed that Stride had been attacked with a swift, sudden action.She was still holding a packet of cachous in her left hand when she was discovered,indicating that she had not had time to defend herself.A grocer called Matthew Packer,told the detectives of Whitechapel Vigilance Committee that he sold grapes to Stride and there was a man with her.Packer's description of the man did not match the statements by other witnesses who may have seen Stride with a man shortly before her murder, but all but two of the descriptions differed.Its possible that the man was just a commoner,not the killer.Nevertheless, Packer's story appeared in the press.Joseph Lawende was a Polish-born British cigarette salesman.In the early morning hours of 30 September 1888, two murders attributed to Jack the Ripper took place.

Lawende and two Jewish companions, Joseph Hyam Levy, a butcher, and Henry Harris, a furniture dealer, attended the Imperial Club in Duke's Place. They were delayed from leaving by rain. After the rain subsided, they left just after 1:30 a.m, the time having been checked by the club clock and by Lawende's pocket watch. They began to walk along Duke Street towards Aldgate. About fifteen yards from the club, at the narrow entrance to Church Passage, which led to Mitre Square, they saw a man and a woman talking quietly. The woman had her hand on the man's chest. Lawende would later identify the woman as Eddowes by her clothing when he was later shown her clothing at the mortuary.

Lawende walked slightly apart from his two friends, and was the only one to take any notice of the man's appearance, having glanced at him briefly. He described the man as being of average build and looking rather like a sailor, wearing a pepper-and-salt-coloured loose-fitting jacket, a grey cloth cap with a matching peak, and a reddish neckerchief. Lawende said that the man was aged about 30, with a fair complexion and moustache, being about 5 ft 7-8 inches tall. He did not believe he would be able to identify the man again.Chief Inspector Swanson noted that Lawende's description was a near match to another provided by one of the witnesses who may have seen Stride with her murderer.

By this time,people began to fear coming out at late nights especially women.On a Friday on 9th November,another prostitute called Mary Jane Kelly was murdered in the single room where she lived at 13 Miller's Court, behind 26 Dorset Street, Spitalfields.

Mary Jane Kelly was a familiar face around Whitechapel. Detective Constable Walter Dew, one of the responding officers, said that she was rarely seen without an entourage of other women, or at least arm and arm with two or three friends. She was often seen around the neighborhood, always dressed in her signature white apron.

By the accounts of those who knew her, Mary Kelly was the youngest and the most attractive of the Ripper’s victims. She was born around 1863 in Limerick, Ireland, making her 25 at the time of her death. She was tall about 5 feet 7 inches and had blonde hair, with blue eyes, and fair skin.

Mrs. Kennedy was one of the witnesses whose name appeared in many newspapers in the aftermath of the murder of Mary Kelly.

her parents actually lived in Miller's Court and, on in the early hours of the day of the murder, she had gone to stay with them.

She was one of the neighbours who was quoted as saying that she had heard a faint cry of "Murder" at between 3.30am and 4am on the morning of the 9th of November, 1888.

However, she knew nothing of the murder until she tried to leave Miller's Court later that morning and found that the police were preventing anyone from doing so.

The Salisbury Times, was one of several newspapers that on Saturday, 17th November, 1888 gave a detailed account of what she had seen:-

Mrs. Kennedy, who was on the day of the murder staying with her parents at a house facing the room where the mutilated body was found, made an important statement.

She said that about three o'clock on Friday morning she entered Dorset Street on her way to the house of her parents, which is situated immediately opposite that in which the murder was committed.

She noticed three people at the corner of the street near the Britannia public-house.

There was a man - a young man, respectably dressed, and with a dark moustache - talking to a woman whom she did not know, and also a female poorly clad, and without any headgear.

The man and woman appeared to be the worse for liquor, and she heard the man say, "Are you coming'?", whereupon the woman, who appeared obstinate, turned in an opposite direction to which the man apparently wished her to go.

Mrs. Kennedy went on her way and nothing unusual occurred until about half an hour later.

She stated that she did not retire to rest immediately she reached her parents' abode, but sat up, and between half-past three and quarter to four she heard a cry of "murder"; in woman's voice proceed from the direction in which Mary Kelly's room was situated. As the cry was not repeated, she took no further notice of the circumstance until the morning, when she found the police in possession of the place preventing all egress to the occupants of the small houses in the court.

When questioned by the police as to what she had heard throughout the night, she made a statement to the above effect.

She has now supplemented that statement by the following:-

"On Wednesday evening, about eight o'clock, my sister and I were in the neighbourhood of Bethnal Green Road, when we were accosted by a very suspicious looking man about 40 years of age. He was about five feet seven inches high, wore a short jacket, over which he had a long topcoat. He had a black moustache, and wore a billycock hat.

He invited us to accompany him into a lonely spot, as he was known about there, and there was a policeman looking at him."

She asserts that no policeman was in sight.

He made several strange remarks, and appeared to be agitated. He was very white in the face, and made every endeavour to prevent them looking him straight in the face. He carried a black bag.

He avoided walking with them, and led the way into a very dark thoroughfare at the back of the workhouse, inviting them to follow, which they did.

He then pushed open a small door in a pair of large gates, and requested one of them to follow him, whereupon the women became suspicious.

He acted in a very suspicious manner and refused to leave his bag in possession of one of the females.

Both women became alarmed at his actions, and escaped, at the same time raising the alarm of "Jack the Ripper."

A gentleman who was passing is stated to have intercepted the man, while the women made their escape.

Mrs. Kennedy asserts that the man whom she saw on Saturday morning with the woman, at the corner of Dorset Street, resembled very closely the individual who caused such alarm on the night in question, and that she would recognize him again if confronted with him.

There is no cause to doubt this woman's statement. The stories told by both those women are certainly the most important points that came to light on Saturday."

Mary Kelly's friend and Neighbour,

Lizzie Albrook is one of those witnesses who may, or may not, have existed.

She is mentioned in numerous newspapers, in articles that were published in the wake of the murder of Mary kelly, which took place on Friday, 9th November, 1888, but the story of her statement is obviously a syndicated article, which several newspapers attributed to the Central News.

According to the article, as it appeared in the newspapers, Lizzie Albrook was twenty-years old, resided in Miller's Court, and worked at a common lodging house in Dorset Street.

She claimed to have been on friendly terms with Mary Kelly, on account of the fact that they were "near neighbours."

She had, allegedly, told the reporter who had interviewed her that, she had spent time with Mary kelly on the evening before her murder. As they chatted, Mary had warned her against going out on the streets, as she had done. Mary, so Lizzie recalled, was heartily sick of the life she was leading and lamented the fact that she didn't have the money to give it up.

Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, published the story on Sunday, 11th November, 1888.In her statement she said,

"I knew Mary Jane Kelly very well, as we were near neighbours.

The last time I saw her was on Thursday night, about eight o'clock, when I left her in her room with Joe Barnett, who had been living with her.

The last thing she said was, "Whatever you do, don't do wrong and turn out as I have."

She had often spoken to me in this way, and warned me against going on the streets as she had done.

She told me, too, that she was heartily sick of the life she was leading, and she wished that she had enough money to go back to Ireland, where her people lived.

I don't believe she would have gone out as she did if she had not been obliged to do so in order to keep herself from starvation.

She had talked to me about her friends several times, and, on one occasion, she told me that she had a female relation in London who was on the stage."

Another crucial witness is Sarah Lewis, a laundress of 24 Great Pearl Street, having argued with her husband, decided to spend the rest of the night with her friend Mrs. Keyler and her husband at number 2 Miller's Court, which was a first floor room.

According to her police statement, as she approached the court there was a man standing against the lodging house on the opposite side of Dorset Street, although she was unable to describe him. This man may well have been George Hutchinson.

Her statement was taken on 9th November probably in the Keylers room, as she later testified that the police wouldn't let them out until 5.30pm.

By the time of Mary Kelly's inquest, Mrs Lewis had evidently given more thought to what she had seen, and went into a lot more detail in her testimony:-I visited a friend at Miller's Court on Friday morning at half-past two o'clock. I saw a man standing on the pavement. He was short and stout, and wore a wideawake hat.

I stopped with my friend, Mrs Keyler. I fell asleep in a chair, and woke at half-past three. I sat awake till a little before four.

I heard a female voice scream, "Murder," loudly. I thought the sound came from the direction of the deceased's house. I did not take much notice, for such cries are often heard.

At eight o'clock on Wednesday night, when with a female friend, I was accosted in Bethnal Green Road by a gentleman who carried a bag. He invited one of us to accompany him. Disliking his appearance we left him. The bag was about nine inches long.. The man had a pale face, dark moustache, wore dark clothes, an overcoat, and a high felt hat.

On Friday morning, when coming to Miller's Court, about half-past two, I met that man with a female in Commercial Street. As I went into Miller's Court they stood at the corner of Dorset Street. "

Most of what was known of her backstory came from her partner, Joseph Barnett, and that story was based on what Kelly herself had told him. It was also with gaps and small mysteries of its own.

Though Irish born, Mary Kelly spent most of her early years living in Wales. Her father was John Kelly, an ironworker. Kelly told Barnett that she had six or seven siblings. Landlord John McCarthy said that in the time that Kelly lived in Miller’s court, she had received one letter from her mother, but otherwise had not been in close correspondence with her family.

Both Barnett and a former landlady named Mrs. Carthy hinted that Kelly’s family had been well to do. Carthy also said that Kelly was, “an excellent scholar and an artist of no mean degree.”

Kelly only spent a little time in Cardiff, and spent much of that time ill and in an infirmary. She moved to London in 1884, and may have stayed in a charitable house, the Providence Row Night Refuge, and worked as a charwoman. Not long afterward, she left this place too and moved into a house in the West End.

In the West End, Kelly worked and lived in a high-class brothel, which The Press Association reported was run by a French Woman. It was said that during this time, Kelly had added some exoticism by her own name by going by “Marie Jeanette”. Kelly told Barnett that she had often ridden in a carriage, and that at one point she had even been taken to Paris. She had not liked Paris, however, and returned to London after just two weeks.

She then moved to a house in the East End on St. George’s Street. She was quickly ejected from that house for drinking too much and possibly using other intoxicants besides alcohol.

At this point, Kelly moved in with Mrs. Carthy, who would be one of the few people that could illuminate Kelly’s background for investigators.

Joseph Barnett entered Kelly’s life on Good Friday, April 8, 1887. Barnett also came from Irish parents, but was born in London in 1858. He worked as a laborer on the docks and a market porter for Billingsgate Fish Market. The two first met on Commercial Street, and then went out for a drink, agreeing to meet the next day. They decided, after meeting only twice, to move in together.

Barnett and Kelly lived first on George Street, then Dorset Street, from which they were evicted for not paying rent and for being drunk. In fact, the Thames Magistrate Court fined Kelly for being drunk and disorderly on September 19, 1888.

The couple would move two more times before August of 1888, and during that time Kelly had been working odd jobs. Then Barnett lost his job. With weeks of rent fees piling up as well as debts to the state for public drunkenness, it was up to Mary Kelly to bring in money. Much to Barnett’s chagrin, Kelly resumed prostitution.

By the fall of 1888, the relationship between Mary Kelly and Joseph Barnett had become strained by their financial situation as well as the latter’s disapproval of Kelly’s lifestyle. The reign of Jack the Ripper overshadowed Whitechapel with fear, and Mary had begun to allow other prostitutes who had nowhere to go in the evenings to stay with the couple in their tiny room at Miller’s Court.

“She only let them because she was good hearted and did not like to refuse them shelter on cold bitter nights,” Barnett told the inquest. “We lived comfortably until Marie allowed a prostitute named Julia to sleep in the same room; I objected: and as Mrs. Harvey afterwards came and stayed there, I left and took lodgings elsewhere.

Sure enough, Elizabeth Prater of Miller’s Court ,who lived directly above them reported that on October 30th, sometime between 5 and 6 pm, the couple had argued. Barnett left Kelly to live at Mrs. Buller’s boarding house. Kelly had been drunk and broke two of the windowpanes that looked out on the courtyard.

A charwoman who lived at  Miller’s Court, Julia Venturney, says that Barnett was known to have treated Mary well, and gave her money whenever he could. This did not stop after he moved out. He disapproved of her prostitution and did not want her to live that way, and he continued to visit her every day up until the evening of November 8th.

In the meantime, Kelly continued to allow other women including Mrs. Harvey and “Julia”. Harvey slept over there until she took up lodgings on Dorset Street on November 7th. On November 8th, Barnett visited Kelly at 7 pm, then left  on good terms at about 7:45 pm.

At this point, witness testimonies diverge. One thing is for sure, however, and that is that the next time Barnett saw Kelly, he could identify her only by her eyes and her hair.

On the morning of 9 November 1888, the day of the annual Lord Mayor's Day celebrations, Kelly's landlord, John McCarthy, sent his assistant, ex-soldier Thomas Bowyer, to collect the rent. Kelly was six weeks behind on her payments, owing 29 shillings. Shortly after 10:45 a.m., Bowyer knocked on her door but received no response. He then looked through the keyhole, but could not see anybody in the room. Pushing aside the clothing used to plug the broken windowpane, Bowyer peered inside the room when he discovered Kelly's extensively mutilated corpse lying on the bed.

Bowyer reported his discovery to McCarthy, who first verified his claims, then instructed Bowyer to inform the Commercial Road Police Station. Bowyer ran to the police station, stammering the words: "Another one. Jack the Ripper.McCarthy sent me" to Inspector Walter Beck.Beck accompanied Bowyer to Miller's Court, and immediately requested the assistance of police surgeon Dr. George Bagster Phillips. He also gave orders preventing any individuals from entering or exiting the yard. Beck also arranged for news of the murder to be telegraphed to Scotland Yard, and requested the assistance of bloodhounds.The scene was attended by Superintendent Thomas Arnold and Inspector Edmund Reid from Whitechapel's H Division, as well as Frederick Abberline and Robert Anderson from Scotland Yard.

The mutilation of Kelly's corpse was by far the most extensive of any of the Whitechapel murders, likely because the murderer had more time to commit his atrocities in a private room, without fear of discovery over an extensive period of time, as opposed to in public areas.

Dr. Thomas Bond and Dr. George Bagster Phillips examined the body. Phillips and Bond timed her death to about 12 hours before the examination. Phillips suggested that the extensive mutilations would have taken two hours to perform, and Bond noted that rigor mortis set in as they were examining the body, indicating that death occurred between 2 and 8 a.m.Bond's official documents pertaining to his examination of the decedent, the crime scene, and subsequent post-mortem state,

The whole of the surface of the abdomen and thighs was removed and the abdominal cavity emptied of its viscera. The breasts were cut off, the arms mutilated by several jagged wounds and the face hacked beyond recognition of the features. The tissues of the neck were severed all round down to the bone.

The viscera were found in various parts including the uterus and kidneys with one breast under the head, the other breast by the right foot, the liver between the feet, the intestines by the right side and the spleen by the left side of the body. The flaps removed from the abdomen and thighs were on a table.

The bed clothing at the right corner was saturated with blood, and on the floor beneath was a pool of blood covering about two feet square. The wall by the right side of the bed and in a line with the neck was marked by blood which had struck it in several places.

The face was gashed in all directions, the nose, cheeks, eyebrows, and ears being partly removed. The lips were blanched and cut by several incisions running obliquely down to the chin. There were also numerous cuts extending irregularly across all the features.

The neck was cut through the skin and other tissues right down to the vertebrae, the fifth and sixth being deeply notched.

Following Kelly's murder, extensive house-to-house enquiries and searches were conducted by police.

In the early days of the CID Howard Vincent had adopted a policy that the police were, under no circumstances, to talk to journalists about their cases. He stated that:-Police must not on any account give any information whatever to gentlemen connected with the press, relative to matters within police knowledge, or relative to duties to be performed or orders received, or communicate in any manner, either directly or indirectly, with editors, or reporters of newspapers, on any matter connected with the public service, without express and special authority…The slightest deviation from this rule may completely frustrate the ends of justice, and defeat the endeavour of superior officers to advance the welfare of the public service. Individual merit will be invariably recognized in due course, but officers, who without authority give publicity to discoveries, tending to produce sensation and alarm, show themselves wholly unworthy of their posts."

The police now we're really cautious about the matter,and rarely spoke about their case.A major fear and possibly a very reasonable one was that if the police were to tell journalists about the lines of enquiry they were following, then the subsequent press reportage might well tip off possible suspects that the police were on to them. Early in the investigation the police had seen the danger posed by sensationalist press reportage when the Leather Apron scare almost set off an anti-Jewish pogrom in the East End of London. Thus the police chose to try and keep journalists at arm’s length in order to keep their lines of enquiry from becoming public knowledge.

However  and unfortunately for the police  the ripper crimes generated a huge amount of press coverage and the general public were desperate to pore over every salacious detail of the case.

Starved of news by the police, journalists adopted several means of obtaining information. They would shadow individual constables or detectives in the hope they would lead them to a suspect or a witness. They would track down and interview witnesses to see if they could glean a hint as to what stage, if any, the police investigation had reached. They would try to bribe officers or attempt to loosen their tongues with drink. Some journalists even dressed up as women and set off into the streets of Whitechapel in the hope that they might be accosted by Jack the Ripper and, in so doing, gain a sensational scoop for their newspaper. And, when all else failed, they could always make up stories.

On 10 November, Dr. Bond wrote a report officially linking Kelly's murder with four previous ones to occur in and around Whitechapel. Bond also provided an offender profile of the murderer, which suggested the perpetrator was a solitary, eccentric individual who was subject to periodic attacks of homicidal and erotic mania, and who had been in an extreme state of satyriasis as he performed the mutilations upon Kelly and the four previous victims.

John Lardy made a brief appearance in the Victorian newspapers in October, 1888.

He, apparently, approached the City Of London Police on the afternoon of Thursday, 18th October, 1888, and made a statement regarding a suspicious looking man, whom, so he said, had the appearance of an American, and whom he and a friend had followed all over Whitechapel from 10.30pm on Wednesday, 17th October.

The Daily News, published a full account of his statement on Friday, 19th October, 1888:-

The City Police have under observation a man Whose movements in Whitechapel, Mile-end, and Bermondsey are attended with suspicion.

A man, who is said to be an American, was arrested in Bermondsey at one o'clock yesterday morning, and taken to the police station.

His conduct, demeanor, and appearance gave rise to great suspicion, and his apprehension and general particulars were wired to the City police.

Following this, a conference took place yesterday afternoon between a young man named John Lardy, of Redman's-row, Mile-end, and the head of the detective department at the Old Jewry, at which he stated as follows:-

"At 10.30 last night, I was with a friend and a young woman outside the Grave Maurice Tavern, opposite the London Hospital, when I noticed a man whom I had never seen before come across the road, look into each compartment of the tavern, and enter the house.

He came out again directly, and carefully looked up and down the road, and then walked over the road to the front of the hospital, where two women were standing talking. They were, I believe, loose women.

The man said something to them, but I did not hear his words. The women shook their heads and said, "No".

I said to my friend, "What a funny-looking man. I wonder if he is the murderer." My friend replied, "Let us follow him."

We said goodnight to our friend and followed the man.

When opposite the Pavilion Theatre, he drew himself up in an instant, and looked carefully round. We believe that he saw us following him, and he disappeared into a doorway.

We stopped for a moment or two, and he came out of his hiding place and went into a newspaper shop next door. shop next door.

During the whole time we saw him his right hand was in his overcoat pocket, apparently clutching something.

He bought a paper at the shop, and folded it up on his chest with his left hand, and then left the shop, looking up and down the road as he did so, and carefully reading the placards outside the shop window.

He afterwards started off towards Aldgate, and we followed him.

When he got to the corner of Duke-street, the street leading to Mitre-square, he turned, and, seeing that we were following him, re-crossed the road and walked hack to Lemon-street.

When he reached Royal Mint-street, he went into King-street, which is very narrow, and my friend and I ran round to the other end of the street, hoping to see him come out there. Just as we got to the other end of King-street we heard a door close, and we waited to see if the man reopened it, for we felt sure that he was the man, although we had not seen him go into the house.

We both waited for 25 minutes, when we watched the same guy come out of the house. He came up the street, and we stepped back and allowed him to pass, and he went in the direction of the Whitechapel-road.

He went away so quickly that we lost sight of him in the fog, which was then very thick. The time then was just after 12.

When he reappeared from the house we noticed that he was very differently dressed to what he was when we first saw him, the most noticeable being his overcoat. At first, he was wearing a sort of short, frock coat reaching his knees only, but when he came out of the house in King-street he had on a large overcoat which reached to within three inches of the ground.

From what I could see, he appeared to be between forty and forty-five years of age, and from five feet eleven inches to six feet in height. 

He wore a low hat with a square crown, but I Cannot describe either his trousers or boots.

He had the appearance of an American. His cheek-bones were high and prominent, his face thin, cheeks sunken, and he had a moustache only, his cheeks and chin being clean haven. The moustache was, I believe, a false one, for it was all awry, one end pointing upward, and the other towards the ground. His hair was dark, apparently black, and somewhat long."

From what has since come to the knowledge of the police it is inferred that, on leaving King-street, the stranger made his way over London Bridge into Bermondsey, where he was apprehended, and there is no doubt that the description of the Bermondsey and King-street men tally in nearly every particular."

Although there it is believed that there could be multiple serial killers active during this period,like the torso killer.Jack the ripper had a completely different profile.

Over the course of the Whitechapel murders, the police, newspapers, and other individuals received hundreds of letters regarding the case.Some letters were well-intentioned offers of advice as to how to catch the killer, but the vast majority were either hoaxes or generally useless.

The name "Jack the Ripper" didn't enter the investigation until after the night of the so-called "double murder" of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes on 30th September 1888.

Up until that point the killer had been known variously as the "Red Fiend", "The Whitechapel Murderer," and "Leather Apron."

It was the arrival of a gloating letter posted to a London news agency in late September 1888 that would introduce the name 'Jack the Ripper' into the saga.

The letter in question was received by the Central News agency at their premises in the City of London on 27th September 1888.

At first the staff of the news agency weren't too concerned about the letter, and it would be two days before, on September 29th, they would decide to pass it on to the Metropolitan Police.

The letter, written in a boastful tone, was addressed to "The Boss, Central News Office, London, City.In which the writer writes,

"Dear Boss,

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 of the 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 ladys 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. 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”.

On first of October ,Central News Agency of London received a post card.The author of this postcard claims to have been the unidentified serial killer known as Jack the Ripper.In which the author wrote "I was not codding dear old Boss when I gave you the tip, you'll hear about Saucy Jacky's work tomorrow double event this time number one squealed a bit couldn't finish straight off. Had no time to get ears off for the police , thanks for keeping the last letter back till I got to work again.

Jack the Ripper.

The postcard mentions that the two victims killed on 30 September were killed very close to one another, stating: "double event this time". Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes were both killed in the early morning of 30 September, and part of Eddowes' ear was found detached at the crime scene as a result of facial mutilations that the killer performed. Some authors have argued that the letter was sent before the murders were publicised, making it unlikely that a hoaxer would have such knowledge of the crime, but the letter was postmarked more than 24 hours after the killings took place, long after many details were known by journalists and residents of the area.

Police officials later claimed to have identified a specific journalist as the author of this message and the earlier "Dear Boss" letter.

The "From Hell" letter was received by George Lusk, leader of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, on 16 October 1888. The handwriting and style is unlike that of the "Dear Boss" letter and "Saucy Jacky" postcard.The letter came with a small box in which Lusk discovered half of a human kidney, preserved in ethanol.The author of the letter wrote,

From hell.

Mr Lusk,

Sory

I sent you half the Kidney I took from one woman and preserved it for you together.The other piece I fried and ate was very nice. I may send you the bloody knife that took it out if you only wait a while longer

signed

Catch me when you can Mishter Lusk

Surprisingly enough ,Eddowes's left kidney had been removed by the killer. The writer claimed that he "fried and ate" the missing kidney half. There is disagreement over the kidney; some contend that it belonged to Eddowes, while others argue that it was a macabre practical joke.The kidney was examined by Dr Thomas Openshaw of the London Hospital, who determined that it was human and from the left side, but contrary to false newspaper reports he could not determine any other biological characteristics.Openshaw subsequently also received a letter signed "Jack the Ripper''.

Scotland Yard published facsimiles of the "Dear Boss" letter and the postcard on 3 October, in the ultimately vain hope that a member of the public would recognise the handwriting.Charles Warren explained in a letter to Godfrey Lushington, Permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department: "I think the whole thing a hoax but of course we are bound to try & ascertain the writer in any case."On 7 October 1888, George R. Sims in the Sunday newspaper Referee implied scathingly that the letter was written by a journalist "to hurl the circulation of a newspaper sky high".Police officials later claimed to have identified a specific journalist as the author of both the "Dear Boss" letter and the postcard. The journalist was identified as Tom Bullen in a letter from Chief Inspector John Littlechild to George R. Sims dated 23 September 1913.

On Friday 19th October 1888 The Star newspaper carried the following report on the piece of kidney that had accompanied the "From Hell" letter, which was sent to Mr. George Lusk:-

The portion of the kidney which it enclosed has, according to the medical experts, been preserved for some time in spirits of wine. The person from whom it was taken was probably a circumstance which fits in with the suggestion that the organ may have been taken from the body of the deceased woman Eddowes, murdered in Mitre-square. Another fact is that the kidney is evidently that of a person who had been a considerable drinker, as there were distinct marks of disease. The handwriting of the letter differs altogether from that of "Jack the Ripper," specimens of whose calligraphy were recently published. The writing is of an inferior character, evidently disguised, while the spelling, as will be seen, is indifferent.

There seems to be no room for doubt that what has been sent to Mr. Lusk is part of a human kidney, but nevertheless it may be doubted whether it has any serious bearing on the Mitre-square murder. The whole thing may possibly turn out to be a medical student's gruesome joke.

It Had Been Preserved in Spirits. Dr. Openshaw told a Star reporter to-day that after having examined the piece of kidney under the microscope he was of opinion that it was half of a left human kidney. He couldn't say, however, whether it was that of a woman, nor how long ago it had been removed from the body, as it had been preserved in spirits.

It is believed that the "revolting parcel" is not from the murderer, but is merely a medical student's practical joke.

The Metropolitan Police last night handed the piece of kidney over to the City Police on the assumption that if the whole thing is not, as is most likely, the disgusting trick of some practical joker, it relates to the Mitre-square crime.”

Ultimately the antics of the popular press proved counterproductive to the police investigation into the Jack the Ripper murders, since the reporting threw up so many false leads and red herrings that the, already overstretched, detectives were stretched almost to breaking point.

Also, the anti- Semitism that stories such as the Leather Apron scare provoked diverted valuable police resources, such as on the ground constables, away from trying to prevent another ripper outrage to simply maintaining public order in the area.

Another subject of intense debate throughout the Jack the Ripper scare was whether or not a reward should be offered by the authorities in order to induce someone to come forward with information that might lead to the killer’s apprehension.Because most of them were poor and did not wanted to lose their valuable time for nothing.

At the inquest into the death of Mary Nichols the foreman of the jury had stated that had a reward been offered by the Government after the murder of Martha Tabram then "very probably the two later murders of Mary Nichols and Annie Chapman would not have been perpetrated."

In November 1888, Henry Matthews, the Home Secretary, addressed the House of Commons and defended his decision not to offer a reward:-

Before 1884 it was the common practice for the Home Office to offer rewards, and sometimes large amounts, in the case of serious crimes.

In 1883 in particular several rewards, ranging from £200. to £2,000, were offered in such cases as the murder of Police-constable Boans, and the dynamite explosions in Charles-street.

These rewards, like the £10,000 reward for the Phoenix Park murders, were ineffectual, and produced no evidence of any value.

In 1884 there was a change in policy. A remarkable case occurred. A conspiracy was formed to effect an explosion at the German Embassy, to plant papers upon an innocent person, and to accuse him of the crime, in order to obtain the reward which was expected.

The revelation of this conspiracy led the then Secretary of State ,Sir W. Harcourt to consider the whole question.

He consulted the police authorities both in England and in Ireland, and the conclusions he arrived at were "that the practices of offering large sensational rewards in cases of serious crime is not only ineffectual, but mischievous; that the rewards produce, generally speaking, no practical result beyond satisfying a public demand for conspicuous action; that they operate prejudicially, by relaxing the exertions of the police, and that they have tended to produce false rather than reliable testimony."

He decided, therefore, in all cases to abandon the practice of offering rewards, as they had been found by experience to be a hindrance rather than an aid in the detection of crime.

These conclusions were publicly announced and acted upon in two important cases in 1884.

One was a shocking murder and violation of a little girl at Middlesborough, and the other the dynamite outrage at London-bridge, in which case the City offered £5,000 reward.

The whole subject was reconsidered in 1885 by Sir R. Cross in a remarkable case of infanticide at Plymouth, and again in 1886 by the right hon. gentleman the member for Edinburgh Mr. Childers in the notorious case of Louisa Hart. In both cases, with the concurrence of the best authorities, the principle was maintained, and a reward refused.

Since I have been at the Home Office I have followed the rule thus laid down and steadily adhered to by my predecessors. I do not mean that the rule may not be subject to exceptions, as for instance where it is known who the criminal is, and information is wanted only as to his hiding-place, or on account of other circumstances of the crime itself.

In the Whitechapel murders not only are these conditions wanted at present, but the danger of a false charge is intensified by the excited state of public feeling.

I know how desirable it is to allay that public feeling, and I would have been glad if the circumstances had justified me in giving visible proof that the authorities are not heedless or indifferent.

I beg to assure…the House that neither the Home Office nor Scotland-yard will leave a stone unturned in order to bring to justice the perpetrators of these abominable crimes which have outraged the feelings of the entire community."

Indeed, just how unhelpful the prospect of a reward could prove is amply demonstrated by a report that appeared in the Daily News on 13th October 1888:-

"The lapse of time diminishes the prospect of the discovery of the Whitechapel murderer. No attempt is made by the police themselves to disguise the fact that arrest upon arrest, each equally fruitless, has produced in the official minds a feeling almost of despair.

A corps of detectives left Leman street yesterday morning, and the officer, under whose direction they are pursuing their investigations, had in their possession quite a bulky packet of papers all relating to information supplied to the police, and all, as the detective remarked, "amounting to nothing."

The difficulty of our work," he said, "is much greater than the general public are aware of."

In the first place there are hundreds of men on the streets answering the vague description of the man who is "wanted" and we cannot arrest everybody.

The reward for the apprehension of the murderer has had one effect - it has inundated us with descriptions of persons into whose movements we are expected to inquire for the sole reason that they have of late been noticed to keep rather irregular hours and to take their meals alone.

Some of these cases we have sent men to investigate, and the persons who it has proved have been unjustly suspected have been very indignant, and naturally so. The public would be exceedingly surprised if they were made aware of some of the extraordinary suggestions received by the police from outsiders.

Why, in one case, the officer laughingly remarked, it was seriously put to us that we should carefully watch the policeman who happened to be on the particular beat within the radius of which either of the bodies was found.

The amount of work done by the detectives through this series of crime has been, he added, enormous.

We do not expect that the batch of inquiries to be undertaken today will lead to any more satisfactory result than those of previous days…"

Furthermore people's depictions of the suspect were widely questionable.On 20th October 1888, the Illustrated Police News did publish two suspect sketches. However, these were little more than an artist’s impression of what an evil and villainous murderer such as Jack the Ripper should have looked like, as opposed to an accurate depiction of suspects based on witness descriptions.

According to a report,The investigators concluded that,It's not clear as to what fueled his savage bloodlust, but the murders all seemed to be methodical and calculating. The precise number of Ripper victims is not definite, but it is generally accepted that he killed five women, all of them were prostitutes. His victim's throats were cut, often followed by abdominal mutilations, including organ removal in some cases. Based upon the precision of his cuts, it's assumed by many that the Ripper had anatomical or surgical knowledge.It was also a fact that he had some serious issues with women,specially with this race.

At 7.55pm, on Wednesday 19th December 1888, Charles Ptolomey was making his way along England-row, off Poplar High Street, when he saw a woman in the company of two sailors by the entrance to Clarke's Yard, on the opposite side of the High Street.

One sailor was around 5 foot eleven inches tall and, in Ptolomey's opinion, "looked like a Yankee"; and the other was about 5 foot seven inches tall.

Ptolomey later recalled that the shorter one was talking to the woman, whom he later identified as Rose Mylett when he was taken to view her body at the mortuary, whilst the taller of the two was walking up and down. "So strange did it seem", he later told the Daily Chronicle, "that I stopped and took account of them."

He then heard the woman say to the shorter sailor "No, no, no!" and heard the shorter seaman speak to her in a low tone.

"It struck me that they were there for no good purpose" he later recalled, "and that was the reason I took so much notice of their movements. I shall always remember their faces, and I could pick them out of a thousand."

He also stressed that, when he had seen her, Rose Mylett seemed perfectly sober.

At 2.30am, on the morning of the 20th December, she was seen by Alice Graves in the company of two men out side The George pub on Commercial Road, by which time she appeared quite drunk.

At 4.30am Police Sergeant Robert Golding and Police Constable Thomas Costello found her dead in Clarke's Yard. Her body was still warm, suggesting that death had occurred only a short time before.

According to a later report by Metropolitan Police Commissioner, James Monro:-

"...The face was perfectly placid. The clothes were not disarranged and round the neck was a handkerchief loosely folded, but not tied. In the pocket of the dress was a small phial, empty. In one of the ears was an ear-ring; the other was missing.

There were absolutely no signs whatever of any struggle, and no marks of violence visible.

The police believed from the appearance of the body that the case was one of suicide or sudden death from natural causes..."

Assistant Divisional Police Surgeon, Dr. George James Harris, was sent for and, having carried out a cursory examination of the body, in the course of which he found no marks, or signs of foul play, he pronounced life extinct and ordered that the body be removed to the mortuary.

Here, the mortuary keeper, and Coroner's assistant, Curtain T. Chivers, discovered a mark around her neck, which was approximately an eighth of an inch deep, with some scratches above it.

A postmortem was subsequently ordered, and was duly carried out, on 21st December, 1888 by Divisional Police Surgeon Dr. Matthew Brownfield.

His findings, as stated in his subsequent report, and presented at the opening of the inquest into Rose Mylett' death that was held that same day, were as follows.

"Blood was oozing from the nostrils, and there was a slight abrasion on the right side of the face.

On the neck was a mark which had evidently been caused by cord drawn tightly round the neck, from the spine to the left ear. Such a mark would have been by a four-thread cord.

There were also impressions of the thumbs and middle and index fingers of some person plainly visible on each side of the neck...Death was due to strangulation. Deceased could not have done it herself. Marks on her neck were probably caused by her trying to pull the cord off.

The murderer must have stood at the left rear of the woman, and, having the ends of the cord round his hands, thrown it round her throat, crossed his hands, and thus strangled her..."

At the inquest it transpired that the police were unaware of Brownfield's conclusion that Rose Mylett had been murdered and, therefore, since they were still of the opinion that her death had been accidental, they had not actually launched an investigation.

As Commissioner Monro put it in his report, "This evidence was certainly a matter of surprise to the police, but accepting the medical evidence as correct, the case was clearly one of murder..."

Monro confessed that he himself had been wrong-footed by the victim's "perfectly placid features" and by the "absence of all signs of violence when the body was discovered..."

He, therefore, sought a second opinion, and asked Surgeon Mr. Mackellar to make a further examination.

Mackellar concurred with Brownfield's findings that death was the result of strangulation, leaving, a somewhat nonplussed, Commissioner Monro to opine that "there is therefore no doubt that the case was one of murder - and murder of a strange and unusual type."

Inevitably, the question was soon being raised as to whether or not this new atrocity spelt the return of Jack the Ripper.

The police, and the majority of the newspapers, seem to have been anxious to dispel any rumours that the murder of Rose Mylett had been the work of Jack the Ripper.

Indeed, there seems to have been a marked determination by the press to avoid the sensationalism that had caused so much panic and unrest in the wake of the previous killings.

The Coroner, Wynne Baxter, was reported as stating at the inquest that, "..The usual signs of strangulation, such as protrusion of the tongue and clenching of the hands, were absent, there being nothing all suggestive of death by violence."

He did, however, point out that such signs were often not present in cases where the violence had been very sudden.

The jury, faced with a large amount of medical testimony and evidence that pointed to strangulation returned a verdict of "Murder by person, or persons unknown."

Reporting on the verdict the Advertiser, reflecting the view held by several other newspapers that the area had had enough of the Whitechapel horrors, commented that, " It is unfortunate that there is a fundamental difference of opinion between the coroner and the jury...For months past there has been a succession of abhorrent enormities forced upon public attention, and it would have been a great relief to have been assured that the death of Rose Millett sic was due to accidental strangulation...As the matter stands additional responsibility is thrown upon the metropolitan police, who from the first have contended that the death was attributable natural causes...The truth may never be known with certainty until the adage that "murder will out" - if murder it be - is once more justified."

It is evident from this, and other reports on what was being dubbed the "Poplar Mystery" that many newspapers were desperately trying to report responsibly on the murder in order to prevent further outbreaks of panic in the district.

However, one newspaper in particular seemed determined to lay the blame for this latest, apparent, atrocity firmly at the ripper's door.

On 24th December 1888 The Star, the newspaper whose earlier reporting had done so much to stir up the Leather Apron scare, broke ranks with the majority of other papers and, in an article that bore the tantalising headline, "IS HE A THUG? A STARTLING LIGHT ON THE WHITE-CHAPEL CRIMES. THE ROPE BEFORE THE KNIFE.", it complained that, "...The town has supped so full of horrors that mere murder unaccompanied by revolting mutilation passes apparently for common-place, and the discovery on Thursday morning...of a woman's dead body with the white mark of a strangler's cord around her throat has failed to create any excitement even in the neighbourhood..."

Adopting the same chilling tone as it had with its "Leather Apron" campaign, a tone designed to terrify the local residents, the article went on to opine that, "...The swift and silent method of the Thug is a new and terrifying feature in London crime, and this murder is invested with a startling significance by the discovery that it has a possible bearing upon the series of Whitechapel Crimes. The suggestion is this:- "Was the Poplar Murder another of the series of Whitechapel and the work of the same man? If so, has the murderer changed his methods, or is it not possible that the deed of Clarke's-yard is a new revelation of his old methods - that in the other cases partial strangulation was first of all resorted to, and that when the victims were by this means rendered helpless, THE KNIFE WAS USED in such a manner as to obliterate the traces of the act?""

The article went on to suggest that the previous victims may well have been rendered unconscious by the same method as had been used on Rose Mylett - i.e. strangulation - but that the marks were not apparent because the killer had then gone on to cut their throats and thus destroy the evidence of the strangulation.

Quoting no less an authority than Dr. George Bagster Phillips the Police Surgeon who had inspected the body of Annie Chapman, as it lay in the backyard of 29 Hanbury Street, - even though Phillips had refused to talk to their reporter so they were, to quote the article, reliant on "another source" concerning Phillips's opinion - "...the Poplar Murder and the Whitechapel Murderer are one and the same man [and] the method of preliminary strangulation was certainly employed in Hanbury-street, and was possibly employed in the other cases..".She obviously was not a victim of Jack the Ripper ,however the killer was soon to make a comeback.

Alice McKenzie was murdered in the early hours of July 17th, 1889, and immediately speculation was rife that her death might spell the return of Jack the Ripper after a prolonged absence for the streets of the East End of some nine months.

At 12.50am on 17th July 1889 Police Constable Walter Andrews found the body of local prostitute Alice McKenzie lying close to a lamp-post on a pavement in Castle Alley, just off Whitechapel High Street.

Her skirt had been pulled up and there was blood over her thigh and abdomen which, it transpired, was coming from a zigzag, albeit fairly superficial, wound that ran from just beneath her left breast to her navel.

The Divisional Police Surgeon, Dr George Bagster Philips, was summoned and having examined the body, he pronounced life extinct.

It would take several hours before the body was even identified, in the meantime a description was circulated to the newspapers, including The Western Times, which published the description on Thursday, 18th July, 1889:-

The victim of the murder was about forty-five years of age, and was about five foot four inches in height. She had brown hair and eyes and a fair complexion.

She is believed to have been of the "unfortunate" class, but has not yet been identified.

She wore a red staff bodice, patched under the arm and a brown staff skirt. She also had on a linsey petticoat, black stockings, buttoned boots, and a Paisley shawl; but no hat or bonnet.

One peculiarity in the description may serve for purposes of identification is that  part of the nail on the thumb on the left hand is deficient.

In the same issue, The Western Times reported that the woman had been identified later on the day of the murder:-

Several hours elapsed before the woman was identified, but a man named John McCormack came forward during the day and recognised her as Alice Mackenzie with whom he had lived for six or seven years, and who has for some time lodged with him as his wife at a common lodging house in Gun Street kept by a man named Tenpenny.

McCormack stated that he did not know whether the deceased had been married, and that the reason for her going out last night was that they had had a slight quarrel, and that she had never, to his knowledge, been out late at night previously.

McCormack speaks of her as a hard-working woman and seems very much upset at the occurrence.

At around 11.30pm, on the night of Tuesday, 16th July, 1889, a woman called ,Margaret Franklin, who newspapers described as "a costermonger's widow, was sitting on the stairs of a barber's shop on Brick lane, with two other women, when Alice McKenzie hurried past.

Despite saying that she was in a hurry, Alice had stopped to chat with the women.

Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, published what Margaret had said about the brief encounter in its edition of Sunday, 21st July, 1889:-Mackenzie must have frequented the public-houses of the locality, for nothing was seen or heard of her in the streets until half-past 11 o'clock, when she was seen by Margaret Franklin.

This woman, a plainly-clad, strong, pleasant-featured person, stated that she had been acquainted with the deceased for many years. She had always been known to her by the name of Alice Bryant, and she believed that she lived with a man of that name. On that point, however, she was not quite positive.

On Tuesday night she was sitting with two other women named Catherine Hughes and Sarah Mahoney, on some steps in front of a barber's shop at the Brick-lane end of Flower and Dean Street, about half-past 11 o'clock, when the murdered woman passed by walking hurriedly. Witnesses shouted out "Hulloa Alice", to which the deceased replied, "I can't stop."

She was by herself, and was going in the direction of Whitechapel. She stopped, although she had said she was in a hurry, and exchanged a few words with them, then leaving them and walking on.

The woman seemed to be in her usual cheerful condition, and, to all appearances, she was not the worst for drinking.

The deceased, to her knowledge, at one time resided at 11, Kate-street, and, so far as she knew, she was living at the time of her death at Tenpenny's lodging-house, in Gunn-street.

She knew that the deceased had been accustomed to work for foreigners."

The Suffolk And Essex Free Press, published a verbatim account of Margaret Franklin's inquest testimony in its edition of Wednesday, 24th July, 1889.

Margaret Franklin, in answer to the coroner, said:- "I live at 54, Flower and Dean-street.

Coroner: "Are you married?"

Witness: "Yes."

Coroner: "What is your husband?"

Witness: "He is a porter."

Coroner: "What is his name?"

Witness: "George."

Coroner: "Are you living with him now?"

Witness: "Not now; he dropped down dead on the 31st March last.

Coroner: "Then you are a widow?"

Witness: "Yes; I believe that's what you call it. I have known the deceased for the. past 15 years."

Coroner: "Has she been living in this neighbourhood all this time?"

Witness: "Yes. I cannot say that she was a married woman, nor do I know that she had been a mother. I was told that she had had two children, but I have never seen them."

Coroner: "Did you see the deceased on Tuesday night?"

Witness: "Yes, between half-past eleven and twelve."

Coroner: "Where did yen see the deceased?"

Witness: "At the top of Flower and Dean-street. She was going towards Whitechapel. When I saw her, I said to her, "Hello, Alice, how are you?" She said, "I'm quite well. How are you?" I replied, "Quite well." She then said, "I can't stop; I must go." That's all she said to me."

Coroner: "Was she under the influence of drink, do you think?"

Witness: "No; I don't think that she was."

Coroner: "Did it strike you as being unusual for her to be out as late as that?"

Witness: "Oh, no; I have often seen her out as late, and later than that."

Dr. Phillips later reported that the woman's injuries did not suggest to him that this was the work of Jack the Ripper.

There was, however, disagreement as to whether Alice McKenzie's murder marked the ripper’s return.

James Monro, who had taken over as Police Commissioner from Sir Charles Warren, arrived at the scene of the murder just after 3am.

Later that day he reported to the Home Office that "every effort will be made…to discover the murderer, who, I am inclined to believe, is identical with the notorious "Jack the Ripper" of last year."

Dr. Thomas Bond, who examined the body of Alice McKenzie at the mortuary, was also of the opinion that the injuries suggested that this was another Ripper killing.

Dr Philips, on the other hand, opined that the wounds were not severe enough to suggest a Jack the Ripper style killing.

Robert Anderson, who was away on holiday at the time of Alice McKenzie's murder, was later adamant that this murder was not the work of the ripper and stated that "..the murder of Alice McKenzie was by another hand."

Anderson also suggested that Monro had later changed his opinion and had come to believe that her murder was "an ordinary murder, and not the work of a sexual maniac."

The final victim, whose name appears on the Whitechapel Murders file, is that of Frances Coles.

Her body was discovered at 2.15 am on Friday 13th February, 1891 by Police Constable Ernest Thompson as he was passing through an archway of the Great Eastern Railway, which leads from Swallow-gardens to Ormond-street.

Thompson had passed the spot 15 minutes before and was adamant that the body hadn't been there then. Returning at 2.15am he heard a man's footsteps walking away from him, and looking into the arch he noticed a figure lying on the ground.

Shining his lamp onto it he found, to his horror, that it was the body of a woman and that she was lying in a pool of blood, which was flowing from a terrible wound in the throat that ran from ear to ear.

Thompson immediately blew his whistle to raise the alarm and the neighbouring beat officers, PC Hyde and PC Hinton, came running to the scene.

They were soon joined by Police-constable Elliott who was on plain clothes duty in adjacent Royal Mint-street.

Elliot later stated that, shortly after 2 o'clock he had heard a whistle blown, and on going to Swallow-gardens saw a constable with his lamp turned on the body of a woman. he later stated that he was certain that he would have heard any cry from the woman, but everything was very quiet until he heard the whistle.

Checking for signs of life, the officers found the body to be quite warm and they also felt a very faint pulse.

PC Hyde was then sent to fetch the local medic, Dr Oxley, who arrived at the scene and pronounced life extinct. PC Hinton, meanwhile, headed off to the Police Station to fetch a senior officer.

He returned with Inspector Flanagan who promptly ordered the police officers who were now arriving at the scene to search the area and to stop and question anybody who they thought suspicious or who might be able to provide any information.

Meanwhile, in accordance with instructions issued during the murders of 1888, Flanagan ordered that the body was to remain in the position in which it was discovered, and he then carried out an in depth search of the surroundings for clues.

Soon Dr George Bagster Philips, the Divisional Police Surgeon, had arrived at the scene and, on examining the body, he found two cuts to the woman's throat, which, he stated, were "sufficient to account for death."

Crucially, Philips was of the opinion that the nature of the wound and the posture of the body did not connect this murder "…with the series of previous murders which were accompanied by mutilation…"

However, several newspapers were quick to connect this murder with the previous Jack the Ripper murders and, on 14th February 1891, The Times reported that:-

Another murder, although not so fiendish in all its details as those which were enacted within a comparatively short period of one another in Whitechapel in 1888 and 1889, has been committed in the same district, and the many similar circumstances surrounding this latest mysterious crime seem to point to its being the work of the same person. The place, the time, the character of the victim, and other points of resemblance, recall in the most obvious way the series of crimes associated in the popular mind with the so-called "Jack the Ripper…”

On the night of Saturday 14th February 1891, Detective-sergeants Record and Kuhrd managed to locate Frances Coles father, James William Cole, who was in Bermondsey Workhouse, and Mary Ann Coles, her sister, who lived in Kingsland. According to the East London Advertiser:-The old man, who is very feeble, was taken to the mortuary in a cab, and had no difficulty in identifying the body as that of Frances Coles, his daughter. Another sister, named Selina, is also known to be living at Kingsland. The deceased was at one time engaged as a labeller at a wholesale chemist's factory in the Minories. It has transpired that she left her lodgings in Thrawl-street about five weeks ago, but on Thursday last, between 9 and 10 o'clock, returned and asked her landlady, Mrs. Hague, to let her come back, and promised to pay what she owed. She then went away, but Mrs. Hague subsequently saw her in a public-house at the corner of Montague-street. She was with a man, who was treating her to drink. He was of fair complexion, and had a light moustache. Mrs. Hague also identified the body..

It soon transpired that her companion had been James Thomas Sadler, a fifty-three year old merchant seaman and fireman on the S.S. Fez, whom she had met in the Princess Alice Pub on February 11th, two days before her murder. Sadler was a former client of hers and, after a few drinks, they decided to spend the night together.

They spent most of February 12th 1891 on a pub crawl around the area and by evening both of them were extremely intoxicated.

At around 7.30pm that evening Frances turned up at a millinery shop at 25 Nottingham Street where she bought a black crepe hat, paying for it with 2s. 6d. That Sadler had given her some hours before. According to Peter Hawkes, the man who served her, Frances was "three sheets in the wind."

Leaving the shop she had, according to Hawkes, gone off in the company of a man who had been looking in through the window whilst Coles was in the shop. Hawkes would later pick Sadler out of a line up at Leman Street Police Station as the man she had gone off with.

Later that night, as they were making their way along Thrawl Street, Sadler was attacked by a woman in a red shawl who came upon him from behind. Two men who were with the woman then robbed him of his watch and money.

It appears that Frances watched the attack and failed to intervene, much to Sadler's disgust who told the police during questioning that he had been angry at Frances for not helping him when he was down. An argument ensued and the two of them went their separate ways.

At 11.30pm a very drunk Frances Coles turned up at the lodging house where they had spent the previous night. Sitting down on a bench in the kitchen she rested her head on her arms and promptly fell fast asleep.

A very belligerent Sadler turned up soon after, his face bloodied and bruised. "I have been robbed," he told Charles Guiver, the night watchman, "and if I knew who had done it I would do for them." Guiver helped Sadler clean up in the backyard.

But since Sadler didn't have any money to pay for a bed he had no choice but to ask him to leave.

At 12.30am on 13th February Frances woke up and, since she also lacked the money for a bed, was forced to leave the lodging house.

At 1.45 am Frances met fellow prostitute Ellen Callana on Commercial Street. Shortly after this meeting, according to Calana's later testimony, she was solicited by "a violent man in a cheese cutter hat." Calana refused him, whereupon the man punched her in the face and blacked her eye. He then approached Frances Coles who ignored Calana's advice to leave the man well alone and headed off towards Minorities with the man.

Meanwhile Thomas Sadler had tried to force his way back on board his ship, the SS Fez, and had become involved in a violent altercation with a group of dockworkers in the course of which he sustained a nasty scalp wound.

Having made two attempts to get into a lodging house in East Smithfield, Sadler was next spotted on the pavement outside the Royal Mint by Sergeant Edwards who later recalled that he had appeared "drunken and bloodied." The officer could plainly see that the Sadler had been assaulted, and questioned him. Sadler stated that he had been attacked by some men, against the London Dock gates, who had "brutally ill-used him."

On the Saturday morning, acting on descriptions and information from various witnesses, including Sergeant Edwards, Detective-sergeant Don and Detective Gill tracked Sadler down at the Phoenix beer house and arrested him.

Saddler offered no resistance and was arrested and taken before Chief Inspector Donald Sutherland Swanson, who, having cautioned him, subjected him to a searching examination.

Sadler admitted to having known Frances Coles and to having also been in her company. However he was adamant that he had had nothing to do with her murder.

There were reports in the press that the cut on Frances Cole's throat was very like the cut on Alice Mackenzie's throat and there was evidently some suspicion that he might also have been responsible for that crime, if not the other Whitechapel murders.

On 17th February 1891 The Times reported that:-The police, after detaining the man James Thomas Sadler upwards of 40 hours in the Leman-street Police-station, considered that they had then sufficient evidence to charge him with the wilful murder of the young woman, who has now been positively identified as Frances Coles; and the charge was formally preferred by Detective Inspector Moore about 12 o’clock on Sunday night..

Police enquiries had also uncovered a man by the name of Donald Campbell, who claimed that he had purchased a knife from Sadler on the Friday morning for one shilling. Campbell had noticed that the knife's handle was "clammy" and that its blade was stained.

He, therefore, washed the knife, noticing as he did so that the water had a reddish appearance. Campbell afterwards sold the knife, but was able to provide detectives with the name of the person who had purchased it from him and, according to The Times:-By that means it was secured. On Sunday morning Campbell went to the Leman-street Police-station and picked Sadler out from amongst a number of other men…"

On Friday 27th February 1891 the inquest into Frances Cole's death drew to its conclusion;

The Coroner, Wynne Baxter, told the jury that the case "…had many characteristics in common with the murders which had preceded it; but it was for the jury to decide, taking well into consideration Sadler’s drunken condition, the conflicting evidence as to times and the connected account given by him of his movements before and after the murder was committed, whether they could fairly charge him with the deed, or must attribute it to some person or persons unknown…"

The jury retired to consider their verdict, and on their return, the foreman said: - "We find that the deceased was willfully murdered by some person or persons unknown, and we wish to say that we think the police did their duty in detaining Sadler."

For a time it seemed as though Sadler's guilt in connection with the murder of Frances Coles was proven and there was speculation that Jack the Ripper may well have been caught at last.

But then the case against him fell apart. Sadler was able to prove that he had, indeed, been mugged, and that he had not actually been with Frances Coles in the hours before she was murdered.

When it was also revealed that his knife was probably too blunt to have inflicted the wound on Coles's throat, the case against him collapsed. He was also able to prove that he had been at sea when some of the other murders had occurred.

In early March 1891 the Director of Public Prosecutions wrote to Sadler's solicitors informing them that:

…So far as the prosecution is concerned, it is not intended to offer evidence tomorrow before the magistrate herein, and an application will be made to him to permit the adoption of this course…”

Based on circumstantial evidences,investigators made a profile.It was a man who was in his mid 30s to early 40s.He knew all the streets ,alleys and had intimate knowledge about the locality.Based on the fact that he had to knew all those streets by mind ,it can be said that he lived locally.And obviously had the reason to be out on the street at night.

After interviewing over 2,000 people, investigating 300, and detaining 80 others, the London police were still dumbfounded as to the real identity/identities behind all these atrocious murders. During the course of their investigations, however, police narrowed down the suspects to several men.

Thomas Cutbush was named as Jack the Ripper in a series of articles that appeared in The Sun newspaper in February 1894. The articles went in to a great deal of detail about the Whitechapel Murderer, although they didn't actually name Cutbush in those articles.Some of these suspects are,

Montague John Druitt,he was a Dorset-born barrister who worked to supplement his income as an assistant schoolmaster in Blackheath, London, until his dismissal shortly before his suicide by drowning in 1888.His decomposed body was found floating in the Thames near Chiswick on 31 December 1888. Some modern authors suggest that Druitt may have been dismissed because he was homosexual and that this could have driven him to commit suicide.However, both his mother and his grandmother suffered mental health problems,and it is possible that he was dismissed because of an underlying hereditary psychiatric illness.His death shortly after the last canonical murder which took place on 9 November 1888 ,led Assistant Chief Constable Sir Melville Macnaghten to name him as a suspect in a memorandum of 23 February 1894. However, Macnaghten incorrectly described the 31 year old barrister as a 41-year-old doctor.On 1st September, the day after the first canonical murder, Druitt was in Dorset playing cricket, and most experts now believe that the killer was local to Whitechapel, whereas Druitt lived miles away on the other side of the Thames in Kent.

Seweryn Antonowicz Kłosowski was born in Congress Poland, but emigrated to the United Kingdom sometime between 1887 and 1888, shortly before the start of the Whitechapel murders. Between 1893 and 1894 he assumed the name of Chapman. He successively poisoned three of his wives and became known as "the borough poisoner". He was hanged for his crimes in 1903. At the time of the Ripper murders, he lived in Whitechapel, London, where he had been working as a barber under the name Ludwig Schloski. Chapman was Inspector Frederick Abberline's favoured suspect.

Aaron Kosminski was a Polish Jew who was admitted to Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum in 1891."Kosminski" without a forename was named as a suspect by Sir Melville Macnaghten in his 1894 memorandum and by former Chief Inspector Donald Swanson in handwritten comments in the margin of his copy of Assistant Commissioner Sir Robert Anderson's memoirs.Anderson wrote that a Polish Jew had been identified as the Ripper but that no prosecution was possible because the witness was also Jewish and refused to testify against a fellow Jew.In his memorandum, Macnaghten stated that no one was ever identified as the Ripper, which directly contradicts Anderson's recollection.

Another likely suspect behind London’s Jack The Ripper murders was the 54-year-old German merchant sailor Carl Feigenbaum.

Feigenbaum was known to be a psychopath who confessed to mutilating women, and even his own lawyer believed that his client was Jack The Ripper.

Feigenbaum went by many aliases during his lifetime, and was known to be working as a merchant on ships that had been docked near Whitechapel. Records prove that Feigenbaum was working in Whitechapel on every single date of the five Jack The Ripper murders in London’s East End, and he and his co-workers were often seen at the nearby brothels as well.

After Feigenbaum emigrated to America sometime around 1890, he was convicted of murdering a woman by the name of Julianna Hoffman, and was sent to the electric chair for the crime. Experts also stated that there were “striking similarities” between London’s Jack The Ripper murders and the slaying of Hoffman.

Another suspect,who was rumoured to actually confess something of that sort.I heard the story from a relative of mine.He says that he knew a guy called Dr, Neill Thomas Cream who was responsible in murdering at least four prostitutes with poison.On the day of his execution in London, the last words he uttered were believed to be a confession to the infamous unsolved murders of Jack the Ripper. His claims were never substantiated, and he had never been named as an official suspect in police investigations.He was hanged at Newgate prison on the 15th November, 1892, for poisoning four prostitutes in London.

As he was being hanged, the hangman, James Billington, claimed that he heard him say, "I am Jack....", just as the trap fell from beneath his feet.

Other named suspects include Swiss butcher Jacob Isenschmid, a German hairdresser Charles Ludwig, apothecary and mental patient Oswald Puckridge,insane medical student John Sanders , Swedish tramp Nikaner Benelius, and even social reformer Thomas Barnardo, who claimed he had met one of the victims Elizabeth Stride shortly before her murder.

But none of the suspects could be verified ,since no one was ever linked to the murder sites.There was literally no suspect who was ever present at a crime scene.

However as curious as I am.There was one guy I think could have been a more likely suspect.Someone who had intimate knowledge about the alleys and roads,had the right reasons to go out at the street ,do late at night ,and someone who was present right on the site.Someone ,like Charles Cross,the other cart driver,I met the other day.