S .
40–41 WENTWORTH MODEL DWELLINGS, GOULSTON STREET, SPITALFIELDS.
a fragment of catherine eddowes’s apron and chalked grafitti were
found here.
J . CASTLE ALLEY, WHITECHAPEL.
× alice mckenzie.
F .
SWALLOW GARDENS, WHITECHAPEL.
× frances coles.
A . OSBORN STREET, WHITECHAPEL.
× emma elizabeth
smith.
A .
GEORGE YARD, WHITECHAPEL.
× martha tabram.
A .
29 HANBURY STREET, SPITALFIELDS.
× annie chapman.
8
S .
ST BOLTOPH WITHOUT ALDGATECHURCH, ALDGATEHIGH STREET.
catherine eddowes
was last seen here.
S .
MITRE SQUARE, MITRE STREET, ALDGATE.
× catherine eddowes.
N .
13 MILLER’S COURT, DORSET STREET, SPITALFIELDS.
× mary jane kelly.
S . PINCHIN STREET, WHITECHAPEL.
× unidentified torso.
)
.
3 SION SQUARE, WHITECHAPEL.
the home of polish-jewish barber aaron kosminski, the second key
suspect.
38
PART ONE — EUROPE.
market. Her throat had been cut but the killer had been disturbed and fled before he could mutilate her. Since that was his intention, he struck again, this time in the City of London at Mitre Square. Catherine ‘Kate’ Eddowes’s (1842–88) body was horribly brutalized: her uterus and left kidney removed, and her face cut up. Three men leaving a Jewish club near Mitre Square that night had seen Kate talking to a man. Descriptions were given and hundreds of potential suspects interviewed, but no arrests were made. More letters arrived on the detectives’ desks and one, sent to the chair of the local Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, George Lusk (1839–1919), came accompanied by a portion of human kidney that the anonymous sender claimed he had cut from Eddowes’s dead body.
For a while, the murders ceased, possibly because the killer was aware that the police were closing in, or perhaps because he was sated by the ‘double event’ that raised the levels of terror in the capital. Then, in the early hours before the Lord Mayor’s Show, he struck again. His final
canonical victim was Mary Jane Kelly (1863–88), whose eviscerated body was found on 9 November at her digs in Miller’s Court, Dorset Street. So terrible were her injuries that her lover was only able to identify her by her ‘eyes and ears’. At least two other women may have met their end at the hands of Jack: Alice McKenzie (1849–89) killed in Castle Alley in July 1889 and Frances Coles (1859–91) murdered in Chamber Street in February 1891.
The investigation into the killings was conducted by the Criminal Investigation Department that had been setup just ten years previously. However, due to both internal incompetencies and external complications, they were never able to get one step ahead of the killer. The practice of crime scene investigation was still in its infancy, and for the early murders there was virtually no attempt at a systematic, detailed analysis of where the bodies were discovered. The possibility of achieving this was undoubtedly undermined by the press, who trampled all over the crime scenes and interviewed witnesses with
Above. illustrated police news, 22 september 1888, coverage of annie chapman’s murder and the heightened tension the ‘ripper’ murders were causing in the east end
of london in 1888.
Above. illustrated police news, 15 september 1888, coverage of the murder of annie chapman in hanbury street, off brick lane, and the link between this case
and mary ann nichols’s killing eight days earlier.
39ENGLAND — LONDON.
Above. the crime scene photograph taken at miller’s court, dorset street, after mary jane kelly’s eviscerated body was discovered by thomas
bowyer and john mccarthy.
Above. illustrated police news, 13 october 1888, coverage of the murder in mitre square and the thames torso murders. in 1888 human body parts were washed up
in various locations in the capital.
Above. illustrated police news, 6 october 1888, coverage of the so-called ‘double event’: the murders of liz stride and then, an hour later, catherine eddowes, which
caused widespread panic in the capital.
no regard for future trials. However, by the time of Mary Jane Kelly’s murder, the police had adopted the method suggested by pioneering French police officer Alphonse Bertillon (1853–1914), and sent a photographer to Miller’s Court to capture one of the very first ‘crime scene’ images for possible use in any court trial. The investigation was also groundbreaking for its use of criminal profiling.
In October 1888, Dr Thomas Bond (1841–1901) was asked to review the evidence and speculate on what kind of person the killer might be. He hypothesized that the Ripper was likely ‘solitary and eccentric’, ‘respectably’ dressed and susceptible to ‘homicidal and erotic mania’. Despite these advances, the police were plagued by setbacks, all of which were voraciously covered by the highly critical press.
