BLOODY JACK Chapter FIfteen

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I believe the first repudiation of Dr. George Phillips' opinions about the murder of Annie Chapman appeared when the inquest reconvened on Wednesday, 12 September, 1888. The first witness was John Richardson, eldest son of Mrs. Amelia Richardson. Between 4:45 am and 4:50 am on Saturday, 8 September, before reporting to his job as a porter at the Spitafields market, John stopped by his mother's residence at 29 Hanbury Street to check on her basement workshop, from which tools had been stolen weeks earlier. 

The first light of dawn had appeared just after 4:50 that morning - sunrise would be at 5:23 am. And standing on the threshold of the back door, John could clearly see the padlock,  just six feet away on the basement door, was still snapped shut, and the door secure. He did not need to move closer. But then John did something crucial. 

He sat on the top step, with his feet resting in the yard, and struggled to cut some leather off his shoes, which were crimping his toes. He sat on the step, John estimated, for “two minutes at most”. But it was a crucial two minutes. It was light enough, John said, that he could see the entire back yard clearly. And with his head down, he could certainly see 6 inches to his right.

He insisted, “I could not have failed to notice the deceased had she been lying there, then.” And if she was not there, then - within 6 inches of John Richardson - at 4:50 that morning, then Dr. Phillips was wrong when he said Dark Annie died between 3:30 and 4:30 that morning,

John's mother, Amelia Richardson, then testified that the leather apron found in the back yard belonged to her younger son. She had washed it under the backyard tap on Thursday and left it out to dry. It was still lying there on Saturday morning, and had nothing to do with the murder, despite lurid press reports the killer had left it behind. 

This supported the next witness, John Pizer, a shoemaker from Mulberry Street. He'd been arrested for his own safety by Detective Sergeant William Thicke – who earned his nickname when a prostitute once greeted him, "“Why fuck me, if it isn't Johnny Upright!”. 

The terrified cobbler, John Pizer,  was well known about Whitechapel as “Leather Apron”. Despite headlines nicknaming the killer “Leather Apron”,  the police had cleared Pizer, despite his reputation for threatening prostitutes with knives and telling them "I'll rip you!" He was testifying now to “vindicate my character to the world at large” -  and to discourage the vigilante street gangs which had been threatening to cut his throat. He had not actually murdered any women, he insisted. And with no mention of his predilections to the jury, the inquest moved on. The next witness returned to events that did happen on the morning of 8 September, 1888. And again, Dr. Phillip's reputation did not come out well in what they saw and heard.

As the clock atop the Black Eagle Brewery - owned since the 17th Century by the Truman family - had just struck 5:30 a.m. - 7 minutes after sunrise - as.... 

...Mrs. Elizabeth Long (above)  was walking south on Brick Lane. She then turned west on Hanbury Street, heading to the Spitsfield Market, on Commercial Street. 

Just before reaching Number 29 Hanbury,  Elizabeth passed a man and woman in loud conversation on "the building side of the sidewalk".  They were facing each other and Mrs. Long had a good look at the woman's face.  After viewing the body in the morgue, Elizabeth had positively identified her as Annie Chapman.

The man had his back to Mrs. Long, but she described him as not much more than 5 feet tall (Annie Chapman was just 5 feet), about 40 years old, wearing a dark overcoat and a brown deerstalker hat. He was, Mrs. Long thought,  foreign looking with a dark complexion and a “shabby genteel” appearance.  She distinctly heard the man say -  in a “foreign accent” -  “Will you?” To which she heard Dark Annie respond, “Yes.”  At the time Elizabeth took little notice of the two. Later, when news of the murder spread like wildfire through the market, Elizabeth Long realized what she had seen and heard might be important. So she contacted the police.

That same morning, carpenter Albert Cadoche was hurrying to the privy in the back yard of 27 Hanbury Street. He was suffering from a UTI – a urinary tract infection. A few painful moments later he was returning to the back door when he distinctly heard a woman say, “No”. Albert also took little notice, and was not even certain which direction the voice had come from. But UTI's being what they are, within a few minutes Albert was making the same round trip again. This time, on his way to the outhouse, he heard something thud against the 5 foot high fence dividing the back yard of number 27 from the yard of number 29. 

A few moments later, as Albert was walking down Fournier street (above), he saw the clock atop the Christ's Church Spitafields tower (below). He said it read 5:32 am. 

The times did not match up, and they are all at odds with Dr. Phillip's time chart. But... If Elizabeth Long did see Annie Chapman and her killer reaching a business arraignment closer to 5:15 a.m....And if Albert Cadoche heard the thud against the fence about 5:25 a.m....And if the Christ's Church clock (above) actually read closer to 5:42 a.m...Then Annie Chapman died about 5:30 a.m.. And that would have left the murderer 15 to 20 minutes to mutilate the body and leave the house with his bloody trophy before John Davis discovered the dead woman. Could both these witnesses be that far off in their timing?

Before the second half of the 20^th century all clocks were mechanical, and effected by wear, temperature, humidity, maintenance, and their purpose. The clock in the Spitafields Church was a call to prayer. The Black Eagle Brewery clock (above, right)  was designed to make the name ubiquitous in Whitechapel. Neither clock was meant to be accurate, in the modern meaning of that word. And the witnesses did not carry their own watches. To them, time was not a minute by minute measurement of their lives. Besides, the important thing about all three stories is not the exact time they occurred, but the place in which they occurred.

The back yard of 29 Hanbury Street (above) was empty when John Richardson left about 5 or 10 minutes before 5:00 a.m.  While he was there Annie Chapman was still alive - at least half an hour after Dr. Phillips said she must already be dead.  But she must have been within half a mile of the spot, because she was found there dead, just before 6:00 am. And...

Either the killer left the yard by climbing over the 5 foot high fence and then running between yards (above)  – odd enough behavior to attract attention in a crime ridden area.  Or, the stranger walked out the front door, something which would attract no more notice at Number 29 Hanbury Street then a figure sleeping on the stairs of a building in George Yard.

So it is likely Annie Chapman entered the backyard of number 29 Hanbury Street (above) between 5:00 am and 5:30 am - which roughly supports both John Richardson's and Elizabeth Long's stories. Dark Annie was found dead in the yard between 5:30 and 6:00 am, which roughly fits Albert Cadoche's time line. But none of the witnesses support Dr. Phillips estimate.

Coroner Wayne Baxter (above) would later say at the inquest, “It is true that Dr. Phillips thinks that when he saw the body at 6.30  the deceased had been dead at least two hours, but he admits that the coldness of the morning and the great loss of blood may affect his opinion; and if the evidence of the other witnesses be correct, Dr. Phillips has miscalculated the effect of those forces...”  In fact, the good doctor had been recalled on Wednesday, 19 September. He was pressed to provide more details about the mutilations, and resisted until all women and children had left the room – children? At a grisly murder inquest? And did the Victorian doctor think women were unaware of the existence of a womb within their own bodies?

It is understandable  that Dr. George Phillips (above) might be trying to protect evidence only the killer would know, but the jury wanted to know, and Dr. Phillips was forced to reply. 

The horrific details of the cuts to the vagina and bladder went on the record - and in the newspapers.  But he was able to protect that the womb had been removed, saying only, “One of the organs was entirely absent from the body”. And then Dr. Phillips added, “The appearance of the cut surfaces indicated that the instrument used must have been very sharp, and (the killer) showed a certain amount of anatomical knowledge.”

Combined with his testimony of Monday, 10 September (above) - “Obviously the work was that of an expert...” - and his belief the weapon was “...a doctor's knife, or the kind of knife used in a slaughter house or by a butcher”,  makes Dr. Phillips the  “ad fontem” - the original source - of Jack the Ripper as a professional man, someone – pardon the expression – a cut above the mass of Whitechapel's   uneducated working poor.

And from this bit of Victorian bias was born the century long industry of the killer as a doctor, an actor, a painter, an intellectual, a detective or even a member of royalty. It made a lot of money for a lot of people, most as yet unborn in 1888.  But it disguised the killer who moved about Whitechapel as only a resident of Whitechapel could - unseen because he was unremarkable.

And Dr. Phillips offered yet another misdirection to the mystery. When asked by Coroner Wayne Baxter how long it would have taken to performed the mutilations, Dr. Phillips said, “I myself could not have performed all the injuries I saw on that woman, even without a struggle, under a quarter of an hour. If I had done it in the deliberate manner usual with a surgeon, it would probably have taken me the best part of an hour. The conclusion I came to was that the whole object of the operation was to obtain possession of a certain portion of the body.”

It added to the mystery. It enforced the image of the killer as a calculating fiend. It implied he was searching for one particular organ - the womb. But was it not more likely the killer sliced that organ from Annie Chapman's body without knowing what specific organs he was removing?  Or perhaps that he had learned about dissection not at a university but by mutilating small animals while still a child? Then he would not be a doctor fiend, or a slaughterhouse mad man, but rather just a mad man, what modern criminology would call a disorganized serial killer,  who left his physiological diagnosis on display at the murder scene.

At the final session of the inquest into the death of the second victim, Polly Nichols...and after 4 days of testimony in the still open inquest of victim three  Annie Chapman....and with the case of Martha Tabaum still unsolved, Coroner Baxter seemed to sense the horror that was yet  to come.  “I suggest,” he told the jury in the Nichol's case , “...these... women may have been murdered by the same man with the same object...and having failed in the open street he tries again, within a week...in a more secluded place....but one thing is very clear - that a murder of a most atrocious character has been committed.” 

And would be committed again, and again, and again.

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BLOODY JACK Chapter Eleven

 

I was not surprised that Coroner Baxter was eager to resume his inquest into the death of Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols, which he did promptly on Monday morning, 3 September, 1888. But I was surprised by the first witness presented – Detective Inspector John Spratling, from the Bethnal Green “J” Division. 

Spratling had not even arrived at the murder scene until after Polly Nichols' body had been removed, leaving just a blood stain on the sidewalk to be examined. Even then, Spratling had quickly followed Polly's body to the Montague Street Morgue, where he found the corpse already stripped by the two workhouse morgue attendants. It was at this point that Coroner Baxter demanded to know who had given the attendants “authority” to do that. “I don't object to their stripping the body,” said the prickly Baxter, “but we ought to have evidence about the clothes.”

The clothes had been left lying on the floor of the tiny exam room– a black straw bonnet  trimmed with black velvet,  a reddish brown coat and an ulster jacket with seven large brass buttons, a brown linsey dress which looked new, both a gray woolen and a flannel petticoat, with “Property of Lambeth Workhouse” stenciled on their waistbands, and a pair of stays “in fairly good condition”. Baxter immediately became focused on the stays, which women wore before the invention of the modern girdle. The police, concerned that the case was veering off course, sent for the clothing.

While waiting for the missing stays, Inspector Spratling explained he had returned to Buck's Row that evening and examined the pavement up to Brady Street, and down to Baker's Lane, but found no traces of blood, dispelling the possibility Polly Nichols had been killed any where but where her body had been found. 

And after interviewing the residents in the houses on the south side of Buck's Row, including a woman who was awake and pacing in her kitchen between 3 and 4 that Friday morning, he could find no one who had heard a struggle or a woman crying out. Polly Nichols had been murdered quickly, probably by chocking, and all of the knife wounds had been inflicted after her death. And, in answer to a jury question, Spratling said all the wounds had been inflicted through her clothes.

Slaughter-house worker Henry Tompkins offered that he had heard no shouts or disturbance, and he was followed by 40 year old Police Constable Jonas Mizen - badge number 56 “H”, Whitechapel division. With 15 years on the force, he was the “extra” Bobby at the scene, who had been sent to fetch the ambulance cart, and he now explained how and why he arrived there. While rousting drunks and vagrants sleeping on the street around Hanbury Street and Baker's Row – part of his beat - he had been approached by Charles Cross (above), who told him there was a policeman on Buck's Row who had found a woman who was either dead or dead drunk, and who had asked for assistance. Mizen eventually responded, but not very quickly.

Charles Cross, a.k,a Charles Allen Lechmere, then testified he never told PC Mizen another policeman needed him.  Then William Nichols, Polly's estranged husband, testified the failed marriage was entirely Polly’s fault.  Then Emily Holland testified about her conversation with Polly at the corner of Whitechapel Road and Osborn Street  And after half a dozen other witnesses testified they had heard and seen nothing on Buck's Row that night, Corner Baxter (above)  got to the witness he wanted to grill – the mentally impaired 53 year old ex-dock worker and Workhouse poverty case, Robert Mann.

By this time the clothing had been brought to the inquest, and Detective Inspector Joseph Helson of Bethel Green division said the stays (above) had been so loosely tied the stab wounds could have been inflicted merely by throwing Polly's dress up over her knees, which she or the killer could have done. But Baxter, the firm advocate of procedure, was not to be dissuaded from uncovering the failings of his "lessers".  Robert Mann testified his breakfast had been interrupted by the arrival of the body before 5:00 am that Friday morning.  He had admitted the the police to the mortuary, and after breakfast had returned with 68 year old James Hatfield, and together they had disrobed the body.

Baxter (above) demanded to know, “Had you been told not to touch it?” -  meaning the body. Mann replied simply, “No.” Then Mann  made the mistake of adding, “Inspector Helson was not there.”  Baxter asked, “Did you see Inspector Helson?”  Mann suddenly realized he had said too much, and gave the standard servants' reply “I can't say”.  In other words not yes and not no. Still on the scent, Baxter asked  “I suppose you do not recollect whether the clothes were torn?” Mann responded, “They were not torn or cut.” Baxter gave his wounded prey a little more rope. “You cannot describe where the blood was?” And Mann took the hint and answered, “No sir, I cannot.” Then Mann jumped, asking, “How did you get the clothes off?”  At this point, Robert Mann realized that somehow he was now caught, but he didn't seem to know what his mistake had been. So he responded simply, “Hatfield cut them off?”

A member of the jury came to Mann's rescue, asking “Was the body undressed in the mortuary or in the yard?” And Mann could now understand what this betters believed his mistake was.  The “gentlemen” were worried that a woman, even a dead one, had been naked in public. So he proudly answered, “In the mortuary.” The break gave Coroner Baxter the chance to play the “better man”, when he pointed out to the jury what they must have known from the instant Mann had opened his mouth.  Baxter said, “It appears the mortuary-keeper is subject to fits, and neither his memory nor statements are reliable.” Of course, if that were true, why call him as a witness, except to humiliate him in public?

But Baxter was so determined to re-establish the social order that he then called the elderly dim witted James Hatfield to the stand next, and asked him, "Who was there?”  Hatfield replied, “Only me and my mate.” Then the old man went on to explain, he first took off Polly's ulster,   “... which I put aside on the ground. We then took the jacket off, and put it in the same place. The outside dress was loose, and we did not cut it. The bands of the petticoats were cut, and I then tore them down with my hand. I tore the chemise down the front. There were no stays.”

Baxter asked who had told them to do all of this, and Hatfield responded, “No one...We did it to have the body ready for the doctor.”  Baxter seemed offended by Hatfield's impudence. He demanded, “Who told you the doctor was coming”. The idea that an assistant morgue attendant would have expected a doctor to appear  after the arrival of a murdered woman, did not seem to occur to Coroner Baxter. But even the partially senile Hatfield was too smart to fall for this trap.  He said only, “I heard someone speak of it.”  Baxter pressed ahead. “Was any one present whilst you were undressing the body?” Hatfield stepped lightly aside to avoid the trap. He answered, “Not as I was aware of.”

You can almost hear the arrogance and sarcasm dripping from the transcript as Baxter then asked the old man, “Having finished, did you make the postmortem examination?” Hatfield explained, “No, the police came.” Baxter missed the joke entirely. Clearly enjoying his own power,  he sneered, “Oh, it was not necessary for you to go on with it! The police came?” “Yes,” said the assistant morgue attendant,  “ They examined the petticoats, and found the words "Lambeth Workhouse" on the bands.” “It was cut out?”, asked the bureaucrat. “I cut it out,” said the old man. Supremely confident, Baxter asked, “Who told you to do that?” And now Hatfield sprang his own little trap. He answered, “Inspector Helson.”

Now it was Inspector Joseph Helson's chance to rescue the coroner, by pointing out he had arrived at about 6:30 that morning, thus giving a time line to Hatfield's story. But Coroner Baxter still tried to salvage the old man's reputation.  He challenged the witness, “Did not you try the stays on in the afternoon to show me how short they were?”  To which Mr. Hatfield gracefully replied, “I forgot it.”  Baxter was now able to tell the jury, “He admits his memory is bad.” Hatfield admitted that, and Baxter took his little victory and closed by saying, “We cannot do more.”

After Mary Ann Monk testified that at about 7:00 pm on Friday 31 August, 1888 she had seen Polly entering a pub on New Kent Road, indicating that like Martha Tabem, Polly Nichols had been pub hopping, the inquest was adjourned until 17 September, to give the police two more weeks to gather evidence, and for Coroner Baxter's bruised ego time to recover. But it also gave Bloody Jack time to recover as well.

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BLOODY JACK Chapter Ten

 

I believe the staid and proper London Times would never have mentioned the brutal murders of aged working class prostitutes had not the screaming headlines of their “tabloid” competition been so  successful at selling newspapers.  The Times joined the feeding frenzy on Saturday, 1 September, 1888. “Another murder of the foulest kind was committed in the neighborhood of Whitechapel in the early hours of yesterday morning, but by whom and with what motive is at present a complete mystery....”

In contrast the left leaning Daily News shared every detail with their middle class readers. They reported, “ ...a woman lying in Buck's row...with her throat cut from ear to ear. The body...was also fearfully mutilated...” This latter statement was printed as fact even before the autopsy was reported. “The police have no theory...except that a sort of "High Rip" gang exists in the neighborhood which, "blackmailing" women who frequent the streets, takes vengeance on those who do not find money for them...The other theory is that the woman...was murdered in a house...(then) afterwards ...deposited in the street. Color is lent to this by the small quantity, comparatively, of blood found on the clothes, and by the fact that the clothes are not cut. If the woman was murdered on the spot where the body was found, it is almost impossible to believe that she would not have aroused the neighborhood by her screams...”

But it was the popular London Star, with the largest circulation,  which was the most relentless.  The editor asked on the front page, “Have we a murderous maniac loose in East London?...Nothing so appalling, so devilish, so inhuman...has ever happened outside the pages of (Edgar Allen)  Poe...In each case the victim has been a woman of abandoned character, each crime has been committed in the dark hours of the morning...each murder has been accompanied by hideous mutilation. In the...case...of the woman Martha Turner...no fewer than 30 stabs were inflicted. The scene of this murder was George-yard, a place appropriately known locally as "the slaughter-house."

The Metropolitan Police were not even certain the crimes were connected. But the Star harbored no such doubts, pointing out that the crimes were both “...committed within a very small radius. Each of the ill-lighted thoroughfares to which the women were decoyed to be foully butchered are off-turnings from Whitechapel-road, and all are within half a mile.” 

The newspaper went on to point out, “This afternoon at the Working Lads' Institute (above)...Mr. Wynne E. Baxter opened the inquest...The desire that no time should be lost in tracing the perpetrator of the atrocity prompted the Coroner to commence his investigation as early as possible...there was a great amount of morbid interest displayed in the inquiry.” Almost all of it by the tabloid London press.

Presiding over the demi-trial was South-East Middlesex Coroner Mr. Wayne E. Baxter (above),  refreshed from his August vacation. He was a consummate professional, a stickler for formalities, but balanced this by his attire at the inquest - white and checked trousers, a “dazzling white” vest, a “crimson scarf and dark coat.” I am tempted to suggest the witnesses must have shouted to be heard over his clothing. And Mr. Baxter's inquest began far ahead of the August one for Martha Tabram, because the very first witness , at 6:30 the afternoon of 1 September, 1888, offered a positive identification of the victim.

Edward Walker had not seen his 42 year old daughter, Mary Ann (above), for more than two years. But he had no doubt that she was lying in the Montague Street Morgue, identifying her by the scar on her forehead. Twenty-two years earlier he had given her in marriage to William Nichols, but after five children, she and William had separated, for which Edward blamed her husband. But at the same time, he admitted he “had not been on speaking terms with her.” He added, “She had been living with me three or four years previously, but thought she could better herself, so I let her go.”

The truth came out when Baxter asked if Mary Ann was a sober woman. Walker responded, “Well, at times she drank, and that was why we did not agree.” But he would go no further, denying that she had might have been a prostitute, saying, “I never heard of anything of that sort...I never heard of anything improper.” And when Baxter suggested “She must have drunk heavily for you to turn her out of doors?”, Edwards insisted, “I never turned her out. She had no need to be like this while I had a home for her.” He reminded the jury, “She has had five children, the eldest being twenty-one years old and the youngest eight or nine years. One of them lives with me, and the other four are with their father.” The father of the victim closed his testimony by saying, “I don't think she had any enemies, she was too good for that.”

After taking testimony from slaughter-house worker Henry Tompkins, who said he had heard nothing on the morning of the murder, the inquest moved on to Police Constable John Neil (above), badge number 97J. He related his discovery of the body, and its transfer to the morgue. Upon arrival there, Neil testified he had begun an inventory of the victim's property - no money but “a piece of comb and a bit of looking-glass...(and) an unmarked white handkerchief...in her pocket”. Shortly afterward, the attendants, in stripping the victim, discovered she had been disemboweled, and everything came to a halt until the doctor had arrived.

Dr. Llewelkyn (above) noted his examination of the body at about 4:00 in the morning, giving time of death at “no more than half an hour” before that. Then, he said, he released the body and returned home. But, “About an hour later I was sent for by the Inspector to see the injuries he had discovered...the abdomen was cut very extensively.” After briefly recording the injuries, the busy doctor had returned to his duties, until 11:00 the next morning, 1 November, when he did a full post-mortem examination. 

“I found (the body) to be that of a female about forty or forty-five years. Five of the teeth are missing, and there is a slight laceration of the tongue. On the right side of the face  (above) there is a bruise running along the lower part of the jaw...On the left side of the face there was a circular bruise, which also might have been done by the pressure of the fingers.

“On the left side of the neck, about an inch below the jaw, there was an incision (above) about four inches long and running from a point immediately below the ear. An inch below on the same side...was a circular incision terminating at a point about three inches below the right jaw. This incision completely severs all the tissues down to the vertebrae. The large vessels of the neck on both sides were severed. The incision is about eight inches long. These cuts must have been caused with a long-bladed knife, moderately sharp, and used with great violence. No blood at all was found on the breast either of the body or clothes.” Dr. Llewelkyn found no injuries between the neck and above the lower abdomen.

Down the left side of the lower abdomen, running into pubic area, the doctor found “ a wound running in a jagged manner (above) . It was a very deep wound, and the tissues were cut through.” The tissues being the vagina, bladder and lower intestines. “There were several incisions running across the abdomen. On the right side there were also three or four similar cuts running downwards...The wounds were from left to right, and might have been done by a left-handed person. All the injuries had been done by the same instrument.” And with that disturbing information, Corner Baxter adjourned the inquest until Monday.

The Sunday newspapers were going to splash these bloody details all over the city. And the killer, who ever and where ever he was, must have enjoyed reading them, if he could read English. But the tabloid papers had a noble justification for printing such gory details – the political destruction of Sir Charles Warren, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police (above). The Star quoted “A portly superintendent of police” who supposedly said, "Yes, it's true enough...Sir Charles seems to think a soldier and a policeman the same thing. Why we could not carry out our duties but for our long training.”

The Star also quoted an anonymous Detective Inspector as admitting, “...Sir Charles...is not popular ....There is too much of the military about him, and he is a tyrant...” The Star's reporter asked, “The men would be glad to see Sir Charles going?" “Yes”, the detective supposedly answered, “very glad, and it is the rumor in the Yard that he is going....he is destroying the force here with his military notions."

So Commissioner Warren (above), who was on vacation in France, was now being blamed for the inability of the police to catch a criminal the Victorian world never imagined existed. 

To a population unaware of the subconscious mind, his crimes were inexplicable. His motives were invisible. He was a mad man who looked and acted sane on most days, a serial killer who was not interested in “high rip” protection rackets or even petty thefts, the usual crimes that trip up murderers.  He did not know and did not want to know his victims. He was a predator who blended in among his prey until the moment he struck them down. He was, or soon would be, Jack the Ripper.

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