BLOODY JACK Chapter Twenty-One

I was amazed to discover that London in 1888 - a city of 5.6 million people - had only 63 recorded murders – including 9 abandoned newborns and the 5 victims of Jack the Ripper. That is a rate of less than 1 murder for every 200,000 people. In modern day London (2014) there are more than 16 murders for every 200,000 people – about the same number as New York City, but less than the 13 in Los Angeles or the 23 murders per 200,000 residents of Houston or Dallas, Texas.

Of course a lot of murders went unrecognized in 19^th century London. Was a death murder by poisoning or a result of ingesting spoiled meat or polluted water? The police had no way of telling, and coroners were not required to have a medical license until well into the 20^th century. Suspicious deaths of professionals and the wealthy were usually the only ones investigated. 

But a worker on the London docks, a scullery maid, a “hawker” who sold trinkets in the street, a porter at the Spitafield Market or a middle aged prostitute, when these working classes were mugged on Whitechapel Road, garroted into unconscious, knocked senseless outside a pub or left bleeding and robbed in a dark alley, these crimes were rarely reported to either the police or the newspapers. One researcher has discovered that according to official records, no women in Whitechapel had their throats slashed during all of 1886 or 1887. That contention seems so unlikely as to be absurd.

It wasn't that the officials did not know what they were dealing with, even if they could not give it a name. “The Spectator” had speculated as early as the middle of September, “...the motive was blood thirst,— that is, the crime itself was its own impelling cause”. The magazine added that knowing the details of the victim's life was “...of comparatively little use, for it usually helps only to detect motive, and here the motive is...useless as an aid to identification”   But, The Spectator admitted, there were a few things that were know about the killer. “He must...know that district of Whitechapel well...And he is not a man to excite by his mere appearance...or his victim would not have gone with him...Those seem the only facts fairly clear, and they...scarcely help the police, and they do not help the population at all...” But this last time, the killer had left a new clue behind.

The latest clear victim of Bloody Jack was Catherine Eddowes,  a 46 year old cheerful prostitute who was a loud and argumentative drunk, and had been in police custody at the Bishopgate station until 1:00 a.m. that Sunday morning. As she left the station house, her last words to the desk sergeant were a cheery “Goodnight, old cock.” She was a ten minute walk from Mitre Square. At 1:45 that Sunday morning she would be found in the square, killed in the now classic Ripper fashion. She had been first strangled from the front, and once unconscious or dead was lowered to the ground where her throat was slashed. Then and only then was she mutilated.

Her inquest started on Thursday, 4 October, and Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown, the City Police Surgeon described the condition of her body. “She lay on her back. Head turned toward her left shoulder. Arms at her side...Clothes were pushed above her abdomen, Thighs were naked..Abdomen exposed. Bonnet at back of her head...

"Face disfigured. Throat was cut. Intestines were drawn out and placed over right shoulder. Another section of intestines were placed between left arm and body. Clotted blood on pavement near left side of neck...Fluid blood under neck and right shoulder.” Dr. Brown did not share with the public that her vagina, her womb and part of one kidney had been removed and taken away by the killer. But he did add, “My attention was called to the apron - it was the corner of the apron with a string attached...”.

City of London Detective Sergeant Daniel Halse had also noticed the apron, because “a piece of her apron was missing. About half of it. It had been cut with a clean cut.”  They were ubiquitous in Whitechapel, (Above, left) used by the working poor women to protect their dresses. Dr. Brown even had the opportunity to compare the section found on the dead woman, with another piece of white cloth found on Goulston Street, in Whitechapel. “I fitted the piece of apron,” he told the inquest, “the seams of the borders of the two actually corresponding - some blood and apparently fecal matter was found on the portion found in Goulston Street"

Goulston Street was a north south byway which connected the east west running Wentworth to the Aldegate High Street.  Like George Yard, it had undergone a slum clearance project, with the worst slums on its northern end cleared out and replaced in 1887 with the Brunswick Buildings, another of those new “model dwellings”. 

And it was in the open entryway of numbers 108 to 119 Brunswick Buildings on Goulston (above), near the corner of Wentworth, that the majority of the white cloth apron had been discovered just before 3:00 a.m. that Sunday morning by Police Constable Alfred Long – 1 hour after Catherine Eddows was discovered murdered, and no more than 1 hour 15 minutes after the murder had been committed.

PC Long had passed this same doorway at about 2:20 a.m. while walking his beat, and he was positive the bloody cloth had not been there, then. A careful reading of all accounts makes it clear the apron was not far inside the doorway, but in the open, visible to anyone.  Other police officers, moving by prearranged plan to blanket the area between the murder scene and Whitechapel, questioned all the men they saw, and saw no one suspicious. 

Specifically, Detective Sergeant Halse had come down Goulston, passed the same doorway about 2:25 a.m. and also saw nothing and no one. So the killer had come this way sometime between 2:30 and 2:55 a.m. It reinforced the belief that the killer had escaped Mitre Square -  just over the border and inside the City of London - by retreating into Whitechaple, where he felt safe. Where he probably lived.

The most direct route would have been to exit Mytre Square (above, lower left)  next to the Great Synagogue, then turn south on Duke Street to Aldegate High Street, turn right and walk past the Aldegate East Underground Station before turning left, heading north up Goulston street to where the apron was found (above, red dot).  That path was the most public, the mostly heavily covered by police. 

Or the killer might have gone north on Duke Street, cut east to Houndsditch Street, jogged south 1 block to Grave Lane,  then south to the short New Goulston Street, or jogged north to Turn Alley, ending opposite 108-119 Goulston Street (above, blue circle). However he had jogged, turned and hidden in the dark, he had remained unseen or unnoticed while the alarm was raised all around him. Walked briskly he could have covered the distance in about ten minutes. Moving carefully, Detective Halse had done it in 20 minutes. And we know he beat the Ripper to the Goulston Street because the bloody apron fragment was not there when he passed the spot at about 2:15 a.m..

The most logical explanation for taking the apron was to carry away his trophies, the organs stolen from Catherine Eddowes. But the missing organs were never found - overlooking the infamous kidney mailed to George Akin Lusk (above), the 49 year old self-made Chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, which was probably just another journalistic publicity stunt.  The organs were in that entryway and stairwell with the killer, sometime between 2:20 a.m. and 2:55 a.m. - a 35 minute window. 

And they left with the killer. Only the bloody apron fragment remained behind. But how did he carry the organs after he left this entryway? Did he live in the new buildings? Every resident was questioned, all the apartments and buildings were searched. It seemed clear the killer paused here, to transfer his stolen goods to another container or bag. But where did he go from here?

The question was never fully asked because of what PC Long discovered next.  Scrawled on the door jam above the bloody apron was a message written in chalk - “The Juwes are not the men that will be blamed for nothing.’   What it meant was not and is not clear, other than being antisemitic and written by a non-native English speaker. And different officers remember the wording differently. 

They reacted to the message differently, as well.  Basically, the City of London Police wanted the message left right were it was until it was light enough to be photographed. The Metropolitan Police, in whose area this was,  wanted it washed away, at once.

In a couple of hours (it was then approaching 4:00 a.m.)  Goulston Street would be filling with Jewish and Gentile peddlers and Gentile and Jewish customers.  When they heard about the murder and saw the writing, a riot would be a real possibility. Except of course for other nasty writings scattered around Whitechaple. 

The issue was settled at about 5:15 a.m., when Sir Charles Warren, head of the Metropolitan Police arrived on Goulston Street (above).  He ordered the writing to be washed away at once. And that was when all hell broke loose, breaking right on top of Sir Charles' head.

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BLOODY JACK Chapter Twenty

I do not believe Elizabeth Stride(above)  was murdered by Jack the Ripper. But that begs the questions, if not “The Ripper”, then who and why was “Long Liz Stride” murdered? Well, I believe the motive for the murder was that Elizabeth Gustafsdotter was a liar. She lied about every detail of her life, and often to no advantage other than obfuscation. She claimed to have given birth to nine children. She gave birth to one child, and it was still born. She claimed to clean house for a wealthy West End family. She occasionally cleaned rooms in a doss house. She claimed to have been brought to England by a wealthy man. She was a common prostitute in Sweden before coming to London. But Elizabeth was a handsome woman, with light gray eyes, dark brown curly hair, a pale complexion. and a kind and gentle manner when she was sober - all of which made her lies easier to believe.

Her favorite lies were that her husband and children had drown in the 1878 sinking of the “Princess Alice” (above), and that she had been born with a cleft palate. Her husband – John Thomas Stride - actually died of a heart attack in 1881 – and that at least six years after they separated. During her autopsy, doctors made a special examination of the roof of her mouth, and found no cleft. Being in a relationship with such a liar is exhausting for a sober man or woman. A romantic might want to believe, but the longer it takes for the veil over their eyes to fall away, the greater their anger at the liar.

The truth is Elizabeth had been a domestic servant since she was 17 years old, and since 1862 employed by Mr. Lars Frederick Olafson, in the port of Gothenburg, Sweden (above).  Abruptly, in March of 1865, Elizabeth Gustafsdotter registered as a prostitute, had the first of several treatments for venereal disease and in April she gave birth to a still born girl.  In July of 1866 Elizabeth moved to London, settling, as most poor immigrants did, in the poverty plagued East End.

When the 26 year old married John Stride in March of 1869, Elizabeth (above in 1872)  probably did so as his partner in managing a coffee shop in Poplar (above), near the new East India docks. The two partnered in several coffee shops until 1875, about the same time they parted ways. 

What Elizabeth did and where she lived for the next six years is a mystery, but my guess is she was a full time prostitute in one of the hundreds of legal Whitechapel bordellos (above), probably under one of her pseudonyms. The three we know of were Annie Morris, Wally Warden and Annie Fitzgerald.  

Then, probably in the fall of 1881, Liz got sick enough she could no longer work. At the end of December she was treated for bronchitis in the Whitechapel infirmary. In January of 1882 she moved into the Workhouse. Later that year she began living “off and on” at a doss house at 32 Flower and Dean Street (above). The following year, for the first time, she moved in with Micheal Kidney.

In 1888, the 36 year old Micheal Kidney  (above) was 9 years younger than the then 45 year old Elizabeth Stride. He was a dock worker, living at 38 Dorset Street. The job required a strong back and a willing mind. But it was not full time employment for Micheal. He suffered from “lombago” and was an alcoholic, perhaps as self medication for his back pain. But whatever the justification, excessive alcohol consumption gave him something in common with Long Liz Stride. The record does not mark Micheal as a particularly violent man, drunk or sober. I don't believe he beat Elizabeth Stride. But she was a loud and often abusive and violent drunk. And with Elizabeth at least a part time prostitute, the couple were not sexually exclusive. But it seems Micheal Kidney wanted to believe they were emotionally exclusive.

The only record we have of how Micheal Kidney felt about Elizabeth was what he said at her inquest. When asked about the many times she left him, Micheal said, “She always returned without me going after her. I think she liked me better than any other man." He added, “I treated her the same as I would a wife.” As to the last time he had seen her, the week of her death, Micheal insisted, “I do not believe she left me on Tuesday to take up with any other man.”   The newspapers described him as “morose”, “rough-spoken” and occasionally “incoherent” after her death - which might be another way of describing an harassed man in mourning.

But like a man waking up from a bad dream, at the inquest Micheal also displayed a belated recognition of Elizabeth's faults. When asked if she was Swedish, Micheal said , “She told me she was a Swede...She said she was born 3 miles from Stockholm...but I have grave doubts about that.” He testified that “She told me she was a widow”, and that “She told me” the couple ran a coffee house. He knew Elizabeth was a constant liar. But he wanted to believe her. But what or who was it that awakened Micheal Kidney to reality? 

His name was Israel Schwartz. He was a recent immigrant, an Hungarian Jew, who spoke very little English. He worked in the Yiddish Theater at Joseph Besslers Pavilion Theatre on Commercial Road (above). With his wife and 2 children, Israel had lived on Berner Street until that Saturday, 29 September, 1888. While he worked that night his wife had moved the family to their new apartment at 22 Back Church Lane, which was one block to the west. And forty-five minutes into that chilly Sunday morning, 30 September, Israel Schwartz walked down Commercial Street and decided to check the Berner Street address, to see if his family needed help. They were already gone, but because of his choice, Israel Schwartz walked straight into the murder.

As he approached the open gate beside the International Working Men's Educational Institute at 40 Berner Street (above),  Israel saw a woman standing just inside the gateway to Dutfield's Yard. A man stopped and spoke to her.  The man then grabbed the woman. She called out. The man turned the woman around, with her back to him. She called out again. The man shoved her to the ground, back inside the yard. 

Mr. Schwartz crossed away from the confrontation, to the east side of Berner Street. But within a few steps he heard more noises (shouting?). He turned to look, but a man smoking a pipe suddenly stepped out of the dark and shouted something, startling Mr. Schwartz. The man who had attacked the woman now pointed at Mr. Schwartz and shouted something that might have been “Lipski”.   Israel Schwartz broke into a run, heading south on Berner Street, being chased by all the horrors of the pogroms and Whitechapel anti-semiticism until he found shelter under the railroad aqueduct arches. When he felt safe he headed to the new apartment on Back Church Lane.

Less than ten minutes after Israel saw a woman pushed to the ground, Elizabeth Stride would be found on the same spot, with her throat slashed. I believe the woman Israel Schwartz saw attacked was Liz Stride. And the noises that caused Israel to look back were, I think, a killer venting his rage at the woman as he cut her throat. Schwartz described the attacker as about 30 years old, about 5 feet 5 inches tall, with broad shoulders. He had a fair complexion, dark hair and a small brown mustache. At the time investigators thought Israel Swartz was a reliable eye witness. But what does that mean?

Doubts have been raised about eye witness reliability since Hugo Munsterberg's 1907 book “On the Witness Stand.” Yale Professor Edwin Borchard identified false eyewitness memory as the leading cause of wrongful convictions as far back as 1932. And according to a 2010 column in Scientific American, “...73 % of the 239 convictions overturned through DNA testing were based on eyewitness testimony. One third of these...rested on the testimony of two or more mistaken eyewitnesses.” The authors then list the reasons for eyewitness unreliability - extreme stress, presence of weapons, disguises, racial disparity and brief viewing times.

Having experienced the pogroms, Israel Schwartz was already suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as his behavior at the murder scene clearly shows. Further, the sudden emotional crises gave him tunnel vision. There was also the racial disparity between himself and the perpetrator. And Mr. Schwartz had at most one or two seconds on a badly lit street and from some distance, to make his identification. And when you add that his description was made through an interpreter, it becomes impossible to find any reliable element in his description of the killer. His statement only proves when, where and how the murder happened. And none of what he reliably saw fits the method used to murder Martha Tabem, Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman or Catherine Eddowes.

To many people in Whitechapel that Saturday had an anxious air. The solid gray overcast kept the temperature down to a chilly 68 degrees Fahrenheit, but held that level even after the unseen sun set at 5:42 p.m. Then about 10 minutes before 10:00 p.m. a cold front slipped through and the clouds dumped the moisture they could no longer hold. About 11:00 p.m. laborers J. Best and John Gardner ran into Elizabeth Stride in the doorway of the Bricklayer's Arms Pub, a few hundred yards across Commercial Road from Berner Street.  Both men knew Long Liz,  but not the man with her. He was about Liz's height, with a black mustache and “weak sandy eyelashes”, wearing a mourning suit, a "billycock" - aka a derby hat - and a coat. According to Best, “It was raining very fast and they did not appear willing to go out. He was hugging and kissing her, and as he seemed a respectably dressed man, we were rather astonished at the way he was going on at the woman."

At about 11:45 p.m. worker William Marshall was  standing in the doorway of 64 Berner Street, south of Fairclough, when be spotted Elizabeth Stride across the street, sheltering in the doorway of number 63 Berner. She was kissing a man wearing a short black cutaway coat. Marshall heard the man say, “You would say anything but your prayers.” The rain ended just before midnight, after dropping 3 tenths of an inch.  

An hour after the last sighting, about 12:35 a.m., now Sunday, 30 September, 1888, Police Constable William Smith noticed Elizabeth Stride and a man “acting like two lovers”, across the street from the Workers Club. He describes the man as clean shaven, about 28 years old, wearing dark clothes and standing about 5 feet 7 inches tall.  Less than ten minutes later Israel Schwartz saw Elizabeth Stride assaulted in the entry way to Dutfield's Yard. Ten minutes after that she is found dead in the Yard.

If the police had not been expecting another Ripper murder, who would have been their number one suspect? Who had the strongest motive for cutting off the endless stream of lies spilling from Long Liz Stride? Who would have been most hurt by her affectionate treatment of another man that night? Was Micheal Kidney on Berner Street that Saturday night and Sunday morning? Had he been stalking Elizabeth off and on since Tuesday, when she failed to return home as he expected? Until somebody invents a time machine, we will never know. And it was doubtful, even then -   since we now know that even an eyewitness to history cannot be trusted to see anything but what they think they see.  But it seems clear to me, Liz Stride's killer was not Jack the Ripper.

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BLOODY JACK Chapter Nineteen

I think the tipping point came on Monday, 1 October, 1888 when even the staid Times of London bowed to the pressures from their advertisers and customers. On that date the story went the 19^th century equivalent of “viral”  The Times story that day read, “In the early hours of Yesterday morning two more horrible murders were committed in the East of London... No doubt seems to be entertained by the police that these terrible crimes were the work of the same fiendish hands...”

“In the first mentioned case", said The Times,  "the body was found in a gateway, and although the murder...may be regarded as of almost ordinary character – the unfortunate woman only having her throat cut – (there is) little doubt...that the assassin intended to mutilate...The murder in the City...(had) indescribable mutilations...some anatomical skill seems to have been displayed...At Three O'clock yesterday afternoon a meeting of nearly a thousand persons took place in Victoria Park...a resolution was unanimously passed that it was high time (Home Secretary Henry Matthews and Scotland Yard head Charles Warren) should resign...”

The un-staid London Evening News was a little free-er with their facts. “On Sunday morning a woman was found with her throat cut and her body partially mutilated in a court in Berner street...the deed was done in the short period of twenty minutes...in the time which the police surgeon said a medical expert would take to do it...Having been disturbed in his first attempt...the murderer seems to have made his way towards the City, and to have met another "unfortunate”,...He...cut her throat...then proceeded to disembowel her. He must have been extremely quick at his work...the City beats being much shorter than those of the Metropolitan Police.”

The News editorialized, “Successive editions of the Sunday papers were getting a marvelous sale yesterday...The police yesterday afternoon took possession of Mitre-square and kept out the people... There was also a crowd of perhaps a couple of hundred persons outside the gateway in Berner-street during the day, and at ten o'clock last night there were perhaps 150 assembled in the roadway...”

The Evening News noted that on Monday, “A TERRIBLE PANIC Has taken possession of the entire district, and its effects are to be seen in the wild, terrified faces of the women, and heard in the muttered imprecations of the men...WHERE WERE THE POLICE?...It seems incredible that, within the short space of twelve minutes, a man and woman should have entered the deserted precincts of Mitre-square, that the man should have murdered his victim, disemboweled her with the same unerring skill...and should have made his escape...He must, when he hurried away...have been reeking with blood”.

The News reporter noted the increased police presence at the murder scenes and suggested it reminded him of “the old adage about locking the stable door after the steed has been stolen.” He described the crowd in Berner Street as being made up of, “nearly all classes. Clubmen from the West-end rubbed shoulders with the grimy denizens of St. George's-in-the-East: daintily dressed ladies...elbowed their way amid knots of their less favored sisters, whose dirty and ragged apparel betokened the misery of their daily surroundings”

The London Evening News offered its readers one tidbit of real information - “The body found in Berner-street has been identified as that of Elizabeth Stride.” But then returned to building  hysteria “....the murder... grows bolder by impunity. One victim for one night was his former rule. He now...cuts off two within an hour...It is impossible to avoid the depressing conviction that the Police are about to fail once more, as they have failed with CHAPMAN, as they have failed with NICHOLLS, as they have failed with TABRAM... The Police have done nothing, they have thought of nothing, and in their detective capacity they have shown themselves distinctly inferior.”

The Irish Times knew just who to blame. “Sir CHARLES WARREN (above, right)...appears at last to understand that it will be fatal to men in his position if those murders are not traced.”  The Home Secretary, Henry Matthews (above, left), was described on the floor of Parliament as “helpless, heedless, useless”, and The Daily Telegraph urged his resignation. Many already suspected the conservative British government of Lord Salisbury was responsible for disinformation and dirty tricks political campaigns against Irish self government movement. They were right, but not knowing details of the Home Office's Irish Section – Section D – they could not know that Charles Warren had no responsibility over these political black ops. So he got the blame for it all.

Under a Monday evening column titled “What We Think”, The Star said the killer had again, “got away clear; and again the police...confess that they have not a clue. They are waiting for a seventh and an eighth murder, just as they waited for a fifth...Meanwhile, Whitechapel is half mad with fear. The people are afraid even to talk with a stranger.... It is the duty of journalists to keep their heads cool, and not inflame men's passions...” They then proceeded to do just that. “Two theories are suggested to us,” warned The Star a few sentences further down, “that he may wear woman's clothes, or may be a policeman.”

“The police, of course, are helpless,” continued The Star. “We expect nothing of them. The Metropolitan force is rotten to the core, and it is a mildly farcical comment on the hopeless unfitness of Sir CHARLES WARREN (above)...there must be an agitation against Sir CHARLES WARREN, who is now...detaching more men from regular police and detective duty to political work....”  But the Star did get one piece of information right. In that same Monday evening edition they mentioned, “After committing the second murder, the man seems to have gone back towards the scene of the former. An apron, which is thought by the police to belong to the woman found in Mitre-square, as it was the same material as part of her dress, was found in Goldstar Street. It was smeared with blood, and had been evidently carried away by the murderer to wipe his hands with.”

The Star's reporter returned to Berner Street in the afternoon and found that “Blue helmets were as thick as bees in a clover field...Prominent among those on the spot...was Superintendent Foster, of the City Police. He personally...paid a visit to the scene of the Berner street tragedy, to compare the two cases...As he came out of Berner street, a man in a tweed suit was seen walking by his side, and someone in the crowd shouted out: "There they go. The super's got him. I told you he was a toff." This silly remark was enough to turn the tide of attention in the direction of the officer and his companion ..their unsought retinue followed...till they met the tide from the other direction, and then the side streets swallowed up the surplus and the officials escaped.” 

That night another reporter for The Star saw, “little groups of ill-clad women standing under the glare of a street lamp or huddling in a doorway talking..."He'll be coming through the houses and pulling us out of our beds next," says one. "Not he," says another; "he's too clever for that."

On that same Monday, the Central News dropped a bombshell – the killer had written a letter, in red ink (above), and dated the previous Tuesday, 25 September. It read - in part - , "Dear Boss - I keep on hearing the police have caught me...I have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track. That joke about Leather Apron gave me rare fits. I am down on whores, and I shan't 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...I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger-beer bottle...but it went thick like glue, and I can't use it. Red ink is fit enough, ha, ha, ha!...My knife is so nice and sharp, I want to get to work right away, if I get the chance. Good, cock, "Yours truly,JACK THE RIPPER."  There was a post script - “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. They say I'm a doctor. Ha! ha! ha! ha!"

So there it was – that iconic name – Jack the Ripper – its first appearance in print. And, added the Central News Service, that very morning they had received a post card, this written in red chalk, but smeared with blood. “"Double event this time," it read. "Number One squealed a bit...JACK THE RIPPER." Added the News Service, “..it does not seem unreasonable to suppose that the cool, calculating villain who is responsible for the crimes has chosen to ...convey to the Press his grimly diabolical humor.”

Neither missive was actually written by the killer, of course. The letter had been written mailed and received during the two week lull in the case, before the murders of 30 September. It was an attempt to keep the story going, to generate additional newspaper sales. And the post card was merely another ploy, feeding the horror machine which had become Jack the Ripper. On that same Monday, the News printed a letter from builder and self made man George Akin Lusk (above),  naming himself as Chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, and encouraging Home Secretary Matthews to offer a reward for the capture of the killer. Volunteers from the committee were already patrolling the streets and pubs of Whitechapel, which might explain why the killer had moved so far outside his usual hunting fields..

But the most important development from the the double event weekend was that at last, Jack the Ripper was a going financial concern. There would be legal, sociological and political effects of  Bloody Jack. But the murderer and his victims had become of secondary importance.

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