BLOODY JACK Chapter Six

 

I am not surprised by the behavior of Mary Ann Connolly , aka Pearly Poll, aka Mogg on that  Wednesday morning, 15 August, 1888.  The 50 year old alcoholic was brought two miles from the environs of Whitechapel to the rear of the Wellington Barracks (above) to look at soldiers.  And there she was an unwelcome stranger in a strange land. As the The Daily Telegraph pointed out, “The majority of the inhabitants of....Central London know as much about (Whitechapel)...as they do the Hindu Kush...” And the reverse was equally true.

Poll's carriage had rolled past St. James Park, an unimagined space to those surviving in the cramped brick and filthy cobblestone canyons of the East End. She had passed within yards of Buckingham Palace (above), the stone personification of authority, which had always brought disapproval and punishment to her.

Poll also knew another East End woman had come with the police detectives. They had kept the women separate, as if in her poverty Pearly Poll were not still enough of a women to sense men reacting to another woman's presence. 

The “manly” Poll felt judged, and the waves of disapproval radiating from the ranks of soldiers forced to line up for her inspection, did not improve her mood. So, in the words of Detective Walter Dew, seemingly at random Poll quickly picked out two soldiers “in a fit of Pique”. Both men proved to have iron clad alibis, and the entire expedition to the center of the British Empire by one of its lowliest members was proven to be a waste of time, in part because the Wellington barracks was home to

five separate regiments, the Grenadier, Coldstream, Scots, Irish, and Welsh Guards, and each had their own distinctive uniforms.  

The other East End woman brought out by the detectives was Jane Gillbank, of 23 Catherine Wheel Alley, Aldgate. She was at the Wellington Barracks not merely because the Detective Inspector Reid mistrusted Poll's alcohol fogged mind - but because this other woman had come to the Montague Street Morgue with her young daughter, to identify the victim. After viewing the body of the woman murdered on the George Yard stairwell, Mrs. Gillbank identified her as an old friend, Mrs. Withers, whom Jane had seen drinking with soldiers late on the Bank Holiday evening. But Mrs. Gillbank could not identify any soldiers in the parade, either.

So the Whitechapel police retreated from the skirmish at the Wellington Barracks, having inflicted no casualties on the Royal Guards, but at the cost of half their witnesses. Shortly thereafter Mrs. Withers re-appeared, fully alive and except for additional damage to her liver, perfectly healthy. The Whitechapel police could be forgiven if they were not overjoyed at Mrs. Withers resurrection, because it did little to identify their victim.

While there was still Pearly Poll's contention that the dead woman was named Emma Turner, there was now yet a third witness, one who struck Inspector Reid as more believable because she was not a friend of the victim, but an enemy.  Mrs. Ann Morris, of 23 Lisbon Street, Miles End, had come to the Montague Street morgue in response to newspaper articles about the murder, and identified the dead woman as Martha Tabrem.

The widow Morris had once been Martha Tabrem's sister-in-law. But they had fallen out 13 years earlier when Martha blamed Ann for the breakup of her marriage to Henry Tabram.  Martha had then repeatedly harassed the widow, threatening Ann and demanding money from her. Police reports of verbal and physical assaults provided a preamble to Martha Tabrem breaking out all the windows in Ann's rented room. That offense had earned Martha a 7 day sentence at hard labor. Mrs. Morris's story thus offered a possible addition witness who might confirm the identify of the victim – Henry Samuel Tabram.

On Tuesday, 14 August,  the 45 year old Samuel Tabram had come to the Montague Mortuary independently, so it seems Martha's death was not a complete surprise to those who had loved her. Samuel had married Martha White on Christmas day, 1869. They had two sons, born in 1871 and '72, but in 1875 Martha's alcoholic deliriums and her disappearing for days on benders,  had driven Samuel to move out. When she had him arrested for abandonment, a judge ordered Samuel to pay her 12 shillings a week in child support. But after three years, with the money going to gin, Samuel reduced the payments to just 2 shillings. Martha had him arrested again, and the alimony payments were reinstated. But when Samuel found out Martha was living with another man, he cut off her payments entirely.

The new man proved to be 29 year old carpenter Henry Turner, and he now also identified the body as Martha Tabram, aka Martha Turner. Samuel and Martha never divorced. Henry and Martha never married, but had been living together “off and on” since 1876.  Earlier in 1888, Henry had lost his job, and in July the carpenter had also reached the end of his patience with Martha's drinking. He told the coroner, "If I gave her money she generally spent it on drink. In fact it was always drink. When she took to drink, ...  I usually left her to her own resources, and I can't answer to her conduct then."  Henry last saw Martha on 4 August, on Leadenhall Street (above), when she accosted him and demanded money. He gave her a pound and a few pennies, but expected it just to go for more gin. Thus the police at last knew the name of their victim.

Ann Morris' story also confirmed at least part of Pearly Poll's version of the victim's last night on earth. At about 11:00 p.m., on the Bank Holiday, Monday, 6 August, 1888, Mrs. Morris had spotted Martha Tabram on Whitechapel Road, entering the White Swan pub (above, left). She took notice because she still had a restraining order out against Martha Tabram. Their previous encounters convinced her to avoid the woman, and Mrs. Morris had quickly left the neighborhood. By Dr. Killeen's estimate, 4 ½ hours later Martha Tabram was dead, murdered by a person or person's unknown.

Even in 1888 it was standard police thinking that the more violent the attack, the closer the victim and killer must be. In other words, passion diminishes with distance.  So the individual who slashed the throat of Martha Tabram 10 times, stabbed her in the chest 18 times, and left a three inch gash across her lower abdomen, had not merely disliked the woman. This had been no argument over money, or even an insult over the inability to perform sexually. The attacker passionately hated Martha, and had attacked her in frenzy. 

The two men with the most reason to hate Martha, Samuel Tabram and Henry Turner, both had firm alibis for the the night of 6/7 August, 1888.  And both men had left her.  There was no passion left between them. 

And while it was evident to Inspector Reid that Ann Morris feared Martha enough to strike out in a frenzy, Martha was far larger than Mrs. Morris. And there were witnesses to Ann's activities during the hours when Martha had been murdered. But the violence of the attack, the passion that drove it, so bothered Reid and his superiors, that they could not let the matter rest.

Deputy Coroner George Collier (above) called the jury back at 2:00 pm, 23 August, 1888, in the Working Lads Institute, on Whitechapel Road.  Inspector Reid now had evidence he wanted put on the record. 

Technically still married, Samuel Tabram made the formal identification of the body as that off his ex-wife Martha White Tabram. William Turner testified about the circumstances of his common law marriage to Martha, and their breakup in April. He could swear to her having been alive on Saturday 4 August, when she was then living at 19 George Street, Spitafields. Then Mary Bousfeld, aka Mary Luckherst, testified that Martha had been paying her rent for a bed at 4 Star Place. Martha had been earning money hawking matches on the street until six weeks before her death, when she had left, owing three weeks rent. Then Ann Morris testified to seeing Martha outside the White Swan Pub about 11:00 p.m. on 6 August.

The final witness was Pearly Poll, aka Moog, aka Mary Ann Connolly, who retold her story of meeting up with Martha, pub hopping for two hours, and last seeing Martha headed into George Yard with a soldier just before midnight, 7 August, 1888. “After a brief summing-up by the deputy coroner, the jury duly returned a verdict of "murder by some person or persons unknown." Detective Inspector Edmund Reid ended his report to his boss, Superintendent Thomas Arnold in the usual way. “Careful enquiries are still being made with a view to obtaining information respecting the case.”

It was standard bureaucratic language, which sounded important but actually meant nothing. Inspector Reid was tying up his paper work for the time being, because on Monday he was leaving for two weeks vacation to the coast of Kent. But while he was gone the case would be shaken by  two earthquakes. First the leadership of the the Metropolitan police force would suffer a serious blow, and second, the killer of Martha Tabram would strike again. And the murderer would show that he, at least, had learned from his first victim.

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BLOODY JACK Chapter Two

 

I doubt few Americans today could find a doctor so close or quick at such an hour. It was just after 5 in the chilly damp morning of Tuesday, 7 August, 1888. The constable dispatched to summon the surgeon first ran north on George Yard to Wentworth Street (above). He turned right and headed east for half a block, before crossing Osborn Street. Then he turned left and headed north on Brick Lane for three blocks to the northeast corner of Henage Street. Not 5 minutes after beginning the task he was banging on the front door of 68 Brick Lane until Dr. Timothy Robert Killeen answered. The constable then waited in the hall while the doctor got dressed and grabbed his medical bag.

Dr. Timothy Killeen was living and working surrounded by his patients, who were mostly dying from malnutrition and its companions: typhoid fever, cholera, syphilis, tuberculosis, measles and food poisoning, to name but a few of the most prominent. They shared polluted water sources, unsanitary food, and breathed foul air. The yearly death rate in the London neighborhoods of Whitchapel and Spitafields was 25 for every 1,000 residents. The worst of London's slum dwellers were born, lived and died without ever seeing a doctor.

Timothy had graduated two years earlier from Kings and Queens College of Physicians, at Trinity College in Dublin. And if he were fulfilling a religious or moral obligation, he might have been disappointed. The Tower Hamlets of Whitechapel, Spitafields and Wopping,  had once been occupied almost exclusively by Irish Catholics escaping the Potato famine. They were now filling with Russian and east European Jews, running from the pogroms. 

But whoever his patients were, it is likely he had seen few as badly injured as this unknown woman on the landing between the first and ground floors of the Blackwell Buildings on George Yard (above). Setting his bag down on the steps, he took out a standard thermometer, which he set on the floor beyond the blood pool. Then he checked his watch, and recorded the time in his notebook. It was just 5:30 in the morning.

He found the victim (above) well nourished, and about 33 years old. His estimate showed he was familiar with the rapid aging a life in Whitechapel could produce. By his careful count the dead woman had suffered 38 separate stab wounds to her neck and chest, as well as one slash in her pubic region. But learning how deep these wounds were, and what internal injuries had resulted would have wait for an autopsy. Gently he lifted the fingers of her left hand. They moved easily, as did the elbow and shoulder joint. The absence of rigor mortis indicated she had died less than six hours ago. He recorded the air temperature as 55 degrees Fahrenheit. Then he inserted the thermometer in the dead woman's nostril.

He lifted her skirt and noted the faint mottling on the bottom of her thighs. By the color he estimated she had been lying here, on her back, for less than four hours. He placed his hand on her forehead, as if judging her temperature in life. She was still warm to the touch.  He examined her clothing – cap and jacket, shirtwaist , dress and petticoat, knee high stockings and ankle high boots. The clothing was old and thin, and Dr. Killeen figured his modifying number for this woman's temperature  should be 1 or 1.10.

Meanwhile PC Barrett had awakened the building superintendent, Francis F. Hewitt. A retired painter, he lived in a ground floor apartment immediately adjacent to the stairwell, with his wife. Although Mr. Hewitt claimed to have heard nothing during the night, his wife, Amy, had heard a cry of “Murder” that evening. But, she added, "The district round here is rather rough, and cries of 'Murder' are frequent.” Francis said such shouts were heard almost every night. Asked to look at the body, still on the stairs, the couple were certain she was not one of their tenants.

Once the Hewitts had returned to their apartment, Dr. Killeen checked the thermometer in the victim's nose. It recorded a body temperature of 95.4 degrees Fahrenheit, for a loss of about 3 degrees since death. Following the standard formula given in his text books of a 1.5 degree Fahrenheit drop in body temperature for every hour after death, then multiplied by 1.10 to account for her thin clothing, Dr.Killeen could estimate the time of death to have been 2 ½ to 3 hours earlier than his 5:30 examination, or between 2:30 and 3:00 that morning. And that was the time he recorded in his notebook. Next, he told PC Barrett to send for a police ambulance, to transport the body about a mile up Wentworth street to the Old Montague Street Mortuary, on the grounds of the Whitechapel Union Workhouse.

Being in debt had always been a criminal act in England, but the 1831 Poor Law created public institutions where the injured, the ill or the aged could reimburse the state for their crime of poverty at hard labor for 9 pence a day - the Workhouse. As crusading journalist Margaret Harkness noted, “The Whitechapel Union (above) is...the Poor Law incarnate in stone and brick.”

In exchange for “A little gruel morning and night, meat twice a week”, a cot and a roof, male inmates broke stone for 10 hours a day, six days a week, while the women and children unraveled rope for ships' caulking. They were allowed no privacy and no visitors. 

The amenities – uniforms and meager education classes, were intended to fulfill the state's Christian obligation to the less fortunate. A man sentenced to the Workhouse committed his entire family to the same punishment. 

Once behind the walls of the 5 story tall Whitechapel Union on New Charles Street, families were immediately separated by sex and age. Over time many families melted into the institution. And yet there were many so desperate they begged to be admitted.

On Thomas  Street, to the east of the Workhouse, the ill working poor lined up to be diagnosed  at the Casual Dispensary (above) -  men in mornings, women in the afternoons,  separated to maintain Christian propriety.

But through the Eagle Place  gate,  between those two brick buildings,  in a dirt and dirty courtyard was a bare, windowless dark shed (above), where the inmates paid their final debt to society. They were dissected. It was to this place that the body of the unknown woman, found murdered in a stairwell on George Yard, was taken on the morning of Tuesday, 7 August, 1888.

By 8:00 that morning the body had been removed from George Yard, and the police had returned to their beats and George Yard had returned to something described as normal.  There was nothing left to indicate that a woman had been murdered on the stairwell of the Blackwell Building, except for the blood still puddled on the landing. A few of the moribund came from the surrounding buildings look upon the spot and the blood. About 9:30 that morning, George Crow, resident of apartment number 307, came down the steps on his way to get breakfast.  He was a cab driver, and had been working the night before, He had arrived home just about 3:00 am. He paused upon seeing the blood, and realized it was staining just the spot on the dark stairs, where he had seen a figure sleeping the night before.

Later that morning, at the H division Metropolitan Police station on Leman Street (above), Divisional Inspector Ernest Ellisdon decided to assign the case to 42 year Detective Inspector Edmund Reid. It was an indication of Ellisdon's concern about the bloody murder. 

 Reid (above, front row center)  was a 12 year veteran of the MET, He was, when he joined, the shortest man on the force. But he eventually rose to head the Whitechapel Criminal Investigation Division. A contemporary officer had called Reid, "one of the most remarkable men of the century".  He was an aviator - having set altitude records in a balloon - a published poet, a professional actor, a social activist and an accomplished magician. And he was a damn fine police man.  If any detective of 1888 could solve the murder of this unknown woman, it would be D.I  Edmund Reid.

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BLOODY JACK Chapter Six

 

I am not surprised by the behavior of Mary Ann Connolly , aka Pearly Poll, aka Mogg on that  Wednesday morning, 15 August, 1888.  The 50 year old alcoholic was brought two miles from the environs of Whitechapel to the rear of the Wellington Barracks (above) to look at soldiers. And there she was an unwelcome stranger in a strange land. As the The Daily Telegraph pointed out, “The majority of the inhabitants of....Central London know as much about (Whitechapel)...as they do the Hindu Kush...” And the reverse was equally true.

Poll's carriage had rolled past St. James Park, an unimagined space to those surviving in the cramped brick and filthy cobblestone canyons of the East End. She had passed within yards of Buckingham Palace (above), the stone personification of authority, which had always brought disapproval and punishment to her.

Poll also knew another East End woman had come with the police detectives. They had kept the women separate, as if in her poverty Pearly Poll were not still enough of a women to sense men reacting to another woman's presence. The “manly” Poll felt judged, and the waves of disapproval radiating from the ranks of soldiers forced to line up for her inspection, did not improve her mood. So, in the words of Detective Walter Dew, seemingly at random Poll quickly picked out two soldiers “in a fit of Pique”. Both men proved to have iron clad alibis, and the entire expedition to the center of the British Empire by one of its lowliest members was proven to be a waste of time.

The other East End woman brought out by the detectives was Jane Gillbank, of 23 Catherine Wheel Alley, Aldgate. She was at the Wellington Barracks not merely because the Detective Inspector Reid mistrusted Poll's alcohol fogged mind - but because the other woman had come to the Montague Street Morgue with her young daughter, to identify the victim. After viewing the body of the woman murdered on the George Yard stairwell, Mrs. Gillbank identified her as an old friend, Mrs. Withers, whom Jane had seen drinking with soldiers late on the Bank Holiday evening. But Mrs. Gillbank could not identify any soldiers in the parade, either.

So the Whitechapel police retreated from the skirmish at the Wellington Barracks, having inflicted no casualties on the Royal Guards, but at the cost of half their witnesses. Shortly thereafter Mrs. Withers re-appeared, fully alive and except for additional damage to her liver, perfectly healthy. The Whitechapel police could be forgiven if they were not overjoyed at Mrs. Withers resurrection, because it did little to identify their victim.

While there was still Pearly Poll's contention that the dead woman was named Emma Turner, there was now yet third witness, one who struck Inspector Reid as more believable because she was not a friend of the victim, but an enemy.  Mrs. Ann Morris, of 23 Lisbon Street, Miles End, had come to the Montague Street morgue in response to newspaper articles about the murder, and identified the dead woman as Martha Tabrem.

The widow Morris had once been Martha Tabrem's sister-in-law. But they had fallen out 13 years earlier when Martha blamed Ann for the breakup of her marriage to Henry Tabram.  Martha had then repeatedly harassed the widow, threatening Ann and demanding money from her. Police reports of verbal and physical assaults provided a preamble to Martha Tabrem breaking out all the windows in Ann's rented room. That offense had earned Martha a 7 day sentence at hard labor. Mrs. Morris's story thus offered a possible addition witness who might confirm the identify of the victim – Henry Samuel Tabram.

On Tuesday, 14 August,  the 45 year old Samuel Tabram had come to the Montague Mortuary independently, so it seems Martha's death was not a complete surprise to those who had loved her. Samuel had married Martha White on Christmas day, 1869. They had two sons, born in 1871 and '72, but in 1875 Martha's alcoholic deliriums and her disappearing for days on benders,  had driven Samuel to move out. When she had him arrested for abandonment, a judge ordered Samuel to pay her 12 shillings a week in child support. But after three years, with the money going to gin, Samuel reduced the payments to just 2 shillings. Martha had him arrested again, and the alimony payments were reinstated. But when Samuel found out Martha was living with another man, he cut off her payments entirely.

The new man proved to be 29 year old carpenter Henry Turner, and he now also identified the body as Martha Tabram, aka Martha Turner. Samuel and Martha never divorced. Henry and Martha never married, but had been living together “off and on” since 1876.  Earlier in 1888, Henry had lost his job, and in July the carpenter had also reached the end of his patience with Martha's drinking. He told the coroner, "If I gave her money she generally spent it on drink. In fact it was always drink. When she took to drink, ...  I usually left her to her own resources, and I can't answer to her conduct then."  Henry last saw Martha on 4 August, on Leadenhall Street (above), when she accosted him and demanded money. He gave her a pound and a few pennies, but expected it just to go for more gin. Thus the police at last knew the name of their victim.

Ann Morris' story also confirmed at least part of Pearly Poll's version of the victim's last night on earth. At about 11:00 p.m., on the Bank Holiday, Monday, 6 August, 1888, Mrs. Morris had spotted Martha Tabram on Whitechapel Road, entering the White Swan pub (above, left). She took notice because she still had a restraining order out against Martha Tabram. Their previous encounters convinced her to avoid the woman, and Mrs. Morris had quickly left the neighborhood. By Dr. Killeen's estimate, 4 ½ hours later Martha Tabram was dead, murdered by a person or person's unknown.

Even in 1888 it was standard police thinking that the more violent the attack, the closer the victim and killer must be. In other words, passion diminishes with distance.  So the individual who slashed the throat of Martha Tabram 10 times, stabbed her in the chest 18 times, and left a three inch gash across her lower abdomen, had not merely disliked the woman. This had been no argument over money, or even an insult over the inability to perform sexually. The attacker passionately hated Martha, and had attacked her in frenzy. 

The two men with the most reason to hate Martha, Samuel Tabram and Henry Turner, both had firm alibis for the the night of 6/7 August. And both men had left her.  There was no passion left between them. 

And while it was evident to Inspector Reid that Ann Morris feared Martha enough to strike out in a frenzy, Martha was far larger than Mrs. Morris. And there were witnesses to Ann's activities during the hours when Martha had been murdered. But the violence of the attack, the passion that drove it, so bothered Reid and his superiors, that they could not let the matter rest.

Deputy Coroner George Collier called the jury back at 2:00 pm, 23 August, 1888, in the Working Lads Institute, on Whitechapel Road.  Inspector Reid now had evidence he wanted put on the record. 

Technically still married, Samuel Tabram made the formal identification of the body as that off his ex-wife Martha White Tabram. William Turner testified about the circumstances of his common law marriage to Martha, and their breakup in April. He could swear to her having been alive on Saturday 4 August, when she was then living at 19 George Street, Spitafields. Then Mary Bousfeld, aka Mary Luckherst, testified that Martha had been paying her rent for a bed at 4 Star Place. Martha had been earning money hawking matches on the street until six weeks before her death, when she had left, owing three weeks rent. Then Ann Morris testified to seeing Martha outside the White Swan Pub about 11:00 p.m. on 6 August.

The final witness was Pearly Poll, aka Moog, aka Mary Ann Connolly, who retold her story of meeting up with Martha, pub hopping for two hours, and last seeing Martha headed into George Yard with a soldier just before midnight, 7 August, 1888. “After a brief summing-up by the deputy coroner, the jury duly returned a verdict of "murder by some person or persons unknown." Detective Inspector Edmund Reid ended his report to his boss, Superintendent Thomas Arnold in the usual way. “Careful enquiries are still being made with a view to obtaining information respecting the case.”

It was standard bureaucratic language, which sounded important but actually meant nothing. Inspector Reid was tying up his paper work for the time being, because he was leaving on Monday for two weeks vacation to the coast of Kent. But while he was gone the case would be shaken by  two earthquakes. First the leadership of the the Metropolitan police force would suffer a serious blow, and second, the killer of Martha Tabram would strike again. And the murderer would show that he, at least, had learned from his first victim.

- 30 -