1 Sep 1888 - The Morning Post (London, England)
No. 36,258 - Page 2, Column 4 - Saturday
Within a comparatively brief period two women have been murdered in the streets of Whitechapel, and no clue to the perpetrators has ever been discovered by the police. Now that a third woman has been killed, under equally mysterious but still more brutal circumstances, the inhabitants of the district are becoming alarmed. This latest crime was discovered yesterday morning at a quarter-past four, when Police-constable J. Neil, who was pacing his beat, saw, in Buck's row, Thomas-street, Whitechapel, a woman lying on the pavement close to the door of a stable yard leading to Essex Wharf. Buck's row is a narrow and badly lit passage containing about a dozen houses of a very low class. Neil at once perceive that the woman had been the victim of a brutal murder, for her face was stained with blood and her throat was cut from ear to ear. The constable called up the nearest residents, who stated that they had heard no sounds of a scuffle - that in fact the neighbourhood had been unusually quiet, and sent for Dr. Llewellyn, who lives in the Whitechapel-road, close by. Finding that life was extinct, although as the extremities were still warm the woman could not have been long dead, the doctor had the body removed to the mortuary in Whitechapel-road. There, on examination, it was discovered that in addition to the gash in her throat, which had nearly severed the head fromt the body, the lower part of her body had been ripped up, the opening extending nearly to the breast. On either side were two incised wounds almost as severe as the centre one. The instrument with which the wounds were inflicted must have been not only of the sharpness of a razor, but used with considerable force. The murdered woman is about 45 years of age and 5ft 2in in height. She had a dark complexion, brown eyes, and brown hair, turning grey. AT the time of her death she was wearing a brown ulster, fastened with seven large metal buttons with the figure of a horse and a man standing by its side stamped thereon. She had a brown linsey frock and a grey woollen petticoat with flannel underclothing, close-ribbed brown stays, black woollen stockings, sidespring boots, black straw bonnet trimmed with black velvet. The mark "Lambeth Workhouse R.R." was found stamped on the petticoat bands, and a hope is enteretained that by this her identity may be discovered. A general opinion is now entertained that the spot where the body was found was not the scene of the murder. Buck's-row runs through from Thomas-street to Brady-street, and in the latter street what appeared to be blood stains were, early in the morning, found at irregular distances on the footpaths on either side of the street. Occasionally a larger splash was visible, and from the way in which the marks were scattered, it seems as though the person carrying the body had hesitated where to deposit it, and had gone from one side of the road to the other unitl the obscurity of Buck's-row afforded the shelter sought for. The street had been crossed twice within the psace of about 120 yards. The point at which the stains were first visible is in front of the gateway to Honey's-mews, in Brady-street, about 150 yards from the point where Buck's row commences. Several persons living in Brady-street state that early in the morning they heard screams, but this is a by no means uncommon incident in the neighborhood, and, with one eception, nobody seems to have paid any particular attention to them. Mrs. Colwell, however, who lives a short distance from the foot of Buck's-row, says that she was awakened early in the morning by her children, who said some one was trying to get into the house. She listened, and heard a woman screaming "Murder, police," five or six times. The voice faded away as though the woman was going in the direction of Buck's-row, and all was quiet. She only heard the steps of one person. Of course the murdered woman, wounded as she was, would have been unable to traverse the distance from Honey's-mews to the gateway in Buck's-row, which is about 120 yards from Brady-street, making a total distance of at least 170 yards. The assumption, therefore, is that the woman must have been carried or dragged, there. On the other hand it is evident from the small quantity of blood which was on the road at the spot where the body was found, that the wound at the throat could not have been given at that point, yet=, with such a gash, it would have been utterly impossible for the victim to cry out in the manner described by Mrs. Colwell. Her statement, therefore, does little to clear up the mystery. The constable, Neil, traversed Buck's-row about three-quarters of an hour before the body was discovered so it must have been deposited there soon after he had patrolled that thoroughfare. Shortly after mid-day some men who were searching the pavement in Buck's-row, above the gateway, found two spots of blood in the roadway. They were some feet away from the gate, and they might have dropped from the hands or clothing of the murderer as he fled. The stableyard and the vicinity have been carefully searched in the hope of finding the weapon with which the crime was committed, but so far without success. A bridge over the Great Eastern Railway is close at hand, and the railway line was also fruitlessly inspected for some distance. Dr. Llewellyn says that from the nature of the cuts on the throat it is probable that they were inflicted with the left hand. He adds there is a mark at the point of the jaw on the right side of the woman's face, as though made by a persons's thumb, and a similar bruise on the left side as if the woman's head had been pushed back and her throat then cut. There is a gash under the left ear reaching nearly to the centre of the throat, and another cut apparently starting from the right ear. The neck is severed back to the vertebrae, which is also slightly injured. The abdominal wounds are extraordinary for their length and the severity with which they have been inflicted. Inspector Helm, who has charge of the case, is making every effort to trace the murderer, but there is so little to guide the police, that at present there does not seem much likelihood of success. The theory that the murder is the work of a lunatic, who is also the perpetrator of the other two murders of women which have occurred in Whitechapel during the last six months, meets with very general acceptance amongst the inhabitants of the district. The more probably theory is that the murder has been committed by one or more of a gang of men who are in the habit of frequenting the streets at late hours of the night and levying blackmail on women. No money was found upon this woman, and all she had in the pocket of her dress was a handkerchief, a small comb, and a piece of looking-glass.
Late last evening the body was identified as that of a married woman named Mary Ann Nichols, who has been living apart from her husband for some years. Her real age is 36, and she has been an inmate of Lambeth Workhouse off and on for the past seven years. She was first admitted to the workhouse, seven years ago, as a patient into the lying-in ward, and from this point seems to have entered upon a downward career. Some few months ago she left the workhouse, after having temporarily sojourned there, to go into domestic service at Wandsworth. She left suddently under suspicious circumstances, and for the last seven weeks or so seems to have been frequenting the neighbourhood of Whitechapel. On the night of the murder she was last seen in the Whitechapel-road at half-past two, and was then under the influence of drink.