Annie and the Ripper

by Tim Champlin

  Doctor Phillips continued in a monotone with his description of his findings, noting what was missing. "The removal of these organs would be of no use for any professional purpose."

  "Doctor," one of the spectators interrupted, "would the killer be covered with blood when the carotid spewed out?"

  "Probably not, because it appears she was strangled before her throat was slashed, so the heart had stopped, thus avoiding most of the gushing force. Besides, from the looks of the wounds, the killer was standing on her right side and probably behind her so he'd have avoided the blood when he reached around and slashed the left side carotid."

  "I see."

  "I don't think the killer is a doctor, but he does have considerable skill with a knife, and some anatomical knowledge to be able to do this kind of cutting within ten minutes, working by feel in a completely dark corner."

  "Would a professional butcher have such knowledge?"

  "It would be only speculation on my part, but I'd say 'yes'."

  Abberline had had quite enough of this for one night. He would read the report, or attend at least part of the inquest in hopes of picking up a clue he could use. He edged forward and touched Doctor Llewellyn on the arm, then silently signaled he was leaving.

  Escaping from the fetid atmosphere, he sucked in the cool, damp outside air. It was balm to his lungs and his whole being, though it was anything but pure, fouled as usual by sulfurous coal smoke, the smell of dank drains and uncollected horse dung, mingled with the nose-curling rotten-fish aroma wafting from the Thames.

  A dull disc of sun was beginning to silver the foggy atmosphere.

  Abberline heaved a heavy sigh as he walked along, hands in his coat pockets. It seemed he'd been doing a lot of sighing lately. Maybe it was time to take a little holiday from Jack the Ripper. He couldn't leave his job just now, so a mini-holiday would have to do. As an employee of Scotland Yard, he was entitled to use the Police Athletic Club, a privilege he hadn't taken advantage of in several years. His irregular hours provided him with an excuse for not exercising. Perhaps if he started to work out and get back into condition, he'd feel better, and not be so exhausted. The club was open in the evenings as well as during the day to accommodate mostly the younger policeman who walked their beats in round-the-clock shifts.

  Where were all the pedestrians this morning? He'd seen few tradesmen, laborers, or landladies on their way to market, no shopkeepers opening their shutters.

  Then a church bell from St. Bartholomew's chimed a few blocks away. He realized it was Sunday morning. He did an abrupt turn and started toward the sound. It wasn't just that he needed Divine help to solve this case of multiple, mutilating murder; he needed spiritual solace as well.

  Although he attended St. Bartholomew's Anglican Church often, he was tired and felt that an aura of blood and death clung to his clothing. Arriving just as Mass was starting, he slipped inside and took up a spot in a back pew by himself.

  After a few minutes of inactivity, his mind wandered and he had to fight to keep his eyes open during the liturgy and the sermon. He left at the last blessing, feeling much better for having been there.

  Maybe Jack the Ripper would take a holiday on the Sabbath and give Death a respite, Abberline thought as he crawled into bed an hour later.

  CHAPTER 8

  Abberline was still in something of a fog Monday morning at his office. It wasn't until early afternoon that he became alert when red-headed Roger Clark rapped on his open door and quickly entered the room, obviously suppressing his excitement.

  "The Central News Agency sent this over, sir. Apparently from the same correspondent." He handed a bloodstained postcard across the desk. The card read:

  I wasn't coddling dear old Boss when I gave you the tip. Youll hear about saucy Jackys work tomorrow double event this time number one squealed a bit couldn't finish straight off, had not time to get ears for police thanks for keeping last letter back till I got to work again.

  Jack the Ripper

  Abberline turned the card over. "Postmarked in East London October 1st. That was yesterday--Sunday. The killings took place shortly after midnight on Saturday. This is very likely from the killer or he wouldn't have known about what he calls the 'double event' so soon. It hadn't even had time to reach the papers. If it's not from the Ripper, this hoaxer must have been in the neighborhood very late that night and heard people talking about it."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Has Commissioner Warren seen this yet?"

  "Yes. In fact, he's ordered facsimiles of both this letter and the last one made and sent to the press and posted outside every police station in case someone recognizes the writing and comes forth with information."

  "That's the first thing he's done for a while that I agree with," Abberline muttered quietly. "However, it's going to generate a fresh flood of letters that we'll have to sort through. Make sure that original is safely guarded."

  Clark left and Abberline picked up the top folder of several stacked on his desk. They were files put together on each victim, beginning with Polly Nichols, then one on Annie Chapman, and lastly, the most recent victims, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes. The folders contained background information that was gleaned from friends and remains of scattered families, along with grisly photos taken at the morgue, revealing the mutilations, plus any and all notes about their comings and goings during the last hours of their lives. He'd been through these files before, so he only scanned the information quickly to see if anything caught his eye—anything at all he'd missed. Was there some pattern here? Other than their profession, did these women have anything in common that attracted the deadly attention of the Ripper?

  He opened the file on Elizabeth Stride. One of her friends, who identified her at the mortuary, knew her as Annie Fitzgerald. This was a common occurrence; some women went by their maiden names and some by their former married names, some going by a first name, some by a middle name, nickname, or by a fictitious name altogether. According to testimony of witnesses at the inquest, she was regularly arrested for drunkenness, but whenever arrested for public intoxication, always denied she'd been drinking and stated that she was subject to fits.

  A witness named Sven Olsson, the vestryman of the Swedish Church in Trinity Square, who'd known her for seventeen years, said her maiden name was Elizabeth Gustafsdotter. She was born on November 27th, 1843 in Torslanda Parish north of Gothenburg, Sweden, the daughter of a farmer named Gustaf Ericsson and wife, Beata Carlsdotter. They lived on a large farm and the parents had another daughter and two sons. Elizabeth was confirmed in the church of Torslanda in 1859. In October of 1860, she left school and took out a certificate of altered residence from the parish and went to work away from her home in the parish of Carl Johan in Gothenburg. There she was employed as a domestic until 1864 for a workman named Lars Fredrik Olofsson, who had four children. She moved again and on February 2, 1862, took out a new certificate to the Cathedral Parish in Gothenburg, but her new home address was not known. She still listed her occupation as a domestic.

  In March, 1865, she was registered as a prostitute by the Gothenburg police. The following month, she gave birth to a stillborn girl. The witness speculated she might have been forced into the streets to make a living because she would have very likely been let go from her job as a domestic for being pregnant. According to official records, she was living in October in a suburb of Gothenburg, is described as having blue eyes, brown hair, straight nose, oval face and slightly built body. In October and November, 1865 she had been seen in the special hospital, Kurhuset, for venereal diseases, but in the last four visits in November was stated to be healthy, and was told she no longer had to report to the police.

  The following year, on February 7, 1866, she took out a new certificate of altered residence from the Cathedral Parish to the Swedish parish in London. The certificate indicated she could read reasonably well but had a poor understanding of the Bible and catechism. She was entered in the London Register on July
10, 1866. She was registered as an unmarried woman. Her first London employment was with a family in Hyde Park.

  Although the record wasn't clear, she was thought to have married John T. Stride, a carpenter. She later claimed he'd drowned in a boat accident with two of their nine children. But a record of the passengers in the Princess Alice disaster showed no one by the name of Stride, and the only man and two children who drowned was an accountant and his two sons.

  Abberline took a deep breath and turned the page. A twisting past, spiraling ever deeper into lies and deception. The official church records, at least, were devoid of any indication that she'd had a deprived, or abused childhood. On the contrary, the Christian church had kept close ties with her or her with it. Apparently, it was the custom, when moving from one parish to another, to take out a church certificate to show change of residence and parish affiliation.

  For the past three years she'd been living in Fashion Street with a waterside laborer named Michael Kidney. Now and then she'd earned some money by sewing and charring, but the couple often parted when she felt like going off on her own. The cause was invariably the same—her drinking. Kidney indicated he always knew she'd return to him in her own good time. It had happened often before. On the Tuesday prior to her death, she'd walked out on him and he didn't see her again until he identified her body at the mortuary. Depressed and heartbroken, he'd gone out and gotten drunk. Later that night, Kidney stumbled into a Leman Street police station and told detectives if he'd been a policeman and Elizabeth's murder had occurred on his beat, he'd have shot himself.

  Abberline sat back and raked his fingers through his hair. Whatever the situation of their relationship or her past, Michael Kidney apparently really cared for her. Human love could exist anywhere under nearly any circumstances, and the longer he was a detective, the more he realized it. But caring family, church affiliation or no, a person still had free will and could deviate into another lifestyle altogether. Queen Victoria's grandson was a prime example. No one in the realm could have had more care and attention, or the material good things of life than Prince Eddy. Yet, he'd gone off on his own thrill-seeking adventures that were ultimately his downfall. In Eddy's situation, it might have been a case of having too much wealth and leisure, cosseted by too many tutors and family restrictions. The life of a member of the royal family was by no means easy.

  Abberline leaned forward over the open folder and glanced down to the more pertinent testimony of those who'd seen Long Liz in her last hours. A laborer, William Marshall, who worked in an indigo warehouse, said he'd seen Liz shortly before midnight on Saturday night some three doors from where he lived in Berner Street. He knew who she was by the clothing she was wearing—the same clothes he saw on her body later in the mortuary. She was talking to a man, but there was no street light near so Marshall couldn't see his face. The man he described as about five feet, six, and stout, and decently dressed. He had the appearance of a clerk, although he wore a round hat with a peak, something along the style of what a sailor would wear. Marshall testified the man wore a cutaway coat, appeared to have no whiskers, and carried nothing in his hands.

  Marshall said he was standing in his doorway and didn't pay much attention to the couple, who were kissing. They stood there for a while before they walked away and Marshall said he heard the mild-voiced man say, "You would say anything but your prayers." Marshall added that the man appeared to be educated.

  If the last statement was true, Abberline thought, it didn't square with the uneducated writing in the Ripper letters that he and Scotland Yard had accepted as genuine. So the man Marshall saw might not have been the killer.

  He turned the page and his eyes alighted on the testimony of Police Constable William Smith. Perhaps, as a trained observer, this man would be more accurate and detailed. Constable Smith said he was on his beat on Berner Street that night and saw a man and woman talking together about 12:30 in the morning. Smith saw her face. Although he didn't know her personally, he recognized her later in the mortuary as being the same woman.

  Smith said the man she was talking to was about five-foot, seven, wore a dark, deerstalker hat and a long, dark overcoat and dark trousers. Smith guessed his age at about twenty-eight and said he had a respectable appearance. In direct contradiction of Marshall's statement, Constable Smith indicated the man carried something wrapped in newspaper in his left hand. The package was about eighteen inches long and six to eight inches wide. But, then, Marshall and Smith might have seen two different men. It wasn't impossible that Liz Stride had been with two men in the space of twenty minutes or so. Smith indicated the man was wearing a long coat, nearly down to his heels.

  Abberline turned to the next sheet and read the testimony of the last witness. James Brown, a box maker, didn't have anything pertinent to add. He said he went out about 12:30 to get some supper from a chandler's shop in Berner Street. As he was crossing the street, he saw a man and woman talking, leaning up against a wall. When he heard the woman say, "Not tonight; some other night," Brown turned and looked at them. The man was leaning over her with his arm braced against the wall. He was wearing a dark coat, which reached almost down to his heels. Brown went on about his business, got his supper and carried it home. When he'd nearly finished eating about a quarter of an hour later, he heard screams and shouts for the police.

  Taking into account the discrepancies and faults of casual observations when recalled later, Abberline concluded that the men each of the witnesses described was probably the same person.

  Abberline shut the folder, thinking that Long Liz Stride had not been mutilated to the extent the other victims had. "Small consolation, that," he muttered to himself. "The crazy bastard just didn't have time."

  Abberline got up, stretched and walked around his office. He would have preferred to be somewhere else. The sunshine through the window told of a decent autumn day outside. But he forced himself to sit back down at his desk and take up another of the folders, this one on Annie Chapman.

  One of "Dark Annie's" friends, Amelia Farmer, testified at the inquest that she'd gone to the mortuary to identify Annie. Amelia told the coroner that Annie had lived apart from her husband for four years. Her husband had been a coachman at Windsor. During that four years she'd resided in the lodging houses in Whitechapel and Spitalfields.

  "About two years ago, Annie and I lived in the same lodging house at 30 Dorset Street," Amelia Farmer said. "Annie was living with a man who made iron sieves. She was then calling herself Annie Siffey, or Sievey, because that was the name of his trade. At the same time she was receiving an allowance of ten shillings a week from her husband. About eighteen months before she was murdered, the allowance stopped. When Annie checked to find out why, she discovered her husband had died. She also found out what happened to their two children who'd been living with Chapman, her husband. Her son, who was born a cripple, had been sent off to a Cripples Home and her daughter to some institution in France.

  "Annie was smart. She could do needlework and sometimes made a little money selling her crochet work. She also sold flowers. But then she'd get drunk, and went 'on the game' to get money." Amelia went on to say she'd seen Annie two or three times in the week before she died. When they'd met on Monday, Annie had complained of feeling ill. At the time she had a black eye and a bruised chest, the result of a fight with Liza Cooper, another prostitute Annie had known for at least fifteen years.

  "The fight came about over a piece of soap. Annie sometimes spent the weekend at the lodging house with a man known as 'The Pensioner'. He lived nearby in Osborne Street. Dark Annie borrowed a bar of soap for The Pensioner to wash with. She promised to return it, but she didn't. Liza asked her for it the next week. Annie tossed her a half-penny and told her to go buy some more. Later on, the two of 'em happened to meet in The Ringers public house. Liza was drunk and Dark Annie had been at the sauce too, and they started to have a few harsh words.

  They left the pub and kept at each other when they staggered
into the doss house kitchen. Annie finally slapped Liza's face and yelled, "You best think yourself lucky I didn't do more!' Well, that started it, and the two of them went at it. Annie was short, but she was fairly stout. Even though she was forty-five years old, I'd a put m'money on her in a fight wi' Liza. But I'd a lost. Liza pounded and kicked her good. When I saw Annie a few days later, she was still barely getting around and said she felt sick—I suppose from the beating. She looked bad. Then I saw her again the next day, on Tuesday, September 3rd. She still felt unwell, she said, and said she was going to the casual ward for a day or two to rest. She hadn't had nothing but a cup of tea all day, so I gave her tuppence for a cup of tea and told her not spend it on drink. Well, I didn't see her again until Friday when she said she was still poorly, and didn't feel like doing anything. But she said, 'It's no use my giving way. I must pull m'self together and go out and get some money, or I'll have no lodgings.' That was the last time I saw her alive."

  An hour later, he closed the last file, stumped. The only thing they had in common was their occupation. Each had arrived at it from a different direction, although they were of the same general age—35 to 45 or so, had a similar pattern of broken marriages, followed by co-habitations with lovers or common-law husbands, estrangement from children, alcoholism, working menial jobs as charwomen, or making trinkets to sell on the street. These women knew each other, mainly because circumstances threw them together. Several were actually good friends and helped one another when more down and out than usual.

  He picked up the Elizabeth Stride file again and read the testimony of a man named Israel Schwartz, a Hungarian Jew who lived in the neighborhood and had come to the Leman Street police station late on September 30th. On his way home late Saturday night, Schwartz was passing the gateway to Dutfield's Yard when he saw a man stop and speak to a woman in the gateway. The man tried to pull her into the street but turned her around and threw her down. She screamed three times, but not very loudly. Schwartz, not wanting to get involved, crossed to the opposite side of the street. There, he saw a man lighting his pipe. The man with the woman called out to the man across the street with the pipe, "Lipski". Schwartz walked away, but the second man followed him. Schwartz started running until he reached a railway arch where he turned around and found the other man had stopped chasing him. Schwartz told the police he thought the two men knew each other because of their exchange. He gave a description of each man.