As Canter studied the geography of the Yorkshire murders he found that a clear pattern, not unlike a spider's web, defined the activities of the killer. At the heart was Sutcliffe's home that he shared with his wife Sonia who was seemingly oblivious to his homicidal nature. Canter was fortunate that Sutcliffe's identity and address was known; the same can not be said for the Whitechapel murderer. However, Canter has attempted to apply the same process of geographical profiling to the 1888 case. If one plots the murder sites of all those listed in the police files (which we shall come to presently) it is immediately apparent that, with one exception (Alice McKenzie - who was not considered to be a Ripper victim by most experts), they are clustered around either side of the Whitechapel Road and Commercial Street. Anyone taking a walking tour of the murder sites will quickly realize the close proximity of all of the places in which the victims' bodies were discovered. This suggests, if we subscribe to Canter's thesis, that the killer either lived or worked somewhere close to the heart of this district. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that `Jack' was an outsider; someone who frequently visited Whitechapel but did not live there, but it is unlikely. It is much more plausible to argue that the killer knew the geography of the area very well and so was able to make his escape quickly and without drawing too much attention to himself in the process. This of course assists those researchers (like Mei Trow) who have put forward local characters such as Robert Mann as key suspects in the Ripper case. The Whitechapel murderer, whoever he was, killed fewer women than Sutcliffe and he did not need to stray too far from his base because of the abundance of common prostitutes operating in Whitechapel.
So, we now have the beginnings of a profile of the Whitechapel murderer that we can use in conjunction with the available `evidence' from the period. It is likely that Jack the Ripper was male, and was either what modern criminologists would term an organized non-social killer or a disorganized asocial one, or some combination thereof. Again, we might expect him to be in his twenties or early thirties and to be physically strong. His motivation was sexual and he was likely to take trophies, to revisit the scenes of his crimes or attempt to recreate them at some later date. Importantly he probably knew the area in which he killed and knew it well enough to avoid capture. Did he know his victims personally? This is a question that has dogged investigators and given rise to some of the conspiracy theories mentioned in the previous chapter. It is likely that if he was a local man and one that frequented the local public houses, shops and streets, then he could have been acquainted with one or more of the women he killed. However, it is more likely that he was a loner, someone who did not integrate well in society, who would have shunned company and the brash entreaties of street whores to buy them a drink or more. The truth about murder and murderers is often much more mundane than the pages of the newspapers would have us believe. The Victorian press chose their murder stories carefully to excite and shock their readership; in the events of the late summer and autumn of 1888 they had a veritable jamboree of murder news to regale their audiences with as we shall see.
THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS
For many the story of the Ripper murders is well known. Countless books, television documentaries and films have all described in grisly detail the brutal murders of five East End prostitutes in the late summer and autumn of 1888. Most of these focus on the killings and use them to identify a suspect rather than explain the killings and the society in which they occurred. This search for the killer is as fascinating in what it reveals about the present as it is futile in its objective of unmasking a long dead killer. We will probably never know the truth: most evidence that has survived has long been corrupted by decades of grubby and, occasionally, light fingers while police investigation techniques have developed beyond recognition since the 1880s. It is fair to state that had `Jack' had struck in the twenty-first century he would have been caught with modern forensics and CSI, just as Stephen Wright was arrested and convicted in Ipswich in 2008. However, as we will see in Chapter 8, the Victorian police had very little technology to assist them in their search for the killer.
The police file on the Whitechapel murders contains the names of nine women: Emma Smith, Martha Tabram, Mary Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Kate Eddowes, Mary Kelly, Alice McKenzie and Frances Coles. However, debates rumble on about the identification of the victims almost as much as about the killer. Only five are accepted as being victims of the Ripper (Nichols, Chapman, Stride, Eddowes and Kelly) although Martha Tabram may well represent his first attempt at `ripping'.
Emma Smith's murder received little publicity; street violence of this nature was not uncommon in the rougher parts of the capital, even if (as we have seen) her murder was particularly callous and vicious. Coincidentally another resident of George Street, Whitechapel, was the next person to meet with a brutal murder in the summer of 1888. Martha Tabram (or Turner), like Smith before her, was a common street prostitute and on the night she died had been out drinking in The White Swann public house on Whitechapel Road with her friend Mary Ann Connolly. Tabram and Connolly, nicknamed `Pearly Poll', had attracted the attention of two soldiers and the foursome enjoyed an evening of drinking and flirtation. At a quarter to midnight they split up, Martha going off with one of the men while Poll took her companion to the nearby Angel Alley. At 4.45 a.m. on 7 August, a local man, John Reeves, came across the body of Martha Tabram on the first floor landing of George Yard Buildings, a stone's throw from Whitechapel High Street.33 The body had been spotted earlier by a cab driver who lived in George Yard but he had taken little notice since it was fairly common for drunks to sleep off the excesses of the night there.34 Reeves informed the local policeman, PC Thomas Barrett, who told the inquest into Tabram's death that when he found her she was lying on her back, her clothes `turned up as far as the centre of the body, leaving the lower of the body exposed; the legs were open, and altogether her position was such as to at once suggest in my mind that recent intimacy had taken The constable called for a doctor, Dr Keeling, who established that Tabram had been stabbed no less than 39 times and estimated the time of death at around 2.30 a.m. PC Barrett had spoken to a soldier - a Grenadier Guard - in Wentworth Street close by the murder scene at 2 a.m. The soldier said he was waiting for `a chum who had gone with a girl' Barrett visited the Tower of London to see if he could identify the guardsman he had seen. He picked out two men, both of whom could account for their whereabouts that night.36 The soldiers were also paraded before Mary Connolly but she told the police that the men she and Tabram had picked up had white cap bands. This determined that they were Coldstream Guards rather than Grenadiers and another identity parade was arranged. At this, Connolly did pick out two individuals; one was able to prove he was with his wife that night and the other was registered as being in the barracks. The case against the soldiery seems to have gone cold at this point.
While the attack was extremely brutal, and the killer targeted Tabram's `breasts, stomach, abdomen and vagina' and despite some suggestions that the murderer had some medical knowledge, nothing exists in police files to suggest that this was something contemporary police officers believed.37 Was Martha Tabram the Ripper's first victim? Leonard Mathers, author of one of the earliest works on the Ripper murders thought so, as did many contemporaries, but most modern writers are less sure. She may have been killed by more than one man; perhaps the two soldiers were guilty, although this seems unlikely. We now know that serial killers develop their MO (modus operandi or method of killing) as they kill and so we might expect the Ripper to make one of more attempts at `ripping' before he perfected his technique.38 We cannot be sure but as Paul Begg says, `the frenzy of the attack took it well beyond the league of "normal" murder"' The coroner said it was `one of the most dreadful murders any one could imagine. The man must have been a perfect savage to inflict such a number of wounds on a defenceless woman in such a way'.40
Tabram was about 37 years old (the police file suggests 35-40) and her body was identif
ied by Henry Tabram, her estranged husband who she had left some 13 years earlier. Tabram had been using the name Emma Turner (that is how her former landlady identified her) and was living with Henry Turner up until about three weeks before she met her death. Tabram and Turner had clearly been in financial difficulty and had left their lodgings in Commercial Road six weeks previously owing rent.41 Perhaps this had precipitated Martha's move onto the streets and the eventual breakup of the relationship.
Martha Tabram was killed on 7 August 1888 and no one was ever prosecuted for her death. At 3.40 a.m. on Friday, 31 August, Charles Cross was on his way to his work as a carman. As he strolled along Buck's Row (now renamed as Durward Street) he noticed what he thought to be a piece of tarpaulin at the narrow end of the street. When he crossed over he realized it was a body. Cross was soon joined by another worker, Robert Paul, and together they examined the body. Believing that the woman might still be alive they went to find help. As they left the scene PC Neil entered Buck's Row (which was part of his beat) and discovered the woman's body. Using his police lantern, Neil was able to see that her throat had been cut. He called for help and was assisted by another officer who went to fetch a surgeon. When the police surgeon, Dr Llewellyn, arrived he confirmed death and the body was taken to a mortuary in Old Montague Street. There the body was stripped and washed before anyone could make a proper examination despite instructions issued by a police sergeant that no one was to touch the body. The murder scene itself was neither secured nor properly investigated.42 Dr Llewellyn examined the body again at about 10 a.m. and made his report:
On the right side of the face was a recent and strongly-marked bruise ... which might have been caused by a blow from a fist or by pressure of the thumb. There were two cuts in the throat, one four inches long and the other eight, and both reaching to the vertebrae, which had also been penetrated. The wounds must have been inflicted with a strong-bladed knife, moderately sharp, and used with great violence. It appeared to have been held in the left hand of the person who had used it. No blood at all was found on the front of the woman's clothes. On the abdomen were some severe cuts and stabs ... the murderer must have had some rough anatomical knowledge, for he seemed to have attacked all the vital parts.43
Much has been made of the phrase `some rough anatomical knowledge' by contemporaries and later writers, but it is far from conclusive. Dr Llewellyn also stated that it could have taken only four or five minutes to carry out the attack and this was a more significant `fact' than any suggestion of medical knowledge. The casual treatment of the crime scene was echoed by the easy access afforded to the London press. A journalist from the East London Observer visited the mortuary and was shown the body in its coffin. His report set the tone for the reporting of the Ripper murders that was to unfold in the coming weeks and months:
Opening the lid, he exposed the face of the poor victim. The features were apparently those of a woman about thirty or thirty-five years, whose hair was still dark. The features were small and delicate, the cheek-bones high, the eyes grey, and the partly opened mouth disclosed a set of teeth which were a little discoloured. The expression on the face was a deeply painful one, and was evidently the result of an agonising death. The gash across the neck was situated very slightly above the breastbone; it was at least six inches in length, and over an inch in width, and was clean cut. The hands were still tightly clenched. The lower portion of the body, however, presented the most sickening spectacle of all. Commencing from the lower portion of the abdomen, a terrible gash extended nearly as far as the diaphragm - a gash from which the bowels
The sensational reporting, with its reference to the mutilations was in sharp contrast to the mechanical description of death given by Dr Llewellyn.
The victim was eventually identified as Mary Ann Nichols (also known as `Polly Ann'). Polly was a 42-year-old prostitute who had been in and out of the Lambeth workhouse (where Mary Ann Monk, who identified Polly's corpse, had first met her) having lost her position as servant after being caught stealing. She had been married to William Nichols but the couple had separated nine years earlier `in consequence of her drunken habits' (as the police report For a while Nichols had supported her with an allowance of 5s a week but this stopped in 1882 when he discovered she was prostituting herself. From May till July 1888 she had found work as a domestic servant but had lost it again when she absconded, stealing some clothes. In August 1888, Mary Ann roomed in a lodging house at 55 Flower and Dean Street, prior to that she had digs in a common lodging house at 18 Thrawl Street. On the night of the murder, a little the worse for drink, and very proud of her new black straw bonnet, she was on her way to earn enough money to pay her rent for the night. At 12.30 a.m. she was seen leaving the Frying Pan Pub in Brick Lane; she was back at her lodgings at 1.40 a.m. still short of the necessary cash but told the deputy warden there to keep her room free for her as she `would soon get the money'.46 At half past two a fellow resident at the lodging house found her `dead drunk' standing on the corner of Osborn Street and Whitechapel Road and tried to persuade her to go home. Instead Polly made off in the direction of Buck's Row, about half a mile away. No one saw her alive after that.
The hand-to-mouth existence of some East End residents is clearly shown by Polly's tragic death. Her pitiful possessions also indicate her poverty. Aside from her new bonnet she had what she was standing up in, and these clothes had seen better days and included a dress and underwear that she had been given at the workhouse.47
At first locals suspected that the murder was the work of one of the gangs that preyed on prostitutes. The Nichol's gang, named for the street they infested, were notorious for extracting `protection' money from the area's `unfortunates'. But Inspector Abberline, the detective in charge of operations from Leman Street, was sure it was the work of one man. The newspapers began to link Polly's death with that of Martha Tabram. They also speculated wildly on the nature and personality of the killer. It was clear, the Northern Echo stated, that the murders were the work of one individual, in all probability a 'ferocious maniac. He was
a homicidal lunatic possessed apparently of the supernatural cunning and force by which such unfortunate beings are sometimes characterised - a human tiger with no more moral responsibility than that huge and ferocious cat, his thirst for blood whetted with three successful crimes, is at large, according to this idea, in the midst of such a teeming horde of humanity as Whitechapel!'41
This coalescing of the murderer with the inhuman or non-human helped to create a mythology around the figure of `Jack' and linked his crimes to those of Spring Heeled Jack, the London Monster and Sweeney Todd - all semi-mythical bogeymen in London's history that will be discussed in Chapter 4. It is not unusual for serial murderers to be credited with superhuman or alien powers; indeed this helps to set them apart from humanity and allows us to see them as different from us rather than as a part of our community. We like to do this with criminals and in particular with killers despite the fact that few animals kill for pleasure and none do so for political purposes in the way that humans do. In a sense serial killers are entirely and uniquely human, killing as they do to gratify their desires and lusts rather than for food or to defend territory from other animals. As a consequence of this early speculation about the mental health of the murderer, a local lunatic, Henry James, had fallen under suspicion following Mary Ann's death but was soon absolved of responsibility by the coroner.
The inquest was held at the Working Lads' Institute as Whitechapel did not have its own coroner's court, nor had it a town hall or vestry hall or even a purpose built mortuary, all which again indicate the relative poverty of the neighbourhood since most West End parishes had courts and even in St Georges' in the East and Poplar there were parochial buildings that could be and were used when necessary. Certainly the area needed a mortuary since a previous one had been demolished to make way for a new street but the compensation paid to the local authorities by the MBW (Metropolitan Board of Works) had not been spent o
n providing a new one.49 At the inquest the foreman told the coroner that in his opinion, `the government ought to offer a reward - and a big one. If it had been a rich person that was murdered there would have been a reward of £1,000 offered but just because it is a poor "unfortunate" there is hardly any notice taken' The coroner disagreed, both with the idea of the reward and with the sentiments expressed: `For some time past the offering of rewards has been discontinued, no distinction being made between rich and poor, he argued. The foreman would not be put off and announced that a reward was being put together, and he himself was donating £25.s0 The idea of a reward and the belief that no one outside of Whitechapel cared if poor women were being murdered persisted throughout the investigation.
London's Shadows: The Dark Side of the Victorian City Page 5
