Ripper Live

To read about the events of last night and earlier this morning, click here.

11.00am

Good morning from a panicked Whitechapel. It is Saturday 8th September and there's been another brutal killing. With newspapers still covering the inquest into the death of Polly Nichols a week ago, another terrible crime has occurred. Five and a half hours ago, in the back yard of a house on Hanbury Street a woman's hideously mutilated body was discovered.

Running off Brick Lane, this is Hanbury street in the daytime. This is the door through which the poor victim entered with a man. Onlookers are gathered here. Here is exactly where she was found by a man who lived there, her mutilated body parallel to the fence. I hope you're not having a late breakfast or an early lunch because to describe what police saw this morning is now pleasant ...

Her intestines were above her right shoulder, still attached, with bits of skin. Some of her stomach was by her left shoulder. Her throat was cut so deeply that her head was almost decapitated. A jagged wound ran all the way around. Some of her possessions had been laid out by her feet, almost symbolically. The man who found the body in his own back yard is understandably traumatised.

Elizabeth Long saw the murdered Annie talking to a man in a dark coat and brown, low-crowned felt hat. They went off together. Then at 7am this morning Mrs Fiddymont of the Prince Albert pub served a man of the same description. He had blood on his hands. The man acted strangely and hid his face. He drank quickly and headed off away from the murder site.

The previous victim, Polly Nichols was killed a week ago yesterday. Everyone is calling her the 3rd victim of the last 6 months. Polly was only buried on Thursday and two days later the killer has delivered the community another atrocity to cope with. The affect on people is marked. When the alarm was raised this morning the talk was of "another one" as if it's expected. Poor Annie was only speaking to her friends at midnight and then went to find a client - she met the wrong man off Brick Lane. Now Annie has been laid in the mortuary. Mortuary keeper Robert Mann and two nurses are stripping and cleaning the body. At 2pm today Mr. George Baxter Phillips will arrive to complete his examination of the body. Check back for his grim findings.

11.20am

But right now Amelia Palmer has just arrived to identify the body of Annie Chapman. She is waiting in the next room. In five or ten minutes she'll be shown the body of her friend whom she chatted to in the street a few days ago.

2.00pm

Welcome back to Whitechapel on the afternoon of Saturday 8th Sept 1888. Annie Chapman's body lies waiting for its examination.

Since first thing this morning, news spread quickly, and great exciement prevailed among the occupants of the nearby houses." An excited crowd has gathered in front of the murder-house and also around this mortuary where the body was quickly removed. Whitechapel does not have a real mortuary, it is simply a shed belonging to the workhouse officials. Juries have repeatedly begged the District Board of Works for a mortuary as the East-end requires it more than anywhere. Bodies from the Thames have to be put in boxes and often brought to the workhouse arrangement all the way from Wapping. A workhouse inmate is not the proper man to take care of a body in such an important matter as this. There is no public mortuary from the City of London up to Bow. There is one at Mile End for the workhouse, not general use. Inspector Chandler reached the mortuary a few minutes after 7am where Annie's body already lay undisturbed.

Chandler left Police-constable 376 H in charge. Mortuary keeper Robert Mann and two nurses came and have undressed the body. Mr. George Baxter Phillips arrives at the labour yard of the Whitechapel Union - the makeshift mortuary. He is there to examine Annie Chapman, found by a resident of Hanbury St in their back yard, about 6am this morning. Dr Phillips is surprised to find that the body has been stripped and is lying ready on the table. Dr Phillips feels that in this shed he is having to perform his duties under inadequate circumstances and great disadvantage. There is no adequate convenience, and nothing fit, and at certain seasons of the year it is dangerous to the operator. The body has been attended to since its move to the mortuary, and partially washed. There's a bruise over the right temple. There are two distinct bruises, each the size of a man's thumb, on the fore part of the chest. There is an abrasion over the bend of the first joint of the ring finger, and distinct markings of rings. The throat had been severed. The incision was from the left side of the neck all the way round.

Here is a photo of the dead body. Although it shows no injuries, you may find it disturbing. There were two distinct clean cuts on the vertebrae as if an attempt had been made to separate the bones of the neck. He observed other mutilations of the body so grotesque in nature he decided he would withheld them wherever necessary. He reasoned her breathing was interfered with previous to death, and that death arose from severance of the throat. A very sharp knife was used, probably with a thin, narrow blade, and at least six to eight inches in length, perhaps longer. Portions were absent from the abdomen. The mode in which they were extracted showed some anatomical knowledge. Although he couldn't rule out portions were "lost" in the transit of the body to the mortuary as he wasn't present. His impression is that that the person had anatomical knowledge but it was less displayed in consequence of haste. Baxter Phillips would be ready to present his evidence at the inquiry into Annie's death which would open in two days' time. However, the inquiry into the previous victim, Polly Nichols, is still in progress. A case in which seems near a breakthrough.

As we saw in the newspapers Yesterday police claimed "The chain of evidence is being fast drawn round the persons impliated". If we open the Western Gazette from yesterday, Friday 7th Sep 1888 we can find a small article: "Horrible Murder of a Woman". Referring to the murder of Polly Nichols seven days previously, like most coverage it takes the "yet another" angle. "Scarcely has the horror of the murdered woman in Whitechapel some time ago had time to abate, another discovery is made. The brutality of the murder is beyond conception and beyond description." And then describes the Ripping in great detail: "The knife was jabbed into the lower part of the abdomen and then drawn upward, not once but twice. The first cut veered to the right, slitting up the groin, over the left hip. The 2nd went upward, reaching the breast bone."

But this newspaper reveals a vital detail not hitherto known. It tells the line of enquiry the Police are taking... "The attention of the police is directed to two individuals, one a notorious character known as 'Leather Apron'." It tells that Leather Apron "has been the terror of women in the neighbourhood for some time." The other man is a "seafaring man who has already stood his trial for a crime not far short of murder." So there we have it. Finally a breakthrough. The police have a description and psuedonym of a prime suspect, or two. News of this suspect filtering out over the last few days will surely bring this "Leather Apron" out in the open soon. Although if he's as well known in the area as it appears, it seems surprising Annie Chapman would go with him last night. Elizabeth Long saw the man Annie Chapman was with, moments before her death, but only the back of his head.

However, there was a sighting at 7am by Mrs Fiddymont of a man by the same description in her pub, with blood on his hand. Right now, reporters are in the streets of Whitechapel, talking to people in Hanbury street and getting the story. Check back at 8.30pm tonight when we'll read the evening papers to see how these horrific events are being covered. Bye for now.

8.30pm

Good evening and welcome to Whitechapel on 8th September 1888. In the Jewish East-end, crowds congregate in Hanbury Street. The people in the house next door have been charging admissiong all day to allow people to peer over into the murder site. The atmosphere around Annie Chapman's murder site has grown very dark. Rumours abound of a Jewish suspect "Leather Apron". Large numbers of young roughians are raising cries against the Jews and the crowds are curiousity is turning to animosity. Many of the disreputable and jabbering local women have sided with the roughians and things are tense in Hanbury Street.

"Down with the Jews!" comes a call from a group of young lads. Their chanting is aimed at the gathered locals. "It was a Jew who did it!" shouts one man. "No Englishman did it!" And there are murmers of approval from all around. Several scuffles break out. Then a stand-up fight. The police move quickly to suppress the fighting. Extra police are being deployed to try to keep the situation under control as many suspect full-scale rioting is not far off.

We should probably leave Hanbury street as it's getting nasty. Let's read the papers - every one of which has a murder story. But ironically, the previous murder of Polly Nichols is still only now filtering into some publications today. Here is the section of today's Illustrated Police News which relates the murder of Polly Nichols.

Today's Worcestershire Chronicle's "CRIME OF THE WEEK" reports "Murder, Mutilation and Mystery" - But it's now week-old news. This morning's atrocity is already in many evening papers as a feeling of panic and excitement rises around London. The Sheffield Evening Telegraph's story is entitled: "THE LONDON MIDNIGHT MURDERER" and below: "WOMAN SLASHED AND RIPPED." Pall Mall Gazette Evening Newspaper and Review ominously gives this headline: "ANOTHER MURDER - AND MORE TO FOLLOW? Something like panic will be occasioned in London today by the announcement that another horrible murder has taken place. This makes the fourth murder of the same kind, the perpetrator of which has succeeded in escaping the vigilance of the police." The paper condems the police's "absolute failure to prevent the most brutal kind of murder in Whitechapel. The CID was so pre-occupied in tracking out the men suspected of political crimes that the ordinary assassin has a free field. 4 poor women, miserable and wretched, have been murdered in the densely-populated quarter. Mutilated in a brutal fashion. The knife with which he disembowelled his unfortunate victim, and a leather apron were found by the corpse. The police have been freely talking for a week about a man nicknamed Leather Apron, & it may have led the criminal to mislead."

Aside from the incorrect reporting of the discovery of a knife, the paper is suggesting the leaving of the apron clue is a joke. "The murder this morning shows no indication of hurry or alarm, cutting her throat so deeply as to almost sever her head. He disposed of her viscera in a fashion recalling stories of Red Indian savagery." If it's not the Jews its the Indians, right? A couple of years ago, Robert Louis Stevenson published "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" which is alluded to: "There certainly seems to be a realistic impersification of Mr Hyde at large in Whitechapel. The Savage of Civilization in our slums is quite capable of bathing his hands in blood as any Sioux who ever scalped a foe. But we should not be surprised if the murderer is not slum-bred. We may have a plebeian Marquis de Sade at large. If he is not promptly apprehended, we shall not have long to wait for another addition to the ghastly catalogue of murder."

If this killer at large has an ego to satisfy, the papers are doing a very good job of pandering to his desire for attention. Surely their comments about more to follow and the escalating severity of the attacks is likely to feed the mind of a killer. "Panic will probably be confined to the area within which this midnight murderer confines his operations. If a similar crime were to be committed in the West End, there would be panic, the like of which we have not seen in our time." It's almost as if the journalists are baiting the killer to try harder - to up the ante and do something even more shocking.

Up and down the country the latest horror is in every paper. These exceprts come from the Daily Gazette for Middlesborough: "London was awakened to the awful fact than another murder, far more diabolical and fiendish, had been perpetrated. Her throat was cut so deep that the murderer, evidently thinking he'd severed the the head, tied a handkerchief to keep it on." The paper's speculation then turns into a completely inaccurate exaggeration of the mutilations of the body: "Her bowels, heart and other entrails were at her side. The murderer tied entrails round the victim's neck and head. Even at that early hour, the news spread quickly, and great exciement prevailed among the occupants of the ajoining houses."

There's another curious note in this paper, one which seems to be a rumours circulating ... "Another woman was nearly murdered early in the morning, and was taken to hospital in a dying condition. There is little doubt that this latest murder is one of a series of atrocities on women within the past few months." Like the Pall Mall Gazette's comparison to Red Indians, this paper indicates the savagery is akin to that of a brutal foreigner. "We should have to go to the wilds of Hungary or the French lower peasant life before a more revolting tragedy could be told. The woman was known as 'Dark Annie' & gave her name as Annie Siffey. She was an unfortunate living at a common lodging house. The excitement in the district grows in intensity as the day draws on. Crows have gathered at various points in the vicinity." Here we have the last word: "The prevalent feeling is one bordering upon panic. Rumours are plentiful." Goodbye for now!