15th Sep 1888
7.00pm
Here is the front of today's Illustrated Police News showing "The Fourth and Most Horrible Murder." The depiction of "finding the body" is far from accurate. Neither the yard, the body, nor the discoverer are correct. Here is the next panel showing the four murders which are being grouped together by the papers. It shows the 1st murder being of Emma Smith, although not likely the same killer as the recent ones.
If there was an attack before Martha Tabram (assumed the 2nd) it's more likely Annie Millwood who survived a random stabbing. To walk from Tarbram's murder site to the pub where the suspect was sighted, you pass Millwood's house. To be able to literally connect these markedly similar and brutal crimes, by means of straight line on a map, is very comelling. It's almost impossible to look at that map and not form the opinion that these crimes are all by one man - and he is local.
However, Wednesday saw a key development. A man who came to light last week as a mad foreigner who carried a knife, was caught. Swiss-born Jacob Isenschmid who is prone to deranged fits & violence, was arrested after several people reported his behaviour. He vanished from his lodgings after the murder of Annie Chapman and was seen nearby with blood-stains hours after her murder. Once arrested at Holloway Police Station, it soon became clear he was insane and could not be treated as a normal criminal. He was sent to the Islington Workhouse where Dr John Gray noted a number of his mental problems. Isenschmid suffered delusions and threatened to blow up the Queen with dynamite. He threated to kill his family and neighbours. Shortly he will be transferred again to the Bow infirmary asylum in Fairfield Road.
Inspector Abberline reported that, 'We are unable at present to procure any evidence to connect him with the murders..." But concluded: "he appears to be the most likely person that has come under our notice to have committed the crimes." That, then, would appear to be the end of it. Although interestingly, the newspapers have barely covered this story. The arrest and optimism of the police seems ignored. The Illustrated Police News covered the gruesome discover of the body.