Ripper Live

A minute-by-minute account of the Autumn of Terror in Whitechapel, 1888.
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6th-7th Aug - Martha Tabram
30th-31st Aug - "Polly" Nichols
7th-8th Sep - Annie Chapman
29th-30th Sep - Stride & Eddowes
8th-9th Nov - Mary Jane Kelly
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Saturday 29 - Sunday 30th Sep 1888 - The Double Event

8.00am

Last night we met Catherine Eddowes, a jolly woman who has been hop-picking for a month and just returned to London with John Kelly. Now, she turns up at Cooney's Lodging House to find her man. He asked her what's happened.

Catherine arrives after having been turned out of the casual ward over some trouble, and has decided to pawn a pair of boots.

9.00am

The pair head out into Whitechapel with the boots in the hope of raising some money.

9.30am

Catherine and John find a pawn broker named Jones, in Church Street. Kate goes into the shop whist John waited. She pledged the boots under the name of Jane Kelly, and she received 2/6.

10.50am

They then go buy food, tea and sugar and go back to their lodging house to eat breakfast, where they see Frederick Wilkinson.

1.50pm

Without money again and they wander out into town. They end up in Houndsditch.

Catherine tells John that she is going to see if she can get some money from her daughter in Bermondsey. She promises her beloved she'll back by 4pm, and she sets off on her own ...

6.15pm

We are back in Whitechapel, 1888 on a dark and wet evening. There have been constant showers and the wind is getting up. Tonight we follow the fortunes of two women who we met in the last few days. Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes. Catherine we met yesterday, as she returned from hop-picking her with her man.

6.30pm

Elizabeth Stride, whom we met earlier in the week, is drinking in the Queen's Head public house on Commercial St. Liz is drinking with Elizabeth Tanner, deputy of the common lodging house at 32 Flower and Dean Street. Known as "Long Liz" by the locals, she was born Elisabeth Gustafsdotter in 1843 in Torslanda, near Gothenburg. She has been a prostitute since she was 18 and moved to London 22 years ago. She tends to tell lies about her past. Her husband died four years ago in the workhouse, but she tells people he went down in a cruise ship disaster. Tonight she's drinking away a bit of the money she's earned but she's finishing her drink to head back to lodgings soon.

6.45pm

Long Liz says her goodbyes to folk and leaves the Queen's Head with Tanner for the short walk back to her lodgings. Long Liz returns to her lodging house at 32 Flower and Dean St and heads into the kitchen.

6.50pm

Charles Preston, a lodger, enters the kitchen and greets Long Liz. They've chatted in the past about her husband's coffee stall.

6.55pm

Elizabeth Tanner is busying herself around the lodging, after her drink with Long Liz down the pub.

7.00pm

They bump into each other again briefly in the kitchens and chat a while about the usual things. The murders of course. Long Liz had been staying there Thursday and Friday and today she cleaned Tanner's private rooms in return for sixpence.

7.20pm

Liz goes up to see Catherine Lane and gives her a large piece of green velvet. "Can you hold it for me, til I get back?" Liz thanks her, and then goes to Charles Preston's room and knocks on the door. Liz asks Charles if she can borrow his clothes brush. She's heading out and wants to smarten herself up a bit. Charles explains that unfortunately he's mislaid his clothes brush and he can't help her.

7.45pm

Thomas Bates is the watchman at the lodging house and he sees that "Long Liz" has got herself ready to go out again. Bates sees that Liz is looking quite cheerful and she heads out of the house into the dark of Whitechapel.

7.55pm

The weather tonight is miserable. There have been showers all evening, and it's quite windy. Liz wraps up tight and walks on.

8.00pm

A ten minute walk away in Aldgate High Street, Catherine Eddowes is very drunk and lying in a heap on the pavement. A collection of onlookers – either concerned or amused – are gathered around her. A policeman approaches the scene. City of London PC Louis Robinson sees the drunk woman and asks if anyone in the crowd knows her. No-one replies. PC Robinson pulls her to her feet and leans her against the building's shutters. She slips sideways in a stupour. Eventually, with the help of PC George Simmons, they decide to take her in.

8.20pm

Their journey will be to Bishopsgate Police Station which should be a ten minute walk, but her condition hampers things.

A few streets away, a man pulls on his brown coat and dons his hat. He slips his sharpened knife inside his jacket. The ordinary-looking man closes his front door and steps out into the night air. There are minuscule dark spots on his coat.

The man is 5' 8", looks mid-thirties, with a narrow-rimmed hat and bushy moustache. He seems ordinary. Innocuous. He is neither. A week ago, a woman was knifed in Vine St. She survived. Narrowly escaped a slit throat. A frustrating failure for her attacker.

The "ordinary" man turns out of his road and heads down Brick Lane. He says hello to a couple of women as he passes them. On the face of it he seems friendly enough. In his mind he is going over and over the darkest thoughts, and his awful plans.

At the Westow Hill Market near Crystal Palace, a peddler in cheap jewellery, Louis Diemschutz, is working his last few hours.

8.45pm

At Bishopsgate Police Station, Sergeant James Byfield sees a drunk Catherine Eddowes brought into the station. She is held up by the accompanying officers and asked her name. "Nothing", she replies. The policemen exchange glances and decide to put her into the cells to sober up.

8.50pm

PC Robinson looks in on Catherine Eddows in her cell. She has passed out and stinks of alcohol.

9.45pm

Over at Bishopsgate police station, it is time for PC George Hutt to take charge of the prisoners. He checks on Catherine Eddowes in her cell, and will continue to do so every half hour. We'll be back here in one hour.

10.45pm

At Bishopsgate Police station, PC Hutt checks on the drunken Catherine Eddowes in her cell. He will check her again later.

10.50pm

Liz Stride is in the Bricklayer's Arms Public house on Settles Street, north of Commercial Road and almost opposite Berner St. Liz is with a short, fat man with a dark moustache and sandy eyelashes. He has on a bowler hat and morning suit. They finish their drinks and go to leave but the rain is lashing down hard. They pause in the doorway, unwilling to get wet. The short, fat man cuddles and kisses Liz. He's respectably dressed but his eager behaviour is hardly that of a gentleman.

11.00pm

Two labourers, J. Best and John Garner arrive at the pub for a drink. They stop at the doorway where the couple are kissing. As they lovers clearly don't want to the go out in the downpour, they labourers try to persuade the man to come in for a drink. The man declines their friendly offer and the labourers win at Liz and nod in the direction of her male companion. "That's Leather Apron getting round you!" they tease. Unhappy at the tasteless remark, Liz and her man quickly walk off.

23.40pm

Peddler Louis Diemschutz finishes packing up his unsold wares onto his cart over at at Westow Hill Market near Crystal Palace. It will take him over an hour get from Crystal Palace to Whitechapel, assuming he makes good time with the horse. His destination is Dutfield's yard in Whitechapel, where tonight, at the adjacent club a lively discussion has been taking place.

23.45pm

The event at Dutfield's Yard is entitled "Why Jews Should Be Socialists" and had about 100 people in attendance. The meeting is now ending. Most are leaving the club by the Berner Street door, but around 25 remain in the large room, and another dozen go downstairs. A man called William Marshall is standing at his front of 64 Berner Street, opposite the club where people have been leaving. Marshall sees a man and a woman kissing. He can hear the man speak to her: "You would say anything but your prayers." William Marshall watch the pair walk off up the street towards Dutfield's Yard. The man accompanying the woman is about 5 feet 6 inches tall, stout, with dark clothes and a peaked cap.

12.15am - Sunday 30th September

Back in Bishopsgate Police Station, our drunk friend Catherine Eddowes is singing softly to herself.

12.25am

Catherine calls out to her gaoler, "When will I be released?" Hutt replies, "When you are capable of taking care of yourself." She replies, "I can do that now." But she'll be left there a little while longer.

12.30am

William West who works on the newspaper named The worker's friend takes some papers to his office in Dutfield's Yard.

A man named Joseph Lave steps out of the Workingmen's Club to get some fresh air. He walks into Dutfield's Yard.

A Mr Morris Eagle, who chaired tonight's meeting at the club, returns from escorting his young lady home and goes inside.

12.35am

Police Constable William Smith sees Liz talking to a man in his late 20s. He has a deerstalker hate and carries a parcel.

Dutfield's yard is very dark, and Joseph Lave feels his way along before stopping for a few minutes to take in the night air. Having had enough of a break, he leaves the empty yard and goes back into the club. Another passer-by comes down the street.

12.38am

James Brown walks past a man and woman by the wall of the school. He hears her say, "No, not tonight, some other night." The woman is Liz Stride. The man is about 5 feet 7 and stout. The couple are near Dutfield's yard. Brown walks on.

12.40am

A man called Israel Schwartz is walking down Commercial Road. At the junction, he turns down Berner Street towards the yard. As Schwartz approaches the gate of the yard he sees a woman at the gate. A man stops and talks to her. The woman is Liz Stride.

The man pulls Liz out of the gateway, and with both hands on her shoulders, pushes her down onto the pavement. She screams.

Schwartz, thinking he's seeing a domestic, crosses to the other side of the street. The woman screams twice more. Schwartz then sees another man smoking a pipe. One of the men calls out, but Schwarts speaks no English and is uncertain what he hears. He wouldn't be able to tell if the cry was "Let's see", or the name "Lizzie" or even the Jewish name "Lipski."

Both the pipe-smoker and Schwartz make off down the street in the same direction. Schwartz looks behind him. Is the pipe-smoker chasing him, or is he running for help?

12.45am

Schwartz reaches the railway arch and finds the pipe-smoker is not following him. He got a good look at him and the attacker.

The attacker was about 30, 5 feet 5 inches, dark clothes, dark hair, full face, broad-shouldered, brown moustache, peak cap. It is exactly the same as the description given by William Marshall of the man kissing a woman an hour earlier. Other witnesses including a Policeman had seen her with different men, so it seemed the man from earlier had returned for her.

Israel Schwartz hurries away into the night, leaving wondering as to the fate of the poor woman who he left screaming.

12.55am

Over at Bishopsgate Police Station, Sergeant Byfield instructs PC Hutt to see if any prisoners were fit to be released. Catherine Eddowes is found to be sober & released. She asks the time. "Too late for you to get anything to drink," replies Hutt. "Goodnight, old cock," she says, leaving the station. Instead of heading home, she walks towards where she'd been drinking.

12.56am

Louis Diemschutz turns his pony and cart from Commercial Rd into Berner Street, noticing a tobacconist's shop clock as he goes.

12.57am

He turns his cart into Dutfield's yard. His pony shies to the left and won't move through the gate. Diemschutz looks to see why. There is a dark shape lying on the ground to the right, near the wall of the club. He prods it with the handle of his whip.

12.59am

He jumps down from the cart and strikes a match to illuminate the bundle of clothes upon the cobbles street.

1.00am

The flickering flame burns long enough to show it is a woman wearing a dress. His immediate fear is that it is his wife. He runs into the club by the side entrance and sees his wife is safe and sound, and he alerts other club members. "There's a woman lying in the yard, but I cannot say whether she's drunk or dead." And they take a candle outside.

Diemschutz and his friend Isaac M. Kozebrodsky together find much blood has flowed from the woman. His wife sees it and screams. The pair run head down to Fairclough St and keep running as far as Grove Street, all the while shouting loudly for the police.

1.05am

Meanwhile Morris Eagle has gone in the other direction and found Constable Henry Lamb with Reserve Constable Albert Collins. Diemschutz returns with a man called Edward Spooner to find a number of people are gathered in the yard. A match is struck. Spooner lifts up her chin and finds it slightly warm to the touch but her throat had been cut. Blood still flows from the wound.

Const Henry Lamb reaches the scene and tells his brother to fetch the doctor and more police. He tells the others to step back.

1.10am

Constable Collins arrives at the surgery of Dr. Frederick William Blackwell of 100 Commercial Road. While the doctor dresses and collects his things, he sends his assistant, Edward Johnston, back with Collins.

1.13am

Arriving at the body, Johnston's sees the woman has an incision in her throat, which by now has stopped bleeding. Her body feels warm, with the exception of her hands. Johnston unfastens her blouse. Her bonnet is lying on the ground. The gates have been closed by the time Dr. Blackwell arrives. The woman's right hand lies on her chest, smeared with blood. Her left hand, lying on the ground, is partially closed. It holds held a small packet of cashews wrapped in tissue paper. She has a checked silk scarf with the bow turned and pulled very tight. It seems her assailant had grabbed it to pull her back.

1.20am

Not far away, a man called Thomas Coram has been visiting friends near Brady St and just made a hideous discovery of his own. A few minutes ago, walking Whitechapel Road toward Aldgate he noticed something on the doorstep of 253 Whitechapel Road. He carefully walks towards it and realises it is a knife, with blood- stained handkerchief wrapped around the handle. Stepping away in fear, he calls out to a constable nearby. Constable Joseph Drage picks up the knife and sees the blood. The policeman removes the knife away to Leman Police Station for examination by Dr Phillips, but he is otherwise occupied...

1.25am

Catherine Eddowes has still not gone home, and made her way down towards Mitre Square, ten minutes from the police station.

1.30am

Constable Edward Watkins's beat takes him into the poorly-lit and deserted Mitre Square. He checks the square and heads off.

1.35am

Joseph Lawende, Joseph Hyam Levy, and Harry Harris, are leaving the Imperial Club at 16-17 Duke Street. At the corner of Duke Street and Church Passage they see Catherine Eddowes with a hand on the chest of a man. The man is 30 yrs old, 5' 7", moustache, medium build, grey jacket, peaked cloth cap and a reddish handkerchief around his neck. The three mean head off, leaving the man and Catherine together. The couple head down the passage & into Mitre Square together.

Suddenly the man's hands are round her neck, choking and forcing her down. A knife slices her throat, deep, to the spine. The attacker pulls up her skirts exposing her bare thighs and stomach, and plunges the blade in, and up, ripping her body open. He exposes her organs and pulls her intestines out and over her shoulder. He cuts some off and places it by her side. He stabs several times at her groin. He stabs his knife inside her, cutting into her liver and spleen. He puts his hand inside. He pulls her kidney, cutting it free. He cuts into her womb and pulls most of it out of her body. He will keep these with him. But he hasn't finished. The square is still quiet and he has time yet. Time to go further. He takes his knife to her face... He slices the end of her nose off, and her ear. He cuts her eyelids and pushes his blade into her cheeks, making V-shapes. Finally, he slices through the front of her apron, taking a large square. He stands, wipes his hands on it, and then leaves.

1.45am

Constable Edward Watkins' fourteen-minute beat brings him back to Mitre Square. His lantern illuminates a body in the corner. Watkins runs across to a warehouse where retired policeman George Morris is a watchman, and finds him sweeping steps. "For God's sake, mate, come to my assistance," cried Watkins. "What's the matter?" asked Morris. Watkins says, "There's another woman cut to pieces." They go to the butchered girl. Watkins blows his whistle and runs for help.

1.50am

Watkins finds two constables, James Thomas Holland and James Harvey. Holland runs to find the nearest doctor. Holland goes to 34 Jewry Street, Aldgate, for Dr. George William Sequeira. He tells him of the latest atrocity.

1.55am

Dr. Sequeira reaches Mitre Square but upon seeing the poor woman is beyond help, decides not to touch her.

1.57am

At Bishopsgate Police Station Inspector Edward Collard is alerted to the crime, and he quickly makes his way to Mitra Square.

1.58am

Nearby, plain-clothes detectives Sgt Outram, Constable Halse, and Constable Marriott happen to making searches for the killer.

Upon being alerted to the new crime, they raced to Mitre square, before spreading out in three directions to hunt the killer.

1.03am

Inspector Edward Collard had arrives

2.05am

One plain-clothes detective, Halse, sees two men and stops them. But their explanations seem reasonable and he sends them on.

2.18am

Official police surgeon Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown, arrives at Mitre square and sees the horribly mutilated body. Here is a drawing by City Surveyor Frederick Foster, exactly as her saw the body lying in the square. Dr Brown records that the body is on its back; the head turned to the left shoulder; the arms by the sides of the body. Palms upwards, fingers slightly bent. A thimble is lying off the finger on the right side; clothes drawn above the abdomen. Thighs are naked; left leg extended in a line with the body; the abdomen is exposed; right leg bent at the thigh and knee. Great disfigurement of face; throat cut across, lobe and auricle of the right ear was cut obliquely through. Intestines drawn out to a large extent and placed over the right shoulder; smeared with feculant matter. A piece of about two feet of intestines has been detached and placed between the body and the left arm, by design. There is a quantity of clotted blood on the pavement on the left side of the neck, round the shoulder and upper part of arm. Fluid blood serum has flowed under the neck to the right shoulder, the pavement sloping in that direction. Body is quite warm; no death stiffening has taken place. She must have been dead most likely within the half hour. They look for superficial bruises and see none; no blood on the skin of the abdomen or secretion of any kind on the thighs. No spurting of blood on the bricks or pavement around; no marks of blood below the middle of the body; In his opinion the throat wound was inflicted first, on the ground. The knife was sharp, pointed and at least 6 inches long.

2.30am

Detectives Halse continues up as far as Goulston Street but sees nothing and decides to head back south to see his superiors.

2.50am

A six minute walk from the crime scene is Goulston St. You can see the short route here. Constable Alfred Long is on his beat through Wentworth Model Dwellings, by the junction of Goulston St and Wentworth St. Half an hour ago he saw nothing here, but this time as he walks the street he notices this doorway. On the right-side of the open doorway is a large piece of bloodied apron. He looks up and sees something else on the wall. In chalk it reads: "The Juwes are The men That Will not be Blamed for nothing". Lond fetches another constable to guard it. He picks up the bloody clothing and heads for Commercial Street Police Station. News of the discovery quickly spreads. Having arrived back at Mitre Square, Constable Halse is directed to go up to Goulston street where the graffito is.

3.10am

Halse now stayed with the graffito while Detective Hunt returned to Mitre Square to report to Inspector James McWilliam.

3.15am

An ambulance arrives and Catherine Eddowes' body is lifted in. Some buttons are found on the ground beneath where she lay.

3.20am

Her body is conveyed to the mortuary where Frederick Foster will do further drawings of the wounds upon her.

3.30am

Hunt arrives back at Goulston St with instructions that he and Halse should carry out a thorough search of the premises.

3.40am

A search of the premises reveals nothing. There is nothing obviously connecting the victim's bloody clothing to this place.

3.45am

Frederick Foster is at the mortuary where he makes this drawing showing the victim's hideous injuries. Photographs are taken as well, though they will not be shown here. The drawings are hideous enough to see.

5.00am

Sir Charles Warren, commissioner of Met Police, and Superintendent Thomas Arnold, head of H Division, discuss the graffio.

5.20am

Fearing an anti-semitic reaction to the wording they agree that the writing should be sponged from the wall.

5.30am

The orders are carried out and this vital clue is washed away, never having been photographed.

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