Preface

The initial Ripper slaying most likely took place in the early morning hours after a holiday, Bank Holiday Monday, on August 7, 1888. The victim was Martha Tabram, who is sometimes mistakenly identified as Martha Turner. Her body was discovered on the steps outside of No. 47, George Yard Building, at approximately 4:45 a.m. It was noted that numerous people lived in the very near vicinity of the crime scene, yet no one reported hearing anything.

Tabram was about five feet, three inches tall, and relatively chubby at the time of her death. She was dressed in a dark bonnet and a black jacket with a green skirt and brown undergarment and stockings. Tabram had been married to Henry Samuel Tabram but they separated thirteen years before her death. She was born Martha White on May 10, 1849. Her last address was a common lodging house at 19 George Street, Spitalfields.

Tabram was brutally slain, stabbed at least thirty-nine times. And the wounds were not irrelevant but deadly, with two serious stab wounds in the right lung and an additional five in the left. One deep wound was made to the heart, and there were five stab wounds in the liver. The stomach had been penetrated a half-dozen times, her clothes had been rearranged and her body posed in a sexually suggestive position, with her legs spread wide apart and her clothing bunched up to reveal her sex organs. Dr. Thomas Killeen believed that two different knives were used in the assault.

Nichols died on the last day of August in 1888. Her body was discovered at about 3:45 in Bucks Row, after she was last seen alive at approximately 2:30 a.m. She was turned away by the deputy lodging keeper at a common doss house, the equivalent of today’s homeless shelters, but she had promised to return soon with money to obtain lodging for the night. No one heard a thing during her murder.

Mary Ann Walker was born in August of 1851. She married William Nichols, a printer, on January 16, 1864. They had two children, a boy and a girl. The marriage reportedly ended between 1880 and 1881 due to her chronic drinking. She was about five feet, two inches tall, with gray eyes and dark hair. She wore a rusty-colored ulster, a brown linsey dress, two petticoats and black stockings at the time of her death. She last lived at the White House, 56 Flower and Dean Street.

The mutilations were frightening and fearsome. Her throat had been deeply slashed from ear to ear. According to some accounts she had been disemboweled with a jagged but deep incision, while others reported a series of cuts to the abdomen.

She was killed in the back yard of a lodging house at 29 Hanbury Street, shortly before the discovery of her body at 6 a.m. on September 8, 1888. Chapman was last seen alive at 5:30 a.m. Seventeen people lived in the house whose back yard served as the crime scene, with scores more in adjacent buildings, yet no one heard a sound.

Chapman was born in 1841 as Eliza Ann Smith. She was married to John Chapman in 1869, but she abandoned her husband and two or three children in 1881. From that point until her death she worked as a prostitute and lived with a number of men, most notably a man named Jack Sivvey or someone who worked as a sieve-maker. She was a short lady, barely five feet tall. Her last address was 35 Dorset Street, the Crossingham’s Lodging House.

Chapman was savagely mutilated. Her body was posed as Tabram and Nichols had been, and her feet were flat on the ground with her knees elevated and her black skirt bunched above her waist. She had been almost decapitated, and she was in fact disembowled. Coroner Wynne Baxter announced that her uterus was missing.

One of the most interesting aspects of the Ripper case was the so-called Double Event. On a single evening, September 29-30, 1888, two lives were viciously taken in an all-night killing spree. Elizabeth Stride and Catharine Eddowes fell to the Ripper’s knife.

Stride was first on September 30, 1888. The time of death, although a bit imprecise, was estimated at between 12:46 and 12:56 a.m. Her body was discovered in a place called Duffield’s Yard, outside an establishment known as the Socialist’s Club. A man returning to the yard, Louis Diemschutz, found Stride’s corpse just inside the unlocked front gate. Despite the presence of several people in nearby rooms with open windows, no one heard anything suspicious.

She was born as Elisabeth Gustafsdotter, the daughter of Gustaf Ericsson and Beata Carlsdotter, on November 27, 1843. The public records of Gotheburg, Sweden, recorded her occupation as prostitute in March of 1865. Stride married John Thomas Stride on July 10, 1866, but they had separated by 1978. She lived with Michael Kidney, a laborer, for the last three years she was alive. At her death she wore dark-colored garments, and a dark, fur-lined coat. She was among the tallest victims, at five feet, five inches in height. She and Kidney lived in a room at 33 Dorset Street.

Stride was the only Ripper victim not subjected to some kind of physical mutilation. It is widely believed that the unexpected arrival of Diemschutz interrupted the Ripper before he could accomplish his typical mutilations. She died at about forty-five years of age.

Eddowes was killed as little as forty-five minutes after the discovery of Stride’s body.

City Police Constable Edward Watkins discovered her body at 1:44 a.m. in Mitre Square. When he had last patrolled the crime scene, twelve to fourteen minutes earlier, all had been quiet. There were several people in the vicinity, including a night watchman, but once again no one heard a sound.

Catharine Eddowes was born to George and Catharine Eddowes in 1842 in Wolverhampton. She left home between 1861 and 1863 with Thomas Conway, who lived on a military pension. They had three children, two boys and a girl. When the couple separated in 1880 because of her infidelity and alcoholism she took her daughter Annie and Conway took the boys. Eddowes lived with Michael Kelly, a porter, for the last seven years of her life. She had curly black hair and an attractive, petite facial bone structure. She did not know her real age, but it is estimated that she was approximately 43 years old. She last lived with Kelly at 52 Flower and Dean Street.

The mutilations in this case were completely over-the-top, and exceeded the previous body disfigurement by a considerable margin. Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown arrived at the crime scene and reported dispassionately on the mutilations, which included disembowelment. Her nose had been nearly cut off, and parts of an ear were severed from the body. Tiny nicks were made on her eyelids, perhaps to simulate eyelashes. Her body was posed as the others had been, with the victim’s legs spread and naked and the clothes pulled up to reveal private parts.

Mary Kelly is the final of the canonical five, generally-accepted Ripper victims. She was the only victim believed to have been slain indoors. And for this reason the Ripper had the time and privacy to perpetrate the most terrible mutilations on this victim. Kelly died in the early morning of November 9, 1888. Several neighbors reported hearing a woman say, “murder,” once at approximately 4:00 a.m.

She was born around 1861 to John Kelly, an ironworker, in Limerick. Kelly had a half-dozen brothers and a solitary sister. She married a man named Davis, a collier, in 1879, but it is believed that he died in a pit accident within two or three years. She turned to prostitution to support herself. She spent much of her last year and a half with a man named Joe Barnett, At the time of her death she was 25 years old, described as stout with blue eyes and blond hair, five feet two inches tall. Number 13, Miller’s Court, Dorset Street, is where she met her death.

Kelly’s body was badly abused. Her throat was cut from ear to ear almost to the spine, and the head nearly severed from the body. She was disemboweled and much of her entrails was extracted from her body. Her breasts were cut off and placed on a bedside table, along with her liver and part of her intestines. The flesh was cut from her legs. Some reports suggest that her uterus was taken, while others claim that her heart was missing.

Clay-Pipe Alice was found murdered in Castle Alley between 12:25 and 12:50 a.m. on July 17, 1889, nearly a year after the other killings in the series. Nevertheless, there are sound reasons to link the McKenzie slaying to the Ripper crimes. James Monro, the Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Criminal Investigation Division (CID), linked the crimes based on the case evidence, and Dr. Thomas Bond concurred. Bond had attended inquests or been at crime scenes in almost every Ripper murder. Once again no one heard anything.

She was born around 1849 in Peterborough. Also known as Alice Bryant, she took up with John McCormick sometime in 1883 and they lived together until her death. She had suffered a thumb injury in an industrial accident. She worked as a washerwoman and charwoman, and resorted to prostitution when necessary to make ends meet. McKenzie was freckle-faced.

She was found with her throat cut in a couple places, and she was left posed in a similar manner to the other Ripper victims. There was a long cut from her left breast to her navel, and seven or eight cuts on her abdomen.