The Crime Book

268

A

round 3:30am on Tuesday,

7 August 1888, cab driver

Albert Crow returned home

to the George Yard Buildings on

London’s Whitechapel Road,

between the areas of Whitechapel

and Spitalfields. Crow found what

he thought was a female vagrant

passed out on a landing of the

property, her skirts hiked up. At

5am, tenant John Saunders Reeves,

realized the truth: the unknown

woman had been murdered.

Dr Timothy Killeen, who

performed the autopsy, concluded

that the victim had been stabbed

nearly 40 times in her throat and

abdomen. She was identified by her

husband as 39-year-old Martha

Tabram, who earned her living as

a prostitute. Investigators learned

that Martha’s body had not been on

the landing when tenants Joseph

and Elizabeth Mahoney returned

home at 2am. The killer must have

committed the crime at some point

between 2am and 3:30am.

Establishing a pattern

The grisly murder of a second

woman, 24 days later, bore striking

similarities to the Tabram slaying.

JACK THE RIPPER

This victim was found by two

workers outside a stable on Buck’s

Row at 3:40am on 31 August. Her

genitals were exposed. Arriving at

4am, surgeon Henry Llewellyn

discovered two fatal slashes

running from left to right across her

throat. There were also multiple

postmortem incisions to the

abdomen. The warmth of her body

and legs led Llewellyn to conclude

that she had not been dead for

longer than half an hour. A laundry

mark on her petticoats from a

Lambeth workhouse identified her

as Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols.

IN CONTEXT

LOCATION

Whitechapel, London, UK

THEME

Serial murder of

prostitutes

BEFORE

1866 French warehouse porter

Joseph Philippe murders six

prostitutes in Paris. He claims

to have been in a state of

“erotic catalepsy”, some sort

of sexual trance or blackout.

AFTER

1975–80 “Yorkshire Ripper”

Peter Sutcliffe kills 13 women,

some of whom are sex workers.

1982–98 Gary Ridgway,

known as the “Green River

Killer”, kills at least 48 sex

workers in Washington state.

1983–2002 Millionaire Robert

Pickton murders a number of

prostitutes – between six and

49 – and buries some at his

family’s pig farm in Vancouver,

British Columbia.

Disappears into the Whitechapel

sidestreets to find another victim

Attacks a prostitute at night in the sidestreets around

a pub where she picks up clients

Displays the victim’s body in a

humiliating position

Eviscerates her body and cuts off pieces of her

organs as souvenirs

Slashes the victim’s throat and repeatedly

stabs her in the stomach

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269

Policemen discover a victim of Jack

the Ripper in this 1891 illustration from

Le Petit Parisien. The mysterious killer

became notorious not just in the United

Kingdom, but across the world.

At 6am on 8 September, market

worker John Davis discovered the

body of a third woman in his

backyard, at 29 Hanbury Street in

Spitalfields. Whoever had done the

grisly deed had eviscerated the

victim, draping her intestines over

her shoulders. Like the first two

victims, Annie Chapman worked

as a prostitute. Her body had been

posed to allude to this, with legs

splayed to degrade her even in death.

Dr George Bagster Phillips,

arriving half an hour later, noted

that her handkerchief had been

tightened around her neck, causing

asphyxiation. Once again, the killer

had slashed his victim’s throat

from left to right. A more thorough

examination revealed that a portion

of the uterus had been excised.

Phillips estimated the time of death

at 4:30am or earlier.

Early clues

Scant clues emerged about the

three murders, but at an inquest,

witness Elizabeth Long testified

she had seen Chapman speaking

with a man at 5:30am near the

crime scene. She described the

figure as around 40 years old, with

dark hair and a foreign, “shabby-

genteel” appearance. The man

See also: The Black Dahlia Murder 218–23 ■ Elizabeth Báthory 264–65 ■ Ted Bundy 276–83

SERIAL KILLERS

Long described wore a brown

deerstalker cap and overcoat. The

police also found a leather apron at

the scene of Chapman’s death.

Local gossip transformed these

details into the tale of “Leather

Apron”, a homicidal Hebrew who

preyed upon English prostitutes.

John Pizer – a Polish Jew and boot-

maker with the misfortune

of having the nickname “Leather ❯❯

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