Murder Maps. Drew Gray

      35

      ENGLAND — LONDON.

      been murdered: her throat cut and (although this only became apparent when she was removed to the workhouse mortuary) her abdomen opened up. Earlier that month, Martha Tabram’s (1849–88) body had been found in nearby George Yard with forty-nine stab wounds, all but one targeting her abdomen and genitals: could this be the same killer? In April, a street prostitute named Emma Smith (1843–88) had been beaten and left for dead, with a blunt instrument shoved up into her vagina, and it seemed (to the press and public at least) as if someone was making war on the local sex workers.

      The killer struck again on 8 September in Hanbury Street, just a short walk from Buck’s Row. John Davis (dates unknown), a resident of a shared lodging house, found the dead body of ‘Dark’ Annie Chapman (1840–88) at 5:45 in the morning. As the police inspected the scene, they found that, like Polly Nichols, Annie had had her carotid artery cut, but so deeply that the wound had almost severed her head from her body. She was left with her legs up, in a horrific caricature of a surgical operation.

      Her intestines had been draped over one shoulder and part of her stomach over the other; the killer had removed Annie’s uterus before making his escape into the early autumn morning. To some, it seemed as if a ritualistic killer was on the loose, a monster born of the slums that one contemporary writer termed ‘the Abyss’.

      As Whitechapel digested this latest horror, the press seized on the story and turned it into a national and international sensation. This was fuelled by a letter that was supposedly sent to the papers by the killer himself. In this missive, dated 25 September but stamped on 27 September, the mysterious author claimed his knife was ‘very sharp’ and signed himself ‘Jack the Ripper’. It was almost certainly a hoax, created by the media to keep interest in the case at a heightened state. They probably did not need such artifice. In the morning of 30 September, two murders took place within an hour and a mile of each other. First, Elizabeth ‘Long Liz’ Stride’s (1843–88) body was found in Berner Street by a Jewish trader returning home from

      ABCDE

      10 September 1889.

      pinchin street,

      whitechapel.

      17 July 1889. castle alley,

      whitechapel.

      7 August 1888.george yard

      whitechapel.

      13 February 1891. swallow gardens,

      whitechapel.

      3/4 April 1888. osborn street,

      whitechapel.

      ABCDE

       ‘Pinchin Street Torso’.

      Unidentified torso found; no other body parts uncovered.

      Aged 30–40.

       Alice McKenzie.Carotid artery severed;

      multiple stab wounds to the abdomen area. Aged 40.

       Martha Tabram.Multiple stab wounds to the chest area. Aged 39.

       Frances Coles.

      Throat twice-cut.Aged 25.

       Emma Elizabeth Smith.Peritoneum ruptured by blunt object inserted into vagina;

      died of peritonitis the morning after the attack. Aged 45.

      am

      an

      42

      6

      9

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      1

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      8

      36

      PART ONE — EUROPE.

      5

      5

      9

      %

      (

      2

       4

      6

      !

      $

      &

      37

      ENGLAND — LONDON.

      1

      .

      THE TEN BELLS PUB, 84 COMMERCIAL STREET, SPITALFIELDS.

       all canonical victims were known

      customers here.

      3

       A .

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