Jack the Ripper-The Mysterious Murderer (Part-2)
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| Newspaper headline about Jack the Ripper |
The third victim was 47 years old Annie Chapman, known to her friends as “Dark Annie”. There was a gap only eight days between the second and third murder. It was 7th September and Annie badly needed four pence to hire a bed for the night. She was seen staggering near 29, Hanbury Street around two in the night. Her body was discovered at dawn as passing people shouted “murder, murder”. Her entrails were hanging at the door of a woman who sold cat’s meat. The murder had been carried out in the usual brutal and vicious manner. Some coins and two brass rings were lying at her feet. The stomach had been opened and the intestines had been lifted from the body and placed on the shoulder of the corpse. Her neck had been nearly severed. The knife used must have been at least five inches long and the Coroner declared, “An unskilled person could not have done this, only someone used to the post-mortem room.” Through a handkerchief was tied to the neck, the blood must have flown freely. This led the Times to wonder as to how the murdered could get away from the scene undetected. It wrote, ”reeking with blood, and yet,.......he must have walked in broad daylight along streets comparatively well frequented, even at that early hour, without his startling appearance attracting attention.” The newspaper thought that the killer must be living in that area and must have gone to his house to remove all traces of his hideous crime. Other journals including Punch vehemently criticized the police and their inability to arrest the murdered. George Bernard Shaw, the eminent write, wrote an angry letter to Star.
It was certain that the killer was an audacious person. In between the murders, he wrote sarcastic letters to the police ridiculing their inefficiency and working methods. He even threw a challenge to them to catch him if they could. He informed that he was going to kill someone in the near future. The police could neither arrest him nor had any idea regarding his identity. The papers were giving wide publicity to these murders by Jack the Ripper. They also vehemently criticized the tardy manner in which the police was dealing with these gruesome murders. The police Commissioner, Sir Charles Warren, would not even send his policemen to the site of murder. He would send his police dogs. His Deputy, Sir Robert Anderson, displayed his indifference to these murders by going out to Switzerland for a month’s holiday.
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| A Victim of Jack the Ripper |
The police was complacent as Jack the Ripper confined his activities to a limited area in East End and his victims were a definite class of women. The public formed Whitechapel Vigilance Committee after the murder of Annie Chapman. The people thought that as the police was incompetent and could not trace out the culprit or culprit of these ghastly murders, they had to organize themselves to trace the murderers. They even offered substantial rewards for information leading to the arrest of the culprit or culprits. The chairman of this Committee was George Lusk.
The Ripper struck again on 30th September by killing two women in one night. He called it “Double Event”. The first prostitute to be killed that night was 45 years old Elizabeth Stride, nicknamed “Long Liz”. Her body was found in an alley off Berners Street. Her windpipe had been slashed and her neck was still bleeding when her body was discovered by a vendor around one o’clock at night. Only 45 minutes later, Police Constable Watkins discovered the body of Catherine Eddows, age 43, near Mitre Square. On the evening of 29th September Catherine was dead drunk. She joked about Jack the Ripper and said she was not afraid of him as he was busy with other girls. She was arrested for vagrancy and making a nuisance of herself. She was kept at Bishopsgate Police station until 1 am. She then walked towards Mitre Square, where, she probably met the murderer. According to Watkins,”She had been ripped open like a pig for the market.” Watkins had been in the police force for a long time but had not such a sight in his entire career. It seemed that due to excess of blood, the killer washed his hands at a public sink.
Jack the Ripper sent a letter to Central News Agency two days before this double murder. He wrote that he was down on whores and in his next murder would cut off the ears of his victim and sends that to the police. He also wrote that his knife was nice and sharp, and he wanted to get to work soon. This letter was supposed to be genuine as the police received a postcard regarding the double murder on 30th September. These murders had not been officially announced till then. The killer regretted that he could not send the ears to the police as promised earlier.
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| Police report about Jack the Ripper |
A few days later, he sent a cardboard box to George Lusk, Chairman of Whitechapel Vigilance Committee. It contained a kindly taken out of Catherine Eddow’s body. Enclosed was a letter from the Ripper. It was captioned “Form Hell”. It said ,”Mr. George Lusk, Sir, I send you half the kidney which I took from one woman, preserved it for you. The other piece I fried and ate. It was very nice. I may send you the bloody knife that took it out if you only wait a while longer. Signed. Catch me when you can Mister Lusk.”
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