Abberline: The Man Who Hunted Jack the Ripper (10 page)

Sometime between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m., Police Sergeant Kerby passed through Buck’s Row and reported all to be quiet. At about 3.30 a.m., Charles Andrew Cross left his home at 22 Doveton Street, Bethnal Green, and started to make his way to work at Pickfords’ depot in Broad Street, where he worked as a car-man, or cart driver. As he walked through Buck’s Row, Cross said he saw a bundle in front of the stable yard gateway. In the darkness he mistook the bundle for an old abandoned tarpaulin; it was only as he got closer and bent down to look at it that he saw it was the body of a woman.

This is where another witness, Robert Paul, comes into the picture. Paul was on his way to his place of work at Corbett’s Court. As he cut through Buck’s Row, he saw the figure of a man, slightly bending down, looking at something on the ground in front of him. The figure was that of Charles Cross, who turned towards Paul as he heard his footsteps on the cobbles behind him, and called to him, saying, ‘Quick, come over here and look at this, there’s a woman lying here’.

Polly Nichols was lying on her back with her skirts lifted almost to her waist. Cross lifted one of her hands and turned again to Paul, saying, ‘She’s stone cold’. He then turned to Paul, asking him to feel, but Paul declined. He disagreed as well when Cross said they shouldn’t leave the woman lying uncovered like she was, and that they should help to cover her up before anyone else saw her.

Paul was very reticent about doing anything like that, and could hardly bear to look at the poor woman, let alone touch her. His immediate thoughts were that they should leave her where she was and go and search for a constable without delay. Cross agreed and the two men hurried away.

Just minutes after Cross and Paul had left the scene in their quest to find a constable, another police officer, PC Neil, happened to enter Buck’s Row completely independently, and saw the bundle lying on the pavement. When he shone his lantern upon it he discovered it to be the body of Polly Nichols. In his report, which he wrote later, he described the scene as follows:

The victim was lying lengthwise with her head turned towards the East; her left hand touched the gate; her bonnet was off her head, lying near her right hand; her skirts were rumpled just above her knees; her throat was severely cut; her eyes were wide open and glassy; blood had oozed from her throat wounds; her arms felt warm from the elbows up; her hands were open. The gateway was 9 feet. 10 inches in height and led to some stables; they were closed.

Unlike today, there seemed to be an abundance of police officers on the ground, and within minutes of PC Neil discovering the body, he noticed another constable, PC Thain, further along the road. Neil signalled to him, showed him the body, and told him to ‘Run at once for Dr Llewellyn’.

PC Thain did as he was told and immediately left to fetch Doctor Rees Ralph Llewellyn, who had his surgery at 152 Whitechapel Road, just 300 yards from Buck’s Row. While he was gone, PC Neil carried out a rudimentary search of the immediate area, apparently finding nothing of any significance.

At roughly the same time, the two men, Cross and Paul, who had first discovered the body, had now found another constable, PC Jonas Mizen, who they informed about their grizzly find. Mizen thanked the men and dismissed them, telling them they should carry on their way to work now as their presence could hamper police procedures.

When PC Mizen arrived at Brown’s Stable Yard, PC Neil sent him immediately for an ambulance and reinforcements from J Division, Bethnal Green, as the murder had occurred on their territory. About half an hour later, PC Mizen and another officer arrived back on the scene with the ‘ambulance’, which was not an ambulance as we know it today, but nothing more than a stretcher on wheels.

By daybreak, the area was teaming with police officers as well as a scattering of nosy neighbours, and the inevitable members of the press, who seem to smell these things out from a radius of 10 miles or more. A very tired and not too happy Dr Llewellyn had also arrived at the scene (direct from his bed) and made a very cursory examination, which he concluded as follows:

Severe injuries to the throat; her hands and wrists were cold, yet her body and legs were still warm; her chest and heart showed life to be extinct, estimating that she died no more than a half hour prior to the examination; very little blood around the neck; no marks of a struggle or of the body being dragged.

One of the detectives from Bethnal Green, who also arrived on the scene, was Inspector Spratling, who immediately gave orders for the nearby premises of Essex Wharf, the Great Eastern Railway, East London Railway and the District Railway as far as Thomas Street to be thoroughly searched. While this was happening, a neighbour came out into the yard with a bucket of water and started washing the blood from the cobblestones. This was obviously not considered important at that time and he was left unchecked by anyone, to wash away the evidence.

Inspector Spratling and PC Thain then went directly to the mortuary where Polly Nichols’ body was still lying on the ambulance in the yard. Spratling made notes of her description and what she was wearing. He then recalled Dr Llewellyn for a further examination. Dr Llewellyn’s second cursory examination was noted as follows:

Throat cut from left to right with 2 distinct cuts being on the left side and with the windpipe, gullet, and spinal cord being cut through; a bruise, possibly from a thumb, on the lower right jaw with another on the left cheek; the abdomen had been cut open from centre of the bottom ribs along the right side; under the pelvis, left of the stomach, was another wound – jagged; the omentum (One of the folds of the peritoneum that connect the stomach with other abdominal organs) was cut in several places; 2 small stabs on the privy parts; the knife used seemed to have been strong-bladed; death almost instantaneous.

This, then, was the ‘evidence’ that Inspector Abberline was presented with: the body of a prostitute, obviously murdered; a number of witnesses as to where and when the body had been found; and detailed notes of the injuries sustained by the victim, where she was seen directly prior to being murdered and details of what she was wearing. All undoubtedly very important pieces of evidence, but a major piece was missing: was it that there was not one clue or sighting of anyone who could have possibly been the killer? Normally in murder cases, especially where neighbours pop up as witnesses, there is at least one or two names that crop up as possible suspects, but in Polly Nichols’ case, as yet, there was no one!

Inspector Abberline attended the second and third days of the Polly Nichols inquest, which were held on 2/3 September respectively, and which, to be perfectly honest, were not exactly illuminating. A number of witnesses were called, including Inspector Spratling, Inspector Helson, PC Mizen, Charles Cross, Dr Llewellyn, PC Thain, plus a number of local people, all of whose statements Abberline had already read, and knew, by this time, almost by heart.

There was one other witness whom he had not heard of at this point, and that was a woman named Mary Ann Monk, who was a former inmate of the Lambeth Workhouse, where she had met Nichols some time previously. She also claimed to have last seen her, recently, in a pub on the New Kent Road, where they drank together. Mary Ann Monk was the first person to positively identify Nichols’ body in the mortuary at 7.30 p.m., 31 August 1888.

The third day of the inquest was adjourned until Monday 17 September, to allow for Nichols’ funeral, which was held on 6 September. The final day of the inquest was held on Saturday 22 September, when the coroner summed the case up with a verdict of ‘Willful murder committed by some person or persons unknown’.

5

Leather Apron

B 
y the time the inquest into Polly Nichols’ death had concluded, Inspector Abberline was finding himself becoming deeply involved in what at first he presumed to be a singular murder case. This had quickly escalated into a triple-murder scenario, and had now turned into what the papers were describing as an ongoing series of murders, which today we would describe as serial killings. For during the early hours of Saturday 8 September 1888, yet another grizzly murder had taken place, which was that of Annie Chapman, who also worked as a prostitute in the Spitalfields area.

The local team of officers from Bethnal Green, led by Detective Inspector John Spratling, had no success whatsoever, and to make matters worse, the local press were attributing the Nichols murder, and the two previous murders of Emma Elizabeth Smith and Martha Tabram, to a local gang.
The Star
newspaper, however, took up a completely different line and suggested a single killer was the culprit of all three murders. This in turn led to other newspapers taking up the storyline, with headlines such as ‘Maniac Killer at large’, and this was before the discovery of Annie Chapman’s body.

Abberline found the pressure on him starting to grow; the press was demanding action. They wanted to know why a high-ranking police officer such as him had not come up with one single suspect, after being involved in the case for over three weeks (this was at the time of the Polly Nichols inquest). As the press and the public became more anxious, so too did Abberline’s boss at Scotland Yard, Chief Inspector Donald Swanson. What exactly did they expect Abberline to do? Abberline explained to Swanson that he was doing everything possible, including house-to-house searches and questioning literally dozens of witnesses, and possible suspects, all of whom were eventually eliminated from their inquiries after a few days at the most.

The first thing Abberline did do, in regard to the Annie Chapman murder, was to make sure no clues, no matter how small, were overlooked or obliterated, as the bloodstains were in the Polly Nichols case. He ordered a thorough search of the yard where the body was found, as well as the immediate area around Hanbury Street. The search uncovered two clues which were noted down as evidence, as they could possibly be vital to the case; the first was a bloodstained envelope with the crest of the Sussex Regiment embossed upon the front, which was found in the corner of the yard. The second was a leather apron, which was found near a water tap in the yard. There was also something else that Inspector Abberline found at the scene of the crime, and that was two brightly polished farthings, two brass rings and a few assorted coins. At first glance, one might think there is nothing special in these items, but they were not found thrown about haphazardly; they were found neatly laid out around the feet of the corpse, almost as if in a ritualistic fashion.

Unfortunately, the constable accompanying Inspector Abberline at the time, taking notes, failed to realise the possible significance of the order these items were laid out, and the exact location of where they were found, and instead noted them as ‘Assorted coins and brass rings close to the body of the deceased’.

Abberline had decided not to release too much detail to the press, as he so rightly said, ‘They distort everything’. The press, however, were eager for any bit of news they could lay their hands on, and when one reporter overheard a police officer mention the leather apron that had been found, he decided to run with this as a vital piece of information. Its very name conjures up a picture of a possible morgue attendant; someone who cuts up bodies and is covered with splatterings of blood.

The
Manchester Guardian
reported that: ‘Whatever information may be in the possession of the police they deem it necessary to keep it a secret. It is believed their attention is particularly directed to a notorious character known as “Leather Apron”.’

No such directive had been issued by Inspector Abberline, or any other member of the constabulary, but that didn’t stop the press from printing such. Not only did they report such ‘findings’ as if they were true, they also exaggerated their ‘facts’ wildly. John Pizer, a Polish Jew who made leather footwear, was known locally as ‘Leather Apron’ but he was far from being the notorious character and the crude Jewish stereotype that the press painted him as.

Local feeling nevertheless became so emphatic that something needed to be done. After reading non-stop reports of how the police were ignoring the real suspects for political reasons, the police were forced into making a number of arrests, including that of John Pizer. Inspector Abberline was furious at Pizer’s arrest, which had been ordered direct from Scotland Yard; nevertheless, he had to go through the routine, in the knowledge that they had no real evidence to even warrant questioning him, let alone arresting him. Pizer was quickly released after his alibis were confirmed.

The leather apron was later found to belong to John Richardson, a porter from nearby Spitalfields Market; he had given his apron to his mother, who lived at 29 Hanbury Street, to wash. She had washed it and left it in the yard to dry. Abberline suspected Richardson and took him in for questioning, where he did admit to being in the yard in the early hours of that morning, but said that he had only gone there to see how his mother was when on his way to work. Richardson was investigated thoroughly by Abberline and his team, but was eliminated several days later from their inquiries.