Freeborn County Standard
Minnesota, U.S.A.
19 September 1889

London, Sept. 11.
The most horrible murder yet perpetrated in the Whitechapel district came to light Tuesday morning, when a policeman discovered the body of a disreputable woman lying under the railway arch that spans Cable street. The head and legs had been cut off and the stomach ripped open, leaving the bowels lying upon the ground. The trunk was nude and a torn and bloody undergarment lay on the ground beside it. From the fact that there was no blood on the ground it is apparent that the woman was butchered somewhere else and the body conveyed to the place where it was found. Experts are of opinion that the woman was killed at least two days ago and that the murderer, who seems to have possessed considerable surgical skill, must have consumed several hours in the dissection of his victim.

The body is evidently that of a young woman between 20 and 30 years of age, and there is absolutely nothing about it in its mutilated state to give the slightest clue to its identity. The hands are not those of a working woman, but there are no marks upon the fingers by which it could be conjectured whether or no she had ever worn a wedding ring.

It is thought that the work is that of some other than the notorious Jack the Ripper, and if so it reveals the fact that there are two series of murders being committed by two separate criminals under the eyes of the police in the heart of London. Their deeds differ in the fact that the Ripper carries away portions of his victims' remains which are untouched in the unfortunates who fall by the knife of the unknown fiend. Tuesday's is the fourth tragedy in which only the trunk of a woman's body has been found and the head and the limbs not discovered. The first was found at Rainham, where it had been thrown up by the Thames three years ago. The second was the body found near Charing Cross soon after. The third was the trunk found in Battersea Park, East Spring, the legs of which were afterward cast up by the Thames. In these three instances the bodies have remained unidentified and the heads have never been found. The present case will doubtless be identical, as the prevailing theory is that this murderer bludgeons his victims and then severs and burns the heads, throwing what other members he is unable to dispose of otherwise into the Thames. Four undetected murders, therefore, lie at the door of this savage. The seven murders in which abdominal lacerations occurred between April 3 and November 1888, may be attributed to the Ripper, and the one of July 16 last to a near imitator of the eviscerator. In all twelve murders have been committed under circumstances which should render the perpetrators unusually easy of detection, but to whom the police have not the slightest clew.

One theory is that the affair is a hoax, perpetrated by medical students, who took the body from some dissecting room in order to create an excitement in the city.