Williamsport Sunday Grit
15 September 1889

London, Sept. 14.
At 3:30 o'clock Tuesday morning a policeman found the dead body of a fallen woman living (sic) at the corner of a railway arch on Cable street, Whitechapel. An examination of the remains showed that the head and arms had been cut off and carried away and the stomach ripped open, the intestines lying on the ground. A cordon of police instantly surrounded the spot, but no arrests have been made. Policemen pass this spot every fifteen minutes. Those on duty the night before say they saw nothing suspicious. The physicians who examined the body state that in their opinion the murder and mutilation occupied nearly an hour. It is surmised that the murderer carried off the head and arms in a bag. The murder is the worst of the whole series of Whitechapel murders.

The manner in which the limbs had been severed from the body shows that the murderer was possessed of some surgical skill. The woman was about thirty years old. Her clothing was shabby and she was evidently a spirit drinker. The remains have not been identified. The most intense excitement again prevails in Whitechapel. Crowds surround the mortuary in which the body lies.

Later details concerning the finding of the body of the murdered woman in Whitechapel show that there was no blood on the ground where the body was found, neither was there any blood on the body. From this it is evident that the murder was committed in some other place and that the body was subsequently deposited under the railroad arch. The trunk was nude. A rent and bloody chemise was found lying near the body. The arms were intact but the legs were missing. It is believed that the woman had been dead for two days.

Three sailors, who were sleeping under the arch next to the one under which the body was found, were taken into custody by the police. They convinced the authorities, however, that they had seen or heard nothing of a suspicious nature and they were discharged.

The first of the now famous Whitechapel murders was committed about eighteen months ago in that section of London where the lowest of the fallen women and depraved men mingle together and spend the night in drunkenness and debauchery. The first victim was a woman of the lowest class and her body was mutilated in the same awful manner that has characterized each succeeding horror. Murders are common in Whitechapel, and the fact that the victim was one of the gin-soaked, blear eyed denizens of the district, led them to believe that the murder was simply the outcome of a quarrel over a penny or pint of beer. The papers commented on the ghastliness of the crime, people talked about it for a week, the police gave up all hopes of finding the murderer unless they should stumble upon him by accident, and the case was dropped.

The second murder revived the story of the first. The two victims were mutilated in the same horrible manner, and there was a suggestion of some connection between the two. The police spoke of it, but never tried to find the connecting link. It was committed on the day known in London as "Bank Holiday", August 6th (sic), and on the morning of the following day the police found the body of Martha Turner on the first floor landing of George Yards' building, Commercial street, Spitalfields, Whitechapel district. The condition of the body and the ugly gash in the throat indicated that some one, unusually strong, had seized her from behind, and with a swift stroke from some sharp instrument severed her throat. The mark of the knife was on the bones of the neck. Thirty nine ugly, vicious wounds were found upon the body. The portions that the fiend always carried away were missing. A rough, jagged wound across the bowels gaped wide open, laying bare the intestines, and the uterus had been altogether removed. The police investigated this case thoroughly and used every endeavor to find out who the murderer was, but days passed by and there was not the slightest trace of him that they could secure. The murders had been committed in this crowded quarter, with thousands of people almost within a stone's throw, and those people who up and awake at all hours of the day and night, yet no one had heard a sound that was suspicious, or seen any one who attracted their attention. The police were forced by their inability to discover anything to drop the case. Soon after the second murder came

Constable Neill was passing in front of Puck's (sic) Row early one morning, and he stumbled over the body of a woman. He at first thought that she was simply drunk. It was not yet broad daylight, and he stopped to examine her. He found that she was dead, and the mark of the Whitechapel fiend was on her. Her body was mutilated in the same ghastly manner and the same portions were missing. She was identified as Mary Ann Nichols, forty two years of age, and an ex inmate of the workhouse. She was one of the worst of the Whitechapel women, and about the drinking houses and brothels she was known as "Polly." All London talked about this case. The murders with their mysterious and revolting brutality had taken hold even of the phlegmatic Englishmen and women in terror refused to leave their houses. The police were railed at for inefficiency, and they worked night and day to catch the fiend who was slaughtering women under their very noses and holding them up to ridicule. But work as hard as they would they could learn nothing and again they had to give it up. Another week brought

London had begun to look for its weekly Whitechapel horror to arrive as it looked for Sunday to come. At {illegible} o'clock on Saturday morning the body of another woman, similarly mutilated, was found about three hundred yards from where Polly's body was picked up. It was the same old story, a dead woman, brutally cut to pieces, the head nearly severed from the body but no trace of the murderer. This one was identified as Annie Sievy, known in the district as "Dark Annie." On a brick wall was found a rude scrawl in chalk which read: "Five - fifteen more and then I give myself up." The body was lying on its back, the clothing roughly thrown over the gaping throat. A long gash extended from the groin to the breastbone, laying the whole body open. Portions of the intestinal organs were scattered about, and as in other cases, parts were carried away. Again, the police strove to hunt down the murderer, but they were again unsuccessful.

When he determined on his next murder, the fiend abandoned Whitechapel and went to Gateshead, near Newcastle on Tyne. The murder occurred on Sunday, September 23rd. The fact that the woman's body was found in Gateshead, so far from Whitechapel, has led many people to believe that the murder was not committed by the Whitechapel fiend, but the mutilation of the body was exactly the same, and this was set down as the fifth in the list of horrors.

Murders No. 6 and 7 occurred on Saturday, September 29th. A member of a foreign club, which had its quarters on Berners street, was going to the room late at night and found the body of a woman, a Whitechapel "unfortunate", in a narrow passage way, just beneath the open window of a room in which were a dozen or more men. Not a sound had been heard by them, and it was evident that the man who had approached had frightened the murderer away, for the blood was still pouring from the gash in the throat, and though the woman's clothing had been thrown up in preparation for the usual mutilation, the fiend had not had time to do his work. Three quarters of an hour later one of the police patrolmen, whose duty it is to pass Mitre Square every ten minutes, came across the body of another woman with the throat gaping (?) wide open and the body ripped throughout its entire length. The heart and lungs had been jerked out by main force and thrown aside, and the entrails stuffed in horrible confusion in the wound in the neck. Everything indicated that the work was done in the frenzy of haste, but the same savage accuracy was shown. How the murderer came and went, committed the deed and avoided being seen was a mystery.

On October 24 the trunk of a woman was found in the recess (?) of the new police offices in the Thames embankment. The head, arms and legs were missing. It was thought that this was another piece of the Whitechapel fiend's work, but that suspicion was not confirmed.

Occurred on November 8th, 1888. At 11 o'clock on the morning of November 9th the body of a woman, cut into pieces. was found in a house on Dorsett (sic) street, Spitalfields. The victim was named Lizzie Fisher, and, like the other, she was "unfortunate". She had married and her husband was a porter, but she had left him to live the horrible life of a Whitechapel prostitute. She was known as Mary Jane, and carried a latchkey to the house in which her body was found. She was more horribly mutilated than any of the previous victims. No one knew when she and her slayer entered the house the night before, for no one had seen them, but when her body was found in the morning her head had been completely cut off and placed beneath her arm. The skin was torn from her forehead and cheeks, and the ears and nose had been cut off. The body had been disembowelled and the flesh had been torn from her thighs. One hand had been pushed into her stomach. The uterus was missing. The police made almost superhuman efforts to track the murderer, and bloodhounds were used, but they could not find him. As a result of this and the severe criticism of the police, Sir Charles Warren resigned his position as Chief of the Metropolitan Police force.

The fiend has been resting since then, and for ten months the women of Whitechapel have been undisturbed.