Boston Daily Globe
9 October 1888
FOUL FIEND
Resumes His Ghastly Work in London
Another in the Dread Whitechapel Series
This Time the Deed Is Done Indoors,
And the Victim is Mutilated Worse
Than All Her Seven Predcessors.
"Fifteen Before I Surrender!" is the Fiend's Repeated Warning.
Police Vigilance Had Been Slightly Relaxed on Lord Mayor's Day.
London, Nov. 9.-The city is again stirred to its very center, and again mysterious murder is the cause.
The cause, this time, is evidently another in the dread Whitechapel series, though it differs from the others in some particulars.
In the first place, this latest addition to the list of horrors was made indoors.
A house in Dorset street, near Hamburg street, was the scene of the murder.
A woman was the victim, as in the other cases, and her body was shockingly mutilated. It was found not many hours after the violence had been done.
The murder had been committed in the woman's own room.
News of the discovery spread rapidly after it was once given out, and in a short time the vicinity was thronged with excited and morbidly curious people.
The police authorities took charge of the body and the house at once after the fact of the murder became known to them. They brought into use bloodhounds, which were lately tested for the purpose of hunting own the Whitechapel murderer in hope that the brutes could catch the scent and follow up the trail of the assassin.
The Lord Mayor's parade made an emergency which called a great portion of the police force to special duty in controlling the crowds in the streets. Hence the rigid patrol which has been kept up in the Whitechapel district was somewhat relaxed.
This gave the murderer his opportunity, which he was not slow to seize.
He is evidently more vigilant than the police, and has the advantage that he can study their movements without being himself subject to espionage.
The present victim is the eighth who has fallen before the Whitechapel fiend.
The fourth one was found in Hamburg street, not far from the location of this one, and at the time she was discovered there was written on the wall near the body the legend:
"Fifteen before I surrender."
According to this, seven more lives are yet to be taken, and from the success which has thus far attended the murderer's operations, it seems entirely possible, perhaps probably, that he will be able to fulfil his horrible intentions.
The appearance of the remains found last night was frightful, and the mutilation was even greater than in the previous cases. The head had been severed and placed beneath one of the arms. The ears and nose had been cut off. The body had been disemboweled and the flesh was torn from the thighs. The womb and other organs were missing. The skin had been torn off the forehead and cheeks. One hand had been pushed into the stomach.
The victim, like all the others, was a lewd woman. She was married, and her husband was a porter. They had lived together at spasmodic intervals. Her name is believed to have been Lizzie Fisher, but to most of the habitués of the haunts she visited she was known as Mary Jane.
She had a room in the house where she was murdered. She carried a latch key, and no one knows at what hour she entered the house last night, and probably no one saw the man who accompanied her. Therefore it is hardly likely that he will ever be identified.
He might easily have left the house at any time between 1 and 6 o'clock this morning without attracting attention. The doctors who have examined the remains refuse to make any statement until the inquest is held.
Three bloodhounds belonging to private citizens were taken to the place where the body lies and placed on the scent of the murderer, but they were unable to keep it for any great distance, and all hope to running the assassin down with their assistance will have to be abandoned.
