Brooklyn Daily Eagle
New York, USA
13 February 1891
THE LAST VICTIM
Of a Murderer's Frenzy in a London Street
London, February 13.
Further particulars in regard to the woman who was found dead in
the Whitechapel district this morning and who is supposed to have
been murdered by the fiend known as "Jack the Ripper", show that
she was about 25 years of age and quite good looking for a woman of
her class. She was found lying on her back with the head nearly
severed from her body. There was also a severe wound on the back of
her head, caused, it is thought, by the severe fall she experienced
when her assailant knocked her down.
The scene of this possibly latest of the series of "Jack the
Ripper's" crimes is a dark, narrow archway known as Swallow's
gardens and leading from Little Mint street to Chambers street. The
archway referred to is, during the busy hours, a well frequented
thoroughfare, especially used by railway employees and stablemen in
passing to and from their residences in and about that packed
neighborhood to their work on the numerous lines of railroads or in
the many stables scattered about that section of the city.
At all times of the night there are people awake in the houses and
pedestrians passing about and through Swallow's gardens, but nobody
seems to have heard any cries of an alarming nature during the
early hours this morning, when the crime was committed.
The murdered woman, judging from her appearance, belonged to the
abandoned class, and was fairly well dressed. Though her hair was
untidy her clothing had not been disarranged. The police theory is
that the woman was murdered while in a standing position; that the
crime was probably the work of "Jack the Ripper". and that the
murderer was frightened away by the approach of some pedestrian
before he had time to mutilate the body in the manner already
described in the previous crimes attributed to "Jack the Ripper."
On the other hand, it is known that the residents of Whitechapel in
particular and of London in general are prone to give credit to "
Jack the Ripper" for any murder or attempt at murder in
Whitechapel, where a woman is concerned.
The body, after the usual formalities taken with the object of
establishing the woman's identity and of finding a clue to the
murderer had been gone through with in the usual stereotyped
manner, was taken to the Whitechapel mortuary. The blood was still
warm when the body was found. When the blood stains had been
cleared awy the police carved a rough cross in the wood work over
the spot in Swallow's gardens where the unfortunate woman was
found, in order to mark the spot where the crime was perpetrated.
Large crowds of people, naturally, gathered around Swallow's
gardens this morning in spite of the heavy efforts of scores of
detectives and of uniformed and plain clothes police of the
division. There seems to be, as in so many other and similar cases,
no definite clew to the murderer. No arrests have been made.
A railroad employee, it is true, says he saw the murdered woman
talking to a man, apparently a foreign seaman, just previous to the
time the murder is supposed to have been committed, and the police
are now engaged in searching all the vessels lying in the Thames or
in the many docks about the port of London. The policeman who found
the murdered woman must have reached the spot while the murderer
was only a few yards away, for the woman's lips were still
twitching nervously and her eyes were still rolling when the
officer bent over her and a moment later sounded his whistle in a
call for assistance, which must have placed any policeman in the
neighborhood on the alert.
A woman's hat was found near the scene of the murder concealed by a
piece of drapery. This hat was, in addition to the one on the
murdered woman's head, suggestive, according to the London police,
that either the "Ripper" or the woman was disguised.
The spot where the murdered woman's body was found was not a
stone's throw from a police station.
Upon being questioned by his superior officer, the policeman who
found the body said that, in addition to the nervous twitching of
the lips and the rolling of the eyes already referred to, the
woman's limbs were moving when he found her. Consequently, she must
have been still alive when the policeman bent over her. The officer
added that as soon as he discovered that a crime had been committed
he rushed to the end of the archway and sounded an alarm with his
whistle, while the "Ripper" must have escaped through the
neighboring streets. A large number of people who were immediately
attracted to the scene of the murder by the police alarm assisted
the scores of officers who soon appeared in searching the
neighboring doorways, alleyways, dark nooks and corners where a man
could conceal himself.
The wound across the murdered woman's throat was evidently caused
by a sharp, powerful stroke, and nothing can shake the belief of
the police that but for the approach of some pedestrian, possibly
the policeman who found the body, would have been mutilated in a
manner similar to that of the other Whitechapel murders.
The woman found murdered in Swallow's gardens has been identified
as an unfortunate known as "Carroty Nell".
LATER: The police have arrested a man on suspicion of being
concerned in the murder of the unfortunate woman.