The Whitechapel Ghoul Claims His Ninth Victim
Terror Among London Unfortunates
Horrible mangling and Dismemberment of Body
Another Whitechapel Murder
The Fiend Butchers Another Unfortunate
London, Nov. 9.
The body of a woman was found at eleven o'clock this morning murdered and mutilated in a house on Dorset street, near Hanbury street. The murder was committed in the woman's own room and the body was cut up in a horrible manner. This is undoubtedly a repetition of the series of woman murders in Whitechapel. Bloodhounds have been brought to the spot and are working on the trail of the murderer.
The name of the unfortunate woman found murdered and mutilated in her own room on Dorset street this morning is Mary Jane Lawrence. She was married to or lived with a man named Lawrence who had abandoned her. The murderer remains undiscovered, as in the other cases.
The appearance of the remains of the murdered woman 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 disembowelled 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, and one hand had been pushed into the stomach. The victim, like all the others, was a prostitute. 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 habitues of the haunts she visited she was known as Mary Jane. She had a room in the house she was murdered (sic). 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 one and six 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 was and placed on the scent of the murderer, but they were unable to keep it for any great distance, and all hope of running the assassin down with their assistance has been abandoned.
No traces of the murderer of Mary Jane Lawrence, otherwise known as Lizzie Fisher, have been discovered. Bloodhounds put upon the track soon lost the scent. The police are baffled and helpless as before. The keenest detectives on the force, who have been on the watch since the last murder, are unable to find a clue or even form a theory. As on the previous occasions, a dragnet has been thrown over the entire metropolis, and all the men who can be spared are searching the railway stations, public houses, evil resorts, holes and corners not only in the East End, but through the city and suburbs in the wild hope that something may be discovered. There is no doubt the perpetrator of this and the eight other butcheries which preceded it, is the same man; that he decoys or suffers himself to appear to be decoyed into a safe place; that the murder is instantaneous, no warning being given the victim, no chance to cry for help, no time to struggle for life; that mutilation of the remains is accomplished at such leisure as the murderer may have, and it is noted that the ingenuity of his fiendish devices is in proportion to the time in each case which he probably had at his disposal; that he leaves no mark behind, except upon the bodies of his victims; that even money and jewellery they may possess is untouched, and that he enters and leaves a house without making any noise or attracting the slightest attention, as in the last case people were up or awake all night in the building and heard nothing.
The people of London are exasperated beyond measure at the repetition of these atrocities. Demands for the offer of a large reward are made again upon Home Secretary Matthews. The panic in Whitechapel and Spitalfields is revived. Outcasts who formerly thronged the streets cower in their lodgings in a state of abject terror. Their traffic has been stopped as of pestilence were abroad. Not a woman could be seen on the streets tonight in the infested quarter. The police have again been doubled. Every doubted house is under espionage and every suspicious stranger closely watched.
