3 October 1888
INQUEST OF THE BERNERS ST. VICTIM
Strange Story Told by a Sister of the Murdered Woman--The Story of Sunday's Crimes--Unequalled Atrocity
LONDON, October 2--an inquest was held to-day on the body of the woman found murdered oin a narrow court off Berners street on Sunday morning. A sister of the victim was called and deposed that she awoke at 1.20 o'clock on Sunday morning and heard kisses and a sound which she thought was made by a person falling to the ground. She was convinced that her sister was dead, and after reading the accounts of the murder in the newspapers went to the morgue and recognized the body of the murdered woman as that of her sister. The house in which the witness resides is several miles from Berners street. The murder is believed to have been committed about 12.50 on Sunday morning.
About one o'clock Sunday morning a Russian Jew who sells jewellery from a coster cart was driving hes pony home, intending himself to find relaxation with the members of an international Socialist club, which is conveniently near hs stable yard on Berners street. At the entrance to his yard the pony shied, and after examination, what looked like a small pile of mud turned out to be a woman. The peddler put up his pony, went to his club, which is a very low form of co-operative pothouse, arrived by a gradual process of reasoning at the conclusion that somehting might be wrong with the woman, went out with his club friends, and found a miserable wretch in a pool of blood with her throat cut from ear to ear. The police woon came and found nothing to do but turn faint at the sight of the horible gash in the neck and the brutal blows to the head. When they recovered they busied themselves with the members of the club who had discovered the murder, locked them in their little social drinking den, searched them for knives, pulled off their boots looking for blood stains, and made it generally unpleasant for the memberss who had done nothing but roar songs and discuss the question set for the evening debate: "Is is necessary that the Jew be a socialist?" They were naturally aggrieved and disinclined to talk, but they had heard nothing, knew nothing, and so their silence was as little important as that of the police.
was still warm. Her blood was only partly congealed. Her throat was deeply cut as those of the former victims. She was lying on her back and her legs were drawn up as though in pain. The examination had caused the conclusion to be arrived at that the murderer stood with his left arm around the woman's neck, probably to stifle her cries, and cut her throat standing. The woman's clothes had been disarranged, indicating the murderer's intention to practice the same same mutilation of her person as on the other victims, but he was probably disturbed by some one going in or coming out of the club. There is no question as to the dead woman's character, but she apparently did not belong to the lowest class of unfortunate women. She was a dark brunette, under 40, with a comely face. her black hair was neatly arranged, her underclothing was clean. She wore two petticoats and her dress was tidy though old. A crepe bonnet, with and evening paper stowed away in it, was on her head. On her breast was a small bunch of roses and ferns, covered with blood.
A short walk of a quarter of a mile too the murderer to the scene of the second crime, also in Whitechapel. He must hae shown a butcher's skill in remaining free of blood stains, as he could not have had time to rid himself of them, and with them could not have induced a second victim to go with him. The latest and most terrible butchery took place in a dark corner of Mitre square, to which the unsuspectiong women doubtless conducted the murderer. The square is reached by a narrow entrance fro Mitre street, within a stone throw of Leadenhall and Aldgate streets, two of London's best known and most important thoroughfares. Mitre square is a large, dreary, stone-paved yard about 120 feet square. It has three entrances, in one of which there is a street fire station and fire escape, with three men always on duty. Two sides of the square are occupied by warehouses and a private house occupied by Policeman Pearce. The third side is fromed by a wholesale drug store, and the fourth by a warehouse, workshop, athe backs of two unoccupied private houses, by the back wall of which
The square, which is a busy thoroughfare during the business hours, but almost deserted after 7 or a p.m., is fairyly well lighted as London streets go. Five lamps throw their into it. The murder was discovered by Constable Watkins, a member of the city of London police force organization [sic], distinct from and superior to Warren's metropolitan force. The body was found at 1.45a.m. in the southwest corner of the square, a spot that Watkins had passed on his beat a quarter of an hour before, which shows with what despatch [sic]the woman-killer must have worked. The body was lying on its back on the footway with the head towards the wall and the feet towards the carriage way. The heard was inclined on the left side and both arms were extended outward. The left leg was straight out and the right leg bentaway from the body. The body was quite warm. Blood was all round, but it had not congealed, proving that the murderer must ahve gone just as the constable was approaching. Watkins sent for doctors, and while awaiting roused up Policeman Pearce, and they
threw the light of their lamps on the corpse, which Watkins had not dared to do. It is not to be wondered at that the policeman has been too ill all day to answer questions. The woman's throat was cut from ear to ear and half way round the head. Her clothes had been raised up to the chest and the body had been completely cut open from the pelvis to the chest. In addition a portion of the right ear was cut off and the nose was slashed half way through. The face was also slashed and cut in a most brutal fashion, and a portion of the intestines was place in the gash round the body. The found a prodigious quantity of blood,which had flowed chiefly from the throat but the murderer had so carefully avoided it that no a single footmamark coudl be traced. No new theory worth mentioning has been put ward. It is evident that the police are not going to do much. The murderer has promised to murder twenty in all, and has every prospect of uninterrupted success.
LONDON, October 2--an examination of the remains foundd on the Thames embankment shows that the body was subjected to mutilations similar in fiendish ingenuity to those inflicted upon the Whitechapel victims. Not only had the head and arm been seperated form the body, but the abdomen had been cut vertically and the viscera exposed as in the other cases, and the legs had been severed from the trunk. The murderer evidently had more time and did the fiendish work at his leisure.