The Munster News and Limerick and Clare Advocate
Limerick, Ireland
Saturday, 15th September 1888

THE WHITECHAPEL MURDER

The man arrested last night on suspicion of being concerned in the Whitechapel murder is still detained, pending further inquiries. Mrs Lloyd, who has been closely questioned by the police, now denies the story that she saw a man with a knife running away.

GHASTLY CRIMES

During the past few days a terrible map has been appearing in some of the London newspapers, indicating the exact localities of the "Whitechapel murders," as the ghastly appalling crimes are called, which have been committed in that locality within the past nine month. It is one of the most populous neighbourhoods in the City, and the butcheries were carried out in the very crowded parts, and at periods, too, when it seemed almost impossible they could escape detection. All the victims were women of the "unfortunate" class, and they were of the humblest description, whose deaths, poor creatures, could scarcely, one would think, benefit any person. The first was killed during last Christmas week, when she was found dead from a fearful wound caused by something like an iron stake being thrust through her body. All that is known of her is that she was an "abandoned woman," what her name was, or from whence she came remains a mystery to this day. Early in August the residents of a lodging house found MARTHA TURNER lying on a landing, with thirty five stabs in her body; an awful spectacle, and one that no one could account for or say how long it remained there. On the 31st of August, MARYANNE NICOLS was murdered in the open street, and so mutilated that the details would shock the most callous reader. A few days ago, ANNE CHAPMAN was found murdered in the yard of a cottiered house in the same neighbourhood - her throat was cut, and her body so wantonly and frightfully gashed that one is led to the conclusion he must have been a very demon who did it, to have hacked and slashed the ill-fated woman as he did. No clue has been had to the devilish author of those murders. The police have entirely failed to hunt him down, and the people are in the wildest excitement about him. Every other morning now, it is anticipated he will be heard of again through some similar sanguinary deed. The crimes are attributed to some insane but cunning wretch who is known as "Leather Apron," and who moves about with extraordinary rapidity and in a mysterious and noiseless manner. If certain accounts of him be true, he made a vow to consummate a large number of awful crimes of the description, and a number of the "unfortunate" class allege they have seen him; that he comes and goes with scarcely a sound, and that he invariably wears a leather apron. He seems a kind of vampire, who has no regard for female human life, and the police have failed to find him, the residents of Whitechapel have formed a Vigilance Committee of their own to hunt him down. She he be laid hands on there is every danger of his being "lynched," but at present there appears to be no chance of this owing to the vagueness of the descriptions of him in the hands of the police, and the fact that no one has seen him commit any of the barbarities attributed to his blood-stained hands.