New York Weekly Tribune (USA)
13 February 1889
IS HE JACK THE RIPPER?
THE SCOTCH POLICE THINK THEY HAVE THE FIEND
A WIFE MURDERER CAUGHT IN DUNDEE
HIS WIFE'S MUTILATED BODY PACKED IN A CHEST
THE PRISONER CAME FROM WHITECHAPEL
London, Feb.11.
The body of a woman, concealed in a wooden chest, was discovered today by the police of Dundee. The abdomen was ripped open and the body otherwise mutilated. The chest was so small that the murderer had been compelled to squeeze the body into it. The husband of the woman was arrested.
A dispatch from Dundee says that the murderer of the woman is W.H. Bury, her husband. Bury was a resident of Whitechapel, London, and his antecedents, which have been traced, suggest that he is probably Jack the Ripper and that he is subject to fits of unconscious murder mania. The post mortem examination held on the body of the Dundee victim proved that the woman had first been strangled, and that her body had then been mutilated, the abdomen being ripped open and the legs and arms twisted and broken.
Bury says that he left Whitechapel three weeks ago. He refused to say why he left there, and acknowledges that he had no business requiring his attendance in Dundee. He says that he and his wife drank heavily last night before retiring, and that he does not know how he got to bed. Upon awakening, he says he found his wife lying upon the floor with a rope around her neck. Actuated by a sudden mad impulse, for which he cannot account, he seized a knife and slashed the body. Upon reason returning, he became alarmed and hastily crushed the body into the chest in which it was found, thinking to fly and make his escape. He found, however, that he could not leave his wife's body, and he finally resolved to inform the police.
The theory of the police officials is that Bury's wife knew of facts connecting him with the East End atrocities, and that she took him to Dundee in the hope of preventing a recurrence of the crimes.
