A Fresh Victim Discovered at Whitechapel
ONE MORE DISSOLUTE WOMAN
Found Horribly Mutilated in Castle Alley, a Short Distance from Where the Other Murders Were Committed
London, July 17.
One more murder had been added to the long list credited to Jack the Ripper in Whitechapel. The body of a woman, evidently one of the disreputable frequenters of the district, was found in Castle alley, only a short distance from where the other murders were committed.
The body was horribly mutilated and bears undoubted evidence of the fiend whose atrocities in Whitechapel have terrorized the whole district repeatedly. The police are as far as ever from a clew to the identity of the murderer and seem perfectly paralyzed.
The excitement throughout Whitechapel, where the news of the discovery of a fresh victim of the mysterious ripper had spread with lightning rapidity, is at fever heat.
Another account says: A low part of Whitechapel, called Old Castle street, was the scene of another atrocious murder of the too well known Whitechapel type. A large mass of clotted blood and traces of a desperate struggle bear testimony that Jack the Ripper has again resumed his deadly work of cutting up the bodies of unfortunate women who have taken to the streets for a living.
Four months ago the extra force of policemen and detectives who had been on duty specially for the purpose of trapping the assassin were withdrawn, as it was thought that there would be no more such terrible outrages committed. But it seems that the cruel hearted, unnatural beast is still living. The scene of the crime is in the same restricted area, and once again the murderer is able to shield himself from discovery so as to leave no trace.
At 1:30 a.m. a constable was walking leisurely down his beat when he noticed the form of a woman in the shadow of a doorway. He was about to rouse the woman when he was horrified to discover that she was dead and that there was a gaping wound in her throat. The body was lying in a pool of blood, which had run in streams from a terrible gash in the stomach, evidently inflicted by a sharp knife or razor. An alarm was raised and a crowd of detectives were instantly on the spot. The murdered woman seemed to be about 40 years of age and belonged to the most depraved class of Whitechapel unfortunates. No arrests have been made as yet.
On Sept. 9 last news of the murder and horrible mutilation of a dissolute woman in the Whitechapel district of London was cabled all over the world. Three weeks later came the news that two other women of similar character had been mysteriously murdered and mutilated in the same manner. This was on Sept. 30, and the next day all Christendom was shocked with the announcement of two more such lives sacrificed to some unknown demon in human form. The death of the eighth victim was flashed over the wires on Oct. 3, and that of the ninth and last in 1888 on Nov. 10. One more victim fell early this year, and only a few weeks ago fragments of a woman's body were fished out of the Thames, which may or may not have been the eleventh. Chalked upon a board surface near some of the murdered women were notices signed Jack the Ripper, announcing that a specified number had been slain, and that when the fifteenth had died the murderer would announce his identity and surrender to the authorities. The throat of each was cut and slashes forming a cross upon the abdomen were made in each case. One of the organs, too, had been removed in each case. Several arrests were made, but the perpetrator of this most astounding series of murders on record has not yet been apprehended.
