The Legend of Jack the Ripper

Ch3: Reign of terror begins

Domestic violence was quite common as were attacks on people in the streets.
Much of this was a direct result of the drunkenness that was endemic in certain sections of East End Society and extreme poverty.

Robbery and assault-related violence was a common issue and the district's sizable criminal population went about their nefarious business, stealing from those who were less able to defend themselves.

So, to say the least violence wasn't uncommon in the area. Indeed such was the number of attacks that caused victims to cry "Murder!" that such cries were heard many times in a night and the populace at large had long grown used to ignoring such cries, believing them to be either the result of drunken brawls or domestic violence.

So, attempting to isolate particular cases of violence in an area that was rife with such cases is a little like trying to locate a needle in a haystack.

After some time of cool and pleasant time in the city, the storm struck again. It all began on one Saturday. It was February 25th and the year was 1888. I along with some of my colleagues was smoking, just outside our office near the alley connecting Spitalfields, when we heard the news of a 38-year-old widow named Annie Millwood, widow of a soldier named Richard Millwood being brutally stabbed. She lived in White’s Row, Spitalfields. She was allegedly a prostitute and was often seen with strangers in lonely places. It wasn't a surprise, that perhaps one of her clients might have stabbed her. The news came, that she was admitted to the Whitechapel Workhouse Infirmary. She was suffering from stab wounds to her legs and the lower part of her abdomen. It simply wasn't new to us. There were multiple gangs who operated here and we were forced to give them protection money. They would terrorise the people living there and whoever failed to give them money was beaten and often injured with knives. But her story was different. In her testimony, she said, that she had been attacked by a single man whom she did not know, and who stabbed her with a clasp knife which he took from his pocket.

Initially, it was thought to be the work of a gang member, if not the gang themselves. But due to the lack of eyewitnesses, the investigation could not move any further.

The incident gradually seemed to sink just like thousands of such stories in the neighbourhood. For newspapers such as ours, it wasn't necessarily a subject of much debate.

One month had passed away after that little disturbing incident in late February when on March 28th 1888, just a little over midnight, A woman called Ada Wilson, a dressmaker, heard a knock at the door, so she went to check, who it was.

When she opened the door, she saw a man standing outside. The man demanded money from her and threatened to kill her if she didn’t give him money. When Ada refused, he took out a clasp knife and stabbed her twice in the throat. Her screams disturbed her upstairs neighbour, Rose Bierman, who came down to investigate the scream and found Ada Wilson in a state of near collapse in the hallway. Seeing her shout the young man disappeared into the street. I happened to cross that road minutes after the incident. When I crossed the road, two officers held me in and asked me if I saw something or not. According to eyewitnesses and the victim, Ada Wilson reported that the man in his early 30s, who was around five foot six in height and had a fair moustache and a sunburnt face standing outside. He wore a dark coat, light trousers and a wide-awake hat. When the man saw, her scream he fled into the darkness of the alleyway.

It was obvious it was done by a rookie or someone from the gangs trying to get something off. People of the east end would often involve themselves in such petty crimes. Or perhaps someone she owed money to. It was a dead end as she couldn't state her assailant and the case was eventually brought to a closure.

However, the assailant strikes again. But this time in a group. On a Tuesday on 3rd April 1888, following the Easter Monday bank holiday, 45-year-old Emma Elizabeth Smith was going home when she was assaulted and robbed at the junction of Osborn Street and Brick Lane, Whitechapel.In the early hours of that morning. Although injured, she survived the attack and managed to walk back to her lodging house at 18 George Street, Spitalfields. She told the deputy keeper of the lodging house, Mary Russell, that she had been attacked by two or three men at the most, one of them was a teenager. Russell took Smith to the London Hospital, where a medical examination revealed that a blunt object had been inserted into her vagina, rupturing her peritoneum. She developed peritonitis and died at 9 am the following day.