Mid-Month Murderer - Jack The Ripper Catherine Eddowes
After killing Elizabeth on Berner Street but not being able to finish what he started Jack must have been feeling unfulfilled, he would probably have had a lot of adrenaline running through his body, but he would not have been able to run from the scene as anyone running from a murder would have been noticed. He needed to kill, he headed off and found Catherine Eddowes near Mitre Square.
Catherine Eddowes
Catherine was born in Wolverhampton on 14th April 1842, her father was a tin plate varnisher called George Eddowes, her mother died in 1855 when she was 13 years old. Sometime between 1861 and 1863, Catherine moved in with a man called Thomas Conway, he had been in the 18th Irish Regiment and even though he wasn't old, he was receiving a pension from them.
Thomas and Catherine had three children even though they never married. They moved to the Birmingham and Midlands area but sometime between 1880 and 1881 they separated and Catherine took custody of one of their daughters, Annie. Seven years before the murder she was living with a man called John Kelly, he was an Irish porter and they lived on Flower and Dean Street in Whitechapel.
Catherine liked a drink but not to excess she was said to have been
''not often in drink and was a very jolly women, often singing''
At 8 pm on the 29th of September Catherine was found on Aldgate High Street, she was drunk and lying on the floor surrounded by people. PC Louis Robinson approached her and asked the people around if they knew her, no one did so he took her to Bishopsgate Street police station. When she arrived they asked what her surname name was, she replied
''Nothing''
She was placed in a cell to wait until she was sober. She was released at 1 am, and told the police officer
''I shall get a damn fine hiding when I get home''
She then left the station and walked back towards Aldgate High Street. This would have been the same time that Louis was walking into Dutfield's Yard. At 1.35 am Joseph Lawende, Joseph Hyam Levy and Harry Harris were on the corner of Duke Street and Church passage. They saw Catherine with a man, he looked about 30 and was 5'7, Catherine had her hand on his chest but it didn't seem like it was to push the man away. The man had a moustache and looked like a sailor.
At 1.45 am while on his rounds, PC Edward Watkins discover Catherine's body in Mitre Square, he saw that her throat had been cut and her clothes were pulled up above her waist. He saw that her stomach had been cut open and her bowels were obtruding. Watkins went to a near by warehouse to get help, he found George James Morris who was a former police officer. Morris went to find more police officers, he found PC James Harver and PC James Thomas Holland who sent for Dr George William Sequeira, he arrived, examined Catherine and said that she had been dead no more then 15 minutes.
Inspector Edward Collard from Bishopsgate Street police station was informed of the situation and he sent for Dr Fredrick Gordon Brown and headed to Mitre Square. Dr Brown arrived between 2.03 and 2.18 am, he saw Catherine's body and noted that she was laid on her back, with her head facing to the left and her arms by her side. Her abdomen was cut and her intestines were pulled out and placed above her right shoulder. Another 2 feet of intestines were cut and placed between her arm and her side. Her eyes, nose, lips and cheeks were all mutilated and there was lots of clotted blood around her shoulders. Her body was then moved to City Mortuary.
At 2.20 am PC Alfred Long was on his beat and passed through Goulston Street, he didn't see anything odd. At 2.55 am when he walked back through he saw a piece of bloody apron lying on the floor, the piece matched the apron worn by Catherine Eddowes, which means that the Ripper must have passed through that street on his escape from Mitre Square. On the wall above the piece of apron was written a phrase, there are two possibilities as to what was written on the wall as two different police forces wrote it down, it was either
''The Juwes* are the men
That will not be
Blamed for Nothing''
or
''The Juwes* are not the men
That will not be
Blamed for nothing''
*An archaic spelling of Jews.
It is not known if the message was there before the Ripper dropped the apron or if it was dropped there because of the message or even if the Ripper wrote it himself, what we do know is that the police washed it away at 5.30 am. The antisemitism at the time was even higher than normal. The newspapers would have reported the use of the word ''Lipski'' from Schwartz's statement, so anything else bringing Jewish involvement into the case would have caused more problems, so I understand why they had to get rid of the wording.
Dr Brown preformed the post-mortem on Catherine. There was very bad facial mutilation, a cut to the eyelid, a cut through the right eyeball, a deep cut to the bridge of the nose and the cheek which went straight through to the bone and the tip of her nose was cut off. Her throat had a cut 6'' in length, it was so deep it cut the larynx and the vocal cord, the cause of death was noted as a haemorrhage. Her abdomen was open and the liver had been stabbed, another incision into the liver had been made and it was slit through. There was a cut from the navel that ran down the right side of the vagina and rectum, she also had a stab to the left thigh and her pancreas had also been stabbed. Catherine's left kidney and womb had been removed and taken by the killer.
The inquest found that Dr Brown agreed with Dr Phillips that the killer must have had some anatomical knowledge to have been able to remove the organs in this way. Catherine was buried on 8th October in the City of London Cemetery.
I think the reason the Ripper mutilated Catherine's face was because he was so angry with being disturbed at Elizabeth's body, he took it out on Catherine. The newspapers did not announce all of Catherine's wounds because they thought the injuries would be too much for people to deal with. Little did they know the worst was yet to come and they were not prepared for what the Ripper was going to do for his final murder.
If you would like to learn more I have put a list together of my sources, so please feel free to have a read, listen and watch :
Thank you
A History Chronicle
A History Chronicle
Interesting post! Thanks for sharing!
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