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Welcome to the Serial Killer Podcast. The podcast dedicated to serial killers. Who they were, what they did, and how. I am your Norwegian host, Thomas Weyberg Thu. Tonight, we are back in the city called the Old Smoke. Today, mostly only known by its proper name of London. The date is the 29th of September.
The year, 1888. In previous episodes, we have followed old leather apron, Whitechapel Jack, on his bloody path through the smoke-filled alleys of London's East End. Three women have so far been slain by the Ripper, and tonight we will take a closer look over Jack's shoulder as he murders his fourth known victim.
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You notice a large crowd is gathering over by 29 Aldgate Street. The area is one of the less slummy of the Whitechapel area, and there are lots of storefronts lining both sides of the street. Horse buggies rush by, their metal wheels clamoring on the cobblestones as they nearly miss you as you cross the street to see what the commotion is all about.
As you move aside, some of the people gathered around. Something on the ground. You quickly realize it's a woman. She's lying on the ground in a heap. Apparently very, very drunk. Asking the people around if anyone know the woman, you get only silence in response.
So you and your colleague, Police Constable George Simmons, who has shown up to the scene, lift the woman to her feet and drag her to the Bishopgate Police Station. Today, Bishopgate Police Station is an imposing grey concrete, almost fort-like building. Back in 1888, it looked rather different. It was a red brick four-story building with two entrances,
in front. The wall facing the street was usually plastered with police notices under a large gas-lighted lamp hanging above. Sergeant James Byfield was registering inmates when Simmons and Robinson brought the woman into the station around 8.45 p.m. When Byfield asked her name, she replied, "'Nothing.'"
Five minutes later, she was placed in a cell where she passed out. Police Constable George Hutt was tasked with keeping an eye on the prisoners that evening and passed by her cell several times as she slept. An hour later, the city police constables assigned to the night shift headed out through the gates of Bishopsgate Station to walk their beats.
This included City Police Constable Edward Watkins, whose 15-minute loop took him through Mitre Square, and City Police Constable James Harvey, whose route passed by Mitre Square at regular intervals. At 12.15 a.m., Police Constable George Hutt heard the woman who was brought in earlier singing softly to herself,
In her cell, a few minutes later, she called out, asking when she would be released. "'When you are capable of taking care of yourself,' replied Hutt. "'I can do that now,' she said. Several minutes later she was finished being processed, and amended her earlier registry of nothing to Mary Ann Kelly of Six Fashion Street.'
It was more believable, but still an alias. It was a very interesting alias, considering the circumstances. A woman named Mary Kelly would soon also find herself in dire straits in Whitechapel. But this woman's real name was not Mary. It was Catherine Eddowes, sometimes called Kate Kelly. She was ready to be released by 1 a.m.
"'What time is it?' she asked Hutt. "'Too late for you to get anything to drink,' he replied. "'I shall get a damn fine hiding when I get home,' she said. "'And serve you right, you had no right to get that drunk,' he admonished, opening the door for her. "'This way, missus. Please pull it too.'"
Catherine exited in the opposite direction of where her actual nightly residence had been, the Cooney's Lodging House, located at Flower and Dean Street. Instead, she headed back toward Aldgate High Street, right on the western edge of Whitechapel, where Robinson had discovered her earlier. At about 1.30 a.m., Joseph Lawande, a commercial traveller,
Joseph Hyam Levi, a butcher, and Harry Harris, a furniture dealer, were walking nearby. They were heading down 16 to 17 Duke Street from the Imperial Club. The three passed by a couple walking in the opposite direction. Harris did not notice them at all, and Levi took little note of them other than the fact that they were both rather shabby-looking.
LaWende, however, had the best memory of the couple's appearance of all of them. While he didn't see the woman's face, he was later able to recognize her clothing. He went on to describe the man as looking to be around 30 years old, 5 foot 7 inches tall with a moustache, wearing a loose-fitting salt-and-pepper jacket and a red handkerchief around his neck.
Lavende was the last person, besides her killer, to lay eyes on Catherine Eddowes while she was still alive. Mitre Square was a ten-minute walk from Bishopsgate Station. It exists today and consists of a small park and a parking lot. It too is on the very western edge of Whitechapel and back in 1888,
It was a very dark and depressing place. It was basically an opening between tall brick warehouses and office buildings. There was a tiny flowerbed at one end of the square, but otherwise it was covered in cobblestones. Catherine Eddowes was discovered murdered right there at 1.45 a.m. by Police Constable Watkins.
Before we get into the details of how Catherine was slain, let us take a closer look at who she was as a person, rather than just another victim. Based on the accounts of her friends and family, Kate was well-liked. Old friends described her as intelligent, scholarly, a woman of fiery temperament. Frederick Wilson, the deputy of Cooney's lodging house,
"'described her as a very jolly woman, always singing, "'which seemed to be corroborated by George Hutt's experience "'with her in the jailhouse. "'Looking at a sketch of her from when she was alive, "'Catherine was a somewhat attractive woman. "'She had a pleasant face, with somewhat plump features, "'a small nose, large eyes, and full lips.'
She was born to George Eddowes, a tinplate worker, in 1842. Her mother was also named Catherine, and she had two sisters whose married names were Elizabeth Fisher and Eliza Gold. Her family moved from the countryside to London in 1848, where she was educated at St. John's Charity School in
until her mother died in 1855. Some newspaper accounts claim that both of Catherine's parents died in 1851. In any case, after she was orphaned, she moved to Bison Street in Wolverhampton, where she attended Dowgate Charity School.
Eddowes was about 21, living in Wolverhampton, when she met and became involved with a man named Thomas Conway. He was a military pensioner from the 18th Royal Irish Regiment. Not too much is known of their life together. But it is believed that they made their money in Birmingham, selling cheap novels, as well as writing popular songs called Gallows Ballads.
They never married, but did live together for about 20 years and had three children in 1865, 1868 and 1873. Two boys and a girl named Annie. A tattoo found on...
Catherine Eddowes' arm, reading T.C., was believed to represent Conway's initials, and was very helpful when her body had to be identified later on. In 1881, the couple split, probably due to Catherine now having become an alcoholic, who could not control her drinking.
Thomas Conway was a teetotaler, according to his daughter, while Kate was in the habit of drinking excessively. Eventually, the conflict became too great, and Eddowes moved into Cooney's lodging house at 55 Flower and Dean Street. Her daughter, Annie, soon married and moved in with her husband, Louis Phillips.
She spent the next several years moving from one place to the other in attempts to avoid her mother constantly begging her for money she could use to buy booze. While staying at Cooney's, Catherine met an Irishman named John Kelly. He worked in the markets, often for one of the local fruit vendors. The two were close for the next seven years until police found Edel's body in Mitre Square.
Taking on the surname of one's partner, even if marriage had not officially taken place, was a common practice for lower-class women at the time. Catherine, therefore, was also known as Kate Kelly. Friends and family were adamant that Kate was not a prostitute, and that she made her money from hawking and doing odd jobs around town.
The Cooney House deputy, Frederick Wilkinson, told the police that he never knew of her being intimate with anyone but Kelly, and that she was usually home and to bed by nine or ten in the evening. It is very unlikely, though, that anyone in Catherine's life would wish to speak ill of the dead.
On the other hand, it is likely that Catherine Eddowes, like Annie Chapman, had engaged in prostitution from time to time when she needed the money to feed her drinking habits.
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Late summer in England was hop-picking season, where many of the poor would go to the countryside to find work collecting the hops that would be used by the nearby breweries. John Kelly and Catherine Eddowes went to the countryside for hop-picking season in 1888, which they had done for the previous several years.
Having little success getting work, and with no money for a ride, the two struck out for London on foot. On the road they came across a man and a woman. The woman offered Eddowes a pawn ticket she had for a flannel shirt. The woman's name was Emily Birrell, and the pawn ticket would be found on Eddowes' person in Mitre Square. On the 29th of September...
John and Kate arrived back in London. Having no money when they got to the city, John managed to earn six pennies so they could get lodging for the night. A bed at their usual lodging house, Cooney's, was four pennies, so Kate volunteered to take the remaining two pennies and sleep in the casual ward that night.
When interviewed, a superintendent of the casual ward reported that Eddowes had said, I have come back to earn the reward offered for the apprehension of the Whitechapel murderer. I think I know him. He warned her to watch out, or the killer might murder her too, to which she replied, Oh, no fear of that. This story was not corroborated by anyone else,
and could well have been a complete fabrication. But the quote added to the sensationalism and public reaction to the coming double homicide. The following morning of the 29th of September, Kate was kicked out of the casual ward for an unknown reason. Never to return.
John and Kelly met at 8 a.m. near Cooney's lodging house, and Kate took a pair of Kelly's boots to a pawnbroker on Church Street named John's. She pawned the boots under the name of Jane Kelly for the price of a meal. Frederick Wilkinson saw Eddowes and Kelly later, between 10 and 11 a.m., having breakfast in Cooney's kitchen.
Still completely broke, the hunt began for money for food and lodging for the rest of the day. Catherine told John Kelly that she would try to get some money from her daughter, Annie. John was worried about separating from her and reminded her of the killer. The two parted in Hound's Ditch, and she promised to be home no later than 4 p.m. "'Don't you fare for me?'
I'll take care of myself, and I shan't fall into his hands, were her parting words to him. Nobody is quite sure what happened in between the time they had parted and the time that Police Constable Robinson found Eddowes lying drunk on Aldergate Street. John Kelly would not see her again alive. At 2 a.m.,
Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown arrived at Mitre Square to perform the on-site post-mortem, later continuing the autopsy at Golden Lane Mortuary, twelve hours later. Of all the Ripper victims up until this point, Catherine Eddow's body had the greatest amount of damage to the entirety of her body.
Her throat was cut in the same manner, about six or seven inches from left to right, and she was disemboweled. The large vessels on the left side of the neck were severed. Her intestines were also placed over her right shoulder and had been nicked, releasing smeared fecal matter upon the space behind her shoulder.
About two feet of intestine had been detached from her body and placed between Edo's body and left arm. Whereas the previous disemboweled victims, Nichols and Chapman, had fairly straight and organized cuts to their abdomens, Edo's had been cut in a more jagged and erratic manner.
Kate was also the first to have her face mutilated by the Ripper. A triangular flap was peeled from the skin of each cheek, with tips pointing toward the eyes that some have said looked like arrows. There were also cuts made to her eyelids, including one that was about an inch and a half long to the left eye. Upon examining her internal organs,
"'Brown found that Edo's right kidney was pale, "'or, as he described, "'bloodless with slight congestion of the base of the pyramids. "'This was a sign that she suffered from Bright's disease. "'The left kidney had been removed "'and could not be found in or around the body.'
The uterus had been cut horizontally and had been removed all but for a quarter of an inch-sized stump. Brown made several summarizing comments at the conclusion of his post-mortem exam. Among these was that the murder was the work of one person, and that this person had severed Eddo's throat so suddenly that there was no way she could have cried out.
He also stated that whoever had removed Edo's kidney must have had some knowledge of where the kidney was located to be able to so quickly remove it in the dark. Whether that meant he was a medical man or a slaughterhouse worker, Brown asserted that he had no idea what the reason someone would have to take any of the body parts away. Dear listener,
Let us pause just a minute to contemplate what we just learned. Catherine was not, as was the case with at least one of the other victims, strangled to death. Jack would have, probably after gaining her confidence in some manner, surprised her by producing a very sharp knife rapidly and slicing her throat wide open.
This would mean that her vocal cords were cut, preventing her from uttering any screams as she fell to the ground, blood violently spurting from her throat. As she lay on the ground, grasping at her open neck, Jack probably sat on top of her, starting to rip her apart. The mutilations done to her body was thus probably all done while Catherine was still alive.
Today's modern medicine might have given us answers as to which of Jack's incisions were done first, but unfortunately this knowledge is forever lost. It is, in my humble opinion, very plausible that Jack would have started by cutting her eyelids. The reason for this is that he might have wanted Catherine to witness him as he was ripping her, preventing her from closing her eyes in terror.
He might also have wanted to stare into her eyes as she died, so that he could literally see the light go out of her eyes. Metropolitan Police and the City of London Police joined together for the murder inquiry and found some evidence in the surrounding area of the path that the Ripper may have taken. For example, at 3 a.m., soon after Brown came to examine Edo's body,
There was a piece of fabric covered with blood and fecal matter lying in a passageway near Golston Street in Whitechapel. This fabric was found to match a part missing from Edo's own apron, seeming to imply that after the murder the Ripper had headed back into Whitechapel. Golston Street was only about a fifteen-minute walk from Mitre Square.
another puzzling piece of evidence was a graffito found above the place where the soiled fabric was found written in chalk it said the jews are the men that will not be blamed for nothing
Not knowing whether or not this was related to the murder, and afraid that this might incite anti-Jewish rioting and violence, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Charles Warren demanded that it be washed away before morning. While Nicholls, Chapman and Stride had quiet private funerals,
Catherine Eddowes' funeral brought the entire city into the street as spectators. The procession coming from the Golden Lane mortuary passed along Mile End Road. Through Bow and Stratford Streets, a large crowd was waiting at the gates of the cemetery, after which the gates shut them out.
Ultimately, only those who were close to Eddowes while she lived were permitted to attend the graveside services. Among those who attended the funeral were Kate's daughter, Annie Phillips, her sisters, Eliza Gold, Harriet Jones, Emma Eddowes, and Elizabeth Fisher and John Kelly. Coincidentally,
Eddowes were buried just a few graves away from Mary Ann Nichols, both in Square 318, City of London Cemetery, Little Ilford, at Manor Park Cemetery. Eddowes was laid to rest in public grave number 49336. Her remains currently lie beside the garden way.
In 1996, cemetery authorities decided to mark Kate's grave with a bronze plaque.
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And so ends part four of my series on Jack the Ripper. Next week, I will present to you a killer from a more exotic location. So, as they say in the land of radio, stay tuned. This podcast had not been possible if it hadn't been for my dear patrons that invest in this show via Patreon.
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