Jack the Ripper: The Hand of a Woman

JACK THE RIPPER

THE HAND OF A WOMAN

JOHN MORRIS

 

 

 

One name, more than any other, conjures up images of thick swirling fog, dark Victorian passageways and shadowy gas-lit squares, brutally slaughtered victims, a faceless murderer clutching a blood-stained knife, and a timeless unsolved mystery… Jack the Ripper.

Several years ago, and long before the prospect of writing my own book about this most elusive of all murderers ever occurred to me, I visited a London bookshop. There I skimmed through the pages of another Ripper paperback, the title of which I am now unable to recall. Recently I was reminded of a brief passage from that work. The author mentioned that, during the course of his writing, he felt there were three people living in his home, although the dinner table was only ever laid for two. The third occupant in the household, the uninvited guest, was of course Jack. During the latter period when I was working on
Jack the Ripper: The Hand of a Woman
, I felt the same way, but it was not the murderer who shared our family home.

After our investigation started, but well before it finished, sadly my father, Byron Morris, died aged ninety-six. An aircraft engineer by profession, many of his earlier years were spent pursuing his hobby of watchmaking, the very same part-time activity enjoyed by Detective Inspector Frederick Abberline, the co-ordinating officer instructed by Scotland Yard to track down the Whitechapel murderer. The last years of my father’s life were devoted to
historical
research, and in this field he made many unexpected discoveries, of which the true identity of Jack the Ripper and the motive for the terrible crimes are just two.

After his death, I continued with our project alone, but I always felt that he was standing at my shoulder helping and encouraging me. Sometimes when I was uncertain how to proceed, a small voice would make a suggestion that invariably turned out to be the right one; at other times I would ask my father for advice and it was always given; whether this was from my subconscious and the many years of his welcome guidance and influence, or perhaps a voice from beyond the grave, having checked various aspects of the case with the original sources, I do not know. But whichever is correct, I am truly grateful for his encouragement, help and love.

I wish to thank Jonathan Williams, my literary agent, for his dedication, impeccable editorial advice, incisive judgement, so much selfless hard work, and of course, his friendship. Without him, this book, to which he contributed so much, would never have seen the light of day and, I have little doubt, the truth about the murders would never have become known.

I also wish to thank Mick Felton of Seren; not only for
publishing
my work, which almost goes without saying, but for his true professionalism, commitment and acuity in showing me what more was needed to make the original account so much more compelling, and I hope, more enjoyable too.

My thanks also to the management and staff of Druids Glen Resort for their kindness in allowing me the extensive use of their business facility.

With grateful thanks also to my wonderful family, my fiercest critics who encouraged me from the outset; for their invaluable suggestions, sometimes solutions, and always absolute confidence, my sister for a historical perspective, and particularly my wife Yvonne, for her infinite patience and the inexplicable trust she placed in me. I shake my head as I wonder why.

John Morris
Druid’s Glen, Co. Wicklow, Ireland, July 2011

I
clearly remember my first eureka moment, that split-second when, in an instant, everything became crystal clear, and the previously obscure was now bindingly obvious.

I was born in the early 1950s and grew up in rural Northamptonshire during an era when young children were expected to listen to what their elders had to say. Usually I found their talk to be dull, but occasionally the conversation would become more interesting. At such times, I would listen eagerly and the hours would fly.

It was on one of these occasions that I heard about a mysterious character called Jack the Ripper. He captured my imagination and has continued to haunt my life ever since. He was said to have murdered his unfortunate victims, all ‘fallen women’, in London’s East End district of Whitechapel during the autumn of 1888. The killings were all brutal, bloody and carried out using a scalpel-sharp knife. One of the reasons for his notoriety was that he was never caught.

There was great conjecture about the murderer’s identity; was he a doctor, a lawyer, or even a member of the Royal Family? Some of those whose enthralling discussions I absorbed so readily had been young themselves in 1888. The impact that the events of that year made on them must have been immense, because more than 70 years afterwards, they were still talking about the murders.

So it has been for me too. From my early introduction to the present day, I have theorised endlessly about the murderer’s identity and possible motives for the terrible crimes. I devoured anything and everything on the subject, from books, newspaper and magazine articles, to cinema, television and radio programmes. Cuttings about the ‘latest discovery’ are crammed inside the covers of more than fifty books about the Ripper on my bookshelves.

Four authors in particular have influenced my views on the Whitechapel murders. Stephen Knight, in his best-selling book
Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution
(1976), declared that he had solved the mystery once and for all. The
Manchester Evening News
review of the book asserted that Knight had “tied up so many loose ends”. Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, a grandson of Queen Victoria, had married a Catholic in a secret ceremony and she had given birth to his child, Knight claimed. When the Establishment found out about the affair, the young woman was abducted and disappeared following a police raid, and her friends, five prostitutes from Whitechapel, then tried to blackmail the Royal Family. Sir William Gull, the Queen’s surgeon, had taken it upon himself to solve the problem. As a high-ranking Freemason, he set about his task in what was alleged to be true Masonic style;
tracking
down each of the conspirators, then cutting their throats and disembowelling them. The bodies of one of the victims was
discovered
in Mitre Square, which, Knight maintained, held great symbolic significance for Freemasons, while another had her
intestines
thrown over her shoulder, as further evidence of Masonic ritual and involvement.

For a while, this hypothesis satisfied me and I convinced myself that the case had been solved at last, but it troubled me at the same time. Though I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, something was wrong, including the question of which shoulder was demanded by Masonic ceremony, and all the loose ends had most definitely not been tied up.

The Whitechapel murders raise many questions, most of which have never been satisfactorily answered or explained. Why was the throat of the first victim, Polly Nichols, cut twice – when she was already dead? She had been suffocated or strangled – as evidenced by the dark blue colour of her tongue according to the medical report of Dr Rees Ralph Llewellyn, the police surgeon who performed the post mortem.

Why, when the second victim, Annie Chapman, was murdered, was the pocket of her apron almost torn off? For what reason were a number of personal items arranged neatly by her feet? Why, and for what reason, was Chapman’s uterus ripped out of her body and taken away by the murderer?

When Elizabeth Stride’s body was discovered, lying inside an open gateway in Berner Street, only her throat had been cut and nothing more. Why just a cut throat when, up to that point, the injuries inflicted on the two previous victims had been getting worse in their severity?

When Catherine Eddowes’s mutilated body was found in a dark corner of Mitre Square, why was the inverted letter ‘V’ carved into each of her cheeks and what did it mean? Why were her nose, ears, lips and eyelids slashed? And why had her uterus and left kidney been cut out of her body and removed from the scene of the crime?

What was the meaning of the cryptic message inscribed on the black brick door surround at the Wentworth model apartments in Goulston Street?

Were they written in the murderer’s own hand? And did the murderer deposit a bloodied part of Catherine Eddowes’s apron on the ground in the doorway, to draw attention to the strange message, as has been supposed, or might there be an entirely different explanation for both the writing and the severed part of the soiled apron?

Mary Jane Kelly, a young, pretty Irish girl, was the murderer’s fifth and final victim. Said to have been born in Limerick in Ireland, Mary Kelly moved to Wales with her family when she was very young. While she lived in Wales, the young Mary learned her new tongue and adopted the accent of her childhood friends. She later lived with a cousin in Cardiff before moving to London in 1884 with her young son. She was just twenty-one.