The Chieftain: Victorian True Crime Through The Eyes of a Scotland Yard Detective (11 page)

It was clear from the receipts that Köhl had been busy pawning items during the last month. Though this was not unusual in the Victorian era, where pawnbrokers were often the bank of first resort for the working class, it was a starting point for further investigation to see if there were any transactions that were associated with the victim. It was beginning to look as if this was to be another case, like the Briggs murder, where Clarke and other police would have to trudge round a number of East End pawnbrokers. At least this time they knew from the receipts which pawnbrokers to visit. However, the highest priority was to find the victim’s head, to help confirm his identity.

The head was discovered at about 7.30 a.m. on 9 November. Inspector George Goode of the Thames Police, whose knowledge of the river stretched back more than thirty-five years, had been sent to search the reed bed and was alerted by a lighterman who had been working in the area to a hole in the mud where blood could be seen. Careful digging and removal of the mud revealed a man’s head.
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As with the body, rats had found parts of the head to their taste. It was taken to be reunited with the body and both were examined by a local surgeon, Edward Morris, who drew several conclusions from what he saw. Firstly, two instruments had apparently been used to remove the head: a sharp blade such as a knife and a hatchet or chopper. Secondly, from the non-contracted state of the neck muscles, the head had only been removed some time after the man had died. Thirdly, the man had several extensive wounds on the head, which were probably the initial cause of death. Fourthly, the body had probably been dead for four or five days before its discovery.
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The body without the head had been provisionally identified the previous evening from its boots by a local shoemaker, Heinrich Zülch. With the head now available others, including a former landlord of ‘John Führhop’, James Warren, added their confirmation to the identification.
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They weren’t the only people to view the body:

The murder has caused extraordinary excitement in the neighbourhood of Silvertown. Four thousand persons yesterday went to view the body. They were in most instances permitted to see the remains of the deceased, not only to endeavour to corroborate the identification by means of the clothes, but also to give an opportunity of ascertaining whether any person had seen the deceased walking towards the river bank through the marsh on the day of the murder.
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As in the Briggs case, information of interest had passed with almost lightning speed in the Victorian working-class community.

On the same day as the head had been found, the two prisoners were due to appear before magistrates at Stratford Police Court. Köhl, referred to as a ‘sugar-baker’ and now known to be Ferdinand Edward Karl Köhl (’Charley’ to his English acquaintances), and his wife Hannah duly appeared in a densely crowded court:

Köhl is a dull, heavy-looking man, about 27 years of age. He did not seem in the dock to pay much attention to the proceedings. His wife, on the other hand, a girl of 18, showed that she acutely felt the position in which she was placed. She is the daughter of poor, but respectable parents at Plaistow.
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A ‘sugar-baker’ was someone employed in the refining of sugar from sugar cane which, in London, was imported from the Caribbean into the West India Docks. In view of its location, London’s East End was the centre of sugar refining in Victorian London, and the industry provided employment for several thousand men. However, the industry ‘was looked on with such dislike that even that pattern of patient drudgery, the Irish labourer, could by no sort of persuasion be brought to undertake it. I was credibly informed that the bribe offered had even taken the seductive form of beer unlimited; but that still, marvellous to relate, the Emerald Islander remained obdurate, and the sugar-bakers were compelled, as has ever been the case, to resort for “hands” to the German labour market.’
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In a sugar-refining factory ‘The heat was sickening and oppressive, and an unctuous steam, thick and foggy, filled the cellar from end to end … Regarding the close, reeking, stifling place, the disgusting atmosphere, the incessant toil and the disgusting conditions of it, the validity of the Irish labourer’s objection became manifest.’
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This had been Köhl’s employment before he had chosen to leave a few weeks previously. It was a job that few would do from choice and some who were employed in the industry might certainly try to find alternative ways of making some money.

At the magistrate’s hearing the police had assembled their witnesses, including those who had discovered and examined the body. The first witness was Elizabeth Warren of 3 Nelson Place, Plaistow, who had known Köhl as a former lodger at her house. She informed the court that Köhl had brought the murder victim, whom she knew as ‘John’, to her lodgings where he had stayed for some days. She described him as ‘a very handsome young man’ of about 21–22 years of age who (in an uncanny echo of Franz Müller) was planning to travel to New York.
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John was also German and did not speak good English. She described Köhl’s introduction of John to her:

He asked me if I could oblige this young man by taking him into my place, and he told me that he was a gentleman. I said, ‘Well Charley, if he is a gentleman, our place is only for poor men lodgers’ … I told the prisoner that my lodging was not fit for a person in that station. I ultimately agreed to take him in, and he came. After he had been with me for some time, he asked me to take care of some things for him.
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John was obviously a trusting soul, as he left Mrs Warren to look after several sovereigns and a gold watch and chain amongst other items; she seems not to have betrayed his trust. After some days with the Warrens, John had moved out to lodge with the Köhls. Although there had been some disagreement on the amount of rent due, it did not appear to have changed Mrs Warren’s belief that John was a very nice young man.

The next witness was Superintendent Howie, who described his 7 p.m. visit the previous evening to Köhl’s house. The contemporary press report of the magistrate’s hearing did not make it clear what had prompted this visit. However, it subsequently came to light that Köhl had joined the crowds assembling at the Graving Dock Tavern when the body was found. The landlord, William Richardson, had then alerted the police to Köhl’s unusual reaction when shown the body:

I pointed out to him where the first blow had been struck in the neck; it was within about a sixteenth of an inch of being through. Directly he saw that, he made a turn and took himself to the wall, to take himself away from the body altogether. I said ‘From your appearance I think you know something of this affair’. He had become deadly pale. I had shown the body to other parties previously, but saw no one to resemble the same countenance as the prisoner. I put my right hand on his shoulder, and told him I should apprehend him on suspicion of being concerned in the murder. He dropped his hands and fell against the wall. He never made any reply at all. I then brought him through the house and called Police Constable Wills, and directed him not to lose sight of him.
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During questioning by Howie, Köhl said that he hadn’t seen ‘John Führhop’ since Thursday 3 November. On that day, Köhl said that the two of them had gone towards London, down to Commercial Road, and Köhl had gone into a sugar-bakers’ factory to enquire about the possibility of work. According to Köhl’s account of events, when he came out John had disappeared; he made a search for him but had not seen him since.

As this information emerged in court, it was becoming clear that 3 November would be a critical date in the police inquiries. The penultimate witness at the hearing was to throw some further light on that particular day. That witness was a young labourer, Henry Lees, some 13 years of age:

Last Thursday morning, the 3rd inst, about 10 o’clock, I was at work at Plaistow, and I saw the male prisoner and the young man ‘John’, whom I believe to be the deceased, walking along the river-wall, near the sugar-house, towards Silvertown … I have not seen the young man since … It would be about four minutes’ walk from the spot where I saw the deceased and the male prisoner to the reed beds where the body was found. I saw the prisoner at half-past 4 in the afternoon of the same day, and he said to me that the young man was missing. I replied to him that ‘I saw you and the young man this morning about 10 o’clock walking by the river bank’. The prisoner said nothing at all in reply.
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No evidence was presented against Hannah Köhl and at Howie’s suggestion she was discharged by the magistrates, leaving the courtroom in a swoon in her brother’s arms. In contrast, ‘Charley’ Köhl was remanded for further inquiry, handcuffed and transported to Ilford Gaol. A large crowd was in the vicinity of the court and it was with some difficulty that the prisoner was conducted to the cab. As Köhl headed off to gaol the rumour mongers in the area were busy; the motive for murder was being suggested as jealousy over Hannah Köhl, rather than theft.

The following day the inquest into the death of ‘John Führhop’ was held at the Bell and Anchor Tavern, near the Victoria Docks, starting at 6.30 p.m., with many of the same witnesses appearing:

Very little additional evidence to that produced before the magistrates … has as yet been obtained, but it is understood that Sergeant Clarke of the detective department of the metropolitan force has elicited several important facts which will throw light upon the motives which have led to the commission of this horrible murder, but which at present it is not advisable in the interests of justice to disclose.
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After the coroner and jury had heard from all the witnesses, and had had the opportunity to question them, the coroner adjourned the inquest for a week.

Behind the scenes the police were already making further progress in establishing the true identity of the victim. Howie reported to Sir Richard Mayne that ‘from papers found in the trunk of the deceased I believe his name to have been Theodor C. Führhop, late a corresponding Clerk in the house of Neumann and Böcher of Hamburg’.
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He suggested that the police authorities in Hamburg should be contacted to help confirm this. In addition, Howie had set in motion a further search of the reed bed in the hope of discovering the murdered man’s missing garments and ‘the “knife or weapon” used by the assassin’.
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The initial proceedings of both the magistrate’s hearing and the inquest had demonstrated that the police had reasonable grounds for arresting Köhl, but there was clearly further work to be done to investigate the case against him. Firstly, what weapon(s) had been used to commit the murder? Secondly, could any direct forensic evidence be found to link Köhl to the murder? Thirdly, what was the likely motive for the murder? Fourthly, would Köhl’s alibi – that he had been in the Commercial Road with Führhop on 3 November – stand up to further investigation? These were the main topics on which Superintendent Howie and George Clarke would focus their attention.

The search of the reed bed on 10 November unearthed a ‘wooden handle of what appeared to be a hammer’, but no hammer head or blade. On the same day another witness, Thomas Hudson, came forward to report that he had seen Köhl and Führhop together in the marshes on 3 November, even closer to the reed bed location where the body was found, than the witness Lees had reported.
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On 12 November two further key witnesses were interviewed by the police, probably by Clarke. These were Mary Wade and Eliza Whitmore, both of whom, with their respective husbands, were lodgers at Köhl’s house at 4 Hoy Street. Both reported that they had seen Köhl in a muddy state in the early afternoon of 3 November. In a newspaper report of the resumed magistrate’s hearing on Saturday 12 November, Mary Wade’s evidence was summarised as follows:

She recollected Thursday the 3rd inst., when the prisoner left home about half-past nine o’clock. The young German, ‘John’ accompanied him, but they did not return together. The prisoner Köhl came back alone and witness let him in. When he entered she said ‘Good gracious Charley, where have you been to in the mud’. The back of his coat, the elbows, and trousers were dirty. He then asked witness where his wife was, and witness replied ‘She has gone to mangle’. He then went off to the back yard, and brushed off the mud from his clothes.
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Whitmore’s evidence was consistent with this, confirming that she had also seen Köhl brushing his clothes in the back yard.

The next piece of new evidence concerned the possible murder weapon. When questioned by the magistrates at the hearing on 12 November, Mary Wade added considerably to the evidence accumulating against Köhl:

‘I have lent the prisoner my chopper, which he borrowed every day. He used to keep the chopper two or three days sometimes. He used to keep the chopper in his kitchen … The chopper when I found it was painted over with red paint. It was not so when I lent it to him.’ Sergeant Clarke, the detective officer, here produced the chopper, when the Chairman [of the magistrates] said ‘Why, that is a butcher’s pole-axe!’ Sergeant Clarke answered in the affirmative, and when examined it was found that the chopper had a round head similar to a hammer on the back part of the blade.
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