• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 191 0

the small intestines and attachments had been removed and placed over the right shoulder but remained attached to her body. Two other pieces of stomach wall and sections of her pubic area were placed over the left shoulder. Other parts were missing altogether: a further part of the stomach wall including the navel; the womb; the upper part of the vagina; and most of the bladder. Abrasions on the ring finger suggested that a ring, or rings, had been forcibly removed. Phillips expressed the opinion that, from the removal of viscera, the murderer possessed anatomical knowledge. He believed the knife used was narrow, thin and sharp, with a blade six to eight inches long,‘not an ordinary knife but such as a small amputating knife, or a well-ground slaughterman’s knife’. Phillips said he didn’t think he could have produced all of Chapman’s injuries in under fifteen minutes.

There was friction between Phillips and Wynne Baxter at the inquest. Phillips at first refused to describe the mutilations in great detail because he felt that they would only be ‘painful to the feelings of the jury and the public’. On 14 September, Baxter allowed this, but Phillips was recalled five days later when Baxter, after clearing the inquest of all women and boys, insisted that he provided the full details. Phillips did so.

After Chapman’s body had been moved, a piece of coarse muslin and a small pocket haircomb case, probably along with two polished farthings were found, seemingly piled up deliberately. A popular con trick was to shine up farthings so that they would pass as shillings in a dim light, but whether Chapman had been going to try this or had had it tried on her remains unknown. Near where her head had been was a portion of an envelope and a piece of paper containing two pills. The back of the envelope bore the Sussex Regiment’s seal. On the other side was the letter ‘M’ in a ‘man’s’ handwriting and the letters ‘Sp’ (possibly the start of ‘Spitalfields’). Postmarked ‘London 23 Aug., 1888’, some sources quote it as ‘London, 28 Aug., 1888’. The envelope came under considerable police scrutiny, and enquiries were made at the Sussex Regiment at Farnborough. However, there was no success in tracing a soldier known to be writing to anyone in Spitalfields. Inspector Chandler would later note, after hearing the statement of William Stevens, that the envelope was most likely the one that Annie Chapman took from the kitchen floor at Crossingham’s and therefore not worth pursuing as a possible clue.

Rumours of items deliberately ‘arranged’ at the other victims’ feet have become part of the mythology of Jack the Ripper. But it only happened with Chapman and the items were the contents of her pocket, which had been cut open. The farthings were noted in the newspaper reports of the murder but not mentioned later in the police reports or newspaper reports of the coroner’s inquest. Later claims that Chapman’s rings were also in the pile are false. In fact, the police spent considerable time checking ‘all pawnbrokers, jewellers, dealers’ to find the rings that were missing from Chapman’s fingers. There were no others found. A search of the backyard revealed some items which were found to belong to Mrs Richardson. More ominously, the police found a sodden leather apron near a tap at the end of the yard.This clue also led nowhere as Mrs Richardson confirmed that it was her son’s and had been there since the previous Thursday, when she had washed it.

Like Nichols, Chapman’s body was taken to the grimy shed that was Whitechapel Workhouse Infirmary Mortuary for post-mortem. On 9 September, her body was formally identified by both Timothy Donovan and her brother Fountain Smith. On 14 September, she was buried at Manor Park cemetery in a small ceremony attended by family members.

Two days after Chapman’s death, the Liberal MP for Whitechapel, Samuel Montagu, personally offered £100 reward for information leading to the murderer’s arrest. An advocate of many charities for the poor and particularly immigrant Jews in the East End, he also supported the local