Jack The Ripper - Mark Whitehead [35]
No further outrages occurred that year and in April 1890 plain-clothes police were finally withdrawn. But in February 1891 there was to be one last scare.
Frances Coles
Frances Coles was a 26-year-old prostitute who, for eight years, had managed to conceal the fact from both her elderly father and her sister, Mary Ann. They believed that she worked for a chemist. It is possible that they both had their suspicions. Mary Ann noted that on later visits her sister looked ‘very poor and very dirty and sometimes smelt of drink’.
On 11 February 1891, James Thomas Sadler, a 53-year-old ship’s fireman was discharged from his ship, SS Fez, and headed towards Commercial Street. Sadler had previously been a client of Coles’ and they met once more in the Princess Alice.They slept together that night and spent most of the next day drinking in various pubs in the area. At some point that evening the couple quarrelled. Sadler had supposedly been mugged in Thrawl Street and had asked Coles for money. She had refused and they separated. Coles had returned to her lodgings in White’s Row and passed out at the kitchen table. Sadler arrived, the worse for drink and bleeding. However, as neither he nor Coles had money to doss, the watchman encouraged first Sadler, then Coles to leave.
At around 1.45am on Friday 13 February, Coles was turned out of Shuttleworth’s Eating House in Wentworth Street and headed toward Brick Lane. At 2.15am PC Ernest Thompson’s first solo patrol of his career was to prove his most memorable. As he walked along Chamber Street, just off Leman Street, Thompson heard a man’s footsteps walking unhurriedly away from him towards Mansell Street. He gave it no thought until, turning into Swallow Gardens, a passageway under the railway arches, he found the body of Frances Coles. Her throat had been cut and her blood still flowed. Worse, as he approached, she opened one eye. Thompson blew his whistle for assistance and, as he waited, Coles died.
Both Dr Phillips, who conducted the autopsy, and Dr Oxley, who was the first at the scene, agreed that Coles had had her throat cut after being flung to the ground. Coles’ clothing had not been touched and there were no abdominal wounds. Both doctors concurred it was unlikely that the assailant had been the Ripper.
The police quickly arrested Sadler. He had returned to the White’s Row lodging house at about 3.00am. He was bloodstained. He claimed he had been robbed again, this time in Ratcliffe Highway. Another witness identified Sadler as the man who had sold him a knife for a shilling and some tobacco at 10.15am that morning.After Sadler had been charged with murder on 16 February, detectives began to think carefully about the possibility that they might just have caught Jack the Ripper. It did not take long for their hopes to be dashed.
Witnesses soon cleared Sadler of being with Coles later that night and proved that his second beating, courtesy of some dock labourers, had occurred. The knife, it turned out, was so blunt when it had been sold that the witness had to sharpen it before he could use it. Witnesses also stated that Sadler had been so drunk it was unlikely that he would have been able to control his hands enough to inflict Coles’ wounds. The inquest verdict of ‘Murder by some person or persons unknown’ cleared him.The case for Sadler being the Ripper finally fell apart