JACK THE RIPPER WALK
PART ONE THE
MURDER OF MARY
NICHOLS THIS IS
THE START OF YOUR JACK THE RIPPER WALK IT
DEPARTS FROM FROM
WHITECHAPEL UNDERGROUND STATION
DIRECTIONS Turn
left out of Whitechapel Underground Station onto Whitechapel Road. The tall
lofty building that you pass immediately on the left is the former Whitechapel
Working Lads Institute. It was here that the inquests into the deaths of several
of Jack the Ripper's victims were held.
Continue along Whitechapel Road and go first left along Brady Street. You are
walking from the direction that a carter named Charles Cross was walking
from on
his way to work at around 3.40am on August 31st 1888. The left side of the
Paul
was at first startled by the sight of Charles Cross stepping from the shadows
towards him,
Cross
suggested that they should sit her up, but Paul declined to touch her any
further. At this point they decided that they were already late for work and,
perhaps a little callously, agreed not to waste any more time at the scene. They
opted, therefore, to tell the first policeman they met of their find,
re-arranged her skirt over her knees to cover her decency, and then headed off
along Bucks Row passing the Board School as they went. It was so dark in Bucks Row that,
despite the fact they had got close enough to the woman
That discovery
was made by beat officer, Constable Neil who came towards the site from the
direction of the Board School three or so minutes after Cross and Paul had left
the scene.
“There was not a soul about,” he
later told the inquest into the woman’s death. “I had been round there half an
hour previously, and saw no one then. I was on the right side…when I noticed a
figure lying in the street. It was dark at the time…I examined the body by the
aid of my lamp, and noticed blood oozing from a wound in the throat. She was
lying on her back, with her clothes disarranged. I felt her arm, which was quite
warm from the joints upwards. Her eyes were wide open. Her bonnet was off and
lying at her side.”
As Neil stooped down over
the body, he noticed PC John
When Dr Llewellyn arrived at
around 4am, he carried out a cursory examination of the body and, noting the
severity of the wounds to the throat, pronounced life extinct. On closer
examination he also observed that the deceased’s body and legs were still warm,
although her hands and wrists were quite cold. This led him to surmise that she
could not have been dead for more than half an hour. But there was little he
could do at the scene and so, alarmed, by the spectators that were beginning to
gather at the scene, he ordered that the body be removed to the nearby mortuary
where, he told the police officers, he would make a further inspection.
Thus the body was placed on a police
ambulance and trundled off to the Whitechapel Workhouse Infirmary mortuary. It
was here that Inspector Spratling arrived at around 6.30am intending to take
down a description of the deceased woman. Lifting her skirts back up he
discovered something that everyone had somehow so far missed. The woman had been
sliced open by a deep gash which ran from her lower abdomen to her breast-bone.
The autumn of terror had begun. In 1888
Vallance Road was known as Baker's Row. It was here that Cross and Paul met
Police Constable Mizen and told him of their discovery. "She looks to me
to be either dead or drunk" Cross breathlessly blurted to the officer, " but for
my part I think she is dead." "All right," replied Mizen and hurried off
towards Bucks Row. Cross and Paul continued on their way and parted company
shortly afterwards.
street was lined by two-storey cottages and Bucks Row itself had minimal
street lighting. As Cross approached the board school that still looms over the
west end of this section of Bucks Row he noticed a bundle lying in a gateway on
its left side, the site occupied by the parking area after the modern line of
housing that now stands on the left side. His first thought was that it was a
tarpaulin that might make a useful cover for his cart or wagon, so he went over
to inspect it closer. But, as he got nearer, he discovered that the bundle was
in fact the prone form of a woman lying on the ground with her skirts pulled up
above her waist. Unsure whether she was drunk, injured or
dead, Cross stood rooted to the spot pondering what to do do next. It was then
that he heard footsteps sounding from the direction he he had come from, and
turning round he saw another carter, Robert Paul, heading towards him.and, thinking that Cross was about to attack him, he tried to
swerve round him. Cross, however, blocked his path. "Come and look over here,"
he told him, "there is a woman lying on the pavement." They both crossed over to
the body, and Cross took hold of the woman's hands, which he found to be cold
and limp. "I believe she is dead," he whispered to Paul. He then placed a hand
against her face, which was warm. Robert Paul meanwhile had put his hand on her
heart, and as he did so he fancied he felt her chest move slightly. "I think she
is breathing," he told Cross "but very little if she is." to feel her face and
chest, both men had failed to notice that her throat had been slashed so violently
that her head had almost been cut from her body. 
Thain
passing the end of the street and flashed his lantern to attract
his attention. "Here's a
woman with her throat cut", he called to his approaching colleague, "run at once
for Dr Llewellyn."