Harriett and William Lilley lived at number 7 Buck’s Row, which, according to newspaper reports, was located two doors along from where the body of Mary Nichols was discovered on the morning of August the 31st 1888.

Harriett was around 47 years old, and the couple’s bedroom faced onto Buck’s Row, meaning that she could, so she claimed, hear everything that occurred in the street outside.

HARRIETT LILLEY’S CLAIMS

As far as can be ascertained, Harriet came forward on the afternoon Thursday the 6th of September, almost a week after the murder, and had spoken, not to the police but to a journalist.

What she had to say, however, if it was true, was of huge importance as it established the time at which the attack on Mary Ann Nichols took place, and therefore helped pinpoint the time of her murder.

Unfortunately, Harriet wasn’t called to give evidence at the inquest into the death of Mary Nichols, so she wasn’t subjected to questioning by the Coroner and jury, which may have helped determine the veracity of what she said she heard.

WHAT SHE HEARD

In consequence, her account only survives in a handful of newspapers, the first being The Echo, which published details of what she claimed to have heard in its edition of Thursday the 6th of September.

It read:-

AN IMPORTANT STATEMENT

An important statement, throwing considerable light on a point hitherto surrounded with some uncertainty – the time the crime was committed in Buck’s-row, or the body deposited there – was made on Thursday by Mrs. Harriet Lilley, who lives two doors from the spot where the deceased was discovered.

Mrs. Lilley said:-

“I slept in the front of the house, and could hear everything that occurred in the street.

On that Thursday night I was somehow very restless.

WHISPERS AND MOANS

Well, I heard something I mentioned to my husband in the morning. It was a painful moan – two or three faint gasps – and then it passed away.

It was quite dark, but a luggage train went by as I heard the sounds.

There was, too, a sound as of whispers underneath the window.

I distinctly heard voices, but cannot say what was said – it was too faint.

DIFFERENT FROM A STREET BRAWL

I then woke my husband, and said to him, “I don’t know what possesses me, but I cannot sleep tonight.”

Mrs. Lilley added that as soon as she heard of the murder she came to the conclusion that the voices she heard were in some way connected with it.

The cries were very different from those of an ordinary street brawl.

A TRAIN DID PASS

It has been ascertained that on the morning of the date of the murder a goods train passed on the East London railway at about half-past three – the 3.7 out from New-cross – which was probably the time when Mary Ann Nicholls was either killed or placed in Buck’s-row.

NOT CALLED TO GIVE EVIDENCE

And that is all we have concerning her.

As mentioned earlier, for some reason she wasn’t called to give evidence at the inquest into Mary Nichols’s death.

Why this should have been so is now impossible to know.

The police and the coroner may have thought that her statement wouldn’t have added anything that wasn’t already known to the proceedings – which is unlikely because establishing the time of death would have been paramount to the proceedings.

TIME THE BODY WAS FOUND

Indeed, on Saturday the 22nd of September, the Coroner, Wynne Edwin Baxter, in his summing up at the inquest into Mary Nichols’s death, made specific mention “that the time at which the body was found cannot have been far from 3.45 a.m. as it is fixed by so many independent data.”

So Harriet Lilley’s statement would most certainly have helped ascertain how long before the body was found the murder had actually taken place.

LITTLE MENTION OF HER

Yet, other than the brief mention of her in several newspapers, Harriet is conspicuous by her absence from the official proceedings and even the police records.

The police cannot have been unaware of her claims, and since we know that they vetted witnesses who they thought should be called to give evidence at inquests, we can only surmise that, for some reason, they doubted the accuracy of what Harriet Lilley had to say.

Likewise, the Coroner, Wynne Edwin Baxter, who would have had made the final decision about who he wished to hear evidence from, also chose not to call her, suggesting that he too set no store by it.

WHY SO LONG?

There is also the issue of it having taken her almost a week to come forward.

She lived two doors from the murder site in Buck’s Row, and had, according to her statement, mentioned what she had heard to her husband the next morning.

Throughout the day of Friday the 31st of August Buck’s Row was a hive of activity, with police making enquiries, and even going door to door to ask residents if they had seen or heard anything – yet Harriet Lilley appears not to have come forward at this stage.

There were also journalists at the scene gathering as much information as they could – one of them even interviewed Robert Paul – the second man at the scene of the murder after Charles Cross – as he made his way home along Buck’s Row that afternoon.

Yet Harriet Lilley didn’t speak to any journalist until the afternoon of Thursday the 6th of September.

WAS SHE MISTAKEN OR A TIME WASTER?

There is, therefore, a strong possibility Harriet Lilley didn’t hear what she said she had heard on the morning of the murder.

She may have been one of the many time wasters who crop up again and again in the newspapers, claiming to have seen or heard things, in the hope of either a little financial remuneration, or simply to enjoy a little time in the spotlight.

The fact is, we’ll never now know whether Harriet Lilley was telling the truth, or whether she was either mistaken about the date on which she heard the moans, or was simply invented a story with which she managed to hoodwink a journalist.

It is interesting to note that, aside from a small selection, very few newspapers gave her any coverage, suggesting that they too didn’t believe her story.

A JACK THE RIPPER ENIGMA

She must remain just one of many enigmas that help make this case so baffling and fascinating – and is just one of a long line of people who turned up, added another twist to the mystery, and, having done so, faded into the obscurity from which she had emerged, never to be heard from again.