By Timothy Lambert
Contents
- Catherine Hayes
- Catherine Wilson
- The Murder of Fanny Adams
- Mary Ann Cotton
- The Bloody Benders
- Jack The Ripper
- The New Orleans Axeman
- The Blossom Alley Tragedy
- Gordon Cummins, the Blackout Ripper
- Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia
- Jack the Stripper
Catherine Hayes
Let us begin with a notorious case from the early 18th century when murderers were caught because of a head. Catherine Hayes was executed for killing her husband in 1726. She was born Catherine Hall near Birmingham in 1690. She moved around the country working as a domestic servant. Eventually, she was employed by a farmer named Hayes in Warwickshire. In 1713, she married the farmer’s son John, who was a carpenter and merchant. In 1719, the couple moved to London, where John Hayes became a successful businessman.
But Catherine became dissatisfied with her marriage. In 1725, Catherine took in a lodger, a young man named Thomas Billings. He was a tailor. She had an affair with him. Catherine took in a second lodger, a man named Thomas Wood, who was a butcher. Catherine had affairs with both lodgers.
Catherine Hayes eventually decided to murder her husband. She persuaded her lovers that murder was justified because her husband physically abused her, and he blasphemed God (which was shocking in a religious age).
On 1 March 1726, John went drinking with the two lodgers. When they went home, John lay drunk on a bed. Billings hit John with an axe. A woman named Mrs Springate, who lived upstairs, heard John cry out and knocked on their door to ask about the noise. But Catherine managed to persuade her that nothing was wrong. She claimed she and some visitors had been ‘making merry’.
Wood helped Billings to finish off John, hitting him with the axe. To make identification more difficult they cut off his head and threw it into the River Thames. They dumped the body in a pond in the countryside. But the head washed up on the shore of the River Thames, and it was found by a waterman. The head was displayed in public in the churchyard of St Margaret’s Church in Westminster, and certain people recognised it as the head of John Hayes. The rest of his body was discovered on 24 March.
Catherine Hayes and her two male lovers were arrested, tried, and found guilty. The two men were sentenced to be hanged (one of them, Thomas Wood, died in jail before the sentence could be carried out).
Thomas Billings was hanged on 9 May 1726, the same day Catherine was executed. His body was hanged in chains in a public place as a warning to others.
However, Catherine suffered a worse fate. In the 18th century, if a woman murdered her husband, it was considered ‘petty treason’ and the penalty was death by burning (although the woman was usually strangled with a rope before the flames reached her). Certain types of murder were considered petty treason. If a servant murdered his master or if a clergyman killed his superior.
The punishment of burning was abolished in 1790. The legal concept of petty treason was abolished in 1828.
Catherine Wilson
Catherine Wilson has the distinction of being the last woman to be hanged in public in London. Public executions drew big crowds as they were free entertainment. Catherine Wilson was a female poisoner. Her poison of choice was colchicum, a kind of crocus. In small doses, it was used as a medicine, but in large doses, it could kill. Wilson was born in 1822. She became a housekeeper to a man named Captain Peter Mawr. However, Captain Mawr made the mistake of telling Wilson he had left something in his will for her. Captain Mawr suffered from gout, and he took colchicum to treat it. Unfortunately, he died from an overdose in 1854. At first, it was believed it was accidental.
Wilson then moved to London with her partner, a man named Dixon. Wilson worked for a woman named Maria Soames. However, Dixon died in 1856, probably poisoned. (He was a heavy drinker, and Wilson was probably tired of him). Her employer, Maria Soames, then became ill and died.
Wilson next worked for a woman named Sarah Carnell. However, she unwisely tried to poison the woman by giving her sulfuric acid to drink. Carnell spat it out, and it burned the sheets. Wilson then fled, but she was arrested and put on trial for attempted murder. Wilson claimed that a pharmacist had given her acid instead of medicine by mistake. The jury found her not guilty, but as she left the courtroom, Wilson was arrested again, this time for the murder of Maria Soames. This time, she was found guilty. Catherine Wilson was hanged on 20 October 1862.
The Murder of Fanny Adams
Fanny Adams was an 8-year-old girl who was murdered in Alton, Hampshire, in 1867. Fanny was born on 30 April 1859. Her father was a bricklayer named George. Her mother was named Harriett. Fanny was the fourth of six children. She had three sisters and two brothers.
Fanny was tall for her age. She looked, it was said, older than her age. She was also a bright girl. People who knew Fanny described her as a happy and talkative child.
In the mid-19th century, Alton was a small town with a population of about 4,000. There was a brewing industry in the town and fields of hops. Fanny lived in Tanhouse Lane. Near her house was an open place named Flood Meadow, through which the River Wey flowed. The river sometimes flooded, giving the meadow its name. Next to it was a hop garden.
On 24 August 1867, Fanny asked her mother for permission to go and play in Flood Meadow with her 5-year-old sister Lizzie and her best friend, Minnie Warner, aged 8. Her mother agreed. There was little crime in Alton, and Mrs Adams was not worried.
Between 1 pm and 2 pm, the girls had the misfortune to meet a 29-year-old solicitor’s clerk named Frederick Baker. He was from Guildford but had recently moved to Alton, where he worked for a solicitor named William Clements in the High Street. Baker was wearing a frock coat, light-coloured trousers, a waistcoat, and a tall hat. The girls had seen the man before. Frederick Baker gave Minnie and Lizzie three half pennies to buy some sweets. He also gave Fanny a half penny. For a time the girls played while Baker watched the girls playing while he smoked his pipe. He also picked some blackberries for them.
Minnie and Lizzie eventually decided to go home. Baker then asked Fanny to come with him on her own along the Hollow, a road that led to the nearby village of Shalden. Fanny refused. Baker then grabbed the child and carried her off. Minnie and Lizzie ran and told Mrs Warner, Minnie’s mother. But she was unconcerned, and the girls went off to play again. It may seem incredible that Mrs Warner did not immediately raise the alarm but attitudes were very different then. Mrs Warner may have thought it was some sort of game.
About 5 pm, the two girls, Minnie and Lizzie, went home again. A neighbour, Mrs Gardener, saw them and asked where Fanny was. The two girls told her what had happened. Mrs Gardener was worried, and she told Fanny’s mother, Mrs Adams. The two women went off in search of the missing child.
Within a short time, they met Baker near a gate separating the hop garden from the Meadow. Mrs Gardener asked him, ‘What have you done with the child?’. Baker replied ‘nothing’. Mrs Gardener then asked if he had given Minnie Warner money. Baker admitted he had given her money. But he claimed that he often gave money to children. Not surprisingly, Mrs Gardener was suspicious. She told Baker ‘I have a great mind to give you in charge of the police’. Baker replied, ‘You may do as you like’.
The two women went home, no doubt hoping Fanny would turn up. But, of course, she didn’t. By 7 pm, her mother was growing very worried,d and she and a group of neighbours went in search of her. A man named Thomas Gates found the head of a child stuck on two hop poles. The eyes had been cut out, and the right ear was missing. It was the head of Fanny Adams.
More of the remains of Fanny Adams were found that evening. But as it was growing dark, the search had to be called off until the next morning. The next day, searchers found one of Fanny’s arms, a foot, and her intestines. Her eyes were eventually found in the river.
At the trial of Frederick Baker, Dr Leslie said: The remains were that of a female child, the head, arms, and legs were separated from the trunk’. The doctor also said: ‘A deep incision divided the chest between the ribs. The right leg was torn from the trunk, and the whole contents of the pelvis and chest were completely removed. Five incisions had been made on the liver, the heart cut out and missing, a dislocation of the spine, and the vagina was missing’.
A man named William Henry Walker found a stone with flesh and hair sticking to it. He thought it might be the murder weapon. At the murder trial, Dr Leslie said that in his opinion it was.
Meanwhile, Fanny’s mother, Harriet Adams, was naturally very distraught. She went to tell her husband, George, who had been playing cricket. He got his shotgun and was going to shoot the murderer, but was persuaded not to.
At 9 pm on Sunday, 25 August 1867, the police went to the office of Clements, the solicitor. Superintendent Cheney asked Baker if he had heard of the murder. Baker replied, ‘Yes, they say it’s me’. The Superintendent told him, ‘Well, you are suspected’. Baker replied, ‘I am innocent’. Despite his denials, Baker was arrested on suspicion of the murder of Fanny Adams. An angry crowd had gathered outside the office, so the police had to smuggle him out the back door.
Baker was found to be carrying two small knives (they were too small to have carried out the mutilation. It was believed a larger knife was used, but it was never found). Baker’s trousers were wet, presumably from an attempt to wash off blood stains. The police also found bloodstains on Baker’s shirt cuffs. Baker could not account for them. He said ‘Well, I don’t see a scratch or cut on my hands to account for the blood’.
The next day, the police searched the solicitor’s office. They found Baker’s diary in his desk. An entry read: ‘Killed a young girl. It was fine and hot’. Baker admitted it was his handwriting but claimed he was intoxicated at the time.
Baker made another very incriminating remark on the day of the murder. At 7 p.m., he went to a pub with a colleague. An employee of the pub said he was moving and claimed he could turn his hand to anything. Baker said he might join him, but admitted there were only a very limited number of jobs he could do. But he then added, ‘I could turn butcher’.
An inquest into the death of Fanny Adams was held at the Duke’s Head Inn in Alton on 27 August 1867. Minnie Warner gave evidence. So did Mrs Gardner. In 1867, the jury at an inquest could not only find that a person was a victim of murder, but they could also name the person who they believed had committed the murder, even though that person had not been tried. The jury found that Frederick Baker murdered Fanny Adams. The law was changed in 1977.
The trial of Frederick Baker for murder began on 5 December 1867. The defence claimed that it could not be proved that Baker killed Fanny. But at the same time, they tried to argue that if he did do it he was insane.
Minnie Warner and Mrs Gardener gave evidence. Other witnesses said Baker had left the solicitor’s office after 1 p.m. (Shortly before the murder was committed). He returned at 3.25 p.m. Baker left the office again at 4.30 p.m. (At which time he met Mrs Adams and Mrs Gardener near the murder scene).
More witnesses described seeing Baker in the vicinity of the murder on the afternoon of 26 August. A woman named Eliza White said she saw a man with three children at about 2 p.m. She identified Baker as the man. Mrs White said that afterwards, she heard ‘a girl cry out, not a cry of pain, as in play, trying to get away from someone’. A witness named William Alder was walking back from the nearby village of Lasham at about 2 p.m. He also saw Baker, who he knew. He also saw three children.
Both Mrs Gardener and Mrs Adams saw Baker after 5 p.m. A woman named Mary Ann Porter also said she saw Baker in the area between 5 and 6 p.m.
There was also the fact that Baker wrote in his diary, ‘Killed a young girl. It was fine and hot”. The defence claimed that what he meant was ‘a young girl was killed’ not ‘I killed a young girl’. They also tried to cast doubt on Minnie Warner’s identification of Baker, and they said the two knives found on Baker were too small to have carried out the mutilations. (They may very well be true, but it doesn’t rule out the possibility that Baker had a larger knife that was never found).
The defence also tried to argue that even if Baker did do it then he was insane. They claimed that Baker’s father was violent and had once tried to kill his son and daughter with a poker. They also claimed that Baker had tried to commit suicide after his fiancée broke off their engagement in 1865. Baker’s sister had died of a ‘brain fever’. Also, Baker’s cousin was in a lunatic asylum and was violent. But none of this impressed the jury.
The judge advised the jury that three verdicts were possible – guilty, not guilty or not guilty on the grounds of insanity. The jury took only 15 minutes to find Baker guilty of murder. The judge then sentenced him to death.
While awaiting execution, Baker confessed to killing Fanny.
At that time, executions were carried out in public. Frederick Baker was hanged outside Winchester prison, in front of a crowd of about 5,000 people at 8 a.m. on 24 December 1867. His body was buried within the precincts of the prison.
Meanwhile, Fanny Adams was laid to rest in Alton Cemetery on 28 August 1867. In 1868, a gravestone was erected, paid for by public subscription. An inscription on the gravestone reads ‘Sacred to the memory of Fanny Adams, aged eight years and four months, who was cruelly murdered on Saturday, August 24, 1867’ and ‘Fear not them which kill the body are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell Matthew 10 v28’.
Mary Ann Cotton
Mary Ann Cotton was one of Britain’s worst serial killers. It’s not certain how many people she killed. She may have poisoned up to 21 people.
Mary Ann was born in Durham County in 1832. Her father was a miner but he died in an accident when Mary Ann was 10. When she was 16 Mary Ann became a domestic servant. In 1852 she married William Mowbray. The couple moved to Cornwall where William had a job on a railway. The couple had 4 or 5 children in Cornwall but only one of them lived (unfortunately due to a lack of documentation many of the details of Mary Ann’s life are uncertain). Infant mortality was very high in the 19th century and the loss of several children was not unusual.
In 1857 Mr and Mrs Mowbray returned to County Durham with one surviving child. The couple soon had more children. However, the only surviving child from their years in Cornwall died in 1860.
Mary Ann persuaded her husband, William, to take out a life insurance policy. Soon afterward, another of their children died. William himself followed in 1865. His death was ascribed to an infectious disease and Mary Ann Cotton gained £35 (a large sum of money at that time). Mary Ann was left with two daughters. Sadly, one of them died, apparently of an infectious disease. Mary Ann then sent her only surviving child, a girl named Isabella, to live with her mother, leaving her free of children and with no husband.
Mary Ann soon remarried. She met a man called George Ward and they soon married. The unfortunate man died in 1866, once again seemingly of an infectious illness. Mary Ann then became the housekeeper of a man called John Robinson, a widower. Shortly after she moved in one of Robinson’s children died. In 1867 Mary Ann went to visit her mother, who died shortly afterward.
Mary Ann then moved in with Robinson. Her daughter with William Mowbray, Isabella, also moved in. Sadly, Isabella died in 1868. In 1867 Mary Ann married Robinson and they had two children, but only one survived. Fortunately, Mr Robinson discovered that Mary Ann had stolen money from his building society account. He also reportedly became suspicious when Mary Ann kept trying to persuade him to take out life insurance. Robinson threw Mary Ann out of the house.
However, in 1870, she met a widower called Frederick Cotton. Soon afterward, Cotton’s sister and one of his children died. Yet, he married Mary Ann in September 1870. By the end of 1871, Frederick Cotton and two of his children had died. Once again, Mary Ann benefited handsomely from a life insurance policy. But she was left with a stepson, Frederick’s child.
Like so many murderers Mary Ann became foolishly overconfident. Having got away with murder several times she seems to have started feeling that she was invincible and she would never be caught. In 1872 Mary Ann took a lover named Joseph Natrass. However, he soon died, leaving his possessions to Mary Ann. Meanwhile, she became pregnant by a man named John Quick-Manning.
Mary Ann then tried to send her stepson Charles Edward Cotton to a workhouse. She told a workhouse official that she could not marry him because of her stepson. Unwisely, she also told him ‘I won’t be troubled long. He’ll go like all the rest of the Cottons.’ Soon afterward the boy died and the official went to the police.
The body was exhumed and was found to contain arsenic. The bodies of Frederick Cotton and two of his other children were also exhumed and were found to contain arsenic. So was the body of Mary Ann was charged with the murder of the boy, Charles Edward Cotton. However, her trial had to be delayed because she was pregnant again. It did not begin until she had given birth for a final time in January 1873.
She went on trial on 5 March 1873. Not surprisingly, the jury found her guilty. Mary Ann Cotton was hanged in Durham jail on 24 March 1873. However, her neck was not broken and she took about three minutes to be strangled to death.
It will never be known exactly how many people Mary Ann Cotton poisoned.
The Bloody Benders
The Benders were a family of murderers in Kansas in the 1870s. Little is known about them; unfortunately, there are different versions of what happened. No doubt myths and legends have grown up.
It’s known for certain that the Benders were a family of four. They were German immigrants. Pa Bender was described as about 60 in 1873. Ma Bender was said to be about 50. John Bender was about 27. Kate Bender was about 24.
The Homestead Act of 1862 gave settlers the right to free land if they farmed it for five years. After the Civil War, the Osage Indians were moved to a reservation in Oklahoma, and their land was then given to homesteaders.
At the end of 1870, Benders claimed land in Kansas. They built a cabin about 2 miles from the town of Cherry Vale next to the Osage Trail. In the 1870s, many people traveled along the trail by horse or wagon. The Benders let travelers stay the night. They also sold groceries to their neighbors. In the 1870s, Spiritualism was popular in the USA. Kate Bender claimed to be a spiritual healer. She even called herself ‘Professor Kate Bender’.
The Bender’s ‘inn’ was divided into two rooms by a canvas curtain. Nobody witnessed their murders, but the victims all had the back of their heads caved in and their throats cut. It’s believed the Benders would ask guests to sit with their backs to the curtain. Standing behind it was a man holding a hammer. At the right moment, he would smash the back of the guest’s head with the hammer. The Benders would then cut his throat and rob him. Under the Bender’s hut was a small ‘cellar’. It’s thought the dead body was hidden there until it could be disposed of. The Benders also sold victims’ horses and wagons.
The Benders killed at least 11 people. The first definite victim was a man named Jones who was murdered at the beginning of 1871. His body was found dumped in Drum Creek. His head had been smashed in, and his throat was cut. Shortly after, two unidentified men were found dumped on the prairie, both of them had been killed in the same way as Mr Jones. The Benders then began burying their victims near their cabin rather than dumping them in the open.
The last victim of the Bloody Benders was Dr William H. York. Dr York had been an assistant surgeon in the Unionist army during the Civil War. He was in his early 30s at the time of his death.
In March 1873, Dr. York set out on horseback from Fort Scott, Kansas, for Independence. He told someone that he planned to stay at the Benders’ place. He was never seen alive again. His brother, Colonel Alexander York, grew alarmed when his brother did not return, and he set out with a party of men to look for him. The Benders admitted Dr York had stayed at their ‘inn’, but they claimed he had left normally. Colonel York and his men moved on but the trail went cold. When the Colonel returned to the Benders’ place, he found it abandoned. The Benders had realized the game was u,p and they had fled.
On 6 May 1873, Colonel York’s men discovered a trapdoor in the Bender’s ‘inn’ with a ‘cellar’ below. They found it had dried blood in it. Then someone noticed a depression in the ground near the shack. On digging, they found the body of Dr York. His head was smashed in, and his throat was cut.
Several other victims were found buried near the Benders ‘inn’. Altogether, seven graves were found. One of them contained two bodies.
Among the victims was Henry F. McKenzie from Indiana, who was relocating to Independence. He was about 29 at the time of his death. The body of William F. McCrotty from Cedar Vale was also found. Mr McCrotty had served in the Illinois infantry during the American Civil War.
Two victims were buried in the same grave. One of them was George Newton Longcor. Mr Longcor was a blacksmith and, like Mr McCrotty, he served in the American Civil War. He was 30 years old at the time of his death.
The other body was his infant daughter Mary Ann Longcor. She was only about 19 months old when she died. The child was either strangled or buried alive.
A victim named Benjamin M. Brown was identified by his silver ring. Mr Brown married in 1868 and was survived by his wife Mary Ann and his daughter Cora E. Brown. Mr Brown was aged 39 or 40 at the time of his death.
The bodies of two other men were never identified. Sadly, the bodies were too decomposed to allow identification. Altogether, the bodies of 7 men and a baby were found buried by the Benders’ shack, but it seems almost certain that the Benders also killed the three men found dumped in 1871.
Meanwhile the Benders had fled with their wagon to the town of Thayer. They then escaped by train. What happened to them afterward is a mystery. A party of men pursued the Benders, but the trail went cold. For years afterward, there were rumors that vigilantes had caught the Benders and killed them, but no evidence was ever found to prove this. Perhaps it was wishful thinking. People didn’t want to believe that the Benders escaped and would like to think they were dead. However, you could easily create a new identity on the American frontier. As far as is known, there were no photos of the Benders only vague descriptions. It’s quite possible the Benders escaped.
There are also several stories about people who escaped from the Benders. For some reason, they became suspicious and either refused to sit with their back to the curtain or fled from the Benders ‘inn’. However, it’s impossible to say if any of the stories are true.
The governor of Kansas offered a reward of $2000 (a large sum of money at that time) to anyone who could provide information leading to the arrest of the Benders, but nobody ever claimed it. The Bender’s shack was then broken up. People took pieces of it as souvenirs, and it soon disappeared.
Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper was a serial killer of women in the East End of London in 1888. The murderer was never caught and the case remains a mystery.
The Victims
Martha Tabram (?)
Nobody is certain how many women Jack the Ripper killed. Most people think there were 5 victims but there may have been others. One possible victim was Martha Tabram. Martha was born in 1849 and married in 1869. The couple separated in 1875 and Martha was eventually forced to sell herself. On 6 August 1888, on a bank holiday, Martha was with another woman called Pearly Poll. The two met a pair of soldiers in a pub.
The body of Martha Tabram was found on the stairs of a tenement block called George Yard Buildings. A couple called Mahoney who lived in the building saw nobody there at 1.40 am on 7 August. Then at 2 pm, PC Thomas Barrett saw a soldier in George Yard who said he was waiting for a friend who had gone with a girl. At 3.30 am a cab driver who lived in George Yard Buildings came home from work and saw what he thought was a woman sleeping on a first-floor landing. Then at 4.45, a man named John Reeves was going to work. By now it was getting light and Reeves saw the woman was in a pool of blood. The body was examined by Dr Timothy Killeen who estimated Martha had been killed about 2.30 am.
Martha had been stabbed 39 times. It was a frenzied attack. We don’t know if Martha was killed by a soldier or if after parting from him she met Jack the Ripper. At any rate, the two soldiers were never identified.
Mary Ann (Polly) Nichols
The first definite victim of Jack the Ripper was Mary Ann Nichols, known as Polly. She was born in 1845 and married a printer named William Nichols when she was 19. Polly had 5 children, Edward, Percy, Alice, Eliza, and Henry. However, by 1880 the couple were separated. For a time William Nichols paid her an allowance of 5 shillings a week but he stopped it in 1882 when he learned how she was earning her living.
For much of the next 8 years, Polly was in the workhouse. then in April 1888, Polly found a job as a maid to a couple called Cowdray who lived in Wandsworth. However, in July 1888 Polly absconded with clothes worth 3 pounds and 10 shillings (a large sum of money in those days. There were 20 shillings in a pound and many people earned less than 1 pound a week).
By August 1888 Polly was living in doss houses in Whitechapel. At 1.20 am on Friday 31 August 1888, Polly went to a doss house on Thrawl Street but she was turned away because she did not have the money for a bed. (In those days the price of a bed was commonly 4 pence). She said ‘I’ll soon get my doss money, see what a jolly bonnet I’ve got now’. At 2.30 am Polly met a woman named Ellen Holland. Polly said she had earned her ‘doss money’ (money for a bed in a doss house) 3 times that day but had spent it (on drink). Ellen tried to persuade her to return to the doss house in Thrawl Street but she refused. Instead, Polly went off to earn more money.
At about 3.40 am the body of Mary Ann Nichols (Polly) was found in Bucks Row (now called Durward Street). The body was taken to Whitechapel Mortuary. There were two cuts in her throat and several cuts in her abdomen. Poor Polly was buried in the City of London Cemetery on 6 September 1888.
Annie Chapman
The second definite victim of Jack the Ripper was Annie Chapman. She was born Eliza Ann Smith in London in 1841. In 1869, aged 28 she married a coachman named John Chapman. They had 3 children but 1 daughter died in 1882. By then Annie was separated from her husband who died in 1886. Annie lived by selling crochet work or flowers but sometimes she was forced to sell herself. At the time of her death, Annie was living at a common lodging house in Dorset Street.
At 11.30 pm on Friday 7 September Annie was allowed into the kitchen of the lodging house but at 1.35 am she was turned out because she didn’t have the money for a bed. Shortly before 5.30 am on Saturday 8 September a woman saw Annie with a man in Hanbury Street. The man said ‘will you?’ and Annie replied ‘yes’. The man was facing away from the witness but she said he had a deerstalker hat on and was shabby-genteel in appearance.
Then at about 5.25 a.m., a man named Albert Cadosh went into the backyard of 27 Hanbury Street. He heard a woman in the backyard of no. 29 say ‘no’. At about 6 am John Davis went into the backyard of 29 Hanbury Street and discovered the body of Annie Chapman. The body was taken to Whitechapel Infirmary where Dr George Bagster Phillips examined it. Her throat was cut. Her intestines had been cut out and laid on her shoulder and the uterus had been removed and taken away.
Why the murderer took her uterus is not known but perhaps like certain serial killers he wanted to have trophies of his victims. Or perhaps for him, a uterus was symbolic. Perhaps it was symbolic of women or symbolic of their power to give life. We will never know. At any rate, Annie Chapman was buried on 14 September 1888 at Manor Park Cemetery in Forest Gate.
On 27 September 1888, a letter arrived at the Central News Agency in London (which provided stories to London newspapers). The letter claimed to be from the murderer but it is generally believed it was a hoax. However, the letter was signed Yours Truly Jack the Ripper. So a hoaxer gave the murderer a sensational name.
Elizabeth Stride
We are not certain if Elizabeth Stride was a victim of Jack the Ripper. She was born Elizabeth Gustafsdottir in 1843 in Sweden. In 1865 Liz had a stillborn daughter. The next year, 1866 Elizabeth moved to London. In 1869 she married John Stride. The couple separated about 1877 and John died in 1884. Elizabeth became known as ‘Long Liz’ because of her surname Stride.
At 11 pm on Saturday 29 September, 2 labourers saw Elizabeth leaving the Bricklayers Arms in Settles Street. At 11.45 pm another labourer saw Liz with a man in Berner Street (now called Henriques Street). The man told her ‘You would say anything but your prayers’. Then at 12.30 PC Smith saw Elizabeth with a man in Berner Street. The man was about 28. He was about 5 feet 7 inches tall and wearing a dark coat and deerstalker hat. He was carrying a parcel wrapped in newspaper.
What happened next is not certain. At 12.45 am a man named James Brown said he saw Elizabeth with a man in nearby Fairclouth Street. The woman said ‘No, not tonight. Maybe some other night’. However, at the same time, a man called Israel Schwartz claimed he saw Liz with a man in Berner Street. The man pushed Elizabeth to the ground. Schwartz said he then noticed a man on the other side of the street with a pipe. The man attacking Liz shouted ‘Lipski!’ (Israel Lipski was a murderer and his name was a term of anti-Semitic abuse). Schwartz then fled from the scene. Obviously, one of these witnesses was mistaken so we are not sure what happened.
Whatever happened at that time the body of Elizabeth Stride was found at 1 am in Dutfields Yard off Berner Street by a man named Louis Diemschutz. He was driving a pony and cart but when he tried to enter the yard the pony shied. It was very dark but when he lit a match Diemschutz saw the body of a woman. Her throat was cut but her body was not mutilated. Maybe the killer was interrupted before he could mutilate Elizabeth Stride. Dr Frederick Blackwell arrived at 1.10 am and said Elizabeth had been dead for no more than 20 minutes.
If Israel Schwartz was right and the man who pushed Elizabeth to the ground later murdered her he might not have been the Whitechapel murderer. It is possible some other man killed Liz after some kind of argument. It is also possible she left the man who pushed her over and immediately afterward she met the murderer.
Catherine Eddowes
The next victim of Jack the Ripper was Catherine or Kate Eddowes. She was born in Wolverhampton in 1842 but her family moved to London in 1843. As a young woman, Kate lived with a man named Thomas Conway and they had 3 children in 1863, 1868, and 1873 but the couple separated in 1880. From 1881 Catherine lived with a labourer named John Kelly. In September 1888 they went hop-picking in Kent but when they returned at the end of the month they separated. At 8.30 pm on Saturday 29 September.
Catherine Eddowes was arrested for being drunk in Aldgate High Street. She was taken to Bishopsgate Police Station and locked in a cell to sober up. PC Hutt released Catherine at 1.00 am on Sunday 30 September. Catherine said ‘I shall get a damn fine hiding when I get home’. PC Hutt replied ‘And serves you right. You have no right to get drunk’. Her last words were ‘Alright Good night old cock’.
At 1.35 Catherine Eddowes was seen by 3 men at the entrance to Church Passage (now called St James Passage). Eddowes had her hand on his chest. The man was about 30 and was 5 feet 7 or 8 inches tall. He was of medium build and had a mustache. The body of Catherine Eddowes was found in a corner of Mitre Square by PC Watkins at 1.44 am.
The body was examined by Dr Frederick Brown. Once again the throat was cut. The intestines were drawn out and placed over the right shoulder. (Although a piece about 2 feet long had been cut off and placed between the body and the left arm). The uterus had been removed. (The murderer also removed the uterus of Annie Chapman but why he wanted them is a mystery). The left kidney was also missing from the body. The killer also made several cuts to Kate’s face.
Meanwhile, at 2.55 am PC Long found a section of an apron at the bottom of the staircase of Wentworth Model Buildings in Goulston Street. The piece of apron had been cut from an apron worn by Catherine Eddowes. Above the piece of apron the words ‘The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing’ were written in chalk.
However, it is not clear if the killer wrote those words or if somebody else did some time before. On 16 October George Lusk Chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee received a letter and a parcel. In it was half a human kidney. The writer claimed the kidney was from Eddowes and he fried and ate the other piece. It is generally believed it was a hoax.
Catherine Eddowes was buried on 8 October 1888.
Mary Jane Kelly
The last definite victim of the Whitechapel murderer was an Irish woman named Mary Jane Kelly. Not much is known about her for certain. She was younger than the other victims and was about 25 when she died. Mary Jane was born about 1863 in Limerick, Ireland and it is said her family moved to Wales when she was small. By about 1884 Mary was living in London.
Mary lived in a single room in a building in Millers Court. This was a group of buildings arranged around a small courtyard. The court was off Dorset Street and it was reached through an alley about 3 feet wide and 20 feet long. Her only furniture was a bed, a washstand, and 2 small tables. Her body was found in this hovel.
At 2.00 am on Friday 9 November, a man named George Hutchinson met Kelly in the street. She asked to borrow 6 pence but he did not have the money. As she walked away a stranger approached Mary. Hutchinson heard him say to Mary ‘You will be alright for what I have told you’. He said the man was about 34 or 35 and was 5 feet 6 inches tall. Hutchinson described the man as ‘shabby genteel’.
He followed the pair to the entrance of Millers Court where Mary said to the stranger ‘Alright my dear. Come along you will be comfortable’. She kissed the man with her and said she had lost her red handkerchief. The man gave her one to replace it. Hutchinson hung around for 45 minutes then left the area.
At about 3.45 am 3 people in Millers Court heard a cry of ‘Oh murder!’. None of them took any notice as such cries were common in the area. Then at 10.45, the landlord sent a man to collect the rent Mary owed. He reached through a broken windowpane and moved a coat hung as a curtain. He saw the mutilated body of Mary Jane Kelly.
Her breasts were cut off and the internal organs were removed from her abdomen. Her uterus, kidneys, and breast were found under her head. The other breast was found by her right foot. The liver was placed between her feet. The intestines were on the right side of the body and the spleen was on the left. The poor woman’s face was obliterated. The murderer had also cut the flesh off her thighs. The heart was missing.
Mary Jane Kelly was buried in St Patrick’s RC Cemetery in Leytonstone on 19 November.
On the morning of 9 November, Mrs Paumier was selling hot chestnuts on the corner of Widegate Street and Sandys Row. A man approached her and said: ‘I suppose you have heard about the murder in Dorset Street?’. Mrs Paumier replied that she had. The man grinned and said: ‘I know more about it than you do’. the man was about 5 feet 6 inches tall and had a mustache. He wore a black coat and hat and he carried a black bag. However, we do not know if he was the killer or if it was a hoax.
Alice McKenzie (?)
Several months after the murder of Mary Jane Kelly a woman named Alice McKenzie was murdered. However, it is unlikely she was a victim of Jack the Ripper as her throat was not cut. Instead, she was stabbed in the neck twice and the body was not mutilated (although there were cuts in her abdomen). Alice was from Peterborough and was born about 1849. She was known as Clay Pipe Alice because she smoked a pipe. At the time of her death, Alice McKenzie was living in Gun Street with a man named John McCormack. However, at 2.50 am on 17 July 1889 PC Andrews discovered the body of Alice McKenzie in Castle Alley. In July 1889 Alice McKenzie was buried in Plaistow cemetery.
The Pinchin Street Torso (?)
On 10 September 1889, PC Pennett found a woman’s torso with its head and legs cut off covered by a piece of women’s clothing under a railway arch on Pinchin Street. The abdomen was mutilated. The victim was never identified and the killer was never caught. However, it is unlikely the woman was a victim of Jack the Ripper because the killer’s method of dealing with the body was quite different.
Frances Coles (?)
Another woman was murdered in 1891. She was called Frances Coles but she was also known as Carroty Nell. However, it is unlikely she was a victim of Jack the Ripper because she was still alive when she was found. Frances Coles was found in Swallow Gardens (which no longer exists). PC Thompson discovered the body at 2.15 am on Friday 13 February. He shone his torch in her face and she opened one eye. However, she died shortly afterward. The killer was never caught. It seems that Frances Coles and Alice McKenzie were killed by some other unknown men.
What Sort of Man Was Jack the Ripper?
Jack the Ripper must have been a local man since he knew his way in the rabbit warren of streets and alleys. He probably had a job as he usually killed at the weekends. The murderer was probably working class. In fiction, he is sometimes shown as a gentleman with a top hat and cape but in reality, people who probably saw the murderer said he was not particularly well dressed. Furthermore, if he lived locally it is unlikely he was well off as the great majority of people in Whitechapel were working class. Jack probably lived alone as he went out in the early hours of the morning and returned with blood on him without arousing any suspicion. Witnesses said Jack was in his late 20s or early 30s and that is the age at which serial killers usually murder people.
It is debatable if Jack the Ripper had any surgical skills. Some people at the time thought he did but others disagreed. He may have been a slaughterman. If he was that would enable him to walk through the streets with blood on him without arousing suspicion. Lastly, Jack the Ripper had a murderous hatred of women. Why is not known but it has been suggested he was abused by his mother. Of course none of the above is certain.
The Suspects
William Bury
William Bury lived in Bow, in London at the time of the murders and he sold sawdust for a living. In January 1889 he moved with his wife Ellen to Dundee. In February 1889 he strangled his wife with a rope and then cut the body several times with a knife. Amazingly Bury then went to the police and gave himself up. He claimed his wife committed suicide. Not surprisingly he was not believed and Bury was hanged in April 1889.
However, Bury killed by strangulation with a rope while Jack the Ripper cut his victim’s throats. He also killed strangers while Bury killed his wife. Furthermore, it does not seem likely that a cunning man who had evaded capture after several murders would just go to the police and hand himself in. Altogether William Bury is not a convincing suspect.
George Chapman
Chapman was born in Poland in 1865 (his real name was Severin Klosowski). He moved to London in the 1880s and later married 3 women. He poisoned all 3 of them (In 1897, 1901, and 1902). Chapman was hanged in 1903. Again there is no evidence to link Chapman to the Whitechapel murders. The murders he committed were different. Jack the Ripper killed strangers by cutting their throats and then mutilating them. Chapman married women and then poisoned them. Furthermore, at the time of Jack the Ripper Chapman was only 23, which makes him younger than the man eyewitnesses saw.
David Cohen
On 7 December 1888, David Cohen was arrested as a lunatic wandering at large. He was sent to Whitechapel Workhouse Infirmary and then to an asylum. Cohen was violent but he died of natural causes in October 1889. There is nothing to link Cohen with the Whitechapel murders and he was probably too deranged to have carried them out. Jack the Ripper was cunning and he must have been able to act normally when not killing people to avoid suspicion. Cohen sounds too disorganized to have been Jack the Ripper.
Montague John Druitt
Druitt was born in 1857 into a well-off family in Dorset. At the time of the murders in 1888, he was working as a barrister in London. He was also working part-time in a school but for some reason, he was dismissed from there on 30 November. Druitt committed suicide at the beginning of December by jumping in the Thames and his body was found on 31 December. Druitt left a note saying he feared he was going to be like his mother (she was mentally ill). He may also have been depressed about losing his job at the school. However, there is no evidence that this unfortunate man was Jack the Ripper. He seems to have become a suspect purely because he killed himself about a month after the last murder.
Aaron Kosminski
On 7 February 1891, Aaron Kosminski was sent to an asylum and he stayed there until he died in 1919. Kosminski heard voices and ate food from the gutter. Kosminski was mentally ill but while he was in an asylum he was never violent (except once when he attacked somebody with a chair). It is said that Kosminski threatened his sister with a knife. We don’t know exactly what happened but it probably was a domestic argument. (Domestic violence was common in the East End). There is no evidence that Kosminski was Jack the Ripper.
Michael Ostrog
It is believed that Michael Ostrog was born in Russia in about 1833. He was a con man and a thief. However, Ostrog was never violent. He was also tall and stood about 5 feet 11 inches tall, which makes him much too tall for any of the eyewitness descriptions of Jack. Ostrog was also much older than the man seen by witnesses. Furthermore, it is not certain if Ostrog was in London at the time of the murders. He was sentenced to 2 years for theft in Paris on 18 November 1888. All in all, it seems most unlikely Ostrog was the Whitechapel murderer.
Francis Tumblety
Francis Tumblety was born in 1833 and he was a quack doctor. He was in London in 1888. However, Tumblety was in his mid-50s in 1888, and eyewitnesses saw a much younger man. Furthermore, he was 5 feet 10 inches tall. (That was tall by the standards of Victorian London) and people who saw the killer described a younger man. By all accounts, Tumblety was a rogue but there is no evidence that he was violent and there is nothing to link him with the Whitechapel murders.
Prince Albert Victor, the Duke of Clarence
Prince Albert Victor was the grandson of Queen Victoria. His father was the future King Edward VII. Albert Victor was born in 1864. He was partly deaf and according to some accounts he had mild learning difficulties. He died during an influenza epidemic in 1892.
Leaving aside the question of motive, Albert Victor was too tall to fit the witness’s descriptions of the killer. In any case, he had an alibi for the nights of the murders. When Polly Nicholls and Annie Chapman were killed he was in Yorkshire. He was in Scotland when Liz Stride and Kate Eddowes were murdered and he was in Norfolk when Mary Kelly died. In short, it is very unlikely that Prince Albert Victor was Jack the Ripper.
Jack the Ripper in Havant?
Havant has a connection with Jack the Ripper. At the time of the murders, in 1888 a letter with a Portsmouth postmark was sent to a magistrate claiming to be from Jack the Ripper. The writer said not to look for him in London because ‘I’m not there’. Shortly afterwards a boy in Havant was stabbed 3 times in the throat and died. A lot of people were afraid that Jack was in the area but it seems unlikely as he killed women, not boys.
At about 6 pm on 26 November 1888 an 8-year-old boy called Percy Searle was walking along a lane between Manor Close and Pallant House. (His mother sent him to get some material from a drapers shop in North Street). He was stabbed in the neck 3 times. One stab severed an artery and caused him to bleed to death. An 11-year-old boy named Thomas Husband said he heard a ‘squeal’ and saw a man stabbing Percy. Thomas said he shouted ‘murder’ and the man ran away.
Thomas ran and grabbed a man named John Platt by the arm. He told Platt what had happened. Platt persuaded the boy to go with him to the site of the murder and then told him to fetch the police. But instead of going to the police station Thomas Husband went home and washed his hands. The police found a knife near the body of the victim.
The unfortunate boy, Percy Searle was laid to rest in New Road Cemetery in Havant on 1 December 1888.
Meanwhile, the odd behaviour of the boy Thomas Husband made the police suspicious. Why did he wash his hands? Husband said he was passing the end of the lane when he witnessed the murder but the police thought he could not, in fact, have seen it from that point. They then discovered the knife belonged to Thomas’s older brother, George. He admitted it was his knife and said he usually carried it in his jacket pocket. But he said that on Sunday (the day before the murder) he changed into his ‘Sunday clothes’. He had not seen the knife since.
On 28 November 1888, the police arrested Thomas Husband. They found spots of blood on his clothes (although there was no proof they came from the dead boy).
The trial of Thomas Husband began on 19 December 1888. He did not give evidence himself but an expert witness, Professor Tidy, said the blood spots on the boy’s clothes were at least a month old.
He also said that if Thomas Husband had stabbed the victim his hands would certainly have been bloodstained. Thomas Husband’s father and stepmother said they saw no blood on his hands when he came home and his stepmother said she told him to wash his ‘coaly’ hands. John Platt, the man first approached by Thomas Husband said that when Husband grabbed his sleeve
The defence lawyer also argued that Thomas Husband could not have killed Percy Searle because he was only slightly taller than him and it would have taken the strength of a grown man to stab him to death. (In his summing up the judge told the jury they would have to decide if it was physically possible).
A boy named Charles Clark told the court that on the day of the murder, Husband had waved a knife at a boy and said ‘I am Jack the Ripper’. He could not swear it was the same knife used to kill Percy Searle. The judge warned the jury it might just be ‘childish play’.
The jury took less than a quarter of an hour to find Thomas Husband not guilty. The case was never solved and it remains a mystery.
The Axeman of New Orleans
The axeman of New Orleans was an unknown serial killer in the years 1918-1919. As his title suggests, he killed people with an axe. He usually chiseled out a panel of a back door to gain access to people’s homes. His first victims were Joseph Maggio, an Italian grocer and his wife, Catherine. On 23 May 1918 the axeman broke into the couple’s home. He cut their throats with a razor and then hit them both with an axe. The motive for the murders was unclear. It was not robbery, as nothing was taken.
The axeman next struck on 23 June 1918.
The Blossom Alley Tragedy
A gruesome murder happened in Portsea, Portsmouth in 1923. The victim was Mary Frances Pelham, aged 37. According to newspaper reports she was born in ‘the north of England’. During the First World War, she moved to Brighton and later to Portsmouth. She was separated from her husband. Mary was a kind woman, especially to local children. She was a sex worker although she also sold flowers. She was known as Brighton Mary.
On 27 January 1923, a neighbour found her dead in bed in her hovel. The unfortunate woman had been strangled with a scarf or handkerchief. She was also stabbed or slashed with a broken bottle. A neighbour had seen Mary with a sailor the previous night. The navy held an identity parade and a woman did pick out one sailor but he had an alibi and was never arrested. The killer was never found.
The public was shocked, not just by the murder but by her living conditions. She lived in Blossom Alley, an alley 300 yards long and only 4 feet wide. Her home was a ‘one-up-one down’. Built in the 18th century it was one room over another joined by a ladder. The floors were sagging so the ceiling of the bottom room was 6 feet high at one end and 10 feet high at the other. Five houses shared three outside toilets and one water tap. Following the horrific murder, a great deal of slum clearance took place in Portsea.
The Shark Arm Case
The Shark Arm Case happened in Sydney, Australia in April 1935. Fishermen caught a 14-foot-long live tiger shark. It was put on display in Coogee Aquarium but at about 5 pm on 25 April 1935 (Anzac Day) the shark regurgitated a tattooed human arm. The arm was well preserved and it had a tattoo of two boxers. It had a rope tied around its wrist. A medical examination showed it had been cut off not bitten off. The shark had eaten the arm at least 8 days before. Clearly, this was a case of murder, not an accidental death. But where was the rest of the body?
A man named Edwin Smith recognized the description of the tattoo and told police the arm might belong to his brother James. He had gone missing weeks before. The police were able to obtain fingerprints from the hand and they confirmed that it did belong to James Smith. He was a construction worker and a boxer. He was 40 years old. His wife had reported him missing on 8 April 1935.
Police found out that James Smith had last been seen drinking with a friend called Patrick Brady. Afterward, they went to a cottage hired by Brady. The owner of the cottage said that a mattress and a tin trunk had gone missing. The police thought that Brady murdered James Smith and placed his body in the tin trunk. Perhaps one arm wouldn’t fit so he cut it off and tied it to the trunk. He then dumped the body in the sea, but a shark swallowed the arm.
The police also found evidence that James Smith had worked for a man named Reginald Holmes. Holmes was a wealthy boat builder, but he was also involved in drug smuggling. He admitted Smith had worked for him. However, the two men had fallen out and, the police believed, Smith had been blackmailing Holmes. He was killed to silence him.
On 16 May 1935, the police arrested Patrick Brady. Then on 20 May Reginald Holmes was arrested. He now told police that Brady killed Smith. He said Brady brought the severed arm to his house and tried to blackmail him with it, threatening to kill him too if he did not pay a sum of money.
However, on 12 June Reginald Holmes was found shot in his car. Without his testimony, there was not enough evidence to convict Patrick Brady. He was brought to trial in September 1935 but Mr Justice Jordan directed the jury to acquit him. Patrick Brady was formally acquitted on 12 September 1935. He died in 1965.
Gordon Cummins – The Blackout Ripper
Gordon Cummins was a serial killer in Britain in 1942. He was known as the Blackout Ripper because he killed women during blackouts. During the Second World War, all lights had to be hidden to avoid helping enemy bombers. Windows were covered to prevent lights in buildings from shining out, and the streets were unlit. That was known as the blackout. Of course, the blackout provided many opportunities for crime, and as a result, it became much worse.
Gordon Frederick Cummins was born in York in 1914. His parents were middle-class. Cummings went to school till he was 16 and then went to college in Northampton till he was 18. However, Cummins was a lazy student. He was fired from his first job for laziness. He joined the RAF in 1935. However, Cummins was known as a fantasist who told tall tales. He was not popular with his peers. In 1936 he married a young woman named Marjorie Cummins.
In the early morning of 9 February 1942, the body of a woman was found in an air raid shelter in Marylebone, London. She had been strangled with her scarf and then dumped in the air raid shelter. The woman’s handbag was found near the scene, but it did not yield any clues.
The unfortunate woman was identified as Evelyn Margaret Hamilton, aged 41. She was a pharmacist from Newcastle. She worked as a shop manager in Essex. Unfortunately, she had lost her job. Evelyn managed to get another job in Grimsby, and she was staying in London on her way to her new position. She was last seen alive in a cafe, and the police believed she was attacked while she was walking back to her boarding house. At first, they thought it was a robbery that went wrong.
On 10 February 1942 another crime was discovered. Evelyn Oatley, aged 35, was found dead in her apartment in Soho. Evelyn was a sex worker. She met Cummins and took him back to her home. Her throat had been cut with a razor, and the body had been slashed. A blood-stained can opener was found on the bed. It had been used to mutilate the body. Fortunately, the police found a fingerprint.
The third victim was Margaret Lowe, aged 42. She was also a sex worker. It is believed she was murdered on 11 February 1942 in her flat in Gosfield Street off Tottenham Court Road. However, her body was not discovered until 13 February. She had been strangled and stabbed multiple times. The pathologist Bernard Spilsbury described the mutilations as ‘quite dreadful’. Once again, the police found fingerprints.
The fourth victim was Doris Jouannet. She was last seen alive on 12 February 1942, and her body was found the next day at her home in Paddington. She had been strangled with a scarf and then mutilated.
On the evening of 13 February, Cummins attacked a woman named Mary Heywood in Picadilly. He met her in a bar and persuaded her to come with him to another pub for a drink. However, in a dark street, Cummins tried to strangle the woman. Fortunately, a young man heard a commotion and went to help. Cummins fled the scene and in his hurry, he left behind his gas mask and haversack, which had his name and air force number.
The RAF confirmed that the gas mask belonged to an airman called Gordon Cummins. The police arrested him for the assault on Mary Heywood, and on searching his living quarters, they found belongings of the murder victims. The police also found that Cummins’ fingerprints matched those found at the crime scenes.
Cummins denied the murders and claimed that another serviceman had stolen his gas mask and committed them. Not surprisingly, the jury did not believe him. Cummins was tried for murder. On 28 April 1942, he was found guilty and sentenced to death.
Gordon Cummins was hanged in Wandsworth prison in London on 25 June 1942, during an air raid.
Elizabeth Short, The Black Dahlia
Elizabeth Short, known as the Black Dahlia, was the victim of an unsolved murder that took place in 1947. She was just 22. Her body was found on the morning of Wednesday, 15 January 1947, on a vacant building plot in the Leimert Park district of Los Angeles in California. Her naked body was found by a woman named Betty Bersinger who was walking with her 3-year-old daughter.
The body of Elizabeth Short had been cut in half at the waist with a sharp instrument. Her cheeks had been cut to make a grotesque parody of a smile. There were also other lacerations on her body. Elizabeth’s arms were raised over her head and bent at the elbows, her legs were apart. The lack of blood at the scene indicated Elizabeth had been killed at another location then dumped on the plot. The killer had also washed the body. No attempt was made to conceal the body. It seems whoever killed her wanted to shock people by leaving the body in plain view.
The autopsy report revealed the cause of death was hemorrhage from lacerations and shock caused by blows to the head and face. Elizabeth was anatomically normal. She was not pregnant.
From fingerprints detectives identified the dead woman as Elizabeth Short aged 22. She became known as the Black Dahlia but if she was called that before she died or if the nickname was invented afterward is uncertain. Whenever the name was first used it probably came from a 1946 film called the Blue Dahlia, in which a man is suspected of murdering his wife. Elizabeth dyed her hair black and sometimes wore black clothes. Because of her appearance, she was dubbed the Black Dahlia.
Elizabeth or Betty Short was born on 29 July 1924 in Hyde Park, Massachusetts. Elizabeth had four sisters, two older, Virginia and Dorothea, and two younger, Eleanora and Muriel. Her parents were Cleo and Phoebe Short. In 1926 the family moved to Medford, Massachusetts and Elizabeth grew up in that town. Her father Cleo Short made miniature golf courses but in 1930 he left his family. Cleo parked his car near a bridge to make it look as if he had killed himself. Phoebe Short was left to raise her daughters alone. They lived in Salem Street. After a few years, Cleo Short wrote to Phoebe and asked to be forgiven but she refused. However afterward Elizabeth wrote to her father.
Elizabeth Short was a pretty girl with blue eyes and brown hair. Family and friends called her Betty.
However, Elizabeth suffered from asthma so in 1940 she was sent to the warmer climate of Florida for the winter months. She worked as a waitress. Elizabeth returned to Medford in the spring. She went to Florida again in the winter of 1941 and returned to Medford in the spring of 1942.
At the end of 1942 when she was 18 Elizabeth moved to California to stay with her father. However, they did not get on. Elizabeth quarreled with her father and moved out. In January 1943 Elizabeth got a job as a civilian clerk in Camp Cooke, an army camp 10 miles north of Lompoc. (It is now Vandenberg Air Force Base). She worked there until late August. During that time Beth Short was voted camp cutie.
However in September 1943, aged 19 she was arrested for underage drinking in Santa Barbara. Elizabeth was sent back to Medford. In the winter she moved to Miami Beach in Florida. Elizabeth continued to work as a waitress.
Despite her conviction for underage drinking, as an adult Elizabeth did not drink or smoke. She was also a courteous woman who did not swear.
At the end of December 1944, Elizabeth Short met Major Matthew M Gordon in Miami Beach. The couple soon got engaged. Tragically Major Gordon was killed in a plane crash on 10 August 1945 just days before the end of the Second World War.
In July 1946 Elizabeth went to Los Angeles to visit an old boyfriend named Joseph Fickling. However, Fickling moved to another state. Elizabeth then stayed in hotels and people’s homes, never staying anywhere for very long. Unfortunately, being homeless made Elizabeth vulnerable.
In December 1946, Elizabeth went to San Diego. On 8 January 1947, a man named Robert Manley (known as ‘Red’ because of the color of his hair) offered to drive her to Los Angeles. They spent the night in a motel, but Manley said they did not sleep together. The next day, Thursday, 9 January 1947, Manley took Elizabeth to the Los Angeles bus station, where she deposited her luggage. He then went with her to the Biltmore Hotel. He left her there at about 6.30 pm.
Unfortunately, where Elizabeth went after saying goodbye to him and what she did in the next 6 days is a mystery. At some point, Elizabeth met the killer. Cleo Short refused to identify the body of his daughter at the morgue. That task was left to her mother, Phoebe. (Cleo Short also refused to attend his daughter’s funeral). A massive investigation began, but the killer was never found. As the last person to see Elizabeth Short alive, Red Manley was an obvious suspect. However, he passed 2 lie detector tests, and he had an alibi. Red Manley died in 1986. There were many other suspects, but none could be linked to the murder.
On 24 January 1947 somebody sent a package to the Los Angeles Examiner. It contained Elizabeth Short’s birth certificate, social security card, photos, a newspaper clipping about Matt Gordon, and an address book belonging not to Elizabeth but to an acquaintance of hers named Mark Hansen. (Some of its pages had been torn out).
In the package was a message made up of words cut from newspapers. It said ‘Here is (sic) Dahlia’s Belongings’ and ‘Letter to follow’. (These items were soaked in gasoline to remove fingerprints). It seems the killer reveled in his notoriety.
Later, somebody calling himself ‘The Black Dahlia Avenger’ sent several more letters. However, these other letters did not contain anything belonging to Elizabeth. They may have been hoaxes. Unfortunately, many deranged people made false confessions to the murder, which wasted a great deal of police time.
Meanwhile, on 25 January 1947, the purse and one of the shoes belonging to Elizabeth Short were found in a dumpster several miles from where the body was found. (They were identified as hers by a friend, Robert ‘Red’ Manley). However, they did not bring the police any closer to the killer.
The last detective who worked on the Black Dahlia case, Ralph Asdel died on 31 December 2003. (He was a 26-year-old detective at the time of the murder). Whoever killed Elizabeth is now almost certainly dead too and it’s unlikely we will ever know who he was.
Elizabeth was buried in Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California on 25 January 1947. (Elizabeth loved California).
In 1993, a memorial to Elizabeth Short was erected in her hometown of Medford, Massachusetts.
Jack The Stripper
The Thames Nude Murders were a series of murders in London in the 1960s. Because the killer removed the victims’ clothes, he became known as Jack the Stripper.
It’s not certain how many women he killed but on 2 February 1964 the body of Hannah Tailford was found floating in the River Thames near Hammersmith Bridge in London. She was naked apart from her stockings. The unfortunate woman was strangled and several of her teeth were missing. Her knickers had been stuffed down her throat. The police surmised she had been dumped in the river at Dukes Meadows, a parkland in Chiswick 24. Hannah was a sex worker. She was from Northumberland and she was 30 at the time of her death.
On 8 April 1964 a second body was found on the shore of the Thames at Chiswick. The victim was Irene Lockwood, aged 26. Like Hannah Tailford she was a sex worker. The police realised that both women were probably killed by the same man.
A third victim was found on 24 April 1964 in an alleyway in Brentford. The woman had been strangled and three of her front teeth were missing. She was identified as Helen Barthelemy aged 22 from Glasgow. She was naked and specks of a lead-based paint were found on her skin. It was the kind of paint used in the car industry and the police surmised that her body had been stored in a workshop where a high-pressure paint sprayer was used.
A fourth victim, Mary Fleming was discovered on 14 July 1964 in Berrymede Road in Chiswick, London. Mary, a Scottish woman was a sex worker. She was 30 years old. This time, too, specks of paint were found on the victim’s body.
Another victim, Frances Brown AKA Margaret McGowan, was found in a car park in Kensington on 25 November 1964. Frances was a sex worker. She was born in Glasgow. At the time of her death she was 21.
On 16 February 1965, the body of Bridget O’Hara, known as ‘Bridie’ was found by a shed behind the Heron Trading Estate in Acton, London. Again, flecks of paint were found on the body. Bridget was born in Dublin and she was 27 years old.
The murders then stopped, perhaps because the killer committed suicide. Or perhaps he was arrested for an unrelated offence. Thames Nude Murders, also called the Hammersmith Nude Murders, were never officially solved.