Free London's Shadows: The Dark Side of the Victorian City by Drew D. Gray

tenuous, was made. It has proved a hard connection to break and has lent weight to the theories surrounding Sir William Gull, Tumblety and Cream and, more recently, Dr Williams.
    The inquest was adjourned for two weeks before Phillips was pressed to explain what he meant by his observation that part of the body was missing. While the press did not report this part of the evidence an article in The Lancet on 29 September 1888 revealed the extent of the murderer's actions and why Phillips believed a medical man may have been responsible.
The abdomen had been entirely laid open ... the intestines, severed from their mesenteric attachments, had been lifted out of the body, and placed by the shoulder of the corpse; while from the pelvis the uterus and its appendages, with the upper portion of the vagina and the posterior two-thirds of the bladder, had been entirely removed. No trace of these parts could be found, and the incisions were cleanly cut [...] obviously the work was that of an expert - of one, at least, who had such knowledge of anatomical or pathological examinations as to be enabled to secure the pelvic organs with one sweep of a knife.58
    This murder took place when it was light, probably at about 5.30 in the morning; there were also plenty of people about - Spitalfields Market had opened at five o'clock. In the opinion of the police surgeon it took the murderer 15 minutes to complete his work. He then had to make his escape, possibly with hands covered in blood (there was no evidence that he stopped to wash his hands at the tap in the yard), carrying not only the murder weapons but also part of Annie with him. Did no one see him, or did he not stand out in anyway? The first scenario is unlikely, with so many people living in this busy area of Whitechapel, so we must conclude that the murderer blended in with his surroundings and had a very secure knowledge of the local geography as David Canter has suggested. Annie had taken her killer into the yard behind 29 Hanbury Street, a site familiar to local prostitutes and used by many people. No one would have been surprised to hear voices in the early hours but there was a chance to catch `Jack' on this occasion. Before John Davis discovered Annie's dead body another man had gone out into the yard next door to answer the call of nature. He heard a cry and the sound of something heavy hitting the fence. He ignored it and went back inside, if he had but peered over the boundary he may well have been able to identify the Ripper. One of the features of the Ripper murders is the luck that the killer seemed to possess - on several occasions he came extremely close to being discovered committing his crimes.
    The next three weeks were characterized by mounting panic with the failure of the police to catch the killer. Inhabitants of Whitechapel banded together into self-defence and vigilante groups. Suspected individuals were hounded in the streets, notably an unsavoury character called John Piser or `Leather Apron'. Piser was a Jew who was known to prey on prostitutes, beating them and even threatening to `rip them' with the long butcher's knife he carried. The papers identified him as the murderer and he went into hiding. When he was eventually discovered he was taken into custody as much for his own safety as that of the local whores. At the station he was searched and, as the newspapers reported, he owned a strange assortment of possessions but none that singled him out as a killer. He had `a heap of rags, comprising pieces of dress fabrics, old and dirty linen, two purses of a kind usually used by women, two or three pocket handkerchiefs ... two small tin boxes, a small cardboard box, a small leather strap, which might serve the purpose of a garterstring, and one spring onion. 60 He was described as 5 ft. 7 in., `slightly built' and `dressed shabbily', he wore a beard and moustache and a cloth skullcap `which did not improve his appearance' in the opinion of The Times