Who Knew About 29 Hanbury Street?

[Addy]

True, but that could easily be solved by putting on a pair of gloves.

Greetings,

Addy

[The Snapper]

More reasons

I agree it would have been impossible to entirely leave the scene without any traces of blood on his person but I think the strangulation was more to do with keeping the blood to certain areas. Leaving bloody footprints for instance would not be a great idea and with poor light conditions he would have to be confident in his methods. There is also another reason for my belief in this approach. The victim was heard to cry out but only briefly. This would be his initial purpose for tightly grasping the throat. With his victim facing him and her hands conveniently out of the way as she lifted her skirts he was in a strong position. She may have backed onto the fence intentionally (for obvious reasons) and during the struggle ended up in the corner. The phrase :
"Will you ?" may be referring to a request for penetrative sex. With this ruse in place he could be sure of where her hands were going to be and his work became easier.

[dixon9]

fair point addy


Dixon9
still learning

[GregBaron]

Gloves............

True, but that could easily be solved by putting on a pair of gloves.

This brings up a thought.........what kind of gloves were available in 1888? All but plastic surgical gloves limit dexterity, not sure how much dexterity was required for Jack's gougings but....? Also it seems feeling around for an organ would be tougher without the tactile subtleties provided by the fingers........?

Another thought is....... wouldn't it be best to ditch these gloves as potential evidence? Sans DNA of course....... but a non butcher with a nasty set of butcher gloves might raise eyebrows........Just thinking aloud here really....I suppose also no gloves were ever found in the police searches....

Thoughts anyone?

Greg

[Addy]

I think the ripping was done with his bare hands and he put gloves on afterwards, discarding them (if he did, because the evidence was on the inside) in a totally different area.

The gloves available at that time would probably be leather ones, either for professional use or more fancy ones for dress.

Greetings,

Addy

[Barnaby]

Why wear gloves at all? Fingerprinting wasn't available. It seems just as easy and less cumbersome to wipe his hands on a piece of cloth afterward.

[Addy]

That is a possibility too. There is a quote in a book from two policemen where one points out a man with his hands wrapped in cloth saying: if he has blood on his hands, we wouldn't see it. They didn't even stop him but that is a different discussion. So people having their hands wrapped in cloths wasn't uncommon and that could have happened too. After all, you can easily put a piece of cloth in your pocket when your done.

Greetings,

Addy

[Chava]

There is no record of blood on the outside handle of the back door at #29. For the matter of that, no record of bloody hand or fingerprints at Millers Court. I know that identification by fingerprint hadn't happened yet, but I would have thought that any copper recording the scene would have noted finger or hand prints if only to indicate possible hand size of the murderer. I know we all like to think of the Ripper investigation as being run by the Keystone Kops, but I don't think they were so completely incompetent as to ignore that kind of evidence. I'd also expect them to note blood-smears on the bed or wherever where the killer wiped his hands. Yet there is no suggestion of that kind of evidence here or in any of the other murders. He was careful to wipe his hands on something and took the time to do that before he left the scene. I think this is an interesting train of thought and I'm gonna start a new thread to keep this one on-topic.

[Hunter]

I know we all like to think of the Ripper investigation as being run by the Keystone Kops...

Not all of us do.

A clean handkerchief would have done the trick and nearly everyone carried one or more.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Who knew about unlocked cellars with people sleeping in them?

Daily News, Oct 4:

There is a very general belief among the local detective force in the East-end that the murderer or murderers are lurking in some of the dangerous dens of the low slums, in close proximity to the scenes of the murders. Among other circumstances which support this theory is that some of the houses supposed to be bolted up for the night are found to have secret strings attached to the bolts, so that the house can be entered by persons who are acquainted with these secrets without delay or noise. It has been ascertained by the detectives that the house in Hanbury-street where Annie Chapman was discovered murdered had a bolt with a secret string, and this fact is believed to have been known to the deceased woman. Even the cellars in some of the slums are stated to be occupied for sleeping purposes by strange characters who only appear in the streets at night. These dilapidated hovels are unfit for human habitation, and are known to the police to be the hiding places of the most dangerous and desperate characters. The police, it is stated, are contemplating a series of immediate and sudden raids upon these dreadful dens, both in the City and Whitechapel.

Oct 5:

STREET LIGHTING IN THE EAST END

"Resolved, that this Board regards with horror and alarm the several atrocious murders recently perpetrated within the district of Whitechapel and its vicinity, and calls upon Sir Charles Warren so to regulate and strengthen the police force in the neighbourhood as to guard against any repetition of such atrocities."

"Go to," adroitly replies Sir Charles Warren. "Look to your lamps. The purlieus about Whitechapel are very imperfectly lighted, and the darkness is an important assistant to crime." There can be no doubt in the mind of anybody who knows the purlieus of Whitechapel that the Commissioner has fairly scored one against the Whitechapel District Board of Works. "You are decidedly of opinion, then," was a question addressed to Chief Inspector West, "that if your division were generally better lighted it would tend materially to render many forms of crime more difficult and the capture of criminals more easy?" "Most certainly," was the ready rejoinder. "Look even at this Commercial street. It has always appeared to me to be very insufficiently lighted - a broad and important thoroughfare like this. It is none too brilliant now. Lying just off it there are some of the lowest of lodging houses, and you can see how easy it must be for rough characters to snatch from the persons passing along and rush off into their dens in the darkness with very little chance of their being identified or followed. But wait until the few shops are closed, and the public house lights are put out, and see then how wretchedly the street is lighted, and what opportunities there are for all sorts of mischief to go on."

Looking up this main thoroughfare it is impossible to deny that there is much force in what the officer says, and turning into the minor streets and lanes in the neighbourhood the opportunities afforded by the murky condition of the streets for the perpetration of crimes of violence are very apparent. Put out the public house lamps at twelve o'clock, and shut up one or two little shops, and you have - for instance, in Fleur de Lys street - a dismal little lane suggestive of almost anything bad. Obscure thoroughfares like Elder street, Quaker street, Blossom street are all of them open to the same criticism, and a very little exploration will convince anybody that that in most of them there are deeper depths of gloom, affording really startling facilities for vice and crime. "Look here, sir," said an anxious and despondent woman to the officer who was looking round one of these murky lanes last evening. "We may all be murdered here any night. This door's open all night long. People may get down in the cellar or out in the back yard, or up the staircases, and none of us can prevent 'em." The house passage widened out into a sort of washhouse, and behind this was a very nasty yard, all in utter darkness. The District Board of Works saw, and reasonably enough of course, that they cannot be held responsible for this. It is the landlord's affair. But as a matter of notorious fact, in all the poorer quarters of London, the landlords do not look to the security of their tenement passages and back yards, and cannot be made to do so. And it is a fact which certainly seems to afford a strong reason why at least the actual streets should be well lighted. In many cases, however, not only is the lighting of the streets very insufficient either for comfort or security, but yards for which the authorities are certainly responsible are entirely neglected. Take as an illustration of this Pope's Head court in Quaker street. It opens from the street by a public passage, and the yard itself is in utter darkness. The lodgers in an adjacent public house have a way to it by a back gate. Seen at any rate by night it has the appearance of a place specially planned for deeds of crime and vice; and the unfortunate people who have to grope their way to their rooms through the dirt and darkness are loud in their complaints. "Been here six years," said a rough looking occupant of a room in the court, "and never had no key, and never had the front door locked. Look at that staircase leading up to that place there - anybody may get up them, and do just what they like. I have begged the landlord to give us a lock on the door, and a key. But not he; he takes no notice of us, and don't care a curse whether we gets murdered or not." The lighting and cleansing at least of this court seem to be the work of the District Board, and the circumstances under which this nasty little retreat was found - quite incidentally in the course of an inspection of the street - certainly suggested the probability that many others of a similar character might have been found by further search in the same neighbourhood. Some of the courts and streets inspected in this poor neighbourhood are very fairly lighted, but every here and there one was found in which apparently the greatest economy of lamp lighting had been practised, in consideration of the fact that the flaring lights of public houses sufficiently supplemented the street lamps up till midnight. After midnight, however, such streets are terribly gloomy. Let any one go down Spital street, for instance, after twelve o'clock at night and say whether throat cutting and "snatching" and general vice are not suggested by the murky darkness of the locality. From there go on to Buxton street and thence into Code street - not only wretchedly lighted, but ankle deep in mud, by the way. These are in the immediate neighbourhood of Hanbury street, which is itself for the most part very poorly lighted. In this street, it will be remembered, it has already been shown that large numbers of the houses are let out tenements, and the street doors and passages are open all night long. The terror of many of the people at the time that murder was found out in one of these houses was intense. Said one woman, "There are unlocked cellars down under these houses, and the yards are all open, and we may any of us be murdered in our beds." Last night as a small party of inspectors moved about the neighbourhood there were abundant indications that this terror had by no means subsided. Again and again appeal was made that something should be done for their greater safety, and the general anxiety and sense of insecurity must unquestionably have been greatly intensified by the unsatisfactory lighting in the streets. "When this public house is shut up, " said the police inspector, "how could I possibly make out anything going on a few yards off." The lamps, it may be, are not too far apart, but they are feeble flickerings wholly behind the times.

Now it must not be supposed that we are singling out the Whitechapel district for especial censure. Much of the evil character of Whitechapel as a region of slums and filth and squalor is purely a matter of tradition. It may have been true of it a generation ago, but it is true no longer, as regards by far the greater part of the district at least. In lighting and cleansing and general management Whitechapel is at least on an equality with localities in the south and north, and even in may parts of the west. But there are 70,000 people here, and among them a police sergeant observed last night that he had in the district assigned to him no less than 6,000 residents in common lodging houses. Of course they will include a serious proportion of the criminal and cadger class, and lighting and patrolling that might be sufficient elsewhere may very well be wholly insufficient among a population like this. Having regard to the character of the population, Sir Charles Warren says unequivocally that the neighbourhood is imperfectly lighted, and that the darkness is an important assistant to crime. The District Board of Works will we understand shortly have the Commissioner's letter under consideration, and the reply they may be expected to make is that they do not increase their lamps for precisely the same reason that Sir Charles Warren does not increase the number of his men. Lamps, like policemen, cost money, and the lighting of Whitechapel cannot be rendered more brilliant without a serious addition to the rates. Roughly speaking, every street lamp represents a hundred pounds capitalised. That is to say, the annual maintenance of a lamp costs about the interest of £100, and altogether the lighting of the entire district costs in round figures £5,000 a year. It is a good round sum no doubt but if it is really true that an increase of light would tend decidedly to the suppression of crime it seems very probable that the addition of even another £5,000 and the doubling of the light would be a good investment. But a good deal less then this would effect a great improvement in the safety and comfort of thousands of people, and very much the same may be said of many other large districts of London. At no very distant date it may be science and public spirit may combine to banish darkness altogether. Science, indeed, is quite ready to undertake the business offhand, and to pour over any section of London such a blaze of light that slums and passages and back yards can no longer give shelter to deeds of darkness. But funds, alas, are not yet forthcoming. As yet we prefer to spend our money in providing plunder for thieves, and in maintaining them when we have caught them in spite of all the difficulties of darkness. No doubt we shall be wiser some day, but an intelligent comprehension of these matters is like the revolution of electric lighting - a matter of slow and gradual progress.

[Christian]

.

If anyone has the time to muddle their way through all the posts, there are some astounding photographs somewhere in the "East End Photographs and Drawings" thread of the inside layout of another house on Hanbury Street that was apparently similar if not identical in layout to #29. It is absolutely incredible to me how the residents of #29 could sleep at night knowing that strangers were passing through. Whenever I saw the word "passage", my mind's eye had conjured up some tiny little hallway that could be shut off from the main part of the house. Not true. People who came in there were very much "in the house". I hope the residents could lock their bedroom doors!

I’m with your thinking Brenda on Backyard of 29 being selected as a choice murder location!! So so risky being caught or spotted with so many people crammed into those adjoining houses!! I have often thought maybe he didn’t care about being caught ? It would take some balls to confront a crazed killer/ attacker with a knife!! Possibly knew the location and it’s layout-escape routes??

[NotBlamedForNothing]

An interesting anecdote in The Echo, Sep 10:

Mrs. Richardson, who superintends a packing-case business carried on at the back of the premises, says that, strangely enough her grandson, Charles Cooksey, was to have slept in the back room on Friday night; but he told her he did not like to, remarking, "I shan't sleep in there to-night, granny." That room, on the ground-floor, within six feet of where Annie Chapman's body lay, was unoccupied. "Had my grandson slept there," said Mrs. Richardson, "he must have heard the miscreant kill the poor woman."

I wonder what his objection was, to sleeping next to the backyard and right above the cellar?
Also, did JtR know the back room was unoccupied, that night?

[Christian]

An interesting anecdote in The Echo, Sep 10:

Mrs. Richardson, who superintends a packing-case business carried on at the back of the premises, says that, strangely enough her grandson, Charles Cooksey, was to have slept in the back room on Friday night; but he told her he did not like to, remarking, "I shan't sleep in there to-night, granny." That room, on the ground-floor, within six feet of where Annie Chapman's body lay, was unoccupied. "Had my grandson slept there," said Mrs. Richardson, "he must have heard the miscreant kill the poor woman."

I wonder what his objection was, to sleeping next to the backyard and right above the cellar?
Also, did JtR know the back room was unoccupied, that night?

Very interesting have not read or heard this report/ quote before!!

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

An interesting anecdote in The Echo, Sep 10:

Mrs. Richardson, who superintends a packing-case business carried on at the back of the premises, says that, strangely enough her grandson, Charles Cooksey, was to have slept in the back room on Friday night; but he told her he did not like to, remarking, "I shan't sleep in there to-night, granny." That room, on the ground-floor, within six feet of where Annie Chapman's body lay, was unoccupied. "Had my grandson slept there," said Mrs. Richardson, "he must have heard the miscreant kill the poor woman."

I wonder what his objection was, to sleeping next to the backyard and right above the cellar?
Also, did JtR know the back room was unoccupied, that night?

Interesting little snippet that one.

It's no more or less sinister than we make it out to be. Maybe Charles Cooksey had a "better offer" that he didn't divulge to granny? It was Friday night. Might be pure coincidence. Might be he didn't fancy a night of being disturbed by the sounds of unfortunates and punters.

Did Jack know it was empty? That relies on him choosing the location. But if Annie knew the door was open, or had used it before, then it's just chance. Still an interesting find, it adds some more layers to the detail.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Very interesting have not read or heard this report/ quote before!!

Interesting little snippet that one.

It's no more or less sinister than we make it out to be. Maybe Charles Cooksey had a "better offer" that he didn't divulge to granny? It was Friday night. Might be pure coincidence. Might be he didn't fancy a night of being disturbed by the sounds of unfortunates and punters.

The Echo, Sep 11:

[Illegible] WHO SLEPT IN THE BACK ROOM.

[Illegible] Hardeman and Charles Cooksley, aged respectively [illegible] and 14 years, were the [illegible] to sleep, as was their custom, in the back room, on the ground floor, at No. 29 Hanbury-street, on Friday night. The distance from the head of the bedstead to the spot where the deceased was murdered was only twelve feet. Almost at the last moment Cooksley declined to sleep there, and went to bed upstairs. Had he slept in his accustomed place, he must, he said this morning, have heard the slightest unusual sound. The boy stated that his cloth apron and a box of nails, which lay in the yard a short distance from the body, were seized by the police and are still retained by them. The lad Hardeman slept in a room adjoining the cat's-meat shop. This sleeping-place is only separated by a wainscot partition from the passage through which the murderer and his victim must have passed into the yard. Yet the boy heard no sound during the night.

At the inquest, granny said; At six a.m. my grandson, Thomas Richardson, aged fourteen, who lives with me, got up. I sent him down to see what was the matter, as there was so much noise in the passage. He came back and said, "Oh, grandmother, there is a woman murdered." I went down immediately, and saw the body of the deceased lying in the yard. There was no one there at the time, but there were people in the passage.

So two lads did not sleep in their usual room that night, and in the morning John turned up, unusually, with a knife. More from The Echo:

PERPLEXING FEATURE OF THE CASE

One of the most perplexing features in the case, from a police point of view, is the conflicting statement as to the time "Dark Annie" met her death. Dr. Phillips, the divisional surgeon, who arrived a few minutes after six o'clock, gave it as his opinion that death had taken place some hours before-at about three o'clock. But John Richardson, a married man, whose house is but a few paces from 29, Hanbury-street (where his mother lives) assured the police that at five o'clock on the morning of the murder he went to the yard there, sat down on the stone steps, and cut a small piece of leather from his boot. "There was no dead woman there then, that I can swear," said Richardson.

Instead of DIY, John should have taken his boot to a professional...

ESCAPING THE CROWD.

In expectation that Piser would return to Mulberry-street a mob not altogether friendly gathered to give him a reception last night, but they waited for his appearance in vain, for Piser remained at Leman-street Police-station at the hour when it was published abroad that he had been discharged. Upon searching his effects five knives were found, and of these the police took possession, but they were of the pattern used by boot finishers, and are without handles, consisting of curved blades of steel, eight inches long, sharpened on one end, but not to a keen edge. A man of Piser's class usually owns five or six of these tools. A "clicker" is also furnished with a much more formidable instrument, having a hafted blade about five inches long and half an inch broad, curved like a foreign dagger, with a sharp saw-like edge, but apparently not much stronger than an ordinary pocket-knife. Piser would not have possessed one of these weapons.

Did Jack know it was empty? That relies on him choosing the location. But if Annie knew the door was open, or had used it before, then it's just chance. Still an interesting find, it adds some more layers to the detail.

I'm not entirely convinced the two entered together, or even that Jack used the front door.