I was just looking at constable Frederick Foster's crime scene drawing of Catherine Eddowes as she was found. Every time I see it I have the same immediate reaction- she looks like she's swallowed a live grenade. She was the most extensively mutilated victim up to that time, with uterus and left kidney taken away (and kidney removed from the front- not an easy job), yet the timeline of events and the conditions within Mitre Square say that she went from being seen alive to the condition depicted in the drawing within ten minutes, and that the butchery was done in near pitch darkness with police never far away. Then there is the facial mutilation, with careful and deliberate v-shaped cuts that would have taken extra time. It is one of the things about the entire Ripper case that freaks me out the most. I thought it might make for interesting discussion what everyones' thoughts are about the seemingly impossible speed at which the Ripper accomplished this in those conditions.