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It has come to my attention that there was another set or murders even more heinous, than anything Jack achieved, which also occurred in Victorian London. I have scoured the internet trying to find any information on them, but have been unable to find anything in any great detail or indeed any books on the subject. I am referring to all the children that went missing in West Ham over a nine or ten year period, between 1881 and 1890. I'm not entirely sure how many there were, but the first appears to have been Mary Seward in 1881 and the last Amelia Jeffs in 1891. Can anyone shine any light on this for me?
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Originally posted by Robert View Post
Thanks Robert, but I stumbled across another webpage that listed them all, but I can't now for the life of me find it again. It started in 1881 and a couple of the victims lived in the same street, it seems!!! I'm just shocked that such a horrendous set of circumstances are so poorly documented?Comment
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SC, there's a discussion here :
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Thanks again Robert. Have eventually found the website again that I was looking forOriginally posted by Robert View Post
This certainly is a really creepy case, which is touched upon in the book Rivals of the Ripper. But I am surprised that other books on the subject haven't been published.Comment
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Some of Jan's book is online here :
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Originally posted by Robert View Post
Interesting stuff, am curious to know whether there are any books
devoted entirely to these murders?
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Not as far as I know, SC.Comment
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I was only thinking of this the other day, as I read it in the 'Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper'.Comment
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Elliott O'Donnell, a popular writer on "Ghost" tales and the paranormal in the 1930s to 1950s wrote an account in his book "Strange Disappearances" in one it's chapters. However, although it has been used by other writers (Michael Harrison bascially copied word for word a listing of the incidents in his book "In the Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes"), it is apparent that O'Donnell, in his zeal to show how strange the case is did not really do the incident (or it's victims full justice). On the old "Casebook" website, I wrote an account of two of the incidents, the disappearance of a boy in 1884 who was found dead at Margate, and the disappearance of Amelia Jeffs in 1890. In both cases fairly straightforward discussions showed that the boy, Wagner, was lured by a dubious character he knew into stealing a large sum of cash from his father, and subsequently dying under mysterious circumstances from a fall off a local site - a cliff - after dark (he was probably pushed by his companion); and the young Ms Jeffs was the victim of a sex crime (strangled after being molested while on a supposed date) by one of three males (a son, his father, or his grandfather) and deposited in the newly built house (in a cupboard) by one or all of them. In both cases evidence could not be brought directly on the chief suspect, so they "got away with it" from a legal point of view - but the public generally remained suspicious of them.
I suspect this is the case concerning all of these incidents in the list. I'd use O'Donnell as a reference with great care due his propensity to hide details.
JeffComment
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The West Ham incidents were even discussed in the House of Commons: http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/c...ate-mysterious- GingerComment
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