I was called shortly after 2 o’clock. I reached [the Square] about 18 minutes past 2 my attention was called to the body of the Deceased … The body was on its back – the head turned to the left shoulder – the arms by the side of the body as if they had fallen there, both palms upwards – the fingers slightly bent, a thimble was lying off the finger on the right side. The clothes were drawn up above the abdomen, the thighs were naked, left leg extended in line with the body. There was great disfigurement of the face. The throat was cut across to the extent of 6 or 7 inches. The abdomen was all exposed. The intestines were drawn out to a large extent and placed over the right shoulder – they were smeared with some feculent matter. A piece of about two feet was quite detached from the body and placed between the body and the left arm, apparently by design.
Crawford’s question vis à vis ‘design’ has been quoted on a previous page. Dr Brown’s statement continued: ‘… The lobe and auricle of the right ear [my emphasis] were cut obliquely through; there was a quantity of clotted blood on the pavement, on the left side of the neck and upper part of the arm … The body was quite warm (no rigor mortis) and had only been there for a few minutes.’ ‘Before they removed the body’, he ‘suggested that Dr Phillips should be sent for, and that gentleman, who had seen some recent cases, came to the mortuary … Several buttons were found in the clotted blood after the body was removed … There was no blood on the front of the clothes. There were no traces of recent connection [i.e. no sponk]. When the body arrived at Golden Lane the clothes were taken off carefully from the body, a piece of the deceased’s ear dropped from the clothing.’5
This will prove of significance. Dr Brown had noticed at the crime scene that ‘the lobe and auricle of the right ear were cut obliquely through’ (i.e. the whole ear), but only a part of the ear, the lobe, was discovered on arrival at the mortuary. Where the auricle went, whether it was retrieved or had been taken away by the murderer, is not disclosed.
Brown then goes on to describe a truly astonishing catalogue of injuries. The assassin had ripped through Eddowes as if he was on his way to somewhere else: ‘The womb was cut through horizontally leaving a stump 3/4 of an inch, the rest of the womb had been taken away with some of the ligaments … the peritoneal lining [the internal surface of the abdomen] was cut through on the left side and the left kidney taken out and removed.’ (My emphasis.)
Crawford asks if the stolen organs could be used for any professional purpose. Brown’s answer was in the negative: ‘I cannot assign any reason for these parts being taken away.’ Crawford then asks: ‘About how long do you think it would take to inflict all these wounds, and perpetrate such a deed?’ The physician reckoned about five minutes, and confirmed his opinion that it was the work of one man only. He was then asked ‘as a professional man’ to account for the fact of no noise being heard by those in the immediate neighbourhood.
BROWN: The throat would be so instantaneously severed that I do not suppose there would be any time for the least sound being emitted.
CRAWFORD: Would you expect to find much blood on the person who inflicted the wounds?
No. He would not. But he could confirm that bloodspots on Eddowes’ apron (which was produced) were recent.
Crawford asked: ‘Have you formed any opinion as to the purpose for which the face was mutilated?’ This is an interesting question. Crawford suggests that the face may have been mutilated for a purpose. The doctor had no opinion, thinking it was ‘simply to disfigure the corpse’. He added that a sharp knife was used, ‘not much force required’.
If anyone on the jury had any questions about those inverted ‘V’ marks on Eddowes’ face, they were out of luck, because Coroner Langham here adjourned, reconvening the court one week hence.
The next few days gave Crawford time to reflect, perhaps even to dwell on the ‘purpose’ of the curious mutilations, and what they might mean in concert with the ritualistic mutilations of Annie Chapman. Crawford must have been as cynical as everyone else about the fabulous adventures of ‘the American Womb-Collector’, particularly when a doctor had just told him that the burgled organs would be useless for medical purposes.
So why would the coroner at Annie Chapman’s inquest, Baxter, countenance such hogwash? Was it in any way connected with Warren’s destruction of the writing on the wall? Was there some undisclosed reason for wanting it rubbed out? These were questions to ponder, albeit with answers which Crawford had already determined.
On Thursday, 11 October, The Times reported on the resumption of the inquest, claiming that a ‘good deal of fresh evidence’ was on the cards. ‘Since the adjournment,’ it continued, ‘Shelton, the Coroner’s Officer, has, with the assistance of City Police authorities, discovered several new witnesses.’ These included a couple of (briefly suspected) male associates of Eddowes, and even her long-lost daughter. No one paid much attention to this crew, and neither do I. But there were some new witnesses of interest.
At about 1.30 a.m. on the night of Eddowes’ murder, three gents left their club in Duke Street, and stepped out into the rain. The Imperial Club was an artisans’ night out, exclusively Jewish, catering to the upper echelons of the working class. Two of the men walked slightly in advance of the third. They were Joseph Levy, a butcher, resident just south of Aldgate, and Henry Harris, a furniture dealer of Castle Street, Whitechapel.
Mr Harris wasn’t called to give evidence at the inquest, because he said he saw nothing, and that his companions saw nothing either, ‘just the back of the man’. But one of them clearly did see something. He was a forty-one-year-old commercial traveller in the cigarette trade, by the name of Joseph Lawende.
Lawende had already attracted press attention. On 9 October, two days before the resumption of the inquest, the Evening News had published a summary of what the public might expect in respect of this trio’s exit from the Imperial Club: ‘They noticed a couple – a man and woman – standing by the iron post of the small passage that leads to Mitre Square. They have no doubt themselves that this was the murdered woman and her murderer. And on the first blush of it the fact is borne out by the police having taken exclusive care of Mr Joseph Lawende, to a certain extent having sequestrated him and having imposed a pledge on him of secrecy. They are paying all his expenses, and 1 if not 2 detectives are taking him about.’
It’s assumed by The Jack the Ripper A to Z that the City Police were protecting Lawende from the press. This may be so, but it’s obvious that they were also protecting him from the Met. They didn’t want anyone making – shall we say – unhelpful suggestions about what he may or may not have seen. This is corroborated by a Home Office minute later in the month. With quite startling hypocrisy, it states: ‘The City Police are wholly at fault as regards detection of the murderer. They evidently want to tell us nothing.’6
If I were the City Police – most particularly over the farce at Goulston Street – I wouldn’t want to tell the Home Office anything either. It’s clear, in respect of wash-it-off-Warren, that the City Police were attempting to protect the integrity of their witness.
Two days later, Levy and Lawende were in court. But this time there was an adjustment in approach from the ‘active legal luminary’. Crawford knew perfectly well why Warren