Walter Dew: The Man Who Caught Crippen Read online

  ‘Jack the Ripper! Jack the Ripper! Lynch him!’ The cry was started by a few and taken up by hundreds.

  Behind us as I ran I could hear the tramp of hundreds of feet.

  Stacey and I dashed in after him. He led us up the stairs and into a bedroom where we grabbed him just as he was making his way through a back window.

  I was done in. So was Stacey. Now for a rough time, I thought. ‘Squibby’ had never been known to be arrested without the most violent resistance.

  However, Squibby was terrified of the howling mob that had gathered outside. The trembling Squibby put himself in the hands of Dew and Stacey, who now had to get him back to the safety of the nearest police station.

  I told him we would do what we could, but I have often wondered what would have happened had not a number of uniformed police officers followed and, as I discovered afterwards, with great difficulty held the door of the house in which we were marooned.

  Precautions had also been taken against a demonstration of mob law. Urgent messages had been sent to the surrounding police stations – Leman Street and Commercial Street – and soon reinforcements of uniformed police arrived on the scene.

  The baffled crowd became more bloodthirsty than ever. The very precautions the police were taking confirmed them in their conviction that the man whose life they were demanding could be none other than the East End Terror.

  Presently, however, the yells of the crowd became more subdued, and I ventured down to the front door of the hovel into which our prisoner had led us. The sight I saw filled me with relief. Scores of lusty policemen were clearing a space in front of the house.

  On emerging into Flower-and-Dean Street I realized that our dangers were far from over. At the sight of the little man being shepherded by a posse of police officers the mob seemed to go mad.

  They made one mad, concerted rush which threatened for a time to break down the police barrier. Their cries became louder than ever, filthy epithets being intermixed with the demands for ‘Squibby’s’ summary execution.

  One thoughtful young constable solved our immediate problem by getting a four-wheeled cab from Aldgate into which we bundled our prisoner and proceeded with the police forming a ‘guard of honour’.

  At last it seemed that our troubles were over. But, oh dear, no! Several ugly rushes were made at the cab, and more than once it came within an ace of being over-turned.

  A big, burly inspector named Babbington came to our rescue. He suggested that we should be much safer on foot than in our precarious vehicle, and with this I agreed. So out we scrambled, just along Spitalfields Market.

  The whole of Commercial Street was now packed by a yelling, hooting mob of frenzied people. Some, I have no doubt, regarded the opportunity as a heaven-sent one to have a go at the police.

  A lane was formed all the way to Commercial Street police station, and after what seemed to me an interminable time, and likewise I am sure to ‘Squibby’, we fought our way into the grimy-looking building which for once looked really beautiful to me.

  The station is, or was, an island. It was immediately surrounded by the mob, now more infuriated than ever because the man they believed to be the ‘Ripper’ had been delivered safely at the police station.

  Even now they did not abandon hope of taking the law into their own hands. The police station was attacked again and again, and it was only the indomitable pluck of the men in blue which prevented an innocent man being crucified. There were many sore heads in Commercial Street that day.

  After many hours, the crowd eventually dispersed. ‘Squibby’ received a three-month prison sentence, much to his relief. ‘I shall be much safer in Pentonville’, he said. Dew had never seen anything like the mob he saw on that day. ‘Every man and woman in that mob was ready to tear a fellow-creature to pieces because some fool, seeing a man pursued by police officers, had shouted “Jack the Ripper”.’

  A story appeared in the Star newspaper on the day of the murder of Annie Chapman which appears to be a report on the ‘Squibby’ incident:

  A man for whom there has been a warrant out for some time was arrested. In an instant the news spread like wild-fire. From every street, from every court, from the market stands, from the public-houses, rushed forth men and women, all trying to get at the unfortunate captive, declaring he was ‘one of the gang,’ and they meant to lynch him. Thousands gathered, and the police and a private detective had all their work to prevent the man being torn to pieces. The police barrack doors were closed the moment their prisoner had been brought in, and a number of constables did their duty outside to prevent the mad onrush of the furious crowd. The inspector in charge informed our reporter the man was arrested for an assault on the police. The crowd sighed at hearing the news, but were not persuaded that the person in question had not something to do with the murder.3

  So one false suspect had narrowly escaped death. The genuine suspect ‘Leather Apron’ – John Pizer – had also been arrested, but he had provided alibis for the nights of the previous murders, and was released.

  Two more likely suspects quickly emerged. On 9 September William Pigott was arrested at Gravesend. He had told locals there that he had walked to Gravesend from Whitechapel, and spoke of his hatred of women. The police found a bloodstained shirt amongst his possessions. Pigott’s explanation was that a woman had bitten his hand in a yard at the back of a lodging house in the East End. However, he was eventually exonerated from any involvement in the Whitechapel murders.

  Then there was Joseph Isenschmid. He was a 38-year-old butcher from Holloway who was frequently absent from his lodgings in the early hours. Furthermore, Isenschmid had spent ten weeks at the Colney Hatch lunatic asylum the previous year. Abberline was fairly confident of the suspect’s validity. He said that, ‘[a]lthough at present we are unable to procure any evidence to connect him with the murders he appears to be the most likely person that has come under our notice to have committed the crimes’. Sergeant Thick added that Isenschmid was known as the ‘mad butcher’. Isenschmid was later eliminated, when further murders occurred while he was detained in a lunatic asylum.

  Despite such exciting incidents as the pursuit of ‘Squibby’, the relentless and futile investigation was taking its toll on Dew, who recalled, ‘We were hard pressed. Sometimes, as I went wearily about my work, ever seeking the elusive clue that would bring the Killer to justice, I became sick at heart as I wondered how much longer those nightmares were to continue.’

  Dew would refer to the Whitechapel murderer as Jack the Ripper throughout his later reminiscences, from the murder of Emma Smith onwards. This was due to faulty memory, for as he admitted, ‘After the lapse of so many years I find it difficult to say just when the name of Jack the Ripper became associated with the Whitechapel murders, but it was certainly in the early days of the mystery.’ The name of Jack the Ripper did not exist until the Central News Agency received a letter on 27 September 1888. It was written in red ink, and read:

  25 Sept. 1888

  Dear Boss

  I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they wont fix me just yet. I have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track. That joke about Leather Apron gave me real fits. I am down on whores and I shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled. Grand work the last job was, I gave the lady no time to squeal. How can they catch me now, I love my work and want to start again. You will soon hear of me with my funny little games. I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with but it went thick like glue and I cant use it. Red ink is fit enough I hope ha. Ha. The next job I do I shall clip the ladys ears off and send to the police officers just for jolly wouldn’t you. Keep this letter back till I do a bit more work then give it out straight. My knife’s so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get a chance, good luck.

  Yours truly

  Jack the Ripper

  Don’t mind me giving the trade name.

  Wasnt good
enough to post this before I got all the red ink off my hands curse it. No luck yet. They say I’m a doctor now ha ha.

  Dew was sure the letter was a hoax:

  That letter did not deceive me for one moment. I am ready to stake my reputation that it was never penned by the man whom the signature was supposed to represent.

  The man who wrote that letter was illiterate. If you accept it at its face value you must rule out at once the theory widely held at the time, and accepted in many quarters to-day that Jack the Ripper was a man of education and culture.

  The view that the ‘Dear Boss’ letter was fraudulent was shared by several of the senior officers who worked on the case. Chief Inspector John George Littlechild of the Special Branch had no hesitation in pointing the finger at the man who had forwarded the letter to the police, Tom Bulling of the Central News Agency. Littlechild said, ‘With regard to the term “Jack the Ripper” it was generally believed at the Yard that Tom Bullen [sic] of the Central News was the originator but it is probable Moore, who was his chief, was the inventor.’ Dr Robert Anderson, the Junior Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, described it as ‘the creation of an enterprising London journalist’.

  The police presence in the East End of London was stepped up. Hundreds of officers, in both plain-clothes and uniform, swamped the district. All manner of disguises were employed, including policemen dressing as women. The early panic among the prostitutes was dying down. Dew recalled:

  Indeed the conduct of these women throughout the period of the crimes was to me one of the most remarkable features of the whole drama.

  It is true they became panic-stricken following each of the later murders. Sheer terror was reflected in their faces as they walked about, no longer singly, but in groups.

  But soon their courage returned. The groups gave way to couples, and then, as time passed with no further evidence of the Ripper, they were to be seen venturing once more alone.

  Some of them tried to make a joke of the business. They would call across the street to me, ‘I’m the next for Jack.’

  Though much of this was bravado cloaking a secret fear, I had to admire their attitude.

  3

  The Elusive Jack

  England had never known anything like it before; I pray she will never again.

  Walter Dew

  An awe-struck and bewildered detective constable Walter Dew said of the horrific events of the night of 30 September 1888, ‘I am completely mystified as to how the terrible events of that night could have happened. What courage the man must have had, and what cunning to walk into so carefully prepared a trap and to get out again without anyone having the slightest suspicion that he was abroad.’

  The Ripper struck twice in one night. The first murder took place in Berner Street. Dew knew the area well:

  Berners [sic] Street had been reformed. Formerly it had been known as Tigers’ Bay and had been the refuge of many of the most desperate criminals of the East End. But the police had combed and cleared it, with the result that it had become a comparatively decent street in which to live.

  Some distance along the street was a dark, narrow court, leading to Commercial Road. The court was closed at night by two large wooden gates, in one of which there was a small wicket gate for the use of residents when the larger ones were closed. It was through this wicket gate that the Ripper and the first of his two victims that night passed.

  The court had no lamps and was in darkness. On one side were cottages occupied mostly by cigarette makers and tailors. The whole length of the other side was taken up by the rear of a social club known as The Working Men’s Educational Club. A back entrance linked the building with the court and was in fairly frequent use.

  At 1 a.m. Louis Diemshutz, the steward of the International Working Men’s Club (a socialist working men’s club) in Berner Street, entered Dutfield’s Yard in his pony-drawn costermonger’s barrow. Both the gates to the yard were wide open. As the pony entered the yard it shied to the left. Diemshutz looked to his right, where he saw something lying on the ground, but it was too dark for him to make out what it was. When he examined it more closely by the light of a match Diemshutz saw it was the body of a woman, but whether she was drunk or dead, he could not tell. Diemshutz entered the club and told his wife and the members present that there was a woman lying in the yard. He returned with a lighted candle and saw blood by the body of Swedish-born prostitute Elizabeth ‘Long Liz’ Stride.

  The police arrived in the yard, followed soon afterwards by a local doctor, Frederick Blackwell. Blackwell noted that Stride’s throat had been cut and her neck and chest were still quite warm. Her legs and face were slightly warm, but her hands were cold. He thought that the murder had taken place some 20–30 minutes before. Dr Phillips arrived shortly afterwards. He thought that the fatal injury could have been inflicted in as little as two seconds.

  Dew was moved by the fate of Stride. ‘Poor, pathetic thing! Just another unfortunate of the streets whose pinched face and shabby clothing spoke plainly enough of struggling poverty.’ Dew observed, ‘Traces of prettiness remained in her face, and there must have been a time when she had been exceedingly proud of her curly black hair.’ The Ripper had made yet another successful escape. Dew believed that his escape on this occasion must have been an extremely close one. The detective thought that Diemshutz’s return to the yard had interrupted the killer, ‘for he did not stay to mutilate the body. His blood lust was not satisfied.’

  While Dutfield’s Yard buzzed with the commotion of the police investigation another murder was taking place in nearby Mitre Square, which was within the boundaries of the City of London, which had its own police force. The victim was prostitute Catherine Eddowes. Dew described the scene of the crime:

  Mitre Square is small as a square, but very much larger in area than the court in Berners [sic] Street. Moreover, even in those days, it was well lit. On three sides it was flanked by large warehouses, and on the fourth by two dwelling-houses.

  Ironically enough, a police officer lived in one of the houses. He had gone to bed at midnight, worn out by a long day of Ripper hunting, and was doubtless fast asleep by the time the murder was committed, almost under his own window.

  The murder of Eddowes was the most dreadful to date. Her throat had been cut and her face mutilated. She had been disembowelled and her intestines had been largely drawn out and placed over her right shoulder. Eddowes’ left kidney and uterus had been taken away. Once again the escape of the Ripper astonished Dew. He said it was ‘little short of a miracle. Small wonder, when it became known, that there were many among the public ready to ascribe to him powers gained from supernatural sources!’

  The City of London’s police surgeon, Dr Frederick Gordon Brown, arrived at Mitre Square at 2.18 a.m. He thought that Eddowes had been dead for about half an hour, and that her injuries had been caused by a sharp pointed knife some 6in long. Brown made some contentious observations upon the nature of Eddowes’ injuries:

  I believe the perpetrator of the act must have had considerable knowledge of the position of the organs in the abdominal cavity and the way of removing them. It required a great deal of knowledge to have removed the kidney and to know where it was placed. It would take at least 5 minutes.

  Now two police forces were hunting the Ripper. Dew wrote of their collaboration:

  A criticism levelled at the police at this time was that following the Mitre Square murder there was little or no co-operation between the City and the Metropolitan police forces. This is sheer nonsense. The two forces worked amicably together in this as in thousands of other cases.

  There was never the remotest reason for one body of police to be jealous of the other.

  Speaking from my own experience, I can only say that I always found both the detective and uniformed branches of the City police ready and willing to help. Their main purpose, as ours, was to prevent and detect crime.

  At 2.55 a.m. PC Alfred Long found a piece of Eddowes�
�� apron at the bottom of the stairs leading to 108–19 Goulston Street, a block of flats. Above it was written in chalk, ‘The Juwes are The men that Will not be Blamed for nothing.’ This was misremembered by Dew as ‘The Jews are the men who will not be blamed for nothing.’

  Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Charles Warren learned of the existence of the message. Warren explained his subsequent actions:

  The most pressing question at that moment was some writing on the wall in Goulston Street evidently written with the intention of inflaming the public mind against the Jews and which Mr. Arnold with a view to prevent serious disorder proposed to obliterate, and had sent down an Inspector with a sponge for that purpose telling him to await his arrival.

  I accordingly went down to Goulston Street at once before going to the scene of the murder: it was just getting light, the public would be in the streets in a few minutes, in a neighbourhood very much crowded on Sunday mornings by Jewish vendors and Christian purchasers from all parts of London.

  A discussion took place whether the writing could be left covered up or otherwise or whether any portion of it could be left for an hour until it could be photographed, but after taking into consideration the excited state of the population in London generally at the time the strong feeling which had been excited against the Jews, and the fact that in a short time there would be a large concourse of people in the streets and having before me the Report that if it was left there the house was likely to be wrecked (in which from my own observation I entirely concurred) I considered it desirable to obliterate the writing at once, having taken a copy.

  Arnold and Warren’s fears of public disorder were not misplaced. The locality of the murders was inhabited by Jews of all nationalities, and 108–19 Goulston Street was predominantly occupied by Jews. Arnold said he ‘was apprehensive that if the writing were left it would be the means of causing a riot’.

  As to whether the message had been written by Jack the Ripper, and had therefore been a clue, Dew was fairly certain that it was not: