Catherine Eddowes

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The canonical five Jack the Ripper victims
Mary Ann Nichols
Annie Chapman
Elizabeth Stride
Catherine Eddowes
Mary Jane Kelly

Catharine (Kate) Eddowes (spelled "Catharine" in her birth certificate but not commonly used) is widely believed to be the fourth victim of the notorious unidentified serial killer "Jack the Ripper," who killed and mutilated prostitutes in the Whitechapel area of London during the late summer and autumn of 1888. She used the aliases "Kate Conway," "Kate Kelly," and "Mary Ann Kelly", after her two common-law husbands. She was forty-four at the time of her death, killed on the night of the "Double Event" that had seen the murder of Elizabeth Stride less than an hour earlier.

She was the only victim killed within the City of London, though close to the boundary of Whitechapel. Eddowes' killing was very typical of Ripper murders, and similar to that of Annie Chapman three weeks earlier.

Eddowes, who never formally married, was the daughter of George Eddowes, a tinplate worker, and his wife, also named Catharine. She was born in Wolverhampton on April 14, 1842. Soon after her birth the family moved to London. Eddowes' mother eventually bore twelve children, but the large family later fell into poverty and misfortune. Two younger children died in infancy; Eddowes' mother died of tuberculosis on November 17, 1855, and her father died two years later. By then, two older sisters were in domestic service and another married, while some of the younger children were sent to the Bermondsey Workhouse and Industrial School. Her sister Emma sent Eddowes, in her mid-teens, back to Wolverhampton to live with an aunt, but she became restless and ran away to Birmingham to live with a shoemaker uncle for a while.

In the next few years Eddowes met Thomas Conway in Birmingham, and the couple started living together. They had a daughter Annie, born around 1865, and two younger sons. By 1881 they had returned to London, but separated shortly after, having been together nearly twenty years. One of Eddowes' sisters blamed the breakup on Conway, who drank and beat Eddowes frequently, though Eddowes herself was also a drinker. That same year, Eddowes met John Kelly in a Whitechapel lodging house. He was her companion for the last seven years of her life.

Witnesses' accounts suggest the couple had an amicable enough relationship, though Eddowes continued to drink. Kelly took casual labouring jobs, while Eddowes found housecleaning work or sold trinkets on the streets. Friends insisted that she was never a prostitute, but the evidence of her death suggests she supplemented their income that way occasionally.

The previous Thursday, September 27, 1888, she and Kelly returned on foot to London from Kent, where they had been hop picking but they arrived virtually destitute. After pawning some remaining items for food, on Saturday, September 29, Kelly resolved to look for casual work while reportedly, Eddowes told her she was going to visit her married daughter Annie (Annie had previously moved away, and some believe that Eddowes should have known about it by this date). Whether she proposed a family visit to cover her intention to earn money by prostituting herself or for some other reason is unknown. Somehow, in the hours after parting from Kelly at 02:00 p.m., Eddowes acquired enough money to feed her alcoholic tendencies, possibly through prostitution. Found lying in the street at 08:30 p.m., incapable of standing, she was taken into custody by a City of London police officer and kept in the cells until she sobered up and was released close to 01:00 am. She was last seen alive by men leaving a club close to Mitre Square about 01:30am, talking to a man most scholars believe to have been her killer, based upon the timing.

Contents 1 Post-mortem 2 Funeral 3 Further reading 4 External links

[edit] Post-mortem

Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown, London police surgeon called in at the murder, arrived around 2:00 a.m at Mitre Square. His report is as follows:

"The body was on its back, the head turned to left shoulder. The arms by the side of the body as if they had fallen there. Both palms upwards, the fingers slightly bent. The left leg extended in a line with the body. The abdomen was exposed. Right leg bent at the thigh and knee. The throat cut across.

The intestines were drawn out to a large extent and placed over the right shoulder -- they were smeared over 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. The lobe and auricle of the right ear were cut obliquely through.

There was a quantity of clotted blood on the pavement on the left side of the neck round the shoulder and upper part of arm, and fluid blood-coloured serum which had flowed under the neck to the right shoulder, the pavement sloping in that direction.

Body was quite warm. No death stiffening had taken place. She must have been dead most likely within the half hour. We looked for superficial bruises and saw none. No blood on the skin of the abdomen or secretion of any kind on the thighs. No spurting of blood on the bricks or pavement around. No marks of blood below the middle of the body. 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 connexion.

When the body arrived at Golden Lane, some of the blood was dispersed through the removal of the body to the mortuary. The clothes were taken off carefully from the body. A piece of deceased's ear dropped from the clothing.

I made a post mortem examination at half past two on Sunday afternoon. Rigor mortis was well marked; body not quite cold. Green discoloration over the abdomen.

After washing the left hand carefully, a bruise the size of a sixpence, recent and red, was discovered on the back of the left hand between the thumb and first finger. A few small bruises on right shin of older date. The hands and arms were bronzed. No bruises on the scalp, the back of the body, or the elbows.

The face was very much mutilated. There was a cut about a quarter of an inch through the lower left eyelid, dividing the structures completely through. The upper eyelid on that side, there was a scratch through the skin on the left upper eyelid, near to the angle of the nose. The right eyelid was cut through to about half an inch.

There was a deep cut over the bridge of the nose, extending from the left border of the nasal bone down near the angle of the jaw on the right side of the cheek. This cut went into the bone and divided all the structures of the cheek except the mucuous membrane of the mouth.

The tip of the nose was quite detached by an oblique cut from the bottom of the nasal bone to where the wings of the nose join on to the face. A cut from this divided the upper lip and extended through the substance of the gum over the right upper lateral incisor tooth.

About half an inch from the top of the nose was another oblique cut. There was a cut on the right angle of the mouth as if the cut of a point of a knife. The cut extended an inch and a half, parallel with the lower lip.

There was on each side of cheek a cut which peeled up the skin, forming a triangular flap about an inch and a half. On the left cheek there were two abrasions of the epithelium under the left ear.

The throat was cut across to the extent of about six or seven inches. A superficial cut commenced about an inch and a half below the lobe below, and about two and a half inches behind the left ear, and extended across the throat to about three inches below the lobe of the right ear.

The big muscle across the throat was divided through on the left side. The large vessels on the left side of the neck were severed. The larynx was severed below the vocal chord. All the deep structures were severed to the bone, the knife marking intervertebral cartilages. The sheath of the vessels on the right side was just opened.

The carotid artery had a fine hole opening, the internal jugular vein was opened about an inch and a half -- not divided. The blood vessels contained clot. All these injuries were performed by a sharp instrument like a knife, and pointed.

The cause of death was hemorrhage from the left common cartoid artery. The death was immediate and the mutilations were inflicted after death.

We examined the abdomen. The front walls were laid open from the breast bones to the pubes. The cut commenced opposite the enciform cartilage. The incision went upwards, not penetrating the skin that was over the sternum. It then divided the enciform cartilage. The knife must have cut obliquely at the expense of that cartilage.

Behind this, the liver was stabbed as if by the point of a sharp instrument. Below this was another incision into the liver of about two and a half inches, and below this the left lobe of the liver was slit through by a vertical cut. Two cuts were shewn by a jagging of the skin on the left side.

The abdominal walls were divided in the middle line to within a quarter of an inch of the navel. The cut then took a horizontal course for two inches and a half towards the right side. It then divided round the navel on the left side, and made a parallel incision to the former horizontal incision, leaving the navel on a tongue of skin. Attached to the navel was two and a half inches of the lower part of the rectus muscle on the left side of the abdomen. The incision then took an oblique direction to the right and was shelving. The incision went down the right side of the vagina and rectum for half an inch behind the rectum.

There was a stab of about an inch on the left groin. This was done by a pointed instrument. Below this was a cut of three inches going through all tissues making a wound of the peritoneum about the same extent.

An inch below the crease of the thigh was a cut extending from the anterior spine of the ilium obliquely down the inner side of the left thigh and separating the left labium, forming a flap of skin up to the groin. The left rectus muscle was not detached.

There was a flap of skin formed by the right thigh, attaching the right labium, and extending up to the spine of the ilium. The muscles on the right side inserted into the frontal ligaments were cut through.

The skin was retracted through the whole of the cut through the abdomen, but the vessels were not clotted. Nor had there been any appreciable bleeding from the vessels. I draw the conclusion that the act was made after death, and there would not have been much blood on the murderer. The cut was made by someone on the right side of the body, kneeling below the middle of the body.

I removed the content of the stomach and placed it in a jar for further examination. There seemed very little in it in the way of food or fluid, but from the cut end partly digested farinaceous food escaped.

The intestines had been detached to a large extent from the mesentery. About two feet of the colon was cut away. The signoid flexure was invaginated into the rectum very tightly.

Right kidney was pale, bloodless with slight congestion of the base of the pyramids. There was a cut from the upper part of the slit on the under surface of the liver to the left side, and another cut at right angles to this, which were about an inch and a half deep and two and a half inches long. Liver itself was healthy.

The gall bladder contained bile. The pancreas was cut, but not through, on the left side of the spinal column. Three and a half inches of the lower border of the spleen by half an inch was attached only to the peritoneum.

The peritoneal lining was cut through on the left side and the left kidney carefully taken out and removed. The left renal artery was cut through. I would say that someone who knew the position of the kidney must have done it.

The lining membrane over the uterus was cut through. The womb was cut through horizontally, leaving a stump of three quarters of an inch. The rest of the womb had been taken away with some of the ligaments. The vagina and cervix of the womb was uninjured.

The bladder was healthy and uninjured, and contained three or four ounces of water. There was a tongue-like cut through the anterior wall of the abdominal aorta. The other organs were healthy. There were no indications of connexion.

I believe the wound in the throat was first inflicted. I believe she must have been lying on the ground.

The wounds on the face and abdomen prove that they were inflicted by a sharp, pointed knife, and that in the abdomen by one six inches or longer.

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 medical knowledge to have removed the kidney and to know where it was placed. The parts removed would be of no use for any professional purpose.

I think the perpetrator of this act had sufficient time, or he would not have nicked the lower eyelids. It would take at least five minutes.

I cannot assign any reason for the parts being taken away. I feel sure that there was no struggle, and believe it was the act of one person.

The throat had been so instantly severed that no noise could have been emitted. I should not expect much blood to have been found on the person who had inflicted these wounds. The wounds could not have been self-inflicted.

My attention was called to the apron, particularly the corner of the apron with a string attached. The blood spots were of recent origin. I have seen the portion of an apron produced by Dr. Phillips and stated to have been found in Goulston Street. It is impossible to say that it is human blood on the apron. I fitted the piece of apron, which had a new piece of material on it (which had evidently been sewn on to the piece I have), the seams of the borders of the two actually corresponding. Some blood and apparently faecal matter was found on the portion that was found in Goulston Street."

[edit] Funeral

Catherine Eddowes was buried on Monday, 8 October 1888

Kate was buried in an elm coffin in City of London Cemetery, (Little Ilford) at Manor Park Cemetery, Sebert Road, Forest Gate, London, E12, unmarked (public) grave 49336, square 318.

The body of the Mitre-square victim - Catherine Eddowes, alias Conway, alias Kelly - still lies in the City Mortuary, Golden-lane. At half-past one o'clock to-day [8 Oct] it will be removed for burial in the Ilford Cemetery.

Today, square 318 has been re-used for part of the Memorial Gardens for cremated remains. Kate lies beside the Garden Way in front of Memorial Bed 1849. In late 1996, the cemetery authorities decided to mark Kate's grave with a plaque.

[edit] Further reading

• The Complete History of Jack the Ripper by Philip Sugden, ISBN 0-7867-0276-1.

[edit] External links

• Casebook: Jack the Ripper