Jack the Ripper: The Hand of a Woman

her dead body.
    Annie Chapman was plump, shabbily dressed and merry with drink, though she was not as drunk as Mary Ann Nichols had been. Where Lizzie Williams met her in Whitechapel we do not know. All we can say for certain is that when they parted in the small backyard of a tenement building in Hanbury Street, Chapman was dead. We have no doubt that Lizzie Williams made her the same proposition that had worked so well with Nichols, and paid her to provide sexual services.
    Once again, no one would have noticed two women walking together, even during the early hours of the morning when there were few people about; a man on his own of almost any age would have been a different matter, and even a man and woman together might be stopped and questioned by the frequent patrols that policed Whitechapel, but one, two or even more women together would not have drawn particular attention.
    Annie Chapman brought Lizzie Williams to Hanbury Street. The evidence is that Chapman went on alone as they approached the run-down three-storey property at number 29, to speak with a man, presumably a regular client. The witness, Mrs Elizabeth Long, the cart-minder’s wife, says that a man and a woman were talking together, but she passed them by, so was unable to say what had happened afterwards. It is quite possible that she passed Lizzie Williams and saw her too, but if she did, her image failed to register.
    It is unlikely that the latter would have wished to be seen in the close company of a woman she intended to murder, though walking along the streets together did not appear to present her with such concern. Where her victim found herself in the position that she had to speak to someone, perhaps a client, it is more likely that Lizzie would have hung back and hidden until she could rejoin her in comparative safety. It would not be the only time for Lizzie Williams to conceal herself while accompanying her victim. She would act in the same way with Catherine Eddowes three weeks later, who was seen talking to a man – whom we also believe to have been a client – shortly before her murder in Mitre Square.
    But the man and woman had parted soon after Mrs Long walked past; perhaps the man was told to come back later: the few words that Mrs Long did hear, certainly supports this proposition: He said “Will you [meet me here later]?” and she replied “Yes [I’ll see you in twenty minutes or so]”. Then Annie Chapman and Lizzie Williams entered the house by the front left doorway, and walked as quietly as they could down the long corridor through the house that led to the door at the rear. By now, it was past five o’clock; dawn had been at 4.51, and it was daylight.
    There, between the fence on one side of the yard, and the steps on the other, Annie Chapman lay down on the ground, spread her legs apart, and waited for her ‘lesbian’ client to lower herself onto her, and perform the sexual act.
    Once again, and without warning because the investigating detectives found that there was no sign that a struggle had taken place, Lizzie Williams unexpectedly clamped her hand over Annie Chapman’s mouth to stifle her cries. She held her fast until she had rendered the woman insensible, the long nails of the three middle fingers of her right hand clawing deep into her victim’s neck – evidence of the forceful manner in which she had restrained her.
    Taking out her knife, she pressed the sharp blade to Chapman’s throat, and pulled her hand back swiftly, cutting through skin, flesh and muscle. It would have taken just seconds for Annie Chapman’s life to drain away and any convulsions to cease. But there was more to be done, and this time it was light, and Lizzie Williams could see well enough.
    It was her intention to take her victim’s uterus, but she needed something in which to carry the organ. A large pocket, tied with string under Annie Chapman’s clothing, was later found to have been partially torn away, and a number of her belongings had spilled out onto the ground. We assume that Williams had found the pocket, tried to wrench it away, and the contents fell out (because the pocket was empty when it was found). One of the items suited her purpose better than the material of the pocket itself – which we believe she had intended to use, but then left, partially torn away. What we think she found, to put the uterus in, was probably a large handkerchief or similar piece of material which she used to clean herself. Then,