Jack the Ripper's London

How London's Socioeconomic and Industrial Changes Led to the Birth of England's Most Infamous Serial Killer

Commercial Street in Whitechapel, late 1800s 
(photo source)

When Alexandrina Victoria ascended to the throne of England in June of 1837, London was the largest city in the world, boasting not only the largest port (an honor held for about a decade), but the heart of global finance, trade and politics.  At the start of the 19th century, London's population was around 1 million.  By the end of the century, the population was nearly seven times that size, larger than Beijing, Paris and five times greater than that of New York City.   With the population bloat, London's actual territory expanded as well.  At 122 square miles around 1850, by the end of the century it had expanded to 693 miles. 

The port of London, in addition to being the largest port in the world, was also a major shipbuilding center, producing some of the most technologically advanced vessels the world had seen.   Unfortunately, the ports simply didn't have the capacity to endure the massive growth, rendering its operations less than efficient.  Ships clogged the stretch of the Thames known as the Pool of London, with sailors sometimes having to wait as long as a week or more to unload cargo, an invitation not only for theft but also evasion of paying import duties.  The sailors brought their earnings, however meager, into the local pubs where they would spend it on drink and women.   

With its financial, political and international trade connections, London soon became a draw for immigrants throughout Europe and the colonies.  A famine in Ireland led to 20% of London's residents being Irish, a population large enough in itself to make up a city the size of Limerick, Belfast, and Cork combined.  The Jewish population in London was estimated as a sizable 46,000 souls in 1882, many of them having fled to London to escape persecution and poverty.  Most of the Jewish community ended up in the area of London known as the East End, the core of Eastern London north of the Thames and indisputably, the poorest district of London.  

The East End and Whitechapel in 1888

Much of London celebrated Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in the summer of 1887 with adornments of  Union Jacks and royal standards, toasting to the Queen's health with champagne, claret and beer,   In a perfect homage to Victorian life (at least for the upper classes), concerts, picnics, dinners, regattas, puppet shows for children and services at Westminster Abbey were held. Debutantes and eligible bachelors danced and sipped lemonade with little knowledge or concern as to what was happening outside their sheltered environments.  

The spring leading into summer of 1887 had been a particularly warm and dry one, leading to water shortages and destroyed harvests.  Unemployment soared, thanks to the lack of agricultural jobs due to the drought.  With no produce to ship, move and sell, it also meant the working class that came into London in an attempt to find work at Covent Garden Market instead found themselves sleeping rough on the streets or in Trafalgar Square.   

This all coincided with Britain's industrial preeminence being challenged by America and Germany.  A trade slump had begun to fester the previous decade and by 1887 and 1888, it led to massive unemployment.  There was a clear line drawn between the West End, where the upper and middle classes resided, and the East End, where the poor working class was shuttered away.  

If the East End was the poorest area of London, the district of Whitechapel was its epicenter, a slum and ghetto where the occupants suffered from poverty, overcrowding, starvation, homelessness and desperation.   Until the mid-nineteenth century the city had been prosperous but by the time Jack the Ripper began making his murderous swath through the area, it was one of the most dangerous areas in London. 

The streets were dirty by day, with sewage, rotting fruit, runoff from the slaughterhouses, human waste and animal waste from the many horses that clip-clopped throughout the area at all times of day and night.  Even in the middle of the day, Whitechapel seemed to be perpetually under a blanket of gloom.  Smoke belched from the nearby shipyard, as well as the multitude of factories, clogging the air.  The stench of waste (human and animal), the slaughterhouses and body odors comingled constantly with the overwhelming hopelessness.  At night, gas street lamps were manually lit by men who climbed ladders to do so.  Lighting was rarely more than adequate and only in certain areas.  Some alleys and walkways were cloaked in almost complete darkness. 

The streets, from the peak of the morning's light to the night's darkest hour, were never silent.  Besides the echoing noise of horses' hooves, drunkards yelled of their discontent at passersby, street performers and barrel organs played on, hawkers yelled of their wares, and soapbox preachers attempted to get the guilty to repent.  

Crime was rampant, along with daily cruelty, making Whitechapel somewhat inured to brutality.  Of the children born there, only half would live to see their fifth birthday, dying from either malnutrition, disease or accident.  Domestic disputes and drunken fights were so commonplace that many who lived in Whitechapel and the East End simply ignored them.  Murder, however, was uncommon.

1888, off Dorset Street in Whitechapel (photo source) 

  

Employment for the majority of residents was mostly intermittent.  The docks always offered jobs but this required turning up early to await a foreman at the gates, where the sought-after positions were literally fought over; kicking, punching and even biting was a normal means of getting to the front of the line and thus, securing a job.  

Ohers toiled in the many sweatshops and factories that dotted Whitechapel and its environs, from boot making to cabinet making.  The hours were long (10 to 18 hours a day, six days a week) and the pay was abysmal.  An inexperienced factory worker might collect 4 shillings for a week's work (there were 20 shillings to the pound), one shilling less than the 5 shillings required for reasonable lodgings in the poorer areas.  Women who could operate a sewing machine could hope to make 16 shillings a week.  Showing up late to work would likely garner you a financial penalty, as could having dirty feet or an untidy work area.  Some workers were subjected to the constant breathing in of noxious fumes and/or fibers, leading to debilitating respiratory disorders, for which they were given no remedy, and sometimes death.  As there was always another man, woman or child willing to take someone's place, job security was nonexistent.    

The public houses, or pubs, were always busy with many of Whitechapel's residents attempting to drink away their misery, at least for a while.  The pubs, and their closing times, provided thieves, pickpockets and other cunning folks with opportune (and often inebriated) targets.     

The majority of Whitechapel's residents lived in one of the dwelling houses that densely packed the streets.  Oftentimes, as many as 20 people resided in a dwelling, with entire families sharing a single, squalid room.  These buildings were often infested with rats and mice.  The toilet facilities were either a hole dug into the cellar of the property, with the resultant odors and unsanitary conditions, or an outhouse.  Since many of the dwelling houses did not have bathtubs or washing facilities, communal wash houses were available in the area - if the resident could afford it.  If not, neither clothes nor body was washed.  

Landlords of these properties were very often greedy, renting the rooms at extortionate rates and packing as many people as possible into a property.  Unsurprisingly, disease was rampant.  A cholera outbreak had killed more than 3,000 in the 1860s.  Sexually transmitted diseases were common and incurable.

For those who were not fortunate enough to be able to afford to pay for a dwelling house were the lodging houses or doss houses.  In doss houses, four pence paid simply for a bed for the night, where the occupant was packed into an overcrowded facility with poor conditions.  Some of the area's doss houses would let a bed to one person during the day and another during the evening, a sort of "relay" system, and some even let their beds in eight-hour shifts, allowing the owner to basically collect three rent payments for the same bed.  For two pence, some of the lodging houses would allow a person to lean against a rope that was strung from one wall to another.  It was not unusual to have prostitutes conducting their business in a bed next to a poverty-stricken mother and her child.   

Those who didn't have the funds for a lodging house, or who used their money for drink instead, could be found "sleeping rough," choosing to attempt to sleep in doorways and stairwells and even up against gates throughout the area.  These "accommodations" were free but left the individual vulnerable to other homeless, knife-wielding gangs and, eventually, Jack the Ripper.   

      

The "Fallen" Women

The queen's own identification with strict moral codes had an unusual juxtaposition with London during her reign, as well as general notions of the time as far as marriage, sex, and independence.  Divorce was not only taboo at the time but costly enough to elude most working class couples.  While men could retain their jobs and standing in the community after separating from their wives and unofficially remarrying with another woman, the wives, by comparison, had no such luxury.  Married, they had no independence; they could not own property and could not execute contracts.  Without the protection of their husband, and living outside of what was considered conventional matrimony, they were considered "fallen women," unlikely to find what was considered respectable work and provide for themselves.  Women who were fortunate enough to receive financial support from their estranged husbands could just as quickly find that support forfeited should their husbands ever be able to prove they were cohabitating with another man (even if the husband was living with another woman.)  

For the most unfortunate of women, who received no financial support (and this included widows who had received nothing on their husband's deaths), they could apply for public assistance.  In that case, they had to prove their husbands abandoned them (either by leaving or via death) and therefore, they were destitute.  Such an admission required them to live and work in the local workhouses, labeled an "inmate" and forced to wear a uniform.  Workhouses were little more than institutions rife with squalor, degradation, and sexual violence.  Meals were sparse, often a watery porridge made of bread, cheese and potatoes.  Vermin infestation was common, as was illness.  Work was hard labor consisting of stone-breaking, milling corn, and using a spike and bare hands to pull apart ship ropes for fibers that could be used to caulk ships.      

So horrific were the workhouses that it was not uncommon to hear of women who chose to end their lives versus going into a workhouse.  One such woman reportedly set herself alight, after asking two children for matches with which to do the job and ended up in the morgue.  

For other women, sex work seemed a preferable option to the workhouse.  Back in 1888, prostitution was not illegal.  Unfortunately, whether working in a brothel, kept by wealthy men or soliciting on a street corner, be it full-time or part-time, the women were stained by the association and were unable to escape it.

Young women were not immune from the necessity of sex work, should their parents or siblings be unable to work.  In such cases, the daughters/sisters were expected to contribute to the family's coffer however they could. 

It was unknown exactly how many females were forced to prostitute themselves in order to survive.  The founder of the Salvation Army claimed 60,000 to 80,000 in the East End, although that number may have been exaggerated.  At the height of Jack the Ripper's reign, the police constables believed there were 1,200 prostitutes just in the quarter-mile area to the east and west of Commercial Street in Whitechapel and they were "mostly of a very low condition." 

This particular class of prostitutes, most of whom were homeless, were called "unfortunates."  These were the workers who would lead clients into the darkest alleys and corners of Whitechapel, where there was less chance of interruption by police or anyone else.  It also put them at greater risk.  Besides Jack the Ripper in 1888, they were also vulnerable to gangs who would often beat them in order to steal their pitiful earnings, clients who would do the same in order to get out of paying them and on occasion, even other prostitutes who would get territorial over someone else coming into her territory.

During the winter of 1887/1888, Frederick Charrington, heir to a local brewing dynasty, took it upon himself to rid the East End of vice.  The Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 allowed him, as a citizen, to report any house suspected of operating as a brothel to the police -- and he did so.  Police reportedly closed down 200 brothels, which had dire results for the displaced workers.  For those who did not pack up and move elsewhere (and "spread their moral contagion elsewhere" as newspapers of the time reported), they were forced to work on the streets, amid all types of weather and potential violence.  Charrington, instead of being a do-gooder, was accused of adding to the general misfortune.    

For those in the West End, who preferred to live as though the East End simply did not exist, when they did think of sex workers, it was under the misapprehension that they were doing so out of an immoral desire for sex.  

Some of London's finest, circa 1888 (photo source) 

The Police

To patrol London before, during and after Jack the Ripper, were two police forces:  the Metropolitan Police and the City of London Police.  Both were dealing with a serious manpower shortage.  For London's over five million occupants, the city had a reported 14,000 officers.   

At that time, officers were allowed to be men only.  Wearing a blue uniform and hat, their gear consisted of a wooden baton, handcuffs (called shackles in those days), a lantern, and a whistle to signal for assistance.  

Sixty percent of the police force worked the night shift - 10 p.m. until 6 a.m., patrolling their beat on foot.  Most officers walked up to 20 miles a day during their shift, moving at the regulated pace of two and a half miles per hour.  The passageways that snaked through areas like Whitechapel made the officers' jobs that much harder; standing on a street corner, they could only see what was happening on that particular street at that particular intersection.  

For most of the officers, they weren't able to prevent crime so much as catching criminals in the act. 

They were, however, kept constantly busy.  Those who broke the law, if convicted, faced harsh conditions.  Prisons were notoriously tough with enforced hard labor and damp cells.  Being sentenced to flogging and whipping was not uncommon, nor was a date with the hangman.  Public executions were banned in 1868 but reporters would still flock to the prisons, where executions were carried out inside the prison walls.  In 1887, the year before the Ripper committed his acts that would put him into infamy, 21 men and women died on the gallows.

Standard police equipment in 1888 (photo source)

   

The Metropolitan Police was headed by Sir Charles Warren, a Wales native with extensive military service before becoming Police Commissioner.  At first hailed by The Times upon his commission, Warren came under fire during Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in June of 1887 when an allegedly respectable young seamstress was arrested for alleged solicitation.  When the seamstress's employer supported her in the courts, and was quite verbal about it, Warren, and the Metropolitan Police, took a bashing in the press.

The more radical press turned against him completely only months later, in November of 1887 when Warren, in response to a socialist demonstration in Trafalgar Square, sent in baton-wielding police officers, soldiers, and mounted police.  While the majority of the 40,000 protestors were peaceful, the small percentage that was not were armed with knives, pokers, and iron bars and pipes.  The result was a violent explosion that ended with 75 persons badly injured and 400 persons arrested and would become known as "Bloody Sunday."  Worse, it became known that Warren had turned down the use of a steam fire engine as a water cannon in order to clear protestors more peacefully out of the Square.

(photo source) 

Warren's style of leadership also apparently caused problems within the police department itself.  Things grew so bad between him and his assistant commissioner, James Monro, that Monro abruptly quit on August 31, 1888 -- in the very thick of the Ripper investigation.  The department, already stretched thin and working on what would end up being the greatest unsolved murder cases in Britain's history, were demoralized and worn out.  

To replace Munro and given direct responsibility for the Ripper case, a Dublin-born lawyer by the name of Dr. Robert Anderson was chosen.   Unfortunately, Anderson arrived on the job suffering from exhaustion and within a week was forced to take recuperative leave to Switzerland, a break that would last a month.  To take Anderson's place, at least until October, was Chief Inspector Donald Swanson, who would eventually become most knowledgeable about the elusive Ripper.    

Within the Metropolitan Police were divisions, each of which had responsibility for policing a specific area.   Once the ghastly murders of 1888 began, two different divisions would be involved in the investigations:  H and J.  

The H Division was headed by a popular detective called Edmund Reid.  Reid, who had been a pastry cook and a ship's steward before joining the force in 1872, had the unusual distinction of being the shortest man with the Metropolitan Police, standing at only five foot six.   In 1887, he succeeded Frederick Abberline as the Local Inspector and Head of the Criminal Investigation Department at H Division in Whitechapel.   Reid, unlike many of his coworkers, was spared the brutal criticisms they were regularly subjected to by the increasingly hostile press.

Frederick Abberline, after moving to Scotland Yard following his tenure in the H Division, would soon return to Whitechapel.  The former clockmaker, who had been with the Metropolitan Police since 1863, was placed in charge of the J Division on August 31, 1888 - the same day that James Munro resigned and the day Ripper victim Mary Ann Nichols was murdered.  His extensive experience in the Whitechapel area led him to be placed in charge of the detectives investigating the Ripper murders, leading the on-the-ground hunt for the unknown killer.

The murder of Catherine Eddowes in Mitre Square on September 30, 1888 took place in the City of London and so fell within the jurisdiction of the City of London Police.  Acting Commissioner Major Henry Smith and Detective Inspector James McWilliam, whose forte pre-Ripper was the investigation of financial fraud, joined the investigation with the Metropolitan Police.

George Lusk (photo source)

The Mile End, or Whitechapel, Vigilance Committee

On September 10, 1888, following Annie Chapman's murder by the Ripper, a group of some sixteen Whitechapel and Spitalfields businessmen and tradesmen got together to form a volunteer group to patrol the streets of Whitechapel during the Ripper's killing season.  They elected local builder George Lusk as their president and made it their goal to assist the police in bringing the killer to justice.   

They orchestrated their own nighttime patrols of the area, paying unemployed men a small stipend and furnishing them with a police whistle and stick, and worked on raising funds to offer as a reward for information on the Ripper.   The Committee met each evening at 9 p.m. in The Crown pub. 

As president and chairman, Lusk's name appeared in national newspapers and posters around Whitechapel, bringing him unwanted attention and threats, the most famous of which would be the October 15, 1888 "From Hell" letter address to him and containing half of a human kidney.    

(photo source)

 The Newspapers

Before the  mid-1880s, newspapers had been subject to a wide variety of taxes that made them very expensive and typically beyond the average person's means.  Repealing these taxes over a decade or so, along with the Education Act of 1870 in which elementary education was compulsory, meant that newspapers would reach a wider mass of the populace.  

Circulation skyrocketed and led to more newspapers being launched.  By 1880, there were a reported 158 daily newspapers in the United Kingdom, all of them in a daily circulation war, working hard to grab a maximum share of the readers' market.  

At the same time, a new kind of journalism emerged, one we recognize today as investigative journalism, brought about by a fascination of the habits of the rich and famous and an ever-growing need for sensationalism.  The paper Truth exposed political and financial scandals while the Pall Mall Gazette exposed society scandals.   

On January 17, 1888, a newspaper called The Star made its debut in London.  Its editor, Thomas P. O'Connor, found a young journalist named Ernest Parke who could be trusted to come up with daily sensationalistic stories.  While all the papers would devote coverage to the Ripper, it was O'Connor, and The Star in particular, who realized the public's thirst for every gory detail and went about titillating its readers with any morsel, no matter how small, it could find.   Soon, The Star had reached unparalleled circulation, particularly with its evening editions.   

Before long, the other newspapers jumped on the bandwagon, making a cottage industry of not only the Ripper but pointing out the local police's mistakes and missteps and suggesting they were buffoons.  

Journalist William Le Queux, who wrote for The Globe, would write in 1923 of "writing lurid and picturesque details" while he and two journalist friends "stood in the very spot where the tragedy occurred."  If one newspaper published a theory on how the murder happened, a competing newspaper would publish its own the following day, leading another newspaper to do the same the following day, and so on.  Truth mattered little when death, disaster and murder sold papers.    

Other Attacks and Acts of Murder

At the time the Ripper picked up his knife in 1888, a string of murders in London spanning nearly 15 years had been taking place.  Beginning in September of 1873, when a portion of a woman's torso had been found floating in the Thames (more body parts, including her severed head, were discovered over the next seven days but she was never identified), six more victims would be found , with the last being discovered in July of 1887.  All victims were women and none were ever identified.   Neither was their killer or killers, who was dubbed "The Embankment Killer," 

On February 25, 1888, a 38-year-old widow named Annie Milwood was admitted to the Whitechapel Infirmary with numerous stab wounds in her legs and "the lower part" of her body.  She said she had been attacked by a man with a clasp knife that he had pulled from his pocket and claimed to not know him.  It is not known where the actual attack took place, although the time was said to be at 5 p.m., but Annie lived in a lodging house at Number 8 White's Row in Spitalfields, very near the Ten Bells pub and the Christ Church on Commercial Street.  She survived the knife attack but on March 31, after being admitted to the South Grove Workhouse on Mile End and while working at the rear of the building, she fell.  It was assumed she was ill.  She was, in fact, dead.  

On Tuesday night, April 3, a woman named Malvina Haynes was attacked by a knife-wielding man near the Leman Street railway station.  Her screams for help got the attention of a nearby lodging house keeper, who came outside to investigate.  He arrived to see Malvina being attacked "with great violence" and her assailant ran off.   By the time a police constable arrived, Malvina was lying in a pool of blood, moaning and "insensible."  Upon arrival at London Hospital on Whitechapel Road it was determined that she was suffering from "a concussion of the brain" and a scalp wound "of rather extensive character."  She was not expected to recover, much less survive, but after laying unconscious for a week she did recover but with no memory of her attack.  Unlike Annie Milwood, Malvina Haynes was a married woman, or at least considered herself to be a married woman.  

On the same night of Tuesday, April 3, a 45-year-old widow by the name of Emma Smith suffered a horrible, and ultimately fatal, attack.  She had been on Whitechapel High Street around 1:30 a.m., heading back to her lodgings on George Street when she saw "some men" coming and crossed the road to get out of their way.  They followed her to Osborn Street and Brick Lane and near Taylor Brothers Limited, a chocolate and cocoa manufacturer on Brick Lane, she was "assaulted in the most brutal manner" and robbed of what little money she had.  She managed to get herself back to her lodgings on George Street, her face bleeding, her right ear torn, and with an injury "to the lower part" of her body - a blunt instrument had been forced into her vagina with such force that it had penetrated her peritoneum (the membrane that lines the abdominal cavity) and caused peritonitis.  Emma could not describe her attackers other than to say that one of them she suspected was a youth of around 19.  

Emma was taken to the London Hospital on Whitechapel Road, same as Malvina Haynes, but she wasn't as lucky.  Soon after arriving, she fell into a coma and died.  

On Saturday, May 5, 26-year-old Georgina Green, a resident of Spitalfields, was attacked by a man as she walked along to Whitechapel in the early hours of the morning.  She was stabbed in the forehead and lost "a quantity of blood" but was taken to London Hospital on Whitechapel Road and survived.  

Whoever attacked and/or killed these women remained at large as Jack took to the streets and were never caught.    

Whitechapel in 1888 (photo source)

 

Sources:

Jack the Ripper 1888 (2021).  The Metropolitan Police 1888.

Jack the Ripper Tour (5/10/2017).  London in 1888.

Jones, Richard.  The Jack the Ripper Files, Andre Deutsch Limited, 2015.

Mr. Castle History (2021).  The Metropolitan Police, 1888.

Priestley, M.P.  One Autumn in Whitechapel, Flower and Dean Street Ltd., 2016.

Roland, Paul.  The Crimes of Jack the Ripper: The Whitechapel Murders Reexamined, Arcturus Publishing Limited, 2012.

The Jack the Ripper Tour (2021).  Jack the Ripper and the London Press.

The Victorian Web (2021).  Slums and Slumming in Late Victorian London.

Trow, M.J. Jack the Ripper:  Quest for a Killer, Pen & Sword Books Ltd., 2009.

Whitechapel Jack (2021).  The 1888 Autumn of Terror.

 

The Unsolved Atlanta Ripper Case

The Five Points area of Atlanta, 1911 (photo source: georgiainfo.com) 

In 1911, Atlanta, Georgia was considered the gateway to the "New South," at least by Atlanta itself.  Less than four decades after Sherman burned Atlanta in a bid to destroy the morale of southerners and cripple the ability of major cities, like Atlanta, to transport goods from place to place, nearly a dozen railroads were now passing through Georgia's capital city.   There was a major boom in business, leading to Inman Park and Peachtree Street being much sought after as residences for the wealthy.

Atlanta wanted to project itself as being racially tolerant, touting Morris Brown, Atlanta University and Atlanta Baptist as some of the best "black" schools in the nation.  Black-owned businesses were also cropping up, lending credence to the idea of a New South.

However, the majority of the city's minority residents, rather than having their own business, worked long hours at menial jobs, doing manual labor, and living in the less-desirable areas of Reynoldstown and Pittsburg.

Five years earlier, in 1906, 40 black men had died as a result of a rampage in which a mob of white men had run rampant through the city after unsubstantiated reports of four white women being assaulted by black men.   The tension, and the ugliness of the riot, was still very much alive in Atlanta.

Segregation was law at the time.  Blacks could not walk through "white" parks; they could not eat in "white" restaurants; they could not drink in "white" bars; they could not drink from "white" water fountains; and they could not be buried in "white" cemeteries.  Accordingly, the city's white residents actively took steps to keep their white-only neighborhoods white.   In July of 1911, white residents of Ashby Street held a meeting in which they debated ways to keep blacks out, after four black families had moved in.

And so it wasn't surprising that when the murder spree started, the press and authorities gave it little concern. 

(photo source: American Hauntings) 

The Assaults and Murders

It's not possible to say with certainty exactly when the crime spree started and absolutely who the first victim was but on Monday, October 3, 1910, 23-year-old Maggie Brook's body was found at the intersection of the Atlanta and West Point Railroad Track and Hill Street.  A cook, Maggie's skull had been fractured.

On Saturday, January 22, 1911, 35-year-old Rosa Trice had the left side of her skull nearly completely crushed, her jaw stabbed and her throat cut so viciously that her head was nearly severed from her neck.  After being killed, the perpetrator drug her body some 75 yards from her house on Gardner Street in the Pittsburg neighborhood before abandoning it there, where it was discovered.  Two hours after her body was found, her husband was arrested for her murder but released the following night for lack of evidence.  The Atlanta Constitution reported her murder, including the grisly details of her killing. 

On Sunday, February 19, 1911, the body of an unidentified black female was discovered in some woods by the West Point Belt Car Line, just outside the city limits.  She was estimated to be 25 years old and her head had been crushed.  Beer bottles had been scattered around her body.  It was suspected she had been killed either on Friday, February 17, or Saturday, February 18.

On Sunday morning, May 28, 1911, the body of Mary "Belle" Walker was found just 25 yards from her home on Garibaldi Street.  A cook working in a private home on Cooper Street, Belle was found by her sister when she failed to return home from work the night before.  Her throat had been cut in a jagged fashion.  The Atlanta Constitution duly reported the crime in their May 29 edition on page 7, noting that a "Negro woman" had been killed and there were no clues.

In the early morning of Thursday, June 15, 1911, Addie Watts, a resident of 30 Selman Street, was found in some shrubbery at Krogg and DeKalb Streets, close to the Southern Railway.  Authorities believed she had first been hit in the head with a brick or a coupling pin from a train before her killer had stabbed at her skull with a coupling pin and then slit her throat.  After she had been killed, she was dragged into the bushes near the tracks.

It was only after Addie Watts was discovered that the local papers began to speculate that there may have been a lone, solitary killer preying on the city's young black women.  On June 16, 1911, the day after the Watts killing, The Atlanta Journal ran a headline questioning whether a "black butcher" was at work in the city.   It was this brief article (only four paragraphs) that first linked the Atlanta murders to those that occurred in London in the autumn of 1888, where five prostitutes were brutally stabbed to death and mutilated by the infamous Jack the Ripper.   According to the article, the police were advancing the theory that "Atlanta has an insane criminal, something on the order of the famed Jack the Ripper."  The competing Atlanta Constitution, however, was still holding firm that the killings were isolated, unrelated incidents.  

On Saturday, June 24, 1911, Lizzie Watkins, a resident of West Oakland Street, became the next victim.  She was found around 11 a.m. the following day at White and Lawson Streets.  Like Addie Watts, she was found in a clump of bushes.   Also like Addie Watts, Lizzie's throat had been cut and her body had been dragged to where it was found after the fatal injury.

Following the Lizzie Watkins murder, the crimes were (finally) moved to the front page of The Atlanta Journal.   The similarities between the victims and murders was pointed out, as was the fact that for five Saturdays in a row, young black or biracial women had been murdered.  Through these reports, the public found out for the first time that in each case, it appeared the women were choked into unconsciousness before they were assaulted and killed and that the victims had been mutilated in the same areas of their bodies.  Although not specified in the newspaper reports at the time due to the "delicate" nature, like London's Jack the Ripper's victims, Atlanta's Ripper victims were not raped but their injuries appeared sexual in nature.   Also like the British Ripper, Atlanta reporters claimed that the local killer had some type of anatomical knowledge.

Once again, The Atlanta Constitution was behind the eight ball.  Although it reported the most recent murder, the Constitution incorrectly opined that Lizzie Watkins' death was due to cocaine and whiskey. 

July 4, 1911 article from The Daily Mail (photo source: JTR Forums)

 

The first possible break or lead in the case came on Saturday, July 1, 1911 with the murder of 40-year-old Lena Sharpe.  The Sharpe case is notable not only for the eyewitness encounter but also for two varying versions of what happened.

In the first version, as reported by The Atlanta Constitution, Lena told her 20-year-old daughter, Emma Lou, that she was walking to the market.  When Lena had not returned to the Sharpe home on Hanover Street within an hour, Emma Lou headed toward the market in search of her mother.  As the Sharpes' neighbor, Addie Watts, had been killed only two weeks prior, Emma Lou was frightened to learn that her mother never arrived at her destination.  She was walking back toward the family home when she was confronted by a tall black man in a wide-brimmed black hat who asked her, "How do you feel this evening?"  Feeling apprehensive, she moved past him, and he responded with, "Don't worry.  I never hurt girls like you."  Emma Lou was then stabbed in the back while the man ran off, laughing.   She screamed, alerting a group of neighbors who came to her assistance.  While Emma Lou survived, her mother did not.  Lena Sharpe's body was found shortly after her daughter's attack, with her head in a pool of blood and her throat cut.

In the second version, as reported by The Atlanta Journal, Lena and Emma Lou were walking together to the store when the black man, who had been hiding, blocked their path and struck Lena in the head with a brick.   Lena fell to the ground and the man began slashing at Emma Lou, never uttering a word.  Emma Lou ran from the scene, screaming, but fainted due to blood loss.   It was then that the killer cut Lena's throat so severely that her head was nearly severed from her body.  He returned to Emma Lou, who had regained consciousness and saw him standing over her with a bloody knife.  Only the sound of feet running toward them sent the killer scurrying for cover.

Whichever version was accurate, Lena Sharpe was indeed killed -- and very nearly decapitated -- with her body found by the Seaboard railroad tracks, and Emma Lou Sharpe was stabbed.  The Atlanta Journal reported she was unlikely to live but it seems that she did indeed survive her wounds.  She also got a good look at the man who stabbed her and quite probably murdered her mother.

Detectives working the case almost immediately deduced that the same man who had stabbed Emma Lou had killed her mother and had gone so far as to connect that same man to the murder of their neighbor, Addie Watts, and the other victims.    

The Sharpe assaults and murder prompted The Atlanta Constitution to declare by July 4 that the Jack the Ripper theory had now been given further "substance."  The same article also reported that "while the ordinary Negro murder attracts little attention, the police department was . . . expecting a repetition of the long series of crimes which have baffled every effort of the detectives."  A $25 reward was offered by undertaker L. L. Lee for the capture of the man who killed Lena Sharpe.  Mr. Lee also requested that other black business owners open their wallets to increase the reward fund, making it more enticing and, hopefully, encourage residents to assist the police and bring the guilty party to justice.    

Coroner Paul Donehoo stated that the killings were the work of the same man; i.e., a single killer.  The city held its breath as another weekend approached; The Atlanta Journal headlined: "Will Jack the Ripper Claim Eighth Victim This Saturday?"   An unnamed policeman was quoted as saying the killer would take another victim Saturday before midnight.

The unnamed policeman was right -- and wrong.  On Saturday, July 8, 1911, 22-year-old Mary Yeldell left the home of Mr. and Mrs. W. M. Selcer on Fourth Street, where she was employed as a cook.  Walking by an alley, she heard a whistle and stopped.  A large black man, tall and well built, was moving toward her, as she later said, with a cat-like tread.  She screamed and ran back to the Selcer house, where Mr. Selcer grabbed his revolver and headed for the alley.  The man, surprisingly, was still there.  When Mr. Selcer ordered him to raise his hands or be shot, the man ran down the alley.  The police were called but turned up nothing.

If, like Emma Lou Sharpe, Mary Yeldell had come face to face with the Atlanta Ripper, she had been fortunate enough to not only survive but survive without injuries.  The Yeldell incident appeared to have broken the Saturday night streak but the Ripper wasn't done yet.

On Sunday, July 9, a meeting was held at the First Congregational Church in Atlanta where the church's pastor, Henry Hugh Proctor, along with other black leaders in the community, asked that every black resident in Atlanta use his or her resources to locate the killer.  While asking its black residents to cooperate fully with the police, the community also began requesting the police force to hire black detectives to assist in the hunt.   Due to the segregation that was present in the city, Reverend Proctor and others believed that black detectives would receive more cooperation from black community members, as well as being less invasive.  

On Tuesday morning, July 11, 1911, a workman by the name of Will Broglin discovered some loose dirt on his normal route to work.  Sensing distress, he followed the disturbance to a blood trail in the road at Atlanta Avenue and Martin Street, near the new Orme Street sewer.  He found the body of Sadie Holley, who worked at a local laundry, in a small gulley, where it had lain since the previous night.  Sadie's skull had been fractured with a large stone, after which she was dragged roughly 15 feet and her throat slashed ear to ear so violently, she was nearly decapitated.  Her shoes had been cut from her feet and a comb from her hair was found next to the bloody rock used to bludgeon her.   The soft dirt by her body indicated her killer's route of escape.

An estimated 100 onlookers were at the crime scene within 20 minutes of the body discovery.  By the time the coroner arrived, the crowd had swelled to some 500, leading to a general sense of hysteria.  The victim count was increasing but the police seemed no closer to apprehending the suspect. 

Sadie Holley received the dubious honor of being the first murder victim of the Ripper to make the front page of The Atlanta Constitution, which stated "Reign of Crime Grips Atlanta" and "Negro Women Slain, and No Arrests are Made."   The Constitution, which had been slow to accept that Atlanta had a serial killer on its hands, now made up for lost time by recounting the killings that had taken place over the previous year and insinuating they were all committed by the same individual.    

There was a brief glimmer of hope when 27-year-old laborer Henry Huff was arrested on July 11, less than 24 hours after Sadie Holley's body was found, at his home on Brotherton Street.  Huff reportedly had been the last person seen with Holley and possessed trousers with a bloodstain on them, dirt up to the knee and scratches on his arms.  A cabman by the name of Will Williams claimed that Huff and Holley had been in his cab, quarreling, before he let them off near where the murder took place.  Huff, however, was only held on suspicion.  

Not long after picking up Huff, police picked up 35-year-old Todd Henderson at a saloon on Decatur Street after  a man claimed that Henderson had been seen with Sadie Holley in a drug store on the night of her murder not far from the scene.  Emma Lou Sharpe was brought into the station to listen to Henderson's voice; according to The Atlanta Constitution, she "shrank back" upon hearing him.  Although Emma Lou's identification was not considered solid or absolute, the lady herself told reporters that Henderson was "the man," and if not, she would be badly mistaken.  For his part, Henderson was quoted as saying that if he were the Ripper, he would have begun on his wife, as she gave him lots of trouble.

Police, however, grew more suspicious of Henderson after he asserted to detectives that he had not owned a pocketknife or a razor in over a year and they found that on the morning after Sadie Holley's murder he had dropped off a razor to a barber to be sharpened.

The case against both Henderson and Huff were purely circumstantial but police turned them over to the prosecutor, thinking the grand jury would figure out which man to indict in Sadie Holley's murder.  

Several days later, Governor Hoke Smith offered a $250 reward for the capture of the Atlanta Ripper.

(photo source: Catlick) 

On July 16, Reverend Proctor, who had asked Atlanta's residents to assist in finding the Ripper, preached to his congregation at the Black First Congregational Church that the "hand of God" was seen in the work of the Ripper and that the sins of the victims themselves were to blame.

On August 9, 1911, the grand jury indicted Henry Huff for the murder of Sadie Holley and a new suspect, a man by the name of John Daniel Huff (no relation to Henry Huff), in a related case, although the grand jury wouldn't say which one.  

Despite the arrests, the Ripper's reign of terror on the streets of Atlanta continued.

On Thursday, August 31, 1911, more than six weeks after the ravaging of Sadie Holley, the body of 20-year-old Mary Ann Duncan was found in an area west of Atlanta called Blantown.   Lying in between railroad tracks, Mary, like previous victims, had suffered a horrific throat wound, going from ear to ear.  Like Sadie Holley, her shoes had been removed.

This newest slaying made the media and the police certain they had not arrested the real Ripper, despite the grand jury indictments.  

On Sunday, October 22, 1911, the body of Eva Florence was found in a field at Rockwell and Elizabeth Streets.  She had been killed the night before, beaten in the head and stabbed in the neck (but not slashed as the other victims.)  Her brother, John Clowers, a waiter, posted a $100 reward with the police for the apprehension of the killer.  The coroner's inquest found that a firearm had been discharged on Elizabeth Street shortly before or at the time of the Florence murder.

On Friday, November 10, 1911, Minnie Wise, described by the newspapers as a "comely mulatto girl" was found dead in an alley.  She had been bludgeoned with a rock, dragged into a field on Connelly Street, where her throat was cut and then dragged 20 more feet to where she was discovered, near the corner of Georgia Avenue.  Her right index finger had been hacked off at the middle joint and her shoes were missing.  Minnie was found close to where two other victims had been murdered.

Early Tuesday morning, November 21, 1911, middle-aged Mary Putnam fell prey, being slashed to death.  Her body was found around 7 a.m. in a ditch at Stewart Street and University Avenue, buried under some loose dirt.  Her throat had been cut, her chest mutilated, and her heart was found lying next to her.  Her autopsy would reveal she had also suffered a broken skull.  As prints were seen in the dirt around Mary's corpse, police brought a bloodhound in to attempt to track her killer.   The dog was able to follow the scent for about 200 yards before losing it.  Mary had been a recent Atlanta transplant, having moved to the area to keep house for an elderly black man, who the police did not consider a suspect.  More than 1,000 people viewed Mary's body at the undertakers, including Mary's stepson, Walter, who did not identify himself or his stepmother at the time but only after returning to work as an elevator operator, when he informed a passenger.  Walter claimed he feared he would be arrested if he had spoken up any earlier.   The coroner's inquest into the Putnam case revealed that, as in the Florence case, a firearm had been discharged around midnight.    

Following the Putnam homicide, an unnamed detective bemoaned to a reporter from The Constitution that the case would never be solved "until we get some help from the Negroes."  He felt that the community knew who was committing the murders but were afraid to talk; if the city had the money, the community would be willing to offer up what it knew.

At Big Bethel Church pastors warned their female congregants about going out at night, while collecting $1,200 to go toward the reward for the Ripper's capture.  

Henry Huff, who had been indicted for murdering Sadie Holley, was found not guilty by a Fulton County jury.  During his trial, Sheriff Plennie Minor suggested that jealous black women were responsible for the slayings, not men at all.  (This theory was roundly laughed at by the police officers and detectives.)

On Friday, January 19, 1912, Pearl Williams had her throat slashed.  She was found the next morning in a vacant lot at Chestnut and West Fair, only a block from her home.  Like so many others, Pearl had worked as a cook in a private home. 

(photo source: Alchetron) 

In March of 1912, according to The Constitution, the grand jury concluded that the Atlanta Ripper was a myth and each murder had been committed by a different man - the result of jealousy following "immoral conduct."   How the grand jury reached this conclusion, though, was never explained.

On Monday, April 8, 1912, 18-year-old Mary Kates was discovered in an alley, her throat cut, and her body mutilated.  Her clothing was found in a neat pile next to her body.  The Leader, Lexington, Kentucky's local newspaper, reported the murder in their April 9 edition, noting that the mutilation on Mary was done by a surgical instrument and "the slayer had some anatomical knowledge."   

On Monday morning, April 15, 1912, the body of an unidentified black female was discovered in the Chattahoochee River, by the Chattahoochee Brick Company and underneath the Southern Railway Bridge.  Discovered by the chief engineer of the brick company, he and two of his men brought the body back to the Fulton County side of the river.  Her throat had been slashed and around her neck was a string with a key tied very tightly to it.  She was estimated to be 15 years old.  

Also during that month of April, the body of an unidentified 19-year-old black female was found in a clump of bushes at the end of Pryor Street.  She had been stabbed in the throat. 

On Saturday, May 11, 1912 at 6 a.m., the body of an unidentified black female was discovered behind shrubbery at the corner of Atlanta Avenue and Fraser Street.  She had been stabbed in the throat at least twice, with one wound going through her jugular vein.  Her body had been dragged after death.  At the time she was found, she had been dead for approximately six hours.

On August 10, 1912, Henry Brown aka Lawton Brown was arrested for killing Eva Florence in October of 1911.  Brown's wife informed the authorities that he had come home on successive Saturdays, the same Saturdays that many killings had taken place, wearing bloody clothing.  While being questioned, Brown reportedly revealed details of other crimes and police felt certain they had their man.  

In October, Brown went to trial for Eva Florence's murder.  A man by the name of John Rutherford testified that the police had chained Brown's arms and legs to a chair and struck him in the head until he confessed.  Brown, while on the stand, testified that he suffered from "hallucinations."  The jury acquitted him on October 18, feeling he would confess to anything under pressure.  

On Tuesday, February 11, 1913, the body of a young black girl was found at Fair and Christian Streets.  Estimated to be no more than 20 years old, the victim had suffered a cut to the face as well as terrible slashing to her throat and was badly bruised about the head and chest.  The inquest determined that her slayer had stabbed her in the head until his knife broke, while holding her in a "vise-like grip."   Based on the direction of a number of footprints found by her body, as well as the marks of a small rubber-tired buggy, police believed that the killer had returned to her body and turned it over, to verify that she was indeed dead.  She had been wearing a blue corded suit, brown stockings and high-top patent leather boots.  

In March of 1913, Laura Smith was found with her throat cut.  She, like the others, was young, of mixed heritage and worked as a servant.

A year later, in March of 1914, firefighters found notes stuck to fireboxes throughout the city which threatened to "cut the throats of all Negro women" who were on the streets after a certain hour of the night.  The newspapers attributed the notes to the Atlanta Ripper.

On Sunday, June 24, 1917, two boys picking blackberries early that morning discovered the partially concealed body of an unknown black woman just beyond the Atlanta and West Point Belt Line, 300 yards from Stewart Avenue.  Her skull had been crushed and battered by a heavy and sharp instrument.  

On Monday, October 1, 1917, schoolchildren discovered the body of an unidentified black female by the Clark University campus around 2:30 in the afternoon.  The body was in a mud puddle with the head crushed and "numerous other marks of violence about her person."   She was dressed in a black skirt and estimated to be between 30 and 35 years of age.

In November of 1917, Laura Blackwell, a scrubwoman at the Fulton County Superior Court, was killed by a blow or blows from an axe.  Found in her home at 233 East Fair Street, Laura's head was crushed, her throat cut, and her clothing reportedly destroyed by fire.  In March of 1918, John Brown went to trial and was sentenced to life in prison for killing her.  Granted a new trial, Brown was convicted once again for Laura Blackwell's murder in 1920.  As three other black women had been found with their bodies burned, or partially burned, before Laura Blackwell, it's possible that Brown was responsible for those killings as well.

On Thursday, April 30, 1918, the body of a 35-year-old black woman was found around 2 p.m. in a ditch in the woods near the Southern railway tracks, about a mile from Hapeville, by a farmer named R. P. Wood.   The victim's skull had been fractured and her throat cut.  At the time Wood, walking from his home to Hapeville, had discovered her, she had been dead for several hours. 

On Sunday, March 10, 1918, the body of an "unidentified dark mulatto" was found at the top of a densely wooded hill above the West Point Belt Line Railroad in the vicinity of Grant Street by residents in the neighborhood.  The victim was reported to be 5'6", weighing 130 pounds, and with hair slightly gray at the temple.  She had been dead for roughly 24 hours when found, stabbed in the neck with a sharp instrument.  The Atlanta Constitution reported that the ground around her body was "thickly coated" with blood and a small half-open penknife was found nearby.

On Sunday, March 16, 1919, Queen Esther Jackson was attacked and stabbed several times.  She told police that she had stepped into her yard on East Harris Street for a drink of water from the hydrant when an unknown black male stepped from the darkness and stabbed her.  Jackson died from her wounds on Tuesday morning, March 19, at Grady Hospital.   

On Sunday, May 4, 1924, the body of an unidentified 25-year-old woman was found on the Southern Railroad tracks between Peyton Station and Chattahoochee Station.  She had a knife wound to the temple and there was evidence that a fight or a scuffle had occurred before her murder.  

On Friday night, September 5, 1924, the badly decomposed body of a 17-year-old girl had been discovered lying facedown in  a vacant lot on Pryor Street, near the Southern Railroad.  Her throat was slashed "from ear to ear."   The Atlanta Constitution reported that three black women had been found with their throats slashed in the previous two weeks and in each instance, the shoes and stockings of the victims, as well as any jewelry, had been removed.

On Monday,  September 8, 1924, The Atlanta Constitution printed "Another Ripper Victim Reported."  The unidentified woman had been found on Sunday night on Stewart Avenue near Dill Avenue.  The victim, estimated to be around 30 years of age, had a bullet wound to the head, her throat cut, and "terrible" slashes to her wrists and back, and had been dead for roughly 24 hours when she was found.   

Eliminations

Although there were clearly many murders from 1910 through 1924, not all of them can conclusively be linked to the Atlanta Ripper.   Some that were credited to the elusive killer(s) at the time were likely not his/theirs.

Lucinda McNeal, killed in her home on Friday, February 3, 1911 with a straight razor, was murdered by her husband Charles who, after a night of drinking, had cut her so badly he nearly decapitated her.  He was caught immediately following the murder, as not only had witnesses given chase to him but while running from them and two police officers, he ran directly into another officer.  Although the McNeal case was open and shut, as she was a black female murdered during the killing period of the Ripper, with her throat cut, she is sometimes mentioned as a potential victim.

In the case of Minnie Wise, murdered in November of 1911, she was married to a man known to be jealous of the attention the attractive Minnie got and had been heard to threaten to kill her.  Police suspected that he may have decided to use the unsolved Ripper killings as a cover for his wife's murder. 

Ida Ferguson was killed on January 12, 1912.  That same year, Lucky Elliott, who had been dating Ferguson and was known to be horribly jealous, was tried and convicted of her murder after his bloody knife was found by Ida's body.  As he was convicted almost entirely on circumstantial evidence, the penalty was set as life imprisonment.  Elliott's attorneys appealed his sentence to the Supreme Court but a new trial was denied.   

Pearl Williams had her throat slashed on Friday, January 19, 1912, and her body discovered the following day in the middle of a vacant lot at the corner of Chestnut and West Fair.  She had been on her way to her home on West Fair around 7 p.m., a block away from where she was murdered.  Pearl had quarreled with a black man in the days before her murder.  Presenting himself as an old acquaintance at the home where she worked, he was overheard stating that she had promised to marry him and if she did not, she would not marry anyone.  Police arrested Frank Harvey the day after Pearl's murder; he was seen with her prior to her death (it's unknown if he was the man she quarreled with), was in possession of a large knife and had small bloodstains on his shirt.  The following day, another suspect was arrested - 17-year-old Edgar Evans, who was picked up on Peters Street.   Nothing else is known about Williams' murder or the arrests of Harvey and Evans.

Alacy Owens was murdered on February 15, 1912 but her husband, Charley, was arrested in short order, although the evidence against him was circumstantial.  His first trial ended in a hung jury.  He was convicted after the second trial in late April of 1912 and given a life sentence.  Interestingly, most newspaper accounts of the time reported that he had been sentenced for one of the "so-called Ripper murders committed in Atlanta during the last 18 months," without specifying it was that of his wife. 

Victims Outside of Atlanta

On March 28, 1913, The Augusta Chronicle reported that Otto Pague, a young white man, had been attacked around 1 a.m. on Broad Street in August, some 145 miles to the east of Atlanta.   Pague had thrown his arm up to ward off the knife blow, which had laid his cheek open rather than his throat.  He had reportedly lost three quarts of blood before he was found unconscious and rushed to a doctor, where he was stitched up.   Once he regained consciousness, Pague told police he and a friend had been walking down Broad Street when he was attacked from behind by a black male who had lain in wait.  

The Chronicle article mentions that a black woman by the name of Hattie Parkman had been attacked and nearly knifed to death only days prior to the attack on Pague.  

On December 14, 1913, the Chronicle reported another attack, this time on 29-year-old Thomas Gordon, a black male, who had been found by a police officer near death around 1 a.m. on Marbury Street.   Gordon died shortly after being placed on an operating table at Lamar Hospital, without making any statement on who had attacked him.  Despite this, the paper asserted that the police considered the murder a matter of revenge.  

On Wednesday, February 11, 1914, the body of 17-year-old Zeulla Crowell was fished out of the Chattahoochee River in Columbus after the girl had been missing for three weeks.  Her skull had been fractured in three places by a blunt instrument.    

Problems with the Coroner

Although not publicized for obvious reasons, the coroner, Paul Donehoo, was legally blind.  While he had attended the Atlanta Law School and graduated in 1911, he never obtained a formal degree in medicine.  Most coroners make their findings by visual inspection; in Donehoo's case, he had to rely on the verbal and written descriptions of others who may or may not have tainted views, missed evidence, or not understood what they were seeing.  

To further complicate matters, Donehoo had stated unequivocally that the killings were the work of a single killer - which could have led the police officers and detectives to tunnel vision and attempt to connect cases that weren't actually connected.

(photo source: JTR Forums) 

The Role of the Media and Race

When the killings commenced in Atlanta, the media was fairly silent on them because the victims weren't white.   Even after it was obvious that the city had a killer on its hands, the reports were often buried in the back sections and seemed little more than titillation for the publication's readers.   The victims were often described as "negresses," "mulattos," and "octoroons."   Even when The Atlanta Journal ran a headline questioning whether there was "a black butcher" in their midst in June of 1911, the article itself was a paltry four paragraphs.  Four paragraphs, when some of the city's population was under siege by a human predator or predators.  

Racism, sadly, was still alive and well in Atlanta and it was reflected in media's attitude and somewhat ambivalent reporting on the case.  Even when the murder of Lena Sharpe and attack on Emma Lou Sharpe was recounted in the press, it was mentioned that "the problem of help is becoming serious."   In other words, it wasn't just an emergency that women were being killed; it was also an emergency that the wealthier (i.e., and white) residents of the area were losing their help.

The same article also reported that the "murder of  Negroes by Negroes are frequent enough on Saturday nights" when whiskey was flowing freely.  And while it is true that copious consumption of alcohol can certainly lead to altercations, the reporting made it appear that these kinds of crimes, in the poorer areas, was to be expected.

In July of 1911, following the murder of Mary Yeldell, it was the black churches that put together a reward for information on the killer.  It was also the black community that demanded that the Atlanta Police Department find black detectives to solve the case, whether it be because they felt the white officers were not giving a hundred percent because the victims were black or because they felt black detectives might winnow out more information in the black community.   

Afterword

Despite the black community requesting the local police to assign black detectives to the case, there was outrage that only black men had been arrested for the murders.  There were accusations that these arrests reeked of racism; surely, white men were capable of murder, too.

However, in looking at the facts and considering the era in which these murders took place, the Atlanta Ripper was almost certainly a black male - and there was more than one killer.  Even when not considering Emma Lou Sharpe's description of the man who stabbed her and most certainly killed her mother, it would have been difficult for a white man to move so freely and relatively unnoticed through black neighborhoods.  Once the killings started, any unknown person, and especially a Caucasian, would have been met with wary glances or outright defense.   Since the Ripper was able to continue to kill undetected, even after the city was on alert, he was almost definitely a black man.

The location of the bodies, nearly always found by a railroad track or something to do with the railroad, had to have meaning.  It's possible that the Ripper worked for the railroad and didn't stray far from the area he was familiar with.  As the trains would run in and out of Atlanta, usually on the weekends, it's also possible that the Ripper was not an Atlanta resident at all but simply came into town with the train.   His schedule may have changed, which resulted in the murders going from Saturday nights to the beginning of the week.

Almost certainly the Atlanta Ripper's motive is much the same as England's Jack the Ripper:  a deep and abiding hatred, and possibly fear, of women.  Black women could have been chosen simply because they were easier for him to approach, due to segregation at the time.   As many of them were also biracial, he could also have had a prejudice and hatred toward them.

The police were in a no-win situation.  Oftentimes they arrived at the crime scene, or body dump site, after dozens of others had trudged through the area to view the body, potentially moving or destroying evidence.  With each subsequent murder, patrols were beefed up but since the Ripper seemingly had no particular pattern for how he chose his victims and then struck, the PD was at a serious disadvantage.  When they did make an arrest, they were met with criticism and accused of making those arrests because they were racist.  Even the Atlanta Constitution, which had devoted little space in reporting the crimes, chastised the police department for its inability to solve the very crimes they seemed reluctant to give wide berth to.   Atlanta's mayor also got into the act, throwing shade on the police by claiming he couldn't understand why they were "unable to cope with the situation."   It seems like the anger that should have been directed at the killer was instead projected to the police department.

To date, the Atlanta Ripper cases remain unsolved.  

(photo source: American Hauntings) 

The Burger Chef Murders

In 1954 Burger Chef was founded in Indianapolis, Indiana, featuring flame broiled burgers, a direct competitor for Burger King.  The company quickly expanded throughout the United States, focusing on franchises in small towns.  They offered not only a double burger and quarter-pound hamburger but also a toppings bar where patrons could customize their burgers.  Burger Chef was second only to McDonald’s in locations, something no other franchise has managed to do. 

Jayne

By November of 1978, the mad expansion had slowed considerably but Burger Chef was still a major player in the fast food empire.  In Speedway, Indiana, a small town of 12,500 residents, Friday, November 17 was a gloomy, cool day with rain drizzling throughout much of the day.  The closing shift for the Burger Chef on Crawfordsville Road consisted of four employees:  Jayne Freidt, Ruth Ellen Shelton, Mark Flemmonds, and Daniel Davis.  


Jayne, at 20 years old was not only the oldest member of the crew that night but the assistant manager.  She had worked for Burger Chef for three years and had been at the Crawfordsville road location since the spring of 1978.  While professional, she was known to have a zesty and zany sense of humor and a ready smile.  

Ruth was 17 and a junior at Northwest High School.  An honor student, Ruth had a heavy workload in the hopes that it would guarantee her acceptance into a good college, where she hoped to study computer science.  She realized how vital computers would become to us in the future.  In the limited spare time she had, Ruth enjoyed macramé and was active in her church.  

Ruth

Mark, 16 years old, was the youngest of seven children and a sophomore at Speedway High.  He had struggled in his first year at the high school but had managed to find his footing by that fall of 1978.  Encouraged by his success, Mark’s father agreed to let him work at Burger Chef.  The Flemmonds family lived close enough to the restaurant that Mark could work to and from work.



Danny, also 16 years old, was a junior at Decatur Central High School.  A jokester who enjoyed a good laugh, he also loved photography and had a darkroom in his home in which he could develop his own photos.  He planned on enlisting in the Air Force after graduation due to his fascination with aviation.  Friday, November 17, 1978 was his first Friday night shift.



All four employees were considered responsible, having never been late for a shift, and well-trusted by management. 

Mark

The doors were locked on schedule at 11 p.m. while the crew went about their closing duties, in order to prepare the restaurant to reopen the next morning.  Danny apparently changed out of his uniform shirt; Jayne took the cash from the register drawers and placed it in the safe located in the manager’s office.  Normally their duties would be complete by about midnight.



Another employee, who hadn’t been scheduled to work that Friday evening but was dropping by to apparently meet up with one of the four, arrived at midnight and found the back door unlocked and ajar, the safe open, and the restaurant empty.  He immediately contacted the Speedway Police Department.



The first officers on the scene found two empty currency bags, an empty roll of adhesive tape next to the safe, handbags belonging to Jayne and Ruth Ellen and coats belonging to the four employees.  Nearly $600 was gone (the equivalent of which would be nearly $2300 in 2020), a relatively petty sum, and coins were left behind.  There appeared to be no sign of struggle.  The police at first believed the employees had taken the money and gone out to party.  Apparently, the girls’ handbags remaining behind and the coats did not raise any flags for the police.  So instead of protecting the scene, dusting for fingerprints and taking photos, the authorities allowed the restaurant to be opened up as per normal on Saturday morning and cleaned by that shift’s employees.  By these actions (or inactions), any potential evidence was effectively destroyed.

Danny

By Saturday morning, the families of Jayne, Ruth Ellen, Daniel, and Mark had reported them missing.  As the day wore on with no contact from any of the teens, the police began to doubt their initial suspicions and returned to the Burger Chef to consider other theories.  Given that the back door had been found ajar, and knowing the closing routines at the restaurant, they wondered if one of the boys had unlocked the back door to take out the trash and was then either ambushed or followed back in by an intruder or intruders.  They also put out a BOLO for Jayne’s car, which was not in the lot.  



Jayne’s Vega was found within hours, only blocks away from the Speedway Police Department.  The driver side door was locked but the passenger door was not.  Inexplicably, even though it had become painfully clear something terrible had befallen the employees sometime between 11 p.m. and midnight the night before, the Speedway police did not take photographs, dust for prints or collect any forensic evidence from Jayne’s car.

On the afternoon of Sunday, November 19, a couple found the bodies of the four employees on their large, wooded property some 20 miles from Speedway.  The bodies of Ruth and Danny were found together; both had been shot execution style numerous times in the head and neck with a .38 caliber gun.  Seventy-five yards from them lay Jayne’s body; she had been stabbed twice in the heart, with the blade of the knife breaking off in her chest.  Lastly, Mark’s body was found a short distance away.  He had been beaten about the head, possibly with a chain, and it was speculated that he may have attempted to flee, striking a tree in the darkness.  He had choked to death on his own blood after landing on his back.  Sadly, had he not landed on his back, he would have survived.  All four were still dressed in the same uniforms they had worn on Friday evening and were wearing their watches and with money in their pockets.     

Suspect sketch 

Reportedly, mistakes and oversights continued to be made by authorities.  Some folks on the body scene stated that the Indiana State Police moved some of the bodies before the coroner or forensic technicians arrived.  The field was not roped off and department vehicles were driven all over, possibly destroying evidence.  Given the presence of the Indiana State Police, Speedway Police, and Johnson County Sheriff’s Department, there were simply too many officials on the scene.

On Monday, November 20, Burger Chef offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to the capture and arrest of their killer(s).  Steak ‘n Shake added an additional $1,000 to the kitty.  By that time, the murder investigation was in a serious tailspin.  The agencies - - Speedway P.D., Indiana State Police, and the Johnson County Sheriff -- were not working together and did not share information.  Speedway’s Chief of Police refused to acknowledge the mistakes his department had made; he claimed allowing the Burger Chef to reopen only hours after the employees had gone missing was the right thing to do. 



Although the police were not making public comments or statements about the case, other than the chief defending his department, a teenaged witness came forward to say that on the evening of November 17 he had seen two suspicious looking men in the Burger Chef parking lot around 10 p.m.  Sketches were done up and distributed in the hopes that the men could be found and identified. 

The knife blade that killed Jayne

A month after the murders, in December, a man at a bar bragged to friends that he had been involved in the Burger Chef murders.  He was questioned by police and given a polygraph, which he passed.  He did, however, provide the authorities with names of individuals involved in fast food restaurant burglaries.  One of the men named in the burglaries resembled one of the sketches done the month before, down to his beard.  When this man was threatened with a line-up, he shaved off his beard -- something he had reportedly never done before. 



Beard’s next-door neighbor, also named, had the nickname of Shotgun, due to his having served time for robberies in which he used a shotgun.  The third suspect named in the burglary group reportedly fit the description of the second suspect in the sketch; he had also served time on an unrelated charge. 



All three were offered a deal if they would admit their part in the murders or give up information but all three denied their involvement and police had nothing further to go on. 



In March of 1979, a man by the name of Roger Dale Stafford was investigated.  Stafford had murdered fast food employees in Oklahoma but he was cleared after he could not be placed in Indiana on November 17, 1978. 



In April, two men from Milwaukee were investigated after committing a double murder but were quickly ruled out.

Jayne's final resting place

In 1981, Jayne’s brother was arrested on a drug charge and authorities began to investigate him, under the theory that the murders might be drug related.  He was cleared in under a week.



The case went cold until 1983, when a Marion County inmate claimed that a man he served with had admitting to committing the murders.  According to the inmate, the man had said he was a drug “enforcer” and had gone to collect a debt from one of the Burger Chef employees and one of the others had recognized him, which necessitated in eliminating everyone.  Although possible, it appears that there was no evidence connecting the man to the crimes and once again, the case went cold.



In 1984, an inmate by the name of Donald Forrester contacted the Marion County Sheriff’s Office to confess.  Forrester was serving a 95-year sentence for rape and wanted a deal to avoid being transferred from the Pendleton Correctional Facility to the Indiana State Prison, which had a notorious reputation for being violent.  Forrester, who was living in Speedway at the time of the murders, claimed that Jayne’s brother James had owed money on a drug deal and he and three “associates” had gone to the Burger Chef to threaten Jayne.  Mark had intervened and a scuffle had broken out, during which Mark had fallen and struck his head on the bumper of a car.  Believing that Mark was dead or dying, the decision was made to abduct and kill the other three.  Forrester said he had shot Ruth and Danny.  He led authorities to the location where the bodies were found, accurately describing their positioning and mentioning the knife that was broken in Jayne’s chest -- a detail the authorities had held back.  He directed the police to the river that he said he had thrown the gun into and gave up the names of the three “associates” that he said had killed Mark and Jayne.  A search of the river failed to recover any firearm. 

Ruth's final resting place

Forrester’s wife was interviewed.  She recalled a day after November 17, 1978 when she accompanied her husband on a drive in the country, where he pulled off in a field and collected several shell casings, which he then flushed down the toilet at their home.  The septic tank of the house was searched and three spent .38 caliber shell casings were discovered.  Unfortunately, someone at the sheriff’s office leaked the news of Forrester’s cooperation and he quickly recanted, saying that his confession was coerced.  Without further cooperation from him and no direct evidence linking him to the crime, the case again went cold.



It was thought at one point that the Burger Chef murders might be tied to a series of eight bombings that took place in Speedway between September 1 and September 6, 1978 but there was no correlation between them.  Similarly, the July 29, 1978 shooting murder of Julia Scyphers in Speedway proved unrelated. 



In January of 2015, after a campaign for funds was started on Twitter, a headstone was placed on Mark Flemmonds’ grave.  His family had not been able to afford one at the time of his death and for nearly 40 years, his grave had remained unmarked.



In the summer of 2018, as the 40^th anniversary of the murders approached, four oaks trees were planted at Leonard Park in Speedway in the victims’ honor, each with a plaque commemorating each victim.  As the original monetary goal was surpassed within 24 hours, the additional funds collected were used to install a marble bench which was dedicated to the family and friends of the victims. 

Mark's final resting place

To date, no one has been charged with the murders of Jayne, Ruth, Danny, and Mark and the case remains open.  Certainly, the tunnel vision of the police the night of November 17, 1978, compounded by their mistakes and oversights, seriously hindered the investigation and likely impeded any kind of arrest. 



It’s likely the murders were a result of either a burglary gone wrong, with one of the employees recognizing a burglar or burglars or a drug shakedown gone wrong.  Jayne had worked at another Burger Chef location until the spring of 1978; perhaps one of the burglars had been a regular at that location.  Furthermore, Mark Flemmonds was not initially scheduled to work that Friday night; he was covering for another employee.  It’s possible that he recognized one of the intruders, who had chosen that night on the assumption that Mark would not be working. 



The son of one of the early suspects identified after the man at the bar gave him up, stated that his father confessed to him before dying.    



And what of Donald Forrester’s confessions?  Given the information he knew and the positionings of the bodies, if he wasn’t personally involved, he knew someone that was.  Once he recanted his confession, he never again spoke to authorities about the murders and died of cancer in 2006, still behind bars.

Danny's final resting place

What does seem certain is that there were at least two assailants, if not three.  They would have to gain control of the four employees and at least three weapons were used against the victims:  a firearm, a knife, and a chain.  Perhaps Ruth and Danny were shot by one perpetrator, Jayne attempted to fight back and/or escape and was stabbed by a second perpetrator, and Mark ran, being struck by a possible third perpetrator.  His friends stated that he was a very fast runner; his father recalled him saying that he would never go down without a fight and that he would zigzag while running, to avoid being capture or hit.  Had he not been struck, either by the chain or potentially by hitting a tree, he might have managed to outrun his assailants.   



Burger Chef never paid out its $25,000 reward fund.  The company was sold to Hardees in 1982, with most of its franchise locations converted to a Hardees.  The last known Burger Chef location closed in 1996. 



If you have any information on the Burger Chef murders, contact the Indiana State Police at (317) 899-8508.

The former Burger Chef today

Sources: 

Bongiovanni, Domenica, "Book About Burger Chef Murders Puts Them in the Context of Speedway Crime Spree," Indy Star, June 26, 2019.

Cain, Aine, "On an Autumn Night in 1978 Four Fast-Food Workers Vanished From Their Shift. 41 Years Later, Police Still Don't Know Who Killed Them,"  Insider.

Little, Becky, "The Burger Chef Cold Case: Four Murders Still Unsolved Over 40 Years Later," AETV Real Crime. 

A Study of Indiana Cold Cases:  "Burger Chef Murders of 1978,"  October 17, 2017.   https://studyofindianacoldcases.blogspot.com/2017/10/burger-chef-murders-of-1978.html

CrimeCapsule:  "The Burger Chef Murders of Indianapolis: What Really Happened?" November 14, 2019.  https://crimecapsule.com/the-burger-chef-murders-of-indianapolis-what-really-happened/   

Wikipedia