the left of the steps, between them and the paling fence that divided the yard from that of the next door house. This time there was no chance of missing the finer points of the crime. Annie lay sprawled on her back, her head very obviously all but severed from her body and her entrails draped up over her right shoulder like a macabre necklace.
In a highly agitated state Davis ran out into Hanbury Street and blurted out the terrible news to the first men that he came across before rushing onwards to Commercial Street police station to summon help. Within minutes the police were on the scene and a crowd had begun to gather in the street outside. Unlike that of Polly Nichols, a very full post-mortem examination was carried out by Dr. George Bagster Phillips – the senior and highly experienced police surgeon to H Division – both in the yard before the body was moved and later in the Old Montague Street mortuary.
Davis had found the body just before 6am and a little over an hour before, when it was just becoming light, John Richardson, the landlady’s son, had sat on the steps to trim a piece of loose leather from the sole of his boot. He was certain that Annie’s body had not been there at that time. Albert Cadosch, a 28-year-old Frenchman who lodged next door at number 27, had been in the backyard a little after 5.30am. He had heard voices from the next yard and then something heavy falling against the 6ft fence, but he did not attempt to look over it as he was already late for work. It seems certain that Annie met her death between 5.30am and 6am when it was fully light and many people were up and about. The murderer it seemed had taken Annie through the hallway of 29, the front andback doors of which were never locked, had carried out his execution and then made his escape without anyone having seen or heard anything unusual. For the second time in little over a week the mysterious killer had struck, carried out his dreadful mutilations and disappeared in the space of just a few minutes.
When the news became known of what was by now the fourth murder of an unfortunate in the area in five months, public concern began to rise nationally as well as locally. When the inquest opened on Monday 10th September, there was little enough space in the improvised courtroom for the coroner, his officers, the court officials, the jury and the witnesses, let alone the public and representatives of the press. Crowds built up on the pavement of Whitechapel Road soon after the doors opened, as people of all ages and classes jostled and pushed each other, hoping to gain admittance. After the shocking revelations of the last case, everyone wanted to hear for themselves the evidence of the police surgeon. They were to be disappointed, however, because the coroner’s officer, Mr. Banks, had instructed the police not to allow members of the public access to the building 88 .
A contemporary drawing of the scene at Annie Chapman’s inquest still exists 89 . It was done by a courtroom artist working for the
Pictorial News
and is undoubtedly an accurate depiction of the scene. Such artists were employed much as they are today – to record scenes in courtrooms in which, then as now, photography was not allowed. Combining it with the detailed descriptions of the event, which appeared in the local papers the following Saturday, it is possible to account for most of the people in the picture. Coroner Baxter sits on the far side of a heavy, leather-skivered table beneath the portrait of Princess Alexandra after whom the room was named. Always an imposing figure with his black walrus moustache, on that day he wore a white waistcoat, crimson silk tie and check trousers 90 . To his left, facing the end of the table, sat the jury of 18 men. Immediately to his right was Dr. George Bagster Phillips, the senior police surgeon to H Division, and at the end of the table, facing the jury, were the two representatives of the police. According to the
East
In a highly agitated state Davis ran out into Hanbury Street and blurted out the terrible news to the first men that he came across before rushing onwards to Commercial Street police station to summon help. Within minutes the police were on the scene and a crowd had begun to gather in the street outside. Unlike that of Polly Nichols, a very full post-mortem examination was carried out by Dr. George Bagster Phillips – the senior and highly experienced police surgeon to H Division – both in the yard before the body was moved and later in the Old Montague Street mortuary.
Davis had found the body just before 6am and a little over an hour before, when it was just becoming light, John Richardson, the landlady’s son, had sat on the steps to trim a piece of loose leather from the sole of his boot. He was certain that Annie’s body had not been there at that time. Albert Cadosch, a 28-year-old Frenchman who lodged next door at number 27, had been in the backyard a little after 5.30am. He had heard voices from the next yard and then something heavy falling against the 6ft fence, but he did not attempt to look over it as he was already late for work. It seems certain that Annie met her death between 5.30am and 6am when it was fully light and many people were up and about. The murderer it seemed had taken Annie through the hallway of 29, the front andback doors of which were never locked, had carried out his execution and then made his escape without anyone having seen or heard anything unusual. For the second time in little over a week the mysterious killer had struck, carried out his dreadful mutilations and disappeared in the space of just a few minutes.
When the news became known of what was by now the fourth murder of an unfortunate in the area in five months, public concern began to rise nationally as well as locally. When the inquest opened on Monday 10th September, there was little enough space in the improvised courtroom for the coroner, his officers, the court officials, the jury and the witnesses, let alone the public and representatives of the press. Crowds built up on the pavement of Whitechapel Road soon after the doors opened, as people of all ages and classes jostled and pushed each other, hoping to gain admittance. After the shocking revelations of the last case, everyone wanted to hear for themselves the evidence of the police surgeon. They were to be disappointed, however, because the coroner’s officer, Mr. Banks, had instructed the police not to allow members of the public access to the building 88 .
A contemporary drawing of the scene at Annie Chapman’s inquest still exists 89 . It was done by a courtroom artist working for the
Pictorial News
and is undoubtedly an accurate depiction of the scene. Such artists were employed much as they are today – to record scenes in courtrooms in which, then as now, photography was not allowed. Combining it with the detailed descriptions of the event, which appeared in the local papers the following Saturday, it is possible to account for most of the people in the picture. Coroner Baxter sits on the far side of a heavy, leather-skivered table beneath the portrait of Princess Alexandra after whom the room was named. Always an imposing figure with his black walrus moustache, on that day he wore a white waistcoat, crimson silk tie and check trousers 90 . To his left, facing the end of the table, sat the jury of 18 men. Immediately to his right was Dr. George Bagster Phillips, the senior police surgeon to H Division, and at the end of the table, facing the jury, were the two representatives of the police. According to the
East
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