A plump, middle-aged prostitute, Martha Tabram was stabbed to death in George Yard on 7 August 1888.
On the previous evening Tabram was seen with another prostitute in various public houses in Whitechapel. At around 11.45pm she was seen going into George Yard with a soldier, presumably to have sex. There were no more sightings of her before her body was found at 4.45am on the stairs in George Yard Buildings, a tenement block. A resident of the building used the stairs at 1.30am and saw nothing suspicious. Another, on returning home at 3.30am, saw what he thought was someone sleeping on the stairs and paid no attention.
At 4.45am, a third resident was on his way to work. By this time, daylight was breaking and he found Tabram lying in a pool of blood on the stairs. Her lower garments were in a state of disarray, suggesting intercourse had taken place. (There is some evidence of this having occurred with later Ripper victims.)
A police surgeon visited the scene at 5.30am and estimated the time of death at around 2.30–2.45am. There were 39 stab wounds.
In the report of the inquest, presided over by Mr G Collier, Deputy Coroner for South East Middlesex, the doctor stated that the focus of the wounds was the breasts, belly and groin. In his opinion, he said, a right-handed attacker inflicted all but one of the wounds, and all but one seemed to have been the result of an ‘ordinary pen-knife’. There was, however, one wound on the sternum which appeared to have been inflicted by a dagger or bayonet.
Day One: Thursday, 9 August 1888
… Dr T.R. Killeen, of 68, Brick-lane, said that he was called to the deceased, and found her dead. She had 39 stabs on the body. She had been dead some three hours. Her age was about 36, and the body was very well nourished. Witness had since made a post-mortem examination of the body. The left lung was penetrated in five places, and the right lung was penetrated in two places. The heart, which was rather fatty, was penetrated in one place, and that would be sufficient to cause death. The liver was healthy, but was penetrated in five places, the spleen was penetrated in two places, and the stomach, which was perfectly healthy, was penetrated in six places. The witness did not think all the wounds were inflicted with the same instrument. The wounds generally might have been inflicted by a knife, but such an instrument could not have inflicted one of the wounds, which went through the chest-bone. His opinion was that one of the wounds was inflicted by some kind of dagger, and that all of them were caused during life.
The Coroner said he was in hope that the body would be identified, but three women had identified it under three different names. He therefore proposed to leave that question open until the next occasion. [The inquest was adjourned for a fortnight.]
Day Two: Thursday, 23 August 1888
… The body has been identified as that of Martha Tabram, aged 39 or 40 years, the wife of a foreman packer at a furniture warehouse.
Henry Samuel Tabram, 6, River Terrace, East Greenwich, husband of the deceased woman, said he last saw her alive about 18 months ago, in the Whitechapel Road. They had been separated for 13 years, owing to her drinking habits. …
Henry Turner, a carpenter, staying at the Working Men’s Home, Commercial Street, Spitalfields, stated that he had been living with the woman Tabram as his wife for about nine years. Two or three weeks previously to this occurrence he ceased to do so. He had left her on two or three occasions in consequence of her drinking habits, but they had come together again. He last saw her alive on Saturday, the 4th inst., in Leadenhall Street. He then gave her 1 shilling and sixpence to get some stock. When she had money she spent it in drink. While living with witness deceased’s usual time for coming home was about 11 o’clock. As far as he knew she had no regular companion and he did not know that she walked the streets. …
Mary Ann Connolly (‘Pearly Poll’), who at the suggestion of [Detective] Inspector [Edmund] Reid [H Division, Metropolitan Police] was cautioned in the usual manner before being sworn, stated she had been for the last two nights living at a lodging-house in Dorset Street, Spitalfields. Witness was a single woman. She had known the woman Tabram for about four or five months. She knew her by the name of Emma. She last saw her alive on Bank Holiday night, when witness was with her about three-quarters of an hour, and they separated at 11.45pm. Witness was with Tabram and two soldiers, one a private and one a corporal. She did not know what regiment they belonged to, but they had white bands round their caps. After they separated, Tabram went away with the private, and witness accompanied the corporal up Angel Alley. There was no quarrelling between any of them. Witness had been to the barracks to identify the soldiers, and the two men she picked out were, to the best of her belief, the men she and Tabram were with. The men at the Wellington Barracks were paraded before witness. One of the men picked out by witness turned out not to be a corporal, but he had stripes on his arm.
Detective Inspector Reid made a statement of the efforts made by the police to discover the perpetrator of the murder. Several persons had stated that they saw the deceased woman on the previous Sunday with a corporal, but when all the corporals and privates at the Tower and Wellington Barracks were paraded before them they failed to identify the man. The military authorities afforded every facility to the police. ‘Pearly Poll’ picked out two men belonging to the Coldstream Guards at the Wellington Barracks. One of those men had three good conduct stripes, and he was proved beyond doubt to have been with his wife from 8 o’clock on the Monday night until 6 o’clock the following morning. The other man was also proved to have been in barracks at 10.05 p.m. on Bank Holiday night. …
The Coroner having summed up, the jury returned a verdict to the effect that person or persons unknown had murdered the deceased.
After closely examining all the facts of this murder, I decided there are many which suggest Martha Tabram’s murder was not connected to Emma Smith’s but may be connected to later murders attributed to Jack the Ripper.
The wounds inflicted on Tabram, while savage in their execution, were just stab wounds, as described. The later victims’ bodies were subjected to even more savage attack and mutilation. In Tabram’s case, by contrast with these others, her sexual organs were not attacked or mutilated.
It should also be noted that she may have been killed either during sexual intimacy or shortly afterwards. The reason for her attack could have been that she was caught trying to rob her client – a practice common in those days among prostitutes while engaging in sexual acts.
Among all the later victims there was only one instance of a clear sign of intimacy having taken place at the time of death, and that was in the case of Alice McKenzie, whose clothes were found up around her chest. Some of these victims, however, were found with their clothes in disarray, and there is evidence to suggest that some of them were throttled to the point of unconsciousness or strangled. In Tabram’s case, there was no evidence of this.
As to the doctor’s suggestion that the attacker may have been right-handed, I suggest, having studied sketches of the pattern and location of the wounds, that the attacker could equally have been right-handed or left-handed.
Most experts do not believe that Martha Tabram was murdered by the Ripper, but, having looked closely at this murder, I cannot rule out the possibility that she was an early victim of his. Her body was subjected to dozens of stab wounds. Her killer at this time had with him only a small knife, and not being able to savagely mutilate the bodies, as was perhaps his intention, later changed his weapon to a longer-bladed knife.
The specific wound which the doctor says may have been caused by a dagger, I suggest he may be wrong. This area of the body is a very fleshy area and a stab in that area would split the skin, making a wound which would give the appearance that a larger knife had been used. This could also have been one of the first wounds inflicted on her and could have been inflicted with such force as to penetrate deeper than the stab wounds which followed.