Perhaps a person named William Buchanan did write the letter to the editor. Perhaps there was a murdered seven-year-old boy whose body was dumped in a horse bin in Dieppe. I can’t say one way or another. But it is a disturbing coincidence that within ten weeks of Buchanan’s letter, two boys would be murdered, the mutilated remains of one of them left in a stable.
“I am going to commit 3 more 2 girls and a boy about 7 years old this time I like ripping very much especially women because they don’t make a lot of noise,” the Ripper wrote in a letter he dated November 14,1888.
On November 26th, eight-year-old Percy Knight Searle, a “quiet, sharp and inoffensive lad,” was murdered in Havant, near Portsmouth, on England’s south coast. He was out that evening “between 6 and 7” with another boy named Robert Husband, who later said Percy left him and headed down a road alone. Moments later Robert heard him screaming and saw a “tall man” running away. Robert found Percy on the ground against palings and barely alive, his throat cut in four places. He died before Robert’s eyes.
A pocketknife was found nearby, its long blade open and stained with blood. The residents were certain the murder was the work of Jack the Ripper. The Times mentions a Dr. Bond at Percy’s inquest but does not give a first name. If the doctor was Thomas Bond of Westminster, then Scotland Yard sent him to see if the case might be the work of the Ripper.
Dr. Bond testified at the inquest that the injuries to Percy Searle’s neck were consistent with “cuts from a bayonet,” and that the boy was killed while standing. A porter at the Havant railway station claimed that a man jumped on the 6:55 train to Brighton without buying a ticket. The porter didn’t realize a murder had just occurred and did not pursue the man. Suspicions focused on the boy Robert Husband when it turned out that the “bloody” pocketknife belonged to his brother. Another medical opinion was offered that the four cuts on Percy’s neck were clumsy and could have been made by a “boy,” and Robert was charged with the crime despite his protests of innocence. Portsmouth is on England’s south coast, directly across the English Channel from LeHavre, France, and about a three-and-a-half-hour train ride from London.
Nearly a month later, Thursday, December 20th, another murder occurred, this one in London. Rose Mylett lived in Whitechapel, was about thirty years old, and was described as “pretty” and “well nourished.”
She was an Unfortunate and had been out late Wednesday night, apparently plying her trade, and the next morning at 4:15 a constable discovered her body in Clarke’s Yard, Poplar Street, in the East End. He believed she had been dead only a few minutes. Her clothing was in place, but her hair was in disarray and hanging down, and someone – apparently her killer – had loosely folded a handkerchief around her neck. A postmortem examination revealed she had been garrotted with moderately thick packing string.
There was “nothing in the shape of a clue,” The Times reported on December 27th, and medical and police officials believe the “deed [was] the work of a skillful hand.” A point of medical confusion for the police surgeon was that Rose’s mouth was shut when she was found and her tongue was not protruding. Apparently it was not understood that in most cases of garrotting, the ligature – in this case a cord – is pulled tightly around the neck and compresses the carotid arteries or jugular veins, cutting off the blood supply to the brain. Unconsciousness occurs in seconds, followed by death. Unless the larynx, or airway, is compressed, as in murder by manual strangulation, the tongue will not necessarily protrude.
Garrotting is a quick and easy way to control a victim because the person loses consciousness rapidly. Strangulation with the hands, in contrast, causes death by asphyxia, and the victim will most likely put up intense resistance for minutes as he or she panics and fights to breathe. Garrotting bears a similarity to cutting a victim’s throat. In both cases, the victim can’t utter a sound and becomes quickly incapacitated.