Another murderer stalked the streets of London concurrently with Jack the Ripper. Share Article Share Article Facebook X LinkedIn Reddit Bluesky Email Copy Link Link copied Bookmark Comments
On the morning of May 11th, 1887, a barge worker named Edward Hughes made a horrifying discovery. He hauled a sack from the River Thames at Rainham which contained a human torso. Approximately a month later, on June 5th, a dockworker, John Morris, found a thigh and patella near Temple Pier, while a lower chest and upper stomach were located close to Battersea Pier.
It was concluded that these dismembered remains came from the same individual, a woman estimated to be about 27 to 29 years old; however, since no head was located, her identity sadly remained unknown. These happenings, which became known as the “Rainham Mystery”, transpired a year prior to the initial acknowledged killing by the serial killer Jack the Ripper. As London was gripped by the stories of this serial killer, more severed body parts surfaced in the Thames; nonetheless, neither the investigators of the time nor current historians think that Jack the Ripper committed these crimes.
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The initial victim of Jack the Ripper, Mary Ann Nichols, was discovered brutally murdered on August 31, 1888, in Whitechapel. However, this wouldn’t be the sole tragedy to befall the area, as merely a couple of weeks afterwards, on September 11, a right arm and shoulder were found on the riverbank.
Additional body parts were uncovered in the subsequent weeks, and on October 2, a female’s torso was located, succeeded by a leg on October 17. Again, no head was ever recovered, and the sufferer was never recognised.
Even though both were operating in London, and particularly in the Whitechapel locale, it is believed that Jack the Ripper and the Thames Torso Killer were distinct individuals, with detectives asserting that their methods were markedly different.
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The third victim of the Thames Torso killer, Elizabeth Jackson, who was around eight months pregnant when she died, is the sole victim who has been identified.
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Elizabeth’s trunk was found on June 4, 1889. Over the next few days, further body pieces were washed ashore, yet, akin to the others, Elizabeth’s head was never located.
Following the identification of her body, Elizabeth’s partner, John Faircloth, was apprehended in Devon on suspicion of committing her murder. Still, he was subsequently let go after the police learned that he had departed London a couple of days prior to the last sighting of Elizabeth whilst she was alive.
The concluding of the recognised “Thames Torso” killings took place in 1889, with the headless and legless trunk of an unidentified woman being discovered on September 10. No other bodily remains were unearthed in this instance, and neither sufferer nor assailant was ever brought to light.
Despite these being four “accepted” Thames Torso killings, it’s been suggested that two other London murders were the actions of this perpetrator – the “Battersea Mystery” of 1873 and 1874, during which two women were found in pieces, and the 1884 “Tottenham Court Road Mystery”.
Moreover, within his book The Thames Torso Murders of Victorian London, R. Michael Gordon, proposed a link spanning these slayings and a pair more, one within Paris during 1886, and another within London at the later juncture of 1902.
Even though the Thames Torso Killer, and three of his victims, have not been named, academics have indeed hypothesised regarding the identity of this savage butcher.
Researcher Sarah Bax Horton has singled out boatman and barge operator James Crick as the leading suspect within these cases. This supposition has gained extra attention within the recent BBC documentary series Lucy Worsley’s Victorian Murder Club.
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Despite never being convicted of these offences, James Crick received a sentence of 15 years imprisonment for violation and attempted killing in 1889, which coincides alongside the ending of the killer’s spree.
Ultimately, he served a term of eight and a half years, which might have put him back upon the streets of London whilst the 1902 killing occurred before his death during 1907.