Denton and Haughton Examiner, etc. — 1888-10-06 (Denton, Greater Manchester, England)

INQUEST OPENED ON TEE VERNON-STREET VICTIM.  Mr. Wynne E. Baxter, the coroner for the district, opened an inquest at the Vestry-hall, Cable-street, St. George's-in-the-East, on the body of the unfortunate woman mysteriously murdered in a yard at the rear of a club hi Berner-street, Commercial-road. The jury having heal sworn, proceeded to view the body, which lay in the mortuary adjoining the. Vestry-hall, and the coroner held a consultation with Dr. Phillips and other medical men engaged in the cane. The murder, it appears, was committed in thepariah of St. Georges-in-the-East, within 50 yards of the Whitechapel boundary. After looking upon the horrible spectacle of the dead woman, still fully dressed in the clothes she wore, with her throat cut and bloodstained face, the jury returned to the Vestry-hall, where some evidence was taken ; the police were represented by Detective-inspector Reid, of the H division. The attendance at the inquest comprised only those having business at the inquiry, and outside she Vestry-hall .there was no crowd, but a knot of poor-looking women clustered about the precincts of the mortuary, some of them wishing to see if they could identify the murdered woman who was known as Long LiZ." At the opening of the inquest it was announced that it was to inquire 'bow Elizabeth Stride came by her death," but no evidence of identification was offered, and it subsequently transpired that this announcement of the name of the deceased was somewhat premature. The fact was that a woman, on seeing the body at the mortuary, said that she thought it was her sister, Elizabeth Stride, and she could identify her by a mark on her foot. Crying bitterly, she professed to so identify the deceased, but afterwards she expressed doubt as to whether it was her sister, and in this dilemma the police had no evidence of identification to offer at the inquest. The only evidence called was that of members of the International Working Men's Educational Club—an institution of Socialistic tendency—and these witnesses, all young men speaking with a strong foreign accent and affirming instead of taking the oath, spoke as to the circumstances of the discovery of the body in the yard adjoining that building. There are in this yard stables, a house let out in tenements, the premises of a sack manufacturer, and a printing-office. On the night in question the gate of the yard was open, as it sometimes is, all night. There was a back entrance into the club through the yard. One member entered the club that way at twenty minutes to one on Sunday morning, and he then saw nothing of the dead woman lying in the yard passage. From the yard he could hear a friend singing "in the Russian language" in an upper room of the club, and he joined him in the room, where there were other members, and singing went on. Within a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes of that time the steward of the club, returning with his pony and cart, having been out on business, found the body of the murdered woman in the passage from the gateway into the yard, and running up into the club he gave an alarm that brought down the members to the spot. The supposition is that it was within that quarter of an hour or twenty minutes that the murder was committed, and perhaps the murderer, disturbed by the sound of approaching wheels, may have hid himself in the large dark yard, where there was a recess, and then, while the owner of the pony and cart was giving the alarm in the club, made his escape, because after the members of the club were called to the scene no one passed out until an examination of the premises had been made by the police, who also satisfied themselves that there were no blood marks on the clothes of any of the members of the club present, or the strangers who had entered the building. It is possible, however, that the dead body was there at the time one member passed into the club at twenty minutes to one, and that he did not notice it, for the steward with his pony and cart had his attention drawn to the body, apparently only by the animal "shying" at the object. Any way, the evidence given at the inquest on the opening day shows what a narrow shave the murderer had from being caught red-handed, and can leave no doubt that he was disturbed in his fiendish work, but whether by the noise of some one coming. the singing in the club, or the sound of the wheels as the pony and cart approached, is open to conjecture.