The North-Eastern Weekly Gazette. — 1888-09-15 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

ANOTHER APPALLING MURDER IN LONDON.  A DIABOLICAL DEED.  London was awakened last Saturday morning to the awful fact that another murder, far more diabolical and fiendish, had been perpetrated on another womau of the same class as the poor wretch found in Buek's-row, Whitechispol, a week ago. The victim in the present case was discovered test Saturday morning lying in a back yard at the foot of a passage leading into lodging. house No. 29, Hanbury-strost, formerly Old Brown's lane, SpitaMelds. The house is occupied by a Mrs Emilia Richardson, who lets it out to various lodgers, and it seems that the door which admits into this passage, at the foot of which lies the yard where the body was found, is always open for the convenience of the lodgers. AMr and Mrs Davis occupy the upper story, the house consisting of three stories, and as Mr Davis was going down to work he found a woman lying on her back close up to the flight of steps leading into the yard. Her throat was eat open in a fearful manner, almost severing the head from the body. It was also found that her body had been fearfully mutilated. The place on which she was lying was found coverod with clots of thick blood, most horrible to look at. There was no signs of any struggle having taken place in the vicinity. Davis. the lodger, who found the body, immediately communicated with the police at the Commercial-street station, and Inspector Chandler and several constables appeared on the scene in a short time. The news spread quickly, and great excitement prevailed among the occupants of the adjoining houses, and an excited crowd gathered in front of Mrs Richardson' house, and also around the mortuary in Old Montague-street where the body was quickly removed. A young woman named Lyons, of the class commonly known as "unfortunates," made a statement to the police on Sunday night to the effect that at three o'clock that afternoon she met a strange man in Flower and Dean-street, one of the worst streets in the East End of London. He asked her to go to the Queen's Head public house at half-past six and drink with him. Having obtained from the young woman a promise that she would do so he disappeared, bat was at the house at the appointed time. While they were conversing Lyons noticed a large knife in the man's right hand trousers pocket, and called another woman's attention to the fact. A moment later Lyons was startled by the remark which the stranger addressed to her : "You are about the same style of woman as the one that's murdered," he said. " What do you know about her 7" asked the woman, to which the man replied, "You are beginning to smell a rat. Foxes hunt geese, hut they don't always find 'em." Flaring uttered these words the man hurriedly left. Lyons followed until near Spat/Melds Church, and turning round at thie spot and noticing that the woman was behind him the stranger ran at a swift pace into Church-street, and was at once lost to view. One noteworthy fact in this story is that the description of the man's appearance is in all material points identical with the published description of the unknown and, lip to the present, undiscovered "Leather apron.' Over two hundred common lodging-houses have been visited by the police in the hopes of finding some trace of this mysterious and ruuch-talked-of person, but he lies succeeded in evading arrest. The police have reason for easpecting that he is employed in one of the London sweating dens as ,a slipper maker, and that, as it is usual to ripply food and lodging in many of those houses, he is virteally in hiding. He is well-known to many policemen in the Whitochapel district, and as he has kept himself out of the way since, this is regarded ass significant circumstance.