On this day, Sept. 30, in 1888, in London, Jack the Ripper killed his third and fourth victims, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes, in what has become known as the “double event.”
Stride, nicknamed “Long Liz,” was discovered dead about 1 a.m. in the Whitechapel district. A single clear-cut incision severed the main artery of her neck.
Less than an hour later, Eddowes’ mutilated body was found. She was last seen talking with a man, presumably Jack the Ripper.
Authorities later received a package containing half a human kidney, probably Eddowes’, accompanied by the “From Hell” letter, signed “Catch me when you Can.”
The Ripper murders caused a panic and were the first to unleash a worldwide media frenzy.
The identity of Jack the Ripper, the most famous serial killer of all time, remains a mystery.
– Scott McCabe
