Catherine Eddowes
Whitechapel murder victim (1842-1888)
Catherine Eddowes (14 April 1842 – 30 September 1888) was the fourth of the canonical five victims of the unidentified serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, who is believed to have killed and mutilated at least five women in the Whitechapel and Spitalfields districts of London from late August to early November 1888.
Eddowes was murdered in the early hours of Sunday 30 September within the City of London. She was the second woman killed within an hour, the night having already seen the murder of Elizabeth Stride within the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police. These two murders are commonly referred to as the "double event", a term originating from the content of the "Saucy Jacky" postcard received at the Central News Agency on 1 October.
A part of a left human kidney, accompanied by a letter addressed From Hell and postmarked 15 October, was later sent to the chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, George Lusk. The author of this letter claimed the section of kidney was from Eddowes, whose left kidney had been removed, and that he had fried and eaten the other half. Most experts, however, do not believe this kidney originated from Eddowes's body.
Early life
Catherine Eddowes was born on 14 April 1842 in Graiseley Green, Wolverhampton, the sixth of twelve children of tinplate worker George Eddowes and his wife, Catherine (née Evans), who worked as a cook at the Peacock Hotel.
The family moved to London a year after her birth, where her father obtained employment with Perkins and Sharpus in Bell Court in the City of London. They first lived at 4 Baden Place, Bermondsey, before relocating to 35 West Street.
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This entry incorporates text from “Catherine Eddowes” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.