Patricia Cornwell - Portrait Of A Killer - Jack The Ripper - Case Closed

In the eighth century, bloodhounds were known as Flemish hounds and were prized for their ability to track bear and other animals and run them out of safe harbor on hunts. It wasn't until the sixteenth century that it became common to use these deep-throated, long-eared hounds to track human beings. The depiction of them as vicious canines used to hunt down slaves in America's southern states is a terrible falsehood. It is not the nature of bloodhounds to be aggressive or to have physical contact with their quarry. They don't have a mean fold in their sad, floppy faces. Slave-hunting hounds were usually foxhounds or a mixture of foxhound and Cuban mastiff trained to drag a person to the ground or attack.

Training bloodhounds to track criminals is so specialized and painstaking that few are available to assist police detectives. Not many of the hounds would have been around in 1861 or 1862, when Buchanan claims, in what sounds like a Grimm's fairy tale, that bloodhounds tracked the little boy's murderer straight to the house where an old woman was hiding under a bed.

"Williams" - as The Times printed it - Buchanan was not listed in the 1888 post office directory, but the 1889 register of electors for St. Pan-eras South Parliamentary Borough, District 3 Burton, lists a William Buchanan as a voting resident of a dwelling house at 11 Burton Street. In those days, Burton Street wasn't considered a dreadful part of the city, but it wasn't a good one, either. The house let for thirty-eight pounds a year with rooms rented to a number of people of various occupations, including an apprentice, a printer's warehouseman, a colorman grinder, a cocoa packer, a French polisher, a chair maker, and a laundress.

William Buchanan wasn't an uncommon name, and no other records could be located to identify him or his occupation. But his letter to the editor shows a literate, creative mind, and he mentions Dieppe, the seaside resort and artists' haven where Sickert would have houses and secret rooms for almost half of his life. Sickert wasn't likely to rent these secret rooms in Dieppe, London, or elsewhere under his own name. In the late 1880s, identification wasn't required. Cash would do. One might wonder how often Sickert used names other than his own, including those that might belong to real people.

Perhaps a person named William Buchanan did write the letter to the editor. Perhaps there was a murdered seven-year-old boy whose body was dumped in a horse bin in Dieppe. I can't say one way or another. But it is a disturbing coincidence that within ten weeks of Buchanan's letter, two boys would be murdered, the mutilated remains of one of them left in a stable.

"I am going to commit 3 more 2 girls and a boy about 7 years old this time I like ripping very much especially women because they don't make a lot of noise," the Ripper wrote in a letter he dated November 14,1888.

On November 26th, eight-year-old Percy Knight Searle, a "quiet, sharp and inoffensive lad," was murdered in Havant, near Portsmouth, on England's south coast. He was out that evening "between 6 and 7" with another boy named Robert Husband, who later said Percy left him and headed down a road alone. Moments later Robert heard him screaming and saw a "tall man" running away. Robert found Percy on the ground against palings and barely alive, his throat cut in four places. He died before Robert's eyes.

A pocketknife was found nearby, its long blade open and stained with blood. The residents were certain the murder was the work of Jack the Ripper. The Times mentions a Dr. Bond at Percy's inquest but does not give a first name. If the doctor was Thomas Bond of Westminster, then Scotland Yard sent him to see if the case might be the work of the Ripper.

Dr. Bond testified at the inquest that the injuries to Percy Searle's neck were consistent with "cuts from a bayonet," and that the boy was killed while standing. A porter at the Havant railway station claimed that a man jumped on the 6:55 train to Brighton without buying a ticket. The porter didn't realize a murder had just occurred and did not pursue the man. Suspicions focused on the boy Robert Husband when it turned out that the "bloody" pocketknife belonged to his brother. Another medical opinion was offered that the four cuts on Percy's neck were clumsy and could have been made by a "boy," and Robert was charged with the crime despite his protests of innocence. Portsmouth is on England's south coast, directly across the English Channel from LeHavre, France, and about a three-and-a-half-hour train ride from London.

Nearly a month later, Thursday, December 20th, another murder occurred, this one in London. Rose Mylett lived in Whitechapel, was about thirty years old, and was described as "pretty" and "well nourished."

She was an Unfortunate and had been out late Wednesday night, apparently plying her trade, and the next morning at 4:15 a constable discovered her body in Clarke's Yard, Poplar Street, in the East End. He believed she had been dead only a few minutes. Her clothing was in place, but her hair was in disarray and hanging down, and someone - apparently her killer - had loosely folded a handkerchief around her neck. A postmortem examination revealed she had been garrotted with moderately thick packing string.

There was "nothing in the shape of a clue," The Times reported on December 27th, and medical and police officials believe the "deed [was] the work of a skillful hand." A point of medical confusion for the police surgeon was that Rose's mouth was shut when she was found and her tongue was not protruding. Apparently it was not understood that in most cases of garrotting, the ligature - in this case a cord - is pulled tightly around the neck and compresses the carotid arteries or jugular veins, cutting off the blood supply to the brain. Unconsciousness occurs in seconds, followed by death. Unless the larynx, or airway, is compressed, as in murder by manual strangulation, the tongue will not necessarily protrude.

Garrotting is a quick and easy way to control a victim because the person loses consciousness rapidly. Strangulation with the hands, in contrast, causes death by asphyxia, and the victim will most likely put up intense resistance for minutes as he or she panics and fights to breathe. Garrotting bears a similarity to cutting a victim's throat. In both cases, the victim can't utter a sound and becomes quickly incapacitated.

One week after Rose Mylett was murdered, a boy disappeared in Bradford, Yorkshire, a theater city on the Irving company's tour that was four and a half to six hours northwest of London, depending on the number of stops the train made. Thursday morning, December 27, at 6:40, Mrs. Gill saw her seven-year-old son John hop on the neighborhood milk wagon for a quick ride. Later, at 8:30, John was playing with other boys, and by some accounts was talking to a man after that. John never came home. The next day, his frantic family posted a notice:

Lost on Thursday morning a boy, John Gill, aged eight. Was last seen sliding near Walmer Village at 8:30 A.M. Had on navy blue top coat (with brass buttons on), midshipman's cap, plaid knickerbocker suit, laced boots, red and white stocking; complexion fair. Home 41, Thorncliffe Road.

The notice listed John as eight because his birthday was a little over a month away. That Friday night at 9:00 P.M., a butcher's assistant named Joseph Buckle was in the vicinity of stables and a coach house very close to the Gills' home. He noticed nothing out of the ordinary. The next morning, Saturday, he was up early to yoke up his employer's horse for a day of work. As was his usual routine, Joseph cleaned out the stable. While he was pitching manure into a pit in the yard, he "saw a heap of something propped up in the corner between the wall and the coach house door." He fetched a light and saw that the heap was a dead body and that an ear had been cut off. He ran to the bakehouse for help.