‘Jack the Ripper’ posts a gruesome memento
Half a human kidney is delivered – but is it really a gory souvenir cut from a recent victim of the serial killer?
T16 October 1888 he autumn of 1888 found George Lusk most agitated. Lusk was one of Whitechapel’s most prominent local figures, a self-employed builder and churchwarden who had been elected chairman of the area’s Vigilance Committee. Like his fellow volunteers, Lusk was horrified by the police’s inability to solve the crimes of Jack the Ripper, and his name featured prominently in posters appealing for information. But as the tension mounted, Lusk began to worry that somebody – a mysterious bearded man, he thought – was watching his house.
On 16 October, a little parcel arrived at Lusk’s house in the evening mail, its postmark showing that it had been sent the day before. Lusk read the accompanying letter. “From hell,” it began, and continued in ungrammatical, misspelled English: “Mr Lusk. Sor, I send you half the Kidne I took from one women prasarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise. I may send you the bloody knif that took it out if you only wate a whil longer. signed Catch me when you can Mishter Lusk.”
In the parcel he found a little lump, preserved in alcohol. Initially thinking it a hoax, Lusk put away the box in his desk drawer, but next day he was persuaded to take it for medical tests. The results were chilling. It was indeed half of a human kidney; according to a newspaper report, one medical expert thought it had come from a woman aged about 45 who drank heavily. The Ripper’s second victim, Catherine Eddowes, had been 46 and was a drinker – and it was known that her kidney had been cut out. Could Lusk’s gory gift have been sent by the Ripper?