Jack the Ripper's first canonical victim was murdered
On this day · 31 August 1888
The killing of Mary Ann Nichols in Whitechapel opened a string of unsolved murders that would terrorize Victorian London.
In the small hours of 31 August 1888, the body of Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols was found in Buck’s Row in the Whitechapel district of London’s East End. Her throat had been cut and her abdomen mutilated. She is regarded as the first of the “canonical five” victims attributed to the unidentified killer who came to be known as Jack the Ripper.
Nichols was a 43-year-old mother of five, separated from her husband and drifting between common lodging-houses. Hours earlier she had been turned out for lack of the few pence needed for a bed.
A name scrawled in a taunting letter would haunt London for over a century.
Over the following ten weeks, four more women were killed in and around Whitechapel. Despite a vast police effort and lurid press coverage, the murderer was never identified — leaving one of history’s most enduring criminal mysteries.
Sources & references
2 referencesWell-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.
