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1888: Martha Tabram Slain in Whitechapel, Possibly Jack the Ripper’s First Victim

In the early hours of 7 August 1888, Martha Tabram was found dead in George Yard Buildings, Whitechapel, stabbed 39 times. The 39-year-old had spent the previous evening drinking with a companion and two soldiers before separating in the early hours, never to be seen alive again. Though not among the canonical five Ripper victims, she is widely regarded as the most likely additional candidate.

Born Martha White in Southwark in 1849, she had lived a troubled life marked by a failed marriage, heavy drinking, and poverty. By 1888, separated from her long-term partner Henry Turner and evicted from their Commercial Road lodgings, she had been forced into street prostitution. Her killer was never identified.

Portrait of Martha Tabram victim of a Victorian era murder case

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Cold Case London Murder Serial Killer UK Unsolved Whitechapel

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1985: Jeremy Bamber Kills Five Family Members at White House Farm

At 3:26am on 7 August 1985, Jeremy Bamber called Essex Police claiming his adoptive sister Sheila had gone berserk with a rifle at the family farm in Tolleshunt D’Arcy. Officers arrived to find a scene staged to look like a murder-suicide: Bamber’s adoptive father Neville shot multiple times in the kitchen, mother June dead in her bedroom, and Sheila’s six-year-old twins shot in their beds. Sheila herself lay dead, clutching a rifle and a bible, shot through the throat.

The scene appeared so convincing that police initially accepted the murder-suicide theory and even helped Bamber burn bloodstained carpets and bedding. It was Bamber’s former girlfriend who broke the case, telling police he had confessed the killings to her. Forensic evidence, including a silencer found at the farm bearing traces of Sheila’s blood inside the barrel, proved she could not have shot herself with it attached. Bamber was convicted in 1986 and sentenced to five concurrent life terms, later made whole life, meaning he will never be released.

Jeremy Bamber Kills Five Family Members at White House Farm

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Essex Europe Family Crime Murder Trial UK

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2002: Ian Huntley Lures Two Girls Into His Home and Murders Them

Ian Huntley, a caretaker at Soham Village College in Cambridgeshire, England, murdered ten-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman on 4 August 2002. Despite a history of sexual offending involving minors, Huntley had secured a position at the school. He used his girlfriend Maxine Carr’s connection to the girls, both pupils at the local primary school where Carr worked as a teaching assistant, to lure them inside his home as they walked past.

Carr provided Huntley with a false alibi for that night. Both were later arrested and tried. Huntley was convicted of double murder in 2003 and sentenced to two life terms. Carr was convicted of perverting the course of justice and served a portion of her sentence before release under a new identity.

Ian Huntley Lures Two Girls Into His Home and Murders Them

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Cambridgeshire Child Victim England Europe Murder Soham Trial UK

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1265: The Murder of Evesham: Simon de Montfort Crushed at the Height of His Power

On 4 August 1265, the Battle of Evesham ended the Second Barons’ War in one of medieval England’s most decisive and brutal engagements. Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, had dominated royal government since his victory at Lewes the previous year, holding King Henry III and Prince Edward in captivity. But the defection of key allies and the escape of Prince Edward unravelled his position. Trapped in a loop of the River Avon near Evesham, Worcestershire, outnumbered two to one and deceived by captured banners flown to disguise the approaching royalist army, de Montfort knew his fate. His reported final words: ‘Our bodies are theirs, our souls are God’s.’

The battle was short and merciless. De Montfort was killed and his body mutilated. The contemporary chronicler Robert of Gloucester called it ‘the murder of Evesham, for battle it was none.’ Royal authority was restored, though pockets of resistance persisted until the Dictum of Kenilworth in 1267.

Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, dies in the Battle of Evesham.

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England Europe Evesham Massacre Political Crime Rebellion UK War Worcestershire

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