London - Dark Stories True Crime Tours

1888: Jack the Ripper Claims His Second Victim: the Mutilation of Annie Chapman

Annie Chapman was a heavy drinker who had turned to prostitution in London's Whitechapel after her marriage collapsed and her daughter died, using the earnings to pay for drink and a bed for the night. On the night of her death she had no money for lodgings and went out to earn her rent; her body was found in the early hours in a backyard, her throat cut and her abdomen slashed open.

The killer had arranged her intestines over her shoulder and removed her uterus, taking it with him. An autopsy determined she had been sober at the time of her death, ruling out the drunkenness that had shaped so much of her life.

Her murder, following that of Mary Ann Nichols just over a week earlier, confirmed for police that a single killer, soon dubbed Jack the Ripper, was stalking the women of Whitechapel.

Portrait of Annie Chapman with her husband in 1869

⬅ See all events from 8 September

Cold Case London Murder Serial Killer UK Unsolved

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1666: The Great Fire of London Begins on Pudding Lane

In the early hours of 2 September 1666, a fire broke out at the Pudding Lane bakery of Thomas Farriner in the City of London. Driven by strong winds, the blaze consumed around 80 percent of the old city before it was brought under control on 6 September. Though attributed to an accident at the bakery, the disaster ignited a desperate search for culprits.

Robert Hubert, a French watchmaker from Rouen, confessed to starting the fire. His confession was riddled with impossibilities: he had not arrived in England until two days after the fire broke out, and he described throwing a fire grenade through a window at the Farriner bakery, which had no windows. With nationalism inflamed by the Second Anglo-Dutch War, a scapegoat was needed, and Hubert, a foreigner in a hostile city, was hanged for a crime he almost certainly did not commit.

⬅ See all events from 2 September

Arson Disaster Europe Execution London Political Crime UK Wrongful Conviction

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1888: Jack the Ripper Claims His First Victim in Whitechapel

Mary Ann Nichols, known as Polly, was 43 years old, a divorced mother of five, and homeless on the night she died. In the early hours of 31 August 1888, she went to the streets of Whitechapel, London, to earn money for a bed. Her body was found before 4 a.m., her throat slashed with a long-bladed knife and her abdomen deeply cut. There were no witnesses.

Nichols became the first of at least five women murdered in and around Whitechapel between late August and early November 1888 by the killer who would become known as Jack the Ripper. Her death ignited intense press and public interest in both the murders and the desperate living conditions of London's East End.

Despite countless theories, the killer Jack The Ripper, has never been identified.

Illustration of PC Neil discovering the body of Mary Ann Nichols with his lantern. Unknown artist, 1888. Published in Famous Crimes Past and Present, c.1903. Public domain.

⬅ See all events from 31 August

Cold Case Europe London Murder Serial Killer UK Unsolved

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1922: Cecil Hides a Body in his Bath

Cecil Maltby, a 47-year-old London tailor with a taste for gambling and drink, shot his mistress Alice Hilda Middleton three times in the back at his flat above his shop at 24 Park Road, Regent's Park, on 24 August 1922. He concealed her decomposing body in a bath in the kitchen, wrapped in a sheet with a note claiming she had committed suicide. Her husband, returning from service with the Merchant Navy in the Far East, reported her missing in December 1922, prompting police to watch the premises.

When authorities finally forced entry on 10 January 1923, using a health order citing unsanitary conditions, officers heard a shot from the bedroom. Maltby had put a gun to his mouth and died within minutes. The pathologist's report demolished his suicide narrative: Middleton had been shot three times from behind. A coroner's jury returned a verdict of murder against Maltby, finding that he had then taken his own life to avoid arrest.

Bathtub filled with blood in a horror crime scene concept

⬅ See all events from 24 August

Concealment of Body London Murder Suicide UK

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