William Henry Bury - Investigation

Investigation

Lamb returned to the police station and charged William with Ellen's murder. Ellen's jewellery, found in William's pockets, was confiscated. A preliminary search of the premises revealed chalk graffiti on the rear door of the flat, which read "Jack Ripper is at the back of this door", and on the stairwell leading up from the rear of the property, which read "Jack Ripper is in this seller" (sic). The police thought they had been written by a local boy, but the writer was never identified. A more extensive search the following morning yielded blood-stained clothing and the remains of more clothing, and some of Ellen's personal effects, burned in the fireplace. The flat was bereft of furniture, indicating that it may have been burnt on the fire, either for heat or to destroy evidence. A large penknife was found with human flesh and blood upon it, and the rope that William had bought on the morning of 4 February was found with strands of Ellen's hair caught in the fibres.

Ellen's body was examined by five physicians: police surgeon Charles Templeman, his colleague Alexander Stalker, two local doctors David Lennox and William Kinnear, and Edinburgh surgeon Henry Littlejohn. They concluded that Ellen had been strangled from behind. Her right leg was broken in two places so it could be crammed into the crate. Incisions, made by the penknife, ran downwards along her abdomen and had been made "within at most ten minutes of the time of death" according to Templeman, Stalker and Littlejohn. Lennox disagreed and thought the wounds were made later on the basis that when he examined the body the wound was not everted, but Templeman and Stalker said the wound was everted when they examined the body. Littlejohn explained that as Lennox made his examination three days after the others, the eversion could have disappeared, to which Lennox agreed.

Chief Constable Dewar sent a telegraph detailing the circumstances of the crime to the London Metropolitan Police Service, which was investigating the crimes attributed to Jack the Ripper. Detectives from London did not consider Bury a realistic suspect in their investigation into the Ripper murders, but Inspector Frederick Abberline did interview witnesses in Whitechapel connected to Bury, such as William's former employer James Martin and landlords Elizabeth Haynes and William Smith. According to the hangman James Berry and crime reporter Norman Hastings, Scotland Yard sent two detectives to interview Bury, but there is no surviving record of the visit in the police archive.