The particulars of this child murder are very similar to those of the murder of 8 year old Johnny Gill. He was also found in the early morning hours in a public lavatory in Bradford, wrapped in a small parcel on January 5, 1889. It was widely believed at the time that eight-year-old Gill was murdered by a milkman, but the man was later exonerated amid vast public protestation.
THE TERRIBLE MURDER OF A CHILD.
A terrible child murder was discovered in St. George’s Road, near the Elephant and Castle, on Saturday.
The victim was Marie Ellen Bailes, a little rosy-cheeked child of six and a-half years. Her parents, who live at Prebend Street, Islington, missed her when she did not return home to tea at the accustomed hour from school, and they reported the matter to the local police station, whence a description of the child was circulated.
On Saturday morning, an attendant at a lavatory at the corner of St. George’s Road, near the Elephant and Castle, noticed a man coming down the steps carrying a neatly tied brown-paper parcel. He seemed nervous, and glanced hurriedly around.
The man left and passed out unnoticed.
A few minutes later the attendant found the parcel behind a door. He carried it to his office and cut the string.
A strip of blanket was revealed, and on opening it the man found a dead human hand. Further investigation showed the mutilated body of a child.
The throat had been cut in several places, the head was almost severed from the body, while the legs and arms were broken and tied to the sides of the trunk. Grains of sand fell from the paper. It was at once supposed that the child had been murdered, and that subsequently the body had been buried in sandy soil. This was the view afterwards expressed by the medical men who conducted an examination.
Some of the child’s clothes had been torn away, and tattered fragments had been drawn over the head and thrust as a gag into the mouth.
Rigor mortis had not set in, showing that the child’s death had occurred within twelve or sixteen hours prior to the discovery of the body.
A man has been arrested on suspicion.
Source: Penny Illustrated Paper and Illustrated Times
Jack The Ripper 