Dry Heat

The Butcher of Whitechapel

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by Lynne MacVean

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     I regret the tone of this narrative. I have done my best to represent the killer’s perspective as gleaned from police records, interviews, and those who knew him. It amazes me that the official cadre of “Ripperologists” have not narrowed down their search to the actual killer, who, it seems to me, stands out as the obvious candidate. My research into true crime stories and serial killer histories generally is what identified the killer for me, as I visited the London Underground Museum and observed the various descriptions of the most prominent suspects and theories of the investigators themselves. I believe that the sensationalism and tabloid exaggeration that Londoners engaged in at the time, in the late 1800s, and so many fools distracting investigators with false letters from the killer in order to gain some infamy or sick satisfaction are partly responsible for the lack of conclusion of this case. Also, forensic science has improved several generations over since this first, most famous serial killer first earned the moniker, Jack the Ripper.

• Editor, Lynnet McVean,

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     Mattie had always wanted a woman of his own. As an apprentice butcher in the shithole neighborhood of Whitechapel, his prospects for a prostitute were excellently wretched. That said, a woman of quality like flower shop girl Missy Smith would never stoop to sully herself with the well-used offspring of a Whitehall whore, even if he had learned enough letters and numbers to wrangle this bloody apprenticeship.

     The blood wasn’t the bad part. That was his reward. Putting up with the brutal, self-important Jimmy Kosnewski, the master butcher, was the hard part. That and serving up the choicest cuts of meat to Missy Smith, knowing she’d never see him as anything but the sweaty butcher who was little more than meat himself.

Damn his mother for giving birth to him and not giving him up for adoption. Turning a tender boy, starved for attention, into the plaything of gentlemen willing to pay a few shillings for a “virgin,” or a living punching bag for working stiffs, was the hell that had made him into the tightly muscled blighter he was today. He didn’t blame the johns. He blamed his mother. She offered him up. She and her whoring ilk were responsible for bringing down honest men with their sly looks and suggestive frocks. She had groomed him to take her place so she could retire as something of a madam but he would have none of it. He worked out in secret, practicing street fighting with the other boys and carrying goods at the docks to build his muscles. Eventually he got a job at the docks, where the men had no more regard for women than he did, and so did not think it amiss when he spoke disparagingly of them.

     No one missed the street dogs and cats he killed when he was bored. There were already too many of them anyway. If one or two were actually someone’s pet, they were consigned to the fate of victims of carts and carriages and no one was the wiser. It was something to do.

     He picked up knifework at the docks, and that is how he came to the attention of the master butcher.

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     Kosnewski liked Mattie’s brute strength, his quick efficiency with a knife, and his utter lack of fear of blood. He almost seemed to enjoy it, which would make him the perfect shop assistant. None of that nasty vomiting business. Ruins the appearance of a proper meat stall.

     Slaughtering is early work, while most gentler folk are abed, so that fresh-cut meat is available by the time they come round to shop. Mattie was never late and rarely spoke. The perfect assistant.

Well, with the male customers anyway. He seems a bit craven when speaking to the females, as though they intimidate him somehow, which is ludicrous. He could break them in half with one hand. Must be how he was brought up. None of my business so long as he does his work well and doesn’t take ill or dive into drink. There’s no way he was that Jack the Ripper fellow. He was at work when that piece of nastiness was out and about, and even escorted Missy Smith home after the murders began, when she was afeared of walking alone back from the meat stall.

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     I never thought much about Mattie Chapman before the murders started. He seemed a decent sort, efficient with the meat cuts and not given to chatter. I don’t have time for that on my rounds, so I appreciate it when someone is a professional. Oh, I got scared once the murders started, like every other woman in Whitechapel. I don’t think you need to be concerned about Mattie. He’s the butcher’s son, I think. Always polite to the ladies. One morning I was out early for my rounds, well before sun up, and I did not like to walk home alone. I begged Kosnewski to let me borrow Mattie for a bodyguard to make sure I got back in one piece. I thought it a bit lewd how he winked at him in front of me, but I felt much safer not walking alone on these dirty, dingy streets. Who knows if it was just one murderer? The letters sent to the papermen and the constables were certainly the work of multiple people. Not very funny, if you ask me. Are their lives so miserable and boring that they must add to others’ fears with their hoaxes?

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     Well. Missy Smith asked me to walk her home. I don’t think the constables have any idea I’m the real Ripper. Best to leave it that way. I don’t want to be locked up or beheaded. Maybe this whoreson will marry a nice girl after all. No one will ever know.

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