16 November 1888

Afternoon

Hanbury Street

🔔 Your phone vibrates again. Incoming call: Kim.

💭 You worry. Kim survived the first location. She sounded sharp at the end. But this is the second murder. And she said the date was 9 November 1888. The day of the last killing. If she is really moving forward through the crime scenes, then something is pulling her deeper. What could it be? And she already hinted at something worse. Why did he stop? Or did he? And mostly why haven’t you heard from her in days?

🔔 Call Connects

📞 Kim (to you)

Hi. I’m here. Hanbury Street. Number 29.

(Distant market sounds. A cart rolling. Someone coughs so loudly you fear your ears.)

I spend yesterday day walking around. Getting to know Whitechapel. It’s… not great. The bricks are dark. There’s a passageway beside the house that leads into the yard. That yard.

📞 You

Breathe. Tell me what you see.

(A church bell marking time.)

📞 Kim (to you)

It’s morning again. But not the same morning. The backyard is small.

(A fly buzzes near the phone. She swats at it.)

They’re everywhere. Even two months later. That’s… not comforting. This is where Annie Chapman was found. If I remember correctly:

It was September 8th, 1888. Her name wasn’t Annie Chapman at birth. It was Annie Eliza Smith. Born September 1841. Forty-seven when she died. She was five feet tall. She had blue eyes. Dark wavy hair. She had good teeth. That detail appears repeatedly in testimony. Almost lovingly noted. Why do they always describe the teeth?

📞 You

Because it humanizes her.

📞 Kim (to you)

Right. She had been married to John Chapman. A coachman. They had three children. One died young. One was disabled and sent away. One surviving daughter. They separated. He paid her ten shillings a week until he died. After that… she declined. Chronic lung disease. Possibly tuberculosis. Maybe syphilis. She was malnourished. Multiple witnesses described her as sober. Not a raging drunk.

💭 She’s reciting Annie’s life like grocery items. When did that become normal?

(A door opens nearby. Footsteps in the passage.)

📞 Male 1

You from the press?

📞 Kim

No.

📞 Male 1

Then you shouldn’t be here.

📞 Kim

I’m paying my respects.

📞 Male 1

Women like her shouldn’t be remembered.

(The man sighs and walks off.)

📞 Kim (to you)

I found a picture of her. From 69. I’m sending it to Secrets Hall. If this works the way I think it does… it should exist in 2026. Do me a favor. Check.

📲 Text to Mr. Sterces

Sir, do you have a picture of Annie Chapman in the Archives?

4.22 p.m.

📲 Text from Mr. Sterces

What?

4.21 p.m.

A document has appeared in the archive. Dated 1888. Signed “K.” It is damp.

4.21 p.m.

That is… impossible.

4.22 p.m.

📲 Text to Mr. Sterces

Please send it to me

4.24 p.m.

📲 Text from Mr. Sterces

4.23 p.m.

📞 Kim (to you)

Did it work?

📞 You

It did! Mr. Sterces is becoming cautious. What do I do?

📞 Kim (to you)

Don’t worry about it. Where was I? Right. She was last seen alive around 5:30 in the morning. A woman named Elizabeth Long saw her speaking to a man here. Against the shutters. Long heard him say, “Will you?” And Annie replied, “Yes.”

It was a short exchange. No struggle was reported. A few minutes later, another man, Albert Cadosch, heard a woman say “No!” from this yard. Then something hit the fence. At 6:00 AM, her body was discovered.

📞 You

How terribly sad. Do you know how she was found?

📞 Kim (to you)

You don’t want to know. It was horrible. I will spare you the details but it was like the others. What is interesting though is that she had older bruises too. She had been struck before.

📞 You

Before that night?

📞 Kim (to you)

Yes. There had been a fight days earlier. In a lodging house. with another woman. Eliza Cooper. They don’t know exactly what the reason was. Some say it involved a man. Other mention soap, money and jealousy. No one agrees. But she had a black eye before she died. That bruise on her temple does not belong to the killer.

Now the mutilation. My apologies but it’s essential for you to know. Try to turn off your emotions for this one and look at it from a research perspective. If you can.

The abdomen was entirely laid open. The intestines were removed and placed over her shoulder. The uterus, upper portion of her genitals, two-thirds of the bladder. All removed. He removed her motherhood. But why?

The doctor testified it showed anatomical knowledge. He said the knife must have been at least six to eight inches long. Thin blade. Very sharp. He also said something else. He believed the throat was cut first. And that she likely entered this yard alive. No sign of struggle.

📞 You

She trusted him?

📞 Kim (to you)

She needed money for a bed. That’s it. How horribly sad.

This one disturbs me more than Nichols. Because it’s contained. Residents asleep above. And still no one clearly sees him. No one clearly hears her. She was so close to people and yet so lonely. The doctor estimated she had been dead at least two hours when examined at 6:30 AM. But it was a cool morning. Loss of blood accelerates cooling. Time of death is uncertain.

📞 You

You sound unsettled.

📞 Kim (to you)

Because this is the second murder and the mutilation escalated dramatically.

And yet. There’s still no confirmed sexual act. No evidence of intercourse. No evidence she was assaulted sexually before death.

The removal of organs… but no obvious sexual violation in the conventional sense. Why remove the uterus? Why place the intestines deliberately over the shoulder? Why not flee immediately? He worked here for minutes in an enclosed yard with people inside the house. That suggests either confidence or routine.

📞 Woman 1

They say she was a street woman.

📞 Woman 2

They say that about all of them.

📞 Woman 1

She had family.

📞 Woman 2

So do we.

📞 Kim (to you)

They are already being labeled the same thing. “Street women.” But Annie didn’t enter prostitution until after her husband died. And even then, accounts differ. Some say she sold flowers. Some say she only occasionally sought money that way.

This location gives me an idea. We need to know more about identity. Were these women targeted because they were prostitutes? Or were they called prostitutes because they were murdered in Whitechapel? And another question keeps bothering me. If this was the second of five… Why does it already feel deliberate? Why remove the uterus? If I understand that choice… I understand him. And if I understand him..

📞 You

What do you need from me?

📞 Kim (to you)

We have two directions here.

If we follow Annie’s life directly, we examine what it truly meant to be labeled a prostitute in Whitechapel. Whether the label itself shaped the case. OR