30th September, 2024 in True Crime

Introducing a new prime suspect as the Thames Torso Killer

By Sarah Bax Horton

Before Jack the Ripper, another monster prowled the waterways of Victorian London. The Thames Torso Killer has always lurked in the Ripper’s shadow, despite the fact he murdered and dismembered at least four people over two years. He started to kill in 1887, over a year before the Ripper, and his last murder was in 1889, almost ten months after the death of Mary Jane Kelly, the Ripper’s last victim.

Unlike the Ripper, the Torso Killer hunted his victims from the River Thames. His mobility on the water was a crucial factor in his ability to elude justice. The Metropolitan Police were not only unable to identify this serial killer, they also failed to name three of his four known victims. Chelsea prostitute Elizabeth Jackson was the only identified victim, pregnant and in her early twenties with bright sandy hair. The other women were also dismembered and their body parts scattered in the River Thames and occasionally inland, meaning that investigators were unable to pinpoint the murder locations.

Yet the identification of Jackson from vaccination marks on her arm and a scar on her wrist marked a police breakthrough. Jackson’s former partner, the violent and abusive John ‘Jack’ Faircloth, became their prime suspect in the summer of 1889. A millstone dresser by trade, he was itinerant, and in the weeks before her death embarked upon a circuitous journey which ended in Devon. Arrested there by an enterprising sergeant, he was escorted by a Scotland Yard detective back to London. Faircloth was questioned in detail both by police and at the inquest into Jackson’s death. However, it was proved beyond doubt that he had been out of London for a full ten days before her murder. As two of Jackson’s friends had seen her en route to Battersea a matter of hours before she was killed, Faircloth was released from custody.

In September 1889, a fourth murder brought no new developments. It resembled the second murder in the series, as a woman’s torso was deposited at a secluded inland spot. Sensationally, that railway arch in Whitechapel’s Pinchin Street was within walking distance of a Ripper murder location and the headquarters of the Ripper investigation at Leman Street police station. My great-great grandfather Harry Garrett was based there from 1888 to 1896, inspiring my interest in the ‘Whitechapel Murders’ including those by the Ripper and Torso Killer.

Other researchers have tended to re-examine Ripper suspects in the line-up of men who could have been the Torso Killer. Although the latter’s crimes were also sexually motivated, his modus operandi was entirely different. To find a new, credible suspect, I used several techniques. I did my own criminal profiling and searched for men convicted of violence against women in the late 1880s, in London.

As detailed in my book Arm of Eve, I found many men who were far from fitting the Torso Killer’s profile although their trades and activities might have some relevance to the case. These included Ripper suspects such as Portuguese cattlemen, slaughterers and butchers; a myriad of river workers and barge builders; inquest witnesses who discovered body parts, in particular builders and carpenters; employees at metal foundries and factories including distillers, oil refiners and colourmen (paint dealers); labourers and travelling tradesmen; itinerant stone-masons and mill-workers like John Faircloth; Faircloth’s brother Samuel, who lived in the East End; homicidal squaddies; random doctors and medical students; two men who nearly drowned a woman in Battersea Park’s lake in 1888; and a disgruntled former soldier and groom at a horse depot based in Battersea.

Yet through my research, I discovered a known criminal who knew the Thames like the back of his hand. James Crick is my prime suspect, a waterman and lighterman who carried both passengers and goods on the River Thames. Taken to court for violence against his wife, he was later prosecuted in two cases of attempted murder and rape. The final case against Crick resulted in a sentence of fifteen years imprisonment with hard labour, coinciding with the end of the Torso Murders.

I have spent years examining Crick as a suspect and analysing his distinctive methodology in accosting, assaulting, and moving his victims on the water in order to illuminate aspects of the Torso Murders. If the Torso Killer were James Crick, his series covered four kills and two known rapes. As suspects go, Crick is previously undiscovered and arguably the best yet. One hundred and thirty-five years later, it is likely that no better will be found.