Twenty-eight-year-old Emma Jackson lived with her family in a modest home behind a butcher shop at 10 Berwick Street, Soho, owned by a Mr. Andrew Osborn. By all accounts, Emma was a quiet and peaceable woman, working as a shirtmaker to earn a living.
However, those who knew her described occasional periods of excess when she would leave home for days, engaging in behaviors that led her into the dangerous world of prostitution. It was during one such episode, after leaving home on Tuesday, April 7th, 1863, that Emma’s life took a tragic turn. She was last seen at her mother’s house on Wednesday evening, April 8th, before heading into the night, never to return.
On the morning of April 9th, 1863, at around seven a.m., Emma Jackson and an unidentified man entered a house of ill repute at 4 George Street, St. Giles, a notorious area known for its poverty, crime, and brothels. The servant who admitted them, groggy from sleep, paid little attention to the man’s appearance and could provide no detailed description later. The pair was shown to a back room on the first floor, and the house remained quiet throughout the day, raising no immediate suspicions.
It wasn’t until around five-thirty p.m. that the servant girl, checking the room, discovered a horrific scene. Emma Jackson lay lifeless on the bed, her throat savagely cut, with her windpipe severed and her carotid artery slashed. Two additional stab wounds on the back of her neck, inflicted with great force, suggested a desperate struggle for survival. The bed was soaked with blood, and the walls were spattered, painting a grim picture of the violence that had unfolded. A surgeon later estimated that Emma had been dead for four to five hours, placing the time of the murder around midday. No murder weapon was found, and the killer had meticulously collected his belongings before fleeing, leaving no trace of his identity.
The discovery of Emma’s body sparked immediate alarm. The servant alerted the police, and a medical professional confirmed the gruesome details of the attack. The landlord, David George, who had been sleeping in the back parlor directly below the crime scene, claimed to have heard nothing, a surprising detail given the lack of street noise and the brutality of the attack. The absence of reported screams or disturbances added to the mystery, suggesting the killer acted swiftly and silently.
Emma’s family was notified in the early hours of April 10th, when two girls, acquaintances of Emma, knocked on the door of the Osborn household with the devastating news. Her father and brother accompanied the police to George Street, where they identified her body. The investigation quickly focused on the man last seen with Emma, described by one witness as a foreigner, possibly a German baker, spotted with her that morning near Greek Street and Crompton Street. Despite this lead, the police struggled to make progress. The St. Giles district, with its transient population and maze of dilapidated streets, was a challenging environment for tracking suspects.
Several men were arrested in connection with the case, including a thirty-one-year-old carpenter named John Richards, who confessed to the crime. However, the police soon determined that Richards was a drunken fantasist, and he was cleared of involvement. Another suspect, described as having scars and “weak, sore” eyes, was briefly considered, but no convictions followed. One main suspect, who fit this description, was later found drowned in the docks, an apparent suicide, but this lead also went cold.
Decades later, the murder of Emma Jackson drew renewed attention due to speculation about a possible link to Jack the Ripper, the infamous serial killer who terrorized Whitechapel in 1888. In his book The Evil Within, retired detective Trevor Marriott suggested that Emma’s murder, along with the 1872 murder of Harriet Buswell, bore similarities to the Ripper’s later crimes, particularly the throat-cutting and the targeting of prostitutes. Marriott proposed that Carl Feigenbaum, a German merchant seaman, might have been responsible, citing his presence in London during the relevant periods. However, this theory has been met with skepticism, as Feigenbaum’s documented travels and physical descriptions do not fully align with the evidence, and the twenty-five-year gap between Emma’s murder and the Ripper killings raises doubts. Additionally, contemporary reports noted false eyewitness testimony about a “foreigner,” further complicating such connections.
As of this writing in August 2025, the murder of Emma Jackson is still unsolved.
Crime Immemorial 