On this day in 1889 Alice McKenzie was buried in Plaistow, a week after she was murdered in Whitechapel. Eight months after Jack the Ripper’s autumn of terror she died in a similar way and in the same area. Doctor Phillips who had been involved in some of the earlier cases noted similarities, including a degree of anatomical knowledge, but concluded the killer was different. Not everyone agreed.

Doctor Thomas Bond who had been brought in to advise the police felt Alice was murdered by the same person. The police ignored that opinion. Although their files contain details of thirteen murders, Sir Melville Macnaghten writing in 1894 decided that Jack the Ripper killed five women only and most people talk of, and write about, the same five.

I do not know if Jack the Ripper killed Alice McKenzie, but I do know that, despite some excellent research, her life is less well documented than those of his accepted victims.