Emma Smith died on 4 April 1888. She is the first victim in the police files on the Whitechapel murders although there were, and remain, good reasons to believe that she was killed by a different assailant. The police investigation into the crime was perfunctory, at best. Chief Inspector West attended the inquest on 7 April, stating that he had no official information and was only aware of the matter through the papers. He had questioned the constables on their beats, but they did not know anything.

On the night of the murder a badly injured Emma returned to her lodgings between 04:00 and 05:00 and her landlady escorted her to the hospital. Emma told the surgeon that she crossed the road around 01:30 to avoid a group of men who assaulted and robbed her. The distance between the place of the assault and the lodging house was around 300 yards. Either Emma lay unconscious for a couple of hours, or she roamed the streets in obvious distress. Inspector Reid later stated that she would have passed several officers on her way back to the lodging house. None of them noticed her.

Coroner, Wynne Baxter, said it was difficult to imagine a more brutal case. He would preside over inquests into worse atrocities in the coming months. By then the police would be under intense pressure to find the killer. Emma Smith was soon forgotten.