Not the Ripper

Murder and Mutilation in Bradford

Welcome back! I hope your summer was everything you wanted it to be!

In honour of being at the British Crime Historians conference next week, this week’s story is the kind of Grand Guignol bloodbath that people seem to love.

I do not love it. But perhaps this story will remind us of the humanity behind the horror, and that there’s nothing new in the world. It also reminds us that some murders are remembered and some are forgotten. Why are some gory, unsolved murders of the late 1880s remembered yet this one is ignored, trailing in their gruesome wake?

I don’t normally bother with content warnings, but this one merits it. Mutilation, sexual abuse, child death… horrors abound.

The Gill family lived in Manningham, an industrial suburb of Bradford. Thomas and Mary Ann, both in their early 30s, celebrated their thirteenth Christmas together in 1888. They had four children: Ruth was almost thirteen, Jane was ten, John was seven and Sam was five. Thomas worked as a cab driver, and although Mary Ann had worked in the mills before their marriage, she now stayed home with the family. They lived on Thorncliffe Road, and the cab rank where Thomas worked was also on this road. The area is now an industrial park, home to Bradford FC.

Two days after Christmas, Thursday 27th December, Johnny was still off school. He left home at 7:30am and went with his ‘great friend’, the milkman to fetch some milk from the railway station on North Avenue. Allegedly, he accompanied the milkman on his round and left him about an hour later at Walmer Villas 200 yards from his house… and vanished.

It was entirely out of character: Johnny was not a tearaway youth, nor was he in with a bad crowd. He was popular and mischievious, and initially his parents believed he had jumped on a passing cart and been carried out of the neighbourhood. His parents hunted high and low for him, and placed a missing-persons advert in the local newspaper which was published the following morning.

Johnny’s body was found at 7:30am, dumped in front of a stable at a butcher’s shop. This was a most unusual case. A huge crowd gathered. Johnny’s sister Ruth passed it on her way to work in a mill. When she got to work, she heard the news and immediately went home. Her little brother Sam had already heard the body was Johnny, and he was the one who told their parents.

Johnny was not simply dead. He had been tortured, killed and then hideously mutilated. It was immediately obvious that Johnny had not been killed in-situ.

Bradford Daily Telegraph, 31 Dec 1888, p.3.

The body was found on a Saturday morning and the police wasted no time in combing the area for clues. They established that Johnny had been dumped in the spot around 4:30am, and that he couldn’t have been killed very far away due to the difficulty in moving his body. Additionally, Johnny was found very close to home: the yard was in a lane running close to Thorncliffe Road.

The dump site is marked by a star. Thorncliffe Road runs along the top of this map.

The police suspected that one of the residents of Mellor Street had committed the crime: according to the papers, number 12’s house had been lit up all night before Johnny’s body was found. But a man who lived on nearby Bateman Street was arrested. All that was initially released was that he worked in Manningham Lane, and was married with a young baby. His name was initially not released to the press, but the press still doorstepped his wife, and commented on her ‘cool demeanour’.

It was the milkman, William Barrett, aged 23.

William had been working at the Manningham Lane dairy for four months, but only moved to live near the Gills just before Christmas. On the 27th, he had collected Johnny from his mother’s house to go on his rounds, and they were seen together at various points. William told Mary Ann Gill that Johnny had left him at Walmer Villas, which were on Thorncliffe Road and a couple of stops before the end of his round.

William had repeatedly called at her house to see if Johnny was home safe on the 27th and 28th December, and again on the 29th, about an hour before Johnny’s body was found.

But the police had been to the dairy stable on Manningham Lane (close to modern Drill Street) and found that the floor had been very thoroughly washed and was still wet, but the horse’s stall had not been washed. Underneath a piece of fabric, they found some marks that were suspiciously like blood. The police officer had tried to open this stable door multiple times on the night of both the 27th and 28th, and found it locked. Except it couldn’t have been locked - the lock had been reported broken a week earlier.

The police searched the Barrett residence and found a large knife. William initially denied all knowledge of the knife, but later claimed it was a knife his wife bought. It had been recently cleaned.

The case against William seemed strong, but his employer and colleagues could not believe that he could have done such a thing, although rumours circulated that he was ‘cracked’. They had seen him multiple times since that Thursday morning, and he’d seemed his normal self. They also did not believe he had time to commit the atrocities among his fragmented working day, a day that included butter churning, delivering milk in icy conditions and multiple visits to collect more milk from the station.

But the police had a suspect, and they worked hard to make the facts meet their theory: that Johnny was incapacitated, taken to the stable on Manningham Lane, and killed and dismembered there. They found a stained hammer at the stable. They found out that William had arrived at the stable at 5am on the day the body was found. They crossed their fingers that analysis would show the stains were blood.

The inquest opened on 31st December 1888 at Bradford Town Hall. Thomas Gill identified his son, and the inquest was adjourned for several weeks to allow time for the blood analysis to return.

Meanwhile, Johnny’s parents had visited him in the mortuary, but only viewed his face. Thomas Gill knew why, but somehow, Johnny’s mother had been kept in ignorance. The newspaper did not report the full anatomical details of the case, but mentioned enough horrors for the entire nation to have an idea what had happened.

On 2nd and 3rd January, William Barrett appeared before the magistrates again. Women and children were not allowed to attend. The police made a strong case: William was the last person to see Johnny alive. A woman who lived at Walmer Villas saw Johnny with William there: nobody saw them part. Another woman who lived further along on the route recieved her milk from Johnny himself at 10am, an hour and a half after William claimed they separated. Johnny was not with William 45 minutes later, although William seemed agitated and smelled strongly of rum. Activity was heard and lights were seen in the stable late on the night of Friday 28th and early in the morning on the 29th. William was known to have been about early on the 29th: a neighbour saw him walking down Thorncliffe Road at 5:30am.

The only person who could reasonably give William an alibi was his wife, and she was barred from giving evidence under the laws of spousal privilege. The court was adjourned.

Thomas Gill begged to be allowed his son’s body for burial, but was denied because the police wished to photograph his remains. His body was also examined again. Johnny’s funeral took place on 5th January. Attempts were made to keep it private, but word got out and thousands of people lined the streets to watch his hearse pass by. The funeral was held at Windhill Wesleyan chapel, and he was buried in Windhill cemetery.

The inquest was delayed again and again, and perhaps to the surprise of everyone, William Barrett was freed on 12th January after four days in the magistrate’s court. The questioning shifted to examing Johnny’s parents, who were accused of seeing things (Barrett coming to their door) and not wanting Johnny at home. The police were accused of planting evidence. Doubt was introduced into every witness statement: the noises a servant heard coming from the stable could have been a nearby toilet cistern, another woman had seen the wrong-coloured cab.

And, importantly, none of the items seized for analysis showed any presence of blood. Not the clothes, not the mud from the stable floor, not the tiles near the stable sink, not the hammer and hatchet, not even the knife. The analyst admitted that a robust wash with soap and water would destroy all traces of blood, and that all the items had been recently and thoroughly washed: these were the very earliest days of microscopic forensics.

The medical evidence suggested that the knife found in the Barrett’s house fitted the stab wound in Johnny’s chest, but it was not sharp enough to perform the dismemberment. The idea that dismemberment could have blunted it was not introduced.

There was not enough evidence to send William to an assize trial. He was freed (although with the proviso that he could be re-arrested if further evidence emerged), and left the Town Hall to cheering crowds. He went to Cononley, where great celebrations were held. William told the press that the murder seemed pre-planned and had been carried out by “someone with more time than me”. It was as though Johnny had been completely forgotten.

The inquest resumed on 18th January, twenty-two days after Johnny vanished, twenty days after he was found, thirteen days after he was buried and six days after William Barrett had been discharged.This was a somewhat arse-about-face way of conducting a prosecution. Normal procedure was to hold the suspect in custody until the inquest was finalised, remanding him weekly if the inquest was prolonged. The suspect attended the inquest, and was at liberty to question the witnesses…and be questioned. The burdens of proof were different in the coroner’s court, which was occupied in determining the circumstances of a death rather than guilt. Once the manner of death had been decided and any liable party identified, it was up to the magistrates (and assize jury) to decide whether there was a criminal case to answer. They could still throw the case out, but they handled a complete case, not one being put together on the fly. In the event, William did not attend Johnny’s inquest, but his solicitor did. And the coroner had to repeatedly remind Barrett’s representative that he was not there to defend William.

The full details of Johnny’s death were not published, but most of them were aired in court and (eventually!) at the inquest, allowing a reconstruction of his awful end. Feel free to scroll past the next bit. I’ve put it in italics so you can avert your eyes.

No

really,

scroll

past.

It’s likely that Johnny was sexually assaulted. Nobody heard anything so he was either gagged or unconscious. He was topless when he was killed, stabbed twice in the chest with tremendous force. He was then fully stripped. His ears were cut off, and his abdomen opened. His body had been exsanguinated and washed, it was ‘remarkably bloodless’. His legs were cut off, without any anatomical skill, just below the pelvis. All his internal organs were dirty and in disarray, suggesting they had been removed and put back in, his ears among them. When his body was found, his torso and head were laid face-down on top of his legs and bound together with braces. His heart had been placed deliberately under his chin. His boots were pushed into his abdomen through the space in his pelvis, in a perverse imitation of legs. His body was missing parts of the intestine, the left iliac (hip) bone and part of the left pubic bone, and the penis, although his scrotum was found in the abdomen. He was found wrapped in his clothing, and only the hat and collar of his shirt were marked with blood. Both appeared to have got blood on them during the clean up, as the blood was watered down.

The process required at least two different, sharp knives and some kind of mallett or hammer to break the strong joints around the pelvis. It reminded the examining doctors of a butcher’s technique in opening a carcass, but they did not think the killer was a butcher: there was no evidence of any skill with a knife.

You can look now.

On 26th January, two weeks after William was discharged and a week after the inquest reconvened, a new witness claimed he’d seen William come out of the stable carrying a bundle at 5:55am on the day the body was found. This new witness seemed rather lacking in wit, but was believed. After hearing the new evidence, the inquest jury finally came to a verdict on the 4th February. They returned a verdict of wilful murder against William Barrett. This indictment bound him to trial. He was re-arrested the following day.

But the magistrates had already declined to proceed, so although William had to appear at the Leeds Assize held in March, no witnesses appeared. The Grand Jury threw the case out. William was, once again, free.

As was the killer of John Gill.

---

Jack the Ripper’s last known victim was killed in November 1888, one month before John Gill, 215 miles away. The Ripper murders permeated the early coverage of the case, a genuine horror that the killer had left London and gone to Bradford. But it quickly became apparent that the modus operandi was very different: an inexpert hand with the knife killed Johnny, a little boy who vanished during the day. Johnny was killed and then dumped close to his house, not left in situ. This did not appear to be the handiwork of the Ripper, even though a few sick individuals took it upon themselves to write horrific letters to the Gills afterwards, claiming it was. Multiple stories abounded that a doctor living in Walmer Villas had blocked his drains with John’s entrails, and that the Ripper had left a ghastly tableau in a neighbour’s living room while he was out, with knives and water everywhere… but there’s an urban myth quality to these stories.

John Gill’s death did not enter the public consciousness in the same way as the Ripper’s victims. His name occasionally comes up in Ripperology, but only through the lens of possibly being a Ripper victim rather than examining the case on its own merits. The paedophilic element is ignored, and his death is routinely portrayed as a copycat killing.

So who killed Johnny Gill? Someone knew where the missing parts of John were. Perhaps they were thrown into one of the quarries on Grosvenor Road or Clifton Street, or into the canal near the railway line. The choice of dump site is interesting: very close to Johnny’s house, but directly at the back of a butcher’s shop. Perhaps the killer wanted to pin the blame on the butcher or one of his assistants. Perhaps he planned to dump the body somewhere it was unlikely to be found… Perhaps he planned to leave the body on Johnny’s doorstep but didn’t want to risk being seen. Bodies are surprisingly heavy, perhaps he simply couldn’t bear to carry it any further, or was concerned that he risked recognition.

William Barrett had been married about a year, and had a newborn daughter. He’d been working in Manningham for a few months, but only living there for a couple of weeks. He was apprenticed as a mechanic in 1881, but had since worked on the land and then for the dairy.

He was the last person to have seen Johnny alive, and he lied about when he parted company with Johnny. He had the means, he had the opportunity. But what about motive?

In court on the 9th January, Mary Ann Gill told the court that Johnny had complained about William Barrett being ‘fresh’ with him, but never elaborated about what this meant. Another witness at the inquest said William Barrett often had small boys at his stable. Barrett himself reported that he used to take girls around (including Jane Gill, who had just turned 10) but was worried about being accused of impropriety.

Why would he be worried about that?

There were no other suspects. Nobody else saw anything, and in a neighbourhood of workers, constantly coming and going, that seems very strange. Indeed, the circumstantial evidence against Barrett is compelling.

But there was no hard evidence, no blood-stained knife, no bits of body. This murder was committed by someone very fastidious, someone who took great care in avoiding a bloodbath, and great care in cleaning up. The condition of the body suggested insanity, but the bizarre presentation was rigorously ordered, clean and tidy.

We associate this kind of mutilation with serial killing, but nobody else died. Or if they did, their bodies were never found.

If William Barrett was the killer, he does not appear to have killed again. He stayed in Cononley for the rest of his life, with his wife and two surviving children. He died in 1927.

The Gills stayed in Bradford, without answers, heartbroken. Johnny is buried with his parents. His headstone says he:

met his death at the hands of one who will someday seek repentance

Or not.

John Gill
(1881-1888)