In 1886, Isaac and Miriam Angel immigrated to England, settling in the East End of London. They were happy, they had a new life to look forward to. And then it all fell apart.
The Angels immigrated from Warsaw, Poland, and moved into a room at the 16 Batty Street roomshare, just off Commercial Road. It was an area heavily populated with Jewish immigrants. The Angles thought they’d found a little piece of home.
Miriam was 22 and pregnant with the couple’s first child. Isaac (age unknown) worked as a boot riveter. They had a set routine that they’d settled into. Between 6AM and 7AM, Isaac, after having breakfast, would set off for work, and would return around 9PM. Miriam would do the housework and cook the meals. They were happy.
On Monday, June 27th, 1887, Miriam welcomed Isaac home from work, just like any other day. They had dinner, and Miriam went about writing a letter. Around 11PM, she set off to post the letter, stopping by a pub to pick up a pint of ale for her husband. She returned around 11:30PM, ale in hand. Isaac drank his ale, set his glass on a table, and the couple went to bed.
The next morning started off just like any other. Isaac woke, recited his prayers, chatted with Miriam, had a spot of breakfast, and went off to work around 6:15AM while Miriam stayed in bed. She was resting, as the baby was causing her mild exhaustion.
At 11:45AM, a fellow lodger at 16 Batty Street found Isaac at his place of work and informed him that something had happened to his wife. He rushed out with the neighbour, Mrs. Levy, and she told him what she knew.
At around 10AM, Mrs. Levy and the 16 Batty Street rooming house landlady, Mrs. Leah Lipski, had ventured out for a walk and a spot of shopping. They were gone for around an hour.
Upon their return, they were greeted by Dinah Angel, Isaac’s mother. She was asking after Miriam. Miriam’s morning routine consisted of having breakfast with Dinah, but she’d missed their daily appointment. She was worried something had happened to her daughter-in-law and the unborn baby.
Dinah knocked on the door to the room that Isaac and Miriam were occupying, but received no answer. When she saw the women return from their walk, she asked for help. Mrs. Levy looked through the keyhole and found that the key was still in the lock. She then went to the next floor where “a small partition window afforded a view into the Angels’ room”.
As she peered through the window, she could see that Miriam was lying in bed. Leah came around and also saw that Miriam was lying prone in her bed. Both women stated that Miriam did not look very well. The two women, with Dinah’s help, decided to break down the door to the room.
Leah, in her account to police, stated that she shook Miriam by the arm upon entering the room. She recalled that Miriam’s face was sideways, and that part of her was uncovered. She noticed that Miriam was wearing a chemise, and that the front of it looked burnt. She then ran from the room, screaming down the street.
Dinah and Mrs. Levy were next in the room. Dinah thought her daughter-in-law had merely fainted. When Mrs. Levy moved Miriam’s head, both women knew without a doubt that Miriam was dead. Mrs. Levy ran from the room, presumably in order to find Isaac, and Dinah had to be held up by neighbours as she was about to faint.
While Mrs. Levy was away, Leah went to find a doctor at a nearby surgery. She went to 100 Commercial Road in an attempt to find Dr. John Kay. He wasn’t in. On her way back to 16 Batty Street, Leah ran into Dr. Kay’s assistant, William Piper, and told him about what she’d found. Piper dutifully made his way around to the rooming house, and found multitudes of people mingling around where the body was. He ushered them out and went about his examination.
He found her body, partially exposed, chemise pushed up to her chest. He also noticed yellow burn marks on the floor, as well as on Miriam’s face and chemise. Piper then surmised the burns to be acid. The burns seemed to be especially bad around Miriam’s mouth, lips, and chin. Shortly after that, Piper left the room.
Leah, in the meantime, had gone back out to find Dr. Kay. She ran into his carriage, and quickly informed him of what had happened. Once he arrived at 16 Batty Street, he made quick work of an examination, and then reported his findings.
He found “a stream of yellow” coming from the left corner of Miriam’s mouth, leading to a few splashes on her neck and breast. He found the yellow burns to be nitric acid, and also found burns on her hands. Dr. Kay found no other signs of violence against Miriam at the time, but indicated that it seemed she’d been made to drink the acid, and the subsequent burns on her hands, chemise, and chest were a result of coughing it back up before she succumbed to it. Dr. Kay opined that Miriam had been dead approximately three hours before she’d been discovered.
As Dr. Kay was finishing his preliminary examination at the flat, Isaac had arrived home with Mrs. Levy. He was advised to wait outside – no one wanted him seeing his wife and unborn child in that condition.
Dr. Kay wanted to find where the acid had come from. He found the glass that Isaac had drunk his ale from the night before, but couldn’t find any other container that could contain the acid. Dr. Kay then informed another man, Harris Dyween, to begin searching around the bed in order to find whatever had contained the acid.
Dyween noticed a few knickknacks and pieces of clothing around the bed. Dr. Kay asked if there was anything else. Dyween replied that there was, and crawled under in order to fetch it. He yelped in horror when he felt a hand reach his under the bed.
Dyween and Dr. Kay found a man under the Angels’ bed. The man was unconscious, but alive. Dr. Kay slapped the man in the face a couple times in order to wake him up. The man woke, but otherwise didn’t say a word.
Before the doctor or Dyween could question the man, police constables Alfred Inwood and Arthur Sack of the Metropolitan Police’s H-Division made their presence known. PC Sack helped heft the man from the floor, and noticed yellow burn stains on the man’s shirt and hands.
Mr. Piper, having returned to assist Dr. Kay, found a bottle in the folds of the bedding. It was a 2 oz. phial that appeared to contain a few drops at the bottom. Dr. Kay took it in hand and took a cautious whiff. To him, it smelt like nitric acid.
PC Sack wasted no time in taking the man to Leman Street Police Station. He was then taken into custody by Inspector David Final.
During his postmortem, Dr. Kay went further into detail as to what happened to Miriam. He found that Miriam had displayed marks of violent blows near her right eye and temple, probably delivered by a fist. Other than the blows to her head and the acid burns, Miriam exhibited no other external marks.
Dr. Kay found that the acid had burned its way through Miriam’s windpipe and bronchial tubes. He found evidence of acid burns in Miriam’s lungs, and stomach. He figured that she’d been given the acid while lying on her back. He stated that the official cause of death was suffocation from swallowing nitric acid.
By this time, the man from under the bed had finally been identified. His name was Israel Lipski, a Polish Jewish immigrant. He was 22 years old, and he lived on the top floor of the 16 Batty Street rooming house. He worked as an umbrella stick salesman.
Lipski made many nonsensical claims that were reported to newspapers. He vehemently protested his guilt. He claimed that two men had charged at him at 16 Batty Street, got him into the Angels’ room, tried to pour acid down his throat, and stuffed him under the bed. Then, the men made Miriam drink the acid in an effort to keep her quiet. This, however, did not explain how he found himself in the bedroom alone with Miriam while the door was locked from the inside and the windows closed and locked.
Though nonsensical, some wanted to believe in the man’s innocence. At the time, there had been an uprising in violence against the Jewish community in the East End. The community wanted to band together in solidarity for yet another Jewish man being harassed by the police.
That line of thinking was quickly shut down by a witness coming forward. Charles Moore contacted the police and alerted them that he’d sold a phial of nitric acid to a man who claimed he wanted the acid in order to colour some sticks.
Upon reading about the murders in the paper, Mr. Moore immediately contacted police. They quickly escorted him to see Israel Lipski and asked if this was the man who’d purchased the acid. Mr. Moore positively identified Israel Lipski as that very man.
Israel Lipski – who was in no way, shape, or form related to Mrs. Leah Lipski – was charged with the murder of Miriam Angel.
On Saturday, July 2nd, 1987, Lipski appeared at the Thames Police Court. The jury only took 8 minutes to return with a verdict. Israel Lipski was found guilty of murder, and was sentenced to hang.
While awaiting his execution, Lipski broke down. He made a full and complete confession to Simeon Singer, the East End rabbi. He claimed that his intention had been robbery and theft. He used the acid in order to render Miriam Angel unconscious. He had never intended on killing her. He was especially adamant that he had never had any intention of raping Miriam, despite what the prosecution speculated during his trial.
He signed a written statement, concluding with: “I will not die with a lie on my lips.”
On August 22nd, 1887, Israel Lipski was hanged in the yard of Newgate Prison.
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Sources:
Israel Lipski and the Murder of Miriam Angel – Richard Jones – Jack The Ripper Tour
Ripper: East End acid murderer driven by Angel lust – Jennifer Lipman – The Jewish Chronicle
Israel Lipski Wikipedia page