Читать книгу Murder Maps - Drew Gray - Страница 33

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32

PART ONE — EUROPE.

When Miriam Angel (unknown–1887) failed to turn up at her mother-in-law’s on 28 June 1887, Mrs Angel went to fetch her from the crowded lodging house on Batty Street where she lived. Here she found Miriam, six months pregnant, lying dead on her bed with traces of nitric acid on her lips. As the police searched for the poison bottle, they discovered a man under the bed, semi-conscious, and with the same telltale signs of nitric acid – burns and yellow stains – around his lips. A locked room with one dead and one semi-conscious, it was a genuine mystery and only the man, a 21-year-old umbrella maker named Israel Lipski (1865–87), could solve it.

When he recovered, he told the police that his two employees had attacked him during an attempted robbery. They had killed Miriam then tried to take his life, too, to cover their tracks.

The story was sensational and all too fantastical for the police and the Old Bailey jury that Lipski faced on 25 July. They preferred to believe that he had killed Miriam following a frustrated rape attempt.

Lipski, a Jewish immigrant in London seeking a new life away from the horrors of forced service in the Imperial Russian Army, was badly let down by English ‘justice’. A poor defence barrister coupled with what seems like fabricated police evidence resulted in his conviction. Sentenced to death, his young life was about to be brought to an end until William Stead (1849–1912) of The Pall Mall Gazette began a vociferous press campaign to save him.

In the end, to Stead’s annoyance, Lipski confessed. There is still considerable doubt as to whether he simply did so to avoid the life sentence that his rabbi told him was the likely result of a commuted sentence. Having fled forced labour and persecution in Russia, Lipski could not face exchanging that for a loss of freedom in England. He chose to die instead and was hanged at Newgate Prison on 22 August. •

16 batty street, whitechapel.

 une .

englandlondon.

ISRAEL LIPSKI.× Miriam Angel.

weapon. nitric acid.

typology. domestic.

policing. toxicology.

Below. israel lipski’s clothes, the bottle that contained the nitric acid used to kill miriam angel

and the lock from her door.

16 BATTY STREET.

the boarding house where miriam angel

was murdered.

96 BACKCHURCH LANE.

the shop where charles moore claimed to have sold israel lipski

nitric acid.

COMMERCIAL STREET.

the street where a doctor’s cab

was hailed.

LEMAN STREET POLICE STATION.

the police station where israel lipski was taken

by the police.