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Evening Star (Washington, D.C.)
8 April 1890

LIKE JACK THE RIPPER

A Crime in France That May Solve a Mystery.

London, April 8.
The barbarous murder of "Helena Montana", a disreputable woman at Hersthal near Aix-la-Chapelle, has created great excitement. The woman was killed in some mysterious manner in the open street under the eyes of the passers-by. The throat was cut from ear to ear. The body was disembowelled and otherwise mutilated after the fashion of Jack the Ripper. The unfortunate woman was drinking with a Chinaman all the afternoon in a low den and the pair parted apparently on friendly terms. It is supposed that the Chinaman subsequently laid in wait for and murdered her. When the body was found at midnight the blood lay in stagnant pools on the pavement all around it. No outcries were heard by those living in the vicinity and none of the neighbors could throw a particle of light on the mystery. The police arrested thirty laborers of the Chinese colony on suspicion if having been accessory to the murder. The London police department is much interested in this crime on account of its similarity to the murders committed by Jack the Ripper and sent detectives yesterday to trace the scenes of the last Whitechapel crime, taking the details of the Hebersthal murder along with them for comparison. A reporter who accompanied the officers created great excitement by relating the story of the Hebersthal outrage and women and children flocked about him, expressing their hopes that Jack was at last discovered.


Related pages:
  Helena Montana
       Press Reports: Evening Star - 8 April 1890 
       Press Reports: Harrisburg Daily Patriot - 9 April 1890 
       Press Reports: Weekly Gazette and Stockman - 10 April 1890 

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