Feb 21, 2022

Astrology of a Ripper Victim August 31, 1888

The lady thought to be the first - or some say, the second - canonical victim of the serial killer later known as "Jack the Ripper" was Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols (nee Walker), born August 26, 1845 in London, England.

One reason the murder of Polly Nichols on August 31, 1888 stands out from the rest is due to the fact that a man was found with her body - a man who gave his name as 'Charles Cross' (real name, Charles Lechmere). Yet newspapers of the day didn't take much interest in the fellow, an 'innocent witness', and perhaps he was, but with little information known about this "carman on his way to work," it's difficult to say unless you watch the Smithsonian video linked, just below. Or, perhaps follow the link to casebook dot org for more details about him because it appears that, leaving home to walk to work early that morning, "Carman Cross" had time enough to reach where Polly Nichols was murdered at around 3:30 - 3:40 am - in time to be discovered standing over her body by another workman, Robert Paul. Born in London on October 5, 1849, Charles Lechmere remains a prime Ripper suspect as noted in the Smithsonian channel presentation The Missing Evidence - Jack the Ripper (46m 15s) and of late I've been leaning toward Lechmere as the likely culprit.

Moon-Neptune: Subconscious Phenomena, Vivid Dreams, Refined Feelings

And yet in recent years, I have studied the deaths or body found horoscopes of 5 of the canonical murder victims, plus, the natal and death charts of Christian poet Francis Thompson who, imho, remains a possible 'Ripper' candidate. (His natal chart set for 7:30 pm is based on a rectified time but the original source is unknown - RR: C.) If you're curious, one such post I've published about him is Poet Francis Thompson and a Foreshadowing Lunar Eclipse. And prior to finding his rectified birth hour I had used a speculative natal chart timed by his birth day's Moon-Neptune opposition, a duo relating to potentials for weakness, instability, receptiveness, an intensely vivid dream life, indolence, exposure to peculiar and strange influences, exploitation by others, and/or life crises (R. Ebertin).

Born at 7:25 pm GMT (December 16, 1859 Preston, UK), Thompson's natal Moon @16Vir21 and Neptune @24Pis23 apply to opposition (8-degree orb) and would have influenced his psyche and subconscious mind, possibly with a prominent event occurring around age 8 (and possibly Saturn-related). So the strangeness points toward lunar Mama issues which is why his mother's death and the 1880 Lunar Eclipse, linked above, was highly intense and significant for him. His was a disfunctional family with a surgeon for a father. And his odd ideas involving Moon (women; mother; physical body) affected by Neptune (confusion; misperception; misunderstandings) resonate with his known connection to prostitutes and to serious drug use (Neptune). Additionally, his Catholic faith may be implicated by the suggestion that the White Chapel murders may have been committed in tandem with certain Catholic religious dates of 'saints', etc. (Please note that as a Protestant, I have no certainty about such an issue.)

So below is a bi-wheel of a 'noon' natal horoscope for Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols along with her 'found' horoscope on Buck's Row, Whitechapel, London, near the spot that about 100 years prior been a ducking pond for suspected witches:

And as a distraction that night there was a warehouse fire drawing away police officers from the area. We can also note that the murderer's escape (if not Charles Cross/Lechmere) could have been quick and easy because there were nearby steps that led down to unlighted train tracks. The culprit could have followed the tracks and ascended the stairs onto Buck's Row - as detailed in Jack the Ripper: The Works of Francis Thompson, a book by Richard Patterson (#ad).

So as you can see, a few natal planets of Francis Thompson are penned on - primarily his violent Mars-Pluto opposition (which also relates to his surgeon father and medical studies: Taurus/Scorpio) which at 3:40 am falls upon the MC-IC angles (the Why and How? Points in all horoscopes). Certainly, none of this is conclusive, of course, that Francis Thompson murdered Polly Nichols but it does suggest that her death was significant to him in some way - perhaps careerwise since some of his poems contain murderous references, so perhaps the cosmic link from his Mars-Pluto opposition which tends to attract violence, unless the energies are positively channeled, indicates only that.

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