Alayna Urquhart

But with the 1906 massacre so fresh in everyone's memories, the frequency and brutality with which black women were killed in the streets of Atlanta only contributed to the apprehension and terror felt throughout the entire community.

Yeah.

Also, the legend of Jack the Ripper was just continuing to permeate the United States media.

And the similarities in, you know, like gender and manner of death and like the victim profiles were what led a lot of people to think this is a Ripper killer.

So the first murder that's like really attributed, like those first ones that I mentioned are like sometimes attributed.

This one's like the one that's generally attributed to the Atlanta Ripper is 35-year-old Rosa Trice.

Her body was discovered a short distance from her home on January 26, 1911.

Her body was found near the Southern Railway tracks.

Her head had been beaten badly with a blunt instrument, fracturing her skull and jawbone, and her throat had been slashed.

It severed the jugular vein.

Oh, fuck.

Police arrested Rosa's husband, John, for the murder, but he was released a few days later when investigators and the coroner's inquest failed to find any evidence connecting him to his wife's murder.

Now, less than a month later, on February 19th, the Ripper had killed again.

This next victim was a young black woman whose throat was cut and her skull was bashed in as well.

Same exact thing.

The discovery of another body in the woods, having suffered the exact same wounds as the first victim, seemed evidence that this might be the start of something.

But after the second body was found, no new murders were found in March and April.

So it seemed like, okay, those happened very quickly.

But maybe that was just a coincidence.

But on the morning of May 28th, the body of Mary Bell Walker was discovered on Garibaldi Street.