1. Cold-blooded murder
2. Body found buried under the fireplace
3. A man of many disguises
4. Deeming chooses his next victim
5. Capture at Southern Cross
6. Journey back to Melbourne
7. Was Deeming Jack the Ripper?
8. Detecting the signs of insanity
9. Preparing Deeming's defence
10. Crime of the Century?

2. Body found buried under the fireplace

On 3 March 1892, while showing a prospective tenant through his house in Andrew Street, Windsor, John Stamford noticed 'a disagreeable smell' in the second bedroom. Stamford called his agent Charles Connop and they met at the house that evening. Together they removed the hearthstone from the fireplace and were overcome with the stench of decaying flesh. Stamford told his son, who was with them, to fetch the police.

It took more than two hours for three policemen - Sergeant Patrick O'Laughlin and constables Kinneburg and Webster - to dig the body of a young woman out of a cement casing underneath the hearthstone. The body had begun to decompose, and was oozing a slimy substance. During the process of uncovering the body, its hair and scalp became detached from the skull. Constable Webster later stated that 'The uniform and clothing I wore on that occasion was destroyed as they were completely saturated with the stink'.

Report of Constable G. L. Webster 6 May 1892
PROV, VPRS 937/P0 Inward Registered Correspondence, unit 511, Deeming Case
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The police put the body into a case and took it to the morgue. The young woman appeared to have been under the fireplace for two or three months, and the last tenants to occupy the house had been a Mr Drewn and his wife during December 1891. To begin with, this was the only information the police had at their disposal, but they soon found further leads.

Autopsy of Emily Williams
PROV, VPRS 30/P0 Criminal Trial Briefs, unit 886, case number 261/1892
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Within days of finding the body of the woman, Melbourne police made a crucial link between Drewn and a man who had bought a night pan, cement, sand, a broom, a trowel and a spade from a nearby ironmonger on High Street on 17 December. The person who placed this order had left instructions that they were to be delivered to his new house the next morning.

The owner of the shop, John Woods, clearly remembered the angry gentleman who returned to his shop the next day to complain that the supplies had not arrived as requested. Woods personally delivered the items in a cart to Andrew Street accompanied by Deeming, who explained that he wanted to make repairs in the yard. Woods noticed, however, that the yard was in good order. Deeming then stated he wanted to repair the setting of the copper boiler rather than the yard. On inspection, Woods noted that the copper also appeared to be in no need of repair. The attention Deeming drew to himself with this odd behaviour finally unravelled his web of deceptions.

Further illustrations

    

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