Emma Elizabeth Smith
The case was the first of eleven Whitechapel murders in Metropolitan Police files. Although some of  the press linked her death to the later murders, which were blamed on a single serial killer known as "Jack the Ripper", her murder is unlikely to be connected with the later killings. With the exception of Walter Dew, who said he thought that Smith was the first victim of the Ripper, the police suspected it was the unrelated work of a criminal gang. Smith either refused to or could not describe her attackers in any form of detail, possibly because she feared reprisal. Prostitutes were often managed by gangs, and Smith could have been attacked by her pimps as a punishment for disobeying them, or as part of their intimidation.