The Law Killers by Alexander McGregor

condemned man did not go immediately back down to the cells but signalled his defence team to come over to the dock, where he earnestly thanked them for all they had done, praising the ‘able manner’ in which they had conducted his case. When he finally descended the stairs to the cells, Bury appeared to break down briefly. Then, composing himself, he turned to the officers who had sat beside him that long, tense day and shook each of them by the hand, thanking them and saying, ‘I will never see you again.’
    In the following days, as he awaited the noose, Bury remained the model prisoner he had been since his arrest six weeks earlier, devoting most of his time to writing forty pages of his life story and reading the Bible. Others were more active. His solicitors at once sent a petition to Lord Lothian, the Scottish Secretary, seeking a reprieve on the grounds of the medical evidence and because the jury had taken so little time to reconsider their verdict after being sent back by Lord Young following his rejection of their first decision. For good measure, they threw in the fact that Bury’s mother had suffered from insanity. None of it cut any ice in Edinburgh and the plea for clemency was swiftly turned down, a decision that was met with little surprise in Dundee. Police chiefs in the city, who had earlier written to their counterparts in Scotland Yard detailing their suspicions that the man they held in their cells might indeed be the notorious Jack the Ripper the Yard so eagerly sought, penned a second letter, no reply having been received to the first. This time they wrote of the strong feeling in the Dundee community that the Ripper was in their midst. When a response was finally sent by the Metropolitan Police, it was not what was expected in Scotland. The detectives hunting the London maniac, headed by Inspector Frederick Abberline, had enquired into the Dundee allegations but concluded that Bury was not connected to the Whitechapel killings. The curt dismissal of the theory that Jack the Ripper had at last been locked up, even if for an apparently unconnected murder, was surprisingly easily accepted in Dundee, perhaps because it was assumed that the Scotland Yard detective teams were much superior to those on the banks of the River Tay. In all probability, it may have had more to do with the fact that Abberline had a different suspect in mind and seemed blinkered at that time to the possibility that it might be someone else – particularly a person totally unknown to him and who had been arrested by a rival police force.
    In the days leading up to his execution, Bury continued to receive regular visits from the Rev. Edward John Gough of St Paul’s Episcopal Church in Dundee, whom he had called on shortly after arriving in the city – seemingly in the hope that the clergyman could find him work. He and Ellen had even attended a service in St Paul’s within days of arriving in Dundee. Bury had remained in loose contact with Gough and the minister had given evidence on the Englishman’s behalf at his trial. On 19 April, just five days before he was due to hang, Bury received another visit from Gough, but this time their conversation extended well beyond their usual religious topics. Haltingly, the man whose time was fast ebbing away told the minister he wanted to confess to the murder of Ellen and then, on the insistence of Gough, he put his account of how he had committed the murder down on paper. The confession was later posted to Scottish Secretary, Lord Lothian.
    Bury’s final day started unspectacularly. After going to bed the previous evening at ten o’clock, he slept well until being awakened at five in the morning with a cup of tea. For the next hour he sat reading his Bible, then in a calm voice he told the warder in charge, ‘This is my last morning on earth. I freely forgive all who have given false evidence against me at my trial, as I hope God will forgive me,’ adding that he was resigned