James Thomas Sadler

James Thomas Sadler (c. 1837 – 1906 or 1910), also named Saddler in some sources,[1] was an English merchant sailor who worked as both a machinist and stoker.

When the body of a 31-year-old woman was located at 5 o'clock in the morning of 13 February 1891, the police undertook an extensive search that concluded with the arrest of the victim's boyfriend.

Sadler retired from the dwelling shortly after 1:30 in the morning and, moments later, Coles left alone on her way to the Shallow Gardens area, where she would later be found dying by the Metropolitan Police Officer Ernest William Thompson at approximately 2:15 a.m..[5][6] Sadler suddenly returned to the guest house, close to 3 o'clock in the morning, and he looked even more battered than on the previous occasion.

However, the landlord was suspicious of the story and refused to accommodate Sadler, instead suggesting that he go to the London Hospital in Whitechapel to heal his wounds.

The policemen were forced to use their truncheons to save the detainee's life, who, apart from insults and threats, received several strikes to the face, leaving him bloodied.

The smear campaign became so overblown that the British Interior Minister expressed his displeasure before Parliament about the newspapers, which sought to satisfy the public's thirst for sensationalism.

This information is contained in the report from the CID of Scotland Yard, prepared on 3 March 1891 by Inspector Henry Moore and Superintendent Thomas Arnold.

As claimed by the Daily Telegraph, Joseph Lawende may have alluded to Sadler when he described the companion of Catherine Eddowes in Mitre Square during the early hours of 30 September 1888.

[16] The journalist Joseph Hall Richardson of the Daily Telegraph reported on Sadler's identification attempt as guilt of the Ripper murders, in his memoir titled From the City to Fleet Street.

There, he recounted that when Frances Coles was killed, her lover's guilt was taken for granted by the press "too quickly", but the detectives had doubts about it and used Richardson himself and another reporter.

Then, always following police instructions, the reporters conducted inquiries at the London Naval Trade Centre and the Offices of the Ministry of Commerce, in order to verify whether or not at the time of the killings the sailor was on board.

They examined records and checked the dates, and it was proven that each time there was a crime, the defendant "signed" on a vessel one or two days before the respective homicide.

The curial at the time held a meeting with a person planning to smuggle arms into South America, taking advantage of the fact that two republics were at war.