Whitehall Mystery

[4] On 2 October 1888, during construction of the Metropolitan Police's new headquarters, to be known as New Scotland Yard, on the Victoria Embankment near Whitehall in Westminster, a worker found a parcel containing human remains.

[4] On 17 October 1888,[6] reporter Jasper Waring[7] used a Spitsbergen dog, with the permission of the police and the help of a labourer, to find a left leg[1] cut above the knee that was buried near the construction site.

It determined that the woman had been "of large stature and well-nourished",[10] and suggested that she had been approximately 24 years old and 5 feet 8 inches in height.

The right arm had been severed by someone with knowledge of human anatomy, had been tourniqueted to stem blood flow, and due to the lack of muscle contraction, was removed post-mortem.

[13] It has become a point of trivia and irony that Scotland Yard, arguably the world's best-known police building, was originally built (it later moved to a new location) on a crime scene related to an unsolved murder.

Contemporary newspaper illustration of the Whitehall Mystery , depicting the discovery of the victim's torso
1837 illustration of the premises occupied by the Metropolitan Police
The original New Scotland Yard, now called the Norman Shaw Buildings