On October 24, 1890, a woman's mutilated and lifeless body was discovered on a pile of rubbish in Hampstead, north London. Her arms were lacerated, her face crushed and bloodied, and her head almost completely severed from her body. A mile away, a blood-soaked stroller was found leaning against a residential gate. The dead baby's body, hidden beneath a nettle bush, was not located until the following morning. So began the incredible story of the Hampstead Tragedy. Eventually, Scotland Yard knocked on the door of 2 Priory Street, home to Mary Eleanor Pearcey, the pretty twenty-four-year-old mistress of the victim's husband, whose crimes inspired speculation that Jack the Ripper was a woman, and whose dying request was as bizarre and mysterious as her life. The first full-length examination of the extraordinary case, Woman at the Devil's Door is a thrilling look at a notorious murderess and the webs she wove.
