"
Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified
serial killerA serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the
WhitechapelWhitechapel is a built-up inner city district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, London, England. It is located east of Charing Cross and roughly bounded by the Bishopsgate thoroughfare on the west, Fashion Street on the north, Brady Street and Cavell Street on the east and The Highway on the...
district of London in 1888. The name originated in
a letterThe "Dear Boss" letter was a message allegedly written by the notorious Victorian serial killer known as Jack the Ripper. It was postmarked and received on 27 September 1888, by the Central News Agency of London. It was forwarded to Scotland Yard on 29 September.The message, like most alleged...
, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the media. The letter is widely believed to have been a hoax, and may have been written by a journalist in a deliberate attempt to heighten interest in the story. Other nicknames used for the killer at the time were "The Whitechapel Murderer" and "Leather Apron".
Attacks ascribed to the Ripper typically involved female prostitutes from the slums whose throats were cut prior to abdominal mutilations. The removal of internal organs from at least three of the victims led to proposals that their killer possessed anatomical or surgical knowledge. Rumours that the murders were connected intensified in September and October 1888, and letters from a writer or writers purporting to be the murderer were received by media outlets and
Scotland YardScotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, UK. It derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became...
. The
"From Hell" letterThe "From Hell" letter is a letter posted in 1888 by a person who claimed to be the serial killer known as Jack the Ripper....
, received by
George LuskGeorge Akin Lusk was a builder and decorator who specialised in music hall restoration, and was the Chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee during the 'Whitechapel Murders' of Jack the Ripper in 1888. Lusk was a Freemason, having been initiated into the Doric Lodge on 14 April 1882, but he...
of the
Whitechapel Vigilance CommitteeThe Whitechapel Vigilance Committee was a group of local volunteers who patrolled the streets of London's Whitechapel District during the period of the Whitechapel murders of 1888. The volunteers patrolled mainly at night in the search for the murderer. The committee was set up by local businessmen...
, included half of a preserved human kidney, supposedly from one of the victims. Mainly because of the extraordinarily brutal character of the murders, and because of media treatment of the events, the public came increasingly to believe in a single serial killer known as "Jack the Ripper".
Extensive newspaper coverage bestowed widespread and enduring international notoriety on the Ripper. An investigation into a series of brutal killings in Whitechapel up to 1891 was unable to connect all the killings conclusively to the murders of 1888, but the legend of Jack the Ripper solidified. As the murders were never solved, the legends surrounding them became a combination of genuine historical research, folklore, and
pseudohistoryPseudohistory is a pejorative term applied to a type of historical revisionism, often involving sensational claims whose acceptance would require rewriting a significant amount of commonly accepted history, and based on methods that depart from standard historiographical conventions.Cryptohistory...
. The term "ripperology" was coined to describe the study and analysis of the Ripper cases. There are now over one hundred theories about the Ripper's identity, and the murders have inspired
multiple works of fictionJack the Ripper, the notorious serial killer who terrorised Whitechapel in 1888, features in works of fiction ranging from gothic novels published at the time of the murders to recent motion pictures, televised dramas and computer games....
.
Background
In the mid-19th century, England experienced an influx of
Irish immigrantsthumb|Night Train with Reaper by London Irish artist [[Brian Whelan]] from the book Myth of Return, 2007The Irish diaspora consists of Irish emigrants and their descendants in countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, Argentina, New Zealand, Mexico, South Africa,...
, who swelled the populations of England's major cities, including the
East End of LondonThe East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
. From 1882, Jewish refugees from
Eastern EuropeEastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
and Tsarist Russia moved into the same area. The
civil parishIn England, a civil parish is a territorial designation and, where they are found, the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties...
of
WhitechapelWhitechapel is a built-up inner city district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, London, England. It is located east of Charing Cross and roughly bounded by the Bishopsgate thoroughfare on the west, Fashion Street on the north, Brady Street and Cavell Street on the east and The Highway on the...
in London's East End became increasingly overcrowded. Work and housing conditions worsened, and a significant economic underclass developed. Robbery, violence and alcohol dependency were commonplace, and the endemic poverty drove many women to prostitution. In October 1888, London's
Metropolitan Police ServiceThe Metropolitan Police Service is the territorial police force responsible for Greater London, excluding the "square mile" of the City of London which is the responsibility of the City of London Police...
estimated that there were 1200 prostitutes and about 62 brothels in Whitechapel. The economic problems were accompanied by a steady rise in social tensions. Between 1886 and 1889, frequent demonstrations,
such as that of 13 November 1887Bloody Sunday, London, 13 November 1887, was the name given to a demonstration against coercion in Ireland and to demand the release from prison of MP William O'Brien, who was imprisoned for incitement as a result of an incident in the Irish Land War. The demonstration was organized by the Social...
, led to police intervention and further public unrest. Racism, crime, social disturbance, and real deprivation fed public perceptions that Whitechapel was a notorious den of immorality. In 1888, such perceptions were strengthened when a series of vicious and grotesque murders attributed to "Jack the Ripper" received unprecedented coverage in the media.
Murders
The large number of attacks against women in the East End during this era adds uncertainty to how many victims were killed by the same person. Eleven separate murders, stretching from 1888 to 1891, were included in a London
Metropolitan Police ServiceThe Metropolitan Police Service is the territorial police force responsible for Greater London, excluding the "square mile" of the City of London which is the responsibility of the City of London Police...
investigation, and were known collectively in the police docket as the "Whitechapel murders". Opinions vary as to whether these murders should be linked to the same culprit or not, but five of the eleven Whitechapel murders, known as the "canonical five", are widely believed to be the work of the Ripper. Most experts point to deep throat slashes, abdominal and genital-area mutilation, removal of internal organs, and progressive facial mutilations as the distinctive features of Jack the Ripper's
modus operandiModus operandi is a Latin phrase, approximately translated as "mode of operation". The term is used to describe someone's habits or manner of working, their method of operating or functioning...
. The first two cases in the Whitechapel murders file, those of
Emma Elizabeth SmithEmma Elizabeth Smith was a prostitute and murder victim of mysterious origins in late-19th century London. Her killing was the first of the Whitechapel murders, and it is possible she was a victim of the notorious serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, though this is considered unlikely by most...
and
Martha TabramMartha Tabram was an English prostitute whose killing was the second of the Whitechapel murders in late 19th century London...
, are not included in the canonical five.
Smith was robbed and sexually assaulted on Osborn Street, Whitechapel, on 1888. A blunt object was inserted into her
vaginaThe vagina is a fibromuscular tubular tract leading from the uterus to the exterior of the body in female placental mammals and marsupials, or to the cloaca in female birds, monotremes, and some reptiles. Female insects and other invertebrates also have a vagina, which is the terminal part of the...
, which ruptured her
peritoneumThe peritoneum is the serous membrane that forms the lining of the abdominal cavity or the coelom — it covers most of the intra-abdominal organs — in amniotes and some invertebrates...
. She developed
peritonitisPeritonitis is an inflammation of the peritoneum, the serous membrane that lines part of the abdominal cavity and viscera. Peritonitis may be localised or generalised, and may result from infection or from a non-infectious process.-Abdominal pain and tenderness:The main manifestations of...
, and died the following day at London Hospital. She said that she had been attacked by two or three men, one of whom was a teenager. The attack was linked to the later murders by the press, but most authors conclude that it was gang violence unrelated to the Ripper case.
Tabram was killed on 7 August 1888; she had suffered 39 stab wounds. The savagery of the murder, the lack of obvious motive, and the closeness of the location (George Yard, Whitechapel) and date to those of the later Ripper murders led police to link them. However, the attack differs from the canonical murders in that Tabram was stabbed rather than slashed at the throat and abdomen. Many experts today do not connect it with the later murders because of the difference in the wound pattern.
Canonical five
The canonical five Ripper victims are
Mary Ann NicholsMary Ann "Polly" Nichols was one of the Whitechapel murder victims. Her death has been attributed to the notorious unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper, who is believed to have killed and mutilated five women in the Whitechapel area of London from late August to early November 1888.- Life...
,
Annie ChapmanAnnie Chapman , born Eliza Ann Smith, was a victim of the notorious unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper, who killed and mutilated five women in the Whitechapel area of London from late August to early November 1888.-Life and background:Annie Chapman was born Eliza Ann Smith...
,
Elizabeth StrideElizabeth "Long Liz" Stride is believed to be the third victim of the notorious unidentified serial killer called Jack the Ripper, who killed and mutilated prostitutes in the Whitechapel area of London from late August to early November 1888.She was nicknamed "Long Liz"...
,
Catherine EddowesCatherine Eddowes was one of the victims in the Whitechapel murders. She was the second person killed on the night of Sunday 30 September 1888, a night which already had seen the murder of Elizabeth Stride less than an hour earlier...
and
Mary Jane KellyMary Jane Kelly , also known as "Marie Jeanette" Kelly, "Fair Emma", "Ginger" and "Black Mary", is widely believed to be the fifth and final victim of the notorious unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper, who killed and mutilated prostitutes in the Whitechapel area of London from late August to...
.
Nichols' body was discovered at about on Friday 1888 in Buck's Row (now
Durward StreetDurward Street, formerly Buck's Row, is a street in Whitechapel, London.In the early morning of 31 August 1888, the body of Mary Ann Nichols was found on the pavement on the south side of Buck's Row. She is generally thought to have been the first victim of Jack the Ripper...
), Whitechapel. The throat was severed deeply by two cuts, and the lower part of the abdomen was partly ripped open by a deep, jagged wound. Several other incisions on the abdomen were caused by the same knife.
Chapman's body was discovered at about on Saturday 1888 near a doorway in the back yard of 29
Hanbury StreetHanbury Street is a street in Spitalfields, London Borough of Tower Hamlets, in the East End of London. It runs east from Commercial Street to a cul-de-sac at the east end. It was laid out in the seventeenth century, and was originally known as Browne's Lane after the original developer...
,
SpitalfieldsSpitalfields is a former parish in the borough of Tower Hamlets, in the East End of London, near to Liverpool Street station and Brick Lane. The area straddles Commercial Street and is home to many markets, including the historic Old Spitalfields Market, founded in the 17th century, Sunday...
. As in the case of Mary Ann Nichols, the throat was severed by two cuts. The abdomen was slashed entirely open, and it was later discovered that the
uterusThe uterus or womb is a major female hormone-responsive reproductive sex organ of most mammals including humans. One end, the cervix, opens into the vagina, while the other is connected to one or both fallopian tubes, depending on the species...
had been removed. At the inquest, one witness described seeing Chapman with a dark-haired man of "shabby-genteel" appearance at about .
Stride and Eddowes were killed in the early morning of Sunday 1888. Stride's body was discovered at about , in Dutfield's Yard, off Berner Street (now
Henriques StreetHenriques Street, formerly known as Berner Street, is a narrow East End street off Commercial Road in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.-Landmarks:...
) in Whitechapel. The cause of death was one clear-cut incision which severed the main artery on the left side of the neck. Uncertainty about whether Stride's murder should be attributed to the Ripper, or whether he was interrupted during the attack, stems from the absence of mutilations to the abdomen. Witnesses who thought they saw Stride with a man earlier that night gave differing descriptions: some said her companion was fair, others dark; some said he was shabbily dressed, others well-dressed. Eddowes' body was found in
Mitre SquareMitre Square is a small square in the City of London. It measures about by and is connected via three passages with Mitre Street to the SW, to Creechurch Place to the NW and, via St James's Passage , to Duke's Place to the NE....
, in the
City of LondonThe City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...
, three-quarters of an hour after Stride's. The throat was severed, and the abdomen was ripped open by a long, deep, jagged wound. The left kidney and the major part of the uterus had been removed. A local man,
Joseph LawendeJoseph Lawende born in Warsaw, Poland, a cigarette salesman, is, with Israel Schwartz, among the most discussed of witnesses in the series of murders committed by the notorious Jack the Ripper in Whitechapel in London in 1888....
, had passed through the square with two friends shortly before the murder, and he described seeing a fair-haired man of shabby appearance with a woman who may have been Eddowes. His companions, however, were unable to confirm his description. Eddowes' and Stride's murders were later called the "double event". Part of Eddowes' bloodied apron was found at the entrance to a tenement in Goulston Street, Whitechapel. Some writing on the wall above the apron piece, which became known as the
Goulston Street graffitoThe Goulston Street graffito was some writing on a wall that was found beside a clue in the Whitechapel murders investigation. The Whitechapel murders were a series of brutal attacks on women in the Whitechapel district in the East End of London that occurred between 1888 and 1891...
, seemed to implicate a Jew or Jews, but it was unclear whether the graffito was written by the murderer as he dropped the apron piece, or merely incidental.
Police CommissionerThe Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis is the head of London's Metropolitan Police Service, classing the holder as a chief police officer...
Charles WarrenGeneral Sir Charles Warren, GCMG, KCB, FRS was an officer in the British Royal Engineers. He was one of the earliest European archaeologists of Biblical Holy Land, and particularly of Temple Mount...
feared the graffito might spark antisemitic riots, and ordered it washed away before dawn.
Kelly's gruesomely mutilated body was discovered lying on the bed in the single room where she lived at 13 Miller's Court, off
Dorset Street, SpitalfieldsFor the Dublin street of the same name, see Dorset Street Dorset Street was situated at the heart of the Spitalfields rookery in the East End of London, England. It should not be confused with the road of the same name in Marylebone, in London's West End...
, at on Friday 1888. The throat had been severed down to the spine, and the abdomen virtually emptied of its organs. The heart was missing.
The canonical five murders were perpetrated at night, on or close to a weekend, and either at the end of a month or a week or so after. The mutilations became increasingly severe as the series of murders proceeded, except for that of Stride, whose attacker may have been interrupted. Nichols was not missing any organs; Chapman's uterus was taken; Eddowes had her uterus and a kidney removed and her face mutilated; Kelly's body was eviscerated and her face hacked away, though only her heart was missing from the crime scene.
Historically, the belief that these five crimes were committed by the same man derives from contemporary documents that link them together to the exclusion of others. In 1894, Sir
Melville MacnaghtenSir Melville Leslie Macnaghten CB KPM was Assistant Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police from 1903 to 1913....
, Assistant
Chief ConstableChief constable is the rank used by the chief police officer of every territorial police force in the United Kingdom except for the City of London Police and the Metropolitan Police, as well as the chief officers of the three 'special' national police forces, the British Transport Police, Ministry...
of the
Metropolitan Police ServiceThe Metropolitan Police Service is the territorial police force responsible for Greater London, excluding the "square mile" of the City of London which is the responsibility of the City of London Police...
and Head of the
Criminal Investigation DepartmentThe Crime Investigation Department is the branch of all Territorial police forces within the British Police and many other Commonwealth police forces, to which plain clothes detectives belong. It is thus distinct from the Uniformed Branch and the Special Branch.The Metropolitan Police Service CID,...
(CID), wrote a report that stated: "the Whitechapel murderer had 5 victims—& 5 victims only". Similarly, the canonical five victims were linked together in a letter written by the police surgeon
Thomas BondDr Thomas Bond FRCS, MB BS , was a British surgeon considered by some to be the first offender profiler, and best known for his association with the notorious Jack the Ripper murders of 1888.-Early life:...
to Robert Anderson, head of the London CID, on 1888. Some researchers have posited that while some of the murders were undoubtedly the work of a single killer, an unknown larger number of killers acting independently were responsible for the others. Authors Stewart P. Evans and
Donald RumbelowDonald Rumbelow is a British crime historian, former Curator of the City of London Police's Crime Museum., two-time chairman of Britain's Crime Writers' Association, and author of the book The Complete Jack the Ripper...
argue that the canonical five is a "Ripper myth" and that while three cases (Nichols, Chapman, and Eddowes) can be definitely linked, there is less certainty over Stride and Kelly, and less again over Tabram. Conversely, others suppose that the six murders between Tabram and Kelly were the work of a single killer. Dr Percy Clark, assistant to the examining pathologist
George Bagster PhillipsDr George Bagster Phillips MBBS, MRCS Eng, L.M., LSA , was, from 1865, the Police Surgeon for the Metropolitan Police's 'H' Division, which covered London's Whitechapel district...
, linked only three of the murders and thought the others were perpetrated by "weak-minded individual[s] ... induced to emulate the crime". Macnaghten did not join the police force until the year after the murders, and his memorandum contains serious factual errors about possible suspects.
Later Whitechapel murders
Kelly is generally considered to be the Ripper's final victim, and it is assumed that the crimes ended because of the culprit's death, imprisonment, institutionalisation, or emigration. The Whitechapel murders file does, however, detail another four murders that happened after the canonical five: those of Rose Mylett, Alice McKenzie, the Pinchin Street torso and Frances Coles.
Mylett was found strangled in Clarke's Yard, High Street,
PoplarPoplar is a historic, mainly residential area of the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is about east of Charing Cross. Historically a hamlet in the parish of Stepney, Middlesex, in 1817 Poplar became a civil parish. In 1855 the Poplar District of the Metropolis was...
on 1888. As there was no sign of a struggle, the police believed that she had accidentally choked herself while in a drunken stupor, or committed suicide. Nevertheless, the inquest jury returned a verdict of murder.
McKenzie was killed on 17 July 1889 by severance of the left
carotid arteryIn human anatomy, the external carotid artery is a major artery of the head and neck. It arises from the common carotid artery when it bifurcates into the external and internal carotid artery.-Course:...
. Several minor bruises and cuts were found on the body, discovered in Castle Alley, Whitechapel. One of the examining pathologists,
Thomas BondDr Thomas Bond FRCS, MB BS , was a British surgeon considered by some to be the first offender profiler, and best known for his association with the notorious Jack the Ripper murders of 1888.-Early life:...
, believed this to be a Ripper murder, though another pathologist,
George Bagster PhillipsDr George Bagster Phillips MBBS, MRCS Eng, L.M., LSA , was, from 1865, the Police Surgeon for the Metropolitan Police's 'H' Division, which covered London's Whitechapel district...
, who had examined the bodies of three previous victims, disagreed. Later writers are also divided between those who think that her murderer copied the Ripper's
modus operandi to deflect suspicion from himself, and those that ascribe it to the Ripper.
"The Pinchin Street torso" was a headless and legless torso of an unidentified woman found under a railway arch in Pinchin Street, Whitechapel, on 1889. It seems probable that the murder was committed elsewhere and that parts of the dismembered body were dispersed for disposal.
Coles was killed on 13 February 1891 under a railway arch at Swallow Gardens, Whitechapel. Her throat was cut but the body was not mutilated. James Thomas Sadler, seen earlier with her, was arrested by the police, charged with her murder and was briefly thought to be the Ripper. He was, however, discharged from court for lack of evidence on 1891.
Other alleged victims
In addition to the eleven Whitechapel murders, commentators have linked other attacks to the Ripper. In one case, that of "Fairy Fay", it is unclear whether the attack was real or fabricated as a part of Ripper lore. "Fairy Fay" was a nickname given to a victim allegedly found on 1887 "after a stake had been thrust through her abdomen", but there were no recorded murders in Whitechapel at or around Christmas 1887. "Fairy Fay" could have been created by the press through confusion of the details of the murder of Emma Elizabeth Smith with a separate non-fatal attack the previous Christmas. Most authors agree that "Fairy Fay" never existed.
Annie Millwood was admitted to Whitechapel workhouse infirmary with stab wounds in the legs and lower abdomen on 1888. She was discharged but died from apparently natural causes aged 38 on 1888. She was later postulated as the Ripper's first victim, but the attack cannot be linked definitely. Another supposed early victim was Ada Wilson, who reportedly survived being stabbed twice in the neck on 1888. Annie Farmer, who resided at the same lodging house as Martha Tabram, reported an attack on 1888. She had a superficial cut on her throat, but it was possibly self-inflicted.
"
The Whitehall MysteryThe Whitehall Mystery is an unsolved murder from London in 1888. The dismembered remains of a woman were found at three different sites in central London, including the future site of Scotland Yard.-Discovery of remains:...
" was a term coined for the discovery of a headless torso of a woman on 1888 in the basement of the new Metropolitan Police headquarters being built in
WhitehallWhitehall is a road in Westminster, in London, England. It is the main artery running north from Parliament Square, towards Charing Cross at the southern end of Trafalgar Square...
. An arm belonging to the body was previously discovered floating in the
river ThamesThe River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...
near
PimlicoPimlico is a small area of central London in the City of Westminster. Like Belgravia, to which it was built as a southern extension, Pimlico is known for its grand garden squares and impressive Regency architecture....
, and one of the legs was subsequently discovered buried near where the torso was found. The other limbs and head were never recovered and the body was never identified. The mutilations were similar to those in the Pinchin Street case, where the legs and head were severed but not the arms. The Whitehall Mystery and the Pinchin Street case may have been part of a series of murders, called the "Thames Mysteries", committed by a single serial killer, dubbed the "Torso killer". Whether Jack the Ripper and the "Torso killer" were the same person or separate serial killers active in the same area is debatable. As the
modus operandi of the Torso killer differed from that of the Ripper, police at the time discounted any connection between the two. Elizabeth Jackson, a prostitute whose various body parts were collected from the
river ThamesThe River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...
between 2 and 1889, may have been another victim of the "Torso killer".
John Gill, a seven-year-old boy was found murdered in
Manningham, BradfordManningham is an area of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, approximately a mile north of the city centre and is seen as the centre of the city's south Asian population.- Geography :...
, on 1888. His legs had been severed, his abdomen opened, his intestines drawn out, and his heart and one ear removed. The similarities with the murder of Mary Kelly led to press speculation that the Ripper had killed the boy. The boy's employer, milkman William Barrett, was twice arrested for the murder on circumstantial evidence but was released. No-one else was ever prosecuted.
Carrie BrownCarrie Brown was a New York prostitute who was murdered and mutilated in a lodging house. She is occasionally mentioned as an alleged victim of Jack the Ripper. Although known to use numerous aliases, a common practice in her occupation, she supposedly won her nickname of Shakespeare for her habit...
(nicknamed "Shakespeare", reportedly for quoting
Shakespeare's sonnetsShakespeare's sonnets are 154 poems in sonnet form written by William Shakespeare, dealing with themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality. All but two of the poems were first published in a 1609 quarto entitled SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS.: Never before imprinted. Sonnets 138 and 144...
) was strangled with clothing and then mutilated with a knife on 1891 in New York City. Her body was found with a large tear through her groin area and superficial cuts on her legs and back. No organs were removed from the scene, though an ovary, either purposely removed or unintentionally dislodged, was found upon the bed. At the time, the murder was compared to those in Whitechapel though the Metropolitan Police eventually ruled out any connection.
Investigation
The surviving police files on the Whitechapel murders allow a detailed view of investigative procedure in the
Victorian eraThe Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
. A large team of policemen conducted house-to-house inquiries throughout Whitechapel. Forensic material was collected and examined. Suspects were identified, traced and either examined more closely or eliminated from the inquiry. Police work follows the same pattern today. Over 2000 people were interviewed, "upwards of 300" people were investigated, and 80 people were detained.
The investigation was initially conducted by the
Metropolitan PoliceThe Metropolitan Police Service is the territorial police force responsible for Greater London, excluding the "square mile" of the City of London which is the responsibility of the City of London Police...
Whitechapel (H) Division
Criminal Investigation DepartmentThe Crime Investigation Department is the branch of all Territorial police forces within the British Police and many other Commonwealth police forces, to which plain clothes detectives belong. It is thus distinct from the Uniformed Branch and the Special Branch.The Metropolitan Police Service CID,...
(CID) headed by Detective Inspector Edmund Reid. After the murder of Nichols, Detective Inspectors
Frederick AbberlineFrederick George Abberline was a Chief Inspector for the London Metropolitan Police and was a prominent police figure in the investigation into the Jack the Ripper murders of 1888.-Early life:...
,
Henry MooreHenry Moore was a British policeman from Northamptonshire. He joined the London Metropolitan Police Service on 26 April 1869, was promoted to Sergeant on 29 August 1872, and became an Inspector on 25 August 1878...
, and
Walter AndrewsWalter Simon Andrews was a British policeman. He was one of three inspectors who were sent from Scotland Yard to Whitechapel in 1888 to strengthen the investigation of the Whitechapel murders.He was born in Boulge, Suffolk, and married Jane Carr on 4 August 1867...
were sent from Central Office at
Scotland YardScotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, UK. It derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became...
to assist. After the Eddowes murder, which occurred within the
City of LondonThe City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...
, the
City PoliceThe City of London Police is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement within the City of London, England, including the Middle and Inner Temple. The service responsible for law enforcement within the rest of Greater London is the Metropolitan Police Service, a separate...
under Detective Inspector James McWilliam were involved. However, overall direction of the murder enquiries was hampered by the fact that the newly appointed head of the CID, Robert Anderson, was on leave in Switzerland between and , during the time Chapman, Stride and Eddowes were killed. This prompted the
Metropolitan Police CommissionerThe Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis is the head of London's Metropolitan Police Service, classing the holder as a chief police officer...
, Sir
Charles WarrenGeneral Sir Charles Warren, GCMG, KCB, FRS was an officer in the British Royal Engineers. He was one of the earliest European archaeologists of Biblical Holy Land, and particularly of Temple Mount...
, to appoint Chief Inspector
Donald SwansonChief Inspector Donald Sutherland Swanson was born in Thurso in Scotland, and was a senior police officer in the Metropolitan Police in London during the notorious Jack the Ripper murders of 1888.-Early life:...
to coordinate the enquiry from Scotland Yard.
Partly because of dissatisfaction with the police effort, a group of volunteer citizens in
London's East EndThe East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
called the
Whitechapel Vigilance CommitteeThe Whitechapel Vigilance Committee was a group of local volunteers who patrolled the streets of London's Whitechapel District during the period of the Whitechapel murders of 1888. The volunteers patrolled mainly at night in the search for the murderer. The committee was set up by local businessmen...
patrolled the streets looking for suspicious characters, petitioned the government to raise a reward for information about the killer, and hired private detectives to question witnesses independently.
Butchers, slaughterers, surgeons and physicians were suspected because of the manner of the mutilations. A surviving note from Major Henry Smith, Acting Commissioner of the
City PoliceThe City of London Police is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement within the City of London, England, including the Middle and Inner Temple. The service responsible for law enforcement within the rest of Greater London is the Metropolitan Police Service, a separate...
, indicates that the alibis of local butchers and slaughterers were investigated, with the result that they were eliminated from the inquiry. A report from Inspector
Donald SwansonChief Inspector Donald Sutherland Swanson was born in Thurso in Scotland, and was a senior police officer in the Metropolitan Police in London during the notorious Jack the Ripper murders of 1888.-Early life:...
to the Home Office confirms that 76 butchers and slaughterers were visited, and that the inquiry encompassed all their employees for the previous six months. Some contemporary figures, including Queen Victoria, thought the pattern of the murders indicated that the culprit was a butcher or cattle drover on one of the cattle boats that plied between London and mainland Europe. Whitechapel was close to the
London DocksThe London Docks were one of several sets of docks in the historic Port of London. They were constructed in Wapping downstream from the City of London between 1799 and 1815, at a cost exceeding £5½ million. Traditionally ships had docked at wharves on the River Thames, but by this time, more...
, and usually such boats docked on Thursday or Friday and departed on Saturday or Sunday. The cattle boats were examined but the dates of the murders did not coincide with a single boat's movements and the transfer of a crewman between boats was also ruled out.
Criminal profiling
At the end of October, Robert Anderson asked police surgeon
Thomas BondDr Thomas Bond FRCS, MB BS , was a British surgeon considered by some to be the first offender profiler, and best known for his association with the notorious Jack the Ripper murders of 1888.-Early life:...
to give his opinion on the extent of the murderer's surgical skill and knowledge. The opinion offered by Bond on the character of the "Whitechapel murderer" is the earliest surviving
offender profileOffender profiling, also known as criminal profiling, is a behavioral and investigative tool that is intended to help investigators to profile unknown criminal subjects or offenders. Offender profiling is also known as criminal profiling, criminal personality profiling, criminological profiling,...
. Bond's assessment was based on his own examination of the most extensively mutilated victim and the post mortem notes from the four previous canonical murders. He wrote:
Bond was strongly opposed to the idea that the murderer possessed any kind of scientific or anatomical knowledge, or even "the technical knowledge of a butcher or horse slaughterer". In his opinion the killer must have been a man of solitary habits, subject to "periodical attacks of homicidal and erotic
maniaMania, the presence of which is a criterion for certain psychiatric diagnoses, is a state of abnormally elevated or irritable mood, arousal, and/ or energy levels. In a sense, it is the opposite of depression...
", with the character of the mutilations possibly indicating "satyriasis". Bond also stated that "the homicidal impulse may have developed from a revengeful or brooding condition of the mind, or that religious mania may have been the original disease but I do not think either hypothesis is likely".
While there is no evidence of any sexual activity with any of the victims, psychologists suppose that the penetration of the victims with a knife and "leaving them on display in sexually degrading positions with the wounds exposed" indicates that the perpetrator derived sexual pleasure from the attacks. This view is challenged by others who dismiss such hypotheses as insupportable supposition.
Suspects
The concentration of the killings at the weekend, and within a few streets of each other, has indicated to many that the Ripper was employed during the week and lived locally. Others have thought the killer was an educated upper-class man, possibly a doctor or an aristocrat, who ventured into Whitechapel from a more well-to-do area; such theories draw on cultural perceptions such as fear of the medical profession, distrust of modern science, or the exploitation of the poor by the rich. Suspects proposed years after the murders include virtually anyone remotely connected to the case by contemporary documents, as well as many famous names, who were never considered in the police investigation. As everyone alive at the time is now dead, modern authors are free to accuse anyone, "without any need for any supporting historical evidence". Suspects named in contemporary police documents include three in Sir
Melville MacnaghtenSir Melville Leslie Macnaghten CB KPM was Assistant Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police from 1903 to 1913....
's 1894 memorandum, but the evidence against them is circumstantial at best.
Despite the many and varied theories about the identity and profession of Jack the Ripper, authorities are not agreed on a single solution and the number of named suspects reaches over one hundred.
Letters
Over the course of the Ripper murders, the police, newspapers and others received many hundreds of letters regarding the case. Some were well-intentioned offers of advice for catching the killer but the vast majority were useless.
Hundreds of letters claimed to have been written by the killer himself, and three of these in particular are prominent: the
"Dear Boss" letterThe "Dear Boss" letter was a message allegedly written by the notorious Victorian serial killer known as Jack the Ripper. It was postmarked and received on 27 September 1888, by the Central News Agency of London. It was forwarded to Scotland Yard on 29 September.The message, like most alleged...
, the "Saucy Jacky" postcard and the
"From Hell" letterThe "From Hell" letter is a letter posted in 1888 by a person who claimed to be the serial killer known as Jack the Ripper....
.
The "Dear Boss" letter, dated , was
postmarkthumb|USS TexasA postmark is a postal marking made on a letter, package, postcard or the like indicating the date and time that the item was delivered into the care of the postal service...
ed 1888. It was received that day by the
Central News AgencyThe Central News Agency was a news distribution service founded as Central Press in 1863 by William Saunders and his brother-in-law, Edward Spender...
, and was forwarded to
Scotland YardScotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, UK. It derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became...
on . Initially it was considered a hoax, but when Eddowes was found three days after the letter's postmark with one ear partially cut off, the letter's promise to "clip the ladys (
sicSic—generally inside square brackets, [sic], and occasionally parentheses, —when added just after a quote or reprinted text, indicates the passage appears exactly as in the original source...
) ears off" gained attention. However, Eddowes' ear appears to have been nicked by the killer incidentally during his attack, and the letter writer's threat to send the ears to the police was never carried out. The name "Jack the Ripper" was first used in this letter by the signatory and gained worldwide notoriety after its publication. Most of the letters that followed copied this letter's tone. Some sources claim that another letter, dated 1888, was the first to use the name "Jack the Ripper", but most experts believe this was a fake inserted into police records in the 20th century.
The "Saucy Jacky" postcard was postmarked 1888 and received the same day by the Central News Agency. The handwriting was similar to the "Dear Boss" letter. It mentions that two victims were killed very close to one another: "double event this time", which was thought to refer to the murders of Stride and Eddowes. It has been argued that the letter was mailed before the murders were publicised, making it unlikely that a crank would have such knowledge of the crime, but it was postmarked more than 24 hours after the killings took place, long after details were known by journalists and residents of the area.
The "From Hell" letter was received by
George LuskGeorge Akin Lusk was a builder and decorator who specialised in music hall restoration, and was the Chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee during the 'Whitechapel Murders' of Jack the Ripper in 1888. Lusk was a Freemason, having been initiated into the Doric Lodge on 14 April 1882, but he...
, leader of the
Whitechapel Vigilance CommitteeThe Whitechapel Vigilance Committee was a group of local volunteers who patrolled the streets of London's Whitechapel District during the period of the Whitechapel murders of 1888. The volunteers patrolled mainly at night in the search for the murderer. The committee was set up by local businessmen...
, on 1888. The handwriting and style is unlike that of the "Dear Boss" letter and postcard. The letter came with a small box in which Lusk discovered half of a kidney, preserved in "spirits of wine" (
ethanolEthanol, also called ethyl alcohol, pure alcohol, grain alcohol, or drinking alcohol, is a volatile, flammable, colorless liquid. It is a psychoactive drug and one of the oldest recreational drugs. Best known as the type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, it is also used in thermometers, as a...
). Eddowes' left kidney had been removed by the killer. The writer claimed that he "fried and ate" the missing kidney half. There is disagreement over the kidney: some contend it belonged to Eddowes, while others argue it was nothing more than a macabre practical joke. The kidney was examined by Dr
Thomas OpenshawThomas Horrocks Openshaw CB CMG FRCS LSA TD , was an English Victorian and Edwardian era surgeon perhaps best known for his brief involvement in the notorious Jack the Ripper murders of 1888....
of the
London HospitalThe Royal London Hospital was founded in September 1740 and was originally named The London Infirmary. The name changed to The London Hospital in 1748 and then to The Royal London Hospital on its 250th anniversary in 1990. The first patients were treated at a house in Featherstone Street,...
, who determined that it was human and from the left side, but (contrary to false newspaper reports) he could not determine its gender or age. Openshaw subsequently also received a letter signed "Jack the Ripper".
Scotland Yard published facsimiles of the "Dear Boss" letter and the postcard on , in the ultimately vain hope that someone would recognise the handwriting. In a letter to
Godfrey LushingtonSir Godfrey Lushington KCB, GCMG, , British civil servant and promoter of prison reform, was Permanent Under-Secretary of State of the Home Office of the United Kingdom from 1886 to 1895....
, Permanent
Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department-Non-permanent and parliamentary under-secretaries, 1782-present:*April 1782: Evan Nepean*April 1782: Thomas Orde*July 1782: Henry Strachey*April 1783: George North*February 1784: Hon. John Townshend*June 1789: Scrope Bernard*July 1794: The Hon...
, Charles Warren explained "I think the whole thing a hoax but of course we are bound to try & ascertain the writer in any case." On 1888, George R. Sims in the Sunday newspaper
RefereeThe Sunday Referee was a Sunday newspaper in the United Kingdom.The paper was founded in 1877 as The Referee, primarily covering sports news...
implied scathingly that the letter was written by a journalist "to hurl the circulation of a newspaper sky high". Police officials later claimed to have identified a specific journalist as the author of both the "Dear Boss" letter and the postcard. The journalist was identified as Tom Bullen in a letter from Chief Inspector John George Littlechild to George R. Sims dated 1913. A journalist called Fred Best reportedly confessed in 1931 that he had written the letters to "keep the business alive".
Media
The Ripper murders mark an important watershed in the treatment of crime by journalists. While not the first serial killer, Jack the Ripper's case was the first to create a worldwide media frenzy. Tax reforms in the 1850s had enabled the publication of inexpensive newspapers with wider circulation. These mushroomed later in the Victorian era to include mass-circulation newspapers as cheap as a halfpenny, along with popular magazines such as the
Illustrated Police News, which made the Ripper the beneficiary of previously unparalleled publicity.
After the murder of Nichols in early September, the
Manchester Guardian reported that: "Whatever information may be in the possession of the police they deem it necessary to keep secret ... It is believed their attention is particularly directed to ... a notorious character known as 'Leather Apron'." Journalists were frustrated by the unwillingness of the CID to reveal details of their investigation to the public, and so resorted to writing reports of questionable veracity. Imaginative descriptions of "Leather Apron" appeared in the press, but rival journalists dismissed these as "a mythical outgrowth of the reporter's fancy". John Pizer, a local Jew who made footwear from leather, was known by the name "Leather Apron" and was arrested, even though the investigating inspector reported that "at present there is no evidence whatsoever against him". He was soon released after the confirmation of his alibis.
After the publication of the "Dear Boss" letter, "Jack the Ripper" supplanted "Leather Apron" as the name adopted by the press and public to describe the killer. The name "Jack" was already used to describe another fabled London attacker: "Spring-Heeled Jack", who supposedly leapt over walls to strike at his victims and escape as quickly as he came. The invention and adoption of a nickname for a particular killer became standard media practice with examples such as the
Axeman of New OrleansThe Axeman of New Orleans was a serial killer active in New Orleans, Louisiana , from May 1918 to October 1919...
, the Boston Strangler, and the
Beltway SniperThe Washington sniper attacks took place during three weeks in October 2002 in Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. Ten people were killed and three others critically injured in various locations throughout the Washington Metropolitan Area and along Interstate 95 in Virginia...
. Examples derived from Jack the Ripper include
the French RipperJoseph Vacher was a French serial killer, sometimes known as "The French Ripper" or "L'éventreur du Sud-Est" due to comparisons to the more famous Jack the Ripper murderer of London, England in 1888...
,
the Düsseldorf RipperPeter Kürten was a German serial killer dubbed The Vampire of Düsseldorf by the contemporary media. He committed a series of sex crimes, assaults and murders against adults and children, most notoriously from February to November 1929 in Düsseldorf.-Early life:Kürten was born into a...
,
the Camden Ripper-Early life:Born in Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, Anthony Hardy had an apparently uneventful childhood and excelled in school and college, particularly in engineering....
, the Blackout Ripper,
Jack the StripperJack the Stripper was the nickname given to an unknown serial killer responsible for what came to be known as the London "nude murders" between 1964 and 1965 ....
, the
Yorkshire RipperPeter William Sutcliffe is a British serial killer who was dubbed "The Yorkshire Ripper". In 1981 Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering 13 women and attacking seven others. He is currently serving 20 sentences of life imprisonment in Broadmoor Hospital...
, and
the Rostov RipperAndrei Romanovich Chikatilo was a Ukrainian-born Soviet serial killer, nicknamed the Butcher of Rostov, The Red Ripper or The Rostov Ripper who murdered a minimum of 52 women and children between 1978 and 1990...
. Sensational press reports, combined with the fact that no one was ever convicted of the murders, have confused scholarly analysis and created a legend that casts a shadow over later serial killers.
Legacy
The nature of the murders and of the victims drew attention to the poor living conditions in the East End, and galvanised public opinion against the overcrowded, unsanitary slums. In the two decades after the murders, the worst of the slums were cleared and demolished, but the streets and some buildings survive and the legend of the Ripper is still promoted by guided tours of the murder sites.
The Ten BellsThe Ten Bells is a Victorian public house at the corner of Commercial Street and Fournier Street in Spitalfields in the East End of London. It is notable for its association with two victims of Jack the Ripper; Annie Chapman and Mary Kelly....
public house in
Commercial StreetCommercial Street is a road in Tower Hamlets, east London that runs north to south from Shoreditch High Street to Whitechapel High Street through the East End district of Spitalfields...
was frequented by at least one of the victims and was the focus of such tours for many years.
In the immediate aftermath of the murders, and later, "Jack the Ripper became the children's bogey man." Depictions were often phantasmic or monstrous. In the 1920s and 1930s, he was depicted in film dressed in everyday clothes as a man with a hidden secret preying on his unsuspecting victims; atmosphere and evil were suggested through lighting effects and shadowplay. By the 1960s, the Ripper had become "the symbol of a predatory aristocracy", and was portrayed in a top hat dressed as a gentleman.
The EstablishmentThe Establishment is a term used to refer to a visible dominant group or elite that holds power or authority in a nation. The term suggests a closed social group which selects its own members...
as a whole became the villain with the Ripper acting as a manifestation of upper-class exploitation. The image of the Ripper merged with or borrowed symbols from horror stories, such as
DraculaDracula is an 1897 novel by Irish author Bram Stoker.Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to relocate from Transylvania to England, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor...
's cloak or
Victor FrankensteinVictor Frankenstein was born in Napoli, is a Swiss fictional character and the protagonist of the 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, written by Mary Shelley...
's organ harvest. The fictional world of the Ripper can fuse with multiple genres, ranging from
Sherlock HolmesSherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
to
Japanese erotic horroris a 1976 Japanese film in the "Violent Pink" genre of Nikkatsu's Roman porno series. It was directed by Yasuharu Hasebe and stars Tamaki Katsura and Yutaka Hayashi.-Synopsis:...
.
In addition to the contradictions and unreliability of contemporary accounts, attempts to identify the real killer are hampered by the lack of surviving forensic evidence. DNA analysis on extant letters is inconclusive; the available material has been handled many times and is too contaminated to provide meaningful results.
Jack the Ripper features in
hundreds of works of fictionJack the Ripper, the notorious serial killer who terrorised Whitechapel in 1888, features in works of fiction ranging from gothic novels published at the time of the murders to recent motion pictures, televised dramas and computer games....
and works which straddle the boundaries between both fact and fiction, including the Ripper letters and a hoax Diary of Jack the Ripper. The Ripper appears in novels, short stories, poems, comic books, games, songs, plays, operas, television programmes and films. To date more than 100 non-fiction works deal exclusively with the Jack the Ripper murders, making it one of the most written-about true-crime subjects. The term "ripperology" was coined by
Colin WilsonColin Henry Wilson is a prolific English writer who first came to prominence as a philosopher and novelist. Wilson has since written widely on true crime, mysticism and other topics. He prefers calling his philosophy new existentialism or phenomenological existentialism.- Early biography:Born and...
in the 1970s to describe the study of the case by professionals and amateurs. The periodicals
Ripperana,
Ripperologist and
Ripper Notes publish their research.
Unlike murderers of lesser fame, there is no waxwork figure of Jack the Ripper at
Madame TussaudsMadame Tussauds is a wax museum in London with branches in a number of major cities. It was founded by wax sculptor Marie Tussaud and was formerly known as "Madame Tussaud's", but the apostrophe is no longer used...
' Chamber of Horrors, in accordance with their policy of not modelling persons whose likeness is unknown. He is instead depicted as a shadow. In 2006, Jack the Ripper was selected by
BBC History magazineBBC History is a magazine devoted to history enthusiasts of all levels of knowledge and interest. Being a British publication, the magazine focuses particularly on British history, but its remit is worldwide...
and its readers as the worst Briton in history.
See also
- List of murderers by number of victims
- Servant Girl Annihilator
An unknown serial killer, popularly known today as the Servant Girl Annihilator, preyed upon the city of Austin, Texas during the years 1884 and 1885...
External links