Jack the Ripper was a
pseudonymA pseudonym is a fictitious name used by a person, or sometimes, a group.Pseudonyms are often used to hide an individual's real identity, as with writers' pen names, graffiti artists, resistance fighters' or terrorists' noms de guerre and computer hackers' handles. Actors, musicians, and other...
given to an unidentified
serial killerA serial killer is a person who murders three or more people over a period of more than 30 days, with a "cooling off" period between each murder, and whose motivation for killing is largely based on psychological gratification. Often, a sexual element is involved with the killings...
active in the largely impoverished districts in and around
WhitechapelWhitechapel is a built-up inner city district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, 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 Commercial Road on the south...
,
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
, in late 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...
by someone claiming to be the murderer that was sent to the London Central News Agency and disseminated in the media. The letter is widely considered to be a hoax, and may have been written by a journalist in a deliberate attempt to heighten interest in the story.
Attacks ascribed to the Ripper typically involve women earning income as
prostitutesProstitution is the act or practice of engaging in sex acts for hire. In most cultures, prostitution is viewed by many as a deviant profession, either illegal or socially discouraged...
whose throats were cut prior to abdominal mutilations. The removal of internal organs from at least three of the victims led to proposals that the killer possessed anatomical or surgical knowledge. Rumours that the murders were connected intensified in September and October 1888, and media outlets and
Scotland YardNew Scotland Yard is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service, responsible for law enforcement within Greater London, excluding the City district, which is covered by the City of London Police....
received a series of extremely disturbing letters from a writer or writers purporting to take responsibility for some or all of the murders.
One letterThe "From Hell" letter is a letter posted in 1888 by a man who claimed to be the killer known as Jack the Ripper.Though many hundreds of letters claiming to be from the killer were posted at the time of the Ripper murders, many researchers argue that the "From Hell" letter is one of a handful of...
, 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...
, 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 Jack the Ripper murders of 1888. The volunteers patrolled mainly at night in the search for the murderer. The committee was set up by local...
, included a preserved human kidney, supposedly from one of the victims. Newspapers, whose circulation had been growing, bestowed widespread and enduring international notoriety on the killer. 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 terrorising the residents of Whitechapel. Though the murders most often attributed to the Ripper occurred in the latter half of 1888, a longer series of brutal killings in Whitechapel persisted at least until 1891. Although the investigation was unable to connect the later killings conclusively to the murders of 1888, the legend of Jack the Ripper solidified.
Because the killer's identity was never confirmed, the legends surrounding the murders have become a combination of genuine historical research,
folkloreFolklore is the body of expressive culture, including stories, music, dance, legends, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, customs, and so forth within a particular population comprising the traditions of that culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which...
, and
pseudohistoryPseudohistory is a pejorative term applied to texts which are supposedly historical in nature but which depart from standard historiographical conventions in a way which undermines their conclusions....
. The term
Ripperologist was coined to describe professionals and amateurs who study and analyze the case. Many authors, historians, policemen and amateur detectives have proposed theories about the identity of the killer, and the murders have inspired
multiple works of fictionJack the Ripper has been featured in a number of works of fiction, either as the central character or in a more peripheral role.-Novels and short stories:...
.
Background
In the mid 19th century, England experienced a rapid influx of mainly
Irish immigrantsThe 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, Brazil and states of the Caribbean and continental Europe...
, who swelled the populations of both the largely poor English countryside and England's major cities. From 1882,
JewThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
ish refugees escaping the pogroms in Tsarist
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
and eastern Europe added to the overcrowding and the already worsening work and housing conditions. London, especially the East End and the
civil parishIn England, a civil parish is a territorial designation and in some places the lowest tier of local government, below districts and counties. A civil parish can alternatively be known as a town, village, neighbourhood or community by resolution of its parish council; and in a limited number of...
of Whitechapel, became increasingly overcrowded, resulting in the development of a massive economic underclass. This endemic poverty drove many women to prostitution. In October 1888, the London Metropolitan Police estimated that there were 1,200 prostitutes resident in Whitechapel and about 62 brothels. The economic problems were accompanied by a steady rise in social tensions. In 1886–1889,
demonstrationsBloody 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...
by the hungry and unemployed were a regular feature of London policing.
Victims
Metropolitan Police ServiceThe Metropolitan Police Service is the territorial police force responsible for policing within Greater London, excluding the 'square mile' of the City of London which is the responsibility of the City of London Police....
files show that the investigation began in 1888 and eventually came to encompass eleven separate murders, stretching from 3 April 1888 to 13 February 1891, known 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, collectively called the "canonical five", are generally agreed upon as the work of a single killer.
The first case in the file is that of
Emma Elizabeth SmithEmma Elizabeth Smith, was an East End prostitute and murder victim, of mysterious origins, who at the time of her death was living at a lodging-house at 18 George Street, Spitalfields. She was viciously assaulted and robbed in Osborn Street, Whitechapel in the early hours of April 3, 1888...
, who was robbed and sexually assaulted on Osborn Street, Whitechapel, on 3 April 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 higher vertebrates and some invertebrates...
. She developed
peritonitisPeritonitis is defined as inflammation of the peritoneum...
, and died the following day at London Hospital. She told police that she had been attacked by two or three men, one of whom was a teenager. Though this attack was linked to the later murders by the press, it was almost certainly gang violence unrelated to the Ripper.
The second case is that of
Martha TabramMartha Tabram is considered by some to be a possible early victim of the notorious unidentified serial killer known as "Jack the Ripper", who killed and mutilated prostitutes in the Whitechapel area of London...
, who was killed on 7 August 1888. She had a total of 39 stab wounds. Of the non-canonical Whitechapel murders, Tabram is considered another possible Ripper victim for a variety of reasons. The location (George Yard Buildings, George Yard, Whitechapel) and date of this murder are close to those of the core Ripper murders, and those similarities are compounded by the lack of obvious motive and the savagery of the killing. However, the attack differs from those of the canonical ones in that it consisted of stabbing as opposed to slashing the throat and postmortem injuries.
'Canonical' five
The large number of horrific attacks against women during this era adds some uncertainty as to exactly how many victims were killed by the same man. 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 "method of operating". The plural is modi operandi...
. The "canonical five" Ripper victims are:
- Mary Ann Nichols
Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols was one of the Whitechapel murder victims. Her death has been attributed to the notorious unidentified serial killer named Jack the Ripper who is believed to have killed and mutilated several women in the Whitechapel area of London from late August to early November 1888.-...
was killed on Friday 31 August 1888. Her body was discovered at about 3:40 a.m. 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. Her throat was severed deeply by two cuts; the lower part of the abdomen was partly ripped open by a deep, jagged wound. There also were several incisions running across the abdomen, and three or four similar cuts on the right side caused by the same knife used violently and downwards.
- Annie Chapman
Annie Chapman , born Ann Eliza Smith, was a victim of the notorious unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper, who killed and mutilated several women in the Whitechapel area of London from late August to early November 1888....
was killed on Saturday 8 September 1888. Her body was discovered about 6 a.m. 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.In 1884 Florence Eleanor Soper, the daughter-in-law of General William Booth of The Salvation Army, inaugurated The Women's Social Work which was run from a small house in Hanbury Street...
, SpitalfieldsSpitalfields is an area 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 UpMarket, and...
. Like Mary Ann Nichols's, her throat was severed by two cuts. Her abdomen was slashed entirely open, and it was later discovered that the uterusThe uterus is a major female hormone-responsive reproductive sex organ of most mammals, including humans. It is within the uterus that the fetus develops during gestation. The term uterus is used consistently within the medical and related professions; the Germanic term, womb is more common in...
had been removed.
- Elizabeth Stride
Elizabeth "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.Elizabeth Stride was 44-years-old when she was murdered...
was killed on Sunday 30 September 1888. Her body was discovered about 1 a.m., 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. There was one clear-cut incision on the neck; the cause of death was massive blood loss from the nearly severed main artery on the left side. Some uncertainty about the identity of Stride's murderer, along with the suggestion her killer was interrupted during the attack, stem from the absence of mutilations to the abdomen.
- Catherine Eddowes
Catherine Eddowes was one of the the Whitechapel murder victims. She was the second victim of the night of Sunday 30 September 1888, a night which already had seen the murder of Elizabeth Stride less than an hour earlier...
was, like Elizabeth Stride, killed on Sunday 30 September 1888. Her body was found in Mitre SquareMitre Square is a small square in the City of London. It measures about 77 feet by 80 feet 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, as in the former two cases, severed by two cuts; the abdomen was ripped open by a long, deep, jagged wound. The left kidney and the major part of the uterus had been removed. Her and Stride's murders were later called the "double event".
- Mary Jane Kelly
Mary 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 early...
was killed on Friday 9 November 1888. Her gruesomely mutilated body was discovered shortly after 10:45 a.m., lying on the bed in the single room where she lived at 13 Miller's Court, off Dorset Street, SpitalfieldsDorset Street was situated at the heart of the Spitalfields rookery in the East End of London, England. Locally, it was sometimes known as "Dosset Street" or "Dossen Street" either because of the large number of doss-houses it contained or because immigrants to the area found it hard to pronounce...
. Her throat had been severed down to the spine, and her abdomen virtually emptied of its organs. Her heart was missing.
The authority of this list rests on a number of authors' opinions, but historically the idea has been based upon the 1894 notes of 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 title given to 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 British Transport Police, Ministry of Defence Police, Civil Nuclear...
of the
Metropolitan Police ServiceThe Metropolitan Police Service is the territorial police force responsible for policing within 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 Criminal 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...
, which states that "the Whitechapel murderer had 5 victims—& 5 victims only". Macnaghten did not join the force until the year after the murders; and his memorandum, which came to light in 1959, contains serious factual errors about possible suspects. There is considerable disagreement about the value of Macnaghten's assessment of the number of victims. Some researchers have posited that the series may not have been the work of a single murderer, but of an unknown larger number of killers acting independently. Authors Stewart P. Evans and Donald Rumbelow argue that the "canonical five" is a "Ripper myth" and that the probable number of victims could range from three (Nichols, Chapman, and Eddowes) to six (the previous three, plus Stride, Kelly, and
Martha TabramMartha Tabram is considered by some to be a possible early victim of the notorious unidentified serial killer known as "Jack the Ripper", who killed and mutilated prostitutes in the Whitechapel area of London...
) or more. Macnaghten's opinion of which crimes were committed by the same killer was not shared by other investigating officers, such as
InspectorInspector is both a police rank and an administrative position, both used in a number of contexts. However, it is not an equivalent rank in each police force.- Australia :...
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:...
. These five victims were also 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 10 November 1888, and were evidently treated by the police as a single case.
Except Stride, whose attack may have been interrupted, mutilations of the "canonical five" victims became increasingly severe as the series of murders proceeded. Nichols and Stride were not missing any organs; but Chapman's
uterusThe uterus is a major female hormone-responsive reproductive sex organ of most mammals, including humans. It is within the uterus that the fetus develops during gestation. The term uterus is used consistently within the medical and related professions; the Germanic term, womb is more common in...
was taken, and Eddowes had her uterus and a kidney carried away and her face mutilated. While only Kelly's heart was missing from her crime scene, many of her internal organs were removed and left in her room.
The "canonical five" murders were generally perpetrated in the dark of night, on or close to a weekend, in a secluded site to which the public could gain access, and on a pattern of dates either at the end of a month or a week or so after. Yet every case differed from this pattern in some manner. Besides the differences already mentioned, Eddowes was the only victim killed 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...
, though close to the boundary between the City and the metropolis. Nichols was the only victim to be found on an open street, albeit a dark and deserted one. Many sources state that Chapman was killed after the sun had started to rise, though that was not the opinion of the police or the doctors who examined the body. Kelly's murder ended six weeks of inactivity for the murderer. (A week elapsed between the Nichols and Chapman murders; three between Chapman and the "double event".)
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 four murders that happened after the canonical five:
- Rose Mylett was reportedly strangled "by a cord drawn tightly round the neck" on 20 December 1888, though Sir Robert Anderson believed that she had accidentally suffocated herself on the collar of her dress while in a drunken stupor. Her body was found in Clarke's Yard, High Street, Poplar
Poplar is an area of the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Poplar is about east of Charing Cross.-History:During the development of the Isle of Dogs the street signs pointed to the new development , and Poplar was lost for a decade or more. St Matthias Old Church is...
.
- Alice McKenzie was killed on 17 July 1889. She died from severance of the left carotid artery, and several minor bruises and cuts were found on the body, discovered in Castle Alley, Whitechapel. One of the examining pathologists, Dr. Thomas Bond
Dr 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, Dr Phillips, who had examined the bodies of three previous victims, disagreed. Later writers are also divided between those who think that an unknown murderer tried to make it look like a Ripper killing to deflect suspicion from himself, and those that ascribe it to the Ripper.
- "The Pinchin Street Torso" was a headless and legless torso of a woman found under a railway arch in Pinchin Street, Whitechapel on 10 September 1889. The mutilations were similar to the body which was the subject of the "The Whitehall Mystery
On October 2, 1888, during construction of Scotland Yard's new headquarters on the Victoria Embankment near Whitehall in Westminster, a worker found a parcel containing human remains....
", though in this case the hands were not severed. It seems probable that the murder had been committed elsewhere and that parts of the dismembered body were dumped at the crime scene. The identity of the victim was never established. "The Whitehall Mystery" and "The Pinchin Streets Murderer" have been suggested to be part of a series of murders, called the "Thames Mysteries" or "Embankment Murders", 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 has long been debated. As the modus operandi of the torso killings differs from that of the Ripper, crime writer Don Rumbelow discounted any connection between the two.
- Frances Coles was killed on 13 February 1891. Minor wounds on the back of the head suggest that she was thrown violently to the ground before her throat was cut. Otherwise there were no mutilations to the body. Her body was found under a railway arch at Swallow Gardens, Whitechapel. A man named James Thomas Sadler, seen earlier with her, was arrested by the police and charged with her murder and was briefly thought to be the Ripper himself. However he was discharged from court due to lack of evidence on 3 March 1891. After this eleventh and last Whitechapel Murder the file was closed.
Other alleged victims
In addition to the eleven murders officially investigated by the Metropolitan Police as part of the Ripper investigation, various Ripper historians have at times suggested a number of other contemporary attacks as possibly being connected to the same serial killer. In some cases, the records are not clear if the murders had even occurred or if the stories were fabricated later as a part of Ripper lore.
"Fairy Fay", a nickname for an unknown murder victim allegedly found on 26 December 1887 with "a stake thrust through her abdomen". It has been suggested that "Fairy Fay" was a creation of the press based upon confusion of the details of the murder of Emma Elizabeth Smith with a separate non-fatal attack the previous Christmas. The name of "Fairy Fay" was first used for this alleged victim in 1950. There were no recorded murders in Whitechapel at or around Christmas 1886 or 1887, and later newspaper reports that included a Christmas 1887 killing conspicuously did not list the Smith murder. Most authors agree that "Fairy Fay" never existed.
Annie Millwood (born c. 1850) reportedly admitted to hospital with "numerous stabs in the legs and lower part of the body" on 25 February 1888. She was discharged but died from apparently natural causes on 31 March 1888.
Ada Wilson was reportedly stabbed twice in the neck on 28 March 1888. She survived.
"
The Whitehall MysteryOn October 2, 1888, during construction of Scotland Yard's new headquarters on the Victoria Embankment near Whitehall in Westminster, a worker found a parcel containing human remains....
", a term coined for the headless torso of a woman found on 2 October 1888 in the basement of the new
Metropolitan Police ServiceThe Metropolitan Police Service is the territorial police force responsible for policing within Greater London, excluding the 'square mile' of the City of London which is the responsibility of the City of London Police....
headquarters being built in Whitehall. An arm belonging to the body was previously discovered floating in the
River ThamesThe River Thames is a major river flowing through southern England. While best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows through several other towns and cities, including Oxford, Reading and Windsor....
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.
Annie Farmer, born c. 1848, reportedly survived an attack on 21 November 1888 with only a superficial cut on her throat, apparently caused by a blunt knife. Police suspected that the wound was self-inflicted and did not investigate further.
Elizabeth Jackson, a prostitute whose various body parts were collected from the
River ThamesThe River Thames is a major river flowing through southern England. While best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows through several other towns and cities, including Oxford, Reading and Windsor....
between 31 May and 25 June 1889, was reportedly identified by scars she had had prior to her disappearance and apparent murder.
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, or simply The Sonnets, is a collection of poems in sonnet form written by William Shakespeare that deal with such themes as love, beauty, politics, and mortality. They were probably written over a period of several years...
) was strangled with clothing and then mutilated with a knife on 24 April 1891 in
ManhattanManhattan is one of the five boroughs of New York City, located primarily on Manhattan Island at the mouth of the Hudson River.New York County, which has the same boundaries as the Borough of Manhattan , is the most densely populated county in the United States, with a 2008 population of 1,634,795...
. 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 was found upon the bed. Whether it was purposely removed or unintentionally dislodged during the mutilation is unknown. At the time, the murder was compared to those in Whitechapel though the Metropolitan Police eventually ruled out any connection.
Investigation
The surviving Whitechapel Murders police files allow a detailed view of investigative procedure in
VictorianThe Victorian era of the United Kingdom was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from June 1837 until her death on the 22nd of January 1901. The reign was a long period of prosperity for the British people, as profits gained from the overseas British Empire, as well as from industrial improvements...
times. A large team of policemen conducted house-to-house inquiries, lists of suspects were drawn up and many were interviewed, forensic material was collected and examined. A close reading of the investigation shows a basic process of identifying suspects, tracing them and deciding whether to examine them more closely or to cross them off the list. This is still the pattern of a major inquiry today. The investigation was initially conducted by Whitechapel (H) Division C.I.D. headed by Detective Inspector Edmund Reid. After the Nichols murder, 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 Moore, and Walter Andrews were sent from Central Office at Scotland Yard 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 Police under Detective Inspector James McWilliam were also engaged. However, overall direction of the murder enquiries was confused and hampered by the fact that the newly appointed head of the
CIDThe Criminal 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...
, Sir Robert Anderson, was on leave in
SwitzerlandSwitzerland , officially the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 states named cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities...
between 7 September and 15 October, during which time Chapman, Stride and Eddowes were killed. This prompted the Chief Commissioner of the Met., Sir
Charles WarrenGeneral Sir Charles Warren, GCMG, KCB, FRS was an officer in the British Royal Engineers, and in later life was Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, the head of the London Metropolitan Police, from 1886 to 1888, during the period of the Jack the Ripper murders.-Education and early military...
, to appoint
SuperintendentSuperintendent , often shortened to "Super", is a rank in British police services and in most English-speaking Commonwealth nations. In many Commonwealth countries the full version is Superintendent of Police...
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 YardNew Scotland Yard is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service, responsible for law enforcement within Greater London, excluding the City district, which is covered by the City of London Police....
. Swanson's notes on the case survive and are a valuable record of the investigation.
Due in part to dissatisfaction with the police effort, a group of volunteer citizens in London's East End 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 Jack the Ripper murders of 1888. The volunteers patrolled mainly at night in the search for the murderer. The committee was set up by local...
also patrolled the streets of London looking for suspicious characters, petitioned the government to raise a reward for information about the killer, and hired private detectives to question witnesses separate from the police. The committee was led 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...
in 1888. Albert Bachert, in 1889, claimed to be in charge of that group or a similar group.
Goulston Street graffito
After the murders of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes during the night of 30 September, police searched the area near the crime scenes in an effort to locate a suspect, witnesses or evidence. At about 3:00 a.m., Constable Alfred Long of the
Metropolitan Police ServiceThe Metropolitan Police Service is the territorial police force responsible for policing within Greater London, excluding the 'square mile' of the City of London which is the responsibility of the City of London Police....
discovered a bloodstained piece of an apron in the stairwell of a tenement on Goulston Street. The cloth was later confirmed as being a part of the apron worn by Catherine Eddowes. There was writing in white chalk found above where the apron was found. Some sources say it was on the wall, and others say it was on black brick jamb of the entranceway. Long reported that it read, "The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing." The writing is referred to by a number of authors as the "Goulston Street graffito". Detective Constable Daniel Halse of the
City of London 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...
, arrived a short time later, and took down a different version: "The Juwes are not the men who will be blamed for nothing." A copy according with Long's version of the message was taken down and attached to a report from
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, and in later life was Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, the head of the London Metropolitan Police, from 1886 to 1888, during the period of the Jack the Ripper murders.-Education and early military...
to the
Home OfficeThe Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security and order. As such it is responsible for the police, United Kingdom Borders Agency and MI5. It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs, counter-terrorism...
. Police Superintendent Thomas Arnold visited the scene and saw the writing. Later, in his report of 6 November to the Home Office, he claimed, that with the strong feeling against the Jews already existing, the message might have become the means of causing a riot:
Since the Nichols murder, rumours had been circulating in the East End that the killings were the work of a
JewThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
dubbed "Leather Apron". Religious tensions were already high, and there had already been many near-riots. Arnold ordered a man to be standing by with a sponge to erase the writing, while he consulted Commissioner Warren. Covering it in order to allow time for a photographer to arrive or removing one word only was considered, but Arnold and Warren (who personally attended the scene) considered this to be too dangerous, and Warren later stated he "considered it desirable to obliterate the writing at once".
While the Goulston Street graffito was found in Metropolitan Police territory, the apron piece was from a victim killed 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...
, which has a separate police force. Some officers disagreed with Arnold and Warren's decision, especially those representing the City of London Police, who thought the writing constituted part of a crime scene and should at least be photographed before being erased, but it was wiped from the wall at 5:30 a.m. Most contemporary police concluded that the text was a semi-literate attack on the area's Jewish population. Several possible explanations have been suggested as to the importance of this possible clue:
- According to historian Philip Sugden there are at least three permissible interpretations of this particular clue: "All three are feasible, not one capable of proof." The first is that the writing was not the work of the murderer at all. The apron piece was dropped by the writer, either by accident or design. The second would be to "take the murderer at his word"—a Jew incriminating himself and his people. The third interpretation was, according to Sugden, the one most favoured at the Scotland Yard and by "Old Jewry": The chalk message was a deliberate subterfuge, designed to incriminate the Jews and throw the police off the track of the real murderer.
"But suppose the killer happened to throw the apron, quite fortuitously, down by the existing piece of graffiti? In such a case we would be utterly wrong in according to the writing any significance whatsoever. Walter DewDetective Chief Inspector Walter Dew was a Metropolitan Police officer who was involved in the hunt for both Jack the Ripper and Dr Crippen.-Early life:...
was inclined to endorse this approach to the problem. (...) Constable Halse, on the other hand, saw it and thought it looked recent. And Chief Inspector Henry Moore and Sir Robert Anderson are both on record as having explicitly stated their belief that the message was written by the murderer."
- Author Martin Fido
Martin Austin Fido is a university teacher, true crime writer and broadcaster. His many books include The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper, The Official Encyclopedia of Scotland Yard, and The Murder Guide to London.After leaving Balliol College, Oxford in 1966 where he had been a...
notes that the writing included a double negativeA double negative occurs when two forms of negation are used in the same clause. In some languages , negative forms are consistently used throughout the sentence to express a single negation. In other languages, a double negative is used to negate a negation, and therefore, it resolves to a positive...
, a common feature of CockneyThe term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End...
speech. He suggests that the writing might be translated into standard English as "The Jews are men who will not take responsibility for anything" and that the message was written by someone who believed he or she had been wronged by one of the many Jewish merchants or tradesmen in the area.
- A contemporaneous explanation was offered by Robert D'Onston Stephenson
Robert D'Onston Stephenson was a writer and journalist, chiefly known for having been made a potential suspect in the Jack the Ripper investigation and for his personal theory as to the identity of the murderer.- Involvement :Mary Ann Nichols, the first victim generally acknowledged to have been...
, a journalist and writer known to be interested in the occult and black magic. In an article (signed 'One Who Thinks He Knows') in the Pall Mall GazetteThe Pall Mall Gazette was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865. It was owned by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood...
of 1 December 1888, Stephenson concluded from the overall sentence construction, the double negative, the double designation "the Juwes are the men," and the highly unusual misspelling that the Ripper most probably was of French-speaking origin. This claim was disputed by a native French speaker in a letter to the editor of that same publication that ran on 6 December.
- Author Stephen Knight
Stephen Knight was a British author.He is best known for the books Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution and The Brotherhood...
suggested that "Juwes" referred not to "Jews," but to Jubela, Jubelo and Jubelum, the three killers of Hiram AbiffHiram Abiff is a character who figures prominently in an allegorical play that is presented during the third degree of Craft Freemasonry. In this play, Hiram is presented as being the chief architect of King Solomon's Temple, who is murdered by three ruffians during an unsuccessful attempt to force...
, a semi-legendary figure in FreemasonryFreemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around 5 million, including just under two million in the United States and around 480,000 in...
, and furthermore, that the message was written by the killer (or killers) as part of a Masonic plot. There is, however, no evidence that anyone prior to Knight had ever referred to those three figures by the term "Juwes".
Criminal profiling
After the acquittal of
Daniel M'NaghtenDaniel M'Naghten was a Scottish woodturner who assassinated English civil servant Edward Drummond while suffering from paranoid delusions...
in 1843, and the establishment of the
M'Naghten rulesThe M'Naghten Rules were the first serious attempt to codify and rationalize the attitude of the criminal law towards mentally incompetent defendants. They arise from the attempted assassination of the British Prime Minister, Robert Peel, in 1843 by Daniel M'Naghten...
, physicians became increasingly involved in determining whether defendants in murder cases were suffering from 'mental illness'. And the growing importance of the medical sciences during the same period also led to an increasing involvement by pathologists in the investigative process. Their work further encompassed the treating of the perpetrators of crimes who were regarded as mad rather than bad; it is therefore not surprising that by the 1880s, medical officers thought it appropriate to offer opinions about the characteristics of an offender; the earliest of such
opinionsOffender profiling is a behavioral and investigative tool that helps investigators to profile unknown criminal subjects or offenders. Offender profiling is also known as criminal profiling, criminal personality profiling, criminological profiling, behavioral profiling or criminal...
for which a copy still exists is that offered 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:...
, in November 1888, to Robert Anderson, head of the London CID, concerning the character of the "Whitechapel murderer". After the murder of
Catherine EddowesCatherine Eddowes was one of the the Whitechapel murder victims. She was the second victim of the night of Sunday 30 September 1888, a night which already had seen the murder of Elizabeth Stride less than an hour earlier...
, Anderson requested Bond to give his opinion, as significant uncertainty had arisen about the amount of surgical skill and knowledge possessed by the murderer (or murderers). According to investigative psychologist
David CanterDavid V. Canter is a psychologist. He began his career as an architectural psychologist studying the interactions between people and buildings, publishing and providing consultancy on the designs of offices, schools, prisons, housing and other building forms as well as exploring how people made...
Dr. Bond's proposals would probably be accepted as thoughtful and intelligent by police forces today. Bond based his assessment on his own examination of the most extensively mutilated victim and the post mortem notes from the four previous canonical murders.
Dr. Bond was strongly opposed to the idea that the murderer would possess any kind of scientific or anatomical knowledge, or even "the technical knowledge of a butcher or horse slaughterer". In Bond's opinion he must have been a man of solitary habits, subject to "periodical attacks of homicidal and erotic
maniaMania is a severe medical condition characterized by extremely elevated mood, energy, unusual thought patterns and sometimes psychosis...
". The character of the mutilations possibly indicating "satyriasis". Dr. 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".
Some commentators at the time, 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. Usually such boats docked on Thursday or Friday, and departed on Saturday or Sunday.
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. The vast majority were deemed useless and subsequently ignored.
Hundreds of letters claimed to have been written by the killer himself. Nearly all such letters were and are considered hoaxes, and many experts contend that none of them are genuine, but of the ones cited as perhaps genuine by either period or modern authorities, three in particular are prominent:
- The "Dear Boss" letter
The "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...
, dated 25 September, postmarkA 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 and received 27 September 1888, by the Central News Agency, was forwarded to Scotland YardNew Scotland Yard is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service, responsible for law enforcement within Greater London, excluding the City district, which is covered by the City of London Police....
on 29 September. 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 is a Latin word meaning "thus", "so", "as such", or "in such a manner". In writing, it is placed within square brackets and usually italicized – [sic] – to indicate that an incorrect or unusual spelling, phrase, punctuation, and/or other preceding quoted material has been reproduced verbatim...
) 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, and "Jack the Ripper" supplanted "Leather Apron" as the name adopted by the press and public to describe the killer.
- The "Saucy Jacky" postcard, postmarked and received 1 October 1888, by the Central News Agency, had handwriting similar to the "Dear Boss" letter. It mentions that two victims were killed very close to one another: "double event this time", which was supposed 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
The "From Hell" letter is a letter posted in 1888 by a man who claimed to be the killer known as Jack the Ripper.Though many hundreds of letters claiming to be from the killer were posted at the time of the Ripper murders, many researchers argue that the "From Hell" letter is one of a handful of...
, also known as the "Lusk letter", postmarked 15 October and 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...
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 Jack the Ripper murders of 1888. The volunteers patrolled mainly at night in the search for the murderer. The committee was set up by local...
on 16 October 1888. The letter came with a small box in which Lusk discovered half a human kidneyThe kidneys are paired organs, which have the production of urine as their primary function. Kidneys are seen in many types of animals, including vertebrates and some invertebrates. They are part of the urinary system, but have several secondary functions concerned with homeostatic functions. ...
, later said by a doctor to have been 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, best known as the type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages and in modern thermometers. Ethanol is one of the oldest recreational drugs...
). One of Eddowes' kidneys had been removed by the killer. The writer claimed that he "fried and ate" the missing kidney half. The handwriting and style is unlike that of the "Dear Boss" letter and postcard. There is disagreement over the kidney: some contend it belonged to Eddowes, while others argue it was "a macabre practical joke, and no more".
The Police published facsimiles of the "Dear Boss" letter and the postcard on 3 October, hoping someone would recognise the handwriting, but nothing useful came of this effort. In a letter to Godfrey Lushington, Permanent
Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department-Non-Permanent and Parliamentary Under-Secretaries for the Home Department, 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...
, 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 7 October 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 is identified as Tom Bullen in a letter from Chief Inspector John George Littlechild to George R. Sims dated 23 September 1913, and a journalist called Fred Best reportedly confessed in 1931 that he'd written the letters to "keep the business alive".
Some sources list another letter, dated 17 September 1888, as the first message to use the Jack the Ripper name. Most experts believe this was a modern fake inserted into police records in the 20th century, long after the killings took place. They note that the letter has neither an official police stamp verifying the date it was received nor the initials of the investigator who would have examined it if it were ever considered as potential evidence. It is also not mentioned in any surviving police document of the time.
Ongoing
DNADeoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms and some viruses. The main role of DNA molecules is the long-term storage of information...
tests on the extant letters have yet to yield conclusive results.
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. Reforms to the
Stamp ActA stamp act is a law enacted by government that requires a tax to be paid on the transfer of certain documents. The stamp act was considered upsetting to some people. Those that pay the tax receive an official stamp on their documents. The tax raised, called stamp duty, was first devised in the...
in 1855 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, making the Ripper the beneficiary of previously unparalleled publicity. 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. This, combined with the fact that no one was ever convicted, has confused scholarly analysis of the murders, and created a legend that cast a shadow over later serial killers.
Some believe that the killer's nickname was invented by newspapermen to make for a more interesting story that could sell more papers. This became standard media practice with examples such as the Boston Strangler,
the Green River KillerGary Leon Ridgway , known as the "Green River Killer", is an American serial killer. Ridgway murdered numerous women in Washington during the 1980s and 1990s. He strangled them with rope, fishing line and anything else he could find...
, 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
Beltway SniperThe Beltway 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...
, and the
Hillside StranglerThe Hillside Strangler is the media epithet for two men, Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, cousins, who were convicted of kidnapping, raping, torturing, and killing girls and women ranging in age from 12 to 28 years old during a four-month period from late 1977 to early 1978...
, besides the derivative
Yorkshire RipperPeter William Sutcliffe is an English serial killer who was dubbed The Yorkshire Ripper. Sutcliffe was convicted in 1981 for murdering 13 women and attacking several others. He is currently serving life imprisonment in Broadmoor Hospital...
almost a hundred years later and the unnamed perpetrator of the "Thames Nude Murders" of the 1960s, whom the press dubbed
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 poor of the East End had long been ignored by affluent society, but the nature of the murders and of the victims forcibly drew attention to their living conditions. This attention enabled social reformers of the time to finally gain the support of the "respectable classes." A letter from
George Bernard ShawGeorge Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60 plays...
to the
Star newspaper commented sarcastically on these sudden concerns of the press:
Suspects
Despite the many 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.
In popular culture
Stories of Jack the Ripper are featured in hundreds of works of fiction and non-fiction and works which straddle the boundaries between both fact and fiction, shading into legend. These latter include the Ripper letters, a purported Diary of the Ripper and specimens of poetry alleged to be from the Ripper's own hand. (The Diary has been discredited by experts, including
Kenneth W. RendellKenneth W. Rendell is an American dealer and expert in historical letters, manuscripts, and documents. He is widely regarded throughout the world as foremost in his field, and is president of Kenneth W. Rendell, Inc., in South Natick, Massachusetts, and the Kenneth W. Rendell Gallery in New York...
, who, in his analysis, pointed to factual contradictions, handwriting inconsistencies, and anachronistic style.) The Ripper has appeared in novels, short stories, poetry, comic books, video games, songs, plays and films. He even has an 'heroic baritone' singing part in an opera:
LuluLulu is an opera by the composer Alban Berg. The libretto was adapted by Berg himself from Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora .-Conception and composition:...
by
Alban BergAlban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Life and work:Berg was born in...
. However, one prominent omission is that, unlike murderers of lesser fame, there is no waxwork figure of him in London's Chamber of Horrors at
Madame TussaudsMadame Tussauds is a wax museum in London with branches in a number of major cities. It was set up by wax sculptor Marie Tussaud. It was formerly spelt "Madame Tussaud's", but the apostrophe is no longer used.-History:...
, in accordance with
Marie TussaudAnna Maria Tussaud or Marie Tussaud was a French artist known for her wax sculptures and Madame Tussauds, the wax museum she set up in London....
's original policy of not modelling persons whose likeness is unknown.
To date more than 200 works of non-fiction have been published which deal exclusively with the Jack the Ripper murders, making it one of the most written-about true-crime subjects of the past century. Six periodicals about Jack the Ripper have been introduced since the early 1990s:
Ripperana (1992–present),
Ripperologist (1994–present, electronic format only since 2005), the
Whitechapel Journal (1997–2000),
Ripper Notes (1999–present),
Ripperoo (2000–2003), and the
The Whitechapel Society 1888 Journal (2005–present).
The legend of the Ripper is still promoted in the East End of London with many 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....
, a Victorian pub in
Commercial StreetCommercial Street is a road in Tower Hamlets, East London that runs north to south from Shoreditch to Aldgate through the East End district of Spitalfields. The road is on the London Inner Ring Road and as such forms part of the boundary of the London congestion charge zone.As the name implies,...
that had been frequented by Jack the Ripper's victims, was the focus of such tours for many years. To capitalise on this business, the owners changed its name to the "Jack the Ripper" in the 1960s, but, following protests by feminists and others, the pub returned to its old name.
In 2006, Jack the Ripper was selected by the
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 historyA list of the worst Britons in history, according to ten English historians, was compiled by the BBC History Magazine in late 2005. Each historian was asked to name the worst Briton in a certain century, from the eleventh century onwards....
.
See also
- The Blackout Ripper
The Blackout Ripper was the nickname given to 28-year-old Gordon Frederick Cummins, an English spree killer who murdered four women in London in 1942. The Ripper tag came from similarities with the Jack the Ripper murders as both killers mutilated their victims.-Background:Cummins was born in York...
- Peter Kürten
Peter 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...
(aka the Düsseldorf Ripper)
- List of serial killers by number of victims
- Servant Girl Annihilator
The Servant Girl Annihilator or Austin Axe Murderer was a serial killer or killers who terrorized Austin, Texas between 1884 and 1885....
- Peter Sutcliffe
Peter William Sutcliffe is an English serial killer who was dubbed The Yorkshire Ripper. Sutcliffe was convicted in 1981 for murdering 13 women and attacking several others. He is currently serving life imprisonment in Broadmoor Hospital...
(aka the Yorkshire Ripper)
- Joseph Vacher
Joseph 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...
(aka the French Ripper)
Additional reading
- Begg, Paul. Jack the Ripper: The Facts. Anova Books, 2006. ISBN 1-86105-687-7.
- Begg, Paul, Martin Fido
Martin Austin Fido is a university teacher, true crime writer and broadcaster. His many books include The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper, The Official Encyclopedia of Scotland Yard, and The Murder Guide to London.After leaving Balliol College, Oxford in 1966 where he had been a...
and Keith Skinner. The Jack the Ripper A-Z. Headline Book Publishing, 1996. ISBN 0-7472-5522-9.
- Curtis, Lewis Perry. Jack The Ripper & The London Press. Yale University Press
Yale University Press is a book publisher founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day. It became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but remains financially and operationally autonomous....
, 2001. ISBN 0-300-08872-8.
- Eddleston, John J. (2002). Jack the Ripper: An Encyclopedia. London: Metro Books. ISBN 1-8435-8046-2.
- Evans, Stewart P. and Donald Rumbelow. Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates. Sutton Publishing, Limited, 2006. ISBN 0-7509-4228-2.
- Evans, Stewart P. and Keith Skinner. Jack the Ripper: Letters from Hell. Sutton, 2001. ISBN 0-7509-2549-3.
- Evans, Stewart P. and Keith Skinner. The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook. Robinson, 2002. ISBN 0-7867-0768-2.
- Jakubowski, Maxim
Maxim Jakubowski is a crime, erotic, and science fiction writer and critic.Jakubowski was born in England by Russian-British and Polish parents, but raised in France. Jakubowski has also lived in Italy and has travelled extensively...
and Nathan Braund, editors. The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper. Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1999. ISBN 0-7867-0626-0.
- Marriott, Trevor (2005). Jack the Ripper: The 21st Century Investigation. London: John Blake. ISBN 1-84454-103-7.
- Odell, Robin. Ripperology. Kent State University Press, 2006. ISBN 0-87338-861-5.
- Rumbelow, Donald (2004). The Complete Jack the Ripper. Fully Revised and Updated. Penguin Books. ISBN 9780140173956
- Sugden, Philip. The Complete History of Jack the Ripper. Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2002. ISBN 0-7867-0276-1.
External links