Jack the Ripper was an
unidentified serial killer active in the largely impoverished areas
in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. In both the
criminal case files and contemporary journalistic accounts, the
killer was called the Whitechapel Murderer and Leather
Apron.
Attacks ascribed to Jack the Ripper
typically involved female prostitutes who lived and worked in the
slums of the East End of London. Their 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 had some
anatomical or surgical knowledge. Rumors that the murders were
connected intensified in September and October 1888, and numerous
letters were received by media outlets and Scotland Yard from
individuals purporting to be the murderer. The name "Jack the
Ripper" originated in a letter written by an individual
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 journalists in an attempt to heighten interest in the
story and increase their newspapers' circulation. The "From
Hell" letter received by George Lusk of the Whitechapel
Vigilance Committee came with half of a preserved human kidney,
purportedly taken from one of the victims. The public came
increasingly to believe in a single serial killer known as "Jack
the Ripper", mainly because of both the extraordinarily
brutal nature of the murders and media coverage of the crimes.
Extensive newspaper coverage bestowed
widespread and enduring international notoriety on the Ripper, and
the legend solidified. A police investigation into a series of eleven
brutal murders committed in Whitechapel and Spitalfields between 1888
and 1891 was unable to connect all the killings conclusively to the
murders of 1888. Five victims—Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman,
Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly—are known
as the "canonical five" and their murders between 31
August and 9 November 1888 are often considered the most likely to be
linked. The murders were never solved, and the legends surrounding
these crimes became a combination of historical research, folklore,
and pseudo-history.
Background
In the mid-19th century, Britain
experienced an influx of Irish immigrants who swelled the populations
of the major cities, including the East End of London. From 1882,
Jewish refugees fleeing pogroms in Tsarist Russia and other areas of
Eastern Europe emigrated into the same area. The parish of
Whitechapel in London's East End became increasingly overcrowded,
with the population increasing to approximately 80,000 inhabitants by
1888. Work and housing conditions worsened, and a significant
economic underclass developed. Fifty-five percent of children born
in the East End died before they were five years old. Robbery,
violence, and alcohol dependency were commonplace, and the endemic
poverty drove many women to prostitution to survive on a daily basis.
In October 1888, London's Metropolitan
Police Service estimated that there were 62 brothels and 1,200 women
working as prostitutes in Whitechapel, with approximately 8,500
people residing in the 233 common lodging-houses within Whitechapel
every night, with the nightly price for a single bed being four-pence
and the cost of sleeping upon a "lean-to"
("Hang-over") rope stretched across the dormitory
being two pence per person.
The economic problems in Whitechapel
were accompanied by a steady rise in social tensions. Between 1886
and 1889, frequent demonstrations led to police intervention and
public unrest, such as Bloody Sunday (1887). Anti-semitism, crime,
nativism, racism, social disturbance, and severe deprivation
influenced public perceptions that Whitechapel was a notorious den of
immorality. Such perceptions were strengthened in the autumn of 1888
when the 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 time adds uncertainty to how many
victims were murdered by the same individual. Eleven separate
murders, stretching from 3 April 1888 to 13 February 1891, were
included in a London Metropolitan Police Service 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, 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
slash wounds to the throat, followed by extensive abdominal and
genital-area mutilation, the removal of internal organs, and
progressive facial mutilations as the distinctive features of the
Ripper's modus operandi. The first two cases in the Whitechapel
murders file, those of Emma Elizabeth Smith and Martha Tabram, are
not included in the canonical five.
Smith was robbed and sexually assaulted
in Osborn Street, Whitechapel, at approximately 1:30 a.m. on 3 April
1888. She had been bludgeoned about the face and received a cut to
her ear. A blunt object was also inserted into her vagina, rupturing
her peritoneum. She developed peritonitis and died the following day
at London Hospital. Smith stated that she had been attacked by two
or three men, one of whom she described as a teenager. This attack
was linked to the later murders by the press, but most authors
attribute Smith's murder to general East End gang violence unrelated
to the Ripper case.
Tabram was murdered on a staircase
landing in George Yard, Whitechapel, on 7 August 1888; she had
suffered 39 stab wounds to her throat, lungs, heart, liver, spleen,
stomach, and abdomen, with additional knife wounds inflicted to her
breasts and vagina. All but one of Tabram's wounds had been
inflicted with a bladed instrument such as a penknife, and with one
possible exception, all the wounds had been inflicted by a
right-handed individual. Tabram had not been raped.
The savagery of this murder, the lack
of an obvious motive, and the closeness of the location and date to
the later canonical Ripper murders led police to link this murder to
those later committed by Jack the Ripper. However, this murder
differs from the later canonical murders because although Tabram had
been repeatedly stabbed, she had not suffered any slash wounds to her
throat or abdomen. Many experts do not connect Tabram's murder with
the later murders because of this difference in the wound pattern.
Canonical five
The body of Mary Ann Nichols was
discovered at about 3:40 a.m. on Friday 31 August 1888 in Buck's Row
(now Durward Street), Whitechapel. Nichols had last been seen alive
approximately one hour before the discovery of her body by a Mrs
Emily Holland, with whom she had previously shared a bed at a common
lodging-house in Thrawl Street, Spitalfields, walking in the
direction of Whitechapel Road. Her throat was severed by two deep
cuts, one of which completely severed all the tissue down to the
vertebrae. Her vagina had been stabbed twice, and the lower part of
her abdomen was partly ripped open by a deep, jagged wound, causing
her bowels to protrude. Several other incisions inflicted to both
sides of her abdomen had also been caused by the same knife; each of
these wounds had been inflicted in a downward thrusting manner.
One week later, on Saturday 8 September
1888, the body of Annie Chapman was discovered at approximately 6
a.m. near the steps to the doorway of the back yard of 29 Hanbury
Street, Spitalfields. As in the case of Mary Ann Nichols, the throat
was severed by two deep cuts. Her abdomen had been cut entirely
open, with a section of the flesh from her stomach being placed upon
her left shoulder and another section of skin and flesh—plus her
small intestines—being removed and placed above her right shoulder.
Chapman's autopsy also revealed that her uterus and sections of her
bladder and vagina had been removed.
At the inquest into Chapman's murder,
Elizabeth Long described having seen Chapman standing outside 29
Hanbury Street at about 5:30 a.m. in the company of a dark-haired man
wearing a brown deer-stalker hat and dark overcoat, and of a
"shabby-genteel" appearance. According to this
eyewitness, the man had asked Chapman the question, "Will
you?" to which Chapman had replied, "Yes."
Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes
were both killed in the early morning hours of Sunday 30 September
1888. Stride's body was discovered at approximately 1 a.m. in
Dutfield's Yard, off Berner Street (now Henriques Street) in
Whitechapel. The cause of death was a single clear-cut incision,
measuring six inches across her neck which had severed her left
carotid artery and her trachea before terminating beneath her right
jaw. The absence of any further mutilations to her body has led to
uncertainty as to whether Stride's murder was committed by the
Ripper, or whether he was interrupted during the attack. Several
witnesses later informed police they had seen Stride in the company
of a man in or close to Berner Street on the evening of 29 September
and in the early hours of 30 September, but each gave differing
descriptions: some said that her companion was fair, others dark;
some said that he was shabbily dressed, others well-dressed.
Eddowes's body was found in Mitre
Square in the City of London, three-quarters of an hour after the
discovery of the body of Elizabeth Stride. Her throat was severed and
her abdomen ripped open by a long, deep and jagged wound before her
intestines had been placed over her right shoulder. The left kidney
and the major part of the uterus had been removed, and her face had
been disfigured, with her nose severed, her cheek slashed, and cuts
measuring a quarter of an inch and a half an inch respectively
vertically incised through each of her eyelids. A triangular
incision—the apex of which pointed towards Eddowes's eye—had also
been carved upon each of her cheeks, and a section of the auricle and
lobe of her right ear was later recovered from her clothing. The
police surgeon who conducted the post mortem upon Eddowes's body
stated his opinion these mutilations would have taken "at
least five minutes" to complete.
A local cigarette salesman named Joseph
Lawende 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. Lawende's
companions were unable to confirm his description. The murders of
Stride and Eddowes ultimately became known as the "double
event".
A section of Eddowes's bloodied apron
was found at the entrance to a tenement in Goulston Street,
Whitechapel, at 2:55 a.m. A chalk inscription upon the wall directly
above this piece of apron read: "The Juwes are The men That
Will not be Blamed for nothing." This graffito became known
as the Goulston Street graffito. The message appeared to imply that a
Jew or Jews in general were responsible for the series of murders,
but it is unclear whether the graffito was written by the murderer on
dropping the section of apron, or was merely incidental and nothing
to do with the case. Such graffiti were commonplace in Whitechapel.
Police Commissioner Charles Warren feared that the graffito might
spark anti-semitic riots and ordered the writing washed away before
dawn.
The extensively mutilated and disemboweled body of Mary Jane Kelly was discovered lying on the bed
in the single room where she lived at 13 Miller's Court, off Dorset
Street, Spitalfields, at 10:45 a.m. on Friday 9 November 1888. Her
face had been "hacked beyond all recognition", with
her throat severed down to the spine, and the abdomen almost emptied
of its organs.[60] Her uterus, kidneys and one breast had been placed
beneath her head, and other viscera from her body placed beside her
foot, about the bed and sections of her abdomen and thighs upon a
bedside table. The heart was missing from the crime scene.
Each of the canonical five murders was
perpetrated at night, on or close to a weekend, 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 and sections of her bladder and vagina were
taken; Eddowes had her uterus and left kidney removed and her face
mutilated; and Kelly's body was extensively eviscerated, with her
face "gashed in all directions" and the tissue of
her neck being severed to the bone, although the heart was the sole
body organ missing from this crime scene.
Historically, the belief these five
canonical murders were committed by the same perpetrator is derived
from contemporary documents which link them together to the exclusion
of others.[66] In 1894, Sir Melville Macnaghten, Assistant Chief
Constable of the Metropolitan Police Service and Head of the Criminal
Investigation Department (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 police surgeon Thomas Bond to Robert Anderson, head
of the London CID, on 10 November 1888.
Some researchers have posited that some
of the murders were undoubtedly the work of a single killer, but an
unknown larger number of killers acting independently were
responsible for the other crimes. Authors Stewart P. Evans and
Donald Rumbelow argue that the canonical five is a "Ripper
myth" and that three cases (Nichols, Chapman, and Eddowes)
can be definitely linked to the same perpetrator, but that less
certainty exists as to whether Stride and Kelly were also murdered by
the same individual. 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
Phillips, linked only three of the murders and thought that 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
Mary Jane 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,
institutionalization, or emigration. The Whitechapel murders file
details another four murders that occurred after the canonical five:
those of Rose Mylett, Alice McKenzie, the Pinchin Street torso, and
Frances Coles.
The strangled body of 26-year-old Rose
Mylett was found in Clarke's Yard, High Street, Poplar on 20 December
1888. There was no sign of a struggle, and the police believed that
she had either accidentally hanged herself with her collar while in a
drunken stupor or committed suicide. However, faint markings left by
a cord on one side of her neck suggested Mylett had been strangled.
At the inquest into Mylett's death, the jury returned a verdict of
murder.
Alice McKenzie was murdered shortly
after midnight on 17 July 1889 in Castle Alley, Whitechapel. She had
suffered two stab wounds to her neck, and her left carotid artery had
been severed. Several minor bruises and cuts were found on her body,
which also bore a seven-inch long superficial wound extending from
her left breast to her navel. One of the examining pathologists,
Thomas Bond, believed this to be a Ripper murder, though his
colleague George Bagster Phillips, who had examined the bodies of
three previous victims, disagreed. Opinions among writers are also
divided between those who suspect McKenzie's murderer copied the
modus operandi of Jack the Ripper to deflect suspicion from himself,
and those who ascribe this murder to Jack the Ripper.
"The Pinchin Street torso"
was a decomposing headless and legless torso of an unidentified woman
aged between 30 and 40 discovered beneath a railway arch in Pinchin
Street, Whitechapel, on 10 September 1889. Bruising about the
victim's back, hip, and arm indicated the decedent had been
extensively beaten shortly before her death. The victim's abdomen was
also extensively mutilated, although her genitals had not been
wounded. She appeared to have been killed approximately one day
prior to the discovery of her torso. The dismembered sections of the
body are believed to have been transported to the railway arch,
hidden under an old chemise.
Frances Coles was found with her throat
cut under a railway arch in Whitechapel on 13 February 1891.
At 2:15 a.m. on 13 February 1891, PC
Ernest Thompson discovered a 25-year-old prostitute named Frances
Coles lying beneath a railway arch at Swallow Gardens, Whitechapel.
Her throat had been deeply cut but her body was not mutilated,
leading some to believe Thompson had disturbed her assailant. Coles
was still alive, although she died before medical help could arrive.
A 53-year-old stoker, James Thomas Sadler, had earlier been seen
drinking with Coles, and the two are known to have argued
approximately three hours before her death. Sadler was arrested by
the police and charged with her murder. He was briefly thought to be
the Ripper, but was later discharged from court for lack of evidence
on 3 March 1891.
Other alleged victims
In addition to the eleven Whitechapel
murders, commentators have linked other attacks to the Ripper. In the
case of "Fairy Fay", it is unclear whether this
attack was real or fabricated as a part of Ripper lore. "Fairy
Fay" was a nickname given to an unidentified woman whose
body was allegedly found in a doorway close to Commercial Road on 26
December 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" seems to
have been created through a confused press report of the murder of
Emma Elizabeth Smith, who had a stick or other blunt object shoved
into her vagina. Most authors agree that the victim "Fairy
Fay" never existed.
A 38-year-old widow named Annie
Millwood was admitted to the Whitechapel Workhouse Infirmary with
numerous stab wounds to her legs and lower torso on 25 February 1888,
informing staff she had been attacked with a clasp knife by an
unknown man. She was later discharged, but died from apparently
natural causes on 31 March. Millwood was later postulated to be the
Ripper's first victim, although this attack cannot be definitively
linked to the perpetrator.
Another suspected precanonical victim
was a young dressmaker named Ada Wilson, who reportedly survived
being stabbed twice in the neck with a clasp knife upon the doorstep
of her home in Bow on 28 March 1888. A further suspected
precanonical victim, Annie Farmer, resided at the same lodging house
as Martha Tabram and reported an attack on 21 November 1888. She had
received a superficial cut to her throat. Although an unknown man
with blood on his mouth and hands had run out of this lodging house,
shouting, "Look at what she has done!" before two
eyewitnesses heard Farmer scream, her wound was possibly
self-inflicted.
"The Whitehall Mystery"
was a term coined for the discovery of a headless torso of a woman on
2 October 1888 in the basement of the new Metropolitan Police
headquarters being built in Whitehall. An arm and shoulder belonging
to the body were previously discovered floating in the River Thames
near Pimlico on 11 September, and the left leg was subsequently
discovered buried near where the torso was found on 17 October. The
other limbs and head were never recovered and the body was never
identified. The mutilations were similar to those in the Pinchin
Street torso case, where the legs and head were severed but not the
arms.
"The Whitehall Mystery"
of October 1888
Both the Whitehall Mystery and the
Pinchin Street case may have been part of a series of murders known
as the "Thames Mysteries", committed by a single
serial killer dubbed the "Torso killer". It is
debatable whether Jack the Ripper and the "Torso killer"
were the same person or separate serial killers active in the same
area. The modus operandi of the Torso killer differed from that of
the Ripper, and police at the time discounted any connection between
the two. Only one of the four victims linked to the Torso killer was
identified, Elizabeth Jackson. She was a 24-year-old prostitute from
Chelsea whose various body parts were collected from the River Thames
over a three-week period between 31 May and 25 June 1889.
On 29 December 1888, the body of a
seven-year-old boy named John Gill was found in a stable block in
Manningham, Bradford. Gill had been missing since 27 December. His
legs had been severed, his abdomen opened, his intestines partly
drawn out, and his heart and one ear removed. Similarities with the
Ripper murders led to press speculation that the Ripper had killed
him. The boy's employer, 23-year-old milkman William Barrett, was
twice arrested for the murder but was released due to insufficient
evidence. No-one was ever prosecuted.
Carrie Brown (nicknamed "Shakespeare",
reportedly for her habit of quoting Shakespeare's sonnets) was
strangled with clothing and then mutilated with a knife on 24 April
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 was found upon the bed,
either purposely removed or unintentionally dislodged. At the time,
the murder was compared to those in Whitechapel, though the
Metropolitan Police eventually ruled out any connection.
Investigation
Inspector Frederick Abberline
The vast majority of the City of London
Police files relating to their investigation into the Whitechapel
murders were destroyed in the Blitz. The surviving Metropolitan
Police files allow a detailed view of investigative procedures in the
Victorian era. 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. Modern police work follows
the same pattern. More than 2,000 people were interviewed, "upwards
of 300" people were investigated, and 80 people were
detained. Following the murders of Stride and Eddowes, the
Commissioner of the City Police, Sir James Fraser, offered a reward
of £500 for the arrest of the Ripper.
The investigation was initially
conducted by the Metropolitan Police Whitechapel (H) Division
Criminal Investigation Department (CID) headed by Detective Inspector
Edmund Reid. After the murder of Nichols, Detective Inspectors
Frederick Abberline, Henry Moore, and Walter Andrews were sent from
Central Office at Scotland Yard to assist. The City of London Police
were involved under Detective Inspector James McWilliam after the
Eddowes murder, which occurred within the City of London. The
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 7 September and 6 October, during the time
when Chapman, Stride, and Eddowes were killed. This prompted
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Charles Warren to appoint Chief
Inspector Donald Swanson to coordinate the enquiry from Scotland
Yard.
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 Police, 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 Swanson 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 Docks, 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.
Whitechapel Vigilance Committee
In September 1888, a group of volunteer
citizens in London's East End formed the Whitechapel Vigilance
Committee. They patrolled the streets looking for suspicious
characters, partly because of dissatisfaction with the failure of
police to apprehend the perpetrator, and also because some members
were concerned that the murders were affecting businesses in the
area. The Committee petitioned the government to raise a reward for
information leading to the arrest of the killer, offered their own
reward of £50 for information leading to his capture, and hired
private detectives to question witnesses independently.
Criminal profiling
At the end of October, Robert Anderson
asked police surgeon Thomas Bond 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 profile. 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:
All five murders no doubt were
committed by the same hand. In the first four the throats appear to
have been cut from left to right, in the last case owing to the
extensive mutilation it is impossible to say in what direction the
fatal cut was made, but arterial blood was found on the wall in
splashes close to where the woman's head must have been lying.
All the circumstances surrounding
the murders lead me to form the opinion that the women must have been
lying down when murdered and in every case the throat was first cut.
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 mania", 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".
There is no evidence the perpetrator
engaged in sexual activity with any of the victims, yet 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.
In addition to the contradictions and
unreliability of contemporary accounts, attempts to identify the
murderer are hampered by the lack of any 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. There have been mutually incompatible
claims that DNA evidence points conclusively to two different
suspects, and the methodology of both has also been criticized.
Suspects
The concentration of the killings
around weekends and public holidays and within a short distance of
each other has indicated to many that the Ripper was in regular
employment and lived locally. Others have thought that 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,
mistrust 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, including a member of the British royal family, an
artist, and a physician. Everyone alive at the time is now long
dead, and 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
Macnaghten's 1894 memorandum, but the evidence against these
individuals is, at best, circumstantial.
There are many, varied theories about
the identity and profession of Jack the Ripper, but authorities are
not agreed upon any of them, and the number of named suspects reaches
over one hundred. Despite continued interest in the case, the
Ripper's identity remains unknown. The term "ripperology"
was coined to describe the study and analysis of the Ripper cases,
and the murders have inspired numerous works of fiction.
Letters
Jack the Ripper letters
"Dear Boss" letter
"Saucy Jacky"
postcard
"From Hell" letter
Openshaw letter
Over the course of the Whitechapel
murders, the police, newspapers, and other individuals received
hundreds of letters regarding the case. Some letters were
well-intentioned offers of advice as to how to catch the killer, but
the vast majority were either hoaxes or generally useless.
Hundreds of letters claimed to have
been written by the killer himself, and three of these in particular
are prominent: the "Dear Boss" letter, the "Saucy
Jacky" postcard and the "From Hell" letter.
The "Dear Boss" letter,
dated 25 September and postmarked 27 September 1888, was received
that day by the Central News Agency, and was forwarded to Scotland
Yard on 29 September. Initially, it was considered a hoax, but when
Eddowes was found three days after the letter's postmark with a
section of one ear obliquely cut from her body, the promise of the
author to "clip the ladys (sic) ears off" gained
attention. Eddowes's 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 17 September 1888 was the first to use the
name "Jack the Ripper", but most experts believe
that this was a fake inserted into police records in the 20th
century.
Scrawled and misspelled note reading:
From hell—Mr Lusk—Sir I send you half the kidne I took from
one woman prasarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was
very nise I may send you the bloody knif that took it out if you only
wate a whil longer—Signed Catch me when you can Mishter Lusk
The "From Hell"
letter
The "Saucy Jacky" postcard
was postmarked 1 October 1888 and was received the same day by the
Central News Agency. The handwriting was similar to the "Dear
Boss" letter, and mentioned the canonical murders committed
on 30 September, which the author refers to by writing "double
event this time". It has been argued that the postcard was
posted before the murders were publicized, making it unlikely that a
crank would hold such knowledge of the crime. However, it was
postmarked more than 24 hours after the killings occurred, long after
details of the murders were known and publicized by journalists, and
had become general community gossip by the residents of Whitechapel.
The "From Hell" letter was
received by George Lusk, leader of the Whitechapel Vigilance
Committee, on 16 October 1888. The handwriting and style is unlike
that of the "Dear Boss" letter and "Saucy
Jacky" postcard. The letter came with a small box in which
Lusk discovered half of a human kidney, preserved in "spirits
of wine" (ethanol). Eddowes's 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 that it belonged to Eddowes, while others argue that it was a
macabre practical joke. The kidney was examined by Dr Thomas
Openshaw of the London Hospital, who determined that it was human and
from the left side, but (contrary to false newspaper reports) he
could not determine any other biological characteristics. Openshaw
subsequently also received a letter signed "Jack the Ripper".
Scotland Yard published facsimiles of
the "Dear Boss" letter and the postcard on 3
October, in the ultimately vain hope that a member of the public
would recognize the handwriting. Charles Warren explained in a
letter to Godfrey Lushington, Permanent Under-Secretary of State for
the Home Department: "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 Referee
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 Littlechild to George R. Sims
dated 23 September 1913. A journalist named Fred Best reportedly
confessed in 1931 that he and a colleague at The Star had written the
letters signed "Jack the Ripper" to heighten
interest in the murders and "keep the business alive".
Media
8 September 1888 edition of the Penny
Illustrated Paper depicting the discovery of the body of the first
canonical Ripper victim, Mary Ann Nichols
The Ripper murders mark an important
watershed in the treatment of crime by journalists. Jack the Ripper
was not the first serial killer, but his case was the first to create
a worldwide media frenzy. The Elementary Education Act 1880 (which
had extended upon a previous Act) made school attendance compulsory
regardless of class. As such, by 1888, more working-class people in
England and Wales were literate.
Tax reforms in the 1850s had enabled
the publication of inexpensive newspapers with a wider circulation.
These mushroomed in the later Victorian era to include
mass-circulation newspapers costing as little as a halfpenny, along
with popular magazines such as The Illustrated Police News which made
the Ripper the beneficiary of previously unparalleled publicity.
Consequently, at the height of the investigation, over one million
copies of newspapers with extensive coverage devoted to the
Whitechapel murders were sold each day. However, many of the
articles were sensationalistic and speculative, and false information
was regularly printed as fact. In addition, several articles
speculating as to the identity of the Ripper alluded to local
xenophobic rumours that the perpetrator was either Jewish or foreign.
In early September, six days after the
murder of Mary Ann Nichols, the Manchester Guardian reported:
"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
Orleans, the Boston Strangler, and the Beltway Sniper. Examples
derived from Jack the Ripper include the French Ripper, the
Düsseldorf Ripper, the Camden Ripper, the Blackout Ripper, Jack the
Stripper, the Yorkshire Ripper, and the Rostov Ripper. 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 Ripper murders and
the impoverished lifestyle of the victims drew attention to the poor
living conditions in the East End and galvanized public opinion
against the overcrowded, insanitary 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 various guided tours of the murder sites and
other locations pertaining to the case. For many years, the Ten Bells
public house in Commercial Street (which had been frequented by at
least one of the canonical Ripper victims) was the focus of such
tours.
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 more often
portrayed in a top hat dressed as a gentleman. The Establishment 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 Dracula's cloak or
Victor Frankenstein's organ harvest. The fictional world of the
Ripper can fuse with multiple genres, ranging from Sherlock Holmes to
Japanese erotic horror.
Jack the Ripper features in hundreds of
works of fiction and works which straddle the boundaries between fact
and fiction, including the Ripper letters and a hoax diary: The Diary
of Jack the Ripper. The Ripper appears in novels, short stories,
poems, comic books, games, songs, plays, operas, television
programmes, and films. 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 Wilson in the 1970s to describe the study of the
case by professionals and amateurs. The periodicals Ripperana,
Ripperologist, and Ripper Notes publish their research.
In 2015, the Jack the Ripper Museum
opened in east London, to minor protests. There is no waxwork figure
of Jack the Ripper at Madame Tussauds' Chamber of Horrors, unlike
numerous murderers of lesser fame, in accordance with their policy of
not modeling persons whose likeness is unknown. He is instead
depicted as a shadow. In 2006, a BBC History magazine poll selected
Jack the Ripper as the worst Briton in history.
