Jack the Ripper

Jack the Ripper is the pseudonym given to a serial killer active in the Whitechapel area of London, England in the second half of 1888. The name is taken from a letter by someone claiming to be the murderer, published at the time of the killings. Although many theories have been advanced, Jack the Ripper's identity has not yet been determined, and may never be.

The legends surrounding the Ripper murders have become a complex muddle of genuine historical research, freewheeling conspiracy theory and dubious folklore. The lack of an identity for the killer has allowed subsequent amateur sleuths--sometimes dubbed "Ripperologists"--to point their fingers at a wide variety of candidates.

Due to the nature of the wounds on some presumed Ripper victims--several had internal organs removed--it has been proposed that the killer had a degree of surgical or medical skill, or was perhaps a butcher.

Contents

Victims

The total number and names of the Ripper's victims are the subject of much debate, but authorities generally agree that Jack killed the following five prostitutes (or presumed prostitute in Eddowes' case) in London's East End:

Possible victims

Those five form the so-called canonical victims of the Ripper. But victims of other contemporary and somewhat similar attacks and/or murders have also been suggested as additions to the list.

A major difficulty in identifying a list of who was and was not a Ripper victim is the large number of horrific attacks against women during this era. Most experts point to deep throat slashes, mutilations to the victim's abdomen and genital area, removal of internal organs and progressive facial mutilations as the distinctive features of Jack the Ripper.

Those victims are generally poorly documented. They include:

  • "Fairy Fay", reportedly a nickname for an unnamed murder victim found on December 26, 1887. The reason of death was given as "a stake thrust through her abdomen". It has been suggested that "Fairy Fay" was a creation of the press based on the details of the murder of Emma Smith (see below).
  • Annie Millwood, born c. 1850 (approximate date) she was reportedly the victim of an attack on February 25, 1888 resulting in her hospitalisation for "numerous stabs in the legs and lower part of the body". She was released from hospital but died from apparently natural causes on March 31, 1888.
  • Ada Wilson, reportedly the victim of an attack on March 28, 1888 resulting in two stabs in the neck. She survived the attack.
  • Emma Elizabeth Smith, born c. 1843 (approximate date). Reportedly the victim of an attack on April 3, 1888. She survived the attack but fell in to a coma and died on April 5, 1888. Her death was reportedly caused by a blunt object which had been inserted in her vagina.
  • Martha Tabram, (maiden name Martha White, name sometimes misspelled as Martha Tabran, used the alias Emma Turner), born on May 10, 1849 and killed on August 7, 1888. She had a total of 39 stab wounds: five on the left lung, two on the right lung, one on the heart, five on the liver, two on the spleen, and six on the stomach.
  • "The Whitehall Mystery", term coined for the torso of a woman found beheaded and with severed hands on October 2, 1888.
  • Annie Farmer, born on 1848 she reportedly was the victim of an attack on November 21, 1888. She survived with only a light, though bleeding, cut on her throat. The wound was superficial and apparently caused by a blunt knife. Police suspected that the wound was self-inflicted and ceased to investigate her case.
  • Rose Mylett, (true name probably Catherine Mylett, but was also known as Catherine Millett, Elizabeth "Drunken Lizzie" Davis, "Fair" Alice Downey or simply "Fair Clara"), born on 1862 and killed on December 20, 1888. She was reportedly strangled "by a cord drawn tightly round the neck".
  • Elizabeth Jackson, a prostitute whose various body parts were collected from the River Thames between May 31, 1889 and June 25, 1889. Reportedly identified by scars she had had previous to her disappearance and apparent murder.
  • Alice McKenzie (nick-named "Clay Pipe" Alice and used the alias Alice Bryant), born c. 1849 and killed on July 17, 1889. The reason of death was reportedly the "severance of the left carotid artery" but several minor bruises and cuts were found on the body.
  • "The Pinchin Street Murder", a term coined after the finding of a torso similar in condition to "The Whitehall Mystery" , though the hands were not severed, on September 10, 1889. An unconfirmed speculation of the time was that the body belonged to Lydia Hart, a prostitute who had disappeared.
  • Frances Coles, (also known as Frances Coleman, Frances Hawkins and nick-named 'Carrotty Nell'), born in 1865 and killed on February 13, 1891. Minor wounds on the back of the head suggest that she was thrown violently to the ground and then her throat was cut. Otherwise there were no mutilations to the body.
  • Carrie Brown, (nicknamed "Shakespeare," allegedly because of her habit of reciting sonnets by William Shakespeare while drunk), born c. 1835 and killed on April 24, 1891 in Manhattan, New York, New York, USA. She was strangled with clothing and then mutilated with a knife. Her body was found with a large tear through her groin area and superficial cuts on her legs and back. No organs were taken, though an ovary was found upon the bed. Whether it was purposefully removed or fell out of the gap is unknown. At the time the murder was compared to those that happened in Whitechapel, though London police apparently eventually ruled it out.

Some Ripperologists would prefer to remove one or more names from the list of canonical victims, typically Stride (who had no mutilations beyond the cut throat, and, if one witness can be believed, was attacked in public) and/or Kelly (who was younger than other victims, murdered indoors, and her mutilations were more severe than the others). From the other people who have been suggested as possible Ripper victims, only Martha Tabram is mentioned to a degree more often than others.

Even within the five generally accepted victims above the particulars of each case changed somewhat. For example, Nichols and Stride were not missing any organs, Chapman's uterus was taken, Eddowes had both her uterus and a kidney carried away, and Kelly had only her heart taken from the crime scene, although many of her internal organs were removed and left in her room.

The Ripper Letters

Over the course of the the Ripper murders, hundreds of letters, which claimed to be written by the killer, were sent to police and newspapers. "Jack the Ripper" was a nickname coined by one such writer.

The vast majority of such letters are considered hoaxes; some contend all such letters are phony.

A few letters have been cited as perhaps genuine, either by contemporary or modern authorities; three in particular are prominent, they are dubbed the "Dear Boss" letter, the "From Hell" letter, and the "Saucy Jack" postcard.

  • The "Dear Boss" letter, received September 27, 1888 by the Central News Agency, was initially considered a hoax. With the murder of Eddowes several weeks later--one of her earlobes was severed--the letter's promise to "clip the ladys ears off" gained attention. Police published the letter, hoping someone would recognize the handwriting; nothing came of this effort. This letter coined the term "Jack the Ripper".
  • The "Saucy Jack" postcard, received October 1, 1888, by the Central News Agency, had handwriting similar to the "Dear Boss" letter. It mentions that two victims--Stride and Eddowes--were killed very close to one another: "double event this time". It's been argued the letter was mailed before the murders were publicised or perhaps even committed, making it unlikely that a kook would have such knowledge of the crime.
  • The "From Hell" letter was received by George Lusk of the Whitechappel Vigilance Committee on October 16, 1888. He opened a small box to discover half a human kidney preserved in wine. One of Eddowes' kidneys had been removed by the killer, and a doctor determined the kidney sent to Lusk was "very similar to the one removed from Catherine Eddowes, though his findings were inconclusive". [1] (http://www.casebook.org/ripper_letters/) The writer claimed to have "fried and ate" the missing kidney half.

Media

The Ripper murders mark an important watershed in modern British life. Although not the first serial killer, Jack the Ripper was the first to create a world-wide media frenzy around his killings. This, combined with the fact that no one was ever convicted of the murders, created a haunting mythology that cast a shadow over later serial killers.

It is believed by some that the killer's nickname was invented by newspapermen to make a more interesting story that could sell more papers. The moniker first appeared in a letter ostensibly written by the murderer but which most experts now believe was a hoax by a journalist. This practice then became a standard all over the world with examples such as the American The Boston Strangler, The Green River Killer, the Axeman of New Orleans, the Beltway Sniper, the Hillside Strangler, and the Zodiac Killer, as well as the obviously derivative British Yorkshire Ripper almost a hundred years later.

Suspects

Many theories about the identity of Jack the Ripper have been advanced. None are completely convincing, and some can hardly be taken seriously at all. Among the many names advanced by various people as possible suspects have been:

  • Joseph Barnett (1858–1926), a one-time fish porter. He was Mary Jane Kelly's lover from April 8, 1887 to October 30, 1888 when they quarreled and broke up. He visited her daily afterwards, reportedly trying to reconcile. There are suspicions that he was denied. He was proposed as a suspect for her murder as a scorned lover, though others attribute the other murders to him as well. His accounts about what Kelly is said to have told him about her life constitute most of what is known of her. The validity of both her statements and his reports have been questioned.
  • William Henry Bury (1859–April, 1889). Having recently relocated to Scotland from London, he murdered his wife Ellen Elliot, a former prostitute, on February 10, 1889. He first strangled his wife and then inflicted deep wounds to the abdomen of her deceased body, Martha Tabram and Mary Ann Nichols were killed similarly. Reporting the murder to the local police he failed to convince them that he was innocent of the crime and had only found the body. He was hanged in Dundee, Scotland for the murder of his wife.
  • David Cohen (1865–1889). A Polish Jew whose incarceration at Colney Hatch asylum coincided with the sudden end of the murders. Described as violently antisocial, the poor East End local has been suggested as a suspect by author and leading Ripperologist Martin Fido in his book The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper (1987). The name 'David Cohen' was reportedly used at the time to refer to immigrant Jews who either could not be positively identified or whose names were too difficult for police to spell, in the same fashion that 'John Doe' is used today. His refusal to divulge his identity upon admittance resulted in authorities registering him under this generic name. It has been speculated that Cohen's true identity was Nathan Kaminsky, a bootmaker living in Whitechapel who had been treated at one time for syphilis and who mysteriously vanished at the same time that Cohen was admitted. Fido and others believe that police officials confused the name Kaminsky with Kosminski, resulting in the wrong man coming under suspicion (see Aaron Kosminski below). While at the asylum, Cohen exhibited violent, destructive tendencies that would today likely be classified as schizophrenia, and had to be restrained. He died at the asylum in October of 1889. Former FBI criminal profiler John Douglas, in his book The Cases That Haunt Us (2000), has asserted that behavioral clues gathered from the murders as well as linguistic hints from the "From Hell" letter (the only one he considers authentic) all point to Cohen, or someone very similar.
  • Lewis Carroll (pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, January 27, 1832–January 14, 1898); as a suspect he's not generally taken seriously. See Lewis Carroll for further information.
  • Dr. Thomas Neil Cream (May, 1850–November 15, 1892), doctor secretly specialising in abortions. Born in Scotland, educated in London, active in Canada and later in Chicago, Illinois, USA. On 1881 he was found to be responsible for the death by poisoning of several of his patients of both sexes. Originally there was no suspicion of murder in these cases but Thomas himself demanded an examination of the bodies. This was apparently an attempt to draw attention to himself. Imprisoned in the Illinois State Penitentiary, located in Joliet, Illinois, he was released on July 31, 1891 on good behavior. Relocating to London he resumed his murderous activities and was arrested. He was hanged on November 15, 1892. His last words were reported being "I am Jack...", interpreted to mean Jack the Ripper, but the words were muffled by a hood. Cream shouted out at the moment he was hanged. He was reportedly still imprisoned at the time of the murders but theorists suspect that he could have bribed officials and left the prison before his official release or that he left a look-alike to serve the prison term in his place.
  • Frederick Bailey Deeming (July 30?, 1842–May 23, 1892), sailor. Living in Sydney, Australia with his wife Marie and their four children, on December 15, 1887 he was brought to court on charges of bankruptcy. Sentenced to fourteen days of imprisonment he was apparently released on December 29, 1887. To avoid those seeking payment for his debts, he escaped with his family to Cape Town, South Africa. Soon upon arrival he was brought to the attention of the local police on charges of fraud. He sent his family to England and headed to the recently founded Johannesburg. From there he seems to disappear. There is no reliable account of his activities or his whereabouts between March, 1888 and October, 1889 covering the period of the murders. He resurfaces in Kingston upon Hull, England at the end of this period under the alias of Harry Lawson, one of many he would use till the end of his life. Well into a career as a professional con man, he apparently attempted to reconcile with his estranged wife. They moved together with their children to a rented house in Rainhill in July, 1891. The reconciliation ended with the murder of his wife and children on August 11, 1891 by cutting their throats while they slept. Having introduced himself to the locals as a bachelor and his family as his visiting sister and nephews, it proved easy to explain their absence. He wooed Emily Mathers, the daughter of the house's owner and they married on September 22, 1891. The newlyweds left by ship from Southampton, England on November 2, 1891 and arrived in Victoria (Australia) on December 15, 1891. He murdered Emily on December 24, 1891, buried her under their rented house and left. Her body was soon found resulting in an investigation and the finding of the other bodies in England. This led to his arrest on March 11, 1892 and his trial and execution by hanging. The public of Australia was convinced he was the Ripper. He is said to have been an acquaintance of Catherine Eddowes and to have maintained correspondence with her but this remains uncertain.
  • Montague John Druitt (August 15, 1857–December 1?, 1888). Having received a degree as a lawyer he occasionally practiced his occupation while he was more permanently employed as a private school teacher from 1881 till November 21, 1888. He was also known as a sportsman and was an amateur Cricket player. Under unknown circumstances he last attended the school on November 19, 1888 and was officially dismissed two days later. Then he apparently disappears. His body was found floating in the River Thames on December 31, 1888. The examination suggested his body was kept at the bottom of the river for at least a month by stones placed in his pockets. The police concluded that he committed suicide by drowning under a state of depression although he was known as a good swimmer. His disappearance and death shortly after the fifth and last canonical murder had some of the investigators of the time suggest he was the Ripper, putting an end to the series of murders. More recently scholars have expressed doubts if he committed suicide or was himself murdered.
  • Sir William Withey Gull (December 31, 1816 - January 29, 1890), physician-in-extraordinary to Queen Victoria. Gull is generally considered an unlikely suspect.
  • George Hutchinson, labourer. On November 12, 1888 he reached the London police to make a statement claiming that he spent a long amount of time of November 9, 1888 outside of the window of Mary Jane Kelly. He gave a very detailed description of a suspect despite the darkness of that night. His statement was eventually suspected by the police to be dubious. Some modern scholars have suggested he was the Ripper himself trying to confuse the police.
  • James Kelly. Having murdered his wife in 1883 by stabbing her in the neck he was convicted of the crime. Considered insane, he was transferred to a mental asylum, from which he escaped in 1888. The police searched for him unsuccessfully during the period of the murders but he had apparently disappeared with no trace. He unexpectedly re-appeared in 1927 turning himself in. He died in 1929. His whereabouts and activities at the time of the murders remain unknown.
  • Severin Antoniovich Klosowski (alias George Chapman, December 14, 1865–April 7, 1903), junior surgeon and later barber. Born in Nargornak, Poland he acted as an assistant and later a junior surgeon from December, 1880 till February, 1887. Then he immigrated to England. When he settled in London is unknown but there he found employment as an assistant hairdresser and later opened his own barbershop. Though he relocated his shop several times he is believed to be in Whitechapel at the time of the murders. He is mentioned being present in London in April, 1891 but he seems to have established his new residence in Jersey City, New Jersey, USA either shortly before or shortly after that time. The side of the Atlantic Ocean he was on at the time of Carrie Brown's murder is a matter of debate. Already he had started a series of short-lived common law marriages. On December 25, 1897 Mary Spink, his wife at the time died of poisoning. She was followed by Bessie Taylor (d. February 14, 1901) and Maud Marsh (d. October 22, 1902). The subsequent deaths of all three "wives" after sudden sicknesses with nearly identical symptoms finally drew attention to him. An examination of the bodies found them having ingested large doses of Antimony mixed with the medicine their attentive "husband" was providing. He was arrested, put on trial and executed by hanging. His perceived misogyny, his surgical knowledge and his presence in Whitechapel during the canonical murders and the possibility that he was near New York at the time of Carrie Brown's murder immediately produced the theory that he was Jack the Ripper, although he is known as a poisoner and not a mutilator.
  • Aaron Kosminski (1864/1865–1919). Member of London's Jewish population. He was transferred to a mental hospital in February, 1891. He was suggested as a suspect to fit with the presumption of the time that the killer was Jewish. Though insane, Aaron is not known to have had violent tendencies. His inclusion in the list of suspects has been seen by a number of more recent scholars as more a result of Anti-Semitism at the time of the murders rather than a connection to the case. Others believe that police at the time confused Kosminski with another man whose name, Kaminsky (see David Cohen, above), was strikingly similar.
  • James Maybrick, (October 24, 1838–May 11, 1889) was a Liverpool cotton merchant. His wife was convicted of poisoning him in a trial that was, in its time, quite sensational. A diary purportedly by Maybrick surfaced wherin he confessed to the Ripper murders. The diary is widely considered a hoax. See James Maybrick.
  • Michael Ostrog (1833– 1904?), professional con man. Used numerous aliases and disguises. He was mentioned as a suspect from one of the original investigators of the case. Researchers have failed to find evidence that he committed crimes any more serious than fraud and theft. He is last mentioned alive in 1904.
  • Dr. Alexander Pedachenko (c. 1857–1908). Supposedly an agent of the Secret Police of Imperial Russia, he was sent to commit the murders in order to discredit the English authorities. Later unable to stop himself from committing further murders, he was arrested and ended his days in a mental asylum. Evidence of his connection to the Ripper case was then uncovered. At least that is one account for this suspect found in 1928. There is no confirmed evidence that Pedachenko ever existed.
  • Walter Sickert (1860–1942). Sickert, a German-born artist of Dutch and Danish ancestry, studied under Whistler and was much influenced by Degas. The crime novelist Patricia Cornwell believes Sickert committed the serial killings, largely on the basis of what she sees as the misogyny of his art, and the clues she finds in taunting letters that a person or persons claiming to be the Ripper sent to authorities. See the Walter Sickert entry for more information on this theory.
  • Dr. Robert D´Onston Stephenson (1841/1842–unknown). Known to be interested in the occult and black magic, he took an early and strong interest in the case. He is the author of many articles and letters concerning the case. His interest was enough at the time for him to be added to the list of suspects. Although he was examined as such, today he tends to be seen as the first amateur Ripperologist.
  • Francis Thompson (December 18, 1859 - 1907), poet. Perceived as devoted to Catholicism and member of the Aesthetic movement. On 1889 he wrote the short story "Finis Coronat Opus" (Latin: "End Crowning Work"). It features a young poet sacrificing women to the pagan gods, seeking hell's inspiration for his poetry in order to gain the fame he desires. He is alternatively seen as a religious fanatic or a madman committing the actions described in his story. There seems to be no indication that he committed these acts in reality.
  • "Dr." Francis Tumblety (c. 1833–1903). Seemingly uneducated or self-educated American, he earned a small fortune posing as an expert doctor throughout the USA and Canada and occasionally traveling across Europe as well. Perceived as a misogynist, he was connected to the deaths of some of his patients though it is uncertain if this was deliberate or not. Francis was in England in 1888. Though he was reported to have been arrested on November 7, 1888 "on charges of gross indecency", he was charged by the police as a suspect for the case on November 12, 1888. He was released on bail on November 16, 1888. Awaiting a trial, he instead fled the country for France on November 24, 1888. He is the only man to be formally charged for the murders although he never appeared in his trial. It has been suggested that he could have been released in time for the murder of Mary Jane Kelly and be arrested again after it. Whether he was a killer or an eccentric regarded with unjust suspicion is a matter of debate.
  • James Kenneth Stephen (February 25, 1859–February 3, 1892), poet and tutor to Prince Albert Victor ("Eddy"), Duke of Clarence and Avondale. Perceived as a misogynist he suffered from serious physical and mental problems after an accident occurring during the winter of 1886/1887. His poems are seen as having a sense of morbidity in them. But there is nothing to indicate that this came from personal experience as a murderer. He was brought to the attention of Ripperologists mainly through his connection to Prince Eddy.
  • Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence (known to friends and family as Eddy). A theory considered preposterous by reputable historians, and discounted by most Ripperologists. See Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence for further information.

Further theories about the Ripper

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle advanced theories involving a female murderer dubbed Jill the Ripper. Supporters of this theory believe that the female murderer worked or posed as a midwife. She could be seen with bloody clothes without attracting unwanted attention and suspicion, and she would be more easily trusted by the victims than a man. A suspect suggested as fitting this profile is Mary Pearcey, who in October, 1890 killed her lover's wife and child, although there's no indication she was ever a midwife.

The Ripper in culture

Jack the Ripper has featured in a number of films, novels and plays, either as the central character or in a more peripheral role.

  • Films

Among the films which take him as a subject are A Study in Terror (1965) and Murder By Decree (1978), both of which feature Sherlock Holmes attempting to find the murderer; the Hammer Horror Hands of the Ripper (1971), in which the Ripper's daughter grows up to become a murderer after she sees her father murder her mother; and Time After Time, in which the author H. G. Wells builds an actual time machine similar to the one in his novel and the Ripper uses this to escape to a future San Francisco, where he continues his murdering spree while being pursued by Wells.

  • Theatre

The Ripper features briefly at the end of Frank Wedekind's play Die Büchse der Pandora (1904), in which he murders Lulu, the central character. This play was later turned into the film Pandora's Box (1928, directed by G. W. Pabst) and the opera Lulu (by Alban Berg), both of which also end with this murder.

  • Novels and Short Stories

Novels featuring the Ripper include The Lodger (1913) by Marie Belloc Lowndes, which was in 1927 the subject of an Alfred Hitchcock-directed film, and Ritual in the Dark (1960) by Colin Henry Wilson. Kim Newman's novel Anno Dracula, while taking place in an alternate history where Dracula marries the widowed Queen Victoria, centers around the hunt for Jack the Ripper, who is killing vampire prostitutes.

Roger Zelazny's novel A Night in the Lonesome October features a Ripper-like protagonist who commits his murders as a part of a ritual to prevent the alien god Nyarlathotep from being summoned to Earth.

Additionally, Robert Bloch's short story "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" (1943) cast the Ripper as a sorcerer who must occasionally make a series of human sacrifices to extend his immortality. With Bloch's permission, Harlan Ellison wrote a sequel, "Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World." (1967)


  • Comics

From Hell an acclaimed graphic novel (serialized beginning in 1990, first published in complete form in 1999) by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell. In 2001, the Hughes Brothers made the book into a film starring Johnny Depp and Heather Graham.

DC Comics' Gotham By Gaslight, featuring a Victorian Age version of the superhero Batman hunting the killer who has come to Gotham City; this was the first of the alternate universe "Elseworlds" series.

  • Television

In the Star Trek episode "Wolf in the Fold", a highly aggressive alien entity, later named "Redjac", is claimed to be responsible for the Ripper murders. The Babylon 5 episode "Comes the Inquisitor" features a character named Sebastian who is meant to be Jack the Ripper, taken by Vorlons in the year 1888 and rehabilitated to become an inquisitor so that he can test (through torture) the motives of people who are called to lead an important cause.

Further reading

  • The Complete History of Jack the Ripper by Philip Sugden, ISBN 0786702761, is widely held to be one of the best on the topic.
  • The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook by Stewart Evans and Keith Skinner, ISBN 0786707682, is a solid reference devoted to known facts instead of theories. Evans also has other books on the topic, including one advancing his own suspect.

External links

da:Jack the Ripper de:Jack the Ripper nl:Jack the Ripper ja:切り裂きジャック no:Jack the Ripper pl:Kuba Rozpruwacz sv:Jack Uppskäraren



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