It’s amazing when you think about it. The murders took place over 120 years ago. There were only five “canonical” murders — although others may of may not have been linked to Jack — and they spanned a period lasting a little over two months. Yet Jack the Ripper has a power to fascinate us that outstrips many other more grueling, more horrifying, and more recent atrocities.
To the victims, of course, the crimes were plenty horrifying. There were five that are definitely connected to Jack: Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly. Nichols was the first, discovered at about 3:40 a.m. on August 31, 1888. Her throat had been cut by two deep slashes, and her lower abdomen ripped open.
Chapman came next, on September 8th. Again, two cuts to the throat, and her abdomen opened. But this time, a new twist: her uterus had been removed. There was also a possible witness this time, describing the perpetrator as having dark hair and a “shabby-genteel” appearance.
The third and fourth victims died on September 30th. Stride had suffered a single incision to the neck, which severed a major artery, but her abdomen had not been cut. It was thought that the killer had been interrupted. There were multiple witnesses this time, and multiple descriptions: the man was either dark-haired or fair, and either well-dressed or shabby. Eddowes’s body was discovered about 45 minutes after Stride’s. Her throat was severed and her abdomen opened, and this time the left kidney and part of her uterus had been removed. One man said he’d seen a woman with a fair-haired man shortly before the murder, but the men who were with him hadn’t noticed anyone.
The last victim was Kelly, who was discovered in her own bed on November 9th. Her throat had been cut deeply, down to the spine. Nearly all of the organs in her abdomen had been removed.
All the murders took place in Whitechapel, a squalid, overcrowded slum in London. It had grown too quickly, packed with Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe, and Tsarist Russia emigres. It was a warren of dark streets and hidden alleys. Crime ran rampant, and prostitution was the only way many women could survive. It was estimated by the 1888 London Metropolitan Police that the area contained 1200 prostitutes and 62 brothels. Most residents concentrated on getting enough work to afford fourpence for a bed for a night. If they couldn’t afford that, for tuppence you could rent a place to sleep standing, leaning against a rope.
The police took the crimes seriously. They interviewed over 2000 individuals, and considered at least 300 as suspects. 80 were detained for further questioning. The first investigations were performed by the Metropolitan Police, but after the third and fourth murders, Scotland Yard got involved. Next came the citizens’ group, the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, who hired private detectives, and patrolled the streets themselves, looking for likely suspects.
The police surgeon Thomas Bond was asked for his opinion of the character of the murderer. This is the first documented case of a criminal offender profile. He didn’t believe that the work was necessarily that of a doctor or butcher (a theory popular in public opinion), but he did believe that the perpetrator was a man of solitary habits, subject to “periodical attacks of homicidal or erotic mania.”
The Press, of course, went crazy. This was the first sensational case to appear in a large city where a substantial percentage of the population was literate. Newspapers were cheap — as little as a halfpenny apiece. It was also a time of lobbying for social change, and the Whitechapel area was a perfect target for the crusaders. Every day the papers chronicled the activities of the police, and any new theories or procedures that may have arisen. Newspapermen didn’t scruple to name their own favorite suspects, with or without evidence.
Naturally, in such an environment, hundreds of letters were received by the police, the papers, and anyone else connected to the case. Many offered advice; a few offered confessions. Three of these letters were considered significant: the “Dear Boss” letter, the “Saucy Jack” postcard, and the “From Hell” letter.
The Dear Boss letter was at first considered a hoax, but when Eddowes was discovered three days after the postmark with her ear partially cut off, the police took another look. The writer had promised to send the police an ear of his next victim. The police never did receive an ear from any of the victims, and it was thought that the damage to Eddowes ear was accidentally inflicted when her throat was cut. This letter was the first to use the signature “Jack the Ripper.”
The Saucy Jack postcard seemed to be written by the same hand as the Dear Boss letter. It mentioned that there would be two murders committed very close together, a “double event.” The letter is dated before the murders of Stride and Eddowes, but it was not postmarked until 24 hours afterwards.
The third letter, the From Hell letter, was received by George Lusk, who was the head of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee. It had a different handwriting than the previous two, and came with a small box containing half of a human kidney. The writer claimed that he had eaten the other half.
Facsimiles of the letters were published in hopes that someone might recognize the handwriting, but with lack of success. They were regarded by the police as likely to have been hoaxes (the kidney could have been obtained from a medical school) but they were willing to follow any potential lead. Some regarded them as probably having been sent by a journalist in order to increase newspaper sales, and at least one official even believed he had identified the journalist.
After 123 years, the identity of Jack the Ripper is still a mystery. DNA evidence is useless; the materials have been handled too many times to be of any real help. Still, speculation continues. Over 1 00 non-fiction works have been published that deal exclusively with Jack the Ripper, and countless works of fiction.
Sources: Chase’s Calendar of Events, 2011 Edition: The Ultimate Go-To Guide for Special Days, Weeks, and Months, Editors of Chase’s Calendar of Events; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_31; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_the_Ripper; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitechapel; http://www.txstate.edu/gii/jacktheripper.html; http://www.jack-the-ripper.org/; http://www.casebook.org/intro.html; http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/dst-rippermania.html; http://www.met.police.uk/history/ripper.htm; http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1286183.stm.