Jack the Ripper

Who was Jack the Ripper?

Jack the Ripper was a notorious and unidentified serial killer in Victorian Whitechapel.

Was the Ripper's identity ever discovered?

One of the features of the Ripper case that continues to fascinate people is the identity of the killer, who was never discovered.

Who did Jack the Ripper kill?

Nobody is sure how many victims Jack the Ripper murdered, but historians are sure he was responsible for the deaths of five prostitutes, known as the 'Canonical Five'.

What did Jack the Ripper do?

Jack the Ripper murdered at least five women in the Whitechapel area of London in 1888. He was never caught, but there were certain similarities evident in each case.

What did the crimes of Jack the Ripper have in common?

There were 3 main similarities between each of Jack the Ripper's victims, reflecting the killer's modus operandi.

• ❖ The victims were all prostitutes.
• ❖ They were all killed by having their throats cut.
• ❖ They suffered varying degrees of mutilation.

When were the crimes of Jack the Ripper committed?

The crimes of Jack the Ripper were committed between 31st August and 9th November in 1888. They stopped abruptly after the murder of Mary Kelly.

Who was Jack the Ripper's first victim?

The body of Mary Ann (Polly) Nichols was discovered on 31st August 1888. Her throat had been cut and her abdomen was cut open.

Who was Jack the Ripper's second victim?

Annie Chapman was murdered on 8th September 1888. It's thought she was probably strangled before her throat was cut and her intestines pulled out.

Who was Jack the Ripper's third victim?

There are 3 main facts to note about Jack the Ripper's 3rd victim:

• ❖ Elizabeth Stride was murdered on the night of 30th September, 1888.
• ❖ She was killed on the same night as the fourth victim, Catherine Eddowes.
• ❖ Her throat was cut but police believed the killer was disturbed before she could be mutilated.

Who was Jack the Ripper's fourth victim?

Catherine Eddowes was murdered on the night of 30th September, shortly after the third victim, Elizabeth Stride. She was disembowelled and her face was mutilated.

Who was Jack the Ripper's fifth victim?

Mary Jane Kelly was killed on 9th November. She was eviscerated - most of her internal organs were removed, and her face was so badly mutilated it was unrecognisable.

Where did the Ripper murders take place?

Jack the Ripper's crimes were committed in and around London's Whitechapel area.

• ❖ The body of Polly Nichols was found in Bucks' Row.
• ❖ Annie Chapman was found in George's Yard, just off Hanbury Street.
• ❖ Elizabeth Stride was found in Dutfield's Yard.
• ❖ Catherine Eddowes was discovered in Mitre Square in Aldgate. This was the only murder which came under the jurisdiction of the City Police, rather than Whitechapel.
• ❖ Mary Kelly was found in her rented room in Miller's Court.

How did the police try to find Jack the Ripper?

The police used 8 main techniques to try to identify and catch Jack the Ripper.

• ❖ Post mortems and coroners' reports.
• ❖ Witness statements.
• ❖ Observations and sketches.
• ❖ Photography.
• ❖ Public information.
• ❖ Identity parades.
• ❖ Searches.
• ❖ Lures.

How did they use post mortems in the Ripper investigation?

There are 3 main facts to note about the use of post-mortems:

• ❖ The police followed up information from coroners' reports and autopsies.
• ❖ After Annie Chapman's murder, the coroner believed the killer had 'considerable anatomical knowledge and skill'.
• ❖ The police followed up by questioning doctors, surgeons, butchers and slaughterhouse workers.

How did they use witnesses in the Ripper case?

The police used eyewitness accounts to investigate the crime. These were unreliable and often contradictory, but the police questioned around 2,000 people.

How did the police use crime scene observations in the Ripper case?

The police carried out a number of observations when they discovered the bodies, writing down or sketching key features of the crime scenes.

How did the police use photography in the Ripper investigation?

Some photographs were taken of the bodies, both before and after the post mortem, and of the scene of the crime. This wasn't common practice, however, and it was probably the City of London police, rather than H Division, that did so.

How did they ask for information from the public in the Ripper case?

After the double murder of Stride and Eddowes, the police distributed 80,000 leaflets requesting information from people in the nearby area.

Where did the police search in the Ripper case?

The police conducted searches of houses and buildings around the crime scenes.

How did they use identity parades in the Ripper case?

Identity parades were used to try to get witnesses to identify the killer. This was inconclusive, but they did manage to rule out some suspects.

How many extra police did they bring into Whitechapel during the Ripper case?

There are 2 main facts to note about extra policing:

• ❖ 50 extra constables were sent to H Division, partly to help investigate the crime and partly to maintain law and order in a time of panic.
• ❖ The number of plain-clothes policemen had increased from 6 to 20 by October 1888.

What clues were there in the Ripper case?

There were 3 key clues in the Ripper case that the police followed up to varying degrees.

• ❖ A bloody piece of Catherine Eddowes' apron was found under a graffito that read: "The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing". Sir Charles Warren had this graffito removed because of fears about anti-Semitic reprisals.
• ❖ Over 300 letters were written to newspapers and the police from people claiming to be the Ripper. Although seen as hoaxes, some people believe a few may have genuinely been written by the killer.
• ❖ One of the letters was sent to George Lusk, the chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee during the Ripper murders, along with half a kidney. The letter claimed the organ was from Catherine Eddowes' body.

Were there some techniques that weren't used in the Ripper investigation?

There were 5 key techniques that were not available to or were not used by the police in the Ripper investigation:

• ❖ Fingerprinting wasn't in common use until the 1890s.
• ❖ They were unable to analyse blood.
• ❖ They considered using bloodhounds, and Sir Charles Warren did summon a pair of trained bloodhounds to be used at the crime scene. However, the police did not make use of them.
• ❖ Although the formula for using body temperature to determine time of death had been developed in the 1860s, the victims' body temperatures were not scientifically measured.
• ❖ Identity sketches were developed by Bertillon, but weren't put into common use until the 1890s.

How successful was the Ripper investigation?

The Ripper investigation was a failure, both because it failed to identify and catch the killer, but also because it was badly criticised by the public and press.

What problems did the police face in the Ripper investigation?

H Division and the London Metropolitan Police faced 5 main problems and impediments in identifying the killer:

• ❖ The media coverage.
• ❖ The crossover between H Division and the City of London police.
• ❖ The lack of forensic evidence.
• ❖ The response of the public.
• ❖ The Vigilance Committee.

Why was the media a problem in the Ripper investigation?

There was a lot of competition between London newspapers, with 13 morning and 9 evening publications. They therefore competed fiercely to sensationalise the murders, creating a lot of misinformation as they did so.

What did the press do during the Ripper case?

The interference of the press caused 6 key problems for the police investigation:

• ❖ They might add details to make their stories more interesting, basing a lot of their reporting on guesswork, rumours and untrustworthy interviews. Some of them added every murder in the area to the Ripper's tally.
• ❖ They criticised the police heavily.
• ❖ They printed a lot of anti-Semitic accusations, such as making sketches of suspects look stereotypically Jewish. Sir Charles Warren ordered the graffiti near the Catherine Eddowes crime scene to be washed off due to the resulting tension.
• ❖ They created a lot of uncertainty and misinformation, and stirred up tension.
• ❖ They created a lot of false leads the police then had to follow up, wasting time.
• ❖ They accused a man called Harold Pizer, or 'Leather Apron', of the murders, despite the fact he had an alibi.

Why were different police forces involved in the Ripper investigation?

Because Catherine Eddowes was killed in Aldgate, one problem faced in the Ripper investigation was that City of London Police, who weren't part of the London Met, had to work alongside H Division, which was.

What forensics were there in the Ripper investigation?

The police struggled to solve the Ripper case because of the lack of scientific techniques that were used to identify suspects later on. These including fingerprinting and blood analysis.

How did the public cause problems in the Ripper investigation?

The public response to the Ripper murders caused 4 key problems for the investigators.

• ❖ Over 300 hoax letters were written by people pretending to be the killer. This gave the police more leads to follow up, which took time.
• ❖ Witness statements were contradictory and unreliable.
• ❖ The possibility of anti-Semitic reprisals meant the police erased graffiti found near Catherine Eddowes' apron, which may have been a clue to the identify of the killer.
• ❖ The work of vigilantes, such as the Vigilance Committee, caused problems for the police during their investigations.

How did the Vigilance Committee cause problems in the Ripper investigation?

The Vigilance Committee caused 3 main problems in the case of Jack the Ripper:

• ❖ They were a group of businessmen and traders from Whitechapel who were frustrated by the lack of police success and were annoyed about the lack of rewards offered for information, so they started their own reward system.
• ❖ They patrolled the streets with burning planks and made a lot of noise to deter the killer.
• ❖ The leader of the Vigilance Committee, George Lusk, was sent the 'From Hell' letter, along with half a kidney.