In 1888 a madman roamed the district of Whitechapel in the East End of London.
The newspapers of the time dubbed him Jack The Ripper" for letters the killer had written to the press and the police.
"Jack The Ripper" is accused of killing five prostitues and some say scores of others. He not only murdered them, he removed some of their organs and cut with such precision that lead some to believe he was a doctor or a butcher by trade.
THE KNOWN VICTIMS
WARNING: SOME OF THESE ARE GRAPHIC!
MARY ANN NICHOLS-MURDERED AUGUST 31, 1888
5'2" tall; brown eyes; dark complexion; brown hair turning grey; five front teeth missing (Rumbelow); two bottom-one top front (Fido), her teeth are slightly discoloured. She is described as having small, delicate features with high cheekbones and grey eyes. She has a small scar on her forehead from a childhood injury.
"Five teeth were missing, and there was a slight laceration of the tongue. There was a bruise running along the lower part of the jaw on the right side of the face. That might have been caused by a blow from a fist or pressure from a thumb. There was a circular bruise on the left side of the face which also might have been inflicted by the pressure of the fingers. On the left side of the neck, about 1 in. below the jaw, there was an incision about 4 in. in length, and ran from a point immediately below the ear. On the same side, but an inch below, and commencing about 1 in. in front of it, was a circular incision, which terminated at a point about 3 in. below the right jaw. That incision completely severed all the tissues down to the vertebrae. The large vessels of the neck on both sides were severed. The incision was about 8 in. in length. the cuts must have been caused by a long-bladed knife, moderately sharp, and used with great violence. No blood was found on the breast, either of the body or the clothes. There were no injuries about the body until just about the lower part of the abdomen. Two or three inches from the left side was a wound running in a jagged manner. The wound was a very deep one, and the tissues were cut through. There were several incisions running across the abdomen. There were three or four similar cuts running downwards, on the right side, all of which had been caused by a knife which had been used violently and downwards. the injuries were form left to right and might have been done by a left handed person. All the injuries had been caused by the same instrument."
Taken from THE TIMES
ANNIE CHAPMAN-MURDERED SEPTEMBER 8, 1888
5' tall, 45 years old at time of death, Pallid complexion, Blue eyes, Dark brown wavy hair, Excellent teeth (possibly two missing in lower jaw), Strongly built (stout), Thick nose, She is under nourished and suffering from a chronic disease of the lungs (tuberculosis) and brain tissue. It is said that she is dying. These could also be symptoms of syphilis. Although she has a drinking problem she is not described as an alcoholic.
The deceased was far advanced in disease of the lungs and membranes of the brain, but they had nothing to do with the cause of death. The stomach contained little food, but there was not any sign of fluid. There was no appearance of the deceased having taken alcohol, but there were signs of great deprivation and he should say she had been badly fed. He was convinced she had not taken any strong alcohol for some hours before her death. The injuries were certainly not self-inflicted. The bruises on the face were evidently recent, especially about the chin and side of the jaw, but the bruises in front of the chest and temple were of longer standing - probably of days. He was of the opinion that the person who cut the deceased throat took hold of her by the chin, and then commenced the incision from left to right. He thought it was highly probable that a person could call out, but with regard to an idea that she might have been gagged he could only point to the swollen face and the protruding tongue, both of which were signs of suffocation.
The abdomen had been entirely laid open: the intestines, severed from their mesenteric attachments, had been lifted out of the body and placed on the shoulder of the corpse; whilst from the pelvis, the uterus and its appendages with the upper portion of the vagina and the posterior two thirds of the bladder, had been entirely removed. No trace of these parts could be found and the incisions were cleanly cut, avoiding the rectum, and dividing the vagina low enough to avoid injury to the cervix uteri. Obviously the work was that of an expert- of one, at least, who had such knowledge of anatomical or pathological examinations as to be enabled to secure the pelvic organs with one sweep of the knife, which must therefore must have at least 5 or 6 inches in length, probably more. The appearance of the cuts confirmed him in the opinion that the instrument, like the one which divided the neck, had been of a very sharp character. The mode in which the knife had been used seemed to indicate great anatomical knowledge.
~post-mortem report
ELIZABETH STRIDE-MURDERED SEPTEMBER 20, 1888
At the time of her death she was 45 years old. She had a pale complexion, light gray eyes and had curly dark brown hair. All the teeth in her lower left jaw were missing and she stood five foot five inches tall.
The body was lying on the near side, with the face turned toward the wall, the head up the yard and the feet toward the street. The left arm was extended and there was a packet of cachous in the left hand.
The right arm was over the belly, the back of the hand and wrist had on it clotted blood. The legs were drawn up with the feet close to the wall. The body and face were warm and the hand cold. The legs were quite warm.
Deceased had a silk handkerchief round her neck, and it appeared to be slightly torn. I have since ascertained it was cut. This corresponded with the right angle of the jaw. The throat was deeply gashed and there was an abrasion of the skin about one and a half inches in diameter, apparently stained with blood, under her right arm.
There was a clear-cut incision on the neck. It was six inches in length and commenced two and a half inches in a straight line below the angle of the jaw, one half inch in over an undivided muscle, and then becoming deeper, dividing the sheath. The cut was very clean and deviated a little downwards. The arteries and other vessels contained in the sheath were all cut through.
~taken from Autopsy report
CATHARINE EDDOWES-MURDERED SEPTEMBER 20, 1888
At the time of her death she is 5 feet tall, has hazel eyes and dark auburn hair. She has a tattoo in blue ink on her left forearm "TC."
At the time of her death, Catherine Eddowes is suffering from Bright's Disease, a form of Uremia. Friends spoke of Catherine as an intelligent, scholarly woman but one who was possessed of a fierce temper.
The body was on its back, the head turned to left shoulder. The arms by the side of the body as if they had fallen there. Both palms upwards, the fingers slightly bent. The left leg extended in a line with the body. The abdomen was exposed. Right leg bent at the thigh and knee. The throat cut across.
The intestines were drawn out to a large extent and placed over the right shoulder -- they were smeared over with some feculent matter. A piece of about two feet was quite detached from the body and placed between the body and the left arm, apparently by design. The lobe and auricle of the right ear were cut obliquely through.
There was a quantity of clotted blood on the pavement on the left side of the neck round the shoulder and upper part of arm, and fluid blood-coloured serum which had flowed under the neck to the right shoulder, the pavement sloping in that direction.
Body was quite warm. No death stiffening had taken place. She must have been dead most likely within the half hour. We looked for superficial bruises and saw none. No blood on the skin of the abdomen or secretion of any kind on the thighs. No spurting of blood on the bricks or pavement around. No marks of blood below the middle of the body. Several buttons were found in the clotted blood after the body was removed. There was no blood on the front of the clothes. There were no traces of recent connexion.
The face was very much mutilated. There was a cut about a quarter of an inch through the lower left eyelid, dividing the structures completely through. The upper eyelid on that side, there was a scratch through the skin on the left upper eyelid, near to the angle of the nose. The right eyelid was cut through to about half an inch.
There was a deep cut over the bridge of the nose, extending from the left border of the nasal bone down near the angle of the jaw on the right side of the cheek. This cut went into the bone and divided all the structures of the cheek except the mucuous membrane of the mouth.
The cause of death was hemorrhage from the left common cartoid artery. The death was immediate and the mutilations were inflicted after death.
~taken from Autopsy report
MARY JANE KELLY-MURDERED NOVEMBER 9, 1888
This victim was a serious case of overkill.
Mary Jane Kelly was approximately 25 years old at the time of her death which would place her birth around 1863. She was 5' 7" tall and stout. She had blonde hair, blue eyes and a fair complexion.
The body was lying naked in the middle of the bed, the shoulders flat but the axis of the body inclined to the left side of the bed. The head was turned on the left cheek. The left arm was close to the body with the forearm flexed at a right angle and lying across the abdomen.
The right arm was slightly abducted from the body and rested on the mattress. The elbow was bent, the forearm supine with the fingers clenched. The legs were wide apart, the left thigh at right angles to the trunk and the right forming an obtuse angle with the pubes.
The whole of the surface of the abdomen and thighs was removed and the abdominal cavity emptied of its viscera. The breasts were cut off, the arms mutilated by several jagged wounds and the face hacked beyond recognition of the features. The tissues of the neck were severed all round down to the bone.
The viscera were found in various parts viz: the uterus and kidneys with one breast under the head, the other breast by the right foot, the liver between the feet, the intestines by the right side and the spleen by the left side of the body. The flaps removed from the abdomen and thighs were on a table.
The bed clothing at the right corner was saturated with blood, and on the floor beneath was a pool of blood covering about two feet square. The wall by the right side of the bed and in a line with the neck was marked by blood which had struck it in a number of separate splashes.
The face was gashed in all directions, the nose, cheeks, eyebrows, and ears being partly removed. The lips were blanched and cut by several incisions running obliquely down to the chin. There were also numerous cuts extending irregularly across all the features.
The neck was cut through the skin and other tissues right down to the vertebrae, the fifth and sixth being deeply notched. The skin cuts in the front of the neck showed distinct ecchymosis. The air passage was cut at the lower part of the larynx through the cricoid cartilage.
Both breasts were more or less removed by circular incisions, the muscle down to the ribs being attached to the breasts. The intercostals between the fourth, fifth, and sixth ribs were cut through and the contents of the thorax visible through the openings.
The skin and tissues of the abdomen from the costal arch to the pubes were removed in three large flaps. The right thigh was denuded in front to the bone, the flap of skin, including the external organs of generation, and part of the right buttock. The left thigh was stripped of skin fascia, and muscles as far as the knee.
The left calf showed a long gash through skin and tissues to the deep muscles and reaching from the knee to five inches above the ankle. Both arms and forearms had extensive jagged wounds.
The right thumb showed a small superficial incision about one inch long, with extravasation of blood in the skin, and there were several abrasions on the back of the hand moreover showing the same condition.
On opening the thorax it was found that the right lung was minimally adherent by old firm adhesions. The lower part of the lung was broken and torn away. The left lung was intact. It was adherent at the apex and there were a few adhesions over the side. In the substances of the lung there were several nodules of consolidation.
The pericardium was open below and the heart absent. In the abdominal cavity there was some partly digested food of fish and potatoes, and similar food was found in the remains of the stomach attached to the intestines.
~on site testimony & autopsy report
WHO WAS "JACK THE RIPPER"?
Many theories abound and are still being debated to this day. Below are names of some who were suspected:
This thread was taken up by Dr. Thomas Stowell who, in 1970, published an article in The Criminologist called "A Solution". It created a sensation by his veiled accusation of Prince Eddy as the killer. Stowell apparently used the private papers of Sir William Gull as his primary source material and it was these papers which led him to devise his theory. Throughout his article, the killer is referred to as "S", but there is enough internal evidence to identify Eddy as his chief culprit.
According to Stowell, Eddy was suffering from syphilis, contracted during a shore party in the West Indies, and that this infection drove Eddy insane and compelled him to commit the murders. In this theory, the Royal Family knew that Eddy was the murderer "definitely ... after the second murder, and possibly even after the first" (Rumbelow, p 196). Eddy's doctor in this matter was supposedly Sir William Gull who informed Bertie that his son was dying of syphilitic infection. Apparently no attempt was made to restrain Eddy until after the Double Event when he was bundled away in restraints to a private mental hospital. Eddy then escaped to carry out the Kelly murder after which he was again locked away and died, not of flu in 1892 as claimed, but of "softening of the brain" in a private mental hospital in Sandringham. Stowell goes on to include Eddy's resemblance to Druitt and the eye-witness accounts of the Ripper as proof positive. While a neat and tidy theory, later Ripperologists have poked several effective holes through it.
Joseph Barnett was not described as a Ripper suspect until the 1970s, when Bruce Paley first introduced the idea to some colleagues. It was independently forwarded by Mark Andrews in The Return of Jack the Ripper (1977), a fictionalization of the crimes. Paley first published a factual article describing the theory in the magazine True Crime (1982). Paul Harrison published his Jack the Ripper: The Mystery Solved in 1991, forwarding Barnett as the Ripper, but the book was marred by flawed research. Finally, Bruce Paley published Jack the Ripper: The Simple Truth in 1995, the culmination of over a decade and a half of research into Joseph Barnett as the Ripper. This book has since become a favorite of Ripper enthusiasts, because of its meticulous research and wealth of detail.
The theory, according to Bruce Paley, is that Joseph Barnett was growing tired of Mary Kelly prostituting herself to other men. He was very much in love with Kelly, and believed that if he could support her through his own work, she would not have to resort to a life on the streets. The loss of his job as a fish porter in June of 1888 brought this dream to an end. Kelly returned to the streets in order to provide for herself, and Barnett became infuriated. In an attempt to "scare" Kelly off the streets, Barnett raged through Whitechapel and murdered a handful of prostitutes in the autumn of 1888. His plot didn't succeed, however, and tempers boiled in late October, culminating in their final quarrel on the 30th. Perhaps realizing that his love for Kelly was not completely requited, Barnett murdered her on November 9th with a frenzy only a scorned lover could possess.
William Stewart was one of the first to write about the possibility of Jill the Ripper in his book Jack the Ripper: A New Theory, published in 1939.
Stewart's prime candidate, in following with the conversation between Abberline and Dutton over fifty years before, was that the killer had been a midwife -- possibly an abortionist. He postulates that "she might have been betrayed by a married woman whom she had tried to help, and sent to prison -- as a result, this was her way of recenging herself on her own sex."
Specifically, Stewart seems to have been focused on the fact that a midwife would have been able to "almost instantly produce unconsciousness, particularly in persons given to drink, by a method frequently used on patients in those days by midwives who practised among the extremely poor." In other words it is suggested that midwives found it common practise to knock out their patients by exerting pressure on the pressure points.
Mainly, however, Stewart banks on the fact that Mary Kelly was three months pregnant at the time of her death. She could barely afford her lodgings, let alone a baby, so, according to Stewart, she decided to terminate her pregnancy. He claims that the murderer was called in to abort the baby and killed Kelly once she was admitted into the room, later burning her bloodsoaked clothing in the grate and escaping wearing Kelly's clothing.
In answer to the question of why the midwife would remove organs from her victims, Stewart claimed that she would have the sufficient anatomical knowledge to do so and that it was an obvious ploy to direct attention away from her. He noted, "the particular mutilations practised by the killer held a psychological fascination and horror for all women, and as a result physiological reactions took place among women and in places remote from the scenes of the murders."
Stewart also believes his theory explains the reason why Mary Kelly was unclothed and her clothes were neatly folded on a nearby chair -- the prostitute had stripped for a routine medical abortion from the midwife she had contracted. Hence, the midwife struck upon her unsuspecting victim.
Having thus set the stage for the character of his killer, Stewart continued his assertions by suggesting that the modus operandi between his mad midwife and a Mrs. Mary Pearcey were similar. She had stabbed her lover's wife and child to death and cut their throats, later wheeling the bodies into a secluded street. These crimes were committed in October of 1890.
Mary Pearcey was described by Sir Melville Macnaghten. He wrote, "I have never seen a woman of stronger physique.... her nerves were as ironcast as her body." She was executed at the scaffold on December 23rd, 1890 -- but before the execution, she arranged to place an advertisement in the Madrid newspapers which read, "M.E.C.P. last wish of M.E.W. Have not betrayed."
These are just some of the suspected...so who really was "Jack The Ripper"?
Only time will tell... GO HOME!
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