Information AboutJack The Ripper |
|
Jack the Ripper is an Alias given to an unidentified Serial Killer (or killers) active in the largely impoverished Whitechapel area and adjacent districts of London , England in the latter half of 1888 . The name is taken from a letter to the Central News Agency by someone claiming to be the murderer, published at the time of the killings. The legends surrounding the Ripper murders have become a combination of genuine historical research, Conspiracy Theory and Folklore . The lack of a confirmed identity for the killer has allowed ''Ripperologists'' — the term used within the field for the authors, historians and Amateur Detective s who study the case — to accuse a wide variety of individuals of being the Ripper. Newspapers, whose circulation had been growing during this era, bestowed widespread and enduring notoriety on the killer owing to the savagery of the attacks and the failure of the police in their attempts to capture the Ripper, sometimes missing the murderer at his crime scenes by mere minutes. Victims were women earning income as casual Prostitutes . The Ripper murders were perpetrated in a public or semi-public place; the victim's throat was cut, after which the body was mutilated. Some believe that the victims were first strangled in order to silence them and to explain the lack of reported blood at the crime scenes. The removal of internal organs from some victims has led to the proposal that the killer possessed anatomical or surgical knowledge or skill. VICTIMS The number and names of the Ripper's victims are the subject of much debate. The ''canonical five'' are a subset of the eleven victims listed in the police file documenting what were called "the Whitechapel murders". The canonical five victims The most widely accepted list, referred to as the canonical five, includes the following five prostitutes (or presumed prostitute in Eddowes' case) in the East End Of London :
The authority of this list rests on a number of authors' opinions, but the basis for these opinions mainly came from notes made privately in 1894 by Sir can be believed, was attacked in public), and/or Kelly (who was younger than other victims, murdered indoors, and whose mutilations were far more extensive than the others). Others prefer to expand the list by citing Martha Tabram and others as probable Ripper victims. Some researchers have even posited that the series may not have been the work of a single murderer, but of an unknown number of killers acting independently. Except for Stride (whose attack may have been interrupted), mutilations of the canonical five victims became continuously more severe as the series of murders proceeded. Nichols and Stride were not missing any organs, but Chapman's uterus was taken, and Eddowes had her uterus and a kidney carried away and her face mutilated. While only Kelly's heart was missing from her crime scene, many of her internal organs were removed and left in her room. The five canonical murders were generally perpetrated in the dark of night, on or close to a weekend, in a secluded site to which the public could gain access, and on a pattern of dates either at the end of a month or a week or so after. Yet every case differed from this pattern in some manner. Besides the differences already mentioned, Eddowes was the only victim killed within the City Of London , though close to the boundary between the City and the metropolis. Nichols was the only victim to be found on an open street, albeit a dark and deserted one. Many sources state that Chapman was killed after the sun had started to rise, though that was not the opinion of the police or the doctors who examined the body. {Link without Title} Kelly's murder ended a six-week period of inactivity for the murderer. (A week elapsed between the Nichols and Chapman murders, and three between Chapman and the "double event".) A major difficulty in identifying 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's Modus Operandi . Other possible victims Victims of other contemporary and somewhat similar attacks and/or murders have also been suggested as additions to the list. These victims are generally poorly documented. They include:
GOULSTON STREET GRAFFITI After the "double event" of the early morning of Alfred Long discovered a bloodstained scrap of cloth in the stairwell of a Tenement on Goulston Street. The cloth was later confirmed as part of Eddowes' apron. There was writing in white Chalk on the wall above where the apron was found. Long reported that the Graffiti read: "The Juwes are the men That Will not be Blamed for nothing". Other police officers recalled a slightly different message: "The Juwes are not The men That Will be Blamed for nothing". Police Superintendent Thomas Arnold visited the scene and saw the graffiti. He feared that with daybreak and the beginning of the day's business, the message would be widely seen and might exacerbate the general Anti-Semitic sentiments of the populace. Since the Nichols murder, rumours had been circulating in the East End that the killings were the work of a Jew dubbed "Leather Apron". Religious tensions were already high, and there had already been many near-riots. Arnold ordered a man to be standing by with a sponge to erase the graffiti, while he consulted Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Charles Warren . Covering the graffiti in order to allow time for a photographer to arrive was considered, but Arnold and Warren (who personally attended the scene) considered this to be too dangerous, and Warren later stated he "considered it desirable to obliterate the writing at once". While the writing was found in Metropolitan Police territory, the apron was from a victim killed in the City of London, which has a separate police service. Some officers disagreed with Arnold and Warren's decision, especially those representing the City of London Police, who thought the graffiti constituted part of a crime scene and should at least be Photographed before being erased, but the message was wiped from the wall at approximately 5:30 a.m. Most contemporary police concluded that the writing of the graffiti was a semi-literate attack on the area's Jewish population. Author Martin Fido notes that the graffiti included Double Negative s, a common feature of Cockney speech. He suggests that the graffiti might be Translated into standard English as "The Jews are men who will not take responsibility for anything" and that the message was written by someone who believed he or she had been wronged by one of the many Jewish merchants or tradesmen in the area. There is disagreement as to the importance of the graffiti in the Ripper case. Several possible explanations have been suggested by various authors:
RIPPER LETTERS Over the course of the Ripper murders, the Police and Newspapers received many thousands of letters regarding the case. Some were from well-intentioned persons offering advice for catching the killer. The vast majority of these were deemed useless and subsequently ignored. Perhaps more interesting were hundreds of letters which claimed to have been written by the killer himself. The vast majority of such letters are considered Hoax es. Many experts contend that ''none'' of them are genuine, but of the ones cited as perhaps genuine, either by contemporary or modern authorities, three in particular are prominent:
Some sources list another letter, dated September 17 , 1888, as the first message to use the Jack the Ripper name. Most experts believe this was a modern fake inserted into police records in the 20th century, long after the killings took place. They note that the letter has neither an official police stamp verifying the date it was received nor the initials of the investigator who would have examined it if it were ever considered as potential evidence. It is also not mentioned in any remaining police document of the time. Ongoing DNA tests on the still existing letters have yet to yield conclusive results. {Link without Title} INVESTIGATION It is important to appreciate that investigative techniques and awareness have progressed greatly since 1888. Many valuable Forensic Science techniques taken for granted today were unknown to the Victorian-era Metropolitan Police . The value of interpreting motives of serial killers, the concept of Criminal Profiling , Fingerprinting , and other such knowledge and intelligence that have developed were poorly understood if not altogether unknown. Police recognised a sexual motive or element to the attacks, but were otherwise thoroughly unfamiliar with such crimes. The investigation into the Whitechapel murders was initially conducted by Whitechapel (H) Division C.I.D. headed by Detective Inspector Edmund Reid. After the Nichols murder Detective Inspectors Frederick Abberline , Henry Moore and Walter Andrews were sent from Central Office at Scotland Yard to assist. After the Eddowes murder, which occurred within the City Of London , the City Police under Detective Inspector James McWilliam were also engaged. On , reacted with scepticism, noting that Facial Composite s are usually only put together through direct questioning of a live witness and that various Victorian police officials investigating the Ripper killings stated that either no one had got a good look at the killer, or perhaps only one or two, but certainly not the alleged "13 witnesses" whose statements Grieve and others affiliated with the documentary claimed to have used as the basis for the image. {Link without Title} The ''Whitechapel Vigilance Committee'' was a group of people that patrolled the streets of London during the Jack the Ripper murders of 1888. The committee patrolled London mainly at night in search for this murderer. The committee was led by George Lusk in 1888 and later by Albert Bachert. MEDIA '' cartoon by John Tenniel ( 22 September 1888) criticising the police's alleged incompetence.]] , The Ripper murders mark an important watershed in modern British life. While not the first serial killer, Jack the Ripper's case was the first to create a worldwide media frenzy. Reforms to the Stamp Act in 1855 had enabled the publication of inexpensive newspapers with wider circulation. These mushroomed later in the Victorian era to include mass-circulation newspapers as cheap as a halfpenny, along with popular magazines such as the '' Illustrated Police News '', making the Ripper the beneficiary of previously unparalleled publicity. This, combined with the fact that no one was ever convicted of the murders, created a Legend that cast a shadow over later serial killers. Some believe the killer's nickname was invented by newspapermen to make for a more interesting story that could sell more papers. This became standard media practice with examples such as The Boston Strangler , The Green River Killer , the Axeman Of New Orleans , the Beltway Sniper , and the Hillside Strangler , besides the derivative Yorkshire Ripper almost a hundred years later and the unnamed perpetrator of the "Thames Nude Murders" of the 1960s, whom the press dubbed Jack The Stripper . The poor of the East End had long been ignored by affluent society, but the nature of the murders and of the victims forcibly drew attention to their living conditions. This attention enabled social reformers of the time to finally gain the support of the "respectable classes". A letter from George Bernard Shaw to the ''Star'' commented sarcastically on these sudden concerns of the press: SUSPECTS See Also: Jack the Ripper suspects Many theories about the identity of Jack the Ripper have been advanced. None have been entirely persuasive. JACK THE RIPPER IN POPULAR CULTURE Jack the Ripper has been featured in a number of works of Fiction and popular culture, either as the central character or in a more peripheral role. See Jack The Ripper Fiction for information. At the time of the murders, a theatrical version of Robert Louis Stevenson 's book '' Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde '' was being performed. The subject matter of horrific murder in the London streets drew much attention, even leading The Star Of The Show to be accused by some members of the public of being the Ripper himself, although this theory was never taken seriously by the police. In 2006 , Jack the Ripper was selected by the BBC History Magazine and its readers as the Worst Briton In History . (BBC) The legend of the Ripper is still promoted in the East End of London, with many guided tours of the murder sites. The Ten Bells , a Victorian pub in Commercial Street that had been frequented by Jack the Ripper's victims, was the focus of such tours for many years. To capitalize on this business, the owners changed its name to the 'Jack the Ripper' in the 1960s, but following protests by feminists and others, the pub returned to its old name. To date more than 150 works of non-fiction have been published which deal exclusively with the Jack the Ripper murders, making it one of the most written-about true-crime subjects of the past century. Philip Sugden 's ''The Complete History of Jack the Ripper'' is widely considered the best general overview of the case. Six periodicals about Jack the Ripper have hit the market since the early 1990s: ''Ripperana'' (1992-present), ''Ripperologist'' (1994-present, electronic format only since 2005), the ''Whitechapel Journal'' (1997–2000), ''Ripper Notes'' (1999-present), ''Ripperoo'' (2000–2003) and the ''The Whitechapel Society Journal'' (2005-present).[http://www.casebook.org/ripper_media/book_reviews/periodicals/ REFERENCES
SEE ALSO
EXTERNAL LINKS
|
|
|