Jack the Ripper, as most people know, murdered prostitutes. What most people do not know is that the majority of these prostitutes were not glamorous young beauties, but middle aged alcoholics whose drinking had put them on the streets in the worst part of town. Termed “unfortunates” by the respectable classes in London, the women targeted by the Ripper engaged in prostitution mainly just to get lodging for the night.
Contrary to the popular imagination, the Ripper killings probably did not go on for years or claim a multitude of victims. In fact, there are a total of 5 generally accepted Ripper murders, and these took place over a period of about 10 weeks.
why the ripper case still fascinates
If the Ripper was not nearly as prolific as many modern serial killers, and if the killings did not take place over a long period, then why has this killer captured the public imagination as few serial killers ever have?
Here are a few possibilities:
- The Ripper murders took place very early in the era of mass communication. People across Europe and throughout the English-speaking world were reading up-to-date newspaper accounts on a series of extremely brazen serial killings… something that readers of the time were unaccustomed to. As the “first” mass media serial killer, the Ripper stands out in crime lore.
- There is no closure on the case. Nobody was ever brought to justice, and the identity of the killer remains a mystery… enabling the Ripper to take on mythic traits.
- Since the police were unable to solve the killings, the case became a public “whodunit.” All strata of London society got involved in trying to solve the mystery. But they were unsuccessful. With the case still a mystery, Ripper students today continue to offer the public new theories.
- All but one of the victims’ bodies was found in a public place, creating an aura of mystique around a killer who apparently murdered and mutilated on the streets of the East End, yet disappeared into the fog without leaving a trace.
- He had a very cool “trade name.”
- The murders were quite horrible. Jack the Ripper evoked the same sort of disgust that Jeffrey Dahmer evokes today. Immediately after the first “canonical” murder, newspapers dubbed the killer a “man monster.” (Ironically, they thought it was the third murder by this killer).
the “canonical 5″ victims
Here is a listing of the injuries suffered by the “Canonical 5″ victims. It is not for the squeamish.
August 31, 1888: The body of Polly Nicholls (age 38) is found on Bucks Row. Because there is no spray of blood surrounding her, authorities believe that she may have been strangled before her throat was slit. The coroner later discovers that she has also been disemboweled. No internal organs are missing.
September 8, 1888: The body of Annie Chapman (age 45) is found in the back yard of 29 Hanbury Street. Her throat has been deeply slit; again, she has been disemboweled; her uterus is missing. George Bagster Phillips, coroner on the Chapman case, is the first to postulate that the wounds were made by someone who knew human anatomy, possibly a surgeon.
September 30, 1888: The body of Liz Stride (age 45) is found still warm on Berner Street by Louis Diemschutz. Stride’s throat is cut, but she has not been disemboweled. It is believed that the Ripper was disturbed by the arrival of Diemschutz, with his cart and pony, leaving the killer no time to perform the Ripper mutilations. Because there are no mutilations, however, some people do not believe Stride is a Ripper victim. However…
September 30, 1888: 45 minutes after Diemschutz finds Liz Stride’s body, Police Constable Watkins finds the body of Catherine Eddowes (age 46) in Mitre Square. Her throat has been slit, her face has been badly mutilated, she has been disemboweled, and a kidney has been taken. Police believe that Eddowes has been murdered so that the Ripper could commit the mutilations he was unable to perform an hour earlier on Stride. The Eddowes murder is the most sensational Ripper killing thus far, and it inspires J.F. Brewer to pen The Curse Upon Mitre Square. The Eddowes murder, in fact, makes a brief appearance in the final pages of the book.
November 9, 1888: In the month following the publication of The Curse Upon Mitre Square, the body of Mary Kelly (age 26), the youngest victim, is found horrifically mutilated in her room in Miller’s Court. There is a massive spray of blood on the walls to her room. Much of her flesh has been cut off; some of it has been placed on the table at her bedside. Her face has been mutilated beyond recognition. Both her heart and her uterus have been removed. The uterus contained a fetus.
we must remember this
Though Ripper fiction, cinema and television use these crimes as a jumping off point for entertainment, the actual victims were real women who died horrible deaths. Each was someone’s daughter. Each was someone’s mother. Each was someone’s wife.
The Ripper case is a great whodunit and a fascinating study. But that is not all it is. It is, at core, a human tragedy. On the witness stand at the coroner’s inquest into his daughter’s death, Polly Nicholls’ father revealed how he identified his daughter’s mutilated body at the morgue: by a little scar on her forehead that she got when a child.
Long before the ravages of alcoholism drove these women into the desperate streets of Whitechapel, they had been little girls full of life’s potential. Read through the transcript of the Polly Nicholls inquest sometime. More than a century later—in contrast to the proceeding’s dry, clinical detailing of Polly’s injuries—you can still hear the breaking voice of her father cry that there was no reason for his daughter to be out on the streets so long as he was alive. Even down in her cups, she was always welcome in his home.
No matter how far we go into theorizing about the Ripper case, laughing about silly Ripper movies or analyzing the development of Ripper myth, we must never forget the real people whose lives were shattered by these crimes.
R.I.P. Mary Ann Nicholls, Anne Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, Mary Kelly.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine. Et lux perpetua luceat eis.
