"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the media. The letter is widely believed to have been a hoax, and may have been written by a journalist in a deliberate attempt to heighten interest in the story. Other nicknames used for the killer at the time were "The Whitechapel Murderer" and "Leather Apron".
Attacks ascribed to the Ripper typically involved female prostitutes from the slums whose throats were cut prior to abdominal mutilations. The removal of internal organs from at least three of the victims led to proposals that their killer possessed anatomical or surgical knowledge. Rumours that the murders were connected intensified in September and October 1888, and letters from a writer or writers purporting to be the murderer were received by media outlets and Scotland Yard. The "From Hell" letter, received by George Lusk of the Whitechapel Vigilance Comitee, included half of a preserved human kidney, supposedly from one of the victims. Mainly because of the extraordinarily brutal character of the murders, and because of media treatment of the events, the public came increasingly to believe in a single serial killer known as "Jack the Ripper".
Extensive newspaper coverage bestowed widespread and enduring international notoriety on the Ripper. An investigation into a series of bruta killing in Whitechapel up to 1891 was unable to connect all the killings conclusively to the murders of 1888, but the legend of Jack the Ripper solidified. As the murders were never solved, the legends surrounding them became a combination of genuine historical research, folklore, and pseudohistory. The term "ripperology" was coined to describe the study and analysis of the Ripper cases. There are now over one hundred theories about the Ripper's identity, and the murders have inspired multiple works of fashion.
The large number of attacks against women in the East End during this era adds uncertainty to how many victims were killed by the same person.Eleven separate murders, stretching from 3 April 1888 to 13 February 1891, were included in a London Metropolitan Service investigation, and were known collectively in the police docket as the "Whitechapel murders". Opinions vary as to whether these murders should be linked to the same culprit or not, but five of the eleven Whitechapel murders, known as the "canonical five", are widely believed to be the work of the Ripper.Most experts point to deep throat slashes, abdominal and genital-area mutilation, removal of internal organs, and progressive facial mutilations as the distinctive features of Jack the Ripper's modus operandi.The first two cases in the Whitechapel murders file, those of Emma Elizabeth Smith and Martha Tabram, are not included in the canonical five.
Smith was robbed and sexually assaulted on Osborn Street Whitechapel, on 3 April 1888. A blunt object was inserted into her vagina, which ruptured her peritoneum. She developed peritonitis, and died the following day at London Hospital. She said that she had been attacked by two or three men, one of whom was a teenager. The attack was linked to the later murders by the press,but most authors conclude that it was gang violence unrelated to the Ripper case.
Tabram was killed on 7 August 1888; she had suffered 39 stab wounds. The savagery of the murder, the lack of obvious motive, and the closeness of the location (George Yard, Whitechapel) and date to those of the later Ripper murders led police to link them.However, the attack differs from the canonical ones in that Tabram was stabbed rather than slashed at the throat and abdomen. Many experts today do not connect it with the later murders because of the difference in the wound pattern.
The concentration of the killings at the weekend, and within a few streets of each other, has indicated to many that the Ripper was employed during the week and lived locally. Others have thought the killer was an educated upper-class man, possibly a doctor, who ventured into Whitechapel from a more well-to-do area; such notions draw on cultural perceptions such as fear of the medical profession, distrust of modern science, or the exploitation of the poor by the rich. Author Stephen Knight promoted an elaborate Masonic conspiracy theory involving the upper-class and a doctor in his 1976 book Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution, but many authors dismiss the theory as a fantasy. Suspects proposed years after the murders include virtually anyone remotely connected to the case by contemporary documents, as well as many famous names, who were never considered in the police investigation. As everyone alive at the time is now dead, modern authors are free to accuse anyone, "without any need for any supporting historical evidence".Suspects named in contemporary police documents include three in Sir Melville Macnaghten's 1894 memorandum, but the evidence against them is circumstantial at best.
Despite the many and varied theories about the identity and profession of Jack the Ripper, authorities are not agreed on a single solution and the number of named suspects reaches over one hundred.
Over the course of the Ripper murders, the police, newspapers and others received many hundreds of letters regarding the case. Some were well-intentioned offers of advice for catching the killer but the vast majority were useless.
Hundreds of letters claimed to have been written by the killer himself, and three of these in particular are prominent: the "Dear boss" letter, the "Saucy Jacky" postcard and the "From Hell" letter.
The "Dear Boss" letter, dated 25 September, was postmarked 27 September 1888. It was received that day by the Central News Agency, and was forwarded to Scotland Yard on 29 September. Initially it was considered a hoax, but when Eddowes was found three days after the letter's postmark with one ear partially cut off, the letter's promise to "clip the ladys (sic) ears off" gained attention.However, Eddowes' ear appears to have been nicked by the killer incidentally during his attack, and the letter writer's threat to send the ears to the police was never carried out. The name "Jack the Ripper" was first used in this letter by the signatory and gained worldwide notoriety after its publication. Most of the letters that followed copied this letter's tone. Some sources list another letter, dated 17 September 1888, as the first to use the name of Jack the Ripper, but most experts believe this was a modern fake inserted into police records in the 20th century, long after the killings took place.
The "Saucy Jacky" postcard was postmarked 1 October 1888 and received the same day by the Central News Agency. The handwriting was similar to the "Dear Boss" letter. It mentions that two victims were killed very close to one another: "double event this time", which was thought to refer to the murders of Stride and Eddowes. It has been argued that the letter was mailed before the murders were publicised, making it unlikely that a crank would have such knowledge of the crime, but it was postmarked more than 24 hours after the killings took place, long after details were known by journalists and residents of the area.
The "From Hell" letter was received by George Lusk leader of the Whitechapel Vigillane Comitee, on 16 October 1888. The handwriting and style is unlike that of the "Dear Boss" letter and postcard.The letter came with a small box in which Lusk discovered half of a kidney, preserved in "spirits of wine"(ethanol) . Eddowes' left kidney had been removed by the killer. The writer claimed that he "fried and ate" the missing kidney half. There is disagreement over the kidney: some contend it belonged to Eddowes, while others argue it was nothing more than a macabre practical joke. The kidney was examined by Dr Thomas Ethanshaw of the London Hospital, who determined that it was human and from the left side, but (contrary to false newspaper reports) he could not determine its gender or age.Openshaw subsequently also received a letter name "Jack the Ripper".
Scotland Yard published facsimiles of the "Dear Boss" letter and the postcard on 3 October, in the ultimately vain hope that someone would recognise the handwriting. In a letter to Godfrey Lushington, Permanent Under Secretary of State of Home Department, Charles Warren explained "I think the whole thing a hoax but of course we are bound to try & ascertain the writer in any case." On 7 October 1888, George R. Sims in the Sunday newspaper Referee implied scathingly that the letter was written by a journalist "to hurl the circulation of a newspaper sky high".Police officials later claimed to have identified a specific journalist as the author of both the "Dear Boss" letter and the postcard. The journalist was identified as Tom Bullen in a letter from Chief Inspector John George Littlechild to George R. Sims dated 23 September 1913.A journalist called Fred Best reportedly confessed in 1931 that he had written the letters to "keep the business alive".
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Who was this 'Jack the Ripper' remains a mystery.
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