Jack the Ripper

“Jack the Ripper” is the name given to a serial killer.

He attacked around the Whitechapel district of London in 1.888.

Vice

Villainy

Social Unrest

Squalor Disease

VictimsAlthough the exact number of victims

most frequently bandied around is five the actual Jack the Ripper crimes has the names of eleven victims on it, some of whom were victims of Jack the Ripper, some of whom may have been, and several of whom most certainly weren't.

THE CANONICAL FIVE VICTIMS

Mary Nichols - Murdered on 31st August 1888 Annie Chapman - Murdered on 8th September

1888 Elizabeth Stride - Murdered on 30th September

1888 Catherine Eddowes - Murdered on 30th

September 1888 Mary Kelly - Murdered on 9th November 1888

Mary Ann Nichols Domestic servant – Casual prostitute. 31-08 03:40 Charles Cross In front of a gated stable entrance in Buck's Row (since renamed

Durward Street), Her throat had been slit twice from left to right and her abdomen

mutilated with one deep jagged wound, several incisions across the abdomen, and three or four similar cuts on the right side caused by the same knife at least 6–8 inches (15–20 cm) long used violently and downwards.

Annie Chapman

Flower seller – Crocheter – Casual prostitute 6:00 a.m. 8-9-1888 by a resident of number 29, John Davis. Near a doorway in the back yard of 29 Hanbury Street,

Spitalfields. The throat was severed by two cuts. The abdomen was slashed

entirely open, and it was later discovered that the uterus had been removed.

Elizabeth Stride

Cleaner – Casual prostitute. 30-9 1 a.m Louis Diemschutz  In the adjacent Dutfield's Yard.  It appeared that she was killed

just moments before he arrived. Between 12:30 and 12:50 a.m.  She had no mutilations beyond her slit throat.  It is possible that

the killer was interrupted before he had the opportunity to mutilate the body.

Catherin Eddowes

Hop-Picker – Casual prostitute. 30-9 1:45 (An hour later Stride’s murder) by the square's beat

policeman PC Edward Watkins.  In the south-west corner of Mitre Square.  The throat was severed, and the abdomen was ripped open by a

long, deep, jagged wound. The left kidney and the major part of the uterus had been removed.

A clue?

A writing on the wall above the apron piece, which became known as the Goulston Street graffito, seemed to implicate a Jew or Jews, but it was unclear whether the graffito was written by the murderer as he dropped the apron piece, or merely incidental.

“The Juwes are the men that will not be blame for nothing” Police Commissioner Charles Warren feared the graffito might

spark anti-semitic riots, and ordered it washed away before dawn.

Mary Jane Kelly

Prostitute. 9-11-88 Lord Mayor's Day celebrations. Shortly after 10.45 a.m. Her bed by Thomas Bowyer. The throat had been severed down to the spine, and the

abdomen almost emptied of its organs. The heart was missing.

Canonical five murders: Things in common.

The five murders were perpetrated at night, on or close to a weekend, either at the end of a month or a week (or so) after. The mutilations became increasingly severe as the series of murders proceeded, except for that of Stride, whose attacker may have been interrupted. Nichols was not missing any organs; Chapman's uterus was taken; Eddowes had her uterus and a kidney removed and her face mutilated; and Kelly's body was eviscerated and her face hacked away, though only her heart was missing from the crime scene.

Before the canonical five.

 Jack the Ripper’s file also contains the names of two victims who were murdered before Mary Nichols.

The first victim was Emma Elizabeth Smith, who was attacked in the early hours of the 3rd April 1888. She had had a stick or other blunt object shoved into her abdomen.

Martha Tabram (7-8-88) was found in George Yard, off Whitechapel High Street. She had suffered 39 frenzied stab wounds to her throat, chest and abdomen.

Other Alleged victims.

Ada Wilson – Annie Farmer- "The Whitehall Mystery“ 2-10-88. A headless torso in the

basement of the new Metropolitan Police headquarters being built in Whitehall.

John Gill: 7-year-old boy. In Manningham, Bradford, on 29-12-88. Carrie Brown: 24-4-91 in NYC.

Later Whitechapel murders

Rose Mylett: was found strangled in Clarke's Yard, High Street, Poplar on 20-12. As there was no sign of a struggle, the police believed that she had accidentally hanged herself on her collar while in a drunken stupor, or committed suicide.

Alice McKenzie: was killed on 17-7-89 by severance of the left carotid artery. Several minor bruises and cuts were found on the body, discovered in Castle Alley, Whitechapel.

The Pichin Street torso: an unidentified woman found under a railway arch in Pinchin Street, Whitechapel, on 10-9-89. Parts of the dismembered body were dispersed for disposal?

Frances Coles: 13-2-91 under a railway arch at Swallow Gardens, Whitechapel. Her throat was cut but the body was not mutilated.

Letter from Hell

One of the more bizarre aspects of the Jack the Ripper case is the number of letters that the police, newspapers, authorities and notable citizens received from anonymous members of the public either offering information on the best way to apprehend the killer, or else purporting to come from the murderer himself.

on Tuesday October 16th 1888, a small package was delivered to Lusk in the evening post. The parcel contained a foul smelling piece of kidney together with a letter.

Letter from Hell

From hell Mr Lusk Sor I send you half the Kidne I took from one women prasarved it for

you tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise I may send you the bloody knif that took it out if you only wate a whil longer

signed Catch me when you Can Mishter Lusk”

Letter sent to Sir Charles Warren, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.

Dear Sir I do wish to give myself up I am in misery with nightmare I am

the man who committed all these murders in the last six months...I am a horse slauterer...I have found the woman I wanted that is chapman and I done what I called slautered her but if any one comes I will surrender...

The letter contained crude illustrations one showing a coffin and the other showing a knife, both of which were drawn in heavy black ink. Beneath the knife the letter's author had written:-

...this is the knife that I done these murders with it is a small handle with a large long blade sharpe both sides