jack the ripper ** an alias given to an unidentified serial killer[1]active in the largely impover**hed whitechapel area and adjacent d**tricts of london,england,in late 1888.the name originated in a letter sent to the london central news agency by someone claiming to be the murderer.
the victims were women earning income as prostitutes.two of the victims' throats were cut,after which the bodies were mutilated.theories suggest that the victims first were strangled,in order to silence them,which may explain the reported lack of blood at the crime scenes.the removal of internal organs from three of the victims led some officials at the time of the murders to propose that the killer possessed an**ical or surgical knowledge.[2]
news**s,whose circulation had been growing during th** era,[3]bestowed widespread and enduring notoriety on the killer because of the s**agery of the attacks and the failure of the police to capture the murderer(they sometimes m**sed him at the crime scenes by mere minutes).[4][5]
because the killer's identity has never been confirmed,the legends surrounding the murders h**e become a combination of genuine h**torical research,folklore,and pseudoh**tory.many authors,h**torians,and amateur detectives h**e proposed theories about the identity of the killer and h** victims.
in the mid 19th century,england experienced a rapid influx of mainly ir**h immigrants,who swelled the populations of both the largely poor countryside and england's major cities.from 1882,jew**h refugees escaping the pogroms in tsar**t russia and eastern europe added to the overcrowding and the already worsening work and housing conditions.[4]london,especially the east end and the civil par**h of whitechapel,became increasingly overcrowded,resulting in the development of a massive economic underclass.[6]th** endemic poverty drove many women to prostitution.in october 1888,the london metropolitan police estimated that there were 1,200 prostitutes"of very low class"resident in whitechapel and about 62 brothels.[7]the economic problems were accompanied by a steady r**e in social tensions.in 1886–1889,demonstrations by the hungry and unemployed were a regular feature of london policing.[4]
the murders most often attributed to jack the ripper occurred in the latter half of 1888,though the series of brutal killings in whitechapel pers**ted at least until 1891.a number of the murders involved extremely gruesome acts,such as mutilation and ev**ceration,which were widely reported in the media.rumours that the murders were connected intensified in september and october,when a series of media outlets and scotland yard received a series of extremely d**turbing letters from a writer or writers purporting to take responsibility for some or all of the murders.one letter,received by george lusk,of the whitechapel vigilance committee,included a preserved human kidney.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 terrorizing the residents of whitechapel,nicknamed"jack the ripper"after the signature on a postcard received by the central news agency.although the investigation was unable to connect the later killings conclusively to the murders of 1888,the legend of jack the ripper solidified.
[edit]known victims
metropolitan police files show that the investigation began in 1888 and eventually came to encompass eleven separate murders,stretching from 3 april 1888 to 13 february 1891,known in the police docket as the"whitechapel murders".[8]in addition,authors and h**torians h**e connected at least seven other murders and violent attacks with jack the ripper.among the eleven murders actively investigated by the police,five are almost universally agreed upon as the work of a single killer,collectively called the"canonical five"victims:
mary ann nichols(nickname,"polly"),killed friday 31 august 1888.her body was d**covered by a man named charles cross at about 3:40 a.m.on the ground in front of a gated stable entrance in buck's row(now durward street),a back street in whitechapel 200 yards from the london hospital.her throat was severed deeply by two cuts;the lower part of the abdomen was partly ripped open by a deep,jagged wound.there also were several inc**ions running across the abdomen,and three or four similar cuts on the right side caused by the same knife used violently and downwards.
annie chapman(maiden name,eliza ann smith;nickname,"dark annie"),killed saturday 8 september 1888.her body was d**covered about 6 a.m.,lying on the ground near a doorway in the back yard of 29 hanbury street,spitalfields.like mary ann nichols's,her throat was severed by two cuts,one deeper than the other.the abdomen was ripped entirely open and the uterus was removed.
elizabeth stride(nickname,"long liz"),killed sunday 30 september 1888.her body was d**covered about 1 a.m.,lying on the ground in dutfield's yard,off berner street(now henriques street)in whitechapel.there was one clear-cut inc**ion on the neck;the cause of death was massive blood loss from the nearly severed main artery on the left side.the cut through the t**sues on the right side was superficial,and tapered off below the right jaw.that there also were no mutilations to the abdomen has left some uncertainty about the identity of elizabeth's murderer,along with the suggestion her killer was d**turbed during the attack.
catherine eddowes(also known as"kate conway"and"mary ann kelly,"from the surnames of her two common-law hu**ands,thomas conway and john kelly),killed sunday 30 september 1888(the same day as the previous victim,elizabeth stride).her body was found in mitre square,in the city of london.the throat was,as in the former two cases,severed by two cuts;the abdomen was ripped open by a long,deep,jagged wound.the left kidney and the major part of the uterus had been removed.she was 46.her murder,and the murder of elizabeth stride would go on to be called"the double event,"in the media,and across london.
mary jane kelly(called herself"marie jeanette kelly"after a trip to par**;nickname,"ginger"),killed friday 9 november 1888.her gruesomely mutilated body was d**covered shortly after 10:45 a.m.,lying on the bed in the single room where she lived at 13 miller's court,off dorset street,spitalfields.her throat had been severed down to the spine,and her abdomen virtually emptied of its organs.her heart was m**sing.
wanted poster **sued by the police during the 'autumn of terror',1888.the authority of th** l**t rests on a number of authors' opinions,but h**torically the idea has been based upon the 1894 notes of sir melville macnaghten,chief constable of the metropolitan police service criminal investigation department.[4]macnaghten did not join the force until the year after the murders;and h** memorandum,which came to light in 1959,contains serious factual errors about possible suspects.there ** considerable d**agreement about the value of macnaghten's assessment of the number of victims.some researchers h**e posited that the series may not h**e been the work of a single murderer,but of an unknown larger number of killers acting independently.authors stewart p.evans and donald rumbelow argue that the"canonical five"** a"ripper myth"and that the probable number of victims could range from three(nichols,chapman,and eddowes)to six(the previous three,plus stride,kelly,and martha tabram)or more.macnaghten's opinion of which crimes were committed by the same killer was not shared by other investigating officers,such as inspector frederick abberline.[9]
except stride,whose attack may h**e been interrupted,mutilations of the"canonical five"victims became increasingly severe as the series of murders proceeded.nichols and stride were not m**sing 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 m**sing from her crime scene,many of her internal organs were removed and left in her room.
the"canonical five"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 th** 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 metropol**.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 r**e,though that was not the opinion of the police or the doctors who examined the body.[10]kelly's murder ended six weeks of inactivity for the murderer.(a week elapsed between the nichols and chapman murders;three between chapman and the"double event".)
the large number of horrific attacks against women during th** era adds some uncertainty as to exactly how many victims were killed by the same man.most experts point to deep throat slashes,abdominal and genital-area mutilation,removal of internal organs,and progressive facial mutilations as the d**tinctive features of jack the ripper's modus operandi.
[edit]other victims in the whitechapel murder file
six other whitechapel murders were investigated by the metropolitan police at the time,two of which occurred before the"canonical five"and four after.figures involved in the investigation and later authors h**e attributed some of these to jack the ripper.
these two murders occurred before the"canonical five":
emma elizabeth smith was attacked on o**orn street,whitechapel,on 3 april 1888;a blunt object was inserted into her vagina.she survived the attack and walked back to her lodging-house.friends brought her to a hospital,where she told police that she was attacked by two or three men,one of whom was a ...