Case Files: Jack the Ripper

Jack the Ripper is an alias used to name the mutilation murderer on 1888 at the London’s East End. Up until now, no one really knows the real identity of this killer, and nobody knows for sure that he really exists or it was just a prank to connect the successive murders of the prostitutes hanging around the White Chapel. It seems as though that this Jack the Ripper was really adept in hiding and removing all the evidences from his crime. No one knows how he commits this murders or why did he do it.

Up until now, despite the efforts of the White Chapel Vigilance Committee and the Scotland Yard, the identity still remains a mystery. There were five victims of this mutilation murders and all of them were killed in a horrifying fashion: there bodies were cut into halves crosswise, and there was a slit in their throats done with precise surgical skill and some of their body parts were taken out in order to taunt the police. The five prostitutes were killed near the White Chapel in varying times, ranging from one o’ clock to four o’ clock just before the sun comes up:

The Five Victims

• Mary Ann Nichols (maiden name Mary Ann Walker, nicknamed “Polly”), born on August 26, 1845, and killed on Friday, August 31, 1888. Nichols’ body was discovered at about 3:40 in the morning on the ground in front of a gated stable entrance in Buck’s Row (since renamed Durward Street), a back street in Whitechapel two hundred yards from the London Hospital.
• Annie Chapman (maiden name Eliza Ann Smith, nicknamed “Dark Annie”), born in September 1841 and killed on Saturday, September 8, 1888. Chapman’s body was discovered about 6:00 in the morning lying on the ground near a doorway in the back yard of 29 Hanbury Street, Spitalfields.
• Elizabeth Stride (maiden name Elisabeth Gustafsdotter, nicknamed “Long Liz”), born in Sweden on November 27, 1843, and killed on Sunday, September 30, 1888. Stride’s body was discovered close to 1:00 in the morning, lying on the ground in Dutfield’s Yard, off Berner Street (since renamed Henriques Street) in Whitechapel.
• Catherine Eddowes (used the aliases “Kate Conway” and “Mary Ann Kelly,” from the surnames of her two common-law husbands Thomas Conway and John Kelly), born on April 14, 1842, and killed on Sunday, September 30, 1888, on the same day as the previous victim, Elizabeth Stride. Ripperologists refer to this circumstance as the “double event.” Her body was found in Mitre Square, in the City of London.
• Mary Jane Kelly (called herself “Marie Jeanette Kelly” after a trip to Paris, nicknamed “Ginger”), reportedly born in either the city of Limerick or County Limerick, Munster, Ireland c. 1863 and killed on Friday, November 9, 1888. Kelly’s gruesomely mutilated body was discovered 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.

Mary Jane Kelly stood out of all the other victims of this “Ripper murders” because all the others were killed near the White Chapel except her because her mutilated body was found near a port city and not near the White Chapel.

Jack the Ripper sent out letters to taunt the police, telling them that this was only the start of his job and his knife is yearning for more bodies to mutilate. There were three letters:

• The “Dear Boss” letter, dated September 25, postmarked and received September 27, 1888, by the Central News Agency, was forwarded to Scotland Yard on September 29. 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. Police published the letter on October 1, hoping someone would recognise the handwriting, but nothing came of this effort. The name “Jack the Ripper” was first used in this letter and gained worldwide notoriety after its publication. Most of the letters that followed copied the tone of this one. After the murders, police officials contended the letter had been a hoax by a local journalist.[16]

Dear Boss,

I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they wont fix me just yet. I have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track. That joke about Leather Apron gave me real fits. I am down on whores and I shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled. Grand work the last job was. I gave the lady no time to squeal. How can they catch me now. I love my work and want to start again. You will soon hear of me with my funny little games. I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with but it went thick like glue and I cant use it. Red ink is fit enough I hope ha. ha. The next job I do I shall clip the ladys ears off and send to the police officers just for jolly wouldn’t you. Keep this letter back till I do a bit more work, then give it out straight. My knife’s so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get a chance. Good Luck. Yours truly

Jack the Ripper

Dont mind me giving the trade name

PS Wasnt good enough to post this before I got all the red ink off my hands curse it No luck yet. They say I’m a doctor now. ha ha “

• The “Saucy Jack” postcard, postmarked and received October 1, 1888, by the Central News Agency, had handwriting similar to the “Dear Boss” letter. It mentions that two victims – Stride and Eddowes – were killed very close to one another: “double event this time.” 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, though it was postmarked more than 24 hours after the killings took place, long after details were known by journalists and residents of the area. Police officials later claimed to have identified a specific journalist as the author of both this message and the earlier “Dear Boss” letter.

“I was not codding dear old Boss when I gave you the tip, you’ll hear about Saucy Jacky’s work tomorrow double event this time number one squealed a bit couldn’t finish straight off. I haven’t got time to get the ears off for police thanks for keeping last letter back till I got to work again. -Jack the Ripper”

• The “From Hell” letter, also known as the “Lusk letter,” postmarked October 15 and received by George Lusk of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee on October 16, 1888. Lusk opened a small box to discover half a human kidney, later said by a doctor to have been preserved in “spirits of wine” (ethanol). One of Eddowes’ kidneys had been removed by the killer. The writer claimed that he had “fried and ate” the missing kidney half. There is some disagreement over the kidney: some contend it had belonged to Eddowes, while others argue it was “a macabre practical joke, and no more.”[17]

“From hell.

Mr. Lusk,
Sir
I send you half the Kidney I took from one women preserved it for you the other piece I fried and ate it was very nice. I may send you the bloody knife that took it out if you only wait a while longer

signed
Catch me when you can Mister Lusk”

It was said that Jack the Ripper was some kind of pervert seeing the way he killed his victims, he cut a victim from head to torso and the other half was lower body. Though there were suspects, none of them were proven to be true,the best-known suspects include Prince Albert Victor, second in line to the British throne; Sir William Gull, personal physician to Queen Victoria; James K. Stephen, the tutor of Prince Albert Victor at Cambridge University; Montague John Druitt, a lawyer whose body was found floating in the Thames River soon after the last murder; Neill Cream, a convicted murderer who is reputed to have said “I am Jack the…” as he was hanged; Nathan Kaminsky, who died from syphilis in an insane asylum in 1889; and James T. Maybrick, a Liverpool merchant who was murdered by his wife in 1889.