Newspaper reporters flooded East London describing the residents as an ethnicity unto
themselves. "...an evil plexus of slums
that hide human creeping things; where filthy men and women live on gin, where
clean collars and shirts are decencies unknown, every citizen wears a black
eye and none ever combs his hair..."*
Population
900,000, Whitechapel neighborhood accounting for 80,000. 38,000 children under
the age of 15 all living in deplorable conditions. *Numerous families to a polluted
dwelling slept on flea invested straw or piles of filthy rags for beds
in basements or in lavatories for warmth. Every room in these rotten and
reeking tenements houses a family, often two. In one cellar a sanitary
inspector reports finding a father, mother, three children, and four pigs! In
another room a missionary found a man ill with small-pox, his wife just
recovering from her eighth confinement, and the children running about half
naked and covered with dirt. Here are seven people living in one underground
kitchen, and a little dead child lying in the same room. Elsewhere is a
poor widow, her three children, and a child who has been dead thirteen days.*
Prostitution was one of the only reliable means through which a single woman
or widow could maintain herself. The police estimated that in 1888 there were
some 1,200 prostitutes in Whitechapel, not including the women who
supplemented their meager earnings by occasional prostitution.
Click the thumdnail for a detailed map of 19th century Whitechapel
A handbill circulated to the population of Whitechapel.
To The Occupier
On the mornings of Friday, 31st. of August, Saturday the 8th, and Sunday 30th September, 1888 Women were murdered in or near Whitechapel
supposed by someone residing in the immediate neighborhood. Should you know of any person to
whom suspicion is attached you are earnestly requested to communicate at once with the nearest Police Station.
Jack
communicates with the world...or does he?
The first letter, the "Dear
Boss" letter, to arrive at the Central
News Agency to use the title 'Jack the Ripper' as a signature was written in
red ink and crayon. It was reprinted in the morning Daily News and the
Evening
Star on October 1st, 1888 in hopes that someone would recognize the
handwriting
(Transcription)
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
andI shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled. Grand work the last job was.
Igave the lady no time to squeal. How can they catch me now. I love my work
andwant 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 lastjob to
write with but it went thick like glue and I cant use it. Red ink is
fitenough 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
P.S. Dont mind me giving the trade name
(second P.S. written in red crayon and attached to letter sideways)
Wasn't 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 day after the double murders of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes, Oct 1st, 1888
a post card; written in red crayon, mailed four days after the 'Dear Boss' letter from a
different postal zone,
arrived again at the Central News Agency
Transcription)
I was not codding dear old Boss when I gave you the tip.
You'll hear about Saucy Jack's work tomorrow. Double event this time. Number
one squealed a bit. Couldn't finish straight off. Had not time to get ears for
police. Thanks for keeping last letter back till I got off to work again.
JACK THE RIPPER.
On October 16th George
Lusk, head of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, received a
three-inch-square cardboard box in his mail. Inside was half a human kidney
preserved in wine, along with a letter. Medical reports carried out
by Dr. Thomas Openshaw of London Hospital found the kidney to be very similar to the one removed from
Catherine Eddowes, though his findings were inconclusive either way. The letter
read as follows:
(Transcription)
Letter addressed from hell.
Mr Lusk,
Sir I send you half the Kidne I took from one woman and 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
(note: Does not use the title "Jack the Ripper' as a signature)
The
police were not convinced that the 'Dear Boss' or the 'Saucy Jack' letters were
from the actual murderer. They did not believe that an asocial lust murdering
psychopath would communicate with authorities. The 'From Hell' letter however,
came with a bit of pretty convincing evidence. This letter was accompanied by a
piece of human female kidney from a woman of approximately forty-five years of
age suffering from Brights disease: a condition common to chronic alcoholics.
The from hell letter is also not signed Jack the Ripper; the name given the
murderer by the London media not by the individual himself.
Who was Jack the Ripper?
Jack knew the area and he was very lucky. He knew the dark recesses and back alleys
that were frequented by the lowest of the prostitution trade: the
"ladies" that had no rooms to take their clients to. These 'any port
in a storm' hookers made Jack's objective of murder and mutilation very easy
to obtain. What little is known about Jack's identity is that he fits
the profile of a disorganized (spur of the moment with no real premeditation; opportunist
) "lust murderer": **"The lust murderer is unique and is
distinguished from the sadistic homicide by the involvement of a mutilating
attack or displacement of the breasts, rectum, or genitals..."** and
that he was a white male. Lust murderers have typically been proven to be male
and these types of crimes are most usually intraracial. In this area of London a
black, Hispanic or Asian man would have been easily identified. His age is
predicted to have been somewhere in his late twenties and mid-thirties due to
the high level of psychopathology and his ability to avoid being caught.
Jack probably looked like anyone else of the place and
time maybe dressing a little better to convince the "ladies" that he
had money to spend. He may have come from a family that the mother was the
dominating force of or that the father was absent from which seeded his deep
hatred of woman. His mother was most likely the person he patterned his victims
after. She may have drank heavily and had many male friends.Jack was most likely
of the asocial type; preferring to be alone and
probably worked at a job that promoted that atmosphere and may have allowed him
a taste of his destructive fantasies such as a butcher, mortician, morgue
attendant or the popular belief of a doctor. He may have contracted an STD at
some point which may have also fueled his hatred of women. He was most probably
not married. Jack was quiet, shy, stayed to himself if not
somewhat withdrawn. He lived or worked in the Whitechapel area. The first murder
would have taken place close to either his home or workplace. London Hospital is
one block from the site of Mary Ann Nichols murder. The police may have actually
questioned this man but due to the lack of technology (this was even before
finger printing) there would have been no way to correlate the subject to the
evidence.
Click the thumbnail for a much detailed map of Whitechapel and the five accepted murder sites.
The murder sites of the five accepted victims have become perversely popular tourist
attractions. This is the only Jack the Ripper Walk to show you Victorian Photographs of
the streets and murder sites as they were in 1888 and of the poor unfortunate
victims and to give you a free summary fact sheet to help you remember each
aspect of the murder mystery. http://www.jack-the-ripper-walk.co.uk/
*Information resource; Jack The Ripper The
Complete Casebook, by Donald Rumbelow
Other informational resources:
**The Cases That Haunt Us, by Former FBI Investigative Support Unit
Chief John Douglas
http://www.casebook.org
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=1846
http://www.crimelibrary.com/jack/jackmain.htm
http://www.accomodata.co.uk/jack.htm
http://hosted.ray.easynet.co.uk/serial_killers/whitecha.html
The accepted victims /
Suspected victims / Suspects
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