Jack The Ripper

2. Next Victim?????

3. Jack the Ripper Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London, England, in the autumn of 1888. In both criminal case files and the contemporaneous journalistic accounts, the killer was called the Whitechapel Murderer and Leather Apron. Attacks ascribed to Jack the Ripper typically involved female prostitutes who lived and worked in the slums of the East End of London. Their throats were cut prior to abdominal mutilations. The removal of internal organs from at least three of the victims led to speculation that their killer had some anatomical or surgical knowledge. Rumours that the murders were connected intensified in September and October 1888, and numerous letters were received by media outlets and Scotland Yard from individuals purporting to be the murderer. The name "Jack the Ripper" originated in the "Dear Boss letter" written by an individual claiming to be the murderer, which was disseminated in the press. The letter is widely believed to have been a hoax and may have been written by journalists to heighten interest in the story and increase their newspapers' circulation.

4. The "From Hell letter" received by George Lusk of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee came with half of a preserved human kidney, purportedly taken from one of the victims. The public came increasingly to believe in the existence of a single serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, mainly because of both the extraordinarily brutal nature of the murders and media coverage of the crimes. Extensive newspaper coverage bestowed widespread and enduring international notoriety on the Ripper, and the legend solidified. A police investigation into a series of eleven brutal murders committed in Whitechapel and Spitalfields between 1888 and 1891 was unable to connect all the killings conclusively to the murders of 1888. Five victims—Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly—are known as the "canonical five" and their murders between 31 August and 9 November 1888 are often considered the most likely to be linked. The murders were never solved, and the legends surrounding these crimes became a combination of historical research, folklore, and pseudohistory, capturing public imagination to the present day. One of a series of images from the Illustrated London News for October 13, 1888 carrying the overall caption, "With the Vigilance Committee in the East End". This specific image is entitled "A Suspicious Character".

5. J A C K T H E R I P P E R ?

6. Background In the mid-19th century, England experienced an influx of Irish immigrants who swelled the populations of the major cities, including the East End of London. From 1882, Jewish refugees fleeing pogroms in Tsarist Russia and other areas of Eastern Europe emigrated into the same area. The parish of Whitechapel in the East End became increasingly overcrowded, with the population increasing to approximately 80,000 inhabitants by 1888. Work and housing conditions worsened, and a significant economic underclass developed. Fifty-five percent of children born in the East End died before they were five years old. Robbery, violence, and alcohol dependency were commonplace, and the endemic poverty drove many women to prostitution to survive on a daily basis. Women and children congregate in front of one of the Whitechapel common lodging-houses close to where Jack the Ripper murdered two of his victims

7. Illustration of Low Lodging House, St Giles, London, 1872

8. Wards of the Metropolitan Borough of Holborn, 1952. St Giles (including most of Lincoln's Inn) was sub-divided but retained its identity

9. In October 1888, London's Metropolitan Police Service estimated that there were 62 brothels and 1,200 women working as prostitutes in Whitechapel, with approximately 8,500 people residing in the 233 common lodging-houses within Whitechapel every night, with the nightly price for a single bed being fourpence[8] and the cost of sleeping upon a "lean-to" ("hang-over") rope stretched across the dormitory being two pence per person. The economic problems in Whitechapel were accompanied by a steady rise in social tensions. Between 1886 and 1889, frequent demonstrations led to police intervention and public unrest, such as Bloody Sunday (1887). Anti-semitism, crime, nativism, racism, social disturbance, and severe deprivation influenced public perceptions that Whitechapel was a notorious den of immorality. Such perceptions were strengthened in the autumn of 1888 when the series of vicious and grotesque murders attributed to "Jack the Ripper" received unprecedented coverage in the media. The large number of attacks against women in the East End during this time adds uncertainty to how many victims were murdered by the same individual.

10. The sites of the first seven Whitechapel murders – Osborn Street (centre right), George Yard (centre left), Hanbury Street (top), Buck's Row (far right), Berner Street (bottom right), Mitre Square (bottom left), and Dorset Street (middle left)

12. Eleven separate murders, stretching from 3 April 1888 to 13 February 1891, were included in a Metropolitan Police 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, 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 slash wounds to the throat, followed by extensive abdominal and genital-area mutilation, the removal of internal organs, and progressive facial mutilations as the distinctive features of 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 in Osborn Street, Whitechapel, at approximately 1:30 a.m. on 3 April 1888. She had been bludgeoned about the face and received a cut to her ear. A blunt object was also inserted into her vagina, rupturing her peritoneum. She developed peritonitis and died the following day at London Hospital. Smith stated that she had been attacked by two or three men, one of whom she described as a teenager. This attack was linked to the later murders by the press, but most authors attribute Smith's murder to general East End gang violence unrelated to the Ripper case.

14. The savagery of the Tabram murder, the lack of an obvious motive, and the closeness of the location and date to the later canonical Ripper murders led police to link this murder to those later committed by Jack the Ripper. However, this murder differs from the later canonical murders because although Tabram had been repeatedly stabbed, she had not suffered any slash wounds to her throat or abdomen. Many experts do not connect Tabram's murder with the later murders because of this difference in the wound pattern.The canonical five Ripper victims are Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly. The body of Mary Ann Nichols was discovered at about 3:40 a.m. on Friday 31 August 1888 in Buck's Row (now Durward Street), Whitechapel. Nichols had last been seen alive approximately one hour before the discovery of her body by a Mrs Emily Holland, with whom she had previously shared a bed at a common lodging-house in Thrawl Street, Spitalfields, walking in the direction of Whitechapel Road. Her throat was severed by two deep cuts, one of which completely severed all the tissue down to the vertebrae. Her vagina had been stabbed twice, and the lower part of her abdomen was partly ripped open by a deep, jagged wound, causing her bowels to protrude. Several other incisions inflicted to both sides of her abdomen had also been caused by the same knife; each of these wounds had been inflicted in a downward thrusting manner.

16. One week later, on Saturday 8 September 1888, the body of Annie Chapman was discovered at approximately 6 a.m. near the steps to the doorway of the back yard of 29 Hanbury Street, Spitalfields. As in the case of Nichols, the throat was severed by two deep cuts. Her abdomen had been cut entirely open, with a section of the flesh from her stomach being placed upon her left shoulder and another section of skin and flesh—plus her small intestines—being removed and placed above her right shoulder. Chapman's autopsy also revealed that her uterus and sections of her bladder and vagina had been removed. At the inquest into Chapman's murder, Elizabeth Long described having seen Chapman standing outside 29 Hanbury Street at about 5:30 a.m. in the company of a dark-haired man wearing a brown deer- stalker hat and dark overcoat, and of a "shabby-genteel" appearance. ccording to this eyewitness, the man had asked Chapman the question, "Will you?" to which Chapman had replied, "Yes." H A B U R Y S T R E E T 29 Hanbury Street Hanbury Street. . The door through which Annie Chapman Annie Chapman and her murderer walked to the yard where her body was discovered is beneath the numerals of the property sign

17. Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes were both killed in the early morning hours of Sunday 30 September 1888. Stride's body was discovered at approximately 1 a.m. in Dutfield's Yard, off Berner Street (now Henriques Street) in Whitechapel. The cause of death was a single clear-cut incision, measuring six inches across her neck which had severed her left carotid artery and her trachea before terminating beneath her right jaw. The absence of any further mutilations to her body has led to uncertainty as to whether Stride's murder was committed by the Ripper, or whether he was interrupted during the attack. Several witnesses later informed police they had seen Stride in the company of a man in or close to Berner Street on the evening of 29 September and in the early hours of 30 September, but each gave differing descriptions: some said that her companion was fair, others dark; some said that he was shabbily dressed, others well-dressed.

18. Catherine Eddowes (14 April 1842 – 30 September 1888) was the fourth of the canonical five victims of the notorious unidentified serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, who is believed to have killed and mutilated a minimum of five women in the Whitechapel and Spitalfields districts of London from late August to early November 1888. Eddowes was murdered in the early hours of Sunday 30 September within the City of London. She was the second woman killed within an hour; the night having already seen the murder of Elizabeth Stride within the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police. These two murders are commonly referred to as the "double event" a term which originates from the content of the "Saucy Jacky" postcard received at the Central News Agency on 1 October. Part of a left human kidney, accompanied by a letter addressed From Hell and postmarked 15 October, was later sent to the chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, George Lusk.

19. George Lusk, the man who received the "From Hell" letter, one of numerous letters claiming to be from the 1888 Whitechapel murderer, otherwise known as Jack the Ripper. George Akin Lusk (1839–1919) was a British builder and decorator who specialised in music hall restoration, and was the chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee during the Whitechapel murders, including the killings ascribed to Jack the Ripper, in 1888. Lusk was elected chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee by other members of the committee, all local businessmen, on 10 September 1888. His name was printed on the numerous posters pasted up around Whitechapel appealing for information during the murders. He and the committee's treasurer, Joseph Aarons, wrote a letter to The Daily Telegraph, addressed to the then-Home Secretary, Henry Matthews, stating that the offer of a substantial reward from the government would "convince the poor and humble residents of our East-end that the government authorities are as much anxious to avenge the blood of these unfortunate women as they were the assassination of Lord Cavendish and Mr Burke."

20. From Hell letter In October 1888 Lusk came to believe that his house was being watched by a sinister bearded man, and requested police protection. He received a small package in the evening mail at his home, 1 Alderney Road, Mile End. On opening the package he found a letter addressed to himself, inside which was half a human kidney. The letter read: "From hell From hell Mr Mr Lusk Lusk Sor Sor I send you half the I send you half the Kidne you tother you tother pirce pirce I fried and ate it was very I fried and ate it was very nise the bloody the bloody knif knif that took it out if you only that took it out if you only wate signed Catch me when signed Catch me when you Can you Can Mishter Mishter Lusk." Lusk." Kidne I took from one women I took from one women prasarved prasarved it for nise I may send you I may send you wate a a whil whil longer. it for longer.

21. This letter is referred to as the "From Hell letter" by Ripperologists. Convinced the letter was a practical joke, Lusk placed the box and the kidney in his desk drawer. At a meeting of the committee the next day he showed it to other members. Joseph Aarons, W Harris and two other members called Reeves and Lawton visited Lusk at home to inspect the letter and the kidney. Lusk wanted to throw both away, but he was persuaded to take them to Dr Frederick Wiles, who had a surgery nearby on the Mile End Road. Wiles was out, so his assistant, F S Reed examined the contents of the box and took the kidney to Dr. Thomas Horrocks Openshaw at the nearby London Hospital. The kidney was handed over to the City Police in whose jurisdiction Catherine Eddowes had been murdered. Lusk is also mentioned in the 17 September 1888 'Dear Boss' letter, but this letter is regarded by many Ripperologists as being a modern hoax, surreptitiously placed into archived records.

22. Jack The Ripper Walking Tour DESCRIPTION The History Travel back in time to Victorian London when Jack the Ripper roamed the streets of the capital. But who was he? In the early hours of 31st August 1888, a man was walking to work down a dark lane in Whitechapel when he found a shapeless bundle lying on the ground. He went to investigate and found Mary Ann Nichols, an East End prostitute murdered in the most gruesome way. This was the first of many killings, sparking one of the most famous man hunts in the world. Ripperologists and amateur sleuths are still trying to work out the true identity of the man they called Jack the Ripper! The Tour During this walking tour, you will follow the shadowy trail left by Jack the Ripper through East London’s Whitechapel in the Victorian era, coming across the places where the grisly murders took place. Start your spine-tingling tour outside Tower Hill London Underground Station, where you will be greeted by your guide. You will then venture to Aldgate High Street and Mitre Square where both Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes were murdered. The next stop is Goulston Street, where arguably the most vital clue to solving the case of Jack the Ripper was found! Ramble down Commercial Street before arriving at notorious Hanbury Street, where the body of a horrifically mutilated Annie Chapman was discovered. Play detective during this marvellously morbid walking tour and see some famous London sights too!

23. In an article written by the NY Daily News, Australian teacher Richard Patterson that English poet Francis Thompson (1859-1907) is the face behind the legendary killer who terrorized the streets of London in the late 1880s. Patterson has been conducting an extensive 20- year study that showed that Thompson is responsible for the killings of five London prostitutes in 1888 and others during a 10-week span. A sceptics way of looking at Patterson’s book “Jack the Ripper” is very much based on that last perspective, where in effect, the book is saying “as Thompson is not proved to be innocent of these Ripper murders, he is probably guilty”. Richard Patterson, 45, has concluded A not very rewarding book A not very rewarding book. The description of the facts of the murders is inadequate misleading. The life and times of Francis Thompson is not systematically described, so we do not get any coherent picture of him as a person. And the connections between Thompson and the Ripper murders is weak, to say the least. Not worth the effort to read it. Not worth the effort to read it. Read Donald complete Jack the Ripper“, to get the known facts, rather than more or less fantastic speculations. Laying out all the evidence in the most comprehensive summary ever written about the Ripper, this book, by a London police officer and crime authority, has subjected every theory—including those that have emerged in recent years—to the same deep scrutiny. The author also examines the mythology surrounding the case and provides some fascinating insights into the portrayal of the Ripper on stage and screen and on the printed page. More seriously, he also examines the horrifying parallel crimes of the Düsseldorf Ripper and the Yorkshire Ripper in an attempt to throw further light on the atrocities of Victorian London. facts of the murders is inadequate, and sometimes Read Donald Rumbelow’s Rumbelow’s “The

24. Donald Rumbelow (born 1940) is a British former City of London Police officer, crime historian, and ex-curator of the City of London Police's Crime Museum. He has twice been chairman of England's Crime Writers' Association. A recognised authority on the Whitechapel Murders, he currently acts as a London Tourist Board Blue Badged guide of the Jack the Ripper Walk, a walking tour in London visiting the locations associated with the crimes. He has appeared in several television documentaries examining the subject. In 2021, he contributed regularly to Railway Murders. His literary and lecturing work ranges over several centuries of London's crime history. Donald Rumbelow: The Complete Jack the Ripper, London: W.H. Allen, 1975 (reprinted as Jack the Ripper: The Complete Casebook). The Complete Jack the Ripper, fully revised and updated. 2004. Stewart P. Evans and Donald Rumbelow: Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates, Sutton Publishing, 2007

25. Francis Thompson (1859-1907) Francis Joseph Thompson (16 December 1859 – 13 November 1907) was an English poet and Catholic mystic. At the behest of his father, a doctor, he entered medical school at the age of 18, but at 26 left home to pursue his talent as a writer and poet. He spent three years on the streets of London, supporting himself with menial labour, becoming addicted to opium which he took to relieve a nervous problem. In 1888 Wilfrid and Alice Meynell read his poetry and took the opium- addicted and homeless writer into their home for a time, later publishing his first volume, Poems, in 1893. In 1897, he began writing prose, drawing inspiration from life in the countryside, Wales and Storrington. His health, always fragile, continued to deteriorate and he died of tuberculosis in 1907. By that time he had published three books of poetry, along with other works and essays.

26. Thompson was born in Winckley Street, Preston, Lancashire and baptized four days later in St Ignatius Church. His father, Charles, was a doctor who had converted to Roman Catholicism, following his brother Edward Healy Thompson, a friend of Cardinal Manning. Edward Healy, along with John Costall Thompson, Francis' uncles, were both authors. Francis had a brother who died in infancy, and three younger sisters. At the age of eleven, Thompson was sent to Ushaw College, a Catholic seminary near Durham. A frail, delicate and extremely shy boy, he was described by his school fellows in 1870 as 'mooney' or abstracted but happy enough. He could be recognised from afar along an 'ambulacrum' or corridor by his habit of sidling sheepishly along the wall with the collar of his coat turned up. Most of his leisure time was spent in the college library where he was fond of history and poetry books. It was noticed that despite the distractions in the library of catapult fights and general mayhem, he had the ability to shut himself off and continue to be absorbed in his reading. As he advanced up the college he became more skilled at writing and his friends remembered that out of twenty examination essays he obtained first place on sixteen occasions. Once he was punished with a beating for being the last boy to be ready for PE drill. He had no interest in Mathematics and, in his final exam, he came last. The only sport in which he developed an interest was Handball and it is said he achieved a standard above the average. He became a connoisseur of cricket though he rarely participated. In preparation for Ushaw College's centenary celebrations due to take place in 1908, Thompson, by then a celebrated poet, was approached to write a Jubilee Ode to mark the occasion. Thompson studied medicine for nearly eight years at Owens College, now the University of Manchester.

27. While excelling in essay writing, he took no interest in his medical studies; he had a passion for poetry and for watching cricket matches. He never practised as a doctor, and tried to enlist as a soldier but was rejected for his slightness of stature. Then in 1885 he fled, penniless, to London, where he tried to make a living as a writer, in the meantime taking odd jobs – working for a bootmaker (John McMaster of Panton Street) and booksellers, and selling matches. During this time, he became addicted to opium, which he had first taken as medicine for ill health, having experienced a nervous breakdown while still in Manchester. He lived on the streets of Charing Cross and slept by the River Thames, with the homeless and other addicts. He was turned down by Oxford University, not because he was unqualified, but because of his addiction. Thompson contemplated suicide in his nadir of despair, but was saved from completing the action through a vision which he believed to be that of a youthful poet Thomas Chatterton, who had committed suicide over a century earlier.[5] A prostitute, whose identity Thompson never revealed, befriended him and gave him lodgings. Thompson later described her in his poetry as his saviour. Thompson moved around frequently, subsequently living near Pantasaph, Flintshire, in Wales and at Storrington. A lifetime of poverty, ill-health, and opium addiction had taken their toll on him, even though he found success in his last years. Thompson died from tuberculosis at the age of 47, in the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth, and is buried in St. Mary's Roman Catholic Cemetery in Kensal Green. His tomb bears the last line from a poem he wrote for his godson, a Meynell: Look for me in the nurseries of Heaven.

28. The English poet Francis Thompson (1859-1907) is as a suspect for the Whitechapel murders of 1888. This was the knife murderer and mutilator, of five woman prostitutes, around the London parish of Spitalfields, in 1888. The killer was never caught but most people thought then that it was the work of a religious maniac who was avenging a class of women who had somehow offended him. The theory that Thompson is the Ripper was first proposed, in 1988, on the centenary of the murders. This was in an article titled, 'Was Francis Thompson Jack the Ripper?' that came out in the Criminologist. The writer was, forensic pathologist, Dr Joseph C Rupp, M.D., Ph.D. He was the Medical Examiner for Nueces County, Texas. In his article, Dr. Rupp wrote: 'Francis Thompson spent six years in medical school, in effect, he went through medical school three 'Francis Thompson spent six years in medical school, in effect, he went through medical school three times. If we look at Thompson's background, having lived on the streets for three years prior to this series times. If we look at Thompson's background, having lived on the streets for three years prior to this series of crimes, there is no doubt that he knew the back streets of London intimately and that his attire and of crimes, there is no doubt that he knew the back streets of London intimately and that his attire and condition as a derelict and drug addict would not arouse suspicion as he moved by day and night condition as a derelict and drug addict would not arouse suspicion as he moved by day and night through the East End of London.' through the East End of London.' Thompson was an ex-medical student, whose fame grew soon after the murders. In her 1988 biography of Thompson, Between Heaven & Charing Cross, Bridget Boardman described the curriculum and working conditions at Owens during Thompson's time as follows:Anatomy had always occupied a central place in training and the dissecting of cadavers was accompanied by far more practical experience in assisting at operations.

29. His enthusiasm for spending long hours with a scalpel at the college's mortuary led his sister Mary to observe 'Many a time he asked my father for 3 pounds or 4 pounds for dissecting fees so often that my father remarked what a number of corpses he was cutting up.' What did not interest Thompson was passing examinations and bringing his studies to an end. On the three occasions he was required to sit the final examinations he simply did not show up and as a consequence failed in his studies. Thompson lived in Spitalfields when the prostitutes were murdered. On the night that the 5th victim, Mary Kelly was killed, he could look from the room that had his bed, to the covered passage, that led to the room that had her bed. He lived at No. 50 Crispin Street, in the Providence Row night refuge. Supposedly, Kelly and Thompson stayed at the same address. It is even said that a fellow writer, Robert Thurston Hopkins, knew that Thompson, and Kelly were friends. Thompson kept a dissecting knife under his coat, and he was taught a rare surgical procedure that appears to mimic the mutilations found in more than one victim. Soon after the murders, he wrote about killing female prostitutes with knives. Soon before the murders, he wrote about seeking out women and killing them with a knife and disemboweling them. His alibi for being in Spitalfields, that he was distraught and seeking out a prostitute who had jilted him. Before 1888, he had already showed signs of religious mania, pyromania and the urge to mutilate females. He also had a history of trouble with the police, who he said were 'against him', all through his homeless years in London from 1885 until the end of 1888.