Jack the Ripper

Unknown serial killer Jack the Ripper operated in and around Whitechapel in London in 1888. Female prostitutes who lived and worked in the East End of London's slums were frequently the targets of attacks. The killings remained unsolved, and the stories that followed them evolved into a blend of historical fact, folklore, and pseudohistory. With 80,000 residents by 1888, the parish of Whitechapel in London's East End had outgrown its capacity. A sizable economic underclass emerged as living and working circumstances deteriorated.

Alcoholism, robbery, and other violent crimes were widespread, and the lack of resources led to many women turning to prostitution. It is generally accepted that Jack the Ripper was responsible for five of the eleven killings in Whitechapel. The assassinations of Emma Elizabeth Smith and Martha Tabram are not among the canonical five. On September 8, 1888, a body belonging to Annie Chapman was found in Buck's Row in Whitechapel. A single, clean cut six-inch incision across her neck was the cause of death.

Early on September 30, 1888, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes both perished. On September 30, 1888, Catherine Eddowes' body was discovered in Mitre Square. Her stomach was torn open, her throat was slashed, and then her intestines were hung over her right shoulder. It is unclear whether Stride's murder was carried out by the Ripper due to the lack of any more injuries to her body. The words "The Juwes are The Guys That Will not be Blamed for Nothing" were scrawled in graffiti on the wall above a piece of apron.

Police Commissioner Charles Warren ordered the writing to be removed before dawn out of concern that it might incite anti-Semitic violence. Documents that link these five killings together to the exclusion of others have historically led people to believe that the same person committed all five of them. According to some academics, while some of the murders were clearly the work of a single killer, others may have been the result of an undiscovered bigger group of killers acting independently. On July 17, 1889, in Whitechapel, just after midnight, Alice McKenzie was killed. In February 1891, Frances Coles was discovered under a railroad overpass with her neck slashed.

The dismembered, decapitated, and legless torso known as "The Pinchin Street torso" was found in September 1889. "Fairy Fay" was the moniker given to an unnamed woman whose body was purportedly discovered on December 26, 1887, in a doorway adjacent to Commercial Road. In 1888, Annie Millwood, a 38-year-old widow, was brought into the Whitechapel Workhouse Infirmary with several stab wounds to her lower body and legs. On March 28, 1888, she was attacked with a clasp knife at her Bow house. Annie Farmer, another potential victim, reported the assault on November 21, 1888.

Similar mutilations occurred in the Pinchin Street torso case, when the arms and legs were left intact. Whether the "Torso killer" and Jack the Ripper were the same killer or two different serial murders is up for debate. 80 people were detained, "upwards of 300" persons were probed, and more than 2,000 people were interviewed. Suspects were located, tracked down, and then either excluded from further investigation or given a closer look. After the killings of Stride and Eddowes, the City of London Police issued a £500 reward for the capture of Jack the Ripper.

The Whitechapel Murders were a series of killings of women in East End London. Thomas Bond, a police surgeon, established the first offender profile that is still in existence. Bond thought the murderer was a reclusive guy with "homicidal and erotic madness," with the nature of the mutilations possibly indicating "satyriasis." According to psychologists, the use of a knife to pierce the victims' skin and "putting them on display in sexually humiliating poses with the wounds visible" suggests that the attacker had sexual gratification from the assaults. Others believe the murderer was an intelligent man from the upper class, probably a doctor or an aristocrat.

Jack the Ripper's identity and line of work are still unclear. Numerous letters purport to be from the murderer, however the majority are either useless or hoaxes. George Lusk, the head of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, received the "From Hell" letter on October 16, 1888. As part of the package that contained the letter, Lusk found a little portion of a human kidney that had been preserved in "spirits of wine." The Ripper killings represent a significant turning point in how journalists cover crime.

Although Jack the Ripper wasn't the first serial killer, his case was the first to spark a media frenzy on a global scale. Daily newspaper sales peaked at nearly a million copies during the probe. As a moniker for the murderer, "Jack the Ripper" replaced "Leather Apron" in use by the press and populace. The term "Spring-heeled Jack" was already used to characterize another legendary London assailant. The killings of Jack the Ripper have given rise to a mythos that overshadows subsequent serial killers.

In London's east end, between 1888 and 18 April 1888, killings by Jack the Ripper took place. One of the true-crime cases that has received the greatest attention is this one. Numerous works of fiction and non-fiction, some of which blur the lines between reality and fiction, have been inspired by it.