Twelve decades have passed since the killings by Jack the Ripper, and the culprit still hasn’t been found, making it one of the greatest mysteries in history. Only a year before The Ripper’s first strike, there were no records of murder in Whitechapel district. However, The Ripper got his name from the way he mutilated five prostitutes from August 31st to November 9th, 1888, each of them in or within a mile of Whitechapel. The district had the highest percentage of poverty at the time, a shocking 47%. There were approximately 1200 prostitutes in the area while the killings were going on. Montague John Druitt, Michael Ostrog, and James Maybrick are three of the main suspects for who could have been Jack the Ripper. Over 120 suspects have been
He was placed the police report written by Melville Macnaghten in the top three list along with false information about his knowledge of anatomy. Druitt was both a school teacher and a barrister who lived close enough to the east end to walk there and had a cousin with a doctor’s office there. Another main reason he was suspected was because his body was found in the River Thames that December after both his friends and the police suspected him of being The Ripper (Rubinstein 3). Those who found him also found a suicide note with a confession that hasn’t been released (Cohen 95). The Ripper Killings ended on the 9th of November, and Montagues time of death fits well with Macnaghten’s theory that Jack the Ripper ceased his killings because of his own death (Clark 6). Druitt being on Macnaghten’s list led to him being a main suspect forever, but most of the evidence on him has no direct
Though many have been named, only a few have good cases. However, Michael Ostrog fits the bill well. He was a certified physician and was known to be insane. Along with Druitt, he was also placed on the top three list. In late November of 1888, he received his final, but not first, jail sentence (Cohen 6). Another suspect who wasn’t listed by Macnaghten, James Maybrick, wasn’t considered until a very detailed 63 page diary turned up, signed “Jack the Ripper.” He was poisoned by his wife in 1889, but before he died, he told her that he was indeed The Ripper. His wife says that the tales were simply meant to scare her, but there were details Maybrick mentioned that none other than The Ripper would know; each of them checking out as true. The most exclusive detail being that there would be no more killings, and there weren’t. On October 9th, 1888, a newspaper in Liverpool was released stating that the next attack would be in Dublin. This message was quickly refuted saying it was a hoax and that Jack would be in New York at the time. This message was signed Jack the Ripper Diego Laurenz. In Spanish, Diego means James and the name Laurenz might have been used because it sounds similar to Flauence, the name of Maybrick’s wife (Rubinstein 5-8). The many suspects named only make it harder for ripperologists, but the tale lives through them. With new technology and information being released,
Sherlock Holmes was not accountable for the demise or killing of Dr. Grimsby Roylott. The story “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” was written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Dr. Roylott had intimidated Sherlock Holmes after his daughter, Helen Stoner, had gone to Holmes about a whistle she heard. Helen Stoner appointed Holmes and Watson to assist her from mysterious happenings. Sherlock Holmes could not have anticipated that Dr. Roylott was sitting in a chair in which the ventilator was right on top of the chair. Even though Dr. Roylott used to be a generous, polite man, he was now an ignoble and arrogant man.
Judith R. Walkowitz is a Professor Emeritus at John Hopkins University, specializing in modern British history and women’s history. In her book City of Dreadful Delight, she explores nineteenth century England’s development of sexual politics and danger by examining the hype of Jack the Ripper and other tales of sensational nature. By investigating social and cultural history she reveals the complexity of sexuality, and its influence on the public sphere and vice versa. Victorian London had upheld traditional notions of class and gender, that is until they were challenged by forces of different institutions.
Investigating Why the Police Were Unable to Catch Jack the Ripper I believe the most important reason why Jack the Ripper was so hard to catch was because of the lack of evidence. In those days they did not have as advanced technology as we have today for instance, we have forensics where we can tell from a strand of hair who that hair belongs to. In those days they were only just learning the significance of footprints to catching a villain. Another part to this is that Jack the Ripper was so random towards who he killed the police could not find a link between the murders except that they were all prostitutes, which did not really help, although prostitute murders were not terribly uncommon. The press coverage to the case didn’t help much as they had forced the police to investigate ‘Leather Apron’ and this wasted a significant amount of the police time which, if spent properly, may have allowed them to uncover more information needed to catch the Ripper.
How the Police Tried to Catch Jack the Ripper In the 1880s, the police were very different from the police of today. Their main propose was crime prevention and their methods their methods were very primitive Source F is a police leaflet, which was published after the murders of Elizabeth Stride and Kate Eddowes; it was written to aid the police in their investigation it was also written in a factual tone, it suggests that the police were appealing for any information regarding suspicious characters. Because of the timing of this leaflet shows the desperation faced by the police but for because of the many defects reasons the leaflet was not successful: The first being that they did not offer any description of the murderer at all, 'person to whom suspicion was attached'. The second being that they still assumed that the person was living in Whitechapel, when there was a large amount of evidence suggested that the murderer wasn't from Whitechapel (the fact that the murders were all done on the weekends or on Friday nights, which suggests that he had a job and came into Whitechapel to murder).
Critics pose interesting views concerning the identity and significance of the mysterious third murderer. Henry Irving provides an adamant argument as to how the Attendant could be the third murderer. Irving uses multiple cases in the story where, when interpreted a certain way, one can see how the Attendant is a prime suspect. This man's knowledge of and comfort with the structure and surroundings of the castle shows that he would be a valuable asset to the murderers.
Although the true identity of Jack the Ripper has never been identified, experts have investigated Prince Albert Victor, Thomas Neill Cream, and Montague John Druitt as prime suspects. Based on facts and information given, the researcher found evidence that Jack the Ripper was Montague John Druitt. Druitt’s family, appearance, and suicide support the researcher’s claim. Ultimately, the obsession with the Jack the Ripper case will never perish.
Mary Ann “Polly'; Nichols, aged 42, was the first of the Ripper victims, according to dedicated Ripperologists. Her body was found on Buck’s Row by a patrolling constable at 3:15 a.m. on August 31st 1888. The ripper had slashed her throat twice, and her abdomen had been savagely cut exposing the intestines. Her vaginal area had also been mutilated. The woman approximately five feet two inches tall with brown graying hair, brown eyes, and several missing teeth. Mary Ann Nichols had a drinking problem and spent most of her life making her earnings as a prostitute. She was a sad, destitute woman, but one that most people liked and pitied.
Jack The Ripper 1. From looking at the newspaper article on source A, I can determine the following information regarding the murder of Polly Nichols. Firstly, I can ascertain that it was the second of the Whitechapel murders. I can draw this conclusion from the first few words 'the two murders which have so startled London'.
As the killer was never truly found, the investigation turned into a historical research. It was so prominent that the research of Jack the Ripper became known as Ripperology. So whether the world will ever know the true identity of the killer of all killers, it will always be in study.
The suspect that I think is responsible for the Whitechapel murders is James Maybrick. I think he is responsible because he was already killing women who were having sexual activity. So he thought that he should kill the whitechapel girls too because that's where most prostitutes were. In the text, The Whitechapel/ Jack the Ripper Murders by John W. Kominsky, it expresses,” In the diary, the author makes the claim that he had seen his wife - whom calls “the b****,” or “the wh****” in the pages of the diary - with her unnamed lover in the Whitechapel district of Liverpool. The rage and anger that he experienced following this sighting sent him on a murderous rampage in the Whitechapel district of London in the course of which he mutilated and killed five prostitutes.” Therefore, Maybrick started murdering prostitutes because the rage and anger that he felt.
Jack The Ripper Jack the Ripper, as he was rightly called, was an infamous murderer in London, England in 1888, almost one hundred years ago. Jack the Ripper is by no stretch of the imagination the first serial killer ever, but the first to do so in a largely populated area, although it seemed he had no malice for other people. Although the number of kills under the belt of Jack the Ripper is unofficial, it is estimated to be around four to seven women, all prostitutes within the area. He also had no accomplice’s or accessories to the crime. Another fact was that Jack the Ripper escaped scott-free, with no charges.
Attention Getter: Jeffrey Dahmer, The Zodiac Killer, Donald Henry Gaskins, Tsutomu Miyazaki, Ted Bundy, Jack the Ripper, Amelia Dyer, Jane Toppan, these are the names of some of the most notorious serial killers the world has ever come to see, and there are many more where that came from.
The town of Halifax in West Yorkshire had never experienced such a manhunt in it’s history (Glover 3). During a short, but long lasting in feeling, time period in late November through early December in the year 1938, the town of Halifax underwent a period of mass hysteria. A mysterious “slasher” hid in the shadows and lunged out with a razor blade at people who passed by (Halifax Slasher).
Helen Jewett, a prominent New York prostitute, was murdered and not only was this rare but a heinous crime. Helen’s murder brought to the forefront the industry of prostitution. This would include the owners, managers, and the clients.
...lass and sexuality by including papers like Stead's which brought middle-class readers in touch with the events of working-class London and provided workers with middle-class representations of themselves. City of Dreadful Delight is an assortment of cross-cultural contact and negotiation between class and sexuality in Victorian era London. Walkowitz's analysis emphasizes distinct “classes,” and the impact of events on each group. Through close social and cultural analysis of the explosion of discourses proceeding and surrounding Jack the Ripper, Walkowitz has demonstrated the historical importance of narratives of sexual danger particularly in the lens of sexuality and class. She explicitly demonstrated the conflicted nature of these discourses, outright showing the women marginalized by male discursive dominance, whose struggles continue to even generations later.