Jack The Ripper Thesis

“Jack the Ripper”, an alias given because someone sent and signed a letter in that name, is the infamous serial killer that harmed the streets of Whitechapel district in East End London during 1888. The Ripper murdered, from what is known, at least five prostitutes in an unusual medical manner that helped provide the police with a hint that the killer might have been educated in the human anatomy (Biography.com). The killer became and remained famous for numerous reasons, one of them being that the media romanticized him. Media transformed the Ripper from a “sad killer of women” into a “bogey man”, becoming “the most romantic figures in history” (Barbee). Jack the Ripper was never caught, letting him remain as one of the world’s most infamous

criminals. The police at the time, Metropolitan Police and the City of London Police, in England were experienced as patrol officers or as investigators. They have been known to have seen almost every type of crime since the streets of London were greatly populated. The Ripper caused a shift in the police system by compelling the police force to expand into new procedures and tactics for identifying offenders instead of merely picking out the obvious suspect (Jones).
Investigating the crime scene is one of the most important steps in beginning an investigation. The need for preserving the crime scene is an important aspect in a crime scene investigation but, it was only taken notice towards the end of the Ripper’s murder spree. The last crime scene, being Millers court, was guarded off from the public so that it would be possible for the police dogs to sniff around the area (Cozart). While, the dogs never arrived, it was a good excuse to keep the public out. Later on, a thorough search is conducted around the crime scene. Most of the time the search is conducted during the day, the reason being that light is needed to catch every aspect of the crime scene. The reason also being to make sure that nothing is missed. During these investigations, the person investigating looks around for anything that seems out of the ordinary and has the ability to be used during the crime. During the investigation of the murder of Polly Nichols’, Constable Neil searched the crime scene at night, in the dark, and stated that “he looked over the ground for the ‘mark of wheels’” (Cozart). Since, the investigation at the crime scene was done in the dark, the investigator could’ve easily missed important evidence. Inspector Spratling reexamined the crime scene during daylight but it was when “the blood had been washed off the street and hundreds of spectators had tramped through the crime scene” so there is no way that the police investigators would be able to find any valuable evidence (Cozart). Another time that evidence was corrupted was during the Goulston Street graffiti. Sir Charles Warren destroyed the graffiti against his fellow police’s advice because he was worried about the political consequences that would come from the writings on the wall. Documentation is also an important part of the police investigation but, it only played a role during the investigation of Millers Court. During the years of 1888, no one had more power than the coroner as to whether or not the crime scene was fully seen and checked. While it is known that all evidence should be stored in a secure place, this was not done during the Jack Ripper cases.
There comes a time during an investigation that the police will have to interview and question people.

All of the testimonies have to be written down and signed by the person that it was said by. Interviews do not have to be done “sit down” style, they can also be done on the field. During the investigation of “Jack the Ripper”, many people in the Whitechapel district were curious in the murders and took it into their own hands to investigate. Everyone was investigating the crime for information, “newspaper reporters, private detectives, vigilance committee members and hunters of fortune and glory” (Cozart). There were rumors all over the place, some being of sadistic looking men and mobs of scared people were chasing anyone down who didn’t look fitting. At night, officers were stationed near each other in case of emergency and were ordered to stop and question anyone seen after midnight. There is a theory made that Jack the Ripper might’ve been interviewed at one point and was just a very good liar that the police didn’t suspect him. The problem with all these interviews is that none of the police officers wrote down any of the interviews done during fieldwork so there was no way of comparing them later

on.
The medical analysis also known as the autopsy was a critical part of the Jack the Ripper investigation.

The doctors had to take it a step further and create a whole new trend and base conclusions on the murders according to the injuries on the victims. The coroners believed “the suspect was a male, left-handed, relatively large in physical size and strength and was well educated, with a background in medicine” (Cozart). While, this may have raised many questions, it changed the way police investigations were conducted during the medical analysis because instead of just coming to the conclusion that the victim was murdered, they now use the victim as a way to figure out characteristics of the murderer. During these times, and during this investigation, the Bertillon system was used. This system was based off the theory that a person’s body remained the same throughout their years of living. So when a suspect was arrested the police would measure their body so that they could use it as a reference for when they were coming to a conclusion. Suspect imaging also played a role during this investigation but it was not accurate. The police made an attempt to interview the public on trying to identify Jack the Ripper. Only two images were posted in the Illustrated Police News after certain evidence came to light. Most of the sketches made by artists were of what they believed the Ripper would look like which was a sinister and evil man. There were several people who have said to

have seen Jack the Ripper. Elizabeth Long said to have seen a man “talking with Annie Chapman outside 29 Hanbury Street” which was only half an hour before Chapman’s body was found. With that being said, the man that Elizabeth Long described was sketched out but was not posted in the newspaper, so there was no way of knowing if anyone else had seen the man described. The double murder event gave many chances for new information about how Jack the Ripper looks like. The people such as Joseph Levy, Constable William Smith, Israel Schwartz, Joseph Lawende, and Henry Harris all had the chance of providing characteristics of the man because he was seen with Elizabeth Stride and Catharine Eddowes. The two women who were killed on the same night. If a description were taken during the double murder event and the Chapman murder there might’ve been a chance to compare the sketches made, but since no sketch was taken during the double murder event there was no way of doing that. On November 9, George Hutchinson and Mary Ann Cox saw Mary Kelly, another victim, near Millers Court with a strange man. They followed Kelly and the man and had a close encounter with the man that it was possible to see his face and would’ve been able to give a description of him. But since there was nothing plausible to compare it to, it would not have done anything for the investigation to bring it forward.
Forensics and DNA helped the police investigation even though the Ripper was still never caught. Blood testing played a major role to the investigation but there was so much controversy over the amount of blood at each of the Ripper crime scenes that there is no one report on blood testing. When examining the Polly Nichols murder Constable Neil testified that “There was a pool of blood just where her neck was lying. The blood was running from the wound in her neck” but in the same article, Dr. Henry Lewellen stated that “There was very little blood round the neck. There were no marks of any struggle or of blood, as if the body had been dragged” (Stettler 47). This lead to theories being made that Nichols was murdered at another location and the body being placed where they found her. There was also the theory that all the blood at the location was Polly Nichols blood. But, it is known that when there is a knife attack, most times the attacker will also be cut due to not knowing how to handle the knife properly, so blood samples would have had to be taken from every scene and be tested for DNA analysis. But during these times, DNA testing was unheard of. Onto the defensive wounds made on the victims. It was believed by the police that the style of the Ripper’s killing seemed unlikely to leave any defensive wounds onto the victims. The victims were strangled to the point of being unconscious or dead and were then slashed which left the victims to not be able to fight back. The “Kidne” was one of the most important fragments of evidence to be brought out to light during the investigation. This piece of evidence was a human kidney delivered to George Lusk (DiGrazia). Dr. Openshaw was the doctor that examined the kidney and came to the conclusion that it was a kidney that was removed from a person who was a heavy drinker and suffered from Brights Disease. One of the victims, Eddowes, fit the description of the kidney, but so did many other people in London. The kidney was not able to be kept under preservation because not all police stations had the luxury of maintaining a refrigerator. This lead to the investigation not being able to be thorough in its police investigation.
The police of London that were taking care of the investigation had a lack of cooperation that was evident. The departments would constantly in a quarrel so that nothing would ever become accomplished. The time that Jack the Ripper attacked the Whitechapel region was during the years of when police techniques were just becoming improved. The technology at the time was also not as advanced as it is in today’s society. This lead to Jack the Ripper never being caught but he remained one of the most infamous criminals in history.