During 1888, the inhabitants of the district of Whitechapel (London), lived in fear of a wave of crimes that devastated this working class neighborhood of the late nineteenth century .

Five prostitutes murdered between August, September and November, and a trail of clues led to the search for a tireless and elusive killer who outwitted the police and investigators of the time, who, even today, remains unidentified positively and definitively.

The Victims of Jack the Ripper

While it is true that five “official” victims of Jack the Ripper have been named over time, it should be mentioned that a total of thirteen have been attributed to him. All of them were prostitutes who sold their bodies to the sailors who came to East End (as the area where Whitechapel was located was known), in exchange for a few pennies that could provide them with a roof over their heads to sleep in some crummy boarding house, and if possible, a loaf of stale bread to put in their mouths, to avoid spending the nights sleeping outdoors or wandering the streets again, as had already happened to many.

Let’s see the names and dates of the deaths of the so-called “canonical victims”:

  • Mary Ann Nichols (better known as “Polly” Nichols): killed on August 31, approximately between 2 and 3:40 in the morning.
  • Annie Chapman : September 8, around 4:20 in the morning.
  • Elizabeth Stride : September 30, between 00:45 and 1:07 in the morning.
  • Catherine Eddowes : also on September 30, between 1:30 and 1:45 in the morning.
  • Mary Jane Kelly : November 9, between 2 and 3 in the morning.

Four of the bodies were found lying in the street, except for Mary Jane Kelly’s (the last of the five, which was in a small rented room facing the street). Their throats had been cut from left to right by a violent cut that in some cases reached the spine and had been made with some kind of very sharp scalpel or machete.

They had made incisions in the abdominal cavity of all of them, except Elizabeth Stride (the fourth murdered, who was bitingly nicknamed ” Lucky Liz” ), and had even scattered her intestines, liver and even her uterus.

The possible identities of the killer

Mary Jane Kelly suffered amputations all over her body: in addition to having her nose, ears, and breasts removed, Jack left behind a tattered patch of flesh that looked nothing like what was said to be the beautiful, candid young woman.

Due to the shelter provided by the place where his body was found against possible onlookers passing through the area, experts suggest that Jack was able to give free rein to his more sadistic and cruel impulses within those four walls, since the state in which the body was left had not been seen in any of the other prostitutes.

Some suspected Jack the Ripper

Some of the suspects who have opted for the title of “Jack the Ripper” are

Walter Kosminski

In favor : Several findings made in September 2014 attribute to this Polish Jew the authorship of the events. He was known to be a sex maniac who roamed the area. According to researcher Russell Edwards, a bloody shawl belonging to Catherine Edowes contained Kosminski’s mitochondrial DNA.

Opposite : The reasons why it could be ruled out as a suspect is that it is a shawl that does not seem to be typical of a woman who has an almost impoverished life, besides the fact that the evidence that this type of DNA can provide does not point to a single culprit.

Prince Albert Victor Edward

The Duke of Clarence or Eddy, grandson of Queen Victoria and future heir to the Crown.

In favour : In 1970, a certain Doctor Stowell told a writer of the time that forty years ago he contacted Caroline Acland, daughter of the Royal House’s personal physician, Sir William Gull (who is also considered one of the most plausible suspects). According to her statements, her father had found a number of scrolls and manuscripts which stated that the Prince had died in 1892 of venereal disease, specifically syphilis, not an epidemic of influenza as was officially reported. It was said that his lust and sexual depravity made him want to explore the lands of the macabre .

Opposite : Unfortunately for those who thought they had unmasked the murderer, it is known that the morning after one of the crimes, the heir was travelling in Scotland.

Sir William Gull and Freemasonry

This is the British Royal Family’s personal physician.

In favor : The Royal Conspiracy theory holds that Prince Edward was having an affair with a young prostitute named Annie Crook.

It was Walter Sickert (another suspect) who introduced them, without revealing Eddy’s identity to her. The two would end up getting married and having a daughter in secret. To try to cover up this scandal that would turn the Crown upside down and leave her heir in doubt, Queen Victoria had Annie locked up in a psychiatric hospital so that she could have a lobotomy and could not divulge anything that had happened. It was Gull himself who carried it out. The girl was left in the care of Mary Jane Kelly, a personal friend of the mother, who attempted a crude blackmail operation against the Crown along with her four friends. Therefore, Queen Victoria commissioned Mr. Gull (who was an active member of the Freemasonry) to eliminate them. Years ago, he suffered an embolism that left him sequels in the form of hallucinations.

As the proponents of this conjecture tell us, Gull was travelling in a horse-drawn carriage driven by a coachman who had to trick the unfortunate victims into coming up. Once inside the wagon, Gull did the rest. The second task of the coachman was the immediate escape from the place. Two other Masons (Inspectors Warren and Macnaghten) had the mission of covering up the identity of the doctor so that he could complete his mission and eliminate any evidence he might leave behind.

Opposite : In spite of the tempting evidence (some see signs of Masonic rituals in the murders, such as the fact that the slit throats were carried out from left to right), it seems that Sir William should be discarded as the man behind “Jack the Ripper”, since there was a lot of manipulation of evidence and dates, not to mention the inclusion and exclusion of characters in the events.

Walter Sickert

Famous Polish painter of Jewish origin.

In favour : According to Patricia Cornwell’s book ” Portrait of a murderer: Jack the Ripper. Case closed “, we come to the conclusion that this man is the one and only Whitechapel killer . A difficult childhood due to the almost total amputation of his virile member by a malformation that made the sexual act impossible, samples of DNA found in the defiant letters received by the newspapers and the police station of Scotland Yard, together with clues about the scenes of the crimes found in his paintings and that only the investigators knew about, are some of the arguments of those who are in favor of his guilt.

Against : Those who question it allude to the low specificity of the mitochondrial DNA as irrefutable evidence, besides doubting the criterion of those who see evidence of the murders in Sickert’s paintings.

Towards an Outline of the Psychology of Jack the Ripper

The famous ex-FBI agent and criminologist Robert K. Ressler , speaks in his book ” Serial Killers ” (2005) of the disorganized type of killers:

” A disorganized crime scene reflects the confusion that reigns in the mind of the murderer and presents features of spontaneity and some symbolic elements that reflect his delusions. If the body is found (…), he will probably have terrible wounds. (…) The scene of the crime is also the scene of the death, because the offender does not possess sufficient mental clarity to move or hide the body “. (p.127-128)

This corresponds almost entirely to the profile of Jack , whoever he was, since none of the scenarios he left behind suggest a pattern of organization (beyond the victimology or the instruments used).

Social origin

In his other book, ” Inside the Monster: An Attempt to Understand Serial Killers ” (2010), he mentions that the fear this killer caused in his time is due to the fact that he was one of the first to choose unknown victims, with whom he apparently had no emotional or family ties. At the time, “(…) the emotional components of violence within the family were understandable, and he suggested that the investigations of this case led to erroneous conclusions because of this inability to understand violence against strangers. After a personal visit to the scene, he ruled that the police were wrong to look for ‘upper class individuals’. According to his investigations, it was someone from the same social class as the prostitutes , due to the places frequented by them and the circumstances surrounding the crimes. If it had been someone of high status, their presence in the area would not have gone unnoticed by the neighbors.

He was a “disorganized killer”

In the same way as in his previous publication, he argues that “Jack the Ripper” was a disorganized killer, due to the crescendo in the violence with which he committed his deaths. If he had reached the zenith of his mental disturbance, he would surely have been unable to continue committing such acts, thus “ending up committing suicide or being locked up in an asylum”. In either case, he would have disappeared from society.

Finally, it adds the sexual component in the murders, despite the absence of intercourse pre or postmortem . As he wrote, “(…) the knife attack on the body replaced the attack by the penis”. The same author coined the term “regressive necrophilia” to refer to this “practice of resorting to such penile substitutes”.

He continues: “In most serial killings, the weapon of choice has been the knife, followed by the method of strangulation and, thirdly, asphyxiation. Serial killers do not usually use guns, as they kill from a distance and they seek the personal satisfaction of killing with their bare hands. (p. 79).

Another evidence in favour of a sexual component is the removal of the uterus that was found in some of the bodies. Mary Jane Kelly also had both her breasts removed, on one of which she placed her ears and nose, as a grotesque decoration.

Jack the Ripper in popular culture

After 127 years, the case of “Jack the Ripper” continues to generate press . This infamous murderer has become an icon of popular culture and his crimes have given rise to many novels and films in which various hypotheses are put forward.

For better or for worse, this character continues to be talked about today, and we are sure that in the future new evidence will emerge that will reinforce the hypotheses described here or that will make known other possible culprits of these massacres.

Bibliographic references:

  • Amat, K. (2014) Jack, the inexhaustible Ripper. Retrieved 11/05/2014, from http://www.lavanguardia.com/cultura/20141105/54418…
  • Cronwell, P. (2002) Portrait of a murderer: Jack the Ripper, case closed. Madrid: Brosmac.
  • Ressler, Robert K. and Shachtman, T., (2005) Serial Killers. Barcelona: Alba Editorial Ariel.
  • Ressler, Robert K. and Shachtman, T., (2010) Inside the Monster: An Attempt to Understand Serial Killers Barcelona: Alba Editorial.