Jack the Ripper

She was found lying on her back at the entrance of a gated stable in Buck’s Row, Whitechapel London at around 3:40 in the morning on August 31, 1888, with her neck cut back to her spine. The car man who discovered her body, Charles Allan Cross, thought she was a discarded tarpaulin. Later, when she was carted to the Old Montague Street Mortuary, Inspector Spratling and Dr. Llewellyn found that her injuries, mostly done postmortem, were far worse. This was the sad ending of Mary Ann Nichols and many of the other murder victims of Jack the Ripper.

The man known as Jack the Ripper is the first modern serial murderer. He was never identified. He was never apprehended.

I got interested in the Jack the Ripper case when I was nine years old. I’ve always been drawn to mysteries especially mysteries that are about the darker side of human nature. One night in 1978, I tuned in one of my favorite television shows, In Search Of… hosted by Leonard Nimoy. The segment was about the Jack the Ripper crimes. I was spellbound. The same horror that struck me then is the same as now, who was he and why wasn’t captured?

The past dozen years I’ve been in the process of researching, writing and illustrating a series of graphic novels called, Altered, which are about the Jack the Ripper murders, to explore this unsolved serial murder case.

I have been very fortunate to be able to attend several Jack the Ripper conferences in London. I attended my first conference in 2013. It’s a fascinating meeting of like-minded people. Sleuths, amateur and professional, historians, detectives and unsolved mystery buffs like me are just some of the people that attend. We are sometimes taken to sites that are relevant to the case such as, the grave sites of some of the victims, pubs the victims haunted, murder sites and police stations where the Bobbies and detectives worked. One of the police stations I’ve visited, Bishopsgate Police Station, is where the victim, Catherine Eddowes, was last seen alive. This has been extremely helpful.

Every Jack the Ripper conference and visit to London, where I do most of my research, I learn more about the notorious unsolved Victorian case. I’ve learned that many of the modern forensic tools that are in use today were not available while Jack the Ripper was committing his murders. In October 1888, Thomas Bond, an English surgeon, was asked to examine evidence in the Nichols, Chapman, Stride and Eddowes murders, by the then Assistant-Commissioner of Scotland Yard, Robert Anderson. This was one of the first cases where offender profiling was applied. Modern criminal profiling, created by the F.B.I. Behavioral Analysis Unit, was created in 1972. Fingerprinting, discovered as a viable means of identification by Sir Frances Galton, would not become available until after 1892. The three main blood groups in humans were not discovered until 1900 by Karl Landsteiner. Genetic fingerprinting/DNA profiling, discovered by geneticist Sir Alec Jeffreys, was not used to help solved a murder case until 1986.

While there were plain clothed policemen and Bobbies dressed as women that walked the streets to try and trick the killer, the residents of Whitechapel joked that the Bobbies gave themselves away by wearing their regulation shoes. Bobbies were also directed to initially stay with the new found victims instead of chasing or apprehending suspects. The case of Frances Coles, who some attribute to Jack the Ripper, was found by Police Constable Ernest Thompson under the archway that lead from Swallow Gardens to Orman Street is an example of this procedure. While on his nighttime beat, PC Thompson heard a man’s footsteps walking away from him. When he looked in the adjacent archway he saw a body. It was the body of a young prostitute named Frances Coles. He stayed with Coles and blew his whistle to alert the neighboring beat policemen. One of the policemen felt a faint pulse, but Coles died moments later. None of the policemen walked the perimeter, until later, to see if there were suspects still around.

There were some modern techniques used to help solve the crimes. The Jack the Ripper murders are among some of the first serial murders to be photographed. Although Mary Kelly is the only victim to be photographed at the crime scene, all of the rest of the canonical five, the commonly agreed to be victims of Jack the Ripper, Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, and Catherine Eddowes were photographed in the mortuaries. Particularly sad is the way Eddowes body was photographed. Cameras in 1888 could not be hand held or tilted; Eddowes’ corpse was hung on the mortuary wall by a hook.

I don’t believe the murderer known as Jack the Ripper was any sort evil genius or mastermind murderer. I think he was a cunning, street smart, mentally disturbed man that lived in and knew the Whitechapel area well. He probably was acquainted with some if not all of his victims. I think towards the end of his criminal activities he was psychotic. He was never apprehended because he instinctively knew how to fit in with his surroundings, he chose victims that weren’t a high priority, his victims were poor, mostly homeless, addicted, prostitutes; the type of women most of Victorian society did not care about, and the Victorian era detectives, policemen and doctors did not have the modern forensic tools available today. If the serial murderer known as Jack the Ripper had committed the same crimes now, I believe he would have been caught. 

If you would like to view more of my illustrations found in my Altered series and photographs I’ve taken of the Jack the Ripper related Whitechapel London area, please see the link below. I don’t make a profit off of the Altered series. All profits generated by my Altered series sales are donated to the Whitechapel Mission. If you care to donate as well, the link is at the bottom of the page.

https://a-l-t-e-r-e-d.blogspot.com/

https://whitechapel.org.uk/