The Jack the Ripper Case and Why it Caused the Media Frenzy that it did.

Jack the Ripper is to date one of the world’s most prolific serial killers. He was active in London before the term “serial killer” came into existence, which makes him one of the earliest serial killers to have existed. His modus operandi, while not unique in this day and age, gave the media at the time a lot to write about.

He targeted prostitutes in the impoverished Whitechapel district. The authorities at the time believed him to be responsible for the murder of at least five women, mutilating their bodies and faces to an unrecognizable extent. The immense attention the case got created a shift in criminal profiling as well as forensic investigations (Hayes, R. 2015). The media coverage regarding these cases also created a shift in journalism that would carry on to this day in the 21st century: creating a celebrity out of a murderer (Hayes, R. 2015; pg1).

Newspaper sales soared with headlines mentioning the Ripper, calling him a genius surgeon when all he did was mutilate his victims without any actual knowledge of medicine and the human body. Unfortunately, the media did not seem to want to be associated much with the sad and horrific deaths of the murdered women. This was because they were from questionable backgrounds, meaning the women were engaged in the sex trade, which has long been the source of moral outrage in various societies and in the case of the ripper may have affected the way the public perceived them (deserving victims, etc.).

The language used in the papers to describe the cases and the brutality of his murders set the Ripper aside from any other criminal happenings of the time (Hayes, R. 2015; pg1); “The corpse was a mere trunk, both head and limbs having been severed… (THE LONDON TRAGEDIES, Aberdeen Journals. 1888).” Also, since the phenomenon of serial killing was unknown at the time, questions about why the ripper killed plagued the public enough that various newspapers at the time took advantage of it and pushed forward absurd theories; “…the crimes were being committed for the purpose of supplying an American physiologist with uteruses (THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS, Aberdeen Journals. 1888).” Unidentified to this day, the Ripper remains one of the most popular icons of criminal media and pop culture.

Serial killing has become a business of sorts that over time gave rise to a huge consumer market (Jarvis, B. 2007; pg326). Media coverage on serial murderers is something that was made prominent in the West. Using killers as subjects of entertainment as anti-heroes in films and television was popularized in the West with cult classics like Silence of the Lambs, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Dexter, American Psycho, and many more. Throughout the last fifteen years, pop culture has been overflowing with true-life crime stories/documentaries, memoires, best-selling works of fiction, violent video games and television biographies (Jarvis, B. 2007; pg326).

The Jack the Ripper or Whitechapel Murders as called initially in the papers at the time, quite literally created a moral panic among Londoners.

The public were at a loss as to how to deal with their unsafe streets and the police provided no relief regarding their investigation and any possible answers since managing to identify the victims was quite a feat in and of itself because of the state of their bodies.

Due to the ensuing moral panic, the public took matters into their own hands more than once; “…a man, whose name was subsequently ascertained to be John Lock was rescued by the police from an excited crowd…who were following him and shouting ‘leather apron’ and ‘Jack the Ripper’…his explanation was perfectly satisfactory, but it was some considerable time before the crowd dispersed… (THE LONDON TRAGEDIES, Aberdeen Journals. 1888).” This is just one such example of the Ripper murders inspiring a moral panic among the people.

While conducting research on Jack the Ripper, the media concept of moral panic was a repetitive entity in almost all of the newspaper articles regarding the murderer; “We have a murdering monomaniac, who murders only loose women, and those of the poorer grade, who continues his deadly operations to Whitechapel and its environs, who savagely mutilates as well as slays, who, further, is not apparently actuated by fanatism (THE LONDON TRAGEDIES, Aberdeen Journals. 1888).” These words came from Mr. Archibald Forbes, a Scottish war correspondent which is why his words clearly held weight with the public. It’s language like this used to describe the ripper that contributed to the fact that there was an obvious fear associated with the Whitechapel Murderer.

The notion that he was not getting caught only served to add more to that which the public already feared, a lack of safety in their neighbourhood/area. In consideration of the public’s views on the matter of safety and their own constant failure in catching the criminal responsible, the police often sped up the arresting process by arresting the wrong man multiple times only to eventually release them and further push the public into disarray; “During Sunday night and yesterday no fewer than five men were arrested in the East-End of London in connection with the murders (THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS, Aberdeen Journals. 1888).” All of these men were eventually let go.

Also, because the concept of withholding information from the public did not exactly exist at the time, the newspapers printed everything word for word about the progress of the investigation, including the various letters the police received that were apparently written and sent by the Ripper himself; “…Keep this letter till I do a bit more work. Then give it out straight. My knife’s so good and sharp, I want to get a chance. Yours truly, Jack Ripper (THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS, Aberdeen Journals. 1888).” Although this letter was treated as a hoax, the next murders were committed shortly after its receival. This goes to show that the papers were directly responsible for inciting a moral panic within the Londoners due to the language they portrayed the Ripper and his murders with as well as the fact that they reported sensitive information regarding the happenings of the case without restraint.

A study that represents serial killers in the U.S. film industry by Epstein (1995) discovered that killers were often portrayed as monsters, with almost all of them shown to have superior powers and/or superhuman abilities, portraying them as evil and demonic, and even linking them to mythological monsters like vampires.

According to Vronsky (2004, 2007) this monster like image started to become more and more widespread in the media after the Ripper’s murders that took place in London (Wiest, J. 2016; pg329). This goes to show why the Ripper murders are such a significant part of serial killer history, because they sparked fear among the public for the first time regarding an individual murdering without a motive, with the primal instinct of satiating a need for bloodshed and control over another human life.

The press on the Jack the Ripper murders was on the whole unnecessarily sensationalized by the predatory language used in the papers; “In fact, it is generally conjectured that the assassin was disturbed while at his ghastly work, and made off before he had completed his designs (THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERER STILL AT WORK, Bristol Mercury. 1888).” This quote highlights just how sensationalized the Ripper was as the paper talks about how the Whitechapel Murderer was still at large and this time he was interrupted while in the processes of mangling the body similar to his previous victims. Addressing the brutality as a design is just number one on a scale of one to ten as far as the papers in the 19th century were concerned.

Even if not intentional, it could be argued that the name given to the murderer Jack the Ripper is the most sensational thing about him seeing as how it has not died even in the 21st century and still remains one of the most talked about serial killers in history.

It would not be a leap to say that there is no other serial killer in the world that has been sensationalized as much as Jack the Ripper.

In 1888 during the happenings of the crime, because the crime was so widely publicized the public saw themselves taking part in the process of trying to capture the murderer by listening to rumors and spreading false stories to the police; “During the day all sorts of stories were brought to the police, with the object of showing more or less effective ‘clues’ to the perpetrators of the murders (THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS, Aberdeen Journals. 1888).”

The papers also sensationalized him by saying things like; “Dr. Philips has stated that the injuries inflicted upon these women have been apparently performed by a person possessing some anatomical knowledge. That is likely enough, but would not a butcher be quite capable of threating the body in this way (THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS, Aberdeen Journals. 1888)?” While this is clearly a quote that says the Ripper does not need anatomical knowledge to mangle his victims bodies like he does, statements like these only highlight the mentioning of the murderer having anatomical knowledge as confirmed by a doctor (Dr. Phil). Hence, it didn’t take long for people to start assuming that Jack the Ripper was a genius surgeon.

Therefore, it is little things like a small quote here, a confirmation there, and the way the papers framed their writing and language that contributed to the sensationalism of the Ripper as well as the fact that he is one of the earliest serial killers to ever be recorded in history.

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References:

Hayes, R. (2015). Serial obsession: Analyzing media fixation on Jack the Ripper. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.

Jarvis, B. (2007). Monsters Inc.: Serial killers and consumer culture. Crime, Media, Culture, 3(3), 326–344. https://doi.org/10.1177/1741659007082469

THE LONDON TRAGEDIES. (1888, October 4). Aberdeen Journal. https://link-gale-com.libproxy.wlu.ca/apps/doc/BA3205583218/BNCN?u=wate18005&sid=BNCN&xid=d49084f8

THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERER STILL AT WORK. (1888, October 6). Bristol Mercury. https://link-gale-com.libproxy.wlu.ca/apps/doc/BB3206834446/BNCN?u=wate18005&sid=BNCN&xid=31aa104f

THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS. (1888, October 2). Aberdeen Journal. https://link-gale-com.libproxy.wlu.ca/apps/doc/BA3205583167/BNCN?u=wate18005&sid=BNCN&xid=b9090d16

Wiest, J. (2016). Casting Cultural Monsters: Representations of Serial Killers in U.S. and U.K. News Media. The Howard Journal of Communications, 27(4), 327–346. https://doi.org/10.1080/10646175.2016.1202876