I don’t recommend eating and reading this at the same time…
Jack the Ripper and Victorian England
The Whitechapel district in London, among with other slums, was filled with poor, dirty people; the streets were narrow, they stank, and also were a huge maze of taverns and brothels. More then 50% of the children died before their 5th birthday, there was barely any food to eat, and they were often crowded in small rooms with their five or six siblings. In these hopeless circumstances, most women had no chances but to become prostitutes, in case they wanted to avoid starvation. These innocent women, working degrading work just to stay alive, somehow got a mysterious person’s not so honorable attention. This person was the legendary Jack the Ripper.
In a black, silent night, in August 1888, the 42-year-old Mary Ann Nichols, best known as “Polly”, walked home alone from… well… her workplace. She suddenly heard steps behind her. He probably started to run, but it was too late. While she was dying, her killer literally dissected her alive with his 25 cm long (quite huge…) knife, the same knife which he has severed her neck two times with previously. Eight days later, the 47-year-old ‘Dark’ Annie Chapman was killed by the same way. After the discovery of the two bodies, the people started to panic. They also started to mention two other cases, the murders of two streetwalkers; Emma Elisabeth Smith and Martha Tabram. (Though they were only stabbed, not killed ritually, like these two women. The authority strengthened the protection of the area. There were lots of volunteers to the militia; everybody wanted to find the killer and forget about the whole thing.
The investigation wasn’t successful. The police was desperate and started to suspect innocent people, such as surgeons and butchers. (They thought Jack might be a surgeon because of his perfect technique of dissection and the knowledge of the human anatomy.) The killer knew the police was unsuccesful, and so he (or somebody claiming to be him) wrote a derisive letter to the Central News Agency. The letter’s name is the ‘Dear Boss’-letter. He said he wanted to write it with the blood of his victims, but ‘it went thick like glue and he couldn’t use it’. His ‘trade name’ (he used this expression), Jack the Ripper first appeared in the signing of this letter. He promised to continue the murders unless the police catches him. He also promised to send them the ears of his next victim.
In the 30th of September, early in the morning, Elizabeth Stride’s body was found in an alley. She held grapes in the one, and chocolate in the other hand, the killer probably tempted her with these rare foods. But there was something different with this case. Jack the Ripper was interrupted during the attack; he did kill the prostitute, but with only one section, and after that, he didn’t cut her abdomen. Later that day, another prostitute’s, Catherine Eddowes’ body was found dead. Her stomach was ripped, and some of her organs were removed. These two cases were later called the ‘double event’.
One day later, the Scotland Yard got the second letter from Jack the Ripper. He said he was sorry for not sending the ears of the woman, but he was interrupted during the murder. Instead, he sent a part of the second lady’s kidney...
Two weeks later, he sent his last letter (entitled ‘From Hell’) to the Whitechapel police, with a small box, including one half of Eddowes’ kidney, saying he fried ate the other half…
In the November of 1888, the last and oddest murder happened. The victim was a young, 25-year-old girl, called Mary Jane Kelly. (Jack only killed middle-aged women before.) Her body was found in her own bedroom. (Jack only killed on the streets before.) The body was gruesomely mutilated; each of her missing organs were lying all over the room. Each, except her heart.
This case was the last one officially attached to Jack the Ripper.
Jack the Ripper has been never caught.
The police said he jumped in the River Thames and died, but this was probably a lie to calm people down. (However, an insane man did commit suicide in the river that week…)
A small piece of interesting fact as an ending: the places of the crimes formed a cross on the map. Nobody found out the exact reason, he probably did it just for fun… O.o
(My sources were mainly www.sorozatgyilkosok.hu, the 2001 movie entitled ‘From Hell’, and a bit of Wikipedia…)
written by: Réka
