Jack the Ripper - Contemporary Profile - 117 years overdue
Published on 10 March 2005 | Author BERRY-DEE, Christopher.
Jack the Ripper (UK)
A Contemporary Offender Profile by Christopher Berry-Dee and a book review on a most unusual, yet masterpiece of pensmanship in the genre.
Chris Berry-Dee. Co-publisher and Editor TNC. (©2005 New Criminologist)
No. (1) in a four-part series on Mystery Jack.
The name needs no introduction, but strange is it not that more television films and motion pictures have been produced, over thirty books written, and even more articles have been published about Jack than any other criminal who has lived on this planet.
However, the fact of the matter is that we don't know how old he was, where he lived, what he did for employment, whether he was married with children, or what nationality he belonged to.
Moreover, despite mountains of theory and speculation, no single investigator in the last century has been able to establish the true identity of the Whitechapel Murderer, as he was originally called, or exactly how many women he killed. Yet, there was something about that gas-lit era of Victorian London, with Jack stalking the foggy alleys and courts with his razor-sharp knives that sends shivers through us all and we have made this human predator and homicidal maniac into something of celebrity. It seems that we enjoy watching the movies and reading about Jack. In a perverse sort of way, we have come to like the guy, and we can afford to because he is dead and in his grave, well, he ought to be because he died around 90 years ago. So, Jack the Ripper is, therefore, probably the best-known, yet anonymous serial murderer of the last one hundred years and here we might pause for a moment to reflect on this man and his crimes for he is the archetypal serial killer whose antisocial behaviour sets the scene for all that is to follow.
The few square miles of East London, notably the Borough of Stepney, in that era of Victorian human blight, was a sprawling slum inhabitated by about 900,00 people, all of whom were virtual outcasts living in conditions of extreme depravity and filth.
The American novelist, Jack London, described London as a "social abyss, where men live worse than beasts, and have less to eat and wear to protect them from the elements than savages. The whole place contained the flotsam of humanity", he penned by candlelight. And, he was right for fifty-five per cent of East End children died before they were five-years-old. Each squalid room in each rotting house was occupied by between five and seven men, women and children who often shared their lodgings with their animals including swine. Some 15,000 people were homeless, another 130,000 lived in workhouses. The dank streets, alleyways, courts and backyards were prowled by countless prostitutes, pickpockets, sneak-thieves, beggars, cheats, swindlers, and every conceivable form of trickery and sharp practice existed. Some 80,000 people lived in the Stepney parish of Whitechapel alone, with around 8,500 crammed into 233 lodging-houses every night, paying as much as 4 pennies for a flea-ridden bed.
Whitechapel was infested with about 80,000 artisans, labourers and derelicts, of whom "the better-of-the-poor", writes Gordon Honeycombe in his book: 'The Murders of the Black Museum', "as opposed to the very poor - earned about £1 a week". The more menial tasks yielded a shilling a day, women being paid less than men. People lived by earning or stealing what they could to eat and stay alive. They scraped a meagre existence in accordance with the sharpness of their wits.
Drunkenness and prostitution were rampant. The hookers - who usually looked some 15 to 20 years older than they were - would have sex for sixpence, and they would accept a penny if it was nearing 3 a.m., and that was all her client had in his pocket. The Metropolitan Police estimated that in October 1888, about 1,200 of the lowest sort of prostitutes plied their trade in the dingy Whitechapel streets and, as a consequence, women were assaulted and injured every night. Some were even killed.
Police discover a Jack The Ripper victim. (©Contemporary)
Mary Ann Nicols: aka 'Pretty Polly'
It is thought that the world's most infamous serial killer whodunit in criminal history began on Friday, 31 August 1888. At 3.45 a.m., one Charles Cross, a carter from Bethnal Green, wandered into Buck's Row, which was a narrow street behind today's Whitechapel tube station, on his way to work. In the dim light afforded by a distant street lamp, he saw what he thought was a tarpaulin crumpled on the pavement on the other side of the road. As he crossed towards it he realised that it was the body of woman who was lying on her back. Her skirt was rucked up above her knees, and her eyes were wide open. At this moment, a market trader called John Paul, approached the scene. He took one look at the corpse and said derisively "She's dead drunk. Let's get her on her feet". Both men then bent down to lift the woman before recoiling in horror when they saw blood oozing from her throat. Then realising that the body was still warm they ran off to fetch a constable. However, no sooner had they vacated Bucks Row than PC John Neil entered from another direction.
Five foot two inches tall, Mary Ann Nicols was also known as 'Pretty Polly amongst her prostitute friends and clients. She was born on 26 August 1845, and when she was 18 she married a printer. The couple had five children, but their marriage was punctuated by a series of acrimonious separations caused by Polly's heavy drinking. Records show that she spent the years between 1881 and 1883 in the Lambeth workhouse, save for a short spell during which she lived with her father. She then took up with a Thomas Drew of Walworth, but this relationship did not last long. From May to August 1888, Polly worked as a servant in Wandsworth, but she left, taking some clothing that did not belong to her, and by late August she was dosing in a slum at 56 Flower and Dean Street.
When Polly's body arrived at the mortuary in Old Montague Street, attendant Robert Mann stripped the corpse of its filthy, bloodstained clothing. Under the eerie yellow of a gas lamp, Dr. Ralph Lees Llewellyn saw that the face was bruised - possibly caused by finger pressure - and that she had lost her five front teeth. On the other side of her face was a circular bruise, also probably caused by finger pressure, too. Her throat had been slashed twice in what American police call 'through n' through': both slashes were from left to right, the second eight-inch cut almost severing her head down to the spinal cord. The victim's stomach, slashed several times, had been hacked open with a terrible gash in her abdomen through which her intestines were bulging like the slithering coils of a large snake. The gentital area had also been attacked with a knife.
Police enquiries soon established that she had been last seen in the 'Frying Pan', a public house on Brick Lane, then, shortly afterwards by a Mrs Emily Holland at 2.30 a.m., on the corner of Osbourne Street and Whitechapel Road. Here, the two women spoke briefly before Polly staggered drunkenly towards Bucks Row and the place of her death just an hour later.
Violent crime was not uncommon in Victorian Whitechapel, and prior to 'Pretty Polly's' murder, on Tuesday 3 April 1888, several young men, one of whom had rammed a blunt instrument into her vagina with such force that it proved fatal, had assaulted a 45-year-old prostitute called Emma Smith. This offence took place at the corner of Wentworth Street and Brick Lane, a singularly seedy area frequented by the 'Ladies of the Night'. In the opinion of the police, members of 'Old Nichol' , a street gang that specialised in abusing and robbing prostitutes, had killed Emma Smith.
On Monday 6 August that same year, another Whitechapel prostitute, 37-year-old Martha Tabram, was murdered. She had been drinking ale and eating chips with two soldiers and another prostitute called Mary Ann Connelly. At 11.45 p.m., the women left 'The Frying Pan' public house with their clients, and five hours later, just after sunrise, Tabram's body, pierced with 39 stab wounds, was found lying crumpled on a tenement landing. As the police quietly conducted their enquiries and the press noisily fanned public outrage, a sense of fear gripped the East End of London. However, fear turned to abject terror the following weekend when yet another dead woman was found.
Annie Chapman: aka 'Dark Annie'
At 6.00 a.m., on Saturday, 8 September, an elderly case-maker called John Davis went into the backyard of 29 Hanbury Street where he had a room. In the darkness, he could just make out the body of a woman lying on her back next to a wooden fence. Her head was almost touching the steps leading down from the house. The woman's knees were wide apart, her face was swollen, her chin was bruised and her tongue protruded from her mouth. Police were soon on the scene and they determined that two brass rings were missing - torn from the victim's fingers. Laid at her feet in a neat row were a few pennies and two new farthings. Ironically, Annie had been evicted from her lodgings at 35 Dorset Street at 2 a.m., that night because she lacked the few pence, which would have secured her a bed. Decidedly the worse for drink, Annie had obviously wandered off towards Brushfield Street in search of a client, and she was last seen alive at 5.30 a.m., by a park-keeper's wife who was on her way to the market. This witness told police that she had noticed Annie standing outside 29 Hanbury Street haggling with a foreign-looking man. He was aged about forty, shabbily but respectfully dressed, and he was wearing what she took to be a deerstalker, probably brown in colour.
A small, stout woman, Annie Chapman was five foot tall with dark hair, blue eyes, a thick nose and she had two teeth missing from her lower jaw. This unappealing woman was aged 45 years, and she was also known as 'Dark Annie', 'Annie Stiffey or Sievey' - she lived with a man who made sieves. The post mortem examination revealed that her throat had been cut through to the spine and it looked as if the murderer had attempted to hack off her head. Her abdomen had been laid open with a sharp knife and part of her intestines, severed from the mesenteric attachments, had been placed over her right shoulder. The upper portion of the vagina, the uterus and the posterior two-thirds of the bladder had been entirely removed. The uterus was missing, apparently taken away by her murderer.
The nature of the injuries convinced the pathologist, George Bagster Phillips, that the killer must have possessed some surgical skill, or at the very least, some anatomical knowledge. It was Phillip's opinion that gave rise to the now persistent belief that the offender was a doctor or a medical student. "A medical man", as they would respectfully say in those bygone days.
Following the murder of Annie Chapman, the streets of Whitechapel became a ferment. Thousands of people, many of them habitués of the better class West End, came to view the various murder scenes. In fact so many crammed into Hanbury Street that the police had to run at them with truncheons to clear a way through. Like some bizarre festival, street-vendors set up stalls to sell refreshments to the crowds, and the neighbours of No 29, where Annie's body had been found, charged people the price of a drink to enter their rooms from where they could view from the windows the yard where the murder took place. By day, Whitechapel teemed with life; at night, danger lurked in the shadows of unlighted back streets such as Buck's Row, and although the sense of terror still hung like a fog over the streets, new rumours about the killer circulated daily. Yet, still the prostitutes risked their lives for a few pence.
Then, during the stormy night of Saturday/Sunday 29/30 September, two murders were committed which horrified even the crime-orientated populace of London's East End.
Elizabeth Stride. (©City of London Police)
Elizabeth Stride: aka 'Long Liz'
45-year-old prostitute, Elizabeth Stride, a carpenter's wife was found dead in a passage which ran down the side of 40 Berner Street. She had been murdered at about 1 a.m. Her body had not been mutilated, though her throat had been cut with now characteristic double stroke of a knife. It has been supposed that the ripper had been disturbed by the arrival of a passer-by called Louis Diemschuz, and had fled before carrying out the terrible mutilations which were now his trademark. Dr. Frederick Blackwell arrived at the crime scene at 1.10 a.m., on the Sunday morning, and apart from the victims hands, which were very cold, Stride's body was still warm when he examined it. Dr. Blackwell reported:
"The right hand was lying on the chest, and was smeared inside and out with blood. It was quite open. The left hand was lying on the ground and was partially closed, and contained a small packet of cachous wrapped in tissue. There were no rings or marks of rings on the fingers. The appearance of the face was quite placid, and the mouth was slightly open. There was a check silk scarf around the neck, the bow of which was turned to the left side and pulled tightly. There was a long incision in the neck, which corresponded with the lower border of the scarf. The lower edge of the scarf was slightly frayed, as if by a sharp knife. The incision in the neck commenced on the left side, 2 ½ inches below the angle of the jaw, and almost in a direct line with it. It nearly severed the vessels on the left side, cut the windpipe completely in two, and terminating on the opposite side 1 ½ inches below the angle of the right jaw, but without severing the vessels on that side".
Dr. Blackwell thought that the killer had probably pulled his luckless victim backwards by the scarf, but whether she had been standing up or lying down when he cut her throat he could not say. Blackwell also claimed that the woman would not have been able to call out after her windpipe was cut and Stride would have probably bled to death in about two minutes. Dr. George Bagster Phillips, who conducted the post mortem examination with Blackwell, said that apart from the injury to the throat, there were no other marks on her body apart from healing sores.
Catherine Eddowes:
Church Passage led from Duke Street into Mitre Square, and in those days it was a small, dark place, almost totally occupied by a warehouse. At 1.45 a.m., the same night, PC 881 Watkins was patrolling his beat which brought him into the Square. This was a place that was patrolled by the police every fifteen minutes, and Watkins had seen nothing amiss when he had walked through the place just a short while beforehand. But now, there in a corner, his lamp flashed its beam across the body a woman. It was 43-year-old Swedish-born Catherine Eddowes, a common prostitute, and after regaining his composure, Watkins summoned assistance by blowing his whistle.
Eddowes left leg was extended and the right leg bend. She had been mutilated with calculated ferocity, disembowelled with particular attention having been paid to her face and abdomen. The left kidney and the uterus were missing. There were abrasions on both cheeks. Both sets of eyelids had been nicked and part of the nose and the right ear had been sliced off. "I have been in the Force a long while", Watkins said later, "but I have never seen such a sight. The body had been ripped open like a pig at market".
In an effort to piece together the last known movements of both Stride and Eddowes, police initially concentrated on Stride. There witnesses were found who claimed to have seen a person they thought was the prostitute within an hour or so of the murder. William Marshall, a labourer living at 64 Berner Street, said that he had seen her talking with a male companion in his street at about 11.45 p.m., on Saturday night. And, at around 12.30 a.m., a PC 452H William Smith saw the couple, too. The constable remembered Stride in particular for she was wearing some maidenhair fern on her dress. Then, at about 12.45 a.m., a box maker called James Brown passed Stride and her companion on his way to get some food from a shop in Berner Street. Brown swore in his statement that he had heard the prostitute say: "Not tonight, but some other night". An hour later she was found dead.
In retracing the steps of Catherine Eddowes for the night in question, police had arrested her in Aldgate at 8.30 p.m., that Saturday for being drunk and disorderly. Screaming abuse at the officers, she had been taken to Bishopsgate Police Station where she was left to sober up in a cell. She was released at about 1 a.m., - at the time that Stride's throat was being cut in the yard off Berner Street. Then fate played its deadly hand, for unwittingly, Eddowes wandered off southwards, down Houndsditch towards Aldgate High Street and Mitre Square, as Stride's killer rushed through the fog in her direction. Then, with blood already on his hands, Jack the Ripper struck again.
The whole of October passed by without a further murder, and it was only the newspapers that kept public interest alive, though, by the end of the month even this was beginning to wane. Then, on Friday 9 November, the day of the Lord Mayor's Show, Jack murdered for the fifth time. On this occasion the killer struck indoors, and he had time to indulge his fantasies to the hilt. The mutilation of the victim was so terrible that it has continued to beggar description in all but the most cold and clinical terms even today.
Mary Jane Kelly: aka 'Dark Mary', Mary Ann', and 'Marie'
24-year-old Mary Kelly met her death between 3.30 and 4 a.m., on Friday 9 November at Miller's Court that was little more than an enclave between two ramshackle houses. Indeed, number 13 also served as the downstairs backroom of 26 Dorset Street.
Mary claimed to have been born in Ireland around 1863, and to have moved to Wales with her family when she was very young. Aged about 16, she married a miner called Davies, however, several years later he was blown to pieces in a coal pit explosion. Thereafter, Mary moved to Cardiff, and from there she travelled to London, where, not unlike the thousands of young women who flock to the bright lights of big cities today, she hoped to make her fortune. Mary also told anyone who would listen that she had been a prostitute at a high-class West End bordello run by a French madam, and that she had once been taken to France by a gentleman.
Truth's or falsehoods?, whatever the case it is known that she started living with one Joseph Barnett in Easter 1887, and they lived in several other dinghy addresses before settling at 13 Miller's Court. Kelly soon returned to prostitution after Barnett lost his job and left her. And, like her former dead colleague, Mary liked her drink. She owed rent, and she needed every penny she could earn to stay alive.
From witness statements the police were able to compile some sort of picture of the events that took place that terrible night and, this they hoped, would bring about the arrest of Jack the Ripper. Foremost amongst the people who were interviewed was Mary Cox, another prostitute who had seen Kelly with a man in Miller's Court at 11.45 p.m. One George Hutchinson has spotted Kelly with a man in Thrawl Street around 2 a.m., and Sarah Lewis saw a man standing outside Kelly's room at 2.30 a.m. At about 3.30, Sarah Lewis and Eliza Prater, heard a young woman cry out "murder!", and Mary Cox added that she had heard someone leaving the Miller's Court shortly after 6 a.m.
Now, for a moment let us indulge ourselves in visiting this terrible murder scene, and peering through a broken window, we note that the hovel is about twelve foot square and contains a bed, tow tables, and a chair, upon which are the neatly folded clothes of Mary Kelly.
Mary Kelly. (©City of London Police)
The remains of a large fire smoulders in the grate; the heat of which had been so intense that it had burnt off the handle and spout of a tin kettle. Among the ashes we can see pieces of a woman's skirt and the brim of a hat. As we push the door open, we also note the blood-crimson splashed walls. In front of us, to the left, is the blood-soaked bed upon which are the mortal remains of an unrecognisable Caucasian female. Her legs are spread apart, slightly bent at the knees. In death, Mary is in the childbirth position.
Upon closer examination of the body, one observes that the throat has been cut across with a knife. The head is almost severed from the corpse. The abdomen has been partially ripped open - slashed across in a downward direction. The liver and entrails have been wrenched away, and both breasts have been cut off. The left arm hangs to the torso by skin only. The nose has been removed, the forehead skinned, and the thighs, down to the feet, stripped of flesh. A search of the room shows that the entrails and other portions of the frame are missing, but the liver, etc, are placed between the feet of the victim. The flesh from the thighs and legs, together with the breasts and nose, have been carefully laid on to of the rickety bedside table alongside two empty gin glasses. One of the hands of the dead woman has been pushed into her stomach.
This crime scene is one of organised chaos; of homicidal butchery, of overkill, for there can be no other way to describe it all. Someone from the bottomless pit of the abyss had drunk cheap gin with his victim, butchered her, and then escaped into the swirling fog. His name is Jack the Ripper, and his credentials are: serial killer and homicidal sexual predator.
Summary
So, who was this man? To answer that bald question is now impossible, and it is highly likely that no one will ever learn his true identity. With countless books and papers written on this subject, we still may only allow ourselves the luxury of speculating for this horse has bolted.
Captain Lynde M. Johnston, former Central Investigating Division of the Rochester Police Department, New York State, has had 'Ripperologists' banging on his door, for it seems that our Victorian serial murderer may have been a Freemason with American connections! There are also alleged links to Australia, and not to be outdone, another country has got in on the act. Apparently, a certain anonymous gentleman drove Jack away from London and he hightailed it to South Africa. Indeed, a selection of a few of the most prominent or improbable suspects might be:
Montague John Druitt: failed lawyer who drowned himself in the river Thames in December 1888. The fact that his death coincided with the cessation of the Whitechapel Murders has been seen by some as incontrovertible proof of Druitt's guilt.
Severin Klosowski (alias George Chapman): a triple wife-poisoner.
Dr. Roslyn D'Onston Stephenson: esoteric author and magician who, it was suggested, performed the Whitechapel Murders as part of a Black Magic ritual. The 'mystery' deepened when Stephenson himself disappeared in 1904.
HRH Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence (grandson of Queen Victoria): scandal in the Royal Family has always been popular, and Clarence surfaces in a number of theories which lay greater or lesser blame on the Duke himself.
The most currently fashionable suggestion is of a conspiracy between the royal physician Sir William Gull, the artist Walter Sickert and a royal coachman named John Netley; who apparently committed the murders in order to prevent a scandal involving Clarence, a shop girl, and an illegitimate child.
A contrary theory names the killer as one James Kenneth Stephen; a homosexual and, so it is claimed, a pathological hater of women who was the Duke's tutor at Cambridge.
Dr. Thomas Neill Cream: a serial killer in his own right, Cream's only tenuous link with Jack the Ripper is a self-perpetuating legend that on the scaffold he cried out, "I am Jack…' a confession sadly cut short by the tightening rope. Besides, Cream was in an American prison when the Whitechapel Murders were carried out.
In addition, it has been suggested that Jack may have been 'Jill the Ripper'; possibly a mad midwife or an abominable abortionist, and as Robin Odell says in his book, 'The International Murderer's Who's Who':
'Doubtless, there will be other contenders for this title of 'Jack the Ripper', and even more books written on the subject, but the truth remains as elusive as ever".
But, isn't this a bizarre thing? Here we are so concerned about a serial killer who committed his crimes over a century ago. For us, his true identity should mean little after this passing of time. Surely, he is now bleached bone, his skin the colour of rotting parchment, his crimes the subject of discussion with good Port for gentleman after dinner, his heinous deeds the detail of legend penned using cheap ink that slowly fades away? However, perhaps we may learn a little more about this anonymous killer by applying some of the well-tested criteria used to profile serial killers today.
Definitions of serial murder/homicide differ between authors, but most agree that to qualify as a serial killer/murderer an offender must kill at least three victims in temporally unrelated incidents. This temporal criterion is usually satisfied by a "cooling off" or "refractory" period between killings, ranging from hours to years. The FBI defines serial murder as the killing of several victims in three or more separate incidents over weeks or an extended period. Others argue for a higher or lower number of victims.
The American psychiatrist, Dr. Park Dietz, requires a minimum of five victims, but such a distinction is rarely useful and merely serves to further a "body-count" mentality. Indeed, the only difference between an offender who kills one victim (but who might have killed 100 if he had been able) and another who kills 30 may be the latter's good fortune in evading detection.
However, ‘The New Criminologist’ member, Steve Egger, University of Houston - Clear Lake, and author of "The Killers Among Us: An Examination of Serial Murder and Its Investigation," Prentice Hall, says:
”As to numbers, the FBI "now" acknowledges that a serial killing can involve only 2 victims at different times and usually different locations. As to my logic, the killer could have stopped for a variety of reasons; he could have been arrested for a different crime, he could have simply stopped for a period of time as to throw off the police, he could be fulfilling his drives by reliving his fantasies through the use of trophies or souvenirs, or he could have simply died. It would appear that Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer, stopped for a period of time. It also appears that the BTK killer also stopped killing, deriving his needs from killing animals and living off his previous experiences.
If this is of further interest, I refer you to my book,
which I am currently revising for a 3rd edition.
I think you will find that as we develop our knowledge about this rather elusive phenomenon that we will begin to see it in this manner.
*
So, Jack qualifies as a serial killer for he murdered on two or more occasions, in different locations, with a cooling-off period in between his crimes. Dorset Street vied with Flower Street and Dean Street as probably the most notorious addresses in the Whitechapel neighbourhood. Three of the Ripper's victims lived there at one time. Killers in those bygone days were not as mobile as they are now, and today's offender profiling techniques, using spatial mapping, which plots the crime scenes in relation to each other, would probably place Jack's home, or base, within a short walking distance from the area where he committed his crimes.
Secondly, and like so many of the other serial killers featured in this book, Jack enjoyed a stereotype victim, for all of them were prostitutes. The bonus for him here was that he knew exactly where to find them; in the seedy, red-light district where they swam in shoals. He would have also been aware of their way of doing business, therefore, from this we can deduce that whatever his motive he could exact his revenge on these 'loose' women with virtual impunity. Jack could use and abuse them to satisfy his own perverse cravings, and he could dispose of them like so much garbage, which in fact he did, and to quote the words of a particularly eloquent serial murderer:
"…his victim may be likened to a disposable cup, from which he takes a long and satisfying drink of water. Once the water is gone, his thirst quenched, the cup has served its purpose; it is useless and therefore can be crushed without thought and thrown away, as if it never existed…similarly, once a serial killer's violence has run its course, his battered victim is of no more use to him than a soggy, used-up paper cup."
But, there is another interesting, almost invisible clue that we may consider when examining the behaviour of this evil man: he selected specific times and days of the week to commit his offences. Jack killed twice on Friday nights, and three times on weekend nights. So what could this tell us? We could assume that the late hour coupled with these specific days of the week were convenient to him - convenient to his modus vivendi, literally: his way of living. Perhaps Jack worked during the weekdays; not unlike many of his fellow man, the weekend being Jack's time off work. And, this might indicate that he was employed in a job with a rigid time regime.
But what of Jack's motive? Jack may also be categorised as a 'Lust Killer' for there was a strong element of overkill evident in each crime. All but one of the bodies - with the exception of Stride - when he was probably disturbed by the sound of footsteps coming in his direction - were terribly mutilated, and even with our present knowledge of serial homicide still in its infancy, we do know from studies of serial killers that in cases exhibiting such butchery the murderer harbours an uncontrollable hatred against his specific victim type, be it men, or women. Jack's murders showed evidence of sadistic methods, mutilation, dismemberment, and there may have been some pre- and post-mortem sexual activity. This type of offender may also be classified as an erotoponophiliac (paraphilic murder - the killing of another human for or as part of sexual gratification).
Another driving force known to propel serial killers is the urgent need for power, domination, and for control. FBI studies show that many serial killers are predominantly rather ordinary, if inadequate white males in their twenties and thirties. This criminal breed enjoys playing God; deciding who will live and who will die by deciding the fate of another human being. For male serial murderers, the issues of power and sex become highly intoxicating and inextricably intertwined. As with rape, as with serial murder; the manner in which that arousal is come by has more to do with violence than with sex, and this seems particularly the case with Jack the Ripper.
The high level of violence exhibited at the first crime scene, that of 'Pretty Polly', indicated that her killer would definitely strike again as offenders showing this amount of ferocity are usually not satisfied with just the one murder.
To commit such atrocities on the body of another person may also suggest a serious mental illness, and this does not suddenly appear overnight. It takes eight to ten years to develop the depth of psychosis that surfaces in such an area of apparently senseless killing. In his book, 'Whoever Fights Monsters', former FBI Special Agent Robert Ressler, writes:
"Paranoid schizophrenia is usually manifested in the teenage years. Adding ten years to an inception-of-illness age of about fifteen would put the slayer in the mid-twenties age group".
In Jack's case, if he were older than his late twenties the illness would have been so overwhelming that it would have resulted in a string of bizarre and unsolved homicides of a similar pattern long before the murder of 'Pretty Polly'. This was most certainly not the case for the two previous murders, which of Emma Smith (Tuesday 3 April), and Martha Tabram (Monday 6 August), bore none of the hallmarks of Jack's gruesome modus operandi. Furthermore, these murders were committed on days of the week, which fell out of Jack's pattern of Fridays and over the weekends.
Another interesting aspect of serial killers is that there is much evidence to show that introverted schizophrenics have a poor diet. They do not think in terms of nourishment, and they miss meals. Similarly, they disregard their appearance, not caring much at all about cleanliness or neatness except when it suits their purpose. Not many people would like to live with such a person, so it is probable that they either live alone, or with a parent. If our Jack had a job, it would have probably been a menial one. So far as being a doctor, or someone of import who led a fulfilling life, modern psychology informs us that Jack was probably a loner. He was probably a nobody, a little man who hated women with a passion, and precisely because of this he became a murderer. As Colin Wilson and Robin Odell suggest in their book: 'Jack the Ripper - Summing-up and Verdict':
"If we think of sadistic murderers of the last century - Joseph Vacher, Peter Kurten, Neville Heath, Albert Fish, Ian Brady, Dean Corll - the most obvious thing about them is that none of them could be described, by any stretch of the imagination, as 'remarkable men'. They were all, in a basic sense of the word, 'little' men, all psychologically immature, all driven by a destructive urge that had a strong component of self-pity".
And, the same can be said for all of the serial killers and murderers featured in this book, too. Without exception, they are all 'little' men, and when we come to place the modern day serial killers who target prostitutes under the glass we will see that Jack chose his victim type for a reason. Maybe a female had emotionally damaged him during his formative years? Maybe he had been rejected by a former true love?
Arthur John Shawcross, Harvey Louis Carignan, and Theodore Robert Bundy, were all 'displaced-anger' killers who committed brutal crimes and committed terrible atrocities on their victims. To Jack's twisted way of reasoning, the 'Ladies of the Night' were the lowest of the low. Maybe one had given him a social disease, syphilis, or a dose of good old-fashioned pox.
Whatever the reason for his deep-seated hatred for women, it would be fair to say that Jack did not like women at all.
Because of the manner in which Jack despatched his victims, over the decades there has been much debate that Jack may have been a surgeon, or a person certainly gifted with some knowledge of the human anatomy. But there, he could have been a slaughterman, and here we can find a parallel here with the serial murderer John Martin Scripps.
John Scripps, who was hanged in Singapore on 19th April 1996, was convicted of murdering a South African tourist, Gerald Lowe, in his hotel bedroom. After stunning his unfortunate victim with a hammer, Scripps dragged the man into a bathroom where he stuck a knife into his neck and allowed Lowe to bleed to death. In the butchery trade, this is called 'pithing' and is used to slaughter pigs in a manner that does not contaminate the meat. Scripps, who was taught butchery skills while serving a previous prison sentence at Albany on the Isle of Wight, used his skills to further effect when he dismembered three of his victims' bodies. At his trial on Tuesday 3 October 1995, James Quigley, a prison officer told the court he had taught Scripps how to dismember and de-bone slaughtered animals. "He [Scripps] was instructed in butchery over a six-week period in March and April 1993", said Quigley. "He was trained to bone-out forequarters and hindquarters of beef, sides of bacon, carcasses of pork, and how to portion chicken".
Chao Tzee Cheng, a government pathologist, testified that the manner in which Lowe's body was cut up indicated that only a doctor, a veterinarian or a butcher could have dismembered it
It seemed that Jack gained his thrills by slashing his victims' throats and ripping open their bodies. This, of course, ensured a degree of silence from his prey, and with the heart stopped, relatively little loss of blood would be spilt to contaminate his clothes. Jack certainly knew how to use a sharp knife, so could he have been a slaughterman?
The Jewish population of the East End of London in 1889'89 was around 60,00, and to provide kosher meat for such a large population slaughterhouses employed schochim who used a khalef: a long steel knife which was honed to perfection. After testing the sharpness of the blade for the slightest imperfections by running it over the fingernail and fleshy part of the index finger of the left hand, the shochet quickly drew the razor-sharp instrument back and forth across the prescribed area of the animal's throat down to the bone, and death was almost immediate.
Jack's method of killing, the double cut, was the shochet's exactly, and a well-practised one at that. However, we may fine-tune the supposition that Jack was a slaughterman even further.
Having satisfied himself that the animal had been properly killed according to the five laws of shecita which God had handed down to Moses, the shochet proceeded to make a thorough post-mortem examination of the dead animal during which the abdomen was opened, and the internal organs examined for any defects. The stomach, intestines, gallbladder, liver, kidneys, blood vessels, and spinal cord were all carefully inspected.
Any pathological defects or injuries in these organs were diagnosed according to Talmudic Law and the shochet decided whether or not they ruled the animal as kosher. Robin Odell and Colin Wilson further lean their theory towards Jack being a slaughterman by saying:
"There can be no question that a Jewish slaughterman trained as shochet would have possessed than better than layman's anatomical knowledge which was attributed to the Ripper. Moreover, such a man combined elements of training and circumstance that fitted the modus operandi of the Whitechapel murderer…Following their occupational calling, slaughtermen could reasonable be expected to own and indeed carry about sharp knives; bloodstained clothing was simply an occupational hazard.
The meat market was one of Whitechapel's regular trades and the district abounded with abattoirs. Butcher's Row, Aldgate, E3, was known as 'Blood Alley', and when trade was brisk, slaughterman often worked through the night. At times, animals were even slaughtered in the streets".
There were two such slaughterhouses near two of the murder scenes. In the case of the Buck's Row killing, there was an abattoir at Winthrop Street, within 150 yards of the spot where Mary Nichols was brought down. Men were working that very night, and they were questioned by detectives investigating the murder, but what could the police expect to discover other than a few men with blood all over their clothes and razor-sharp knives in their hands? So, it would be fair to say that a slaughterman might enjoy the perfect alibi.
Blood grouping was not to be discovered until 1900, therefore, animal blood and human blood were all the same to the police. And, slipping out of work under the cover of darkness and fog, Jack would become just a nobody among the hundreds milling around at night. He would know exactly where to find his prey, there were still dozens of prostitutes around during the late hours, and approaching them would have been just what they expected and wanted. Indeed, Jack's victims also unwittingly offered Jack the perfect places where he could commit murder most foul. For a few pennies, they would lead him by the arm to some secluded place for sex, instead, he pulled out his sharp knife, and without so much as a cry they were dead. Using his professional skill, he would cut them up and be back at work within minutes thus avoiding the hue and cry of the police.
We do know that Jack removed various body parts including a kidney from his victims and spirited them away. So is there anything significant in this? Well, there is for Arthur Shawcross 'The Monster of the Rivers', did much the same thing buy cutting out and later eating the vaginal areas of two prostitutes. Today, we call this 'trophy-taking'. Numerous offenders steal something taken from their victims: shoes, jewellery; hair, or body parts as keepsakes - reminders at a later time of how powerful and clever they have been. Often, these killers will relive their crimes while masturbating over these trophies as did Joel Rifkin.
Rifkin from New York killed over a dozen times, and from every victim he stole watches and jewellery to support his post-murder fantasies.
Reginald Christie of 10, Rillington Place, kept clippings of his victims' hair in a small tin. Kenneth Bianchi 'The Hillside Strangler', took jewellery from his victims to give to his common-law-wife, Kelli Kae Boyd.
Jerome Brudos removed his victims' undergarments and shoes, and dressed himself up in this macabre collection.
Jeffrey Dahmer killed seventeen young men, keeping many of their heads, bones and genitals in a refrigerator at his Wisconsin home.
Ed Gein, America's most bizarre murderer who acts of cannibalism and necrophilia at his Wisconsin farm in the 1950s made him the model for the motion pictures: 'Psycho' and 'The Silence of the Lambs'. Ed adorned himself in the skin stripped from the dead bodies, his refrigerator was crammed with human body parts from at least fifteen corpses. There were skulls decorating the bedposts in his room, a heart was found in a saucepan, and his lampshades were made from human flesh.
Harvey Murray Glatman, a sadistic murderer who passed himself off as a magazine photographer in order to entice young women to pose for him, kept photographs of his trussed-up victims prior to strangling them.
When he had completed the deadly deed, he rearranged the bodies and snapped even more pictures which he kept in a grisly album at his home.
Leonard Lake and Charles Chat Ng, videotaped their murders so they could relive their atrocities later.
Douglas Clark, dubbed by the media: 'The Sunset Slayer' allegedly hacked of the head of a Los Angeles hooker called Exxie Wilson. Later, Clark's girlfriend, Carol Bundy, washed the hair and made the face up like a Barbi Doll, and Clark used it for oral sex while taking a shower.
Therefore, why should Jack the Ripper be so different. Why should he not cut out a trophy as a keepsake, to remind himself what a powerful man he really was?
So, that is probably all we will ever know about Jack the Ripper. He was probably aged between twenty and thirty years, and worked as a slaughterman. He was probably an untidy little man, except when dressed to go out on the town and with a change of clothes at his place of work, he would have appeared unremarkable; a nobody to everyone who passed him by in the street. Generally, the ferocity and nature of his offences show that he may well have lived alone, or with a parent, and just a short distance from where the murders were committed. He would have been a loner, with few friends if any, and without doubt he would have suffered from some form of severe mental illness. He most certainly hated women with a passion, therefore he was unmarried, or had suffered from an acrimonious divorce or some form of humiliation from a female in the past. And, all of this will ring bells, for almost a century later another ripper exploded on British society, and Peter Sutcliffe became known as 'The Yorkshire Ripper'.
Christopher Berry-Dee launched 'The New Criminologist' on the Internet four years ago. Today, with his co-publisher, Steve Morris, they are building one of the most informative criminology-related web sites on the Net.
Chris's part CV can be found in the site's 'Hall of Fame'.
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