Jack the Ripper’s Canonical Murders
“Jack the Ripper” is the nickname attributed to the 1888 serial killer who was briefly active in Whitechapel, London. The murderer was never caught, and their identity is still disputed; in fact, there remains a lot of mystery about the entire case to this day. While some historians have dedicated their research to the unsolved case itself (these pundits are humorously dubbed “Ripperologists”), others use the case as a reference tool for understanding the social inequality of Victorian London. I plan to do this in regards to city planning this semester, but wanted to familiarize myself with the murders just for fun (consider this blog post as getting the sensationalism out of the way). It has been widely accepted that five 1888 murders in Whitechapel were carried out by the same individual: these are known as Jack the Ripper’s “canonical five.” As we can see, the murderer’s modus operandi gradually developed with every subsequent murder.
**Content Warning: graphic photos, nudity**
Photographer: Metropolitan Police
Item: Mortuary photo of Mary Ann Nichols
Date: 1888
Retrieved from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mary_Ann_%27Polly%27_Nichols.jpg via http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/record?catid=-333148&catln=7
Comment: Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols was a prostitute working in the Whitechapel area. She was last seen at 2:30 AM on the street after an argument with her landlord. Nichols was found nearly an hour later in front of a private stable, and was originally mistaken as being passed out instead of dead. Nicholas suffered knife wounds to her throat and abdomen, and a local surgeon deduced she has been dead for around 30 minutes before she was found. What is unusual about Nichols’ murder was the lack of blood around the crime scene; prompting the police to realize she had been killed in a previous location, cleaned up, and then dumped in a second location.
Photographer: Metropolitan Police
Item: Mortuary photo of Annie Chapman
Date: 1888
Retrieved from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Annie_Chapman.jpg via http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/record?catid=-333148&catln=7
Comment: Annie Chapman lived in the Whitechapel lodging homes and participated in prostitution from time to time to supplement living costs. On the date of her murder, she allegedly could not pay rent and resorted to the streets to make up the debt. Her body was found at 6:00 AM in a private backyard with her throat slit, intestines wrapped around her shoulders, and part of her uterus gone. Chapman’s gruesome murder led the police to believe the murderer had extensive anatomical knowledge and technical precision.
Photographer: Metropolitan Police
Item: Mortuary photo of Elizabeth Stride
Date: 1888
Retrieved from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elizabeth_stride_100.jpg (original photo is presumed to be stolen from official Metropolitan Police Archives)
Comment: Elizabeth Stride lived in a common lodging house on Flowers and Dean Street, a city block known for its numerous organized crime rackets. She was last seen with a man near the International Working Men’s Educational Club, a place where many Jewish men in the area gathered. Her murder thus introduced an element of anti-Semitism in the Ripper case, as police began to look for Jewish men in the area with anatomical experience (such as surgeons or butchers). Stride was found moments after her murder, and therefore did not experience the same degree of mutilation as the other women in the canon. Her throat was slit, and a chunk of her ear was also found missing (the missing piece was later sent to the police with a taunting letter from the killer). Stride was murdered the same night as Catherine Eddowes, so Ripperologists call the two murders the “Double Event.”
Photographer: Unknown
Item: Photograph of the corpse of Catherine Eddowes
Date: 1888
Retrieved from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:EDDOWES-MORTUARY2.jpg via http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/rd/aa017738-bd56-43a9-831b-fd97bfe16050
Comment: Catherine Eddowes is believed to the penultimate canonical murder, and was killed on the same night as Elizabeth Stride. When Eddowes was found in Mitre Square, her body was disemboweled and her kidneys were missing. Upon further investigation, police surgeons found mysterious facial incisions on her nose, cheeks, and eyelids. Her murder was later claimed by a letter sent to the police that detailed the “double event” and even provided details previously unknown.
Photographer: City of London Police
Item: Police photograph of the murder scene of Mary Jane Kelly
Date: 1888
Retrieved from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MaryJaneKelly_Ripper_100.jpg via http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/rd/41c8210d-6fb2-47b9-a47b-7f8d57e2cf6e
Comment: Mary Jane Kelly’s murder is an outlier in the canon because she was found in her own common lodging room (instead of outside in the streets). Kelly was six weeks late on rent, and her body was discovered when a landlord’s assistant was sent up to demand payment. Kelly’s face was unrecognizable, her breasts were cut off, and her body was disemboweled. Although the scene was a complete mess, police surgeons soon realized that Kelly’s heart was absent from the crime scene. Following the evidence found at the Kelly scene, the police department wrote a formal report theorizing that all five canonical murders were connected.
Whoa Nathan! Your research project is going to be really interesting! This was insightful and thanks for the content warning but I am a Forensic Files, Medical Detectives, Cold Case Files junkie, so all good here!
I was just reading in a book called City Walks of London (London: Robson Books, 1990) – one is on the Ripper area – that they have debunked the idea that it was a doctor, and that there was no surgical precision in the removal of body parts at all – just butchery.
I had considered doing research on the police aspects of this – the book also supported my suspicion that the investigation was quite thorough and the police did a good job.
A kidney, and other “souvenirs” sent by the Ripper, for example, were understood by the police to have been sent by disturbed voyeurs, not the Ripper. Their refusal to buy into the public’s sensationalist interpretation of what was happening is laudable, I think.
I’m really looking forward to seeing your connection to urban development!