The story of Jack the Ripper is frightening and he has achieved a somewhat
legend status but it has little to do with his murdering procedure or the number of women
he killed because there have been far worse. What makes it interesting is that in 1888
serial killers did not exist, it was all through the news because, at the time, London was
the world’s center of power. It is more exciting because it has a more storyteller feel to it,
it takes place in dank, narrow London of the Victorian era, compared with suburban 70’s
killers. It is more mysterious – added with the fact Jack the Ripper was never caught.
In 1888, it was unbelievable the level Jack the Ripper went to with his murder
victims, and his apparent discrimination towards prostitutes. He mutilated their bodies,
slitting their throats, so far as to nearly sever their heads, and marking them with random,
deliberate gashes. He would lay open their abdomens, slice out their intestines and drape
them over their shoulder. Annie Chapman had organs completely missing; Catherine
Eddowes was cut nearly all the way around her navel; Mary Jane Kelly was hacked
beyond recognition, her breasts cut off, and the skin from her abdomen and from the tops
of her thighs laid on the table in the room they found her. Most of his victims were
reported to be found only hours after they had died, yet the corpses were examined and
likened to the work of an expert. Despite his horrible actions, he had a five victim count,
which cannot be the reason for his legend status.
Ted Bundy killed over 20, possibly over 30 people, by bludgeoning or
strangulation and he was a rapist and a necrophiliac. H. H. Holmes suffocated his victims
slowly in a soundproof gas chamber, then either stripped everything from the bones and
sold the skeletons to schools or just burned the bodies is his specially built furnace.
Jeffrey Dahmer murdered at least seventeen people and when they arrested him, they
found severed heads in his fridge, skulls in his closets and corpses in acid vats in the
basement. Ed Gein was the influence for Norman Bates on American Physco,
Leatherface on Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the man from Silence of the Lambs. He
wore his victims’ skin and literally decorated his house with their remains. Yet none of
these men were featured in the paper as much as Jack the Ripper.
As the idea of a serial killer was still a fairly new thought in 1888 (the term itself
didn’t surface until the 70’s) the string of murders that occurred that fall were, of course,
deemed horrifying and, of course, broadcasted throughout the media. Media in that day
and age was largely newspapers and in a sense, they were the media, because that was
during a time where everyone was literate. There was also a greater desire to read,
brought on by the onslaught of novels and the ‘fiction’ genre. Therefore, everyone was
reading newspapers and everything pertaining to the Ripper case was captured in the
newspapers. It was actually through the newspaper that the Whitechapel Murderer
became known as Jack the Ripper.
In those months, the newspaper editors and the police were flooded with letters
from people claiming to be the killer. They were disregarded as being from editors trying
to create a story or fools trying to incite more terror. One of these letters, the first signed
‘Jack the Ripper’, was ignored until the dual murder of Stride and Eddowes. Both women
had a partially cut ear and a promise to ‘cut the next lady’s ear off’ had been made in the
letter. The police printed it in the newspaper in hopes that someone would recognize the
handwriting. That sparked a flow of letters from ‘Jack the Ripper’ but the only ones
acknowledged had similar handwriting. The first made reference to the previous letter,
the second, sent to the President of the Whitechapel Viligiance Committee, was a
postcard addressed ‘From Hell’ and, signed ‘catch me when you can’, and received with
a cardboard box, inside which there was a human kidney.
There is flimsy evidence concerning nearly everything related to the murders
attributed to Jack the Ripper. The fact that it was never solved is the biggest reason it
intrigues people so much; in comparison with the more recent serial killers who make
Jack’s trademark of slicing people up seem minor of the disturbing scale. He was never
caught because the police were inexperienced in dealing with a mass killer and they
didn’t have the same knowledge or equipment. In addition, unlike the serial killers that
work over a period of years, Jack was around for a few months then disappeared. At this
point, it is doubtful that they will ever solve the case, most of what little evidence they
had is either lost or decayed. Instead, they have built up the case with theories spawning
scores of suspects and suspected victims. All those theorists have congregated together to
be classified as Ripperologists and they congregate at conventions all over the world. Yet,
I don’t think they are ever going to find a definitive answer to all or any of the questions.
He is a legend. He didn’t kill an astounding number of people. He wasn’t
exceedingly disturbing. However, Jack the Ripper is thought of as the first serial killer
and he was never caught.