BRITISH HISTORY : JACK THE RIPPER
Jack the Ripper
About the Programme
Jack the Ripper is the name given to a serial killer who killed a number of prostitutes in the East End of London in 1888.
The name originates from a letter written by someone who claimed to be the killer published at the time of the murders. The killings took place within a mile area and involved the districts of Whitechapel, Spitalfields and Aldgate.
This programmme explores the terrible reality behind the killer who was never caught.
Crimes Against Women
The grisly Whitechapel murders which took place between the months of August and November 1888 have become one of the most notorious horror stories in history.
The victims, all female and primarily prostitutes in their forties, suffered violent atrocities, with their corpses being ruthlessly ripped open and various organs removed. The events exposed the vulnerability of a society in which prostitution rates were at their peak and morals were in a state of decay.
The discovery of slain prostitute Mary Ann Nichols on 31st of August 1888 received relatively little press. However the mutilated body of Annie Chapman, exposed on September 8th, and the demise of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes at the end of the month provoked panic in a London society already so riddled with vice.
The final attack was shocking even to the most hardened detective. Mary Kelly, the 25-year-old final victim did not die on an east London street, but was slaughtered inside her boarding house on 9th November. As David Tucker from Original London Walks says, “After that orgy of bloodlust he [Jack the Ripper] walked out into the night and into history.”
A closer look at the East End of London in 1880s reveals a society in which overcrowding, disease and criminal behaviour were rife and largely treated with negligence. Jack the Ripper emerged at a time when unrest was prevalent and riots rumbled from the London underworld.
Who Was That Man?
The identity of Jack the Ripper has baffled both amateur and professional sleuths for centuries.
Police officers working on the case had four suspects:
• Kosminski, a poor Polish Jew resident in Whitechapel
• Montague John Druitt, a 31-year-old barrister and school teacher who committed suicide in December 1888
• Michael Ostrog, a Russian-born thief and confidence trickster, who had been detained in asylums on several occasions
• Dr Francis J. Tumblety, an American 'quack' doctor, who was arrested in November 1888 for offences of gross indecency, who had fled the country
The first three of these suspects were named in a police report dated 23 February 1894.
Kosminski was favoured by the head of the C.I.D. Dr. Robert Anderson, and the officer in charge of the case, Chief Inspector Donald Swanson. Druitt appears to have been Macnaghten's preferred candidate.
The fourth suspect, Tumblety, was "amongst the suspects" at the time of the murders and "to my mind a very likely one," by the ex-head of the Special Branch at Scotland Yard in 1888, ex-Detective Chief lnspector John George Littlechild.
However, there was no hard evidence against any of them. In fact, the police were never in a position to prove a case against anyone, and it is highly unlikely a positive case will ever be proved.
With no viable suspects, the identity of the Ripper has led to endless speculation, with the finger pointing at some very questionable characters in the frame, such as Prince Edward, Queen Victoria’s grandson to the artist Walter Sickert.
Latest Ripper Theory
Patricia Cornwell, one of America's best-known crime writers has spent nearly £3 million on delving into the identity of Jack the Ripper.
The author believes he was Walter Sickert, the artist who painted a series of gruesome pictures of a murdered prostitute. Cornwell purchased 30 of Sickert's paintings, tearing one of them up in her hunt for clues.
A team of American forensic experts flew to London to examine letters believed to have been written by the killer and kept in the Public Record Office.
Cornwell claims Sickert led a secret double life as a serial killer and that he killed many more than the five prostitutes named as Jack the Ripper's victims.
Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Kelly were killed between Aug 31 and Nov 8 1888 in London's East End.
The crime writer claims that a number of clues and her knowledge of forensic science helped her crack the case.
Sickert was 28 when the killings began and Cornwell says it was typical for serial murderers to start killing between 25 and 30.
Sickert had three secret studios in Whitechapel, giving him somewhere to hide quickly.
Apparently, the key to Sickert's guilt was in his paintings, which Cornwell claims have a similarity to the post mortem pictures taken of the Ripper's victims.
Sickert painted a series of pictures in 1908, over two decades after the Ripper's crimes, which he said were inspired by the murder of a Camden prostitute.
In one painting, Cornwell said the pose was practically identical to that of Kelly as she was found by police, while another showed a woman's face mutilated by paint in a way similar to how Eddowes was left by her murderer.