Jack The Ripper Serial Killer

The Jack the Ripper Murders happened in the East End of London in 1888 and, although the Whitechapel Murderer was only a threat to a small section of the community in a small part of London, the murders had a huge impact on society as a whole.

Jack the ripper the notorious and legendary London murderer started his reign of terror in the August of 1888. Jack the ripper is a fairly difficult character to find proper information on (regrettably noted) however his murders are not. It is speculated that he killed more than five people but the Canonical five are a definite. All of them where prostitutes from the Whitechapel area of London; a poor and deteriorating side of town. The first of these murders was Mary Nichols she was murdered on August 31st 1888 (www.jack the ripper.org). The murders that happened after followed in this order. Annie Chapman was the second of the five main victims she was murdered on September 8th 1888(www.jack the ripper.org). The third and fourth victims shared the same day of death with a peculiar twist. Jack the Ripper was known to deface and mutilate all the bodies in which he slayed, Elizabeth Stride the third victim was wholly intact(www.bbc.co.uk/history). Both Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes died on the same day September 30th 1888(www.jack the ripper.org). The final victim to be famously associated with the case of Jack the Ripper was Mary Kelly who was killed on November 9th 1888. All of the victims were more than likely unaware of their fates beforehand, he typically knocked them out before he would kill and maim them. Jack the Ripper's scenes in which he left the corpses were calculated, he was informed and educated on how it is he done what he did. It was believed at the time that he was potentially a doctor or a butcher due to the tools needed to do what was done to the bodies. In addition to this the cuts left on the body showed that the killer had knowledge of the human anatomy and the way it worked. He usually always started the

The focus of this book is on the cultural and societal ramifications caused by the way the English press portrayed Jack the Ripper. Though this book does not list theories of who Jack the Ripper may be, it does provide an important portal in time that allows the reader to see first hand the murders of Jack the Ripper through newspaper pieces of that time. It is clear that, like all journalism, the press writers only presented certain graphic information of the murders, often omitting key parts of the mutilations. The book itself, though, does not present much of a bias. The fact remains that these first hand accounts from the late 19th century newspapers are still vitally important in the mysterious Jack the Ripper case. They provide

On Saturday, December 1, 1900, a man named John Hossack was killed in his sleep with a hatchet by his wife, Margaret Hossack. The story told by Margaret was that she had heard what sounded like two boards banging together and by that time the attacker had fled and she didn’t catch a glimpse of him. The next thing she saw was her extremely wounded husband, John, who had a five-inch cut into his head and a fractured skull. A doctor, who came and examined John, and said there was no hope and John died the next morning. As an investigation started, a burglary was thought of as the first motive but the idea flawed because nothing was stolen so the idea was quickly abandoned. In the 4 days between the murder and the funeral, the police talked to

    Elizabeth Short was murdered on 15 January 1947  (Wilkes 3).  This shocked America.  Betty Bersinger was out for a walk with her daughter when she thought she saw a broken mannequin from a store laying on the ground.  When she got closer she realized it was the body of a woman.  The woman’s naked body was found on a piece of land in L.A.  The lower torso was slanted upward,making police believe she was in a fowler position at the time of death.  The body was cut in half at the waist and was bruised and beaten.  The detached sections were put in a line,about ten inches apart.  There were deep slashes from both sides of her mouth as though the killer made a deformed stretch of her smile.

The Whitechapel Murders and those of Jack the Ripper are not generally one and the same. Over a period of three years towards the end of the nineteenth century a number of prostitutes were murdered under different circumstances – the murder of prostitutes was not an especially unique occurrence during those times but several of the murders drew particular attention on account of the savagery with which the victim's bodies were mutilated. Within the Whitechapel Murders was a cluster of murders that demonstrated sufficient similarities as to suggest that they were committed by the same person. One of the first instances of serial murder was thus identified and sensationalised in the media as the work of ‘Jack the Ripper', nicknamed on the

Murders were not unusual in the “east end” of London. Some historians thinks, there were dozen murders and a few say only five.

One must begin by understanding the facts of the case before coming to their own conclusion or theory, though. So what happened to her? It is known that on April 18, 1943,in Worcestershire, England, four boys, Bob Farmer, Robert Hart, Thomas Willetts, and Fred Payne, had found a human skull in an elm tree while trespassing. The four boys, teenagers at the time, had a hobby in bird nesting, so as the smallest of the group, Bob Farmer, scaled the tree to gaze in the hollow elm,

The 2001 nonfiction, Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper-Case Closed, is a novel written by author Patricia Cornwell. This novel follows Cornwell on her journey of solving the 1888 London crimes by the mysterious and unknown serial murderer claiming the name of Jack the Ripper. This killer, as told in the novel, did not only murder women who were prostitutes, but it is also said that he murdered non-prostituted women and children. While much research and investigation by law enforcement had still not identified the enforcer of these crimes, Cornwell explains how she uses her own specialized team of top forensic scientists and FBI profilers to identify the serial killer as the famous artist Walter Richard Sickert. Cornwell first began to suspect Sickert after looking in a book containing his art. After noticing the works of Sickert’s painting of Ada Lundberg, who is supposed to be singing, Cornwell instead saw the singer “screaming while menacing men looked on.” The author’s analysis concluded there was “morbidity, violence, and a hatred of women” in Sickert’s paintings. Unlike the many Ripper novels that came before Cornwell’s, this novel is written less to explain the crimes committed by the Ripper while giving the facts and suspected identities. In truth, it is more as an indictment for who the author believes the real murder is and why. While Cornwell uses some physical evidence to pin Walter to the crimes of the Ripper, such as his DNA matching the DNA found on the

The second victim was an 8-year old Karen Ann Hill and her body was found underneath a bridge. Her body showed signs of sexual abuse and she was also suffocated by grass being stuffed in her mouth and nose. Shawcross came under suspicion when there were witness reports about seeing Hill and Shawcross sitting together, eating ice cream on the same bridge she was found under, dead.

On a hot morning on august 4, 1892, Mr. Andrew Borden and his wife, Abby Borden, were brutally murdered. A daughter of the victims, Lizzie Borden was arrested, tried and acquitted of the crime. “ She was a woman of spotless character and reputation, and more than that she was educated, refined and prominently connected with the work of the Christian church in the Fall River”(Gates 2).The town and the country were divided in their opinions of who could commit such horrifying murders. Many theories have been made to explain that day; the finger has been pointed in every direction- even a Chinese Sunday school student of Lizzies. To this day people are unsure as to weather or not Lizzie brutally murdered her parents.

Fredrick Deeming born on the 30 July 1853, was an English man, who was hanged in Australia for the murder of his two wives and their children. After his execution suspicions began to arise about whether he had any responsibility in the Whitechapel murders. The white Chapel murders were series of grotesque killings in 1888 which was mainly targeted at the prostitutes in the poverty stricken Whitechapel district. Fredrick Deeming was a renowned Australian con-artist, thief and serial killer. He was considered aggressive, rude and strange towards women. He lived a difficult youth and ran off to sea at an early age. He began a life of thieving and fraud. He murdered his first wife Marie and their four children and his second wife Emily Mather in Melbourne March 1891. Their bodies were left decomposing under the floors of their previous homes. He later travelled to Western Australia were he was captured. He was trialed and hanged for the murder of Marie and Emily Mather and his four children. Speculation around his involvement in the Jack the Ripper murders continue.

There were a number of reasons for why the infamous serial killer known as Jack the Ripper managed to escape with the killings which he did to prostitutes in Whitechapel. There was no single reason for why the Ripper managed to escape from the police however there was a number of reasons such as the nature of the Whitechapel, the Rippers methods, the role of the press, other stories which conflicted to theories of who the Ripper was, mistakes of the police force and the limitations of them.

PS Wasnt good enough to post this before I got all the red ink off my hands curse it No luck yet. They say I 'm a doctor now. ha ha.” (Ryder) The officials were never sure if it was actually him but two days later they discovered the next victim with her ear chopped off. Due to his impeccable work, it was never traced back to a specific individual and the case has forever been unsolved, titling him as one of the most notorious serial killers of all time.

Despite many Western countries having strong law systems and firm roots in Christianity, it might seem peculiar to think they also are obsessed with murder. From Nancy Drew to the TV shows Murder, She Wrote and How to Get Away With Murder, murder and crime investigation have become bestsellers in Western societies. There is just something intriguing about a good “whodunnit” crime, a good mystery that cannot be solved or explained, regardless of how many people and years have been spent speculating on it. In England, one of the most popular unexplained homicide cases is none other than the infamous 1888 murders of Jack the Ripper. While the killer was never found and convicted of the murders, several conspiracy theories have emerged over the years concerning Jack the Ripper’s identity and the motive behind the gruesome slayings.