The Invention Of Murder, By Judith Flanders

Chapman may have served as many as 10 men that night. Even if it was

Jack the Ripper was one of the most famous and renowned killers in history. Even though he was not the first serial killer, he was the first killer to strike on a metropolis setting. Jack the Ripper was in his prime at a time when the media had a strong control over society and society as a whole was becoming much more literate. Jack started his killing campaign at a time of political controversy between the liberals and social reformers along with the Irish Home rule partisans. The reports of Jack the Ripper were collected and reported by the police, but then the different newspapers with their political influences slightly distorted the stories to give them their own effect. It has been more the one hundred years since the last murder

Thesis Statement: A research paper of the mysterious and famous 19th century serial killer Jack the Ripper and how it is that the legend came to be.

“37 Who Saw Murder but Didn’t Call Police” (Gansburg), that was the title of a New York Times article talking about the horrific death of Kitty Genovese, a 28 year old bar manager living in Queens, who was raped and stabbed during a two hour window, from around 2:30 a.m. to the time ambulances arrived at 4:15, by Winston Moseley (Worthen). An estimated 37 people either heard or saw the events of that fateful night in 1964, but to Kitty’s demise, none had taken any sort of action(Gansburg). The murder of Kitty Genovese has sparked many psychologists to research and later create the term “Bystander Effect”, or “The Genovese Effect” (Merry).This Bystander Effect is also very prevalent in the play The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller less than a decade before the murder of Kitty Genovese. This paper will discuss Arthur Miller’s possible views on the Bystander Effect by connecting Mary Warren from The Crucible with the Kitty Genovese incident.

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

This time, the victim was a man in his early twenties, and he was discovered, wrapped haphazardly in a plastic tarp identical to the one the first body had been found in, in the bushes outside of the one high school in the county. At first, the county police were skeptical that the murders had been committed by the same people, due to the fact that the victims were of different genders and had been disposed of in entirely different locations, but they were eventually forced to admit that all signs pointed to their sleepy little Pennsylvanian town having a potential serial killer on their hands. When the story broke in the local newspaper, the killer had received an official pseudonym: the Ridgway Ripper. Later, when the man responsible for bringing so much tragedy to such a small town was apprehended and a face and a name were given to this pseudonym, the majority of the town continued to call him the Ripper. No one would dare say it out loud, but everyone knew that it was because it was simply easier that way. It was easier to pretend that something else, something inhuman, could be the source of so much

In Chapter 4 of The Misfits by S. E. Hinton, a murder occurs that will change the course of the entire book. Johnny, a Greaser who is abused by his father, murdered a member of one of the Soc’s social clubs. He commits this gruesome act to protect his best friend, Ponyboy, from being drowned. Therefore, a question must be posed: Was Johnny’s murder justice, or should he be imprisoned or executed?

Jack The Ripper wrote personal letters to the police when the body was found. Furthermore, the letter was read by the police, “Among the thousands of Ripper-related letters that were sent to the police, the Vigilance Committee or the London Hospital..” (Tyske 64). This quote proves that Jack The Ripper is not afraid, and wrote letters, and at one point there was an organ sitting near a letter. In contrast,

It must be a fantastical crime- something stupendous- out of the common! In that one respect, I have still, I think an adolescent’s imagination. I wanted something theatrical impossible! I wanted to kill. . . Yes, I wanted to kill. . . .”

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.

Why is Jack the Ripper seen as one of Britain’s most notorious serial killers of all time? Evidence suggest that he simply could have been a scapegoat for the overcrowded parish of Whitechapel which had vast amounts of crime including burglary and high levels of alcohol dependency which lead to many brothels opening and the number of prostitutes in Whitechapel rising dramatically. So was Jack the Ripper even a real serial killer? Or does theory explain that his murders could have been cover ups put in place to create a moral panic to reduce the number of working prostitutes as they had become scared of being murdered. If Jack the Ripper was not a scapegoat the New Right would argue that it is likely he made a rational calculation of the consequences of his crimes and carried them out because the benefit to society was greater than the cost to him, the New Right would have blamed Jack the Rippers criminal activities on poor socialisation from his family. Postmodernist authors Levin and McDevitt would argue he was a criminal but he only committed these crimes because he needed variation from his daily routine and killing the prostitutes was giving him the thrills and excitement that he needed in his life. A combination of all these different arguments and possible explanations creates debates that draw me into the study of Sociology and Criminology.

This therefore suggests the over-ruling importance of the man himself. Jack the Ripper is singularly labelled as a villain but the women are not individually identified as victims which gives way to this distortion. It therefore changes the public perception and enhances Jack the Ripper as a villain as opposed to memorialising the victimisation that the women had to endure. With regards to the Jack the Ripper Museum’s merchandise, the same image is portrayed. The murderer ‘stands tall and menacing under the lamppost.

In the year 1888, Whitechapel of London was targeted in a stream of ferocious murders so explicit that it grew to a response that came from all of Victorian England. The media, police investigators and local civilians were deeply impacted upon these occurrences in several ways. Jack The Ripper is to this day infamously known as the killer of at least 5 female prostitutes in the span of only one month, and is recognised to have changed society forever.

In the autumn of 1888, the murders took place in the “East End” of inner London, mostly in ‘White Chapel’. Living conditions of the people were very poor. The place was busy, crowded and full of crime. People were homeless and unemployed. People were struggling to survive

The diary of Jack the Ripper was denounced as a crude forgery, dating from a year or two before it was made public. Even to those inclined to view it as genuine, its provenance remains unclear. It is incoherently written in a stream-of consciousness style, but for the most part contains boasting, near-hysterical passages by Maybrick of anticipation at killing prostitutes, fooling the police, and avenging his wife's adultery. It also contains semi-coherent descriptions of the five Ripper murders, which is the only reason people are for sure