World Mysteries - Jack the Ripper - Greatest Unsolved Mysteries

World Mysteries - Jack the Ripper - Greatest Unsolved Mysteries

        The name Jack the Ripper has been heard in many shows and movies, pertaining to the serial killer who murdered 11 women in London’s east end in the late 1800′s but was never identified. Most of his victims were prostitutes, whose bodies were mutilated beyond recognition and their throats slashed.

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World Mysteries - Jack the Ripper - Greatest Unsolved Mysteries

Jack the Ripper: a timeline

• August 31, 1888

The Ripper's first victim
Mary Ann Nicholls, the Ripper’s first victim, is murdered in Buck’s Row, Whitechapel.
September 8, 1888
Second victim
Annie Chapman, the second victim, is murdered in the back yard of 29, Hanbury Street.

• September 30, 1888

"Double event" murders
The so-called “double event” of two Ripper murders on one night. The body of Elizabeth Stride is found in the early hours in Dutfield’s Yard, Berners Street, now known as Henriques Street. Within an hour, the fourth victim Catherine Eddowes is slain in Mitre Square.

• September 30, 1888

"Dear Boss" letter
On the same day a news agency received a message - known as the “Dear Boss” letter – which is thought by some to have been by the killer himself.

• October 9, 1888

Ripper on the move?

World Mysteries - Jack the Ripper - Greatest Unsolved Mysteries

The Liverpool Echo revealed it had received a letter claiming that the Ripper was about to strike in Dublin. The following day, it reported on a second letter which refuted the first claiming instead the “Whitechapel purger” was going to New York.

• November 9, 1888

A fifth gruesome discovery
Mary Jane Kelly, which according to a new book was the pseudonym of Elizabeth Weston Davies, was found horribly mutilated in her room in a Whitechapel slum.

• 1913

Ripper fiction
Marie Belloc Lowndes publishes The Lodger, a novel based on the Ripper murders. Adapted for the screen five times - firstly as an early silent move by Alfred Hitchcock – it helps secure the Ripper’s enduring place in popular fiction.

• 1965

Chief suspect revealed
Author Tom Cullen reveals that Sir Melville Macnaghten of Scotland Yard regarded Montague John Druitt as the chief suspect.

• 1974

Another book, another suspect
Another book, by Donald Bell, sets out evidence for Neill Cream being the Ripper.

• 1975

Seminal Ripper research
Key text The Complete Jack the Ripper by Donald Rumbelow is published.

• 1987

Detective notes revealed
The Daily Telegraph reveals for the first time contents of notes by Chief Insp Donald Swanson, a Ripper detective, naming Aaron Kosminski as the Ripper.

• 1990

Crime novelist wades in
Theory published by Jean Overton Fuller that renowned artist Walter Sickert was the killer. Patricia Cornwell, the crime novelist, later spends millions of pounds attempting to prove Sickert’s guilt.

• 1995

New suspect emerges
Authors Stewart Evans and Paul Gainey reveal Frances Tumblety as a major suspect after discovering a 1913 letter from a Special Branch officer in an antiquarian bookshop.

• 2011

Police informants are protected
Scotland Yard wins a legal battle to keep secret four thick ledgers containing details of police informants from the Victorian era, including some who provided tip-offs relating to the Ripper. Police argue informants’ names must remain secret forever.

• 2014

Forensic hopes are dashed
Russell Edwards claims to have solved the Ripper mystery – and proved Kosminski’s guilt - through DNA analysis of a shawl belonging to Catherine Eddowes, but the forensic techniques used are later undermined.

• 2015

New theories emerge
Two books are published in 2015 with new theories: Wynne Weston-Davies' book The Real Mary Kelly says the Ripper’s final victim was his great aunt, Elizabeth, and Jack the Ripper was her estranged husband Francis Craig, while Bruce Robinson's suggests a Masonic cover-up helped songwriter Michael Maybrick commit the crimes.

Jack the Ripper's victims

His first acknowledged victim was Mary Ann (Polly) Nichols, murdered Friday, August 31, 1888. She was 47 years old.

Edwards says, according to his research: “She was disembowelled and had her throat cut. He took out her intestines. This was a human being. She was five foot, dishevelled, and slightly frail.”

World Mysteries - Jack the Ripper - Greatest Unsolved Mysteries

The second victim was Annie Chapman, murdered Saturday, September 8, 1888. He murdered her by cutting her throat, but didn’t stop there.

“He moved the front flap of her abdomen and placed it to the side,” explains Edwards. “Then he cut out her intestines and draped them over her shoulder. Finally he took her uterus with him.”

The next victim was Elizabeth Stride, murdered in the early hours of Sunday, September 30, 1888. Edwards explains that this was the night he completed a double murder.

“He cut [Stride’s] throat but was interrupted before he could complete his ritualistic mutilation. He couldn’t have that fulfilment so he looked for another murder victim.”

That was Catharine Eddowes, murdered shortly after Stride.

“He cut her nose off,” says Edwards. “He lopped one of her ear lobes off, and her eyelids. He cut two inverted Vs on her cheeks. He ripped her wide open. He placed her breasts by her feet. Then he took her uterus and left kidney.”

Violence against women

Jack the Ripper was never caught, though there are multiple theories about who he is. Edwards claims to have identified him as a 23-year-old Polish immigrant barber called Aaron Kosminski, by looking at DNA from a silk shawl allegedly found at the scene of one of his murders.

Others, such as retired British Murder Squad Detective Trevor Marriott, think that a 'Jack the Ripper' never existed, but instead a number of different people carried out the murders.

Either way, what it shows is that the new ‘Jack the Ripper Museum’ is doing nothing but highlighting the mutilation of vulnerable women, most of whom were ‘unfortunates’ – a name given to women at the time who would do anything for money, including prostitution, just to survive.

Tower Hamlets council has been aware of the change of plan regarding the musuem, and said: "Planning permission was granted in October 2014 for the change of use of the premises to space for a museum. The council was advised at that time that the premises were intended to be used as a women’s museum and supporting information was submitted with the application to suggest that the vision of the museum was to tell the story of women of the East End of London.

“Ultimately, however, the council has no control in planning terms of the nature of the museum. The council has subsequently granted consents for extensions to the premises and the refurbishment of the front of the building. The council is aware of the Jack the Ripper imagery and is investigating the extent to which unauthorised works may have been carried out at the premises.”

It means all we can do is hope that if the museum does go ahead, it will do what 'Ripperologists' such as Edwards tries to do with his work: tell the story from the victims' perspective and humanise them, instead of using their stories to sensationalise brutal violence against women.