Jack the Ripper was and is one of Britain's most notorious serial killers to have lived. He murdered at least five women in the Whitechapel district of London, one of the most impoverished and deprived areas in the United Kingdom, in 1888. It was an area rife with crime, poverty and prostitution. The five women that Jack the Ripper murdered, were all prostitutes, they were extremely vulnerable women, which unfortunately made them an easy target for a man like Jack the Ripper. The five women that Jack the Ripper murdered, are known as 'The Canonical Five.' The Canonical Five are as follows, in the order, they were murdered by Jack the Ripper, (1) Mary Ann Nichols, also known as Polly Nichols, (2) Annie Chapman, (3) Elizabeth Stride, (4) Catherine Eddowes and (5) Mary Jane Kelly. All of whom were killed by Jack the Ripper and mutilated by him in a brutal manner. The Canonical Five murders took place in the Autumn of 1888, from August 1888 up until November 1888, in what is known as the Autumn of Terror. During the Autumn of Terror, Jack the Ripper struck fear and horror into the residents of Whitechapel. It even rocked the British establishment, with Queen Victoria herself expressing her shock at the murders.
The brutal murders over the Autumn of 1888, alongside the culprit's mysterious identity, has led Jack the Ripper to become one of the world's most notorious serial killers. Arguably the most notorious. If Jack the Ripper had been caught in 1888, he probably would have vanished into historical obscurity long ago.
It is the mysteriousness which surrounds Jack the Ripper, which has kept the Jack the Ripper case alive. If it was an episode of Eastenders (a UK TV show for those of you outside of the UK), then the case would be the ultimate whodunit. This has led to many questions about the killer's identity. The main question that Ripperologists ask, and wonder about is, 'Who was Jack the Ripper?'
There are many suspects that have been accused of being Jack the Ripper. Some of these suspects were accused of being the Ripper at the time of the event, while others weren't considered to be the Ripper years or even decades later. There are literally hundreds of suspects in the case.
Other questions that Ripperologists frequently ask is, 'How many people did he kill?' 'What did the police know at the time?' 'Did the police at the time know who he was?' 'What was the Rippers motivation?' 'Was he an opportunist or calculated? Perhaps both?' 'Was he mentally ill at the time of the killings?' 'What happened to the Ripper? And why did he stop killing?' These are a few good questions that we can ask to have a better understanding of Jack the Ripper, the murders and the case. The case that involved the Jack the Ripper murders, was known as the Whitechapel murders. The Whitechapel murders consisted of eleven murders. These eleven murders all happened in London, mostly in the Whitechapel area of London and all of the murder victims were women, most of them prostitutes, other were potentially prostitutes. The night time profession of the women, prostitution, is just one thing that linked them all together. Another thing that linked them all together is that they were all murdered in a close proximity to one another, mainly in the Whitechapel area of Victorian London between 1888 and 1891. Two police forces were involved in the Whitechapel murders, the Metropolitan Police and the City of London police, from 1888 to 1891. The City of London police was not brought into the case until the night of the Double Event. The night of the Double Event is when Jack the Ripper killed two women. The City of London police were brought into the case on the night of the Double Event because the second woman murdered that night, Catherine Eddowes, was murdered in the City of London district. There were eleven different murders to solve between the City of London police and the Metropolitan Police, with eleven women being murdered over that time frame. They had a big case on their hands. Here is a list of the women who were murdered and when they were murdered. The 3rd of April, 1888 - Emma Elizabeth Smith The 7th of August 1888 - Martha Tabram The 31st of August 1888 - Mary Ann Nichols The 8th of September 1888 - Annie Chapman The 30th of September 1888 - Elizabeth Stride The 30th of September 1888 - Catherine Eddowes The 9th of November 1888 - Mary Jane Kelly The 20th of December 1888 - Rose Mylett The 17th of July 1889 - Alice McKenzie The 10th of September 1889 - A woman's torso is found The 13th of February 1891 - Frances Coles All of these women were on the Whitechapel murder file, and all of them have been linked to Jack the Ripper at one point or another. Now that we have looked at the facts of the case, let us now look at the man himself, Jack the Ripper. Who was Jack the Ripper? Jack the Rippers identity is surrounded in mystery, perhaps at much today, as it was at the time of the murders. There is a lot of debate surrounding the identity of Jack the Ripper. There are many theories about the identity of Jack the Ripper. Some of these theories about the Rippers true identity are stronger than other. However, most of the suspects who are and were accused of being Jack the Ripper, are weak suspects. In other words, they are unconvincing suspects, due to the lack of credible evidence towards them. Therefore, it becomes a process of elimination with the case, where we disregard the suspects which have little to no evidence towards them and focus on the more credible suspects, who could have been Jack the Ripper. This leads us to be left with a handful of genuine suspects, suspects who could have been Jack the Ripper. Furthermore, it can be suggested that none of these suspects was Jack the Ripper. If there is evidence lacking with all of these suspects, then, perhaps it's best to explore the possibility that Jack the Ripper may have obscured history. If Jack the Ripper has vanished into historical obscurity, and he is an unknown person to us, then it would explain why this case has never been solved and why none of the other suspects have been proven to be the Ripper. Who are the suspects? Who are we looking for? We could be looking for someone who is unknown to us, in other words, a person who is not on the suspect list. Or, we are looking at Jack the Ripper when we are looking at the suspects list. Jack the Ripper is one of these two options. It's either option A or B. Given that there is not much to go on with option A, let us look at option B, the Jack the Ripper suspects that we do know about. On the more outlandish scale of the list is suspects like Lewis Carroll and the Royal Conspiracy. On the more serious side of the debate, it offers credible suspects, such as George Chapman, Aaron Kosminski and William Bury. The latter names are some of the more stronger contenders for being Jack the Ripper. There are some convincing and unconvincing arguments for these men being Jack the Ripper, like there is with most of the Ripper suspects. We are looking for a man who lived and worked in the Whitechapel area in the Autumn of 1888. The Ripper probably lived in Whitechapel for at least a few months or years before the murders took place, as he evaded capture well - indicating that he knew the area well and knew the back alleys of the area well. It seems obvious to suggest that we are looking for someone who was a local to the area, however, many suspects which have been mentioned, either didn't live in the area, or were out of the country at the time of the Ripper murders. It's essential that we have a suspect which was living in the area at the time, but there is more that we should look for, than just that. Such as the personality of the suspects, any previous crimes committed and their behaviour and mental state. Another thing that we should look for in the suspects is their behaviour or attitudes towards women, specifically prostitutes. It's possible that Jack was just an opportunist who killed whoever was unfortunate enough to cross his path. But, it could also have been the case the Jack either had a hatred of women, or prostitutes, and that was his motive for killing the women he did, in 1888. We could be looking for a suspect who was both, both an opportunist, and a women hater. It seems that the killer was motivated by a hatred of prostitutes in particular, and that was his motive for killing. When looking for our suspect, we should also take one more thing into consideration, the murders themselves. Jack didn't just murder his victims, he mutilated them, with what seems like the intent to symbolically destroy life. It perhaps tells us, that the killers intention was to destroy all life.
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