Another thing is that the Ripper probably wasn’t a very conspicuous looking man, he probably seemed rather timid to people who knew him or met him, whereas the police were looking for someone that stood out, someone who acted suspicious, perhaps a slavering maniac whose mind was diseased and whose emotions were out of control. The theory follows that if the murders were inhuman; the murderer had to be inhuman too. He had to be mad or foreign, preferably both for the police. However the Ripper probably wasn’t anything like this and was an ordinary man that lived in the Whitechapel area because he knew the alley ways extremely well.
The murders also took place at night which contributes to the Ripper being able to get away with our being seen or suspected. There was very little light in the alley ways of Whitechapel so you could barely see past your own hand out stretched, so it would be difficult to see. Also many people walked the streets at night so hearing noise from people walking home from the pub at all hours of the night was normal to the people whose houses backed on to the alleys.
Police investigative procedures in 1888 did not include fingerprinting, blood-typing, fiber analysis, or any of the high-tech methods modern detectives have at their disposal. The detection of murder generally involved eyewitness accounts and dumb luck in many cases. If the killer wasn’t caught red-handed at the scene of the crime, there was no way to connect him with the victim.
The police at the time had no experience with murderers who killed with a motive and those who killed without an obvious motive.
The truth is, Jack the Ripper was never caught or identified. The police at the time were ill-equipped to deal with a serial killer investigation. Prevailing opinion at the time suggested that only a raving maniac, someone literally foaming at the mouth, could have committed such bestial murders and so that became the focus of the investigation. Lunatics from all corners of London were rounded up and examined, but to no benefit.
In conclusion all the factors are all important as to why jack the ripper was not caught. They all link together as they all contributed to why he was not caught. The main factor I think that contributed to him not being caught was the police investigating procedures as they weren’t as technologically advanced as we are today.
