Source C elaborates on the death of Elizabeth Stride. She was also the first half of the double murders the Ripper acted out in the same night this was thought that he was disturbed by something so he fled and preyed on another victim because his thirst for blood wasn’t completed, this is suggested because the amount of mutilations done to the victims body.
There is a similarity in styles between the murders of Elizabeth Stride and Polly Nicholls because stated, lines “in the neck there was a long incision, cutting the wind pipe in two”.
Which furthermore fuels speculation that both murders were carried out by the same person. However there are flaws in the Sources because Source C doesn’t go into detail about the murder and the exact locations were mutilations had been taken place, whereas Source B goes into detail about the murder and also gives a location on where the mutilations had taken place.
Source C can be useful to Source A and B but not in a big way because if doesn’t go into enough detail about the murder and the whereabouts where damage has been taken place it just shows a report on how “Elizabeth Strides’s body looked after she had died and they didn’t take the time to examine the body thourghly, which also makes the reader wonder how much it is linked to the other murders by Jack the Ripper.
Question 3: How useful are Sources D and E in helping you understand why the Ripper was able to avoid capture. Source D is a witness statement taken which outlines the last sighting of Annie Chapman. A friend of Annie Chapman wrote it, she was also a prostituate. She outlines the appearance of a potiential suspect who she had seen talking to Annie Chapman on the night of the murder. Source E is a part of a local newspaper article published in the East End. It outlines and dwells on the murders of Polly Nicholls and Annie Chapman around a month after Annie Chapman was murdered.
Source D being a witness statement should be a descriptive, detailed and a concrete analysis of the potiential suspect who is relivant to the murder. But Elizabeth Long’s statement was none of the above, it had a lack of substaintial evidence. Long’s description of the potiential suspect was bland and also had a element of doubt in it, I say this because she used such words and phrases like “I think” and “but I cannot be sure” and “as well as I could make out” and “he seemed to be” etc. This shows that Elizabeth Long was not sure about what she was saying. Elizabeth Long later goes on to say he was “wearing a deerstalker hat” this is basically the only concrete evidence that could be depicted from Long’s witness statement, but this is still useless to the police because a deerstalker hat was very common in this particular period of time and it wasn’t only exclusive to a particular status i.e. the rich and the poor.
This therefore concludes that Elizabeth Long’s statement was really useless to the police and also there are many factors to take into account that Elizabeth Long maybe just trying to get her 10 minutes of fame or maybe trying to send the police on a false trail this therefore more backs up the fact of the lack of evidence this also can be seen as a contriabuter and a key factor to why the Ripper was not captured.
Source E states a certain dislike and unreliability of the police. It does this by stating that they did not follow up leads which were given to them “he warned that murder would ensue” this furthermore implies that the police was not doing their jobs properly. On a whole the Sources aim is to pin point and lay blame on the police for not capturing the Ripper.
Studying Sources D and E I have uncovered factors on why the Ripper was not captured. This is because the lack of evidence and also the quality of the evidence given. There was also a barrier between the police and the general public this was a big factor because people did not feel comfortable enough to come forward with information this was later fuelled by the media blaming the police for not capturing the Ripper. The Sources are only useful for one thing and that is discovering why the Ripper was not captured, so therefore in my opinion they’re not reliable because they are from the accounts of not well trusted organisations or people i.e. a prostituate and a newspaper.
Question 4: Use Sources F and G, and your own knowledge to explain how the police tried to catch Jack the Ripper.
The police tried to catch the Ripper in various different ways. One of them was to post leaflets to local people asking for information, suspects, witnesses and confessions etc. The police also patrolled White Chapel in larger numbers in the hope that they catch the criminal red handed. The police also collected useful evidence from the scene and autopsies of the women, they also gathered witness statements which helped them to narrow down their search.
Source F is a police leaflet asking for witnesses or information towards the murders, they were distributed after the murders of Elizabeth Stride and Kate Eddowes, the aim of the leaflets was to gather more evidence and narrow down their search is was to also inform people of the murders and possibly get a witness or a suspect to come forward. Source G is a part of a letter written by the Home secretry to the Mile End vigilante committee on the 17th of September 1888 stating that there will be no reward because it was believed that giving a reward will do more harm than good because pranksters may come forward etc. The aim of the letter was to inform and to state that this crime would not have a reward.
Source F shows some success in the police by getting more witnesses to come forward but the witnesses that came forward there statements were unreliable and also contradicted one and other. This furthermore highlights the distrust in the police which has been fuelled by the media, that reliable witnesses did not come forward. This is also fuelled by the division in the police forces which is backed by the quote “the nearest police station Metropolitan Police Office” this shows that they shouldn’t go to any other police station, because there was competition between the two police forces.
Source G shows another factor which may have helped the police in the quest to find the killer but it was not used. A reward could have been successful in motivating witnesses or suspects into coming forward and also those who did not take the crime serious because of the status of the victims. But you have to take into consideration the negatives of a reward which would just increase the amount of vigilante groups which would result in more crimes and more problems for the police which would divert their attention from the killer. Others may have made up false leads just to cash in on a bit of the money this would have been mayhem for the police because they wouldn’t know who is reliable and who is unreliable.
These are some of the ways the police tried to catch the Ripper. The police were very limited in there resources because technology had not been invented yet such as photo fits, CCTV and forensics etc. They were also disadvantaged because they were facing the first ever serial killer recorded in history. Also the media hindered them because of the interference in the case which made the people distrust the police. It is because of these main factors above that the police was not able to capture the Ripper.
Question 5: “The police were to blame for not capturing Jack the Ripper”
For those who haven’t got good understanding about Jack the Ripper and have vague understanding on the matter, maybe led to believe that the police and only the police was to blame for not capturing the Ripper. But when you collect and examine all the evidence is seems that the police only made a few mistakes in the case which could have been prevented so therefore the police or only a fraction to blame for the murderer’s freedom.
All Sources are helpful and provide assistance on answering the question at hand especially Sources J, I and H. Source H is on article from the Times written to express the death of Mary Kelly who was the last victim of the Ripper. Source J is a photograph of 29 Hanbury street, which is showing the where about of the body of Annie Chapman was found dead. Source I is a map of the East End of London in 1888 which depicts the sites of the murders.
Firstly when looking into who is to blame you have to take into consideration that where the murders where carried out in the East End of London and White Chapel was a very awkward place to live in 1888. There are many alleyways which were poorly lit which someone could use as a instrument of surprise or a hiding place. It was very easy to get lost in the maze of alleyways which usually had a dead end, this is a perfect environment for a murderer to use as a escape route or as a place to catch victims, these characteristics are also depicted in Source E “Whitechapel are connected by a network of narrow, dark and crooked lanes”. The streets were dangerous because of again there were poorly lit and smog covered the city which disfigured peoples vision in day and at night, the streets were small but the East End was overcrowded. People living in the East End in this period were very poor and most women could only find jobs as a prostituate, so therefore the Ripper had a wide selection of victims to choose from and with the night characteristics and timing for the crime to take place. Police were not to blame for the conditions of living and the social status of people but these factors still have to be taken into account.
The media made the polices lives difficult because when reporting the murders the tabloids would sensationalize the stories, where as the East End would give off a negative fee towards the police, this caused problems for the police force because they were criticized for not doing enough or working fast enough to locate the killer. Which implies that the police believed the crime is ambiguous and a waste of time. These difficulties are expressed in Source A, “the excess of effort that has been apparent in each murder suggests the idea that both crimes are the work of a demented being”. Also this is a result of the publics opinion of the police was changed so locak people were not willing to come forward with evidence. More over Source H expresses the intentions of the police force, “all the police can hope is that some accidental circumstance will lead to a trace which may be followed to a successful conclusion”.
The police were not handed any favours when it came to evidence although they’re partly responsible for this because they cleaned up the blood from the Nicholls murder away and also destroying the message near the body of Kate Eddowes which stated that, “the Jews are not the men to be blamed for nothing” there justification of destroying the message was to prevent a upspring with in the community. The police are not to be blamed for the lack of concrete evidence because they didn’t have the technology to depict a hoax from a serious lead so therefore they had to take every lead given serious which wasted precious time.
Other evidence was witness statements but these were quickly contradicting each other which made them unreliable because they stated the fact or characteristics that the suspect was wearing a “felt hat” this was very common in 1888. This resulted in the police being on a wild goose chase for the suspect. Other factors such as the safety of witnesses and the trust between the witnesses and the police also hindered the police in gathering substantial evidence.
Jack the Ripper was not captured because of several reasons. Firstly the location of the murders were in a low class area so therefore not much was done about it then if it was committed in a high social class area. Frequent murders in the area were committed so police had trouble connecting murders to the Ripper also less time was taken to each murder because of how frequently they occurred. The Ripper had a high intelligence because he only took 15mintues to murder victims and had the sense to flee when disturbed, he only committed these crimes at night which was hard to keep track of.
The police surely cannot be held responsible for not catching the Ripper, although they did distort crucial evidence and didn’t function well as one body which is the police force. There investigations were unsuccessful due to the fact of lack of technology and science, interference from the media, vigilante groups and leadership problems all caused problems and were part of the reason the Ripper was not captured.
By Michael Ogolo