Jack The Ripper

Question 3:

How useful are Sources D and E in helping you to understand why the Ripper was able to avoid capture?

Source D is the evidence of Elizabeth Long at the inquest into death of Annie Chapman; she was describing the man seen talking to Annie Chapman before she was killed. Source D helps us understand how Jack the Ripper was able to avoid capture. It is a statement that was given in court as evidence in the investigation surrounding Annie Chapman’s murder. It is a ‘Sworn statement’ which means it is very useful to a certain extent; this because it is most likely to be true as there could be a serious punishment for her committing perjury.  It is likely that she is telling the truth.  As far as we can tell this source is useful in some circumstances for finding out how Jack the Ripper escaped.

Elizabeth Long is very vague when providing the statement and can never be sure of what she is saying, for example; ‘I think he was wearing a dark coat but I cannot be sure.’  She has an inability to be certain and accurate about what she saw.  She describes Jack the Ripper as a ‘Shabby and genteel’ character, so he was in an apparent disguise so she could not see what Jack the Ripper looked like.  This could be because it would have been dark at night; this was a downside which made it difficult to see what Jack the Ripper actually looked liked. The suspect was ‘wearing a deerstalker’ hat, the police could use this as a lead but many people in the area could have a ‘deerstalker hat’ so it would have been a difficult task and a weak piece of evidence to study. He might have worn different clothes at every murder he committed; this would have been to throw the police off course.  This would have played to Jack the Ripper’s advantage and it would help him to avoid the police.

 Source D also helps us understand why Jack the Ripper was not caught, this is because no one could see what he looked like clearly furthermore he could not be described clearly by anyone when they were questioned by the police. Elizabeth Long was unclear in Source D about what he looked like, Elizabeth Long said, ‘He looked to me like a foreigner as well as I could make out.’ This would help Jack the Ripper avoid capture by the police because, they could not be certain if he was a foreigner and there was a substantial number of foreigners that lived in the East End. It was very easy for Jack the Ripper to blend in with them.  

As it was dark whenever he was supposedly spotted the darkness may have made him look as if he had a dark complexion and the East End did not have powerful lighting, this could have been a common mistake which led the witnesses to think that he was a foreigner. The police looked into finding a ‘Foreigner’, this was a impossible task that the police had set up for themselves,  because it was like trying to find ‘a needle in a haystack’, Jack the Ripper probably knew that the police were looking for a foreigner and he would most likely try to avoid capture by blending in with the population.

The source describes the man talking to Annie Chapman before she was killed which means that it possible that  this man was not Jack the Ripper and just a local person having a chat with her,  these are key points which help you understand  what helped  Jack the Ripper escape from the police. Despite the uncertainty of the testimony, the report was taken very seriously by the police and was acted on with a great deal of effort.  It is possible that Elizabeth Long had a dislike towards foreigners that is why she came to the assumption the suspect was a foreigner.

Source E is part of an article published in a local newspaper after the murders of Polly Nichols and Annie Chapman. Source E is from an informant telling a journalist about how the police could improve their effectiveness on the streets at night. The purpose of this article is to engage the public in thinking that the police were not doing enough to capture Jack the Ripper. Source E suggests, ‘That the police force on the spot should be strengthened and some kind of order created on the streets by night.’ This shows that there were insufficient numbers of police officers on the streets and that disorder was rife because of the lack of law and police forces at a substantially low amount. It is possible that the police could not do anymore than what they had been doing about the murders this is because there was not enough man power and there was insufficient money provided to them by the government.  

Already Source E is showing us that Jack the Ripper may have not been captured because of the requirement of more police officers on the streets; this could have made it easier for him to escape and not worry about being caught. The source suggests that the police did not listen to the informant and that they did not care much about what he said. Perhaps if the police had listened to the informant then they would have been more successful in capturing Jack. This was used as an advantage by Jack the Ripper, and it helped him to escape with out being seen, in to the back roads of Whitechapel. Source E suggests the police did not take any interest, but newspaper may have been attempting to blame the police for failing to catch the murderer and publicise events.

There was a lot of, ‘open and defiant ruffianism’, in the area. This included robbery, violence and even more murders. No one took in to account the law or police and the East End was a ‘hot bed’ of crimes. As time went on it was harder for the police to catch Jack the Ripper. Whitechapel is described as a ‘he sights and sounds are an apocalypse of evil’ which suggests that it is a crime ridden and dangerous place to live in and the fact the each crooked road contained ‘headquarters of infamy’, that Jack would have had many areas which he could strike at any moment. 

There was a lot of disorder on the streets and this was helping to set the context of the crimes. There was a lot going on which made it easier for Jack to avoid the police. In ‘ the main thoroughfares of Whitechapel are connected by a network of narrow, dark and crooked lanes’, there were many which would make it very easy to commit a murder without anyone knowing that Jack the Ripper was there. If Jack the Ripper was a local he could rely on the local knowledge he had to escape as there were many easy routes to choose to escape from the scene of the crime.

The source is not very clear because it say, “My informant.”  There is no name given, no certainty he warned the police as he claims and its second hand information so it might be all lies.  The informant might jus be trying to make money or just want to criticise the police.  The informant might be made up by the journalist just to sell the story and in addition to being used to slate the police, the journalist did not want to reveal that this is what he thought of the police he used the informant as a cover. This Source is useful because it is stating how the police were not effective at their jobs and the lack of numbers in the forces and in turn it tells us why Jack was not caught.

Both sources D and E are useful in finding out why Jack the Ripper was never caught, this is because no one could identify him and he could blend in with the crowd and had knowledge of the streets plus he could escape easily. As it was dark no one could ever get a very clear description of him. These were all factors as to why Jack the Ripper could not be captured; it gives us more of an insight in to how Jack avoided capture but it could have been more reliable in Source D because the witness is not certain about some of the evidence she is giving and in Source E the informer may not be reliable and the information published in the newspaper could exaggerated because when the informant commented about the police it could be to critical about them. It only helps us understand to a certain level why Jack the Ripper was not capture.

Question 4:

Use Sources F and G, and your own knowledge, to explain how the police tried to catch Jack the Ripper.

The police used many methods to try and capture Jack the Ripper and those included giving out leaflets like in source F. Source F is a police leaflet published after the murders of Elizabeth Stride and Kate Eddowes, because the police published it is a very formal document. Source F tells us that the police were handing out leaflets about the murders and about Jack the Ripper, the source states ‘should you know of any person to whom suspicion is attached, you are earnestly requested to communicate at once with the nearest Police Station Metropolitan Police Office, 30th September 1888’. This shows us that the police were desperately trying to find evidence and to try and get a few leads as they could not, this meant that they had to turn to the public for help.

 The leaflets were published after these two murders because the police were quite sure that they were dealing with a serial killer after the correlation between the first four attacks and they were in need of some help to solve the crime. The leaflets told the public that Jack the Ripper could be ‘residing in the immediate neighborhood’; this suggests that he was from the Whitechapel area.

The leaflet was sent to 80,000 homes to inform people about Jack the Ripper and asking them for assistance.  This was a tough task because many people in Whitechapel might have not been bothered to read the leaflets. Let us not forget also that some people may have been illiterate and could not read. This could possibly be because the leaflet was written in very complicated and different English. This could possibly be because they were foreigners.

This document shows us that the police are trying this is because handing out leaflets is a sign that there was an increased number of police on the streets, they would not only have been handing out the leaflets but also asking questions at the same time.  The number of patrols was also increased.  The police ‘beats’ were regularly changed so the police were not consistently on the case so the groups could not gather enough evidence. There was a lack of an adequate CID so this could have helped. Source F demonstrates that the police were adamant about Jack the Ripper; this was even though they had no real proof.

Source G is part of a letter from the Home Secretary to the Mile End Vigilance Committee on 17 September 1888. Source G is a very legal document and is very reliable because it was written by the Home Secretary The extract from the letter shows us that the police used to give rewards for people who gave information on criminals but eventually it was cancelled ‘because experience showed that such offers of reward tended to produce more harm than good’. Certain people would make up stories and lie just to get money. This was a bad idea because it led the police on the wrong track and would waste their time. In Source G even though the murders were gruesome the Home Secretary says that ‘satisfied that there is nothing in the circumstances of the present case to justify a departure from this rule’, this means he even though the murders are horrible he still does not believe they are under the right circumstances to remove the ruling.

The Home Secretary – Henry Matthews was the head of the police department, so he had the power to decide what to do. He could overrule any judgments made by the head of the Metropolitan Police head Sir Charles Warren. Sir Charles Warren was reluctant to give a reward for the murders because of the Home Secretary.  Rewards were not used due to the fact that many people provided false evidence and this would have caused problems that would have led the police of track.

An aspect that would have been helpful was if the public had co-operated with the police, and if they did not send them false evidence leading them of track, the police had many factors to contend with and the public misleading them was a mistake as it could have put them in danger. In fact it was Sir Charles Warren had no objections about the idea of a reward but his superior Henry Matthews disapproved of this idea.

Sir Charles Warren was only good at policing crowds and detective work, so this was a dangerous thing to have him in charge. Rewards were never employed the police used other methods to catch the Ripper, the police also decided to give pardons for people who had been accomplices in the murders. This would have encouraged them to turn themselves in and also give the police the whereabouts of the Ripper, rather than being caught and prosecuted.

This included using blood hounds to catch the Ripper. It seemed as though blood hounds could pick up the scent from the crime scene. The problem with this was that the corpse could have been there for a while so the scent of Jack the Ripper could have disappeared. It is possible that many people would have walked on the pavements of Whitechapel so it would be difficult to pick up a scent. The only way a blood hound could remotely track the ripper is if he left a piece of clothing or some of his blood at a crime scene.

Furthermore if you could know the exact spot that Jack the Ripper stood on you might have been able to track him down. The unfortunate thing is that a blood hound can not find the killer if he has the blood of the victim on his hands. The police men were assured by a bloodhound breeder called Percy Lindely that this would definitely work. The results were that after the first attempt the dogs were released but they ended up returning to their owner Sir Charles Warren. During the second attempt the dogs got lost in the fog and the police had to publish posters ordering their return if they were found.

 

The police also took pictures of the crime scenes to compare evidence and compare the characteristics in the murders. Statements from supposed witnesses were also taken in and accounted for. The police did not know much about Jack the Ripper except little about his appearance.  So another method used was and it involved taking a picture of the victim’s eyes and it was said that it would reveal the last image they saw before death on their retina.

There was a piece of evidence that could have been quite effective because at the scene of one of the crimes a ‘bloody apron’ was found and on the wall above it there was a message saying ‘the juwes will not be blamed for nothing’. This was a significant piece of evidence but was not used to its full extent, the general idea is that the ripper used the apron to wipe his knife on then he disposed of it.

The police also had received many letters supposedly from the killer but they were sometimes discouraged and thought to be false. The police published these letters on posters hoping that the handwriting would be recognized but this was not a very useful method and it had no results.

Other than autopsies and statements from witnesses little else was done to help solve the mystery, other than arresting suspicious characters but this was not a good method .The problem the police faced was the lack of evidence and the methods they used. They would have been more successful if they had been more efficient in the methods they had used also if they had considered other methods they could have been more successful. This could have included fingerprinting and organizing specific police members on the job, this would have meant not changing the ‘beats’, this would have helped the police. The methods they used were flawed and could have improved on greatly to aid in the capture of Jack the Ripper.

Question 5:

‘The police were to blame for not capturing Jack the Ripper.’ Use the sources and your own knowledge to explain whether you agree with this view?

After studying the sources, researching a variety of topics and analysing my own knowledge I have come to the conclusion that the police were not to blame. Even though the police were to blame, in many circumstances it was not their fault that they did not catch Jack the Ripper. This is very evident when you look at the murders, like in Source A it says that there was ‘no adequate motive’ and this again mentioned in Source H where it says ‘there is no purpose’ for the murders so this is useful because it certainly backs up the point that there was no motive for the murders. This is one thing that the police could not help.

Another reason why the police were not to blame is because serial killers tended to be ordinary people which would have made him harder to find. Also serial killers would rely on random people and easy targets as victims so you could never predict where he or she would strike next. The fact was that serial killers were harder to catch and so the police could not be blamed for that.

The police were also often sent false letters, so they would read these letters and use them to find out information about Jack the Ripper. Certain letters were false so the police were taken of track and the investigation would have been slowed down. It was not their fault that the public did not co-operate with them. This even included a letter titled ‘A Letter from Hell’; this was sent to George Lusk the head of the ‘Whitechapel Vigilance Committee’, the letter was sent by mail to Mr. Lusk’s house and it contained a kidney supposedly from Catherine Eddowes. The kidney had some similarities to her right kidney and a kidney was removed from her but it was discovered that this kidney was also a right kidney but her left kidney was removed so it was deemed as false evidence that wasted the police’s time.

Jack the Ripper apparently left no clues behind as it states in Source H ‘not a trace is left behind of the murderer’, the police can not help this but it could again be possible that Source is being exaggerated because it is a newspaper article

The East End was full of crime so this would have also made it harder to find the Ripper. This is evident in source E because the informant describes the area of Whitechapel as an ‘apocalypse of evil’; this was because muggings, violence and even murder were common at the time. The problem was that with all of the Ripper’s work going on the East End was also subject to Eighty-Two other murders which would have made it difficult for the police to handle. This was something the police had to work around and should have but it was problem they faced. The police had no hard evidence because the witnesses were very vague about what they saw.

Another thing that they could not help is the fact that the bloodhounds did not work. They were assured by Percy Lindley (a bloodhound breeder) that they would definitely work. They had not been used before but it would not harm them trying but in the end it was not successful.

They did not and even though the police found blood on the streets it could have belonged to an animal, the blood could have been spilt by a butcher because the biggest meat market in London was near Whitechapel – the meat market was called Smithfield’s. It had butchers visiting it constantly and the bloody apron they found could have belonged to one of the butchers. These butchers also included big slaughter houses where masses of animals were killed daily. The blood they found on the streets (not at the crime scenes) was most likely from these Slaughter houses. Also people would be used to seeing other people carrying knives again because they would have thought that they were butchers and so they would not look suspicious.

One major factor that the police did not use was forensics. This included DNA matching. The methods the police used were very primitive and they had no idea what DNA actually was because it was not discovered at the time. This could have been used to match any DNA of the ripper found at the crime scene; this could have included a strand of hair.

The thing was that the police had no modern day technology like CCTV or DNA testing or even computers. The most reasonable suggestion was made by a doctor called Henry Faulds – he suggested fingerprinting to the members of Scotland Yard but they ridiculed his idea and dismissed it. So here the police are partly to blame because a method such as fingerprinting could have matched fingerprints maybe left at the crime scene or on the victims and the prints could be matched to the suspect. The method of fingerprinting was deployed in the 1890’s well after the ripper murders.

Whitechapel was notorious for its poor lighting and this could have slowed the police down during patrols in the night.

The police were to blame for not capturing Jack the Ripper in other parts of the case. The police had never had a never had a serial killer like Jack the Ripper, to deal with before. The fact is that in certain Sources it is evident that the police were trying very hard to catch the Ripper; this is evident in Source F where the police were sending leaflets to many homes and trying to ask questions at the same time. This is a good method but also it had a down fall that people could be illiterate. They may not have realised this but it is an easily made mistake. The police did not bother putting the leaflet in to simple English so this was another unhelpful factor.

In Source G they refrain from offering rewards, this is because of false reports for money, so this was a good idea but it still did not prevent the false statements and letters being published. The police used their logic when coming to the conclusion that Jack the Ripper lived in the East End, this was most likely true because it is evident that he had knowledge about the local area.

The police were effective in a few aspects of the case but could have achieved more when trying to solve the murders. The police failed in capturing Jack the Ripper, this is because of the way in which they conducted their business. Even though the police were sure that Jack the Ripper lived in the East End they could have been searching the wrong areas. They did not have enough evidence to pin point the exact area and place that Jack lived. The police should have listened to the informant in Source E, the informant said ‘murder would ensue if matters were left as they were’ and this actually happened.

It is debated that it is possible that the victim in Source A – Martha Tabram was not actually the victim of Jack the Ripper, so the police could have spent more time looking at the other definite murders linked to Jack. The police relied on evidence from witnesses who did not even see the murderer clearly so this was a downside as they could have been put of track.

The murders were given low priority at first because the victims were poor and prostitutes were considered the lowest of the low so the police would not have been very bothered. The police would have had other murders in the area and even these were going unsolved so this showed the police had a lack of care in these matters. Another problem was that no specific police members were put on the case and the beats were regularly changed so it prevented groups of officers gathering evidence.

This is clear in Source D the testimony of Elizabeth Long she is very unclear of what she sees. She describes the murderer as foreigner, the police would not be able to find out the murderers whereabouts relying on the fact that there were many foreigners in the East End, so this was not their fault. This was not a very reliable piece of evidence. They relied on poor evidence.

In Source H we learn that the murders were ‘cunningly continued’ so it show that the police were not doing their jobs effectively because the murders were still occurring. This source could be exaggerated because it was published in the newspapers.

In Source I, a map of the area we can see that the murders had occurred around a certain area so the police should have picked this up and effectively patrolled this area and made it their priority to have a good number of officers patrolling this area at night.

In many ways if you look at Source E the informant is right in suggesting that the police were not doing enough and that is evident when you look at their methods at the present time.

That not many police officers were on the case could have been changed because two police forces were actually carrying out the investigation. This consisted of ‘The Metropolitan Police’ and ‘The City of London Police’. The City of London police only were involved in the investigation because the murder of Catherine Eddowes occurred in the square mile in the centre of London that belonged to them (The City Police), so they took the crime under their jurisdiction and they started to investigate.

The main problem was that these two police forces did not work together and they did not communicate. They both just wanted the glory and attention from capturing one of the most wanted criminals at that time. They did not have much regard of the public safety. They did not share valuable information with each other and this could have proved costly and it could have helped find Jack the Ripper.

This was debated because a letter sent from Sir Charles Warren to Sir James Fraser (Head of the Metropolitan Police) suggesting that they work together. This document was sent in October 1888. The letter stated that they should have more communication between them and they should have officers who met with each other and ‘consult’ about the case. So they did try to resolve the issue.

There were very few investigating officers at the beginning of the case so the police also failed. They should have increased the number of police and had a specific number of police officers on the case and they should not have continuously changed the police officers patrolling the area. The police were to open minded in the case and they could have improved on their methods.

There was limited man power because in the 1830 there was 1 policeman for every 450 – 500 inhabitants but this fell to 1 policeman for every 900 inhabitants in 1841, this was something they could not prevent and it was not their fault but they could have tried recruiting more officers.

The police also had destroyed key evidence. The message ‘the juwes will be blamed for nothing’, that was scribbled on a wall was also destroyed by The Metropolitan Police (this was where the ‘bloody apron had been found). This was because the City Police wanted to photograph this message but the Metropolitan Police destroyed the message before it could be photographed on camera.

This was in a way good thing that they did in a way because it prevented the Jewish population of Whitechapel being targeted and being killed as a result of rioting. If it was not removed it could have led to rioting that would not have helped the police. Unfortunately this in turn this led to the police being criticised by the public of being ‘too heavy handed’.

The police were not to blame for capturing the Jack the Ripper; this is because they were limited at what they could do and they did not have enough resources such as fingerprinting also they did not have enough evidence. If you look at present day situations even now the police are having difficulty in capturing the ‘Suffolk Ripper’. If even now this is happening so what chance did the police have in the 1880’s of capturing Jack the Ripper, so you can not blame them for their errors. In certain cases you can blame them but on the whole it was not their fault, so this is why you can not blame the police for not capturing Jack the Ripper.