Why did the Whitechapel murders attack so much attention in 1888?
The Police investigation of the Ripper case was very difficult due to limitations of the 19th century police techniques and numerous false starts and red herrings that the police faced in 1888.
The first major false start in the Whitechapel murders was the investigation of ‘Leather Apron’ after the first murder of Mary Anne Nicholls while the police were searching for the killer of Polly Nicholls, a story surfaced about a bizarre character named ‘Leather Apron’. He would get prostitutes to pay him or he would beat them. A newspaper name ‘The Star’ claimed this man was a Jewish slipper maker. The Police force had arrested a man nicknamed ‘Leather Apron’ before for stabbings but it turned out he had alibis for all his murders. At first it looked like the case was solved but it wasn’t. The police had to look for other leads.
The Whitechapel were terrified; they looked for scapegoats and seized on the growing East End Jewish community as a target. A man called Leather Apron who bullied prostitutes was also Jewish. A witness testimony in the Annie Chapman murder pointed to a foreigner, which was the term used to describe Jewish immigrants. These two facts and many unproven rumours whipped up a distinctly anti-Semitic atmosphere. The Police received hundreds of accusations against Jewish shopkeepers in Whitechapel which they had to follow up in order o be seen pursing all leads. This Red Herring cost the police valuable time and energy.
Nobody was able to accurately identify the ‘man’ seen talking to the ‘Ripper’ victims. There were lots of different descriptions that did not help the police narrow down their search. Every single witness who claimed to have seen the victims talking to a man who may have been the ‘Ripper’ gave a different description. This meant that police constables at the time were not even able to create a police artists impression of the possible murderer. The lack of reliable witness slowed down the case.
What about the chalk writing found over an hour later on Goulston Street. It read, “The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing.” Also a portion of Catherine Eddowes bloody apron were found by the message.
So did this tell us the religion of the murderer or was it another red herring. Some people said it was not the killer who wrote that message, it could have been there before and the killer had just dropped or placed the bloody piece of apron. Scotland Yard and the Jewish Community suggested that the message was deliberate to attempt to put the blame on Jews and throw the police off track of the real murderer.
A letter was sent on October 16th 1888 to George Lusk who was the head of an East End neighbourhood watch group called the Mile End Vigilance Committee. The letter was sent with a portion of a human kidney. Lusk was extremely upset. Dr. Thomas Openshaw at the London Hospital examined it and established that it was a human adult kidney, which was preserved in spirits rather than in formalin, such as that used in hospitals for specimens. The letter that accompanied the kidney was not written by the ‘Dear Boss’ author.
Mr Lusk
Sor
I send you half the Kidne I took from one women prasarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise I may send you the bloody knife that took it out if you only wate a whil longer.
Signed
Catch me when
You can
Mishter Lusk
Why were the police unable to catch Jack the Ripper?
Jack the Ripper was a murder who remained unsolved by the police. The police force didn’t capture anyone, who’d been a suspect for the Whitechapel murders, but that didn’t mean they didn’t try hard. The Police explored every avenue of investigation in 1888- both conventional and unconventional. Since there were no women on the police force during those days, at least one policemen dressed up as a prostitute and acted as a decoy. He was sent out onto the East End streets ad paraded around to see if anybody approached him. It obviously didn’t work, and he was rewarded with snide comments from the locals residents in Whitechapel and from the fellow constables. They worked hard and explored all leads but their techniques were meant that capturing ‘Jack the Ripper’ was not very likely.
Before forensic science, the only way to prove someone committed a murder was to catch them in the act, or get the suspect to confess. This was one of the reasons that made it hard to catch ‘Jack the Ripper’. The Whitechapel murders happened during this period of time. Police presence was increased dramatically around Whitechapel at the height of the murders and police quite often stumbled across the ‘Ripper’ victims whilst they were warm. But unless the ‘Ripper’ was literally caught red-handed then the police had no chance of solving the case.
Two police forces carried out investigations of the ‘Ripper’ murders. The Metropolitan Police, know as Scotland Yard, was responsible for crimes committed in all the boroughs of London except the City of London. The single square mile in the heart of London had their own police force. People believed that both forces worked well together, but evidence shows they did not. Because the two forces didn’t work well together, maybe they just missed the ‘Ripper’ and made it even harder to capture him.
Apart from autopsies and taking statements from the people who might know something there was little else the Metropolitan Police force could do. Forensic evidence was not available yet. In fact the murders occurred at a time when the police still believed that taking a photograph of the victim’s eyes soon after death would show them the image of the murderer. Today The Police use fingerprints, DNA and match forensic evidence to catch the killer. In 1888 the police could not even manage a satisfactory artists impression of the Whitechapel murderer due to too may many people saying different things.
Another reason why the Police didn’t capture Jack the Ripper, because when police put up signs, too look for Jack the Ripper, there was no reward. This is because the attitude of the people at the time was that the police were incompetent and that the Commissioner, Sir Charles Warren, was only good for policing crowds and keeping order rather than detective work.
One of the splits between the leadership of the two forces was over graffito found in Goulston Street on the night of the night of the “double even”. A piece of Eddowes’ apron, which the Ripper used to wipe off his knife, was found y a constable near a doorway that had chalked message over the door. It said, “The Juwes are the men That Will not be blamed for nothing.”, mat have been written by the Ripper and the City police officers wanted to photograph it. Warren felt that leaving it until it was light enough to be photographed might cause riots against the Jews living in Whitechapel whom the English residents already believed were responsible for the murders.
In the end the police never charged any suspect with the murders committed by the Ripper which shows they did not have a sufficient amount of evidence that would gain a verdict of guilty in criminal court. This had more to do with the limitations of police work at the time and nothing to do with the amount of effort put into the investigation.
