Detective methods developed slowly but however, some forensic progress was made. In 1892 the Alphonse Bertillon method of identification was used. This involved measuring parts of the human body, assuming no two persons measurements were identical. The first photographer was appointed in 1901 as was the first fingerprinting method.
‘Why did the Whitechapel murders attract so much attention in 1888?’
The crimes of Jack the Ripper are quite common with the Whitechapel murders that one is often mistaken for the other. The first murdered victim was Emma Smith and she was a local prostitute. She was murdered in April 1888 and she came in to the mortuary with face and chest injuries. She was attacked about 1.30 am and she used to return to her lodgings at all hours of the night, usually drunk. She went to hospital and died about 9 am. The next victim was Martha Tabram and she was also a lady of the night. Killed on 7 August 1888 with thirty nine stab wounds on her body. She has been stabbed many times in the lungs and heart which would have caused death. She had been struck five times in the liver and the stomach had been penetrated six times. The wounds had been inflicted with some kind of dagger.
The next murdered victim was Mary Anne Nichols also known as Polly. She got married in 1864 to William Nichols and they had five children together, but despite the years and children they had their marriage ended in 1880, because of her heavy drinking. He paid for her accommodation, 5 shillings a week, until he found out she was living a life of prostitution. They had not spoken to each other in years. She met her killer around 4 in the morning on Friday 31st of August 1888. She was discovered by Charles Cross whilst he was walking through Bucks Row. Her throat had been cut from ear to ear and she was soaked in blood. The abdomen had been sliced open. When the doctor came he announced that she was dead. She had been killed by the slash on her throat and she had been dead for no longer than thirty minutes. John Neil the police man, on the beat at the time of the death, carried out door to door enquires bout no one has seen anything suspicious.
The death of Polly spread around Whitechapel and soon the people and the press connected the murder of Polly with that of Emma Smith and Martha Tabram. They were all local prostitutes that had been living with no one.
After the murder of Polly Nichols, a second body was found. She had also had a huge slice in her body and her intestines had been ripped out and were lying on the ground. There was a lot of blood and the body was cold. The cut in the throat was very deep. She was later identified as Annie Chapman, who was a homeless prostitute. She was forty seven and she suffered from alcoholism. Near to the place of the murder, a leather apron, a nail box and a piece of steel were found. The items belonged to John Richardson so they had little significance. A witness, Elizabeth Long, came to identify the body. She also gave a description of the man. She described him as a man over forty and he seemed like a foreigner. When the body was found, the body might have cooled quicker because they body had been open with all the organs removed.
The effects of the first 4 murders on Whitechapel were horrific. Every body was afraid to come out at night incase the so called Jack the Ripper struck again. Newspapers exaggerated the murders and the descriptions making out that the person had a lot of knowledge to know where everything was in a body. A lot of attention was focused on the Jewish people because of Elizabeth Long’s description of him being a foreigner.
Then a letter was sent to the Central News Agency on the 27 September 1888, which became know as ‘Dear Boss’ letter. It was treated as a joke. It was written in red ink and was the first time Jack the Ripper was used. The letter mocked the police saying that he would not stop until he was caught. He told them that he was enjoying it. He told them that he would cut of the next ladies ear. The letter was taken seriously after the next two murders.
Elizabeth Stride was found dead just after midnight on 30 September 1888. Again the wind pipe had been cut all the way across and a number of stab wounds. There had been no mutilations suggesting that Jack the Ripper was disturbed.
Later on that evening another victim was found. Her name was Catherine Eddowes. She was found by Edward Watkins, a police constable. Catherine was in a pool of blood and her throat had been slashed. She had been disembowelled. Above her on the wall was a statement written in chalk, ‘The Juwes are The men That Will not be Blamed For Nothing.’ This possibly tells us that he is Jewish himself, which fits in with Elizabeth Long’s statement that he was foreign.
Then another letter was sent to George Lusk. Jack told Lusk that he sent them half of a kidney and fried the other half and ate it. So if he did eat it he would be a cannibal. Then again he mocks the police saying he will send them the knife next time if they wait and asking them to catch him if they can.
The last main murder was that of Mary Kelly. Unlike all the other murders, she was the only one to be killed inside. She was brutally murdered in her room which she rented. This time Jack the Ripper now had all that evening to perform his horrific mutilations. When the police found her the following morning, she had been slashed all other her body, and her skin had been removed. She, like the previous four, had had her throat cut which cut through the windpipe. All the organs had been removed. Her face was badly hacked at and her arms and breasts had been totally cut off. Her heart was not found. This time the police or Dr Bond, a medical expert, did not think that this was carried out by a person with any medical knowledge, because the body was so disfigured they could not identify her just by looking. She owed money of the room and was several weeks behind on rent. She had been a prostitute to earn some money to pay for a bed.
Another four prostitutes were killed in Whitechapel after Mary Kelly, but nothing as vicious.
The police also handed out leaflets that gave the locals appealing for witnesses to come forward. People then became more anxious and worried and many women would stay indoors in the evening but needed the money for a bed.
So the main reasons why the Whitechapel murders attracted so much attention, was because they were all in the same area and performed by the first ever recorded sexual serial killer. He was also a cannibal and the nature of the killings were distressing. The press did not help matters by enlarging the stories. The Dear
Boss letters also magnified the ideas of the public and the fact that it still remains unsolved. The police also published the ‘Dear Boss’ letters in order to jog peoples memories but all they did was draw more attention to the killer and his victims.
‘Why were the police unable to catch Jack the Ripper?’
The police had a set beat that they had to walk. This meant that Jack could watch them walk past and have twenty minutes before the police officer would reappear. He could get away before the police found the body of his victim. They also had to follow up peoples request to try and assure the public that they would catch him. They took seriously the evidence of Elizabeth Long, saying he looked foreign. This meant they were looking for foreigners. If Jack was not a foreigner this meant he had time and he would not look suspicious. Also the Metropolitan police and the City of London forces failed to work together.
Jack the Ripper knew what he wanted from the victims bodies, where to find it and how to do a neat cut. This suggests that he has medical knowledge. However the police overlooked the evidence that suggested that he had anatomical knowledge.
The press also did not help as they were putting extreme pressure on the police and blew up the stories to sell them to the papers to make more money. They also put horrifying pictures on to attract the reader to buy the paper. They aimed papers at higher class and middle class citizens but also wanted to sell the papers to the people living in Whitechapel, so they put detailed illustrations as some people could not read in East London. The pictures were biased and made the image in the paper focus on a specific lead. After the letters supposedly from the murderer were published, people started copying the letters and the police were getting hundreds. They could not tell which ones were real and a hoax.
The police trained bloodhounds and the searched the area. However, there were some doubts as with the amount of people that lived in Whitechapel, crammed into the same lodge, would have the same smell leading them to make wrong accusations. During the last murder the police followed up every lead which ended in dead ends and wasted a lot of police time.
