The Murder Files

Jack The Ripper

Location:............Whitechapel, London, UK

Victims:.................5

Date:................................1888

Over the course of 10 weeks, a mysterious serial killer stalked the dark alleyways of Whitechapel in Victorian London.

During this short reign of terror, Jack the Ripper mutilated and killed
at least five women but was able to avoid capture, and has never
been identified.

Who was one of the world's infamous serial killers?

THE EVENTS

The Ripper first struck in the early hours of August 31, 1888, when the body of Mary Ann Nichols, who had fled from her husband and five children, and was believed to be working as a prostitute, was found in Whitechapel. Her body had been mutilated with savage cuts to her throat and genital area, while her abdomen had been sliced open to reveal her bowwl.

Only eight ddays later, the body of another prostitute, Annie Chapmen, who had been complaining of feeling unwell and needed somewhere to spend the night, was found in nearby Spitalfields, with deep cut to her throat and abdomen. But this time killer had also cut out some of her stoamch a d intestines and placed them on her shoulders. Some of her uterus, bladder, and vagina had been completely removed.

(There is a sketched scene from 1891 showing the discovery of one of Jack the Ripper's five victims)

On September 30, the Ripper claimed another life, when the body of Elizabeth Stride, who had spent the previous day earning money cleaning at a lodging house, was discovered in Whitechapel. She had also had her throat cut, but did not share the same abdominal injuries as the first two victims. It has been speculated her body was less mutilated as the killer had been interrupted, and a man called Isral Schwarts believed he had seen her being attacked 15 minutes before she was found, but thought it a domestic dispute.

Just 45 minutes later, another horrifically mutilated body was found in nearby Mitre Square. This was Catherine Eddowes, whose late words to her partner John Kelly, who had been worries about the presence of this serial killer, were: "Don't you fear for me, I'll take care of myself, and I shall not fall into his hands." It was a promise she could not keep, and instead she had her throat cut and was disemboweled. (There is a picture where the mutilated body of Catherine Eddowes was found, in Mitre Square). The killer had removed her uterus and left kidney. She had also had her face disfigured with large Vs cut into her cheeks and eyelids.

On the morning of November 9, landlord John McCarhty went to ask his tenant Mary Kelly for the last rent for her room at Miller's Court in Spitalfields - only to find she had become the Ripper's fifth, and probablyly final, victim. "On the bed was all that remained of the young women," McCarth recalled. "There was little left of her, not much more than a  skeleton. Her face was terribly scarred and mutilated. All this was horrifying enough, but the mental picture of that sight which remains most vivdly with me is the poor womens' eyes. They were wide open, and seemed to be staring straight at me with a look of terror."