Serial killers are known as psychopaths who hunt down weak and measly victims. Serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy have shocked and horrified people around the world. A case still baffles people today. London was thrown into a state of terror by a bizarre murder over 100 years before. Five women, all mutilated to a horrific degree, were found dead in the Whitechapel area. According to Jack 1, “the throat of each victim was cut. The body was then mutilated, indicating the murderer’s knowledge of anatomy.” The murderer even sent a kidney of a victim to police. Although there is no definitive number, at least five victims are identifiable. The killings lasted from August 31, 1888 to November 9, 1888.
On August 31,1888, it is believed that the first victim was discovered. Mary Ann Nicholls – a prostitute aged 42 – was discovered dead in an Alleyway at Bucks Row. The murderer had a preference for prostitutes, as it was discovered later. Her face and throat were blackened by bruises. Investigators found the body of the victim to be hacked and sliced. Charles Cross found her at around 3:40am. After retrieving a ambulance, the police reported that “the body and her legs were still quite warm but her wrists and hands were very cold”. He concluded that she had not been dead more than 30 minutes. Investigators examined the body of the woman after it was brought to the morgue. The back of the dress was covered in blood. He assumed that it had been dripping from the neck injury. Police discovered that a six-inch mass of blood coagulated under the corpse was also flowing toward the drain. The relatively small amount found at the site, along with the fact nobody had heard anything around the area would lead one to believe that it had happened elsewhere. Underneath blood-stained clothes, the victim was gutted. A mysterious killer took the life of another victim on September 8,1888. Annie Chapman’s 47-year-old body was found in the back yard of 29 Hanbury Street. It was badly mangled, close to the wooden fence surrounding the staircase. A scarf was tied around her neck and her face and hands were covered in blood. Investigators were convinced that the woman was struggling to keep her throat intact. The left shoulder was placed over her left breast. The tongue of the patient was extremely swollen. It reached beyond her teeth but did not reach her lips. As in the case before, the throat had been severely severed. Elizabeth Stride’s body, 45 years old, was found on September 30, 1888. It was no surprise that at 1 am, Elizabeth Stride, 45, was found with a gash of two inches deep across her neck. The police noticed that she was wearing a checkered scarf with its bow firmly pulled and twisted to the side. In the course of their examination, they stated that they had a preconceived notion that the criminal had grabbed the back part of the scarf, then pulled her down. They couldn’t decide if the lady had her throat cut standing up, or when she had been dragged back. As the murderer slit the throat of the woman, he cut through her windpipe. This meant that she could not shout for assistance and would have died instantly. A murderer was discovered just 40 minutes following the discovery of Elizabeth Stride in Mitre Square. Catherine Eddows was 46 when she was found in a bloody puddle, with her clothing thrown on top of her abdomen. The murderer was invisible to the city detectives, who were unable to see him. Police find a bloody apron torn on Goulston street, which suggests that the murderer had used it to wipe his blade. This discovery is only strange because it shows that the killer walked right past several police officers on his way out. Mary Kelly, who was the last canonical victim to be found on 11/9/1888, is the only one still missing. At only 25, she was the youngest victim. She was discovered in her room at Millers Court off Dorset Street. Mary’s nose, breasts, and throat were all cut and thrown onto a desk by the rent collector. Her entrails hung over a photo frame. The body was gutted and skinned. Her heart was lying on the table. The killings in London became more violent as the deaths progressed.
Who was he? As soon as the murderer began to send letters to the newspapers, the police and other publicizing agencies, the media referred to him by the name “Jack the Ripper.” Investigators narrowed down the suspects to Montague Druitt (a man who had been educated at Oxford) and Carl Feigenbaum and Aaron Kosminski. Druitt came from an Oxford-trained family and had a reputation for being a man of ‘genuinely decent’ character. Some accepted that Druitt’s craziness was obvious. Druitt’s suicide in London’s East End was suspicious, even though there is no solid evidence to support it. Druitt was found floating in the Thames on November 9, 1888. This was seven weeks after Mary Jane Kelly’s murder. Police confirmed that his death was caused by suicide and that he’d been in the waterway near Mary Jane Kelly at the time she was murdered for several weeks. Carl Feigenbaum was a 54-year old German mariner who worked as a shipper in London. Feigenbaum, a manic who confessed to mutilating women, was so notorious that even his own lawyer accepted the fact that Jack the Ripper was his client. Feigenbaum was known by many nicknames throughout his life, and he worked on boats docked near Whitechapel. Feigenbaum’s records show that he was in Whitechapel at each and every murder case in London East End. His colleagues and he were often seen in the whorehouses near Whitechapel. Feigenbaum was charged with the murder of Julianna Hoffman in America, around 1890. He was sentenced by electric chair. The experts also said that the Jack the Ripper murders were strikingly similar to the murder of Hoffman. Aaron Kominski was the third suspect. In 1881, after the death the Tsar Alexander I., a vicious mob attacked Jewish individuals in Warsaw. Kosminski, who was 16 at the time, saw Jews being slaughtered like animals. Initially, the family fled to Germany. They settled in England. His father was a Polish tailor, and it’s assumed that he worked at a hospital or stylist. Some think he was trying to support his English family by working two jobs. Kosminski is said to have had anatomical knowledge because his father was a surgeon. Years ago, stylists used to be called ‘barber-surgeons’. Stylists used a pole that had a red stripe on it to promote their services. This implied that clients could visit them for medical procedures, phlebotomy or dental work. Kosminski, a former stylist, worked in an era when hair stylists no longer performed medical procedures. He would still have to know the locations of the blood vessels in the neck so that he could be careful while shaving men. Kosminski could have had a razor-sharp edge that was capable of cutting through any substance. His father may also have taught him extra skills in medicine. Aaron Kosminski went to the ‘Seaside Home’ in Brighton, which has been accepted as a police recovering facility used to interrogate suspects. Police are not allowed to hold suspects in custody unless they have been charged. Kosminski would not have been convicted and ultimately hanged if he had not provided bystander testimony from “the fellow Jew”. Kosminski never went to prison but some people would argue that a life in a mental asylum would have been a similar, if no more, horrific punishment. Shannon Quinn explains that Kosminski’s weight dropped dramatically while he was living in a refuge. He became unable to remember where he had been and was lethargic. Aaron Kosminski died in 1919 at the age of 53.
Recent studies reveal that, although this mystery may seem unsolvable at first glance, DNA has been found at crime scenes. The shawl belonging to Catherine Eddows was found with blood and seminal liquid. She is Jack the Ripper’s 4th victim. Scientists test the semen a century later and find that it matches Aaron Kosminski, the main suspect of the time. According to N’dea Yancey-Bragg, “Researchers compared fragments of mitochondrial DNA… to samples from living relatives of Eddowes and Kosminski and found they matched those of Kosminski’s relative”(Yancey-Bragg 1). It’s not closed, even if you have DNA evidence. Even in this modern age, DNA testing is not always conclusive. DNA tests only show the presence of a person at a certain time. Scientists cannot say, “He’s the guilty party,” they must use language such as, “maybe” or, “this might be His DNA”. It is, however, strange that semen from his sperm was found on her shawl. Was it a couple that slept together, or did she dance with the Devil?
Still, one if the most fascinating and intriguing mysteries in the world is the one that combines one of mankind’s greatest conspiracies with one of its worst serial killing cases. It intrigues quite a few people. Jack the Ripper lovers often try to come up with their own stories and puzzles. Others might be fascinated by the grisly details of women’s murders. Jack the Ripper, or whoever he was, is no longer alive. So the reader must decide. Jack the Ripper’s horrific tale will live on for many generations.
