In the fall of 1888, a series of murders took place in the district of Whitechapel in the East End of London (UK).
The murders caused uproar throughout the nations capital resulting in riots and calls for the resignation of the police commissioner. Social reformers claimed that the murders were an indictment on a society that allowed and actively encourages poverty. Others claimed that the police and the murderer worked together.
With the fragment of human kidney sent in the mail to the police came a letter: "I send you half the kidne I took from one woman...tother piece I fried and ate..." The writer's return address: "From Hell." All of London knew that the gruesome message came from "Jack the Ripper," who had just slashed to death his fourth victim, 43-year-old Catherine Eddowes. All four women had been pathetic prostitutes, aging and worn, forced to ply their degrading trade in the slum district of Whitechapel. A cesspool of the most wretchedly impoverished people, it had narrow streets and alleys that led through a filthy maze of gin shops, brothels, and opium dens. Fewer than half the children survived to the age of five; upto seven people were packed into each tiny room of this garbage-strewn warren. To fend off starvation in such desperate circumstances, many young women had no alternative but to become streetwalkers. Such women, for unexplained reasons, were the prey of the Ripper, who was never identified nor apprehended.
The first victim was 42-year-old Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols, whose throat was slit on the night of August 31. As she lay dying in a grimy little alley, her killer ripped open her abdomen with his 10-inch knife. Eight days later "Dark Annie" Chapman, 47, already weakened from tuberculosis, was dispatched in precisely the same manner with the same type of instrument. Now people recalled an earlier murder of a Whitechapel prostitute. Since she had merely been stabbed to death, police saw no likely connection. But the public felt otherwise and raised a frightning outcry that put pressure on the police to send reinforcements to the slum district. Private detectives and civilian volunteers eagerly enlisted in the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, set up by concerned London business interests. With the mounting fear came an exposé of the dark side of Victorian life. Comfortable members of society had long ignored the cruel conditions forced upon the poor. In an age when sexual matters were not even mentioned, much less discussed, the so-called proper people had turned a blind eye on the city's numerous streetwalkers. However, attention continued to be focused upon the killer, who had written his first letter bragging about his crimes in red ink and signed it with the name he had bestowed on himself, "Jack the Ripper." His taunts that the police would not catch him seemed well-founded, though patterns in his crimes became evident.
Medical examiners determined that he was left-handed and knew a good deal about anatomy, obviously being skilled in extracting human organs with precision. And, gradually, it became clear that each murder was committed in the hours between 11pm and 4am. But this was not nearly enough evidence. Investigators took to hounding innocent persons, merely because they were common criminals, known sex offenders, or mentally ill surgeons and butchers. The harassment proved fruitless.
The murderer's crimes became even more daring - and more hideous. Apparently interrupted just after cutting the throat of Elizabeth "Long Liz" Stride, 45, the Ripper fleetly vanished into the night mist shortly after midnight on September 30, leaving his victim dead but unmutilated. She was found clutching a bunch of grapes in one hand, sweets in the other. The witness who had stumbled upon the scene heard footsteps but failed to catch a glimpse of the killer.
Deprived of his familiar pleasure, the Ripper struck again within 45 minutes. His target this time was Eddowes, whom he killed and disemboweled, removing the kidney fragment sent though the mail. Astonishingly, a watchman on guard only several yards away heard nothing. Somehow, on a busy saturday night in a teeming slum, with hordes of extra-duty policemen and vigilantes primed to nab him, the presumably blood-covered killer got away once again.
Jack was never caught and no one new what he looked like.
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