K.A.W. PRESENTS

Its the greatest unsolved murder mystery in history; it fascinates us still. The images created by the mere mention of the name "Jack the Ripper" are vivid and distinct. We think of the eerie, foggy London nights in the dark streets of Whitechapel. Out of the gloomy night, a faceless killer emerges, does his nightmarish handiwork, and disappears once again into the foggy night; never to be detected. He burst onto the scene suddenly in August of 1888, and disappeared just as mysteriously a few weeks later.

Almost everyone knows a little about this series of murders, yet a great deal of misinformation and legend haunts any novice researcher who attempts to look into the mystery. So much legend has inflitrated the case, and so much incorrect information has found its way into the books and articles that even experienced Ripperologists are frequently guilty of quoting information that is either dubious in origin, or simply incorrect. Some researchers have taken liberty with the facts for self-serving purposes to promote a pet theory, or simply failed to verify the facts from the source materials.

The true number of Ripper killings remains hotly debated, even today. Most researchers agree that 5 murders can be attributed, with reasonable certainty, to one unidentified sexual serial killer who has come to be known to history as Jack the Ripper. Some researchers believe other murders that occured in Whitechapel were also Ripper murders. Others believe that some of the 5 may not have been the work of a single individual.

Even the notion of the foggy London nights during which the Ripper struck are the product of romantic fantasy. Not one of the murders was committed on a night in which fog was reported in the city. Only one of the murders occured on a night which it was raining.

To fully understand the background of the Ripper murders, its necessary to understand a little of what conditions were like in the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The area was seedy and dangerous even by modern standards. It was dominated by the poor and outcast of London. Homeless people roamed the streets and sought out shelter in empty sheds and shanty buildings at night. Those with a little available money might have found lodging for a night in one of 250 boarding houses, which provided a measure of shelter for about 8500 residents. Between 1200-1500 known prostitutes worked the streets; mostly middle-aged women with serious alcohol habits.

Slaughter houses were not uncommon in the district, so the sight of workers covered in blood moving about the area would not have attracted any significant attention, even late at night. The area was dominated by immigrants, primarily eastern European Jews, who occupied the lowest rung in British society in the late 19th century. Whitechapel was a hotbed of socialism and labor unrest.

The summer of 1887 was the hottest on record in London and considerable labor strife resulted from a combination of the severely impoverished conditions in the district, and frayed nerves from the heat. the winter that followed was unusually miserable. As the spring of 1888 dawned, a sense of expectation arose in London's East End, anticipating another long and difficult summer. The radical press was already contributing toward heightening the tensions and feeding the unrest.

It was against this backdrop that the events of the late summer and early autumn of 1888 were to unfold. On April 3rd of 1888, a 45 year-old prostitute named Emma Smith was brutally attacked on the streets of Whitechapel. She survived the inital attack, receiving cuts to the face and was sexually assaulted with a blunt instrument. According to Smith, she was attacked by 3 men. A few hours later she died in the hospital as the result of perotinitis. The police never captured the perpetrators but rumors of gangs harrassing street walkers became wide-spread through press reports.

Another brutal murder screamed into the headlines on August 7, 1888 when the London press reported the slaying of Martha Tabram. The 36 year-old prostitute was found stabbed 39 times. The combination of the two unprecedentally savage murders set off a firestorm in the radical press and set the stage for the series of murders which would follow.

This page is intended to present a factual account of the events in London in late 1888. All of the information presented is based on source materials from police files and press accounts. I will attempt, wherever possible, to expose commomly misreported details of the case which are frequently reported in popular works.

No single series of crimes in history has generated more popular attention than the Ripper slayings. At least one new book on the crimes is published annually, and the most popular of the Ripper websites is among the most frequently visited sites on the World Wide Web. This overwhelming availability of information makes it increasingly possible for misinformation on the case to be perpetuated, and for this reason, I feel its necessary to seperate some of the fact from fiction. I will, on the final page, present my own intrepretation of the facts. I caution the readers that the interpretation I present is my opinion, and no more likely to be correct than any of the dozens of other theories published to date. What I hope will make this page unique is the filtering of misinformation.
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The Murder of Mary Ann Nichols
The Murder of Annie Chapman
The Murder of Elizabeth Stride
The Murder of Catherine Eddowes
Doubts About The Double Event
The Murder of Mary Jane Kelly
Evidence
Prime Suspects
The Royal Conspiracy?
Other Murders
Conclusion
Kex's Amazing World