A Case Study Of Jack The Ripper

Jack The Ripper was the first modern serial killer. Over ten weeks in the year 1888 he butchered five women and the police couldn't catch him. All the things that we would do at a crime scene now were not done back then. They didn't have fingerprints, blood groups or even blood types. Laura Richards is a behavioral psychologist with the violent crime command at Scotland yard. She has agreed to reexamine the case that have been troubled by conspiracy theories and myths. Laura brings the experience of a decade of studying the most dangerous criminals. She will bring together a team of experts using modern techniques to help her get inside the killer's mind. So the hunt for Jack the Ripper has begun again.

Laura says you have an offender who is prolific, predatory, and killing women. He is not only killing women he is mutilating them and then leaving them out publicly displayed for the world to see. To Laura Richards the case of Jack the Ripper is unfinished business. Laura's job is behavioral analysis. A criminal reveals himself by his actions of so the theory goes. Although the crimes are over a century old they can still be decoded. Over the decades over 200 suspects have been named. The hunt for the Ripper has become a game. Dozens of solutions have been offered yet no one has ever proven who the Ripper was. The police of 1888 were certain that these were the crimes of a madman. As a result, a harmless mental by the name of Aaron Koslinski became the prime suspect because he ate from the gutter and claimed to hear voices. Later came the conspiracy theories. Was the killer Prince Albert Edward, Queen Victoria's grandson and the Heir to the throne?

That, many believe is a complete pack of nonsense as he had an alibi for every murder. Was it Victoria's physician, William Gall, as part of a Masonic plot? No, he too had an alibi for the murders. The press made the killer a legend. The newspaper sold over a million copies with a "Ripper" front page. Since he was the first modern serial killer the police were simply not equipped to hunt him down. They closed the investigation after four fruitless years. Laura agreed to reopen it and focused on the core facts. It's widely accepted that Polly Nichols was the first victim. She was 43 years old with adult children and separated from her husband. She had no permanent home and was often on the streets. She was an alcoholic. Her death marked the beginning of what would become known as "The Autumn of Terror". She was killed in the early morning hours of August 31, 1888. Ripper expert Don Rambelow knows the streets the Ripper killed on better than anyone.

He took Laura to the place where the first victim was found. Bucks Row lies on the northern edge of White Chapel on London's east end. Of all the five murder sites this is the one that has changed the least. The body was found by two men on their way to work, Charles Cross and John Paul. Cross was the first to see her and at first thought it was a tarpaulin. Only when he and Mr. Paul took a closer look did he realize that it was a body. It was only after she was taken to the mortuary did they discover the gashes in her abdomen. Polly's injuries went far beyond what was necessary to cause death. Her sexual organs were mutilated. Laura wanted to know why. Polly wasn't raped but the nature and the intensity of the attack say something about the state of mind of the killer. Laura thought it was a sexually motivated crime even though she wasn't raped. The next step is to work out exactly how the Ripper attacked.

Laura then used a pattern of all of the Rippers attacks and the connections between the five victims and their killer and formed a basic profile of The Ripper. She was also presented with new evidence. Evidence that was hoped to contain the DNA of Jack the Ripper. Laura needed to know two things. One, why the killer chose White Chapel as his killing ground and two, why he chose 43 year old Polly Nichols as his first victim. Polly was there that day probably because she was a prostitute and was looking for a customer. She had had three that day but had spent the money on Gin. Polly Nichols lifestyle made her vulnerable. Even before she was killed that area was the toughest area in London. This was a society ruled by poverty and drink. Alcohol hit the poor in London the same was that crack cocaine hit American cities in the 80's. All five of the Ripper's victims lived in these conditions in this community. In fact they all lived and died within a single square mile.

Selling sex was often the only way to get by. Some 5000 women worked a prostitutes in this area alone. For a predatory killer like The Ripper, White Chapel with its of targets made for easy pickings. This environment clearly suited The Ripper's purposes. The question was whether he was what criminal psychologists call a poacher or someone who came from outside White Chapel just to hunt. Or was he attacking within his own community? Laura used a mapping technique called geographical profiling. It is used by law enforcement agencies around the world to interpret crime scene locations. It was developed by Dr. Kim Russmo, a geographical profiler who works out of the Dept. of Criminal Justice in Texas. Dr. Russmo, who is a mathematician, uses a formula based on dozens of solved cases. Using data such as roads, homes, and business locations, he then calculates where the offender comes from.

Using this method and given that the murders all occurred within one mile it should be possible for Dr, Russmo to be able to calculate what street the police should have started looking. While waiting on the results, Laura looked at the circumstances of the second murder. It happened seven days after the first murder on Hanbury street. The victim's name was Annie Chapman. Like Polly, Annie Chapman's life was on a downhill spiral. She too was an occasional prostitute after her and her husband both lost their jobs. The yard where Annie was killed doesn't exist anymore. At around 6:00 AM on the morning of the 8th of September, John Davis, a wagon driver,came down the stairs of number 29. He was leaving for work. He saw that the back door was slightly ajar and went to investigate. He found the body of Annie Chapman. The cut on Annie Chapman's neck was so severe that it almost cut off her head, part of her uterus was missing, and her intestines were drawn out and thrown over her left shoulder.

One witness from the scene described it's effect: "Every person who had seen the body looked afraid as if they wanted to run away". Laura thought that even as he was killing Annie he was thinking about the consequences, the shock, and that was part of the thrill. He may have been calculating and cunning but he also put himself in a situation where the chance of being caught were very high. No fewer than 23 people lived at 29 Hanbury Street coming and going at all hours. He could have easily have been disturbed. This told Laura that The Ripper had a high degree of self control. He either can't resist the urge to kill regardless of what might happen to him or he is disciplined, confident, and playing out the odds. It's Annie Chapman's behavior which points to the answer. She almost certainly went with him of her own accord for if their had been a struggle it would have been heard. She probably thought he was a customer, thus he must have looked like a man who would do her no harm.

He also must have put her at ease. The police thought they were looking for an obvious lunatic, one more animal than man. The killer Laura sees, however doesn't fit any of the stereotypes. It appears that The ripper managed to conceal what he was until the last second. To Laura, the point at which he showed his true intentions is when he revealed most about himself. This moment in time became her focus. Jack The Ripper knew what he was doing. Laura turned to Peter Dean who is a coroner and police surgeon for a section of London that includes White Chapel. If the Ripper struck today it would be on Peter Dean's watch. As an expert witness his job is the interpretation of wounds. By looking across the wounds of all the victims he was able to build a picture of how the Ripper claimed a victim. He broke the attack down into distinct phases: Controlling, killing, and mutilating. The myth that has grown around the Ripper centers around the way he mutilated his victims.

But contrary to what most people assume, that is not the way he killed them, he strangled them first. The last phase, the mutilating, goes beyond the normal realm of killing and is what satisfies him. In other words, he didn't kill by cutting, he killed in order to cut. This part of what he did has been a source of grim fascination ever since the crimes were committed. It has also given rise to one of the great myths about the case. The idea that the perpetrator was a surgeon. It started with the Doctor who did Annie Chapman's post mortem. He thought he saw signs of surgical training but his ideas had little support at the time. For Laura, the question of how skilled the Ripper was distracted from something far more important, and that is the psychological drive it takes for a person to inflict that much damage on another human being. Laura's experience tell her that his willingness to kill had its roots in something he himself had experienced.

In 1888 the people had never heard the term "serial killer" and all they could do was wait and see when and where he would take his next victim. They could not know that he would take his next two victims in the space of an hour. John Grieve is one of London's most senior and respected retired policemen. He consulted with Laura on this analysis. He has news of a new development in the Ripper case. It relates to the Rippers fourth victim, Kathryn Eddowes. It had been thought that no physical evidence survived the case. But someone has come forth with a shawl from Eddowe's body. The authenticity of the shawl is far from certain. It belongs to one of the descendants who attended the scene. Although it is in private ownership now, it spent a good deal of time in the crime museum in Scotland Yard. If it is genuine it is the last physical link to the case that anyone has. In any event a team of Forensic Scientists scan it for possible DNA and other clues.

Of course DNA is useless without something to compare it to but there has been a break on that front as well. Kathryn Eddowes relatives have been traced and contacted and they agreed to give DNA swabs. Kathryn Eddowes was killed on the 13th of September 1888. Ripperologists call that event the "double night" because it was also the day of the death of another Ripper victim, Liz Stride. This was the most well documented night of the Ripper's career. Using police records, witnesses statements and the Coroner's court it was possible to construct a timeline of just what happened that day and night. Laure pooled her expertise with that of John Grieve who has handled dozens of complex police investigations. At 8:00 AM on the 29th Kathryn Eddowes was seen leaving a pawn brokers shop. She hocked a pair of work boots that belonged to her partner, John Kelly. She received 2 schillings and sixpence and she spent it all on food.

It is known that Kathryn Eddowes worked as a prostitute and she certainly got more money somehow because she started drinking heavily. Police reports place her at Aldgate High Street at 6:00 PM. A mile away, Liz Stride had been drinking too. She was spotted at the Queen's Head Public House and later at the bar of the Bricklayer's Arms. Like Katheryn, Liz Stride was a prostitute. She was born in 1843 in Sweden but the rest of her story is confused because Liz told lies about her past. At 8:00 PM, according to the custody records of Bishopsgate police station, Katheryn Eddowes was arrested for being drunk and incapable. Witnesses who saw Liz Stride paint a different picture. At 11:00 PM she was sent in the doorway of a pub with an unidentified man. In fact she was spotted with three different men over the course of the next couple of hours. At around 12:45 James Brown, a docker who was coming home, spotted Liz with a man about 5'7" who was stocky and wearing a long overcoat. He appeared to be standing in her way.

The man who would later identify her body heard her speak. John made the decision to use the same procedure as would be used in a modern day murder hunt. He collated all the different descriptions given by witnesses. The question becomes if the police in 1888 had had an image to work with would they have caught him before he killed again? Kathryn Eddowes spent until 1:00 AM the morning of the 20th, safely locked up in Bishopsgate police station. Eventually the duty officer felt she was sober enough to be released. She was let out and went back towards Aldgate High Street. The Ripper had already found Liz Stride. Her body lay on Berner Street and was discovered at 12:45 still warm with a cut to the throat which was still bleeding. She had died less than five minutes before. Beyond this single wound there was nothing else, no mutilation. There were people who actually disturbed the Ripper doing his work but weren't quick enough to save her life. They may have unwittingly sealed Kathryn Eddowe's fate.

They know that The Ripper was on Berner Street around 1:00 AM. They also know that he went west to Mitre Square. He could have arrived there no later than 1:30 because when the body of Kathryn Eddowes was found at 1:45 it was obvious he had spent some time with it. Kathryn Eddowes suffered worse degradation than any of the previous victims. It is possible to place the Ripper in a third location that night. At 2:55, D.C. Alfred Long was conducting a search on Goulston Street when his eye was drawn to some graffiti and underneath it was a piece of bloody cloth that had been cut from an apron that Eddowes had been wearing. What is so important about this is the when and the where. On Berner Street he had been interrupted and started hunting again and found Kathryn Eddowes in Mitre's Square. He then changed direction, his work was done, his night was over, so where was he heading and how close to where he lived did he commit his crimes. One week later a letter arrived addressed to Mr. George Lusk.

He was chairman of the White Chapel Vigilance Committee, a group of local men who patrolled the streets trying to catch The Ripper. The letter was headed "From Hell" and came with half a human kidney. It said "Mr. Lusk Sir, I sent you half a kidney I took from one woman. I preserved it for you, the other piece I fried and ate. It was very nice. I may send you the knife that took it out if you only wait a while longer." It was signed "Catch me if you can Mr. Lusk". The newspapers and police received hundreds of hoax messages claiming to be from The Ripper. But none of them had the credibility that this letter has. The kidney, it is believed, came from Katheryn Eddowes as it showed the same signs of disease that she was known to be suffering from. What did the letter say about the killer? Some people think it is a trick, that the Ripper wrote it as an educated person trying to throw people off his trail by making it appear to have been written by a semi literate.

Laura turned to Forensic Linguist Dr. Francis Rock for help. She specializes in analysis of this kind of text. Dr. Rock thinks that this letter was written by somebody with less than a full education. The letter offers few revelations but conspiracy theories aside, the obvious explanation is the likely one and that is that the author was poorly educated. That puts him in the lower classes. For Laura, the letter offers two other clues. The author resorts to cannibalism and the fact that George Lusk was its recipient. Unlike those letters that were definitely hoaxes, this one didn't go to the government or the press. Jack The Ripper didn't seek to have a national or global impact, his attention was focused not on the wider world but rather on White Chapel. All the evidence was pointing one way and that is that The Ripper was a local man. On the morning of the 9th of November, 1888, Thomas Boyer went to Miller's court in White Chapel to collect rent from one of his tenants.

When he received no answer he peered through the window. He later told the press that what he had seen was the work of the Devil. The door to Mary Kelly's lodging was locked. When the door was broken down, pieces of her lay around the room. Less is known about this 5th victim than any of the others. She was younger than the rest, around 25. She was said to be pretty although no photograph of her in life exists. She too was a prostitute, but she was the only victim who had a permanent address and the only one to be killed inside. What The Ripper did to her was possibly the most extreme violence that one human can inflict on another. Her face was gash filled, her nose, cheeks, eyebrows and ears had been partially removed. Both breasts had been removed by circular incisions, more or less. The heart was absent. He may have spent hours with the body. Most Ripper experts say that this was the last murder. But after Mary Kelly and for reasons that have never been explained, Jack stopped his killing spree.

Finally after studying all five of the murders all the elements came together for Laura. With all the information including the DNA test, the geoprofiling, the computer generated image of The Ripper's face, how close can she come to unmasking him? However, the tests on the shawl of Kathryn Eddowes revealed no useful DNA. 121 years after the murders all the physical evidence is gone or been contaminated making it worthless. Yet there is still plenty of evidence left behind that doesn't decay. 13 different people gave descriptions of men seen with the victims at or near the crime scenes shortly before the murders. Of course there are always problems with eyewitnesses. Some of the witness statements differ greatly and they are clearly describing different people. But many of them are similar enough that they could well be talking about the same man. Working with the statements and police reports, a criminal artist developed an image of what The Ripper might have looked like.

25 to 30 years of age, and 5'5"to 5'7". According to Laura's psychological study said this man was not the criminal mastermind of Legend and yet he was clever enough to balance his risks. Laura thought The Ripper was socially skilled, which makes him efficient at targeting women. Beneath the surface, however, was a complete lack of normal emotion. It is the combination of these traits, charm, determination, ruthlessness, and the ability to blend in that makes him dangerous. The place to hunt for him was close to his crimes, in White Chapel. The geographical profiler thought he could identify the street where The Ripper lived. The most likely streets where The Ripper lived was Flower and Dean Streets. A year before the murders each of the victims lived within 100 yards of these streets. The police actually conducted house to house inquiries on these streets after the Eddowe's murder. However, no records survive of who they talked to.

It is impossible to say just how close they got but it is a safe bet that The Ripper would have been interviewed and discounted. The primary reason the police didn't catch him then was because they were looking for a Monster and The Ripper was just an ordinary looking man. But if the police had had all the tools that are available today, their likely would have been no legend of Jack The Ripper. But I suppose they say that about the Zodiac as well and of the 35 or so known serial killers working the streets of America today at any given time. But like them the identity of Jack The Ripper remains a mystery.