In one of history’s most notorious unsolved crimes, a serial killer nicknamed Jack the Ripper killed at least five prostitutes in the slums of London in 1888. Jack was never caught, and his true identity has been a subject of debate ever since, with dozens of theories arising as to who carried out the gruesome murders.
The killings took place in an impoverished area of London known as Whitechapel, then home to about 1,200 prostitutes. The Ripper—the name was popularized by the London newspapers that covered the case in gory detail—typically targeted middle-aged women and struck on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. The victims’ mutilated bodies would be left in alleyways.
Coverage of the case dominated the London press for months. Sensational newspaper stories that appeared after each killing drew public attention to the conditions in London’s teeming slums—and also exposed the inadequacy of the police.
In late 1888, a London news agency received several letters purportedly written by the killer. The letters threatened more murders; “I shant quit ripping,” he taunted. One was signed “Jack the Ripper,” a name that caught on immediately. The notes were originally believed to have been authentic, but they are now regarded as more likely to have been hoaxes. A piece of anti-Semitic graffiti found near one of the victims may also have been linked to the case, but police concluded it was either unrelated or a trick to make them believe the murderer was Jewish.
Police eventually narrowed the list of suspects to four men, but no one was ever charged with the crimes. In the century since, amateur Ripperologists have nominated dozens of other suspects, ranging from a prominent impressionist painter to the grandson of the queen.
Although unsolved, the famous case had far-reaching consequences. London’s police chief, Charles Warren (1840–1927), resigned after failing to catch the killer. Over the next two decades, the police force rapidly expanded and developed more sophisticated crime-solving techniques, such as fingerprinting. The Ripper case also provided an early example of how newspapers popularize macabre nicknames for serial killers—though none have surpassed the original in notoriety.
ADDITIONAL FACTS
- The Ripper was elected “history’s worst Briton” in a 2006 BBC poll, beating out second-place villain Thomas Becket (1118–1170).
- American crime novelist Patricia Cornwell (1956–) spent about $6 million of her own money researching the Ripper case and attempting to prove that painter Walter Sickert (1860–1942) was the killer. She published her findings in a 2002 book, Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper—Case Closed, but her findings have been dismissed by most Ripperologists.
- In 1988 the FBI compiled a psychological profile of the killer. They concluded that he was a white heterosexual male, a loner in his late twenties to midthirties who had a domineering mother who had many male sexual partners. The FBI profiler considered it unlikely that he committed suicide, and guessed that he only stopped killing because he feared being caught.
