November 9, 1888: Jack the Ripper's Last Murder

Who the bloody hell was he?

November 9, 1888: Jack the Ripper strikes again. This time, it is the most brutal of his murders.

In the last few years of the reign of Queen Victoria, London was the biggest and most advanced city in the world. But it was also one of economic extremes: Great wealth, and dire poverty. Dreamers came from all over the British Isles, and from all over the world, in the hopes of making their living, or even their fortune, in the seat of the British Empire, which stretched all over the world, and thus, it was said, the Sun never set on it.

As with other cities -- in America from that time onward, the leading example has been New York, and would be joined by Los Angeles -- in London, that hope soon vanished in a morass of deprivation. Unless a woman had a man to work alongside, the only living most women could make was through prostitution.

And while there was always a market for it, that didn't mean that one would meet that market every night. Paying rent on even the meagerest of lodgings was hard. And as for keeping yourself well-fed, clean and healthy, and thus attractive enough for your potential customers, that was unlikely. Not that some men cared: They would take whatever they could afford.

Being a prostitute was a good way for a woman to get killed. Every year, a few "ladies of the evening" were murdered in London. But it didn't happen often enough for the police to notice a pattern. In 1887, there was a murder in the East End that some later tried to tie to the Ripper killings, but most people who've studied the case don't see enough similarities to think it was one.

The murders of Emma Elizabeth Smith on April 3, 1888 and Martha Tabram on August 7 of that year, both in the Whitechapel district of the East End, bear some resemblance to the Ripper killings, but the differences were noticeable enough for them to be ruled not the work of the Ripper. Generally, there are 5 murders said to be his work, known as "the Canonical Five." I'll spare you the most gruesome, and the most intimate, details.

1. August 31, 1888. Mary Ann Nichols, 43 years old, from Soho, West London. She was discovered on Buck's Row, now Durward Street, in Whitechapel -- current London postcode, E1 5BA. Found at about 3:40 AM by her roommate, Emily Holland. It was a vicious knife attack, by anyone's standards. Still, the area had seen killings like this before.

2. September 8, 1888. Annie Chapman, not quite 48, from Paddington, West London. Found at about 6:00 AM at 29 Hanbury Street, Spitalfields, E1 6QS, about a mile west of the Nichols murder. A witness had seen her half an hour earlier, "in the company of a dark-haired man wearing a brown deer-stalker hat and dark overcoat."

This was just 8 days after the Nichols murder, and the details were very similar. Now, people in the neighborhood were getting scared. Already, guesses were being made, based on the wounds. The killer was lefthanded. Or not. The killer was used to using knives. Maybe he was a surgeon. Or a barber. Or a butcher. Or a shoemaker. (Hence the 1st nickname the London press gave him: "Leather Apron.") Maybe he was of one of the immigrant groups in the East End. An Irishman. A Russian. A Pole. A Hungarian. A Jew. Take your pick of bigotries: It was available.

On September 27, the Central News Agency received a letter postmarked that same day, dated September 25. On September 29, they gave it to the London police, collectively called Scotland Yard after their headquarters' address. It read (grammar, spelling and underlining are shown here exactly as written):

Dear Boss,

I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they wont fix me just yet. I have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track. That joke about Leather Apron gave me real fits. I am down on whores and I shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled. Grand work the last job was. I gave the lady no time to squeal. How can they catch me now. I love my work and want to start again. You will soon hear of me with my funny little games. I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with but it went thick like glue and I cant use it. Red ink is fit enough I hope ha. ha. The next job I do I shall clip the ladys ears off and send to the police officers just for jolly wouldn't you. Keep this letter back till I do a bit more work, then give it out straight. My knife's so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get a chance. Good Luck. Yours truly

Jack the Ripper

Dont mind me giving the trade name

PS Wasnt good enough to post this before I got all the red ink off my hands curse it. No luck yet. They say I'm a doctor now. ha ha

Was this letter actually from the killer? Or was it someone having a little fun with the police? The police weren't sure if they should take it seriously. And then...

3. September 30, 1888: Elizabeth Stride, 44, a Swedish immigrant born Elizabeth Gustafsdotter, and known as Long Liz for her unusual height. She was found at around 1:00 AM in Dutfield's Yard, off Berner Street (now 71 Henriques Street), E1 1LZ. The places where Nichols and Chapman were found were both less than a mile away.

Witnesses said they had seen Stride talking to a man on the street a few hours earlier, but their descriptions did not agree, split on both his complexion and his clothes. This murder was also different in that there was only one incision, across her neck. This had been done to Nichols and Chapman, but they'd had more done.

This led to 2 competing theories: Either the Ripper was disturbed in mid-murder, and left so he wouldn't be caught, and thus felt he had to kill another prostitute, in order to fulfill his compulsion; or Stride was killed by someone other than the Ripper, possibly what would now be called a "copycat killer," and it happened to have occurred right before an actual Ripper murder. But the next one is almost universally agreed to be the Ripper's work:

4. September 30, 1888: Catherine Eddowes, 46, from Wolverhampton in the West Midlands, near Birmingham. Found in Mitre Square, not in the East End but in "The City of London," EC3A 5DE. Still, this was within a one-mile walk of the other murders.

She was found at around 1:45 AM -- only about 45 minutes after Stride was found. Certainly, an able-bodied man would have been able to walk less than one mile within 45 minutes. And part of her ear was missing, just as "the Dear Boss Letter" had suggested would happen -- something the police would have known, but the general public would not have, meaning that, almost certainly, this killer was no copycat.

At 2:55 AM, a bloody apron was found in front of a tenement on Goulston Street, about 6 blocks away from Mitre Square. It was recognized as belonging to Eddowes. Above it, someone had written in chalk, "The Juwes are The men That Will not be Blamed for Nothing." (Again, I have not changed the text.) Was this graffito already there? Or was it a suggestion that Jack was Jewish? Police Commissioner Charles Warren thought it might spark an anti-Semitic riot, and ordered it washed away before dawn -- thus removing potential evidence.

Two murders in 45 minutes? It became known as "The Double Event." Now, the whole city was in terror, and the newspapers and magazines of the time didn't help, publishing sensational stories of the murders, with wild theories.

On October 1, 1888, the day after the Double Event, the Central News Agency received a postcard, postmarked that day. It read:

I was not codding dear old Boss when I gave you the tip, you'll hear about Saucy Jacky's work tomorrow double event this time number one squealed a bit couldn't finish straight off. Had not time to get ears off for police thanks for keeping last letter back till I got to work again.
Jack the Ripper

In 1931, 43 years later, a reporter claimed that he'd written all the correspondence attributed to the Ripper to "keep the business alive." In 2018, a handwriting expert concluded that, at the very least, "The Dear Boss Letter" and "The Saucy Jacky Postcard" were definitely written by the same person. Which didn't mean that said person was the actual killer, or somebody riding his attention.

By October 16, there had not been another murder resembling those of Nichols, Chapman, Stride and Eddowes. Things had not calmed down, however. The Whitechapel Vigilance Committee had been formed, a group of local volunteers who patrolled the streets at night, looking for the Ripper. Their chairman was George Lusk, a 49-year-old builder.

On October 16, Lusk received a letter, postmarked the day before. Again, I have not changed the text, leaving the misspellings and grammar intact:

From hell.

Mr Lusk,

Sor

I send you half the Kidne I took from one women prasarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise. I may send you the bloody knif that took it out if you only wate a whil longer

signed

Catch me when you can Mishter Lusk

To me, someone who grew up outside New York City and remembers 1977, the Dear Boss Letter looks reminiscent of the letters that David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam, sent to the police and the New York Daily News. But "The From Hell Letter" sounds more like Hannibal Lecter, the villain of Thomas Harris' novels including The Silence of the Lambs. (In 2014, the Internet series Epic Rap Battles of History had the Ripper, played by English online celebrity Dan Bull, face Lecter, played by "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist.)

It was noted that the handwriting on the From Hell Letter was different from the Dear Boss Letter and the Saucy Jacky Postcard. Nor did it mention, let alone taunt, the police. Nor did it include a prediction of a murder to come. Nor did it include the name "Jack the Ripper" or any derivation thereof. But it did come with a box containing half a human kidney. If the journalist who claimed in 1931 to have written the 2 earlier notes was telling the truth, then the From Hell Letter may be the only real thing.

And then came a killing that truly seemed to come from Hell itself:

5. November 9, 1888: Mary Jane Kelly. Less is known about her than the other victims. She was apparently 25 years old, or around that age, making her young enough to be the daughter of the 1st 4. She claimed to have come from Limerick, Ireland, and grown up in Wales.

This murder was different, and not just because of the victim's age or origin. For one thing, her body was found indoors, at 13 Miller's Court, off Dorset Street, Spitalfields. The street names have changed since: It's at the corner of Brushfield Street and Commercial Street, E1 6AG. One big similarity: Each of the other 4 murder sites was within a one-mile walk, and Chapman's was right around the corner.

Because she wasn't murdered on the street, where she could be easily found by a passerby, it took until 10:45 AM to find her. There were morgue photos taken of the 1st 4, so we have facial photos of them, if not living ones. That was impossible with Kelly: Her face was "hacked beyond all recognition," and it was, by far, the bloodiest and goriest of the Canonical Five crime scenes.

Five prostitutes murdered, all in the same neighborhood, all within 70 days. And then... the killings stopped.

Or... did they? After 1888, pretty much anytime a woman, especially a prostitute, anywhere in the world, was stabbed to death, people blamed Jack the Ripper. There were "Rippers" all over the world. Later murders of prostitutes in Whitechapel were attributed to the Ripper, including those of Alice McKenzie, known as "Clay Pipe Alice," on July 17, 1889; and Frances Coles, known as "Carrotty Nell" for her carrot-orange hair, on February 13, 1891. But the differences in the details of the killings dismissed the unknown killer as theirs.

But the killer was never officially identified, and this is what keeps the Ripper case active in public memory. Who was he? There were several immigrants who were questioned, but the evidence against them wasn't strong enough to bring a case: Doctors like Irish-American Francis Tumblety and Russian Michael Ostrog, and shoemakers like Pole Aaron Kosminsky.

A popular theory is that it was Dr. William Gull, a physician working for the royal family, who killed prostitutes known to have been visited by Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, eldest son of the Prince of Wales, grandson of Queen Victoria, and thus would have been King of England had he lived. Gull -- possibly acting on the Queen's orders -- had to silence these women. There's even a theory that the Duke himself, a.k.a. "Prince Eddy," was the Ripper, leading to the title of a book: Frank Spiering's 1981 Prince Jack.

It wasn't Prince Eddy: Records show that he was at Windsor Castle, 25 miles away, at the time of every one of the Ripper's "canonical five murders." Given the transportation available at the time, there was no way he could have gotten to the murder sites and back without blowing his cover. It wasn't Gull, either: He was 71 years old, and had suffered a stroke, and was unlikely to have been able to overpower the women enough to kill them. If he ever killed anybody, it was through medical mistake, not willful murder.

Another theory, proposed by the initial investigator, Inspector Frederick Abberline, is that Jack was actually a Jill: A midwife would have carried blades, would be able to move around a poor neighborhood at night without raising suspicion, would have known how to render a patient/victim unconscious, could have bloodstained clothing explainable by her work, and would have known how to perform the particulars of some of the mutilations of the Ripper victims. And, since everyone was looking for a man, "Jill the Ripper" was far less likely to become a suspect. Two female murderers contemporary to the Ripper case have been identified as suspects, but circumstances make either seem unlikely.

A theory with some merit is that the last murder, that of Mary Jane Kelly, shocked even the Ripper himself, so deeply that whatever sanity he had left snapped, and that he was found mad on the street, and committed, and no one ever found out that the Ripper had, in fact, been caught -- because he was not identified as the Ripper.

A similar theory is that he was so guilt-stricken by what he'd done to Kelly that he killed himself, possibly by drowning himself in the River Thames. His body would have been found, and, even if identified, no one would ever have known he was the Ripper. Either way, it would explain why Kelly was the last "canonical victim."

Then there are those who notice that the 3rd and 5th killings, those of Stride and Kelly, don't really match the others, and suggest that, while Nicholas, Chapman and Eddowes were killed by the same man, Stride and Kelly were murders separate from them, and separate from each other. Some take this theory to the next logical step: All 5 killings were done by different people, and the name "Jack the Ripper" was totally made up. In other words, There was no Jack the Ripper. Given the nature of crime at the time, there is some logic to this theory.

DNA evidence is useless: The artifacts of the case that survive have been handled by so many people, a positive identification is impossible. In 2014, a shawl belonging to Eddowes was discovered to have DNA from both her and Aaron Kosminsky. But all that proves is that they had sex. She was, after all, a prostitute, and he did live in the same neighborhood. It could have been a one-time thing, or he could have been a regular customer. It doesn't even prove that they were together on the night of her murder, let alone that he was the Ripper.

Most cultural depictions of the Ripper make up fictional characters with which to identify him, including the 1979 film Time After Time: Malcolm McDowell, better known for playing bad guys, is cast not as the Ripper, but as H.G. Wells, author of The Time Machine. In this film, Wells himself invents a time machine, and discovers a friend of his, Dr. John Stevenson, played by David Warner, is the Ripper. Stevenson escapes to the present day, and Wells has to follow him. Stevenson decides to stay, believing that the late 20th Century is much better suited to his sadistic, homicidal ways.

The 1989 DC Comics story Gotham By Gaslight, which puts Batman in the Victorian era, and has his civilian identity, Bruce Wayne, convicted of Ripper-like slayings in Gotham City, before he breaks out of jail and discovers that the Ripper and the man who killed his parents were, in this story, one and the same: Jacob Packer, a man who was in love with Martha Wayne, and kills her and Thomas out of jealousy. This graphic novel launched DC's Elseworlds line, out-of-canon stories involving their characters in "worlds that don't, couldn't, or shouldn't exist."

Other authors have tried to link the Ripper killings to such Victorian-based characters as Wells' The Invisible Man and Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; to have Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, a contemporary of the Ripper, solve the case; and, in one novel, Michael Dibdin's 1978 The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, combine all three: Holmes tries to find a cure for his cocaine addiction, which leads him to become a Hyde-like character, and commit the Ripper murders.

Barring the invention of an actual time machine, we will never know.

In a 2014 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, British comedian Dan Bull played the Ripper, against "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist as Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs.

*

November 9, 1888 was a Friday. The baseball season was over. Hockey was still all-amateur. Basketball wouldn't be invented for another 3 years. And no college football games were played. So there were no scores on this historic day.

It was the birthdate of Jean Monnet, a French civil servant and diplomat, who is considered one of the founding fathers of the European Union.