On April 4th, 1888, the inhabitants of London’s East End would see the first of a series of murders that would go on to create nation-wide chaos and ripple through world history. The night before, Emma Elizabeth Smith, a middle-aged widow working as a prostitute, was on her way home to her lodging-house. She was last spotted talking with a man dressed in dark clothing and a white scarf, near Farrant Street. Later, Emma would find her way home, badly beaten, her ear cut and her face and abdomen furiously bleeding. Emma would be the first in a total of 11 murders in London’s East End over the next 3 years, known as The Whitechapel Murders. Emma’s murder and many more would be falsely attributed to one infamous murderer, a killer who would be responsible for as many as 5 gruesome butcherings of prostitutes in Whitechapel. His killing spree would go on to be named “The Autumn of Terror.” This unknown serial killer was given several names, including The Whitechapel Murderer, The Leather Apron, and The Whitechapel Fiend. But most of us know him better by the name of Jack.

The Poe Show podcast presents a 19th Century True Crime special on the legend, the unsolved murders, the facts and the true identity of history’s most notorious serial killer. Over 130 years ago, London’s East End was tortured by the shadow of one man. Today’s episode: Jack the Ripper and the Whitechapel Murders. Please keep in mind this episode will cover topics including murder, gore, mutilation and sexual assault.

After being brought to London Hospital, Emma described to surgeon George Haslip that she had been robbed, attacked and sexually assaulted by a group of 3 men. She died the next morning from peritonitis, caused by violent sexual assault with a blunt weapon. Historians agree that Emma was not a victim of Jack the Ripper. Most likely, Emma had been assaulted and robbed by a local gang in Whitechapel, as was all too frequent in the area. During this time many gangs roamed freely about the streets of Whitechapel. Working as a prostitute was a common way for destitute women in East End to make ends meet, and gangs found prostitutes easy victims to control and extort. Emma’s true murderers would never be found.

In fact, there are only a total of 5 women that are considered real victims of Jack the Ripper, those being named “the canonical five.” And while the Whitechapel Murders took place over the span of 3 years, Jack the Ripper’s canonical victims were all murdered in the span of just 3 months.

The Whitechapel Murders speak to the state of the Victorian slums of 19th century London: writhing with crime, riddled by gangs, infested with rats, polluted with disease and heavily occupied by the financially destitute. Overcrowding was a significant problem: within 50 years, the population of London had exploded from 1 million to over 5 million by 1888. Civil unrest was therefore common. November 13th, 1887 became known as “Bloody Sunday,” after a protest against the recent mass unemployment was confronted by Metropolitan Police, which led to the injuries of 150 people and the arrests of over 400. The climate of Whitechapel before Jack the Ripper was already filled with unrest, and The Whitechapel Murders would only increase the mayhem.

After Emma Elizabeth Smith followed Martha Tabram, found murdered in George Yard on Tuesday, August 7th, 1888. Her neck, abdomen and genitals had been stabbed 39 times, puncturing her liver, lungs, heart and other vital organs. The police had no suspect or motive. They were able to determine that the attacker was most likely right-handed. Although Deputy Coroner George Collier immediately began an inquest into Martha’s murder, London newspapers (which all competed for the public’s attention by publishing the most shocking headlines) were busy painting the police as uncommunicative and lazy. As stated in The East London Advertiser on August 18, “The position of the matter is now this, that the police have no one in custody but they are very reticent upon the matter generally, and are not disposed to assist in the publication of details.” Most experts now say Martha was not connected to Jack the Ripper, as she was not mutilated in the same way as future victims. But just 3 weeks later, the first of “the canonical five” would be discovered.

After separating from her husband, Mary Ann Nichols worked as a prostitute. Mary Ann was last seen walking towards Whitechapel Road on August 31st at approximately 2:30am. An hour later, her mutilated corpse would be stumbled upon by a lone carman, Charles Cross. Cross stated that he had found her laying on her back on the ground, with her throat slit by two deep cuts. Her face and body were still warm, but her hands were cold. After a surgeon arrived, he determined that Mary Ann had been murdered not more than 30 minutes earlier. There were no blood trails, no wagon wheel marks, no neighbors in the surrounding area that had heard anything strange, and no police had spotted Mary Ann before the murder. It was as if Mary Ann had been killed by a ghost.

Upon further post-mortem inspection, it was discovered that the cuts to Mary Ann’s throat were so deep they reached the vertebral column, nearly decapitating the head from the body. The genitals had been stabbed twice and the abdomen had been mutilated - split open and exposing protruding bowels from cuts on both sides. It was stated that Mary Ann had most likely been killed while facing her murderer, with the cuts to the throat causing instant death and the mutilations to her body being committed after death. This would explain the lack of blood splatter at the crime scene, as livor mortis pools blood at the lower parts of the body. An inquest into the murder of Mary Ann Nichols began the very next day on September 1st. There, a surgeon testified that along with her injuries, 5 teeth were missing, there was a laceration on the tongue, bruising on both sides of the face, and many cuts to the abdomen which had been made in violent, downward thrusts. The wounds had been largely made from left to right and might indicate that the murderer was left-handed.

This same day, the London evening newspaper called The Star would state in their paper, “Nothing so appalling, so devilish, so inhuman - or, rather non-human - as the three Whitechapel crimes has ever happened outside the pages of Poe or De Quincey. The unravelled mystery of "The Whitechapel Murders" would make a page of detective romance as ghastly as "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." …when (Police Commissioner) Sir Charles has done quarrelling with his detective service he will perhaps help the citizens of East London to catch him.”

The Star would title Mary Ann Nichol’s death as the third in “The Whitechapel Horror.” They would also link between these first 3 deaths the similarities of being committed at night near the same area, the victims being prostitutes, and their murders being “accompanied by hideous mutilation.” They would, however, neglect to  mention the difference in modus operandi.

The Star was the first of London’s newspapers to report the murders as connected and committed by the same killer, but The Star was concerned more with outrage and sensationalism, and often led the public to quick false convictions. The Star published a paper on September 5th questioning why the police did not arrest a man named John Pizer, otherwise nicknamed “Leather Apron.” John Pizer had committed a string of assaults on prostitutes whom he extorted for money on the streets of London, and earned the ominous nickname because of the apron he wore during his attacks. The Star claimed he was a silent attacker who only targeted women, and that, “There is no question, considering his general character and the certainty that the murders were done by some unsettled character of this kind but that he should be taken into custody and investigated.” This sudden accusation forced John Pizer into hiding, as he feared being attacked by angry mobs. His concerns weren’t misplaced, as he was chased from his lodgings after being recognized as “The Leather Apron” on September 2nd. John Pizer was investigated as the first suspect in The Whitechapel Murders, but was found to have a solid alibi. By September 7th, the lead investigator of the murder of Mary Ann Nichols reluctantly conceded that “not an atom of evidence” connected any person to the crime. The police had reached a dead end…just as another murder victim dropped dead in East End.

Annie Chapman and her husband mutually separated years before, with her husband agreeing to send Annie an allowance of ten shillings a week. However, after his sudden death, she began working as a prostitute to survive. In the early hours of September 8th, Annie was out earning money to pay for lodging. A witness, Elizabeth Long, would testify that she had seen Annie talking with a man around 5:30am near 29 Hanbury Street. He appeared to be a man over 40 years old, with dark hair and a “shabby-genteel” appearance. He also wore a long dark coat and a deerstalker hat. Later, at approximately 6am, John Davis, who occupied 29 Hanbury Street, while leaving his home to go to work, stumbled upon Annie’s corpse lying at the foot of the property steps. The throat had been slit in 2 jagged cuts from left to right. The face was seriously swollen and bruised, and a white handkerchief laid around the throat. Most disturbingly, the abdomen had been savagely disembowelled and parts of the intestines were removed and placed above the right shoulder, while two flaps of skin from the abdomen in a great amount of blood were laid above the left shoulder. The uterus, part of the vagina and a large part of the bladder and belly were completely missing. The murderer was assumed to have some rudimentary anatomical knowledge. The coroner examining Annie Chapman’s body developed a personal theory that she had been murdered specifically to obtain her uterus. He cited enquiries asked of him by an American doctor at London medical school, looking for such organs. The ritual fashion of mutilation also matched the murder of Mary Ann Nichols. There was no denying the fact now: Whitechapel was plagued by a serial killer.

Ever yearning for the attention of the public, and only fanning the flames of hysteria in Whitechapel, The Star would publish a paper the same day, stating, “London lies to-day under the spell of a great terror…There can be no shadow of a doubt now that our original theory was correct, and that the Whitechapel murderer, who has now four, if not five, victims to his knife, is one man, and that man a murderous maniac…The ghoul-like creature who stalks through the streets of London…is simply drunk with blood, and he will have more. The question is, what are the people of London to do?...The police have not even a clue. They are in despair at their utter failure to get so much as a scent of the criminal.” The Star, along with other papers like The East London Advertiser, would go on to publicly criticize the police and accuse individuals of the crime, including John Pizer, yet again. Such intense fear in the public also led many citizens to write letters to the police, offering their own aid, theories, suggestions, accusations and a plethora of pranks mocking the police.

An inquest into Annie Chapman’s murder began on September 10th. More facts would be unfurled. Supposedly, around 5:15am, a neighbor at 27 Hanbury Street had stepped outside to relieve himself, consequently hearing a man and woman arguing, after which there was a thud of something or someone falling upon a fence. This may have been Annie and her killer, but is likely unrelated, as she had been seen still alive at 5:30am. Her body had greatly cooled by the time police and surgeons arrived as well, due to either a great loss of blood and the chilly morning, or the murder having taken place earlier in the night. A leather apron had been found near the crime scene in the yard of a nearby home, leading the police to question its owner and even bring in John Pizer once again as a suspect, but these efforts yielded no results. No direct evidence was available. Police were forced to wait for the mass of people outside the station to leave before releasing Pizer to family. More suspects would be investigated, arrested and interrogated for the murder of Annie Chapman, but all would be released from custody. Over the proceeding days, newspapers would go on to publish daft theories and testimonies of questionable character, causing more confusion for police than actual aid. The Star would suggest photographing Annie Chapman’s eyes, theorizing that the image of the killer might still be seared on the retina, viewable by an optogram. This was a popular theory of the time, very widely and repeatedly disproven now. A comical cherry on top: with no evidence to show for it, a paper known as The Times first proposed the theory of a female killer, now referred to as the “Jill the Ripper” theory. Mass hysteria is the only term for this span of time in London’s East End. Eventually, the inquests of the murders of Mary Ann Nichols and Annie Chapman’s murders would conclude with no suspects to speak of. The police would have to start from square one once again. That is, until The Central News Agency received a letter that claimed to be sent by the Whitechapel Murderer himself.

On September 27th, The Central News Agency would receive a letter dated the 25th. The agency then sent the letter to Scotland Yard. It read as follows:

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

The police had received such a numerous amount of prank letters that this one too was ignored as a hoax. A confession to the killings from a madman outwitting the police and giving clues as to what he might do next, seemed more like a twisted tale of Auguste Dupin or the recently invented Sherlock Holmes, than a reality. This letter contained several errors in spelling and punctuation, yet another reason to believe that its author was not a slippery genius killer. September 29th, police received and reviewed the letter, but tossed it aside. However, they would revisit this “Dear Boss” letter due to a “double event” the very next day.

Like many impoverished women, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes worked as prostitutes. At 1:00am on September 30th, Elizabeth Stride’s body was found in Dutfield’s Yard. This discovery was made so soon after death that Elizabeth’s body was still warm, and the deep cut to her throat was still freshly bleeding. The neckerchief wrapped about her neck was pulled behind the head and to the left, suggesting the murderer had used it to strangle her from behind. Many men visiting the nearby Working Men’s Educational Club had been walking about the area and were unable to report anything out of the ordinary before her body was found. The same was true of all nearby residents. But was Elizabeth truly the next victim of Jack the Ripper? Her throat had been cut similarly to the other murders, but no mutilation had taken place. Why? The killer had likely been interrupted in his process before completing the intended mutilation - forcing him to turn his knife towards another unlucky woman that night: Catherine Eddowes.

About the time of Elizabeth’s murder, Catherine had been found lying drunk on the street and was taken into custody at Bishopsgate Police Station until she was sober enough to find her way home. After being released by police, she was last seen alive by a few witnesses around 1:30am, talking with a mustached man in a salt and pepper coat. At 1:44am, Catherine would be found dead, disfigured and disemboweled. Similar to the murder of Annie Chapman, the intestines were removed and placed above her right shoulder, as well as to the left of the body. The face had multiple deep cuts along the eyelid, nose and cheek. The cuts to the throat were nearly ear to ear, severing all tissue down to the vertebral column. The womb and left kidney had been removed and the genitals mutilated. And once again, the body was still warm. Only an approximate 45 minutes after the murder of Elizabeth Stride, Jack the Ripper had murdered and mutilated Catherine Eddowes, and just as suddenly disappeared.

Due to the “Dear Boss” letter containing the detail about cutting the victim’s ears and the similarity in injury on Elizabeth Stride’s body, of a severed earlobe, the police deemed the letter as evidence from the real killer. In an effort to gain public aid to catch this “Jack the Ripper,” the police decided to release the letter to the public.

On October 1st, The Daily Telegram would publish the letter in full along with an issue that read, “A Reign of Terror is setting in over the East-end of London, and people there have formed themselves into an organisation with a view of securing closer protection than the police have been able to afford.” Another noteworthy piece of evidence, sent and received the same day, was a postcard, written in the same hand as the “Dear Boss” letter and once again sent to the Central News Agency. The postcard read as follows:

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

The “Saucy Jack” postcard was published alongside the “Dear Boss” letter in hopes that members of the public could identify the handwriting and give the police a valid suspect. What came instead were a tidal wave of hoax letters from an undetermined number of pranksters, many of which may have belonged to rival newspaper reporters looking for their own piece of the fame pie.

The most disappointing fact is that most investigators and historians in recent years have deemed the “Dear Boss” letter and “Saucy Jack” postcard as elaborate hoaxes pulled by local journalists.

The postcard did mention details related to the murder of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes, but with papers immediately reporting details of the murders and the “Dear Boss” letter in full, knowledge of the crimes and all their details were widely and quickly spread. The earlobe being severed on Elizabeth Stride’s body could likely have occurred while cutting the throat and been a simple coincidence.

Furthermore, in 1931, a journalist named Frederick Best, employed at The Star, had reportedly confessed to being the real author of the “Dear Boss” letter, the “Saucy Jack” postcard, and many other messages sent to police, in order to “keep the business alive.” This claim comes from a 1966 article of Crime & Detection, and is supported by a book by Andrew Cook published in 2009, Jack the Ripper: Case Closed. The same claims are investigated in the documentary Revealed: Jack the Ripper Tabloid Killer. Handwriting analysis done by expert Elaine Quigley, comparing the “Dear Boss” letter to the handwriting of Frederick Best written in the 1890’s, gives a concrete conclusion. According to Quigley, “...after careful consideration, I am sure as I can be. I really do not think that it's anyone other than Best that wrote the 'Dear Boss' letter.”

The one letter potentially sent by the real killer appears to be one sent to George Lusk, head of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee. Up until this point, the police and public were in a complete frenzy. Nearly 300 people had been investigated for murdering Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes. An unknown woman’s torso was discovered packaged in a cellar beneath the construction site of New Scotland Yard, beginning a new mystery now known as The Thames Torso Murders. Police Commissioner Sir Charles Warren declared the “Dear Boss” Letter and “Saucy Jack” postcard as official hoaxes. Multiple conflicting descriptions of Jack the Ripper had circulated in the media, leading to mass pandemonium and distrust of minorities in East End. Jewish and immigrant individuals were specifically targeted in such propaganda. But by October 16th, George Lusk would receive a chilling “gift” from an unknown source.

It reads as follows:

From Hell,

Mr. Lusk

Sor

I send you half the kidne I took from one women preserved 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

Inside the same box as the letter was half of a kidney, later determined to be from the left part of the body…which could match the missing kidney from Catherine Eddowes. But medical experts had differing opinions on whether the kidney belonged to a male or a female. Amongst the aggregate delirium, George Lusk and others attributed this bizarre incident to a medical student’s prank. The spelling errors were also inconsistent - including the silent k in the word “knife” or the silent h in “while” but spelling “wait” as w-a-t-e. This suggested the errors were intentional instead of made by a legitimate uneducated hand. The authenticity of this letter and the kidney would never be resolved, as they were lost soon after photographing.

In the following days, due to the media pushing even further the patience of the public, the Metropolitan Police would receive such immense backlash that Police Commissioner Sir Charles Warren would resign from his position on November 8th. Warren had become a centered target for the irritation of the public, being condemned for his mishandling of the case, inability to find a concrete suspect, and his handling of the Goulston Street Graffito. As police began searching for Jack the Ripper nearby the scene of Catherine Eddowes murder, a piece of Catherine’s bloodied apron had been found on the ground. Above it was a message written in chalk. Reportedly, it stated:

The Juwes are the men that won’t be blamed for nothing.

Whether this message had been left by Jack the Ripper or had been there previously was completely unknown. But to avoid creating greater unease towards Jewish citizens, he gave the order to have the message erased. Of course, this message and its erasing inevitably was spoken of during the inquest into the “double event” murders. And any details of the inquest would inevitably be leaked by the press to the masses. No matter the significance of the graffito, the pressure eventually became too much for Warren. All of East End had become a pressure cooker, and it was about to burst.

On November 9th, soon after 10:45am, Mary Jane Kelly, would be found dead and disfigured in the single 12ft square room she rented on Miller’s Court. This murder was a climax of violence for Jack the Ripper. Unlike the previous victims who were walking the streets of Whitechapel and limited his time for mutilation, Mary Jane Kelly was sleeping alone in her beggarly single room, giving him plenty of time to continue desecrating the body. The body was unclothed, and remnants of woman’s clothing had been found in a kettle inside the room. It is theorized the killer had burned the clothing inside the kettle for light by which to do the crime. The neck was predictably cut down to the spinal column. The breasts and piles of flesh were removed and placed about the room in piles. The abdomen was carved open and completely emptied of organs. The uterus, kidneys and one breast were found underneath the head. The heart was removed and missing. The face was mutilated beyond recognition by a multitude of cuts. The arms and thighs had similar jagged cuts to them, one thigh being stripped nearly to the bone. Blood covered the bed, walls and floor of the room. It was the opinion of the attending police surgeon that the killer had no anatomical knowledge of the human body, even to the extent of a butcher. Police began cutting off all public access to streets leading to Miller’s Court, which turned out to be most beneficial. Within hours, the media began running the story of Mary’s murder and angry crowds had already formed around the crime scene. The inquest into Mary’s murder would provide little aid in determining a suspect.

Mary Jane Kelly had been seen returning home with a man around midnight on November 8th. Around 1am November 9th, a neighbour claimed to have heard Mary singing in her room. By 2am, Mary asked another passing neighbour for money, as rent was due in a handful of hours that day. Between the hours of 3:30 and 4am, two neighbours reported being awakened by screams of murder, but both had ignored them - such cries were typical in Whitechapel. Doctors estimated the murder took place between 2 and 8am. Testimonies were compacted into a single day to reduce time and expenses wasted on what would surely be another dead end for finding the Whitechapel Fiend. Many testimonies contained contradictory information, and the investigation as a whole yielded no results. No murders with a similar modus operandi occurred within the proceeding months, which allowed the police investigations and media’s reports to gradually wind down.

More murders would take place in the following years and be falsely attributed to Jack the Ripper. Rose Mylett would be strangled. Alice McKenzie would have her throat cut from ear to ear and abdomen stabbed. A woman’s torso would be found and never identified. Finally, in February of 1891, Frances Coles would be discovered with her throat slit from ear to ear. Police would arrest and charge a man named James Sadler, thinking him to be Jack the Ripper. Sadler would later be released due to lack of evidence. Thus ended the killing spree known as The Whitechapel Murders.

London was not alone in the haze of Jack the Ripper madness. In 1892, a double homicide in Fall River, Massachusetts would capture the attention of America with its gruesomeness, and convince many that Jack the Ripper had made his way across the sea to wreak more havoc. This was the axe murder trials of Lizzie Borden. The 1888 run of the play Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, after Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel, experienced its own issues while running in London. Apparently the performance of lead actor Richard Mansfield had been so compelling, so believable, Mansfield himself faced accusations of being The Ripper, thus forcing the show to cancel its run. In every aspect, Jack the Ripper had terrorized London’s East End. The invention of this serial killer created a grander mystery than any person was able to solve. Although, many have tried.

Now we know that the media was responsible for building the identity of Jack the Ripper, but a serial killer was still on the loose and never officially found. Who could the real Ripper actually have been? The list of suspects has vastly grown since the 19th century. Speculations of possible suspects ranged from local butchers to medical doctors…even to the royal family. But here are the theories connected to the 3 most frequently revisited culprits.

Charles Cross was the man who found the first victim of Jack the Ripper, Mary Anne Nichols. He originally gave police a fake name and living address when questioned, and lived nearby to the scenes of the crimes.

Francis Tumblety was an American alternative medicine peddler travelling in London during the time of the murders. For over a decade, although he was not a licensed physician and had no legitimate medical training, Tumbelty had been peddling his medicinal potions in England as an “Indian herb doctor.” Be it a coincidence or evidence, Tumblety’s arrival to London was 2 months before the start of the Whitechapel Murders and his return trip to America took place just 15 days after the final murder. After a scandal in which he would find out his wife was working as a prostitute, he would become quite public with misogynistic remarks and his hatred towards prostitutes. During a dinner party, he supposedly passed to his guests glass jars filled with preserved female body parts, including uteruses. Tumblety had a small record of assaults. He was investigated, but with no evidence, was released. He had been staying at a lodging house at 22 Batty Street which was about a 10 minute walking distance from each of the crime scenes. What minor anatomical knowledge he might’ve had would support the claim of Tumblety being Jack the Ripper.

Aaron Kosminsky was a suspect interrogated by police but released due to lack of evidence. He lived nearby to the scenes of the crime. His mental health was declining, leading to paranoia and auditory hallucinations which told him to be violent. This forced him to live with family who could take care of him, but after attacking his sister with a knife, he would be admitted to a workhouse. Kosminsky was surveilled by police once he was a person of interest, and that is precisely when the killings stopped. A witness even claimed to have seen the real face of The Ripper and identified Aaron Kosminsky as that same man, but refused to testify in court due to Aaron being a fellow Jewish immigrant. Finally, DNA evidence discovered in 2011 from a shawl recovered from one of the crime scenes showed a match to the mitochondrial DNA in descendants of the Kosminsky family. The consideration to take with this evidence is that mitochondrial DNA can be shared by many people.

To this day, no theory has any evidence concrete enough to determine the true identity of Jack the Ripper, and, due to lack of evidence and the passage of so much time, never will.

With the serious mishandling of the Whitechapel Murders and the havoc the media reaped on the public with their ludicrous reports, there is little evidence from the original crimes that has survived. There is even less that we may deduce without personal assumptions filling the gaps and mixed convictions on the smaller details. The saddest truth of Jack the Ripper’s murders is that Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly were killed by the same man who would never be found.

Despite the murders of Jack the Ripper occurring over 130 years ago, the image of “The Ripper” continues to captivate minds and peak modern interests. An abundance of movies, TV shows, books, documentaries, and merchandise still capitalize on the image and mystery of The Whitechapel Murderer and keep his legacy alive in our conscience. Because of the widespread panic associated with his killing spree, he has morphed into an historical boogeyman, an illusive ghost that haunts time itself without leaving a trace. Jack’s is one mystery whose clues slipped through the hands of time, never to be brought to their conclusion.

But “Jack the Ripper” never actually existed. He is a work of fiction, built upon social panic and sensationalist journalism - sustained by fear and fascination. There was no mastermind murderer evading the police, mocking them with letters and leaving clues behind to help catch him. The portrait has become larger than the event: there was just a disturbed murderer who killed and mutilated five women.

Hello and welcome back to The Poe Show! Give this podcast a 5 star rating and share it with a friend that enjoys true crime, horror and all things Edgar Allan Poe. These episodes take a lot of work and time to be as accurate as possible, so I really appreciate your support. And if you are interested in learning more about Jack the Ripper or the Whitechapel Murders, all my sources for this episode are linked in the description.

I know it’s been a long second since I did a 19th Century True Crime episode, but that’s because the first one I did on lizzie Borden didn’t perform so well. I figured that was my audience telling me they weren’t interested in that content. But I received a text message from a follower in the beginning of September. You can also send an anonymous text message to the podcast using the “Text the Show” link.

This message reads, “Hello Poe Show! I’m a huge fan and love your show! I know you haven’t done an episode on true crime from the 19th century for a while, but I was wondering if you were going to do another one soon and if I could recommend one on Jack the Ripper. Me and my friends love true crime and they really enjoyed your Lizzie Borden episode and I’m obsessed with Jack the Ripper, so we would definitely listen! Again, love your show and thank you for your time!”

Well, thank you for the message and request! It’s good to know that people are listening to that side of my podcast, so I’ll keep creating episodes on 19th Century True Crime.

One thing I noticed from my research for this episode is the almost cultish worship we have for Jack the Ripper. And I do mean worship, maybe not in the way of admiration, but definitely of fascination. Jack the Ripper is our Victorian boogeyman. Before I started looking into this case I didn’t really know anything about Jack the Ripper. If you’d asked me what I knew about him, I’d probably say he was an unknown serial killer in Victorian England, he killed probably 20 women, he evaded the police and he got away with it. I feel like a lot of people know of Jack the Ripper without knowing either a great amount of detail about the murders or the amount of overexaggerated legend surrounding them. Jack the Ripper is more than just one killer. He’s the shadow in the alley, the stranger you didn’t talk to at the party, the one blending in so well with modern society that you can’t even see him until it’s too late. Some of us want to know who he actually was - take off the mask and humanize him, turn the light on and expose the boogeyman. Others of us are fascinated with what drives a person to such murderous behavior or what breaks in the human mind to engage in vicious mutilation. But most of us just like the story of Jack the Ripper because it seems so…fantastical. Which it is, extremely! Thanks to the media of the time. (I was honestly shocked at all the claims coming out of The Star, they were a particularly troublesome paper during the murders.) But I agree with Lynne McNeill, Associate Professor of folklore at Utah State University,  who said, “There are some ways in which the serial killer becomes this sort of folk hero of psychological deviance that terrifies and intrigues us. It’s a delicate balance to make sure we’re not glorifying something that really shouldn’t be glorified.” That’s what I set out to do in this episode: I wanted to talk about the legend, the history, the facts and the truth that while there is a legend of Jack the Ripper, it’s nowhere near the truth. Everything about “Jack the Ripper” is made up - tacked onto the actual Whitechapel Murders that occurred.

And we’re STILL doing it today! It seems like every handful of years we get a new movie or a documentary revealing the true identity of Jack the Ripper, when it’s us just grabbing at dust at this point. I watched this one documentary about a suspect that just…it just stretched so far. The evidence was not solid enough for me to even give it consideration to mention in this episode. It was structured a lot like the shark shows that Eddie Burback has reviewed before (love Eddie Burback, he’s hilarious). That show frames the shark as a possible serial killer, “a killer mommy shark that’s on the hunt and preying on lone surfers.” And it’s just so over dramatic about some very unfortunate deaths to shark attacks. But they sensationalized it to make it turn on your fear response and keep you watching. We continue to be fascinated with Jack the Ripper because of the unsolved identity. But we continue to think about Jack the Ripper because the media will not let him go.

I had heard of and learned small details about Jack the Ripper in school and while growing up like probably everyone else, but I remember first becoming familiar with Jack the Ripper while watching the animated film Batman: Gotham by Gaslight. Terrific movie, give it a watch. Gotham by Gaslight follows Batman as he attempts to solve the murders of Jack the Ripper and find out who the killer really is. Like much media that depicts Jack the Ripper, it focuses on the twisted mind of a serial killer who mutilates bodies, hates women, outwits the police and is this methodical, maniacal character. I saw the same thing in the 2012 film The Raven, which has a special place in my heart since that movie follows Edgar Allan Poe as he solves murders that mimic his most famous stories, committed by a madman murderer very similar to Jack the Ripper. I feel confident in saying that we are going to still be obsessed with Jack the Ripper in another 100 years.

I was very surprised to find out during my research that the London newspapers, specifically The Star, were so viciously quick to condemn random people and craft theories around the case instead of just reporting the facts. Honestly, it reminded me of the case that’s become very prominent right now: the Lindsay Clancy case. No matter the facts of the case, there are people everywhere online willing to spread misinformation, condemn people, craft outlandish theories and state pure fiction as if it is fact. It’s maddening for me to see, but it’s kind of reassuring that we’ve been doing this for hundreds of years, it’s nothing new. Misinformation has simply changed form and is more widespread than ever before (which is a problem in and of itself) - especially because we feel prompted to agree with someone online talking to their phone instead of, like, a news outlet or an article because it’s just a person in front of us. That’s why I wanted to do all the research and provide all the resources that I did, because I don’t want to add to that confusion in a historical sense. And yes, I did pour over every one of those resources. Like, literally, just check the description right now. You see all those? I read and watched or listened to while driving, all of those. Because I’d rather have correct information than a fantastical story. Which was especially difficult with this case because not only do multiple sources have differing information like this murder happened around 1:30am and another saying it was 1:38am and another saying it was closer to 1:45am. I also wonder how police and witnesses actually determined time frames for a lot of this. Like, maybe they all had watches and checked them before getting up to get a glass of water and that’s right when they claim to have heard something (something which could be completely unrelated to Jack the Ripper), but most likely… they’re just guessing. Like, how could they be sure that they definitely heard screams at 3:30am unless they deliberately checked the time? So all of the testimonies associated with the case are called into question for me.

Anyway, that’s really all I’ve got on Jack the Ripper. I concur greatly with the thesis of Andrew Cook’s book Jack the Ripper: Case Closed, which, by the way, is very difficult to find amongst the sea of other books on Jack the Ripper that are named almost the exact same. There was a psychopath, we don’t know for sure who it was. They killed and mutilated women and the media of the time used his crimes to create mass hysteria to sell papers. That hysteria made his crimes immortal under a completely fictitious name, “Jack the Ripper,” which has persisted to this day due to its mystery and the media’s preoccupation with aggrandizing the character of an unknown murderer instead of trying to find a killer. I think it’s worth arguing that it’s a bad thing to give murderers such infamy. Plenty of mass killers commit atrocities against innocent people because they know that it will gain them some kind of social recognition, the potential to become something greater. This is because our news channels and social media turn these evil people into exaggerated monsters and post their names and faces and lives all over instead of, say, focusing on the victims and taking power away from the culprit. They concentrate their efforts on creating monsters so you’ll keep reading, keep watching, keep paying attention. So just remember, Jack the Ripper isn’t real.

That’s all for now, but as long as you're subscribed, you’ll hear from me again on the next episode of The Poe Show.