Who hasn't heard of Jack the Ripper? His name has become a household name, he is the central figure of countless novels, is the main character or is mentioned in passing in 30 films. In their works, the authors, as if striving to outdo each other, put forward a variety of versions about the personality of this killer, up to the fantastic and exotic. Let's not engage in myth-making. Only facts and only dry lines of police protocols.
London Ulcer - Whitechapel
Whitechapel is the very bottom of London. The streets are unpaved, the houses are without foundations, there is no sewage system. Pigs and cows graze in the backyards. Stench. In the midst of this poverty, robbery, drunkenness, violence and prostitution flourished. In 1888, according to police, there were 62 brothels and about 1,200 prostitutes in Whitechapel. It was here, in Whitechapel, on the night of August 31, that the body of 43-year-old prostitute Mary Nichols, believed to be the first victim of Jack the Ripper, was discovered.
The first victim
Murders in Whitechapel were not uncommon. So, on August 7 Martha Tabrem was killed (also a prostitute, 39 stabbed, 10 of them in the neck). But the murder of Nichols, even against the backdrop of these horrors, was out of the ordinary. The woman's throat was cut and the abdomen was opened. And although the woman was stabbed to death right under the windows of one of the houses, none of the residents were awakened by a desperate female cry for help. To investigate the gruesome murder, a special group of three detectives was created: Frederick Abberline, Henry Moore and Walter Andrews.
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Second victim
On September 8th, Annie Chapman's body was found. The killer's handwriting is the same: the throat was cut with two blows, the abdominal cavity was opened with the removal of one of the organs. Although the murder was carried out at about 5 am, the place of the tragedy is by no means deserted: the street overlooked the market square, at which time the merchants are already rushing there to take the best places. But no one witnessed the tragedy, no one saw the killer in blood-stained clothes. And again, none of the residents heard anything. The special brigade has now investigated two murders.
On September 29, one of the news agencies received a letter, the author of which attributed to himself two terrible murders, mocked the police and promised to continue his "work". The letter was signed: Jack the Ripper. This is how the killer got a name.
Third victim
On September 30, at about one in the morning, Louis Demschutz saw a lying body in a back alley. He walked over and struck a match. The woman was dead, her neck sliced with a razor. A patrolman came running to the scream. This time the victim was not "gutted" - Louis appeared inappropriately to prevent the killer from properly "formalizing" his crime. When it dawned on Demschut that at the moment when he examined the corpse, the murderer was standing behind him, the poor fellow was simply shaking. The police urgently cordoned off the area, staged a raid, and detained all suspicious. But instead of the killer, another corpse was found 20 minutes' walk from the scene of the tragedy.
Fourth victim
Nobody interfered with the killer here. The woman was killed, the abdominal cavity was opened, as the doctor later established - the kidney was removed. A constable patrolling the area claimed that 15 minutes ago he passed this place - there was no corpse. This means that the maniac spent 10-12 minutes on the murder and autopsy. The names of the victims were quickly identified. Elizabeth Stride, 44, a prostitute, and Catherine Eddows, 46, not a professional, but a very easy-going woman. This double murder was a watershed. If earlier newspapers printed information about the torn to pieces victims on the third page, then the September 30 murders took the front page. Jack the Ripper has become a media star.
Resonance
Scotland Yard was hit by an avalanche of letters advising on the capture of the criminal. Hundreds of senders confessed to the "authorship" of the crimes. From the whole heap of waste paper, 2 letters were allocated, written (as expected) really by Jack the Ripper. The first mentioned the details of the crimes unknown to the general public, the second had half a kidney attached (the second half, as the author reported, he “fried and ate”).
A wave of fear swept over London. Women made it a rule to carry a whistle with them to call the police, shops actively advertised ladies' knives and pistols, steel corsets. In Whitechapel, prostitutes refused to go to "work" at night.
A public organization, the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, emerged, hiring two detectives to find the maniac and organizing additional patrols. The Jack the Ripper case became the subject of debate in parliament and reached Buckingham Palace. The Queen of Great Britain gave the Prime Minister a hack and publicly declared her dissatisfaction with the work of the London police.
Queen Victoria's attention to the Jack the Ripper case had its own reasons. The bulk of Whitechapel's population was emigrants driven by war and famine; refugees who have broken loose from their homes only to save their lives, and arrived in London with a bundle in their hands. This is fertile ground not only for crime, but also for social riots, which England has experienced a lot. Less than 100 years later, the unrest in London was suppressed by troops. In 1815, the city authorities lost control over the West End for three days: then the rebellious lower classes robbed the houses of nobles, even ministers, whole neighborhoods were burned.
And in Whitechapel they openly say that "the authorities spit on us, no one is looking for a murderer." The threat of social revolt was more than real. The degree of discontent was fueled by anarchists, recognized experts in the manufacture of exploding "hellish machines". In the area of the double murder, an anti-Semitic inscription is found on the wall. A high-ranking police officer who has arrived at the scene orders it to be erased immediately, fearing that the inscription will provoke Jewish pogroms.
So the government and the queen had plenty of reasons for unrest.
Now a little about the London police.
Bobby
Scotland Yard was founded in 1829. Life for the London cops was not easy. Duty from 9 pm to 6 am or 3 pm in the afternoon. There was no weekly day off, and neither were pensions. They paid little. The constable went on duty armed with a baton and a whistle to call for help. Only in 1884, after the murder of two policemen, the officers of order began to issue revolvers, and then only to those who went on night patrols.
In fact, Jack the Ripper was raised by the British police. A forensic expert appeared in the police staff, a system for identifying a criminal by fingerprints was adopted, and criminals' files began to be created.
They were constantly attacked, and not only by criminals. Clashes between the police and the military were widespread. They were attacked by firefighters if they were caught extinguishing the fire (there is nothing to take someone else's bread!). Constables on the road were often "accidentally" touched by cabmen.
It is clear that not the best representatives of British society went to such work. In the early years, police officers were constantly fired for drunkenness, theft and extortion of money from detainees. In short, the police were not liked in society. The nickname Bobby was given to him had a derogatory meaning. The dumb Inspector Lestrade Conan Doyle is an echo of the attitude of Londoners towards the police. Each newspaper considered it its duty to mock Scotland Yard's efforts to curb crime.
So the case of Jack the Ripper became for the London police not just a matter of honor and prestige, but also a kind of test for professional suitability.
Scotland Yard vs. the Ripper
The search for the criminal took on a global character. Additional forces were deployed to White Chapel. The area was patrolled by 300 uniformed and 120 plainclothes constables. For the first time, patrols with dogs appeared on the streets. The practice of fishing with live bait was introduced: employees changed into women's dress and floated around Whitechapel at night. But instead of the criminal on November 9, the police found another torn to pieces.
Fifth victim
Mary Kelly, 25, was killed. Since the prostitutes were already afraid to go outside at night, the Ripper came to his victim's house. This time he had enough time (the whole night), he literally butchered the corpse, took out the heart, kidneys, and spread the pieces of the body around the apartment. And again no one saw or heard anything. Under the direction of the London police, the chair did not just wobble - it was already collapsing. Another murder - and instead of Jack the Ripper, they themselves will be dragged to the gallows.
However, Mary Kelly was the last victim of the maniac. Of course, the Whitechapel murders didn’t stop, but the women weren’t cut to pieces. Some researchers attribute up to 11 murders to the Ripper, but the canonical list is limited to 5 victims. Scotland Yard has been looking for a criminal for a long time, more than 2,000 people were interviewed, 80 were arrested, but no suspects were charged.
Surely Jack the Ripper was not the first serial killer, and certainly not the last. Today's maniacs keep scores of their victims in dozens, but they cannot count on world fame. None of them managed to stir up society as much as the Ripper. The investigation into his crimes was the first to be widely reported in the press. It was after a series of Whitechapel assassinations that the British Parliament took care of solving the problems of the inhabitants of London slums.
In fact, Jack the Ripper was raised by the British police. The bobby population was increased to 13,000, a criminal department appeared in Scotland Yard, forensic medicine became a separate area, a forensic expert appeared on the police staff, a system for identifying a criminal by fingerprints was adopted, and criminal files began to be created. By the beginning of the 20th century, Scotland Yard surpassed similar services in the United States and Europe in terms of technical equipment.
As for the real name of the killer, although every year there are articles with screaming headlines "The name of Jack the Ripper is established!", Historians believe that we will never know his name again.
Magazine: Archives of the 20th century №3, Klim Podkova
