I searched & did not find a thread for this, sorry if there is one.
Amazing, 5 known victims in a 6 week span then............nothing elseA facinating murder mystery. I liked this article because it tells a little more about each victim rather then just focusing on the fact that they were prostitutes. Doesn't sound like any of them had great lives to begin with & then to have such a tragic ending.........
http://crimemagazine.com/ripper.htm
Renowned Death Hag
[quote=panda;246142]I searched & did not find a thread for this, sorry if there is one.
Amazing, 5 known victims in a 6 week span then............nothing else
http://crimemagazine.com/ripper.htm[/quote
Their lives were horrible, evidently they would sell themselves for gin.
Interesting read.
Renowned Death Hag
Apparently Mary Kelly suffered the worst injuries because she invited the Ripper into her home (for money, natch). That meant he had lots of time to work uninterrupted. The others were all killed outdoors. You can see how massively she was ripped up in the two existing crime scene photos from her room. Part of her chest, which had been cut off, is sitting on a bedside table in pic # 2. The pics are here:
http://photos.casebook.org/thumbnails.php?album=36
They're kind of gruesome, but since they were taken in 1888, they're not clear enough to be really hag-worthy...especially compared to modern-day scene photos...The site also has some interesting present-day shots of the victims graves.
Thanks DUSTER, great pics & additional info!Originally Posted by duster
Christ, what a mess, even in 1888
I bet the gals get a lot of visitors to their burial places. In life, they were nobodies, in death they became famous (infamous?).
Administrator
I've always believed that there were other murders that weren't linked to Jack.
The link below lists 13 more that he may have killed.
http://www.casebook.org/victims/
Last edited by cindyt; 05-07-2008 at 12:49 PM.
This case fascinates me too.**I watched a biography type of show about 20 years ago, alone at night in a cabin in the woods after the regular stations went off the air.**Still reading up on it to this day.
On a side note my son is named Jack and I made all his first costumes with Jack in the name.**The first year he picked his own, he wanted Big Bird.**So we put a black cape on him and gave him a retractable fake knife and said he was Big Bird as Jack the Ripper!
Late Victorian-era London was a really, really bad time and place to be poor. Many of these women slept on ropes strung between houses, hooking their arms over the rope to sleep, as they couldn't afford an actual room with a bed. Deplorable conditions, and choking air pollution ("London fog") too. Talk about hell on earth. And on top of all that, Jack the Ripper.
Poor women, I've always felt so sad for them--ignominious lives ending in complete disaster at the hands of a maniac...does it get any worse?
Can anyone explain why in the one death photo the woman seems to be standing upright?? Did they prop her up??
Renowned Death Hag
I believe a couple of the women were photographed at the morgue already in their coffins, and the coffins were propped upright for the photographs.
I have a bit of an obsession on Jack the Ripper- and other unsolved old cases. Thanks for starting the thread, Panda! I believe, like a lot of you, that it's highly unlikely he just stopped killing, especially not before or after killing with such frequency. He either had to have died, was put in prison or an asylum, or he moved on to another location and killed there instead. Serial killers don't just stop.
If it does JACK.............I sure as hell wouldn't want to find out!!!!!! What a tragic life & unthinkable end.
I took the Ripper tour on my last trip to London, and it was interesting to see the actual locations. The two locations that were the least changed over the years was 1) Mitre Square and 2) the building alcove where the graffitti were found. Unfortunately, many of the other locations are long gone.
Wow SCOTTY that must be a weird feeling to stand in the spot where such a brutal crime occurred so many years ago. Are the spots preserved because of the history behind them or are they just still standing?
Senior Death Hag
I lived not far from Whitechapel (in fact I went to City & East London University which is at Finsbury Square/Moorgate Just up the road) in the 70's
I dragged my poor long suffering husband on a Ripper tour on August 31st 1988 (100 Year Anniversary) however we weren't alone (there were lots of us â?? about 200) very interesting, however the Blitz has changed most of the streets and there are many new buildings.
Fascinating and really the 1st Serial killer.
The Mary Kelly murder was particularly gruesome & I never tire of reading about it. I did have a book a long time ago which showed more than the regular Crime scene pictures and had an alternative angle on Mary Kelly (which at last the earlier link in this thread shows). Unfortunately I canâ??t remember the author of the book or indeed the title of the damn thing.
London was a pretty hard place to live in those days.
However my mum, who is in her late 70â??s can remember her childhood before the war when circumstances were very similar. My great grandfather lived in the workhouse!
I think Montague Druitt is the prime suspect as he was found floating in the Thames a short while after Mary Kelly (perhaps the glut of that crime pushed him over the edge!!)
Renowned Death Hag
About 15 years ago someone turned up what was believed to be Jack the Ripper's diary. It was written by James Maybrick. What's really interesting about Maybrick is that his much younger wife (she was 18, he 42 when they married) poisoned him to death about 6 months after the Kelly murder. Her murder trial fascinated London - think of a Victorian-era OJ trial. Anyway, there is now an incredibly heated (and somewhat tedious) debate going on between those who believe the diary is genuine and those who say it was a hoax.
Renowned Death Hag
One other thing: I remember reading somewhere that all the victims had thier guts pulled out of their torsos and spread around the bodies in a pattern that reminded people of a particular Masonic symbol (can't remember exactly what). That's why some people believed Jack was a Mason, or that the Masons were somehow behind the murders...
Wow, did not know any of this! Thanks.
Renowned Death Hag
For my money, it was Francis Tumblety, an American who lived in London around the time of the killings. He was a well known woman hater, and had particular hate-on for hookers.
(I also have a soft spot for Tumblety as the culprit because by some accounts he was a fellow Canadian.... LOL)
Renowned Death Hag
I shouldn't even post this without a bit of research...but I've posted a lot of things I shouldn't have.
I remember reading many years ago about an English murderer who was being hanged for some crime, and just as he fell, he supposedly said, "I am Jack the..."
The rope ended that statement.
I will try to look it up, but it will be the weekend before I am able.
Great posts...fascinating subject.
Senior Death Hag
Jim
I think the guy you're thinking of is Neill Cream (He was Scottish it seem to remember)
he was Executed for poisoning Prostitutes in the late 1800 and early 1900 but there is no proof that he was our Jack
Many people confessed to the crime
Duster
I read that Tumblety has an obsession with collecting Uterusesâ?? and had quite a few of them preserved in Jars (BLERGH!!)
An Ex Met Copper (canâ??t remember his name) has made a whole career out of one letter related to Tumblty that he owns!!!
The Maybrick Diaries have been proved a fake I think
I did read them a few years ago and to be frank, they were Really Really Really dull!
Renowned Death Hag
Thanks for that, Harry!
I suspect a lot of people did confess falsely, now those are really attention whores!
I used to collect coins and other stuff...wonder why I never thought about uteruses?
They've been right in front of my face this whole time!
I guess all this hatin' toward prostitutes was because they were available in risky circumstances and less likely to be quickly missed.
Sad.
I went on the Ripper tour in '96...if you're ever in London Panda don't miss it--it is so much FUN !! The east end now is, of course, nothing like it was then...but at midnight, when the streets quiet down and you're wandering as a small group through the area...you can, with a bit of imagination, still give yourself the willies !!
I remember that like 3 of the 5 murder sites were completely gone, one had I think the original fence still intact, behind which one of the corpses was found...and the other was in Mitre Square which, if I remember correctly and I may NOT LOL...was also still there in one form or another. I DO remember the site of Mary Kelly's murder (the final, really gruesome one which occurred indoors) is now the site of a warehouse, so not much to see there.
We did stop as a group at the TEN BELLS pub, which is the original site and building where many of the Ripper's victims drank and socialized...now THAT was fun...I bought a T-Shirt LOL! Anyway, I would highly recommend the tour, especially if you can get on one of the late-night ones!
Senior Death Hag
this appeared on MSN today
it is quite interesting
http://news.uk.msn.com/jack-the-ripper.aspx
also this is a detialed and absorbing website dedicated to the subject
http://www.casebook.org/intro.html
i apologise if these have been posted before but they are worth a look.
Renowned Death Hag
jack, did you 'feel' any presences? sounds fantastic. been to london many times, but never had time to take that tour!
pull the string!
I'm so chuffed to see this thread as I've been a ripper buff for more than 20 years. The Casebook website is fantastic - full of ripper experts and some great photos.
If you want to visit the sites, you're best off getting a book on the the murders and doing the tour on your own. I go up to spitalfields about once a year otherwise I get withdrawal symptoms. The tours are all right but they produce a lot of noise and therefore you don't get the atmosphere.
I drag my boyfriend with me - it's a bit risky a lone woman going up there after dark. We drink at the Ten Bells and sit sit in Mitre Square where after dark it's so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
The creepiest site for me is Durward Street, formerly Bucks Row, where Polly Nichols, thought to be the first victim, was found dead. The placeis so isolated and quiet you can see how it would be easy to kill and not be disturbed.
There are still plenty of old buildings and narrow alleys around there - the atmosphere in east london is like no other in london. And we always round the night off with a curry in Brick Lane.
I will be sure to do that JACK, Scott said he used to live there & was on it several times & he recommended it too. England is on my list of places to see so if I can ever get my head out of the tropics I will make it there! Thanks for the info JACK, this subject just fascinates me, I guess its knowing that there were sicko's way back then too as well as the unsolved mystery factor.
That sounds great LADY, The hairs on the back of my neck & arms stood just reading your post........
Thank you Panda.
Here's an old pic of bucks row. Polly was found near the garage type building on the left handside.
And here's a more up to date photo. Evil lives in this street, I tell ya!
Fantastic pics! Thank you Lady!
Senior Death Hag
Whatever you do, if you ever read Portrait of a Killer by Patricia Cornwall, take it with an entire salt mine. It seems like she basically chose Walter Sickert and then tried to make the bits of evidence fit him rather than doing it the other way round.
It would make a pretty good fiction book but why she actually chose to spend millions doing this is beyond me.
She got an absolute pasting over on casebook.org when that came out as well.
LADY is the garage type building shown in the old photo now gone? I don't see it in the newer photo. Boy, I believe you about the evil........especially that older photo, it gives me the creeps. I so have to take that tour..........
Great pics LADY........THANK YOU!
I have never read another book by Cornwell after reading "Portrait of a Killer." Absolute nonsense, full of holes large enough to punch a fist through. I despise authors who have such contempt for the intelligence of their readers.
I'm not 'sensitive' in that area kitty--a "ghost" could walk right through me and I'm sure I'd be completely oblivious!
I've only been to London once but it was for 2 weeks, and we didn't stop to rest for 5 minutes! WONDERFUL place for death hags...Westminster Abbey alone is worth the price of the vacation! So MANY old/famous graves and tombs inside there--so little time
the garage building is gone but the wall that runs beyond it to the board school in the distance still stands. So there could be some of Polly's DNA still around or even Jack's.
It is creepy, and I would not recommend walking round there on your own at night - me, my boyfriend, my sister and niece were being eyed by a couple of rough sorts - if there had been fewer of us I think they'd have mugged us.
I also agree about Patricia Cornwall's book - a load of hogwash - she's a fantastic fiction writer - and that's about it.
There is no doubt in my mind that Jack was a local, working class man who knew the area like the back of his hand and was bonking mad. And I believe the reason the killings stopped is because he was certified as mad and locked up in the madhouse.
Last edited by LadyDay; 05-20-2008 at 05:17 AM.
Yes, Mitre Square is still largely intact, although they did put a tall office block in one corner. I remember the guide telling us all about the event that took place in the square, when suddenly a drunken guy raised up out of the elevated flower garden in the center of the square and screamed "I'm Jack the Ripper!".
LOL!
When we walked through Mitre Square we passed a tour group and the tour guide was really trying to invoke the atmosphere by talking in a low voice. He had about 30 people in front of him and we heard him say: " .. and someone knocked at the door..."
My sister, who'd already quaffed a few at the 10 Bells, shouted out: "It was a jehovah's witness!"
We ran off laughing to the disgust of the tour guide.
I thought Patricia Cornwell's book was a load of crap.
I have read that many of the Ripper letters, if not all, were fake.
I wonder if they preserved the Kidney sent?
What does everybody think of the writing left at one of the murder scene about Jews?
What about the theory that there were more murders?
I went on a "Ripperwalk" back in the day- well- actually it was night -
it was the 100th anniversary of the "double event" - the night he killed two victims.
Also went on a Haunted London tour.
Pretty cool in a death haggy kind o' way!
I personally don't believe Jack wrote that grafitti. I think it was a racist who decided to scrawl the grafitti in a predominantly Jewish area. The nearby streets were a popular market place and Jewish people mainly ran the markets. There's a line of thinking that a disgruntled customer scrawled the writing.
It was probably a coincidence that part of the victim's apron was dropped near the writing by Jack as he cleaned his hands.
Here's my story of the first time I saw the Mary Kelly pictures.
I was in a small town in Central Ontario where my dad's family is from.
I was staying at my aunt and uncles house, on an island. Isolated island. Just me staying there overnight. It had just been built, so there wasn't really any furnishings etc, but the power was hooked up.
On the way there, I'd stopped off at a junk store..and scored a copy of a Jack the Ripper book.
Cool...
so- it's getting dark, night is falling,I'm in my jammies, decide to read my book before bed. Yeah- I shoulda seen it coming...
Started reading, turned the page, saw the picture went- OMG! ( I'd never seen anything like that before and it was pretty shocking) ...there was a crack of thunder, lightning flashed, the power went out, and I'm left in a place I'd never been before, with no idea if there was candle or a flashlight around. And this is really isolated- no ambient light from the surrounding community..it's can't see your hand in front of your face time.
FREAKED ME OUT!
Wah!
Now I can't sleep- now I'm convinced that Jack is coming for me RIGHT NOW.
Y'know- it's amazing, a little vaseline in a baby food jar, with a match as a wick really really throws a comforting light.
I'd like to tell you that I fell asleep and all was well- but no, I fell asleep at dawn. freaking out at every tiny sound.
Big Bad Death Hag, eh???
Apparently the word "Juwes" had a significance for the Masons. That's another reason that many felt that there was a masonic influence.
However, I've also heard that the East Ender jewish community used to write Juwes for Jewish- I'm not sure, perhaps it was Yiddish?
So- the controversy still rages.
And then again, the wall was washed clean before it could be photographed. It's entirely possible that the constable who recorded it wrote down the wrong thing, or the scrawl was so hasty that it was hard to read, and the immediate response was to think it referred the Jewish community where it was found.
Hi Kimba, yes I've heard the Masonic thing. It could have been a mason with a semitic grudge.
And the jewish population would have had various ways of spelling Jewish.
From what I've heard, the policeman who copied the grafitti was instructed by his boss to write it exactly as he saw it so there's a good chance that "The Juwes are the men that won't be blamed for nothing." is absolutely correct.
Can anyone tell me in detail why the Patricia Cornwell book is such rubbish? It seems all right so far. Many of the letters were well-spelt, on good qualityl paper, with inferences and references only an educated man would have used, with 'deliberate' spelling mistakes. For example the complicated words were used correctly and spelt correctly, but the word 'bigger' in the same letter, was not.
LMAO!!Here's my story of the first time I saw the Mary Kelly pictures.
I was in a small town in Central Ontario where my dad's family is from.
I was staying at my aunt and uncles house, on an island. Isolated island. Just me staying there overnight. It had just been built, so there wasn't really any furnishings etc, but the power was hooked up.
On the way there, I'd stopped off at a junk store..and scored a copy of a Jack the Ripper book.
Cool...
so- it's getting dark, night is falling,I'm in my jammies, decide to read my book before bed. Yeah- I shoulda seen it coming...
Started reading, turned the page, saw the picture went- OMG! ( I'd never seen anything like that before and it was pretty shocking) ...there was a crack of thunder, lightning flashed, the power went out, and I'm left in a place I'd never been before, with no idea if there was candle or a flashlight around. And this is really isolated- no ambient light from the surrounding community..it's can't see your hand in front of your face time.
FREAKED ME OUT!
Wah!
Now I can't sleep- now I'm convinced that Jack is coming for me RIGHT NOW.
Y'know- it's amazing, a little vaseline in a baby food jar, with a match as a wick really really throws a comforting light.
I'd like to tell you that I fell asleep and all was well- but no, I fell asleep at dawn. freaking out at every tiny sound.
Big Bad Death Hag, eh???
To have been a fly on the wall back in that day...I have always wanted to know the truth on this one...I have read every book, read every article I have gotten my hands on...I don't think it was one man...I have always been convinced it was two guys in cahoots...
Great links. Interesting to read about the victims. Crime scene photos were too much for me.
Here's a good start.
http://www.casebook.org/dissertation...ndsickert.html
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20021122.html
I've always been fascinated with the Ripper case. I hope one day it will be revealed somehow who it actually was. Maybe someone will find an old Scotland Yard file that has been hidden on the case and it will be revealed who Jack was. I remember in the 80's or early 90's there was a mini series on tv with Michael Caine on the Jack the Ripper case. It was a great movie and I've always looked for it as I would love to buy it. They leaned toward Jack being the Queen's doctor. I kinda believe that but I'm so unsure, there are so many suspects that fit the bill. Anyone have any thoughts of who they think it was?I searched & did not find a thread for this, sorry if there is one.
Amazing, 5 known victims in a 6 week span then............nothing else
http://crimemagazine.com/ripper.htm
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