Jack the ripper is the name of a serial killer in England of the Victorian age, precisely in the year 1888. Originally, the name is taken from a letter by someone who claimed to be the killer. He was popular for his mode of the crime and the targets that he chose. Another reason why he remained popular was that he was never caught!
In those days, he hit the headlines. There was excessive media coverage focused on the killer especially because of the brutal nature of the murders. He caused horror and fear in the minds of the people at one point in time in the history of England. The area where the murders took place was one of social unrest and gang fights. However, to the students of crime, the case of jack the ripper is significant.
Information on this serial killer may not be precise as there are different opinions from different circles. He was also known as White chapel Murder or “Leather Apron.” The ripper killed women, the prostitutes in the east end of London. We do not know how many women the ripper killed exactly. Some put is as five, some as seven and some as nine.
The first of the five women who were killed by jack the ripper was Mary Ann (Polly) Nichols who was murdered on Friday, August 31, 1888. On September 8, 1888, Annie Chapman was killed. Two women, Elizabeth Stride and Catharine Eddowes were murdered on September 30. On November 9, Mary Jane Kelly was killed.
13 other women were also murdered around the same period, but there is disagreement to whether those murders are committed by the ripper. In the first four the throats appear to have been cut from left to right, in the last case owing to the extensive mutilation it is impossible to say in what direction the fatal cut was made,
The Ripper’s victims remained faceless until the 1960s. Then their mortuary photographs were finally rediscovered..and even more followed in next decade. Perhaps most promising are the discovery of the Littlechild letter in the early 1990s, revealing for the first time in over a century the name of one of Scotland Yard’s top suspects. If current trends are anything to go by, there is much more to discover in the coming millennium.”
Hundreds of letters went sent to the police and the press claiming to be written by the ripper. Most of these were a prank. But it is believed that the actual killer had written some of these letters. The case of jack the ripper remains a mystery even after more than one hundred years.
Very many studies were conducted about jack the ripper and his mode of operation.