Jack's Back! Jack the Ripper, That Is!

[Tuckerfan]

No killings are expected, however.

Jack the Ripper is about to return to the part of London he made his own private killing ground in one of history’s most infamous unsolved crimes.

But in a country that has made headlines in the past week with the conviction of two serial murderers, the inhabitants of the now prosperous but once poverty-ridden East End of London need have no fears.

The return of the 19th century prostitute killer is in the form of an exhibition looking at the era, the area, the victims and the possible perpetrators of the crimes that shocked the nation and have since become a rich seam of popular fiction.

I found this part of the article interesting:

It is commonly assumed that the Ripper killed and mutilated five young prostitutes. But using police records the exhibition reveals that the authorities believed up to 11 murders may have been committed by the same person between April 1888 and early 1891.

“What emerges is the fact that an unknown number of women were actually murdered in the area at the time,” Hoffbrand said.

I had no idea they suspected he had that many victims in East End.

[Merneith]

The 11 possible victims probably refers to what’s called the Whitechapel Murder files. These were collected by the Metropolitan police looking for connections and leads once the “official” Ripper investigation started.

I won’t link to it, since it contains morgue photos of the dead women, but search wiki for Whitechapel Murders to see the list.

Part of what’s difficult about the Ripper killings is that murder was so common in the desperate poverty of Whitechapel. While the Ripper killer(s) were operating, there was also several cases of missing murdered children. Also in the same time frame, dismembered body parts from several women were turning up - including a woman’s headless torso found in the basement of Scotland Yard itself (then under construction.) No one knows if there’s any connection between the dismembered bodies and the other killings.

Info on the torso killings can be found at wiki by searching for Whitechapel Mystery.

The best site for info on Saucy Jack is http://www.casebook.org/

I don’t know why I’m so fascinated by Jack the Ripper. I’m a bit embarrassed about it really. But I’m not surprised by the exhibit mentioned in the article. If I was in London, I’d probably go see it.