Historian Richard Jones Answers Pointed Questions
The Jack the Ripper mystery dates back to 1888, too early for help from mitochondrial DNA or AFIS.
But that’s not why Forensic Files never produced an episode about the mystery man who stabbed and mutilated as many as eight prostitutes on the mean streets of Whitechapel, a poor section of London’s East End.
Faceless and nameless. The Jack the Ripper case didn’t receive the benefit of Peter Thomas’ narration because the authorities never solved it, and Forensic Files insisted on resolution.
Speculation about the killer remains widespread today. Popular theories include that he was a slaughterhouse worker, medical professional, or Leather Apron — a local known for extorting money from prostitutes.
A documentary produced by British historian Richard Jones explores not only the possible identity of Jack the Ripper but also the sociological and physical backdrop of the crimes.
Cops scared. According to the documentary, some of Whitechapel’s 76,000 residents were so impoverished that they slept standing room only in packed lodging houses.
And the squalid streets of Whitechapel were so poorly lit and full of drunken brawlers and violent thieves that police officers would enter the area only in groups of four.
But once the murders started, police got a little creative, sometimes dressing as women in an attempt to draw out the sadistic killer.
Queen’s land. The homicides stopped within a year, and the law never came close to catching Jack the Ripper.
For this week’s post, Jones, who narrates The Unmasking of Jack the Ripper and also gives walking tours of Whitechapel — which take place regardless of weather conditions and “especially in thick, thick fog” — answered questions about the Jack the Ripper case in the context of the latter part of the Victorian era as well as the true-crime culture of the U.S. today:
Do you find it ironic that society cared more about the slain women after they were murdered than before? Very much so. It is interesting to note the way in which the murders were reported by the press. At first, there was the scare factor, very visible in the Leather Apron scare of early September. But, following the murder of Annie Chapman, on 8th September 1888, the newspaper reporting was far more sympathetic and questions were being asked about why these women had been murdered because they lacked the fourpence to pay for a bed in a common lodging house.
Do you think the authorities would have invested more money and resources into the investigation had the victims been middle-class married women rather than prostitutes? This was a question that was brought up time and time again, and it was openly wondered if the murderer would have been caught had his crimes occurred in the wealthier quarters of London. To be honest, this may have been the case early on in the investigation, but by mid-September 1888, I think maximum resources were being devoted to the hunt for the killer.
Did the terror caused by Jack the Ripper grip middle-class and affluent parts of London — or was the fear contained in White Chapel? The fear, thanks largely to extensive press coverage afforded the crimes, gripped all classes of society, and many other countries around the world.
In the documentary, there were a few words toward the end I wasn’t able to hear clearly — does it say that Queen Victoria demanded that more lights be installed around White Chapel to ward off the killer? Yes. One of the reasons that policing the area was so difficult was the fact that the backstreets and narrow passageways that riddled the district were not lit by night. So, later on in the investigation, there were many calls for better lighting in the darker recesses of Whitechapel, and this was the point that Queen Victoria picked up on and commented on.
Is White Chapel still, as mentioned in the documentary, constructed like a rabbit warren? No. Whitechapel was gradually improved in the 30 to 40 years after the killings, and the labyrinth-like layout of the backstreets had become a thing of the past by the mid-20th century. There are, however, a few passageways that still survive that give us an idea of what the area must have been like.
The documentary mentioned that the murders sparked anti-Semitism, because Jewish immigrants were seen as competition for jobs. People speculated the killer was among them. Did the anti-Semitism die down afterward? It was always present, and the fact that you had many Jewish anarchists in the East End of London throughout the 1890s and early 20th century meant that it would erupt every so often.
Which, if any, technology or forensic advancement available today would have helped solve the Jack the Ripper murders? Possibly CCTV.
If the murders happened in the U.S. — with its homicide rates disproportionately high compared with England’s — do you think they would have become a sensation? It is difficult to say. The murders certainly did become a sensation in the U.S., and the American newspapers gave a huge amount of coverage to the crimes. One interesting thing is that many American police chiefs were commenting in newspapers about how their police forces would have no trouble catching the perpetrator if the murders happened in their jurisdiction. This is one of the reasons, when the Carrie Brown murder occurred in New York, in April 1891, the NYPD was so quick to bring a suspect to justice and secure a guilty verdict. As it transpired, their suspect was pardoned a decade later, and it transpired that one of the reasons for the pardon was that Inspector Byrnes had allegedly been too anxious to do better than the London Police.
However, the Jack the Ripper crimes had such a dramatically large impact because he was seen as being representative of all the evil, vice, and degradation that the East End wallowed in.
Can you compare the terror wreaked by the Jack to Ripper murders to any similar crime spree in the U.S.? Son of Sam in New York City comes to mind. It is safe to say that Jack the Ripper made an impact on society in a way that no murderer had done before and no murderer has done since. I don’t think the universal fear that the Jack the Ripper murders generated has been equaled since.♠
You can watch the documentary The Unmasking of Jack the Ripper on YouTube.
That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers.
Cool post.
He sounds very authoritative. i would love to hear his best guess on the killer’s identity, as well as his opinion on the theory that it was Arthur Conan Doyle.
Never heard that one! He does mention a suspect by name but it’s someone else.
The best book I have read about Jack the Ripper is by Patricia Cornwell, Portrait of a Killer. She also did a special on one of the nightly news shows like 20/20 to show the evidence etc that she uncovered. She does name her suspect and how she proved it is very compelling.
Thanks for the tip — my mother is a Patricia Cornwell fan, too.
And I like your literary email address!