Legacy of the Ripper

by kindels

  For women the prospects were even gloomier, with little education being available to girls and marriage often the only means of escape from total destitution. Such marriages in themselves often led to the eventual descent of many a woman into the ancient art of prostitution. Sometimes, it would be the only way for a woman to supplement the meagre earnings of a poorly paid husband, or, often tragically, the only way for a widow, (and there many), to keep body and soul together after the loss of a husband's earnings. It is perhaps often forgotten that the majority of the victims of Jack the Ripper were at one time married women, mothers, and with the exception of the final victim, Mary Jane Kelly, all were what today would be termed 'mature' women.

  So the streets of Whitechapel teemed with those least able to cry for help in a society that cared little for those whose efforts powered the great city's factories and dockyards, or who worked in the great houses of the rich, and returned home each night to the squalor and deprivation of the East End of London, and those very streets would provide the perfect hunting ground for the killer who would be remembered by history as none other than Jack the Ripper.

  Somewhat perversely overlooked from almost every angle by the spire of Christ Church, Spitalfields, Jack the Ripper's killing ground covered only a small geographical area and spanned only a few weeks in time, yet his reign of terror would reach out to touch the hearts and minds of almost everyone within the vast metropolis of London and far beyond, as the notoriety of his crimes became known throughout the country and afar. There were those who would later attempt to attribute other, later killings to the Whitechapel murderer, but most scholars are of the opinion that the murders of Jack the ripper ended with that of Mary Kelly on the 9th November 1888.

  There was indeed some speculation and disagreement at one time as to who was indeed the Ripper's first victim, with many wishing to blame the killing of Martha Tabram on some other, unknown assailant. It is now generally believed and accepted however, that Tabram was the Ripper's first victim, and so we will take the date of her murder, 31st August 1888 as the beginning of the Ripper's terrible killing spree, ending with the butchery of the unfortunate Mary Kelly on 9th November, a mere ten weeks from start to finish.

  As has been illustrated earlier in this narrative, the murders of Martha Tabram and Mary Ann Nicholls took place on the 7th and the 31st of August respectively. Following the death of Nicholls, it would be a mere eight days before the killer struck again, this time with even greater severity. At that time the name 'Jack the Ripper' had not yet been coined for the murderer, the name being applied to the killer only after the receipt of a letter, mailed to the Central News Agency on 27th September, and reproduced in the morning newspaper The Daily News on 1st October. Often regarded as a hoax by modern Ripperologists, the 'Dear Boss' letter nonetheless identified the killer by the name with which he will always be remembered, being signed "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper."

  The letter read:

  25 Sept 1888

  Dear Boss

  I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they wont fix me just yet. I have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track. That joke about Leather Apron gave me real fits. I am down on whores and I shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled. Grand work the last job was. I gave the lady no time to squeal. How can they catch me now. I love my work and want to start again. You will soon here of me with my funny little games. I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with but it went thick like glue and I cant use it. Red ink is fit enough I hope haha. The next job I do I shall clip the ladys ears off and send to the police officers just for jolly wouldn't you. Keep this letter back till I do a bit more work, then give it out straight. My knife's nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get the chance. Good luck.

  Yours truly

  Jack the Ripper

  With those few words, a terror was born, a name given to the faceless assailant who appeared free to roam and kill at will and the people of London and the world would forever associate the crimes of that autumn with the man who, though never captured, identified and brought to justice would always live in memory as Jack the Ripper.

  That terror, the fear of the ordinary citizen and the anger at the police force's seeming inability to apprehend the killer grew to massive proportions when, twenty two days after the murder of Annie Chapman the as yet un-named Whitechapel murderer claimed not one, but two victims in one night.

  Swedish born Elizabeth Stride, (nee Gustavsdotter), aged forty-five became the third victim of the ripper, her body being discovered in Dutfield's Yard by Louis Diemschutz, a street seller of cheap jewellery as he drove his horse and cart into the yard at around 1 a.m. Her body had not been subjected to the mutilations present in the bodies of Tabram or Chapman, but Diemschutz testified that he believed he may have disturbed the killer before he was able to carry out such mutilations and so perhaps fuelled the killer's need to find another victim upon whom he could satisfy his evil lust that night.

  That second victim of the night and Ripper's fourth victim in his reign of terror was forty six year old Catherine Eddowes, a native of the city of Wolverhampton, who had long since descended into a life of prostitution on the streets of the capital. Her savagely mutilated body had been discovered by a police constable, Edward Watkins, at around 1.15 a.m in the southwest corner of Mitre Square. Watkins saw and heard no-one as he entered the square and Eddowes proved to be the most brutally mutilated victim of the killer thus far, perhaps a victim of his savage frenzy at being interrupted in his 'work' upon the body of poor Elizabeth Stride earlier.

  The post-mortem examination of her remains was carried out by Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown and his report provided disturbing reading to say the least. Catharine Eddowes throat had been cut, "to the extent of about six or seven inches." The big muscle across the throat had been completely divided on the left side. The large vessels on the left side of the neck were severed. Her larynx had been severed below the vocal chord and all the deep structures of the throat were severed to the bone. The cause of death was haemorrhage from the carotid artery and Brown estimated that death would have been immediate, and that the mutilations were carried out post-mortem.

  On examining the abdomen he found that the front walls had been opened from the breast bone to the pubes. The liver had been stabbed and slit through by a sharp object. The intestines had been drawn out and placed over the right shoulder, with one section having been cut away completely and placed beside the poor woman's body. The face had been heavily mutilated, with the nose almost being cut away, one ear virtually severed, mutilating cuts about the face resulting in flaps of skin being formed around much of the face. The womb had been cut through horizontally, and the woman's left kidney had been carefully and precisely removed from the body. These were but some of the injuries listed in Brown's post-mortem report and serve to show the escalation in severity of the Ripper's attacks.

  The police investigation continued, hampered slightly by the fact that Eddowes' body had been discovered within the boundaries of the City of London, thus coming under the jurisdiction of the City of London Police Force as opposed to the Metropolitan Police who had been in sole charge of the case up until that time. A public clamour soon broke out, with demands that the police take action and discover and bring to heel the murderer. There were demands for the resignation of the Commissioner of Police, and vigilante committees were formed and took to the streets at night in the hope of catching the killer.

  Despite the police flooding the streets with uniformed and plain clothes officers, not one shred of viable evidence was found that might have led to an identification of the man responsible for the terrible crimes that were being perpetrated, seemingly at will upon the citizens of Whitechapel.

  Within days however the killer had an almost universally known name, as the 'Dear Boss' letter appeared in the press and the name of Jack the Ripper was being shouted from every street
corner by the newspaper sellers and the fear that had gripped the East End of London grew with every passing day that brought no results in the police investigation.

  Whether by chance or by design, the whole of October passed without another killing on the streets of Whitechapel, and though the public continued to demand action from the police in tracking down the killer, the public outcry that had greeted the first four murders began to calm down. Perhaps, some thought, Jack the Ripper had gone, left the country or simply ceased his evil ways and that the terror had passed. They couldn't have been more wrong. Jack the Ripper's most heinous crime was yet to come, an act of barbarism and butchery so terrible that grown men, hardened police officers used to seeing the most hideous sights that man could inflict upon his fellows, actually broke down and cried when confronted with the scene that met their eyes on the morning of 9th November 1888.

  In a room in Millers Court, off Dorset Street in Whitechapel, the body of Mary Jane Kelly was discovered by Thomas Bowyer as he attempted to collect the rent she owed on her room. Aged around twenty five, Mary Kelly proved to be the youngest victim of the Ripper and the mutilations carried out upon her body were so terrible and so vile that little was left of the woman that could be positively identified.

  Her breasts had been cut off, the right arm slightly abducted from the body and rested on the mattress. The whole of the surface of the abdomen had been removed and thighs had been removed and the abdominal cavity emptied of the viscera. The tissues of the neck had been severed all the way round, down to the bone. The viscera were discovered in various places around the body. The uterus, kidneys and one breast were found under the head, the other breast was by the right foot. The liver was between the feet, the intestines by the right side and the spleen by the right side of the body. The flaps of skin that had been removed from the abdomen and thighs had been laid on a table. The woman's face was gashed 'in all directions'. The nose, cheeks, eyebrows and ears were all partly removed. The lips had been cut by several incisions down to the chin. The neck was cut through together with the other tissues down to the vertebrae.

  In short, Mary Jane Kelly had been murdered, and then systematically butchered by the most heinous killer yet known to the British Police, or to the public at large.

  ***

  Mike Holland laid his notes and the books belonging to Carl Wright aside. He'd read enough. Jack the Ripper had never been identified, never been apprehended. The largest police investigation ever undertaken up to that time in history had failed to produce a single shred of tangible evidence against one credible suspect. Either the man had been cleverer than the combined brains of the entire police force at Scotland Yard, or perhaps, as Wright had told him some suspected, there had been a cover-up of the facts at the time in order to protect an individual or perhaps a number of individuals with connections to the higher echelons of British society. Either way, Mike Holland had been sickened by much of what he'd just read. The post-mortem reports had been concise and exceedingly thorough for their day and the injuries inflicted upon the bodies of the Ripper's victims certainly corresponded with those inflicted on the recent Brighton victims.

  Holland yawned. Tiredness had been slowly creeping up on him and it was now all he could do to keep his eyes open. Sleep beckoned. He'd managed to take in a mountain of facts about the Whitechapel murders of 1888. Now all he had to do was try and figure out how they could help him solve his own case, that of a twenty-first century ripper who appeared determined to copy the style and the acts of the original serial killer. There had to be something in the copious notes and in the vast number of books written on the case that would help him find a way to stop the latter day ripper in his tracks, but that would be a task for him to address in the morning. Laying his papers and books on the coffee table, and shivering with tiredness Mike Holland yawned once more, put his feet up on the sofa and laid his head upon the pile of cushions at one end. Not for the first time, his bed remained cold and untouched upstairs as he felt his eyelids growing heavier. He was asleep in seconds.

  Chapter 20

  The Morning After the Night Before

  It had proved to be a long, difficult, sleepless night for Michael. Though he'd felt exhausted after the trauma of Jacob's ferocious attack the previous day he'd been too fired up to allow himself the luxury of a good night's sleep, afraid that Jacob just might decide to repeat his assault. Trying to rest with one eye continually on the door had left Michael feeling cold and low in spirit, precisely the way he didn't want to feel that morning. After Jacob's attack upon him the previous day, Michael had done as the other man had instructed and used his phone to call the man in the house on Abbotsford Road. Unable to speak openly with Jacob listening, he'd told the man that Jacob knew he'd been drugged, wanted to know why and for what purpose and wouldn't be deflected from his desire to find the truth. The man, sensing perhaps that Jacob was listening in on the conversation had told Michael to bring Jacob to the house at precisely eleven a.m the following day, this very morning to be precise. Although Jacob had protested and insisted that he wanted to resolve the situation there and then, the man had instructed Michael to tell Jacob that all would be revealed if he displayed a little patience. The man explained that he had people to see that day and wouldn't be free until the allotted time. Surely, he'd said, Jacob could wait a little longer in order to discover what he needed to know. Despite Jacob's protestations the man would not be swayed and Michael had told Jacob that this was not someone who would take orders or be threatened by anyone, least of all someone like Jacob. He could be dangerous, so he explained and Michael professed to be surprised that the man had agreed to meet with Jacob at all. After all, he was hardly a great friend of Michael's and probably cared little for the fact that Jacob had given him a thoroughly good beating.

  The arrangements having been grudgingly agreed there followed the longest day of Michael's life. Jacob refused to let Michael out of his sight and if it hadn't been for the fact that Michael had a supply of his own narcotics in the flat he'd have been going crazy by the time evening arrived. As it was it suited Jacob to allow Michael to get 'high' on the stuff as Michael's drugged state rendered him easy to control and watch over.

  Jacob had confiscated his phone, leaving Michael totally cut off from the outside world and only at bedtime did Jacob allow Michael the privacy of the use of his own room to sleep in, though Michael sensed rather than saw the presence of his young nemesis just outside the door through the night, seated in the tattered armchair that the young man had dragged across the floor to a position by the door. Michael felt like a prisoner under close surveillance in his own home, a feeling he hated more and more the longer the night wore on.

  Now, with the coming of the dawn, all thoughts of sleep finally evaporated from his mind. A leering Jacob entered the room and Michael could almost smell the aura of latent potential violence that emanated from the other man.

  "Sleep well, Michael? Don't bother to get up. Just stay where you are. I can talk to you just as well while you have a lie-in."

  "What do you think? With you standing guard outside my door and me not knowing if you were going to murder me in my sleep, just how was I supposed to sleep?"

  "Now, why on earth would I want to murder you in your sleep? You're the one who's going to take me to meet whoever's orchestrating whatever's been happening to me, aren't you? You can't do that if you're dead can you, Michael?"

  "Look, I told you. Nothing sinister's going on."

  "Bullshit! You don't drug someone until they're incapable of remembering what they've been doing without some sort of nefarious motive. You certainly didn't do it for the good of my health. I should have carried on beating the hell out of you yesterday until you'd told me the whole truth and nothing but the truth, as they say, instead of giving you the chance to pass the buck on to this mysterious friend of yours."

  "I've told you, he's not exactly a 'friend'. He's someone I met who helps me out from time to time and I do the same for hi
m."

  "In other words, he's your supplier and a dealer and you sell the stuff for him as well."

  "He's not a drug dealer, Jacob, honestly. Yes, he makes sure I'm well supplied but I don't sell the stuff for him. That's a totally different thing. You know I sell the stuff, yes, but only small time and I don't get my stuff from him. You should know that because you've picked up enough packages of the stuff from Andy in the tavern."

  Jacob had to admit that much was true. As part of his 'bed and board' deal with Michael he'd undertaken various excursions to the old Crown Tavern in one of the seedier areas of town where he'd met with the mysterious 'Andy' who was always ready and waiting for his arrival and who'd hand over a brown-paper wrapped parcel in exchange for the envelope of cash that Michael sent in return. Unless Andy was the man to whom Michael had spoken on the phone the previous day, which was unlikely given his deferential tone to the speaker at the other end of the line then it was evident to Jacob that in this matter at least, Michael was being totally honest with him. As though to confirm the point Jacob said,

  "So it's not Andy we're going to see today, am I right?"

  Michael laughed nervously.

  "Andy? You must be joking. You don't think I'd be this nervous if it were just Andy who was involved, do you?"

  "Just why are you so afraid of this man? What sort of hold does he have over you?"

  "I can't explain it all to you, man. Just take my word for it that this is one dude you don't want to cross. He's never actually been violent towards me, but you can tell just by being with him that there's something weird about him. Something that bubbles just under the surface. You can't put your finger on it, but you just know that he could probably kill you as easily as you or me would swat a fly. It's like he's evil through and through. He sort of smells evil if you know what I mean."