Eight little whores, with no hope of heaven,
Gladstone may save one, then there’ll be seven.
As prostitutes are found murdered and brutally mutilated from August to November of 1888 in London’s East End, the legend of Jack the Ripper is born.
Nearly 115 years later, the man behind the legend is still elusive. Was he a psychopath who hated prostitutes and loved to cut them up? A prankster who loved manipulating the police and the media? Or did the media itself give birth to the Ripper? And why was he or she never caught? We’ll probably never know. Yet fascination with the Ripper still remains—new books are continually published about the mystery, and the current movie From Hell is near the top of the box office.
…Before another month she will be mutilated in a cruel manner, but I can’t help that…”
While there is no solid evidence proving who the Ripper was, there are many suspects: Dr. Robert Donston Stephenson, a patient in a London hospital, who wrote to the police about the murders when they were happening; Montague John Druitt, who committed suicide just after the November 1888 murder of Mary Kelly; or poisoner Dr. Thomas Neill Cream, who was rumoured to have confessed to being the Ripper on the scaffold. Then there’s the “midwife” or “June the Ripper” theory, in which the killer was a knife-happy woman who was illegally carrying out abortions.
The theory commonly used in movies, including From Hell, is the Royal Masonic Conspiracy, which suggests that after Prince Albert secretly married a prostitute, a group of Freemasons got together to eliminate the prostitutes who witnessed the marriage.
World renowned Jack the Ripper expert Stewart Evans, who worked as a historical advisor to the movie, has his own theories about the story and was pleasantly surprised by the knowledge of the cast assembled for the Hollywood blockbuster.
“Johnny Depp himself was really quite interested in the story and he’s a really nice guy—very well read—and he certainly knew quite a lot about the case.”
…This is to give you notice that I intend to rip your little fat belly up next week…
Evans believes that the killer was Dr. Francis Tumblety, an Irish-American doctor with IRA connections, who fell in love with a woman who turned out to be prostitute. He came to England just before the murders started, and left just after the murders stopped. An abortionist in the 1850s in Toronto and Montreal, he was arrested for performing an illegal abortion in Montreal in September of 1857. He also reportedly had a fascination with the womb and kept a few in jars in his office. Three of the murdered women’s wombs appeared to be the target, and in two cases, the Ripper ripped it out and took it with him.
…I murdered a woman last night and have cut off her womb. I shall send it by parcels post…
The legend of the Ripper is built on correspondence. Scotland Yard has collected over 220 letters related to the case, and no one knows exactly who wrote them.
“There is strong evidence that suggests that the first Ripper letter, which gave the name Jack the Ripper to the world, was probably a press invention, written by one of the journalists at the Central News Agency just to keep the story going, so they could sell more newspapers,” says Evans, who doesn’t believe the Ripper wrote any of the letters.
…Am trying my hand at disjointing, and if I can manage it will send you a finger…
Evans and co-writer Keith Skinner are the first people outside of Scotland Yard allowed to view the letters.
“To go to Scotland Yard and look at the original letters was amazing! It was fascinating to think that these actual letters had been penned over a hundred years ago at the time of the murders. Some of them were amazingly obscene. You would never believe they were written in Victorian times.”
Included in the collection is the famous “From Hell” letter (where the movie got its name) which is splattered in blood and accompanied by half a human kidney.
The era of new journalism—the tabloid press—made Jack the Ripper the first internationally famous serial killer. “The case was reported in the American press just as it was in London. It was the first time that the world saw a series of murders get so much publicity, probably so much misconceptions and mad theories about mad doctors and crazy sailors, lunatics of every sort, Jewish slaughtermen. The legend just kept growing, and still is.”
