The Ripper's Victims in Print

by Rebecca Frost

  Annie is not accused outright of cheating on her husband, but she was given to drink and, in the course of her alcoholism, became an embarrassment. This is not entirely clarified, but considering the fact that the Chapmans tended to live in in wealthier homes in the course of his work, it seems there would be a wide variety of ways a servant’s wife might embarrass him and threaten his position. Like Mary Ann, Annie left children behind when she walked out of her marriage, but John Chapman apparently gave all of them a good education and thus no reason to avoid him.

  He also seems to have been a kinder man than William Nichols, although Begg and Barnett’s description of the allowance he gave his wife seems baffling. According to the authors, Annie received “a hefty chunk of John’s earnings, probably half of what a good labourer would hope to make.”30 If he had the children and was paying for their schooling, why would Annie then receive a whole half of what he brought in? Other authors have pointed out that this sum was large and likely more than a woman in the East End would need to live comfortably, but this comparison shows just how shocking the payments were. Begg and Bennett even give Annie credit for struggling against her alcoholism and getting it more or less under control, meaning she would not necessarily have needed to spend all of her allowance to keep herself in relative comfort. As much of an embarrassment Annie may have been during her marriage, it would seem that her time in the East End had the effect of helping her straighten up and gain control over her drinking.

  Elizabeth Stride receives no such positive concessions. Even her mortuary photograph and a contemporary drawing are deemed unflattering by the authors, leaving her no redeeming features. After being registered as a professional prostitute in her home country of Sweden, they declare that “[h]er life was going horribly wrong.”31 Even her reaction to her mother’s death is given a negative cast, since it becomes the impetus for her arrival in London not because she was fleeing the terrible thing that had happened, but because she was able to pay her way with her small inheritance. Instead of a flighty dreamer, Liz seems to be a shrewd opportunist.

  Begg and Bennett give her more nicknames than the usual “Long Liz,” although they cannot quite imagine why she might have been called some of them. Others stem from her habit of faking epileptic fits or perhaps her smile, which they likewise deem must have been unattractive. The sham elliptic fits were presumably Liz’s way of getting out of drunk and disorderly charges, once more displaying a woman willing to take advantage of a situation so she could turn it to her favor. The sinking of the Princess Alice is not part of the main narrative but rather occupies a box labeled “Background Intelligence,” mimicking a police file, just another illustration of the situations Liz would use in order to show herself in a better light.

  Even Catherine Eddowes has “a dark side to her character,”32 although with the authors’ description it would seem that the dark side is nearly her only side. Although she was orphaned at a young age and ran away from the aunt and uncle who had been charged with caring for her, Catherine’s drinking and her temper override any sympathy. This is a Catherine who is not only forced to break with her family but is thrown out of the casual ward during her final stay. Her marriage to Thomas Conway and her relationship with their children fall apart due to her drinking, and perhaps her relationship with John Kelly was not as rosy as others have seen it. Kelly told police that Catherine was going to her daughter’s on her last day in order to borrow some money, but that daughter had moved without leaving a forwarding address so that she could avoid her mother, the scrounger. Begg and Bennett suggest Kelly told this story to cover for the fact that he knew Catherine would be out seeking clients and earning money through prostitution.

  Mary Jane Kelly, also simply called Kelly by the authors, is perhaps treated more kindly solely because there were fewer people to speak about her after her death and there is no way of proving or disproving what little was said. Perhaps the biggest argument in her favor was that “her lover” or “former lover”33—he is referred to as both on the same page—Joseph Barnett continued to give her money even though they were no longer living together, and appeared to hope that their separation was only temporary. Kelly seemed to inspire tenderness in him, and although the authors speculate that she might have also had trouble with her parents, there was no record of what that trouble may have been, and no family stepped forward to support a negative reputation. Even though Kelly has been surrounded with all kinds of speculation, Begg and Bennett stick to the most factual evidence they can find, and it seems to tend toward the positive.

  Despite, or perhaps because of, their focus on the locations of the crimes and not the enactor thereof, Begg and Bennett are able to paint brief pictures of the victims shot through with moments of intense clarity. They return to the seafaring theme when they point out that these women were “the flotsam of society, the unwanted and uncared about victims of their own vice and misfortune,”34 and illustrate this through the women’s biographies. Few of those who even knew them seem to have cared about their lives or the deaths, and Begg and Bennett point out that their deaths would likewise have gone unnoticed if not for the fact that they were murdered. Because they are not concerned with the identity of the Ripper but instead with the locations of the murders, Begg and Bennett are able to focus on these women not as clues to solve a mystery but in order to ask the question of how these women had ended up there in the first place.

  Under a Microscope

  The introduction of new technologies and police procedures is meant to increase the speed and ease at which law enforcement officials can solve crimes. At the time of the Ripper murders even fingerprint identification was still in the future, much less tests to determine blood type or DNA. Twenty-first century readers exist in an age permeated with narratives of stalking and catching serial killers that began in the 1980s when the FBI assumed the title of serial killer expert. Since then the figure of the almost psychic law enforcement official has found roles in books, movies, and popular television shows, proclaiming the near omniscient powers of these specially trained individuals. These narratives also include the required forensic evidence to prove this official correct.

  Although the behavioral science experts and their work has been used to analyze the Ripper since the 1980s, the use of modern technology has been more recent. Patricia Cornwell and Russell Edwards took it upon themselves to, at their own expense, procure and test artifacts that were associated with the Ripper in 1888. Unfortunately these tests could not rely on DNA to specifically point to their chosen suspects and instead had to use mDNA, due to the age of those artifacts. mDNA can be used to exclude suspects but not to identify them, and both Cornwell and Edwards were able to show that the tests their experts administered did not put their personal suspects out of the running. Unlike a good crime novel or CSI episode, however, technology did not point the finger at an individual and, since their suspects are long dead, there was no hope of confronting them in an interrogation room and attempting to elicit a confession.

  John Plimmer was able to interrogate his suspect, although that interview transcript—and indeed much of the evidence used to point to him in the first place—was only a fiction. In his attempt to present readers with a modern investigation into the Ripper murders, Plimmer had to create evidence for his case simply because policemen in 1888 would not have thought to have looked for it. Even if they had discovered the specific evidence Plimmer points to, it would have been of little use to them. Plimmer thus manufactures a case based on true events, although he manipulates details in a way that would not stand up to cross examination.

  Plimmer, Cornwell, and Edwards all make use of modern technology in order to light the way toward the final, conclusive identification of the mysterious Jack the Ripper. Their focus is still on the Ripper himself, which comes at a cost to the representation of the women he killed. True, there are moments in which authors bring these women to the fore and present them as living people worthy of empathy, instead of
bodies meant to only be searched for clues, but those moments are rare. The identity of the Ripper is the grail and the women’s bodies are merely signposts indicating the way.

  Paul Begg and John Bennet, on the other hand, use improvements in technology in order to focus their research on another aspect of the Ripper murders entirely. They utilize computer imaging to construct the scenes themselves, devoid of all human presence or evidence. Perhaps because their focus is not on the Ripper, they are able to more fully explore the lives of the women who met their deaths at these locations. They do not need to use the women’s bodies as clues because they are not asking any questions that those clues would answer. Begg and Bennett therefore also belong to the category of authors who have chosen to direct their research about the Ripper murders to something other than the identity of the Ripper himself. They have selected a new angle with which to approach the case and in that new approach may have illuminated aspects that other researchers had not uncovered.

  The authors in the next chapter have likewise incorporated something “different” into their books. Some of them, like Begg and Bennet, have chosen to focus on an aspect of the case that has not yet come to the fore. Others approach the same question of the Ripper’s identity but from a new position, accusing family members of having been the Ripper or even crafting the narrative in order to propose that the Ripper was actually a woman. With each approach meant to clarify a new aspect of the Ripper mystery—or perhaps solely to sell a book when so many have already been written—the representation of, and time spent discussing, the murdered women continues to evolve.

  • NINE •

  Crimes for a New Age

  Variations and Changes in Victim Representation of the 21st Century

  Considering the vast outpouring of books about Jack the Ripper that occurred in the final decades of the twentieth century, it might be reasonable for researchers and authors to ask: what more could be said? Even if a new name is submitted as a suspect for the Ripper’s true identity, what could be done to make that person stand out or be more of a possibility than the names already mentioned? How could authors take a narrative more than a century old and make it new and exciting again without simply being a repeat or a rehash of what has gone before?

  The twenty-first century answered this call in the form of variety. New categories of suspects—including women, the author’s own ancestor, and Americans—allowed for a different angle on the investigation into the Ripper’s identity, as did two more supposed autobiographies. Other authors took their research further, ignoring the idea of the Ripper’s true identity completely to focus on a gap or previously unexplored facet of the Ripper narrative, shining more light on the mystery without specifically focusing on the Ripper himself. Although some of these approaches minimized the discussion of the murdered women, others allowed new angles of insight to be brought forward.

  Women Against Women

  Although he does not make an entirely new accusation in his 2012 book Jack the Ripper: The Hand of a Woman—The Compelling New Account, John Morris’ claim that Jack the Ripper was in fact a woman was not one that had received serious consideration since William Stewart’s book in 1939. While Stewart set his accusations on a profession instead of a specific person—choosing “midwife” instead of the figure of Olga Tchkersoff suggested by Edwin Woodhall two years earlier—John Morris names Lizzie Williams, wife to Sir John Williams. This does give him the distinction of naming a suspect who was, in fact, married to another suspect, although changing the narrative of the Ripper murders from a male to a female murderer comes with its own challenges.

  According to Morris, Lizzie Williams set off on a very Dr. Stanley–type quest, with the ultimate goal being the murder of Mary Jane Kelly. This murderous spree began because she and Dr. Williams were unable to have children and, presumably because he suspected the issue lay with her, Dr. Williams sought out younger, prettier Mary Jane Kelly so that she might provide him with a child. Out of jealousy Lizzie decided she should kill Mary Jane, embarking on the initial murders purely to prove to herself that she could. Morris further suggests that John Williams, a respected gynecologist, not only failed to help his wife’s infertility, but also taught Lizzie enough about anatomy and the surgeries he practiced that there were questions of whether or not the Ripper possessed medical training.

  Perhaps because of Lizzie’s obsession with her own barrenness, a litany of the victims lists their names, ages, number of children, and their occupations as common prostitute. Motherhood trumps even marriage or any current relationships in this list for all but Mary Jane Kelly. The other women’s boyfriends matter little, since they were not John Williams. For Morris—and for Lizzie—it matters only that they were currently prostitutes, on the street looking for money, and mostly drunk. Indeed, “[i]f Nichols had been even half-sober, she might have fought off her murderer”1 and brought Lizzie’s murderous spree to a halt that night. Being a woman herself means that Lizzie would have been expected to have been weaker than a man and thus her approach to the murders would necessarily be different from the usual assumptions.

  Although Morris makes it clear that East End prostitutes must have been used to women approaching them to buy sexual favors as well as men, he jumps to say that he is not “suggesting for one moment that Lizzie Williams was anything other than a heterosexual.”2 It is unclear whether the suggestions that Lizzie was either bisexual or a lesbian would be an insult to her, or whether Morris finds the prospect of a female serial killer difficult enough to present without questioning her sexual orientation as well. Indeed, Morris put himself in the position of being a man declaring such things as how only a woman would have placed Annie’s belongings so carefully after her death,3 even in the aftermath of a murder giving in to some innate feminine desire for order. Lizzie would have done this after finding a cloth or rag in Annie’s pocket meant for personal hygiene, so that the killer could clean her hands—Morris points out that no such cloth was found, so Lizzie must have taken it away with her—and the scatter of belongings was simply too out of order to Lizzie to leave. Her compulsive urge to straighten the items was a clear indication of her femininity, although this judgment of her actions comes from a member of the opposite sex.

  As other authors have suggested, Morris claims that Catherine Eddowes’ death was a mistake born of her use of the name “Mary Kelly.” Rather than being old and haggard like the previous women, Catherine looked younger and had apparently kept herself better. Naturally if Lizzie thought Catherine was Mary Kelly she would have suspected she was looking at her husband’s mistress, and Morris suggests that an “attractive young woman who was always happy”4 would have seemed different enough from Lizzie herself. This says some negative things about Lizzie and makes Catherine’s death all the more tragic, since she wasn’t simply an old hag waiting for the end of her joyless life, as the other women presumably were. Although little is stated about Catherine beyond the fact that she had three children and that she was drunk when Lizzie encountered her, only Mary Kelly has more information presented about her past. Morris depicts Lizzie as attacking Catherine in a jealous rage, with the facial mutilations enacted to destroy the other woman’s femininity and the missing kidney Lizzie’s attempt to remove Catherine’s heart.

  Lizzie’s desire to remove the heart of her husband’s mistress was indeed fulfilled once she had tracked down the real Mary Kelly, “a captivating, fertile Irish girl”5 whose short-lived marriage had produced a son. This son was not present in Mary Kelly’s room on the night of her death—and indeed, Morris admits to being unable to track him at all—but was clear proof that Mary Kelly, unlike Lizzie, was capable of bearing children. Again the idea of fertility and the focus on the womb is tracked through the storyline, along with Lizzie’s desire to utterly and completely destroy the woman her husband had chosen to father his child. Unlike the other women, Mary Kelly is allowed a past of broken relationships, making John Williams just another man for her. Even though he
r marriage ended because of her husband’s death, she is then shown to foist her son off on friends when she wanted privacy in her room, either to pursue her latest doomed relationship or to support them through prostitution. The other women may have been prostitutes, but Mary Kelly was carrying on with a married man, which made her worse.

  Morris makes two other notable moves when discussing the murdered women. First, when describing their injuries, he does not refer to them by name. They become simply “the victim” or “the woman,” impersonal and distant. Second, when Morris describes the position in which these women were found, he seems incapable of mentioning the position of their legs without immediately connecting it to the sexual act. Granted, the women were indeed known to be prostitutes, and this might be an aspect of arguing that the killer was female instead of male, but the repetition is almost overwhelming. Even dead, the women are nothing more than vessels for their wombs.

  Two years later, in 2014, Tom Wescott makes a similar shift in his book The Bank Holiday Murders: The True Story of the Whitechapel Murders. Unlike Morris, Wescott is not certain of the identity of the Ripper himself, but rather focuses on a woman who is usually relegated to a bit part in the Ripper narrative, arguing that she seems to be an accomplice. Wescott does not discuss all five canonical murders, instead focusing mainly on Polly Nichols and some earlier murders he connects with his suspected accomplice, Pearly Poll.

  Wescott identifies Pearly Poll as “a minor and rather whimsical character in the modern re-telling of the Ripper story,”6 known for being the prostitute said to have been out with Martha Tabram on the night she was murdered. If Tabram is added to the list, Polly becomes the second Ripper victim, and Wescott draws connections within the small geographical area to show how Pearly Poll might have influenced the investigation into Polly’s death the same way she interfered with the investigation into Martha’s. He further suggests that the woman Annie Chapman fought with before her death was a friend of Pearly Poll’s, connecting Pearly Poll to yet another murder.