Crimes of Jack the Ripper

by Paul Roland

  The murder of Mary Kelly demonstrated a degree of savagery that even the hardened police surgeons found hard to view with detachment. It appears the mutilations were random and intended to render the corpse unrecognizable as that of a human being. Again, her face was disfigured, this time beyond recognition, and the heart was the only organ that was unaccounted for, though it may have been consumed in the fire burning in the grate at Miller’s Court. Dr Bond thought that the object of all four murders was mutilation and that these injuries were inflicted by a person with neither scientific nor anatomical knowledge. ‘In my opinion,’ wrote Dr Bond, ‘he does not even possess the technical knowledge of a butcher or horse slaughterer or any person accustomed to cut up dead animals.’

  Eyewitness statements

  So how accurate are the witness statements and which, if any, of the known suspects matches their descriptions? First of all, it needs to be remembered that no one came forward claiming to have caught the Ripper in the act, nor did any one report having seen a man fleeing the scene of the murders. In the case of Polly Nichols, there were no witnesses at all.

  As far as the other slayings are concerned, the most we have are a few possible sightings of men who were seen in the company of women answering the victim’s description shortly before their estimated time of death. But most of the East End prostitutes dressed alike, so few witnesses could say with certainty that it was the victims they had seen and that, of course, devalues their descriptions of the men who had been seen with them.

  Besides that, the victims may have solicited several men within a very short time so that even if a witness was prepared to swear they had seen a victim in the company of a man shortly before the body was found, it does not necessarily follow that it was the same man who killed her.

  Furthermore, most of the witnesses caught only a fleeting glimpse of a man whom they had no cause to take particular notice of at the time, and they did so in the half dark or by the ineffectual glow of a gaslight some yards from the suspect.

  Recent research has demonstrated that eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable even under ideal conditions and that their recollection of events deteriorates at an alarming rate.

  If their statements are not taken within a few hours, they are likely to confuse what they saw with people they have seen subsequently. For these reasons the descriptions given by witnesses during the Whitechapel murders are practically useless, but they are all we have.

  One of the more reliable sightings was that given to the coroner at the inquest into the death of Annie Chapman by Mrs Long, who passed a man and a woman standing on the pavement outside 29 Hanbury Street just minutes before the murder took place. She had the benefit of the light of dawn, but unfortunately she did not see the man’s face. He was a foreigner of dark complexion, over 40 years of age, a little taller than the deceased (approximately 165cm/5ft 5in), of shabby genteel appearance, with a brown deerstalker hat and a dark coat.

  It is assumed that the term foreigner was a euphemism for a Jew, but Mrs Long may have meant to imply that he was an American or a European as she stated that she had heard him speaking as she passed, though she gave no further detail than this.

  Liz Stride’s murderer

  An equally significant sighting was that made in Berner Street by PC William Smith on the night Liz Stride was murdered. At 12.30 in the morning, 15 minutes before Stride’s body was discovered, PC Smith saw ‘Long Liz’ in the company of a man who the constable described as being 170cm (5ft 7in) tall, of respectable appearance, and carrying a small parcel wrapped in newspaper. He was about 28 years of age with a dark complexion and a small dark moustache, and was wearing a dark coat, dark trousers, a white collar and tie and a hard felt deerstalker hat. PC Smith was confident that it was Stride that he had seen because she was wearing a red rose which he later saw on the body of the victim.

  At first glance Stride’s 28-year-old companion and the 40-year-old man seen with Annie Chapman appear to be two different individuals and yet both had a dark complexion, were a few inches taller than the victim and wore a deerstalker hat. As both men had been spotted in the company of the deceased just minutes before their death they merit closer inspection. Mrs Long only saw the man from the back so her estimate of his age cannot be depended upon – nor indeed her description of him as having a dark complexion. If he was instead in his mid- to late-thirties and PC Smith underestimated his age by a few years, the witnesses could have been describing the same man. The fact that he was wearing a deerstalker on both occasions suggests this is so, as it was not a common item of headgear for inhabitants of the East End. However the terms ‘respectable appearance’ and ‘shabby genteel’ describe two distinctly different types. The former suggests a middle-class man such as a clerk, while ‘shabby genteel’ was a common term for a person of poor, working-class appearance whose clothes had seen better days.

  Of the two, the middle-aged man is the more likely candidate for Jack the Ripper as Stride’s murderer might have been her violent former lover, Michael Kidney.

  Israel Schwartz, the second witness, who saw Stride being thrown to the ground, described the man as being 167cm (5ft 5in) tall, round-faced and broad-shouldered, with dark hair and a short brown moustache. He was wearing a dark jacket and trousers and a dark peaked cap. Schwartz thought he might have been about 30 years of age. His companion, the man with the pipe who followed Schwartz to the end of the street, was in his mid-thirties, 180cm (5ft 11in) with light brown hair, a dark overcoat and a black wide-brimmed hat. But Schwartz could not be certain that the two knew each other or that the shout of ‘Lipski’ was directed at him. It may have been intended to warn off the pipe-smoking man whom the rough might not have wanted as a witness to his assault on the woman (who we assume to have been Stride). Of course Stride may have already been lying lifeless in the yard behind the gates and the assault witnessed by Schwartz may have had nothing to do with her death. Perhaps it was the quarrel in the street which alerted the murderer and prompted him to interrupt his work rather the arrival a few minutes later of Diemschutz and his cart? This is one case where the phrase ‘there are more questions than answers’ seems particularly appropriate.

  Lawende’s statement

  A more dependable description was given by Joseph Lawende, who passed the entrance to Church Passage which led into Mitre Square minutes before the body of Catherine Eddowes was found. He testified to seeing a woman answering to Eddowes’ description conversing with a man who he later described as ‘rough and shabby’, aged about 30, approximately 170cm (5ft 7in) tall and of medium build with a fair complexion and a fair moustache. He was wearing a grey, peaked cloth cap and a pepper and salt patterned jacket with a reddish handkerchief tied around his neck. Could this have been the same rough that Schwartz had seen 45 minutes earlier in Berner Street?

  Curiously, Joseph Levy, who was walking a few paces behind Lawende, appeared reluctant to make a statement and it was later revealed that he had identified a prime suspect named by the police, a fellow Jew named Kosminski who was subsequently confined in an asylum. It is possible that Levy had recognized Kosminski that night at the entrance to Church Passage, but was unwilling to give him up to the authorities knowing that he would be hanged if found guilty. But this is pure speculation – and if Lawende had recognized a fellow Jew there is a much more likely candidate than Kosminski, of which more shortly.

  Other eyewitnesses

  Whatever the case, Lawende’s description is perhaps the best on record, unless you accept the uncannily detailed description offered by George Hutchinson several days after the murder of Mary Kelly in Miller’s Court. Hutchinson’s statement must be regarded with a good deal of suspicion as it is simply too good to be true. If he had seen as much as he claimed to have done, why did he wait so long before going to the police? Had he been concocting a story in the hope of claiming a reward, or attention from the press, or did he seek to divert suspicion from himself, having learnt that he had been seen hanging around
Miller’s Court in the early hours of the morning Mary was murdered? Perhaps he recognized the man as Mary’s ex-lover Joseph Barnett and feared being beaten if he gave Barnett up to the police, so he deliberately concocted a false and overly elaborate character?

  Hutchinson described the man as ‘aged about 34–35, height 5ft 6in, complexion pale, dark eyes and eye lashes, slight moustache curled up at each end and hair dark, very surly looking, dress long dark coat, collar and cuffs trimmed astrakhan and a dark jacket under lightweight coat, dark trousers, dark felt hat turned down in the middle, button boots and gaiters with white buttons, black tie with horse shoe pin, respectable appearance, walked very sharp, Jewish appearance.’

  He added yet more details at a later date: ‘His watch chain had a big seal with a red stone, hanging from it . . . He had no side whiskers, and his chin was clean shaven.’ But would an affluent man have come down to Whitechapel to pay for sex with a 4d whore in a filthy room at Miller’s Court? Also, would a man intending to butcher a woman dress so elegantly and make himself so conspicuous?

  Perhaps a more reliable sighting was that made by laundress Sarah Lewis, who saw a man lurking around Miller’s Court at 2.30am, half an hour after Hutchinson claimed to have seen Mary with the man of means. It was the same man who had accosted Lewis and a friend a few days earlier. He was short, aged about 40, pale-faced with a black moustache, and wore a short black coat and carried a long black bag. Such a man would conform to the description given by Mrs Long.

  Earlier that evening, around 11.45pm, another prostitute living in Miller’s Court, Mary Ann Cox, had observed Mary Kelly in the company of a man she described as being about 36 years old, about 167cm (5ft 6in) high, with a fresh complexion, blotches on his face, small side whiskers, and a carroty moustache. He was dressed in shabby dark clothes, dark overcoat and a black felt hat. But it needs to be remembered that both these witnesses saw Mary as much as six hours before her death.

  What did the Ripper look like?

  It is clear that we cannot compile a reliable description from these conflicting statements. All eight eyewitnesses disagree on almost every vital detail other than the fact that the man probably had a moustache, while several can’t even agree on whether the moustache was light or dark. Three recollect seeing a man in his late thirties or early forties, while others recall a much younger man. But even if we compare the descriptions which roughly agree on age, they will disagree on other crucial details.

  However, if we limit ourselves to drawing only on those witnesses who saw one of the five ‘official’ victims in the company of a man within 15 minutes of the estimated time of her death and set aside all testimony pertaining to the death of Mary Kelly, whose time of death is fiercely disputed, and to Elizabeth Stride, who may not have been a Ripper victim, we can extract the following details and state with some confidence that the prime suspect was aged 28–35, 165–170cm (5ft 5in–5ft 7in) tall and had a moustache. Unfortunately that description could fit half the male population of the East End.

  The best that can be said for these accounts is that they help to eliminate several suspects who are still in the running, namely Kosminski who was 24 at the time and could speak only Yiddish; Ostrog, who was 55 and uncommonly tall at 180cm (5ft 11in); Robert Donston Stephenson, who was aged 47 and had a distinctive white drooping moustache; and Francis Tumblety, who was 55 and sported an enormous handlebar moustache that no one could have overlooked. Despite the strong circumstantial evidence against Tumblety, he always seemed an unlikely suspect for the simple fact that he was a flamboyant character who would have been conspicuous in the streets of Whitechapel and who would have been unlikely to have dressed down to slum it in the East End. Of course, it goes without saying that anyone intent on murder could alter their appearance, but curiously few killers of the period did more than wear a wide-brimmed hat to cover their faces. Unless they were caught red-handed they were likely to get away with murder.

  Oddly enough, the only two suspects who come close to matching the eyewitness descriptions are the long-shots George Chapman, then aged 33, 172cm (5ft 8in), with a long black moustache, sharp prominent nose and ‘European’ appearance, and Joseph Barnett, Mary Kelly’s ex-lover, who was 30 in 1888, 170cm (5ft 7in) tall and sported the obligatory moustache.

  Of course we cannot afford to dismiss the possibility that Hutchinson may have been telling the truth while the other witnesses may have been describing innocent men who happened to be in the area near the time of the murders, in which case we already have a detailed description of the Whitechapel murderer. Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing which witnesses we can rely upon. It is a frustrating fact that if the police on the scene were unable to name a prime suspect there is little chance of anyone doing so a century later.

  The syphilitic butcher of Middlesex Street

  There is one tool we have today which was not available to the police in 1888, and that is the practically infallible science of psychological profiling. The first rule of profiling is that a serial killer will almost always begin their criminal career close to home. Add to that the other clues offered by FBI criminal profilers elsewhere in these pages, and the finger points at a suspect no one, to the best of my knowledge, has seriously considered before – a mad Jewish butcher named Jacob Levy.

  Under closer examination the case against Levy is a compelling one.

  He lived in the heart of the Ripper’s killing ground with his wife and two children. He had contracted syphilis from local prostitutes, which brought on sporadic violent fits and paranoid delusions. In his disintegrating mind he would have been able to justify murdering these women and he would have been capable of committing such ferocious unprovoked attacks unburdened by remorse.

  Levy also possessed the crude skill to perform the mutilations and would have been untroubled handling, and perhaps even hoarding, human body parts as macabre trophies in his premises. Such a man could indulge his destructive tendencies vicariously on animals without arousing attention, an activity which would serve to contain his mania until such time when he would have the means and opportunity to satiate his bloodlust without fear of being caught. There were literally dozens of butchers and slaughtermen walking the streets of Whitechapel and Spitalfields in the early hours of the morning and most of them would have had blood spattered on their aprons and hands. Levy would have passed unnoticed. By all accounts he benefited from the one characteristic which helps many serial killers elude capture for so long – he looked disarmingly normal and as such would have melted into the crowd.

  The right age and the right place

  Levy matches both the psychological profile and the physical description, most significantly that given by Joseph Lawende, who described a man 7.5cm (3in) taller than the woman he was with. Catherine Eddowes was 152cm (5ft), Jacob Levy was 160cm (5ft 3in). He was also in the right age bracket, being 32 at the time of the murders. The reluctant witness Joseph Levy would have known Jacob Levy by sight as they lived in the same neighbourhood. It is not unreasonable to assume that Joseph’s reluctance to give a statement was due to his fear of what Jacob might do by way of a reprisal.

  As serial killers always begin their criminal careers near home and only widen their territory as their confidence grows, it is highly significant that Jacob Levy lived in Middlesex Street, just three streets away from George Yard where Martha Tabram was found, and 91m (100yd) from Goulston Street where a piece of Eddowes’ bloodied apron was discovered on the night of the double murder. Martha is regarded by many people as the first real Ripper victim, although I am not convinced. Nevertheless, the fact remains that all of the ‘official’ victims were found north of the Whitechapel Road within walking distance of Levy’s home while the disputed victims lie south of that infamous thoroughfare.

  When his ravings finally forced the authorities to consider Levy for committal in an asylum in August 1890, his wife admitted that ‘he does not sleep at nights and wanders around aimlessly for hours’. Suspicions too
must be roused by the findings of a report made by the asylum’s admissions officer who concluded that Levy feared ‘that if he is not restrained he will do some violence to someone; he complains about hearing strange noises; cries for no reason; feels compelled to do acts that his conscience cannot stand; and has a conscience of a feeling of exaltation.’

  But perhaps the most damning clue of all is the fact that Jacob Levy died in the asylum the following year, the same year that Scotland Yard officially closed their files on the Whitechapel murders.

  Summing up and verdict

  It is clear from the evidence presented in the preceding pages that the real Jack the Ripper bore no relation whatsoever to the aristocratic figure in the fog portrayed in popular fiction, nor in the countless films, documentaries and dramatizations of the Whitechapel murders of 1888. As this exhaustive re-examination of the facts has revealed, the Ripper was a modern myth created by a rabidly competitive press, every bit as ruthless as the elusive fiend himself.

  Significantly, the appearance of ‘Saucy Jack’, the first modern serial killer, coincided with the rise of the populist press, who took advantage of the lack of hard news in the autumn of 1888 to fabricate their own. With their graphic illustrations and bold black headlines, these forerunners of today’s tabloids were largely responsible for stringing together a series of apparently random and unrelated slayings and in so doing elevating an unexceptional individual to mythical status in order to satisfy the public’s insatiable appetite for sensation and boost their own circulations.