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This was my senior paper, was 10 pages IIRC, and is only the body.
(If I knew how to do spoiler tags, I would do them so this doesn't make the scroll bar 120938120938 feet long, but o'well)
What defines a killer? By definition a killer is someone who causes the death of a person or animal. Jack the Ripper took five innocent peoples lives, so he fits perfectly into this category. I will discuss what a serial killer is, why Jack the Ripper is so notorious, and the differences between Jack and other notorious killers of the nineteenth century. Jack the Ripper’s infamy began in 1888 and ended three years later in 1891. During these three years of terror, Jack the Ripper killed five women: Mary Nicholls, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Marie Kelly. The murders started on August 31, 1888, and ended three months later on November 9, 1888. Jack the Ripper was the most notorious killer of the late 1800’s.
What is a Serial Killer? According to definition a serial killer is an individual who has a history of multiple slayings of victims who were generally unknown to him or her beforehand. His crimes are committed as a result of a compulsion that, in many but not all cases, has roots in the killer's (often dysfunctional) youth. A serial killer has more than or equal to five kills, and they tend to kill in months or year intervals. One to two victims at a time usually stabbing or strangulation causes death. The common serial killer is a white male ages twenty to thirty and the motive is usually of sexual nature, or a revenge / rejection combination. Some past serial killers are people such as: Mary Ann Cotton, Gesina Gottfried, and Marie De Brinviliers. Some present day serial killers are: Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gasey, and Ted Bundy.
Walter Richard Sickert (Aka Jack the Ripper) was born on May 31, 1860, in Munich, Germany. His father (Oswald Adalbert Sickert) was a Danish artist. His mother was an English-Irish beauty, Eleanor Lousia Moravia Henry. (Walter was a third generation artist). Sickert was raised as a German boy. He had five siblings: four brothers, and one sister. By the age of five, Sickert had undergone three horrific surgeries for a fistula (Surgery where an opening is made into a hollow organ, as the bladder or eyeball, for drainage). He lived a semi-dysfunctional life leading to his first murder, Mary Nicholls.
Mary Nicholls was born on August 26, 1845, in Shoe Lane off Fleet Street. Her approximate age at death was thirty to thirty-five. She was five feet two inches tall, brown eyed, dark complexion with brown hair. She was missing five front teeth. She is described as "a very clean woman who always seemed to keep to herself." She was also an alcoholic. This was the description given at the time the body was found.
"Five teeth were missing, and there was a slight laceration of the tongue. There was a bruise running along the lower part of the jaw on the right side of the face. A blow might have caused that from a fist or pressure from a thumb. There was a circular bruise on the left side of the face, which also might have been inflicted by the pressure of the fingers. On the left side of the neck, about 1 in. below the jaw, there was an incision about 4 in. in length, and ran from a point immediately below the ear. On the same side, but an inch below, and commencing about 1 in. in front of it, was a circular incision, which terminated at a point about 3 in. below the right jaw. That incision completely severed all the tissues down to the vertebrae. The large vessels of the neck on both sides were severed. The incision was about 8 in. in length. the cuts must have been caused by a long-bladed knife, moderately sharp, and used with great violence. No blood was found on the breast, either of the body or the clothes. There were no injuries about the body until just about the lower part of the abdomen. Two or three inches from the left side was a wound running in a jagged manner. The wound was a very deep one, and the tissues were cut through. There were several incisions running across the abdomen. There were three or four similar cuts running downwards, on the right side, all of which had been caused by a knife, which had been used violently and downwards. The injuries were form left to right and might have been done by a left-handed person. All the injuries had been caused by the same instrument."
This was Jack’s first murder and there would be four more to follow, getting worse as the murders continued, next was Annie Chapman.
Annie Chapman was born in September in 1841. She was five feet tall. Her estimated age at death was 45. She had a pallid (pale) complexion. She had dark brown wavy hair, blue eyes and nearly perfect teeth (perhaps two missing in lower jaw). She had a very stout frame about her. She was under nourished and suffered from a chronic disease of the lungs (Aka tuberculosis) and brain tissue. It is said that she was dying; her symptoms could also be those of syphilis. The report below explains the appearance of the body.
Pre-mortem.
"The left arm was placed across the left breast. The legs were drawn up, the feet resting on the ground, and the knees turned outwards. The face was swollen and turned on the right side. The tongue protruded between the front teeth, but not beyond the lips. The tongue was evidently much swollen. The front teeth were perfect as far as the first molar, top and bottom and very fine teeth they were. The body was terribly mutilated.”
Post-mortem
"He noticed the same protrusion of the tongue. There was a bruise over the right temple. On the upper eyelid there was a bruise, and there were two distinct bruises, each the size of a man's thumb, on the forepart of the top of the chest. The stiffness of the limbs was now well marked. There was a bruise over the middle part of the bone of the right hand. There was an old scar on the left of the frontal bone. The stiffness was more noticeable on the left side, especially in the fingers, which were partly closed. There was an abrasion over the ring finger, with distinct markings of a ring or rings. The throat had been severed as before described. the incisions into the skin indicated that they had been made from the left side of the neck. There were two distinct clean cuts on the left side of the spine. They were parallel with each other and separated by about half an inch. The muscular structures appeared as though an attempt had made to separate the bones of the neck. There were various other mutilations to the body, but he was of the opinion that they occurred subsequent to the death of the woman, and to the large escape of blood from the division of the neck.”
Annie Chapman left behind a husband, two brothers, mother and father. She was Jack’s second victim. Twenty-two days later Jack would take his third victim, Elizabeth Stride.
Elizabeth Stride, born on November 27, 1843, on a farm in Torslanda, Parrish. She became a prostitute at the age of twenty-two. That same year she gives birth to a stillborn (dead when born) baby girl. December 28, 1881 she is diagnosed with bronchitis and underwent treatment from the white chapel infirmary. The last person to see her alive was Louis Diemschutz, a jewelry salesman.
"The body was lying on the near side, with the face turned toward the wall, the head up the yard and the feet toward the street. The left arm was extended and there was a packet of cachous in the left hand. The right arm was over the belly; the back of the hand and wrist had on it clotted blood. The legs were drawn up with the feet close to the wall. The body and face were warm and the hand cold. The legs were quite warm. Deceased had a silk handkerchief round her neck, and it appeared to be slightly torn. The throat was deeply gashed and there was an abrasion of the skin about one and a half inches in diameter, apparently stained with blood, under her right arm. Decomposition had commenced in the skin. Dark brown spots were on the anterior surface of the left chin. There was a deformity in the bones of the right leg, which was not straight, but bowed forwards. There was no recent external injury save to the neck. The lobe of the left ear was torn as if from the removal or wearing an earring, but it was thoroughly healed.”
So far, the first three murders have all had the same markings of about one-inch diameter bruise about the neck. Jack’s fourth victim was Catherine Eddowes
Catherine Eddowes was born on April 14, 1842 in Graisley Green, Wolverhampton. She was five feet tall, with hazel eyes and dark auburn hair. At the time of her death Eddowes was suffering from Bright’s disease (a form of Uremia). Her friends spoke of her as an intelligent, scholarly woman with a fierce temper. She was forty-three years old. Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown, a London police surgeon, was called to the murder scene. He arrived at Mitre Square around 2:00 AM. His report is as follows.
"The body was on its back, the head turned to left shoulder. The arms were by the side of the body as if they had fallen there. Both palms upwards, the fingers slightly bent. The left leg extended in a line with the body. The abdomen was exposed. Right leg bent at the thigh and knee. The throat cut across. The intestines were drawn out to a large extent and placed over the right shoulder -- they were smeared over with some feculent matter. A piece of about two feet was quite detached from the body and placed between the body and the left arm, apparently by design. The lobe and auricle of the right ear were cut obliquely through. There was a quantity of clotted blood on the pavement on the left side of the neck round the shoulder and upper part of arm, and fluid blood-colored serum which had flowed under the neck to the right shoulder, the pavement sloping in that direction. Body was quite warm. No death stiffening had taken place. She must have been dead most likely within the half hour. We looked for superficial bruises and saw none. No blood on the skin of the abdomen or secretion of any kind on the thighs. No spurting of blood on the bricks or pavement around. No marks of blood below the middle of the body. Several buttons were found in the clotted blood after the body was removed. There was no blood on the front of the clothes.”
This was Jack’s fourth murder, but not his last. She was buried on October 8, 1888. His next and final victim was Marie Kelly.
Marie Kelly was born approximately 1863 and was around 25 years old at the time of death. She was a five feet, seven inches tall. She was a blonde hair, blue-eyed woman with fair complexion. Friends of Marie were noted saying things such as, she was “much superior to that of most persons in her position in life." "always found her of sober habits." and "She was a good, quiet, pleasant girl, and was well liked by all of us." She was murdered on November 9, 1888. Dr. Thomas Bond, a distinguished police surgeon from A Division was called in on the Mary Kelly murder. His report is as follows.
"The body was lying naked in the middle of the bed, the shoulders flat but the axis of the body inclined to the left side of the bed. The head was turned on the left cheek. The left arm was close to the body with the forearm flexed at a right angle and lying across the abdomen. The right arm was slightly abducted from the body and rested on the mattress. The elbow was bent, the forearm supine with the fingers clenched. The legs were wide apart, the left thigh at right angles to the trunk and the right forming an obtuse angle with the pubes. The bed clothing at the right corner was saturated with blood, and on the floor beneath was a pool of blood covering about two feet square. The wall by the right side of the bed and in a line with the neck was marked by blood, which had struck it in a number of separate splashes. The face was gashed in all directions, the nose, cheeks, eyebrows, and ears being partly removed. The lips were blanched and cut by several incisions running obliquely down to the chin. There were also numerous cuts extending irregularly across all the features. The neck was cut through the skin and other tissues right down to the vertebrae, the fifth and sixth being deeply notched. The skin cuts in the front of the neck showed distinct ecchymosis. The air passage was cut at the lower part of the larynx through the cricoid cartilage. Both breasts were more or less removed by circular incisions, the muscle down to the ribs being attached to the breasts. The intercostals between the fourth, fifth, and sixth ribs were cut through and the contents of the thorax visible through the openings.”
Jack the Ripper versus notorious killers of the 1800’s. Jack the Ripper is estimated to have five kills, including vicious mutilation of the outer and inner human body, including the removal of body organs, and mutilation of the face that made it nearly impossible to identify his victims. Mary Ann Cotton is estimated to have made twenty-three killings over twelve years, using arsenic to poison her victims to death. Gesina Gottfried of Bremen Germany poisoned sixteen people over ten years. Before her death she was noted saying, “I was born without a conscience.” She was beheaded in 1828. Finally, Marie De Brinviliers has an estimated fifty-three kills (three confirmed), also using arsenic to kill her victims. The most popular weapons of choice that the criminals used were knives and poison. Jack the Ripper favored a sharp knife, while the three women all went with poison. The women killed people that they knew. Which makes us assume that there was some sort of motive. However, Jack’s killings were very random, his motive wasn’t anything that could be seen, but must have been more psychological. So even though the women have more deaths to their name, Jack’s are much more violent.
In conclusion I discussed what a serial killer is, why Jack the Ripper is so notorious, and the differences between Jack and other notorious killers of the nineteenth century. The paper you have read is to prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt that Jack the Ripper was the most notorious. It shows you in detail how and what he did to his victims after he viciously murdered them. Im writing this paper not only to inform you of what has happened in the past, but to teach people that nothing in life is easy. All of Jack’s victims were prostitutes, trying to make some extra money. The world in which we live can at times be a scary place. Take care of yourself, and stay out of dark alley ways!
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