Just how late after 1888, did Ripper scares continue?

[The Station Cat]

I recently watched the Kemp brothers, version of the Kray's film. To anyone who hasn't seen it. There's a scene at the beginning, set in an underground tube station (I assume Bethnal Green tube station?), during an air raid. Local kids are being told a tale about Jack the Ripper by Granddad Kray. This got me thinking, was this scene based on the directors childhood memories perhaps?

Just how long after the fact, was Jack still in the public consciousness?

Has anyone got any information such as newspaper articles, reporting later Ripper scares?

I'm curious to know just how long after 1888, Jack was still being talked about?

[Pcdunn]

Hi, Station Cat,

I did some research in American newspaper databases and have found that crimes referred to as "Ripper murders" were written about well into the 20th century.

Of course we've heard of the murder of Carrie Brown in New York, but there were also some deaths of prostitutes in Denver in the 1890s called the work of "the Denver Ripper," and in the early Teens in New York a child killer who sent Ripper-like letters sowed public terror.

If the "Ripper" moniker stuck to violent killers around the world, I think that those in Whitechapel and London were to remember the original Jack for a much longer time.

[John G]

At least until 1901, with the Dorset Street murder of Mary Ann Austin: http://www.casebook.org/dissertation...nn-austin.html

[Abby Normal]

I recently watched the Kemp brothers, version of the Kray's film. To anyone who hasn't seen it. There's a scene at the beginning, set in an underground tube station (I assume Bethnal Green tube station?), during an air raid. Local kids are being told a tale about Jack the Ripper by Granddad Kray. This got me thinking, was this scene based on the directors childhood memories perhaps?

Just how long after the fact, was Jack still in the public consciousness?

Has anyone got any information such as newspaper articles, reporting later Ripper scares?

I'm curious to know just how long after 1888, Jack was still being talked about?

Up Until the present I’d say. If any murder, or series of murders involve a knife, it usually got the ripper moniker, ie.. Gainesville ripper etc.

I knew who Jack the Ripper was as a kid in upstate NY in the late sixties and seventies.

I don’t think his legend ever went away.

[The Station Cat]

Thanks everyone for your replies.

I assume then that the police were still taking positive action to apprehend him well past the COLES murder?

[Varqm]

Didn't the case closed in 1892?

[Paddy]

My nan used to tell me about it (in great detail) in 1960. When she said "and they've never found him" I thought he must have still been alive. She was from Deptford born 1878 and her husband from the East End was born in 1874.

Pat.....

[miss marple]

I certainly heard my grandparents talking about the ripper in the 1950s before i was ten, in Kings Cross.My granddad's family came from the East End and the ripper was certainly ingrained in local folk memory. The other murder my Grandad talked about was Steinie Morrison. He believed he was 'set up'

Miss Marple

[The Station Cat]

That's great everyone, thanks!!!!!!

[Michael W Richards]

I recently watched the Kemp brothers, version of the Kray's film. To anyone who hasn't seen it. There's a scene at the beginning, set in an underground tube station (I assume Bethnal Green tube station?), during an air raid. Local kids are being told a tale about Jack the Ripper by Granddad Kray. This got me thinking, was this scene based on the directors childhood memories perhaps?

Just how long after the fact, was Jack still in the public consciousness?

Has anyone got any information such as newspaper articles, reporting later Ripper scares?

I'm curious to know just how long after 1888, Jack was still being talked about?

As far as from an investigative standpoint you would have to say that at least until 1896. A letter to the police that year was considered as a possible Ripper missive, and it quoted, in part, the GSG.

You might also want to see the press clipping here from the Lima Daily Press in Ohio, dated September 11th, 1889. Its another "Torso" like murder. These kinds of acts took place before and after the Fall of Terror, and the more you see, and the later the article, you might have to suspect that more than one lone "ripper" killer acted up in the LVP.

[Mayerling]

Public Memory and the Ripper Killings

You have to keep in mind how public and horrifying the events in August to November 1888 were to the public in London, in Britain, in the Empire, and the rest of the world, and that the hoped for conclusion never (at least officially stated) occurred - no arrest, no trial, no execution.

The leading serial killers of that period from 1886 through 1903 in the world (Prazini, Prado, Cream, Deeming, Holmes, Hoch - stretching to 1906, Vacher, and Chapman) ended with executions. These too would remain memorable in many cases (particularly Holmes with his "castle"), and several of these men would later be considered Ripper possibilities themselves (Cream, Deeming, Holmes, Chapman), but the public could turn off thoughts of them for the most part as they died for their crimes. Similarly one could add Bury, Mrs. Pearcy, and (another serial killer, though of babies) Mrs. Dyer.

There were other unsolved or unsatisfactory cases in this period - Bartlett, Maybrick (no reference to recent arguments about the victim), Borden, the Goebel Assassination Mystery in Kentucky, but these cases remained puzzles as to if the suspect did do it, or if someone else did it (Goebel is the chief example of this).

This allowed the Whitechapel to become a kind of marking for unsolved horrifying crime - and even dwarfing a similar series in the Thames Torso murders.

Jeff