Why did the Whitechapel murders stop?

[sam]

Why did they stop when they did? I think the MJK murder was carried out by someone who knew that it was going to be his last one in Whitechapel and that he was leaving town and that he wanted to go out in style and commit a murder that would be the most shocking of them all.

[Mike Covell]

Hi Sam, Welcome to the fascinating world of Ripperology, it's a big place, so be careful not to get lost!

There are several theories as to why the murders stopped.
1, Killer/s was killed
2, Killer/s was caught
3, Killer/s committed suicide
4, Killer/s fled Great Britain
5, Killer/s fled local area
6, Killer/s converted to Christianity
7, Killer/s had killed his desired amount
8, Killer was committed to asylum

Many of these theories are suggested for various suspects by various theorists. The truth is, we don't really know "Why", as we are still working out the "Who"

[DVV]

Hi Sam,
if your favourite suspect is Joe Fleming, the murders could have also stopped because and once Mary Kelly was dead.

Amitiés,
David

[Dan Norder]

There are other explanations as well:

9. The murders didn't stop (or at least not with Kelly, I mean obviously they had to stop some time, as Jack isn't some 150 year old wandering around still killing people).
10. He was almost caught or identified so stopped killing to avoid possibly being caught.
11. Jack suffered an injury that forced him to stop.
12. Some change in his living arrangements forced him to stop (relatives watched him more closely, etc.)

And so forth and so on.

[Nicola]

Good morning,all.

I once wrote a short story where JTR met the wrong working girl. She had no intention of dying and was just as mean as he was. She got to her knife before he did and gave him whatfor. Thus,he was knifed in a rank alley by a woman and died. A poetic justice sort of thing.

But getting back to reality, I think he died, either due to illness or maybe was murdered himself.

1.If he did go to prison,I think he wouldn't have committed any crimes since he would be incarcerated with other men. It is one thing to cowardly attack defenseless women and quite another to attack a man who can not only fight back,but possibly kill him. He might have went down on some other offense and once incarcerated,he met his end in prison.

2.In my opinion,JTR was a complete creep if one could look past his Mr.Nobody facade. Maybe people around him finally took a good look at him and notified the police? Or because of there being a general distrust of the police in those days,they took it upon themselves to catch JTR? Perhaps after MJK,these people who already suspected who he was,could have caught him literally redhanded? Could they have administered their own form of justice to JTR and he went down as just another victim of an attack in WhiteChapel?

3.Maybe someone turned him over to the police and like many suspects, he "accidentally" died during custody? If this happened,perhaps someone might have felt that hanging wasn't good enough and even worse,he might even get off with an insanity plea?




I am no profiler,but given his enormous hatred of women and sadistic delight in cutting them up, if he wasn't sick ir incarcerated,wouldn't he have kept at his horrors? I don't think MJK's horrific glut would have been enough for JTR nor do I think he just"retired".

[Steve F]

Don't most serial killers find it impossible to stop.They just can't help themselves,so maybe he died of natural causes(which were many in 1888)was murdered(ironic)caught and it was hush hushed(would'nt the police want to shout it from the roof tops that JTR had been captured?)or.......?
Steve

[GordonH]

The most likely reasons would be:

1. He moved away.
2. He died.
3. He was caught for something else and incarcerated.

#1 suggests he would have kept killing in other areas, but in spite of the many attempts to link other murders to the same killer it has never seemed very likely when you look at the details of those other cases (Germany, USA etc).

#2 very likely indeed especially suicide or possibly murdered by an intended victim or someone who intervened. However, if this was the case why did we never hear about it, so most likley is natural causes or suicide.

#3 Why did he not confess to the murders when caught? Surely that would have been a possibility?

My view is it was a local person who was either locked up for something else or killed himself or died of natural causes. If you apply this to the list of usual suspects you can reduce them to just a few.