Did Jack the Ripper even exist?

[Grim]

or was it just a bunch of pimp thugs who were trying to teach the working girls of whitechapel a lesson or two?

What do you think?

[Mitch Rowe]

Then it would have been all different kinds of murders with hardly anything in common. Thats not what we have here. What we have is a series of bizzar events that are so in common with each other the chances more than one person committed them are very slim. My opinion is nearly imossible.

In short.. What we would be seeing would be entirely different than what we see today/then or ever.

[truebluedub]

The idea that JTR was actually a moral panic isn't that outlandish. Peter Turnbull was the first to make that argument and Jan Bondenson has also looked at it. Even if we accept all of the c5 as his victims we can still see this in how later victims were attributed to JTR, and a number of suspects such as William Grant were put forward on a similar basis.
It also wouldn't be as atypical as Mitch suggests.

Chris Lowe

[Nicola]

I'm a social worker and have met pimps before,unfortunately. Pimps tend to want to poach new prospects,because they are all about money. I don't think they've changed all that much throughout time. A rabid pimp slashing through Whitechapel seems odd to me. I could possibly buy the idea of one particularly vicious pimp trying to put the fear of God into his women,but five times?

The crimes have too much in common and a personal element of enjoyment,at least for me,for it to have been different killers or a pimp/thug out to teach a very harsh lesson.

[Nothing to see]

Jack as a figment of someone's imagination?

Please.

[kensei]

I'm going to agree with Mitch. The Ripper definitely existed. Remember, there were witnesses involved with some of these crimes, and a young man in a dark overcoat and peaked cap was a general running theme, seen gently talking to the witnesses minutes before the murders. This, combined with the similarity of the wounds- especially between Chapman and Eddowes- as well as just the extreme overkill which Kelly was the ultimate example of, all point toward a serial killer. I would guess that the victims of pimps wanting to spread terror would have been mostly just beaten as with Emma Smith, with maybe a little cutting for dramatic effect.

[sdreid]

How often are police looking for a serial killer and they later discover that the murders were actually independent events? I can't think of a single case. In fact, they more often than not find out that the guy killed more than they thought after he's captured and begins to spill.

[Mike Covell]

It has been suggested before that Jack was a media creation on the back of several murders in the locale, there is a new book out on that theory later this month or next, stating the newspaper's where effective in creating the myth.

I agree with the others that the murders had too much in common to be random individual acts.

[DVV]

or was it just a bunch of pimp thugs who were trying to teach the working girls of whitechapel a lesson or two?

What do you think?

Hi Grim,
what kind of pimp wiould take so much risk for Nichols, Chapman, etc...?? Rather than "working girls", they were desperate and dying women.

Amitiés,
David

[DarkPassenger]

I doubt it. Such precise mutilations - or consistent, should I say.

[Cap'n Jack]

'Such precise mutilations - or consistent, should I say.'
That doesn't sit too well though with the concept of a 'frenzied' attack, does it?
I'm quite prepared to believe that the mythical monster we know as 'Jack the Ripper' never existed at all.
As I have often pointed out I have found similar cases from the LVP where prostitutes have been viciously attacked in a robbery where the attempts by the robbers to remove the victim' stays and skirts with blades to get at their secret pocket has resulted in what could be seen later as a frenzied attack upon their person rather than their possessions.
Many of these cases showed a total disregard for the life of the woman who was being robbed, and knife wounds to the throat, breasts, abdomen and genitalia were not uncommon.

I think it both amusing and rewarding to refelect on some research I did here on site some years ago, which showed that the same number of East End women were either murdered, or severely injured, in attacks with blades in 1887, 1888 and 1889.
So if we accept as fact that Jack the Ripper existed then his murderous rampage had no impact on the statistics of murder in that time slice of the LVP, which must mean that he never existed.
Because if a serial killer suddenly starts operating in a very restricted area of Whitechapel then the statistics would surely reflect that peculiar situation.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Cap'n Jack,

Funny you should mention that . . .

Despite his best efforts JtR did not cause a serious impact on London murder figures.

In a paper on crime figures for the period ending 1887/88 presented by George Grosvenor to the Royal Statistical Society in 1890, the following figures were presented—



In discussing the report James Monro had this to say—



Regards,

Simon

[Ally]

So the previous five years before 1888 the number of murder cases mean was 31, and in 1888 that number was 36.

An increase of exactly five. Huh. Yeah. Nothing at all indicative there.

Still trying to wrap my head around Jack being taken as a normal hack and slash robber. Apparently he thought Chapman and Eddowes kept their change purses in their uteri.

[Steve S]

Apparently he thought Chapman and Eddowes kept their change purses in their uteri.

[Cap'n Jack]

The reports are based on the entire Metropolitan area, of course, Ally, but just like Tom you need your ABC bricks before you can grasp at detail.
It's been four or five years since I looked at the research I did then, but I do believe it was 17, 17 and 17 for the East End of London in 1887, 1888 and 1889, I won't swear to that as I do not go over research which I have already completed.
That's for others to do, but you obviously not.

Not for nothing is a prostitutes genitalia referred to as the 'money box' in crude English, for that is where they stashed their loot when in fear of attack, or as close as they could get.
I'd like to know your opinion of how a potential robber would know that it was worth rolling over a prostitute in the LVP for the money she carried about her complicated personage?
Was it her age, her dress, or was it simply that she was out late at night and was an easy target?.
Or could it have been based on the strange tattoos these women carried which related them to the powerful gangs and pimps of the East End?
So if they strayed out of the protective patch of their pimps they could be easily murdered, as strays, and all of the three victims wandered out of their patch.