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Former Detective Inspector Steven Keogh joined England’s Metropolitan Police in 1991. He became a member of Scotland Yard’s Murder Investigation Team in 2009. Before retiring from the police in 2021, he participated in the investigation of more than a hundred murders.
In his new work, Jack the Ripper A 21st Century Investigation, Mr Keogh reviews the 1888 Whitechapel murders from the perspective of a modern murder investigator.
The book has four main sections. Part One covers the murders of Emma Smith, Martha Tabram and the Canonical Five. For each victim, there are invented first-person narratives, factual summaries of the crimes, post-mortem findings and police report extracts. Investigatory methods used in 1888 are contrasted with those used today. The author’s main criticism of the Victorian investigation is the failure to take crime scene photos until the death of Mary Jane Kelly. Part One also includes Mr Keogh’s views on witness testimony, time of death estimation and why people kill. He tries to take the reader into what he believes was the murderer’s way of thinking.
Part Two deals with modern case analysis and profiling in the United Kingdom. It includes a crime scene assessment and offender profile of the Whitechapel crimes by one of British law enforcement’s three behavioural investigative advisers, Pippa Gregory. She draws upon a national database of 35,000 crimes to assess how often the Whitechapel murders’ characteristics occur in modern crimes against lone females. It turns out that such combinations as cuts to both the neck and abdomen, cuts to the neck and evisceration, and facial mutilation and evisceration, are extremely rare in modern homicides.
Part Three explores which of the Whitechapel attacks were committed by the same person. Mr Keogh uses similar-fact evidence to evaluate each crime. He finds some characteristics are not sufficiently distinctive to rely upon; these include location and victimology. Amongst the characteristics he considers relevant are neutralization of the victim and post-mortem injuries. He concludes that not all the Canonical Five were victims of the same killer, and that at least one other murder is the work of that killer.
Part Four provides a high-level review of suspectology. Mr Keogh suggests criteria that might be used to eliminate suspects who were in fact innocent. He applies the criteria to ten popular suspects and considers eight of them eliminated.
The author’s writing style is straightforward. No typographical or spelling errors were noticed. No index is provided, at least in the e-book version. The bibliography is incorporated into the endnotes. The book’s photographs include nothing new.
Mr Keogh doesn’t make any surprising revelations. For readers already familiar with the Whitechapel murders, the book’s main appeal is its application of modern investigative techniques to the crimes and the results of that application. Readers’ reactions to the results will, of course, depend upon their biases.
The book is published by John Blake Publishing of London and is available in hard copy and Kindle formats.
In his new work, Jack the Ripper A 21st Century Investigation, Mr Keogh reviews the 1888 Whitechapel murders from the perspective of a modern murder investigator.
The book has four main sections. Part One covers the murders of Emma Smith, Martha Tabram and the Canonical Five. For each victim, there are invented first-person narratives, factual summaries of the crimes, post-mortem findings and police report extracts. Investigatory methods used in 1888 are contrasted with those used today. The author’s main criticism of the Victorian investigation is the failure to take crime scene photos until the death of Mary Jane Kelly. Part One also includes Mr Keogh’s views on witness testimony, time of death estimation and why people kill. He tries to take the reader into what he believes was the murderer’s way of thinking.
Part Two deals with modern case analysis and profiling in the United Kingdom. It includes a crime scene assessment and offender profile of the Whitechapel crimes by one of British law enforcement’s three behavioural investigative advisers, Pippa Gregory. She draws upon a national database of 35,000 crimes to assess how often the Whitechapel murders’ characteristics occur in modern crimes against lone females. It turns out that such combinations as cuts to both the neck and abdomen, cuts to the neck and evisceration, and facial mutilation and evisceration, are extremely rare in modern homicides.
Part Three explores which of the Whitechapel attacks were committed by the same person. Mr Keogh uses similar-fact evidence to evaluate each crime. He finds some characteristics are not sufficiently distinctive to rely upon; these include location and victimology. Amongst the characteristics he considers relevant are neutralization of the victim and post-mortem injuries. He concludes that not all the Canonical Five were victims of the same killer, and that at least one other murder is the work of that killer.
Part Four provides a high-level review of suspectology. Mr Keogh suggests criteria that might be used to eliminate suspects who were in fact innocent. He applies the criteria to ten popular suspects and considers eight of them eliminated.
The author’s writing style is straightforward. No typographical or spelling errors were noticed. No index is provided, at least in the e-book version. The bibliography is incorporated into the endnotes. The book’s photographs include nothing new.
Mr Keogh doesn’t make any surprising revelations. For readers already familiar with the Whitechapel murders, the book’s main appeal is its application of modern investigative techniques to the crimes and the results of that application. Readers’ reactions to the results will, of course, depend upon their biases.
The book is published by John Blake Publishing of London and is available in hard copy and Kindle formats.
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