The last victim of Jack the Ripper. Who was Jack the Ripper? The secret is revealed. Versions and theories

In 1888, a serial killer, known under the pseudonym Jack the Ripper, was operating in London and Whitechapel. This nickname was used to sign a letter received by the Central News Agency. In this letter, it was said that the author takes full responsibility for the murders. This person is also called the "Leather Apron" and the "Whitechapel Killer".

This maniac killed prostitutes from the slums. Before taking out the internal organs, the victims had their throats cut. Based on this, it was concluded that the killer was well acquainted with anatomy. It was assumed that the killer was a surgeon. In September and October 1888, the opinion became popular that there was a definite connection between the found victims. Many publishers received letters that may have been written by Jack the Ripper. The famous letter "From Hell" was delivered to the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, accompanied by a human kidney.

It is worth noting that for many years the identity of Jack the Ripper remained unknown. However, last year the media reported that Russell Edwards, writer and detective, along with molecular biologist Jari Louhelainen, identified the serial killer using DNA testing. It turned out to be Aaron Kosminsky, an immigrant from Poland. He worked in Whitechapel as a barber and was mentally ill. Interestingly, during the investigation in 1888, Aaron Kosminsky appeared in the case as a suspect, but the police were never able to find irrefutable evidence of his guilt. By the way, many forensic experts do not agree with the statement of Russell and Jari.

What caused such cruelty?

Emigrants flooded the big cities of England. Since 1882, many Russians and Jews, as well as people from of Eastern Europe. Emigrants kept coming and coming, and this led to overpopulation, which led to the deterioration of not only life, but also working conditions. Chaos reigned in many areas: alcoholism, robberies and lawlessness. Poverty forced the beautiful half of humanity to engage in prostitution.

As of October 1888, it was established that about 1,200 women were engaged in the "ancient profession" and 62 brothels worked. Whitechapel during this period can be characterized as follows: poverty, crime and racism. Therefore, it is not surprising that it was during this period that the brutal serial murders attributed to Jack the Ripper fall.

It is widely believed that at first the serial killer strangled his victims. Experts who examined the dead reported that there were signs of strangulation. If so, then this explains why the people who lived in the neighborhood did not hear the cries of the unfortunate. But today, some dispute this theory, since there is no evidence.

Identified victims of Jack the Ripper

Marie Ann Nichols aka "Polly". She was born on August 26, 1845. Killed August 31, 1888.

Elizabeth Stride, known as "Long Liz". She was born on November 27, 1843. Killed September 30, 1888.

During the killings, Jack the Ripper slit the throats of his victims. The cut was made from left to right. The killer did not smear in the blood of his victims due to the fact that he tilted the heads of the dead to the right. When the woman was already dead, the serial killer opened the abdominal cavity. In some women, he cut out all the internal organs, in others - only separate parts.

Letters from Jack the Ripper

When the Jack the Ripper investigation was going on, the media and the police received a lot of letters. Some suggested ways to capture the elusive and brutal killer, but many of them were simply unacceptable. Of particular interest were the letters that were written by the maniac himself. Although many experts are of the opinion that the letters written by Jack the Ripper do not exist, three letters are highlighted.

"Dear Boss" The date on the letter was September 25th. Like many others, at first it was not given any importance. But three days later, a piece of a human ear was found on Eddowes' postmark. After that, the content of the letter was taken more than seriously. The letter contained some promise: "to cut off the lady's ears." On October 1, the police decided to release the letter. They hoped that someone could recognize the handwriting of the author, but this did not bring any result. This letter was the first to mention the pseudonym "Jack the Ripper". After the murders, the police made an official statement (perhaps to avoid mass panic of the population) that this letter was nothing more than a hoax of a little-known journalist.

Postcard "Daring Jackie". Dated October 1, 1888. The letter attracted attention only because the handwriting in it was similar to the handwriting in the previous letter. The postcard mentioned two victims: Eddowes and Stride. Made following output: The postcard was sent before the crimes took place. The police said they had identified the journalist who wrote the letters.

Letter from Hell. It was received by George Lusk on October 16, 1888. A box was enclosed with the letter. It contained half a kidney. The examination established that the organ was stored in "wine alcohol". One of the victims, Eddowes, had a kidney removed by the killer. The letter stated that the other half was fried and eaten by Jack. The opinions of experts differ: some are sure that this is the kidney of one of the victims, and the second - that this is just someone's cruel joke.

DNA tests are being carried out, which could be preserved on the letters. Ian Findlay, a professor from Australia, concluded that the author of these letters was most likely a woman. It is worth noting that during the investigation of the murders, a woman named Mary Piercy was under suspicion, who was hanged for the murder of her lover's wife.

Killer Skills

To this day, experts argue about the level of knowledge of the anatomy of a famous serial killer. The reports of medical experts who performed autopsies on the victims of Jack the Ripper are being studied. They note the accuracy of inflicting some wounds and the professionalism of the extraction of internal organs. This suggests that the killer could well have been a professional surgeon.

However, the controversy continues. Some claim that even the most ordinary butcher could master such skills, others are confident in the killer's many years of surgical practice. Another detail was established: the killer was undoubtedly left-handed.

In 1888, London was shaken by a series of brutal murders in the Whitechapel area. It was a slum area where a variety of dregs of society settled, among which there were a lot of immigrants. Brawls and stabbings happened daily, and the death of another prostitute from Whitechapel could not have shocked anyone if it were not for the circumstances.

All of the victims of the serial killer known as Jack the Ripper were prostitutes, and they were all killed in the same way: their throats were cut with strong blows from a very sharp weapon, and then their peritoneum was cut open and their insides pulled out. Sometimes certain organs (uterus, bladder, kidneys) the killer took with him. There is an assumption that at first the victim was strangled. This explains the fact that no one has ever heard the screams of the victim in overcrowded Whitechaple.

How many victims actually had Jack the Ripper, they still argue. They call a number from 4 to 15. In the literature about the Ripper, the so-called list of "canonical victims" of the maniac has been established. It includes five names and opens with Mary Ann Nichols, who was murdered on August 31, 1888. The list ends with Mary Jane Kelly, who was killed on November 9 of the same year.

After the murder of Mary Kelly, the macabre activities of Jack the Ripper in London ceased.

[C-BLOCK] The killer was never found, despite the efforts of the police.

The personality and motives of Jack the Ripper still excite the imagination of the public and gave rise to a whole trend - "ripperology" (from the English Jack the Ripper), in which journalists, amateur detectives and historians produce new versions of who he really was Jack the Ripper?

The most popular include the following.

Montague John Druitt, lawyer and schoolteacher. In 1888 his body was found in the Thames. There were people in his family who suffered mental disorders. He was named the prime suspect because his death occurred shortly after the discovery of the fifth victim, after which the "Ripper-style" killings ceased. However, later he was excluded from the list of suspects.

Severin Antonovich Klosovsky, Pole. Arriving in England, he took the surname Chapman. Successively poisoned three of his wives, and was hanged. The inspector who led the investigation into the Ripper case suspected Klosovsky of killing prostitutes, however, the Pole was a poisoner, and for a serial killer, a maniac, it is almost impossible to change the methods of murder.

Mikhail Ostrog, also known as Doctor Grant, Claude Clayton, Orloff, Ashley Nabokoff and half a dozen other names. He claimed that he served as a surgeon on the ship, which is very consistent with the version that Jack the Ripper was familiar with medicine, human anatomy, and that he applied his blows with a surgical instrument and with surgical precision. However, no evidence has been found that Ostrog was not just a swindler and a rogue, but a serial killer.

Lizzie Williams is a midwife. The police were looking for a man with medical skills, whose clothes may have been stained with blood. Who will pay attention to a modest midwife hurrying down a dark street? And who would be surprised by the fact that the midwife's clothes are spattered with blood? Lizzie Williams is said to have gone insane due to her infertility, which explains the fury with which she allegedly shredded the bodies of her victims, removing the reproductive organs.

There is also such a version: Prince Albert, the nephew of Queen Victoria, was Jack the Ripper. This version is supported by the fact that the offspring royal family visited the prostitutes of Whitechapel, caught syphilis from one of them, and was even close to Mary Jane Kelly, the last of the "canonical victims" of the maniac. In addition, the police received letters allegedly written by Jack the Ripper (later they were declared the tricks of journalists), and so, the handwriting of these letters was very similar to the handwriting of Prince Albert. All this is wonderful, but the prince has an alibi. It is absolutely certain that he was not in London at the time of the murders.

There was a version that the killer was Charles Luthuige Dodgson, known to us as Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland. Some researchers have managed to compose anagrams from the letters that formed the sentences of his books. This is how the statement "cut her throat from the left ear to the right" was "read". However, if you set yourself such a task, then in the same way in the books of any author you can find a hint of any crime.

And, finally, a man who, apparently, was the same Jack the Ripper. Aaron Mordke Kosminsky - a native of Russian Empire, Polish Jew, barber from Whitechapel. He was a suspect in the Jack the Ripper case, but nothing could be proven because one of the witnesses, also a Jew, refused to testify against him. Aaron was released, however, soon recaptured by the police while trying to stab his sister. He was declared insane and placed in a mental hospital. After Aaron was isolated, the killing of prostitutes in Whitechaple ceased.

It was only recently, in 2014, that it was possible to prove that Kosminsky was the serial killer by analyzing DNA from semen stains preserved on a shawl that was found near the corpse of one of the victims of the Ripper. One of the policemen liked the shawl, he took her crime scene and gave it to his wife. The shawl was subsequently sold at auction. The research was carried out by Jari Louhelainen, Associate Professor of Molecular Biology from Liverpool. The owners of the shawl, which, as it turned out, had never been washed, provided him with this rarity for research. Louhelainen did a great job matching the DNA preserved on the shawl with the DNA of all living descendants of people who were suspected of these terrible crimes. The DNA on the shawl and the DNA of Aaron Kosminsky's descendants matched.

The working-class districts of Victorian London were not the most cheerful places in the world: poverty, unsanitary conditions, dirt and debauchery reigned there. It was in this atmosphere that one of the most sinister legends of Great Britain unfolded - the story of Jack the Ripper. The ZagraNitsa portal has collected for you interesting facts and theories about a serial maniac: from Lewis Carroll to a Russian paramedic

London at the end of the 19th century witnessed many tragedies, both fictional and real. However, the sophisticated fantasy of Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle fades against the backdrop of the bloody horror that the capital of Britain experienced in 1888.

There is still no unequivocal answer as to who is actually responsible for the brutal murders in Whitechapel, although literature and cinema are full of different, sometimes very crazy, theories. Let's find out who Jack the Ripper is and why his name even today evokes awe in many Britons.

Photo: davidhiggerson.wordpress.com

A bit of history

In 1888, the poorer parts of London were like a powder keg: the dominance of immigrants, rampant drunkenness, poverty, unemployment, prostitution and constant outbreaks of viral diseases. The dissatisfaction of the inhabitants of these godforsaken quarters became so obvious that the inhabitants of rich areas were afraid to show themselves here. The lack of jobs has become one of the reasons for the huge number of prostitutes on the streets of the city: in a year, the police counted 62 brothels, and these are only those that were found.

Photo: shutterstock

The Whitechapel Killer

Of course, such an environment could not give rise to anything but cruelty and immorality. In the autumn of 1888, London shuddered from hitherto unseen crimes: serial maniac he did not just kill prostitutes, but did it with particular sophistication, removing internal organs from his victims. famous nickname the killer received thanks to one of the letters to reporters, in which he allegedly confesses to his deed and signs: "Jack the Ripper." However, researchers call this message a fake, of which there were many at that time.

Different versions attribute from 5 to 15 victims to Jack the Ripper, but most experts believe that there were five of them: everyone was engaged in prostitution, everyone had their throats cut, and three had their internal organs removed. Today they are called "the five canonical victims" of Jack the Ripper. Some researchers add a sixth woman to this list, whose murder, most likely, was also the work of a maniac.

Photo: thinkingsidewayspodcast.com
Photo: telegraph.co.uk

Whitechapel killer chose his victims lung girls behavior, obviously believing that thereby helping society to get rid of filth and decadence. The cause of death of women was a cut throat, the organs were removed after the murder. The maniac's knowledge of human anatomy gave rise to many versions (never confirmed) about his belonging to medicine and, in particular, to surgery. Many people think that the skills of a butcher are enough for this.

Letters from hell

Jack the Ripper was active in the fall of 1888. In addition to the unprecedented brutality, the criminal (or his imitators) was prone to publicity and apparently sought recognition for his activities. From the moment the investigation began, both the police and journalists were literally inundated with letters of confession to their deeds. Of course, most of them were a prank or someone's sick fantasy, but there were several messages among this pile, probably written by the killer's hand.

The "Dear Boss" letter is famous for giving the maniac his sad famous name- Jack the Ripper. Later, the police officially recognized this message as a hoax. The most terrible of the letters is called "From Hell". In addition to bravado and mockery, the sender attached to the letter a box that contained part of a human kidney. The author claimed that he fried and ate the other half.

Photo: whitechapeljack.com Photo: casebook.org

Versions and theories

The impotence of the police, which failed to find and punish the bloody killer, became the basis for a mass of various studies, theories and conjectures. There are even ripperologists - this is what scientists (and not so) men call themselves, to this day trying to figure out the real name of the killer from Whitechapel.

1. Polish immigrant

For example, last year the results of DNA tests were published, which were conducted by one of these researchers - Russell Edwards. According to the results, the killer was Aaron Kosminsky, a Polish immigrant who moved to Britain in 1881 and was a suspect in the case. This is indicated by the analysis of a shawl found near one of the victims and bought by businessman Russell Edwards at an auction. DNA samples found on the shawl were compared with the genetic material of the descendants of Aaron, who died in a mental hospital. However, these conclusions cause skepticism among many scientists who call the study amateurish.

Photo: usvsth3m.com
Photo: bbc.com

2. Russian paramedic

Another theory suggests that the offender has Russian roots. This is a certain paramedic Ostrogov, who arrived in London from France, where he left behind not the best memories: he was suspected by the French authorities of the murder of a prostitute. Ostrogov's profession was ideally suited to the theory of the killer's medical education. However, the alleged perpetrator successfully escaped from British justice in St. Petersburg, where he was also convicted and sent to a psychiatric hospital.

Photo: shutterstock

Without a doubt, the most amusing theory is the version that Jack the Ripper is famous writer Lewis Carroll. In 1996, researcher Richard Wallis published an entire book on the subject. The author claims that in the works of Carroll he found anagrams confirming criminal activity writer. Like, if you take a few sentences from Carroll's books and swap the letters, you get a story about the atrocities of the killer from Whitechapel. In fairness, it should be noted that Carroll really had an ambiguous reputation, but it is hard to believe in the brutal murders committed by the author of Alice in Wonderland.

Photo: telegraph.co.uk
Photo: history.com

Jack the Ripper Brand

Dark and bloody legends have always attracted the attention of people, and if there is a demand, then there will be a supply. Many books and songs have been written about the Whitechapel killer, dozens of films have been made, there are even several computer games. But Michael Dibdin, a writer who exploits the image of Sherlock Holmes, published a detective story that the famous detective brought Jack the Ripper to clean water: it turned out to be Professor Moriarty.

Photo: standard.co.uk

In London, there are also daily tours of the places where the maniac committed atrocities. For a two-hour walk you will have to pay 10 pounds. And recently, the Jack the Ripper Museum opened in the capital, causing a wave of protests among activists of the feminist movement.

These days, a killer who poisoned a dozen people doesn't even make national news, and several thousand victims local war(very decent figures by medieval standards) will only be an excuse for the adoption of another formal UN resolution. So why do historians, criminologists, and mystery buffs keep returning to 1888, a common killer by today's standards with only five proven corpses?

2008 marks the 120th anniversary of the crimes of Jack the Ripper. The date is not the most round, and the occasion can hardly be called festive, but "The World of Fantasy" cannot pass by the anniversary of one of the most attractive mysteries in the criminal history of mankind. Let's walk the streets of Victorian London. Who knows - maybe a black cloak will flash in the gateway, a constable's whistle will be heard, and we will finally find out the name of serial killer No. 1?

This is my suit. I am a serial killer. They are no different from ordinary people.
Wednesday Adams ("The Addams Family")

At the bottom

What could be more progressive than Victorian Britain? Not an era, but endless techno-romanticism and the triumph of human genius: the London Underground, Darwin's theory of evolution, the first international exhibitions and compact cameras, electric lighting streets, time machine, Holmes and Watson, travel, ... Where else?

Even in the case of the Sun, scientists are most interested not in its rays, but in spots. And therefore, one of the most striking symbols of the late 19th century was a completely unknown (in every sense of the word) person. No name, no photo - just one nickname, which today is known to all more or less educated people from Franz Josef Land to Burkina Faso.

The scene of his crimes was the Whitechapel district in London's East End, which since the 17th century has proudly been called an "oasis of prostitution." Even in the progressive 19th century, this place was a real sewer. Emigrants lived here, mostly Jews and Irish (it is noteworthy that today immigrants from Bangladesh settle in the East End). It was this area that Jack London described in "People of the Abyss": workhouses, monstrous poverty, sleeping on the street ...

In October 1888, the police estimated that there were 62 brothels and 1,200 prostitutes in tiny Whitechapel alone (out of a population of half a million in the entire East End). To imagine the overpopulation of this area in 1888, it is enough to say that only about 200 thousand people live in it now.

The roads were unpaved, the houses small and without foundations. Drain and sewer systems were absent almost everywhere. Cows and pigs grazed in the backyards. The townspeople cooked offal, drowned lard. The aromas hovering in the air could be envied by many medieval cities.

Cartoon from Punch magazine (September 1888) mocking the helplessness of the police.

Ripperology

Ripperologists have calculated what is written about Jack the Ripper more books than about all American presidents taken together. It is generally accepted that the Ripper appeared suddenly, committed 5 murders, one more bloody than the other (the last victim was literally torn to pieces), and then just as suddenly disappeared. This is not entirely true. In the overcrowded East End, murder was as common as the stink of the street. For example, 25 days before Jack's first "performance" in Whitechapel, prostitute Martha Tabram was stabbed to death (39 stab wounds to "body and intimate places").

The Ripper was unique in that it killed without any apparent reason; boldly, brutally, in a uniform manner. The throat was cut from left to right, while the head of the victim was tilted to the right, and considerable force was applied to the knife (the wounds were very deep). After that it opened abdominal cavity, some organs were cut out and carried away with them.

In 2006, according to the testimony of witnesses and the conclusions of detectives of the 19th century, an identikit of the Ripper was compiled.

The fact that the killer, apparently, managed not to get dirty in blood and go unnoticed, partly explains his other nickname - "Leather Apron". Later, the police caught John Pizer, a blackmailer of prostitutes, known by this nickname.

There was little blood in all cases, which gave rise to two assumptions: women were first strangled (which also explains the lack of cries for help, because in some cases the constables were on neighboring streets and were a few minutes late), and then cut, or the crimes were committed in some other place (a house, a moving carriage), and the bodies were thrown into deserted streets.

What are our girls made of?

On Friday, August 31, 1888, a certain citizen, Charles Cross, was walking through the Whitechapel district at 4 a.m. working night in the East End). Near the stable, he noticed a woman lying on the road. The skirt was pulled up, from which Cross concluded that the lady had been raped. He called another passerby. Together, the men straightened her skirt (in the dark, no one noticed that she was dead) and went in search of a policeman.

Constable John Neil brought a lantern, and only then did it become clear that a murder had taken place. Arriving at the scene of the crime, Dr. Rhys Llewellyn discovered that death came from two huge incisions in the throat (from ear to ear), and this happened a maximum of half an hour ago, since the body was still warm. Little blood came out, most of it soaked into the clothes.

There were no traces of blood on the chest. Consequently, the victim did not die on his feet (otherwise the blood from the cut throat would have fallen on his clothes), but on the ground. This version is confirmed by the fact that she had a bruise on her left cheekbone, five teeth were missing and her tongue was injured. Probably, the woman was knocked to the ground with a strong blow and only then stabbed to death. Examination of the body in the morgue revealed another oddity - the victim's abdominal cavity was opened.

The investigation showed that the "first sign" of the Ripper was Mary Ann Nichols, 42 years old. She had a husband and five children, but "Polly" (as her friends called her) got drunk and last years spent her life at the bottom of society. On the night of her death, she did not have enough money for a rooming house. She went out into the street, telling her friends that she would soon earn the required 4 pence "with the help of her new hat."

The next victim of the killer was Annie Chapman, a homeless alcoholic with tuberculosis and syphilis. A few days before her death, she got into a fight with a woman over a bar of soap, got a black eye and lost her “presentation”. For this very reason, on September 7, 1888, she did not have money for an overnight stay. Annie wandered the streets, hoping to find a "client". IN last time she was seen at 5 am talking to some man (the witness caught only one of her remarks - "No").

At 6 o'clock her body was found in the backyard of 29 Hanbury Street. This place is located next to the market, so in the morning it is quite busy here - people go to work, carts with goods drive along the roads. The windows of residential buildings overlooking the courtyard remained open at night. It was already light outside. Incredibly, in such conditions, no one noticed anything suspicious.

Annie Chapman and the scene of her murder (reconstruction from police sketches).

Annie's throat was cut so deep, as if the killer wanted to separate the head from the body. The entrails are carefully removed and laid out next to the body. The work was carried out for a long time thin knife- Most likely, special tool for opening. The killer took the uterus with him.

Dr. Phillips, who examined the corpse, said that the internal organs were dissected very professionally. It would have taken him at least 15 minutes to do this in a calm environment, and most likely about an hour. This radically changed the matter, since a good medical education at that time was not available to everyone. Other surgeons subsequently agreed with this, however, they believed that the Ripper could have been a less qualified medical student or a butcher.

Letters from hell

The newspapers were talking excitedly about the Whitechapel murderer. People were not in debt. Every day, the police received "frank confessions" from mentally ill individuals, denunciations of neighbors and advice on how to conduct an investigation. Only a few letters are considered relatively "authentic". The first arrived on September 27, beginning with "Dear Boss" and ending with "Jack the Ripper."

The second postcard is dated the first of October. The third letter, entitled "From Hell," arrived along with part of Eddowes's kidney (the rest the maniac allegedly fried and ate) on October 16th. Today, many believe that all these letters were evil practical jokes. It is quite possible that the nickname "Jack the Ripper" was not invented by the criminal himself, but by some bored blockhead.

If at one in the morning on September 30, 1888, the Russian Jew Louis Demshitz had not lit a match at the corner of Dutfield and Berner Street, he would have slept peacefully for the rest of his life. However, fate decreed otherwise, and the man saw "Long Lisey" (Elizabeth Stride), lying supine on the ground. Blood was still flowing from her throat - as if the murder had happened just a minute ago. Demshits involuntarily frightened the killer away by preventing him from opening the victim's stomach.

A similar "surprise" awaited PC Edward Watkins 45 minutes later. While patrolling Mitre Square (a quarter of a mile from the previous crime scene), he discovered the disembowelled corpse of Katherine Eddowes (this time the maniac took the uterus and kidney). Realizing that there was a double murder, the police raided the entire area, but did not find anyone. It was almost unbelievable, since at least three constables were patrolling the area at the alleged time of the crime. For everything about everything, the Ripper had no more than 15 minutes - and he needed a light source to cut out organs from Eddowes.

In both cases, the police had eyewitnesses who testified that they had seen prostitutes talking to a certain man shortly before his death. The descriptions of the stranger were broadly consistent: dark clothes, a felt hunting hat (well known as Holmes' headdress), a mustache, and a bag in his hand.

Graffiti

The night of September 30 was a long one. At five minutes to three, PC Alfred Long found a piece of bloody apron against the wall with a chalked inscription "Jews are not the kind of people you can blame for anything." They wanted to photograph her, but Commissioner Charles Warren ordered the evidence to be erased - allegedly so that she would not provoke pogroms of Jews. This, and the fact that the word "Jews" was misspelled (juwes), allegedly characteristic of Freemasons, gave rise to the legend that the Ripper belonged to the "lodge of stonemasons", and Warren - also a Freemason - protected him.

The fifth and last (according to the canonical version) victim of the Ripper is Mary Jane Kelly. The girl was 25 years old, she had an attractive appearance and therefore, unlike most poor priestesses of love, she could rent a room. London has been shaken by four previous murders. The streets of the East End were heavily patrolled, prostitutes avoided going "to work" at night, so Kelly's own apartment was most welcome.

Reconstruction of the appearance of Mary Kelly.

On the morning of November 9, the owner of 13 Millers Court sent his assistant, Thomas Bauer, to collect the rent from Kelly. When no one answered the knock on the door, Bauer looked out the window ... and since then he never slept peacefully again. Urgently summoned constables found what was left of the girl. The Ripper had plenty of time to literally turn her inside out. Internal organs were scattered around the room. The heart was missing.

Dozens of people fell under suspicion - from impoverished misogynist Jews to members of the royal family. The reasons for the murders are also called different - from terrorist attacks by agents of the Russian "okhrana" to satanic rituals. The exact number of victims is unknown: alternative theories suggest a number from 4 to 15. A good hundred books have been written about this, where a variety of ideas are found (in 1996, a work was published accusing ... Lewis Carroll of the murders). The reality is this: the true identity of the Ripper can only be established with the help of a time machine.

Oddly enough, in the midst of the murders, the streets of the East End had become… safer. Many criminals left the area, fearing that they would be hanged on the Ripper cases, the police switched to an enhanced mode of operation, and vigilant citizens attacked anyone who aroused even the slightest suspicion.

The last murder brought Queen Victoria out of herself. She scolded the prime minister by suggesting he reform the police. Soon a criminal department appeared in Scotland Yard and fingerprint files began to be compiled.

Jekyll the Ripper

At the height of the Ripper's crimes in London, Robert Louis Stevenson's play " Strange story Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." The title role was played by actor Richard Mansfield, and he did it so well that one of the audience, impressed by the stage transformation of a gentleman into a maniac, filed a denunciation to the police, accusing Mansfield of being Jack the Ripper.

Jekyll and Hyde by Mansfield.

Glory of Herostratus

Being 90% a mass cultural phenomenon and only 10% a criminal, Jack the Ripper often looks into science fiction. Some writers use the laws of the genre for yet another clue to the famous killer. For example, Robert Bloch (a follower of Lovecraft, author of "Psycho") in the story "Forever yours - the Ripper" (1943) presented Jack as a black magician who committed murders in special places and in a special sequence in order to receive the gift of eternal life from Darkness.

In another story - "A Toy for Juliet" (1967) - Bloch played off the sudden disappearance of the Ripper after the fifth murder. It turns out that he was dragged into the distant future by Grandpa to give a "Victorian doctor" to his sadistic granddaughter. In addition, Bloch wrote the novel Night of the Ripper (1984) - good example"criminal fantasy".

Wells and Jack in the movie Every now and then

In The Ripper (1994), Michael Slade developed the idea with ritual killings, and in Time After Time (1979) by Carl Alexander, HG Wells creates a real time machine. Jack the Ripper is tricked into riding it into the future. The famous writer has to catch him in 1970 (where he introduces himself as Sherlock Holmes, counting on the fact that this character is forgotten by everyone). The book received a good adaptation. The role of Wells was played by Malcolm McDowell.

Chris Elliot parodied the Ripper in 1882 New York in Shroud of the Thwacker. Instead of cutting his victims, the maniac hit them on the head with a bag of apples. And in the comedy movie "Amazons on the Moon" (1987), the Ripper turns out to be ... a disguised Loch Ness monster.

Robert Asprin (co-authored with Linda Evans) dedicated two books to Jack: Time Rippers (2000) and The House That Jack Built (2001), where time scouts travel to Victorian London and a cult maniac finds a portal and infiltrates the future .

From Hell (2001) is an adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name by Alan Moore. Inspector Abberline (Depp) vs. Jack the Royal Surgeon.

Movies rarely take liberties with the Jack the Ripper story. Usually everything is limited to a detective thriller - like, for example, "From Hell" (2001) - an adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name by Alan Moore. In the comics, the Ripper is a welcome guest. He often appears in the manga, chased by Batman (Gothham by Gaslight), and in the Marvel universe, Jack, who emigrated to the United States, is revived by a demon to sacrifice people to him.

Do not lag behind comics and serials. It is stated in Babylon 5 (Episode 2:21) that in late 1888, Jack was abducted from Earth by the Vorlons to make him their Inquisitor named Sebastian. And in " star trek"(episode 2:14 "The Wolf in the Sheepfold") it is told that for the crimes of the Ripper on Earth, as well as for a series of murders of women on other planets, the electromagnetic entity Redjac (Redjac, "Red Jack") is responsible - an alien "ghost", fed on human fear. Interestingly, the plot of this episode was written by the aforementioned Robert Bloch.

***

The Ripper was not the world's first serial killer. But he became the first maniac to operate in the metropolis at the very time when law enforcement stopped walking the streets at night with mallets and announcing the time, but began to really catch criminals.

In addition, the Ripper became the "brainchild" of funds mass media. At the end of the 19th century, Britain experienced a newspaper boom. Printed media have become a powerful socio-political force, and journalists, hungry for sensationalism, staged a real reality show out of the Ripper's crimes. Every murder, every mistake by the police, was carefully monitored and reported to the public.

It was the journalists who made the world “superstar” out of an ordinary, in general, maniac.

The other day, a British private detective revealed the identity of the legendary maniac, known to the world as Jack the Ripper. The clue came about thanks to DNA analysis - a method to which, according to known reasons, the police officers of 1888 could not resort. The search for the killer has endangered many honest (and even more not so honest) citizens of the country. During the whole time of the investigation, the police managed to take on a pencil more than 200 people, from ship's doctors to princes of the blood. from Whitechapel is indirectly confirmed by science, we decided to collect the most likely historical characters, which in different time considered a great maniac.

Karl Feigenbaum

In 2011, allegedly confirmed information about Jack's identity appeared on the network. The legendary killer was a German citizen Karl Feigenbaum, who was executed in the electric chair for the murder of his housewife. One of the most active private investigators of the maniac case, historian Trevor Marriott, insisted on the reliability of the fact. Raising the archives, he discovered that at the time of the commission of all the murders, the Reiher ship was mooring at the London pier, where Feigenbaum served as a sailor. Until now, the version has looked very slender: the series of murders stopped just with the departure of Reiher, and further adventures of the sailor clearly showed him mental condition. However, the conducted DNA examination of another researcher, Russell Edwards, completely refuted Marriott's hypothesis.

Elizabeth Williams

Many researchers of the theme of Jack the Ripper believed that a woman is hiding under the male mask. The arguments of the theorists are quite strong and are positioned on the undeniable factors of the case. First, none of the prostitutes were raped. Secondly, near the second victim (Catherine Eddowes), the police found buttons from a woman's boot. Thirdly, at the feet of another innocently murdered prostitute Annie Chapman, the maniac is very neat, in feminine manner, folded girl's clothes. Fourth, in the fireplace of the last victim, Mary Jane Kelly, detectives found the remains of a skirt and hat that clearly belonged to someone else. American researcher John Morris even named the suspect: Elizabeth Williams. This woman was married to the royal gynecologist, Sir John Williams. She could very well have the surgical skills that the real killer used to masterfully. Plus, one of the prostitutes, Mary Jane Kelly, long time was in connection with the husband of a kind woman, which could not but upset the latter.

Walter Sickert

The famous impressionist attracted attention all his life with his strange behavior. In 2002, the American Patricia Cornwell published the book "Portrait of a Killer: The Case of Jack the Ripper Closed", where she rather convincingly brought Walter Sickert to the main suspects. The artist really suited the police in many ways: he was in London at the time of the murders, Sickert's handwriting is quite comparable to the canonical message of Jack to the police ("From Hell"), and the impressionist often used local prostitutes as models. The researcher could not obtain direct evidence, since the artist's body was cremated by the heirs. However, according to Cornwell, Sickert's sketch "The Stranger Kills His Father" exactly repeats the scene of the murder of Mary Jane Kelly.

Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence

Poor Albert Victor in his life has collected a whole train of strange legends and myths, for the most part unconfirmed even by the testimony of indirect witnesses. He was both homosexual (the Cleveland Street brothel scandal), epileptic (according to street charlatans), and, of course, Jack the Ripper himself. This theory was widely circulated in the press of the time, which was understandable. Speculating on the identity of the illustrious prince is a great way to increase circulation (and still works). The most rabid reporters stated that in this way Victor took revenge on the whores for his syphilis, from which, later, he allegedly died. Despite the widespread circulation of this version, the prince-duke had a reliable alibi for every case of murder, which completely excludes his guilt.

Pimps

So many researchers still believe that behind the identity of Jack by the police are hidden the numerous atrocities of the cruel pimps of Whitechapel. On the one hand, it looks rather doubtful, since the guys from the streets of that time preferred to simply cut the throat of the obstinate lady, and that's it; on the other hand, almost all pimps were proficient with cold weapons: the maniac also possessed such a skill. In addition, the killings of women look revealing and frightening: if it was done as a deterrent, then it certainly worked.