Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper and the Whitechapel Murders
Possibly the most over-documented series of events in East End history … largely because 117 years later nobody knows who Jack the Ripper was let alone why he perpetrated such horrific crimes. Over the next few weeks we’ll be building this page and as well as attempting to throw new light ourselves, we’ll be providing links to some of the many hundreds of pages exploring the Whitechapel Murders.
Jack the Ripper Casebook
Astonishingly thorough, detailed and as unsensational as a Whitechapel Murders web page can be. Copies of official documents, accounts from newspapers and police officers of the time put you as close to primary sources as you’re likely to get online. The Jack the Ripper Casebook is a very good place to start your researches.
Jack the Ripper and Patricia Cornwell
The doyenne of crime novelists turned sleuth herself as she went on the trail … ultimately revealing the Jack the Ripper’s true identity (ah yes, another one). Her controversial approach on the way to ‘revealing’ that it was none other than painter Walter Sickert supposedly involved her destroying a painting by the great Victorian portraitist. She vigorously denies this, which is evidence if nothing else of just how quick myth gathers around every element of the Whitechapel Murders.Full marks for her chutzpah: the book that resulted was bullishly subtitled ‘Jack the Ripper: case closed‘. Sorry Patricia but we don’t think it is.
The Enduring Mystery of Jack the Ripper
The name ‘Jack the Ripper’ has become the most infamous in the annals of murder. Yet, the amazing fact is that his identity remains unproven today. In the years 1888-1891 the name was regarded with terror by the residents of London’s East End, and was known the world over. So shrouded in myth and mystery is this story that the facts are hard to identify at this remove in time. And it was the officers of Scotland Yard to whom the task of apprehending the fearsome killer was entrusted. So what do the Metropolitan Police have to say for themselves?
Jack the Ripper Crime Library
‘When Charles Cross walked through Whitechapel’s Buck’s Row just before four in the morning Friday, August 31, 1888, it was dark and seemingly deserted. It was chilly and damp, not unusual for London even in the summer, especially before dawn. He saw something that looked like a tarpaulin lying on the ground.’ These pages exhaustively list the progress of the Whitechapel Murders.
Jack the Ripper contemporary Profile … 117 years overdue
Despite mountains of theory and speculation, no single investigator in the last century has been able to establish the true identity of the Whitechapel Murderer, as he was originally called, or exactly how many women he killed. Now though, a contemporary offender profile by Christopher Berry-Dee and a book review on a most unusual, yet masterpiece of pensmanship in the genre.
An Acre of Barren Ground
Life on the street … Julie Myerson is fascinated by Jeremy Gavron’s An Acre of Barren Ground, a fictionalised history of Brick Lane, with a detective hot on the heels of Jack the Ripper.