1883, August 7 - at 5 o'clock in the morning, a resident of one of the apartment buildings in the East End of London, John Rivers, having gone to work, found the body of a man lying in a large pool of blood on the stairwell. Reeves immediately called the police.

The police were able to quickly establish that it was the corpse of a local prostitute, Martha Turner. Doctors counted 39 on the body of the victim knife wounds. This murder did not cause much excitement among the police. The East End is one of the poorest and most criminally disadvantaged areas of London, and you will not surprise anyone here with stabbing.

Three weeks later, in the same area, a cabman found the body of another murdered woman in a roadside ditch. The police identified the murdered woman as Mary Nichols, also a prostitute. Nichols' throat had been slit, and besides that, she was literally disembowelled. After the second corpse was found, the police doctor stated that, in his opinion, the perpetrator should be well versed in surgery and that this is the same person who killed Turner (over time, this reckless statement will do the investigation a disservice).

On September 8, an unknown maniac killed the prostitute Ann Chapman. The woman's throat was slit, her stomach was torn open.

London, and especially the East End, was gripped by panic. No one doubted that all three murders were the work of one killer. It was obvious that he killed prostitutes and enjoyed the killing he did. After inflicting a fatal blow on the victim, he continues to shred her body with a frenzy.

The police did everything to arrest the maniac. They constantly raided the slums of London, detained vagrants, suspicious foreigners, previously convicted criminals, people with mental disabilities. There were a lot of detainees, but everyone who was earlier, who was later released anyway, because after a thorough check it turned out that not one of the detainees had anything to do with the murders in the East End.

On September 27, the nickname "Jack the Ripper" was used for the first time. So the letter was signed, which came to the British News Agency, allegedly on behalf of the maniac. In the letter, he boasted of the murders he had committed and promised not to stop them in the future.

On September 30, two women became victims of the killer at once. The first was discovered by a dray driver in one of the East End yards. The maniac managed to escape from the scene of the crime just a minute before the appearance of the coachman. Blood was still gushing from the wound on the woman's neck. After 45 min. after this murder, the monster kills the prostitute Kat Eddows, a 15-minute walk from the yard where the first murder of that day was committed. The killer cut Kat's body in such a way that they could hardly identify her.

The next day, the news agency received a postcard signed "Jack the Ripper" in which he confessed to two new crimes and mocked the helplessness of the police. It has now been proven that both the letter and the postcard were the bad trick of some joker, but then they were perceived by the police as genuine messages from a murderous maniac.

The authorities reinforced the London patrol service with police officers sent from other cities, and military units were brought to the streets. Soldiers of the royal guard patrolled the poorest quarters of London. But everything Taken measures and the efforts of the Scotland Yard detectives were in vain. The maniac seemed to become invisible.

A serious scandal erupted around the London police. The case of ineffective police work was discussed at the highest government level. It was proposed that the head of the London crime investigation, Commissioner Charles Warren, resign immediately. Even the elderly Queen Victoria personally expressed her dissatisfaction with the work of the London detectives.

On November 9, Jack the Ripper committed another murder. This time, his victim was a pretty young Mary Kelly. The girl began her "career" on the panel, but for a year she lived on the content of several rich old people. She was killed in her cozy apartment on the first floor of a house on Dorset Street. This time, Jack the Ripper dismembered the victim's body into pieces and arranged them neatly around the bloodied torso.

London froze in horror and ... nothing else happened. The maniac, as if satiated with blood, disappeared. There were no more murders.

The titanic efforts of the police were in vain. The offender remained unknown. The question also remains: why did Jack the Ripper suddenly stop his killing?

Versions

There are many versions about who was hiding under the sinister nickname "Jack the Ripper".

The most popular version, which has become almost official, was the assumption that Jack the Ripper there was a fanatically religious doctor who, by killing prostitutes, wanted in this way to eradicate vice. According to this version, after the sixth crime, he committed.

There are also more intricate versions. According to one of them, the killer was a surgeon whose goal was to find and kill Mary Kelly, who infected his son with syphilis. All other women prostitute he allegedly killed during the search, so as not to leave witnesses.

There are also romantic assumptions, according to which the maniac was a brilliantly educated, handsome aristocrat, under whose external veneer a dangerous madness was hidden. After the sixth murder, relatives found out how their relative was having fun at night, and probably hid him in a private clinic for the mentally ill.

Persistent rumors connected the name of the maniac with the Duke of Clarence, the grandson of Queen Victoria. Unfortunately for fans of the scandalous secrets of the royal family, researchers relatively recently proved that at the time when at least two murders were committed, the duke was hunting in Scotland.

There is also a political version of events, especially beloved by filmmakers, according to which Masons were behind the brutal murders in the East End.

Later, a voluntary candidate for "Jackie Rippers" also appeared. It was a certain Thomas Krim, whose adventures are described in detail in the book by Kir Bulychev “Conan Doyle and Jack the Ripper.

Krim was a doctor, a sex maniac, a marriage swindler and a murderer at the same time. He made a living by secret abortions (abortions were universally prohibited at that time) and deliberately mutilated several women during the operations, making them disabled for life. Then he amused himself by poisoning London prostitutes with strychnine capsules, passing them off as medicine. Sentenced to death, Cream, even under the gallows, shouted that he was the famous Jack the Ripper. Journalists smashed his confession to the newspapers, ignoring the obvious absurdities of this sensation. When killing, Krim never used melee weapons, his weakness is poison. And besides, when London was in awe of Jack the Ripper, Cream was serving his sentence in an Illinois state prison. As for his confession, then, apparently, the criminal, in addition to everything else, had megalomania.

There was another person claiming to have solved the mystery of Jack the Ripper. In the years 1890-1891, private detective Eugene Bong, who specialized in the private search for stolen goods, was contacted in turn by several English third-rate newspapers. Bong stated that in 1888 he conducted a private investigation in the East End and he knew who was hiding under the devilish mask of Jack the Ripper. He hinted that the solution to the mystery is surprisingly simple and at the same time so unusual that the reading public will simply gasp.

Bong had a very bad reputation. He maintained suspicious connections in the criminal environment, was boastful and had a reputation, to put it mildly, not a very truthful person. In addition, for his information, he demanded such an incredible amount for those times that not a single newspaper dared to make a deal with him. Moreover, at this time, reader interest in Jack the Ripper had already fallen. Bong soon emigrated to America. The English journalist and historian D. Weiss tried to find documentary information about his stay in the USA, but without much success. Weiss established that until 1895 Bong lived in Pittsburgh, where he tried, without much success, to engage in the same private investigation. Further traces of him are lost.

Jack the Ripper or Bloody Mary?

In our time, Jack the Ripper has again become the object of close interest of historians. From time to time, this or that researcher tries to unravel the age-old mystery. Moreover, all researchers make the same mistake - taking the materials of the police investigation as the basis of their research, they try to interpret them in a new way, without questioning the main statements of the detectives of the past. Let's try to fix this error.

The first conclusion of the police investigation is that all six murders were committed by the same person. Is it so?

Upon closer examination, it becomes clear that the two murders, the first and the last, are different from the others. The first victim, Martha Turner, was stabbed 39 times in a dark stairwell. The nature of the wounds shows not so much the sadistic inclinations of the criminal, but the fact that the killer was in a violent rage. For the East End, this murder is commonplace. There could have been a jealousy murder or a quarrel over money between a prostitute and her pimp. That is why the murder of Turner did not cause much concern among the police.

The last murder is different in that for the first time the killer dealt with the victim not on the street, but in her apartment, dismembering her body, which he had never done before.

Thus, the work of Jack the Ripper, by outward signs, indisputably, 4 murders can be counted.

The second conclusion of the investigation states that all the murders have no motive, except for the maniac's abnormal inclinations.

Perhaps this is so, but it should be noted that the brutally mutilated bodies of the victims can serve both as evidence of the mental abnormality of the killer, and as evidence of an act of cruel revenge or the rituality of the murder being committed. Perhaps the police did not have to dwell solely on the version of the maniac, but more diligently look for other motives.

The third conclusion - the maniac was a representative of the educated strata of society and, most likely, a surgeon or a person knowledgeable in anatomy. This conclusion is the most shaky.

The modern forensic expert Professor E. Barinov did not find any special indications in the description of the mutilated bodies that the killer was an expert in anatomy. One thing that can be noted is that the maniac had a good, sharp knife, perhaps a surgical one, but this in itself cannot indicate that the killer was a doctor. Rumors about the killer doctor were exaggerated by the police authorities in order to justify their failures by the atypical personality of the criminal.

Many ordinary police officers were rather skeptical about this version. Fairly considering that in an atmosphere of general fear, when all the newspapers were trumpeting about a murderous doctor, not a single woman of easy virtue would go into a dark gateway or porch late at night with an unfamiliar well-dressed gentleman, especially in the East End, where in a gentlemanly dressed people were rarely seen during the day.

In our opinion, the solution to the mystery lies precisely in the downright discouraging gullibility of the victims. The maniac never pursued his victims, and they never resisted him. The East End is a densely populated area, and in the event of a noise of fighting, cries for help, they would certainly have been recorded in the testimony of witnesses, but this was not. The unfortunate until the last moment did not suspect about the danger. This was especially evident in the murder of Kat Eddowes. When the killer persuaded the woman to follow him into a dark alley, his clothes, according to the police, must have been covered in the blood of the previous victim, and yet the woman did not suspect anything.

During the investigation, the police suspected that the killer was well acquainted with his victims and enjoyed their complete confidence. Therefore, they carefully checked pimps, brothel keepers, regular customers, owners and servants of bars and pubs that the dead visited. The alibis of each man were carefully checked for all six murders, but there was no result. Scotland Yard detectives failed not only to detain the killer, but also to identify at least one "promising" suspect.

Thus, discarding romantic, unsubstantiated assumptions about a child-loving surgeon, a fanatical doctor, a mad aristocrat, we will come to a stunning conclusion: in the conditions of fear and hysteria that gripped the East End, when women looked with horror at every man they met, carefree and a prostitute could follow Jack the Ripper at night without fear only if ... if Jack the Ripper was a woman!

This was precisely the elusiveness of the maniac. Both the stern sentry "bobbies" who combed the slums of London, and the wise inspectors in the offices of Scotland Yard were looking for a man and only a man. The very views of the people of the good old 19th century did not allow for the thought that a woman could be the author of terrible street attacks.

Who was this Jack the Ripper in a skirt?

Here we move into the realm of conjecture. In our opinion, the sixth victim of Jack the Ripper, Mary Kelly, should take the first place among the suspects. If we assume that it was she who was Jack the Ripper, then it becomes clear why the killings stopped immediately after her death. It should be noted that the double murder on September 30 occurred a hundred meters from her apartment. We can only speculate about the motives for the crimes. Maybe the girl had some kind of abnormal inclinations, but it is impossible to exclude extremely cruel, but, in fact, ordinary revenge or some other reason.

Indirectly, this assumption is evidenced by the records of interrogations of East End prostitutes stored in the archives of Scotland Yard, when the detectives of Scotland Yard collected information about the identities of the murdered women. "Colleagues at work" characterized Mary Kelly as a very strange girl. Periods of deep apathy and despondency were easily replaced in her behavior by bouts of hysterical fun. Girlfriends saw the reason for this in the fact that Mary smoked opium. Furthermore, a year before tragic events 1883 Police arrested Mary Kelly for throwing herself at her with a razor in her hand during an argument with a friend in a bar.

As for the death of Kelly herself, she may have been tracked down and killed by her lover, and most likely the pimp of one of the dead prostitutes. It cannot be ruled out that the apartment on Dorset Street was occupied by a whole company of prostitutes, whom little Mary had deprived of part of her income by her nightly entertainments. After all, when Jack the Ripper was atrocious in the slums of the East End, prostitutes were afraid to go to work. Mary Kelly's body was brutally dismembered, either out of sheer malice or in order to write off her murder at the expense of her own crimes.

If the assumptions made about the identity of Jack the Ripper are correct, then this story could well have been unearthed in 1888 by Eugene Bong, doing a private detective in the slums of the East End. It was her that the loser detective wanted to tell reporters.

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 harmonious: the series of murders stopped just with the departure of Reiher, and further adventures of the sailor clearly showed his mental state. 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 with women's boot. Thirdly, at the feet of another innocently murdered prostitute Annie Chapman, the maniac folded the girl's clothes very carefully, in a feminine manner. 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, for a long time was in relationship with her husband good 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 Jack's canonical message 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.

Years after the terrible events in London, Sir Melville Macnathan, head of the city's criminal investigation department, wrote:

“I can’t forget those foggy evenings and the piercing cries of the newspaper boys: “Another terrible murder! Mutilated corpse in Whitechapel!”

DIRTY CRIMES

The first serial killer in the history of world capitals, Jack the Ripper was an urban demon. His name enchanted the gloomy Victorian streets - the most suitable place for the birth of terrible legends. One of them was himself. His secret gave the world the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and several variety musicals. A kind of science "ripperology" appeared (from the English ripper - "Ripper"). Jack the Ripper grew up
into a truly cult figure, but over a century, his story has been so much dissolved in unconfirmed “facts” that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find out what, in fact, is known about him.
From August to November 1888, Jack literally gutted his victims and disappeared without a trace. He acted brutally. The first victim was Mary Ann (Polly) Nicole. On August 31, she was found with her throat cut and her stomach ripped open, "like a pig in the market." A week later they found Annie Chenman, mutilated in much the same way. Despite the beginning of the hunt for the killer, the list was soon replenished by Marta Tabram, whose body was discovered in mid-September.

The Ripper hid for a couple of weeks, and on September 30 dealt a “double blow”: In one street of Whitechael, Elizabeth Strijd lay with her throat cut, but without any other injuries. It is believed that Jack was prevented from completing what he started, so he immediately went to look for a new victim. On another street in Whitechael, he met Catherine Eddowes. Having ferociously disembowelled her, the villain disappeared along with the woman's kidney.
The last murder “hanged” on Jack happened more than a month later - on November 10 - and was the bloodiest. Jane Kelly (Black Mary) has been found. in her room terribly disfigured. She had her heart cut out. Although the Ripper seems to have vanished into thin air, rumors about his identity continue to live on. The police do not know the name, but the whole world knows the ominous pseudonym by which
signed one of the many letters allegedly sent by the killer. Dear boss! I heard rumors that the police tracked me down, but they want to take me red-handed. I laughed so hard when they smart look they said they were on the trail... I'm hunting for. whores and I will disembowel them until I find myself in handcuffs ... My knife: thawed beautiful and sharp, I want to use it at the first opportunity. Good luck to you!
Yours sincerely
Jack the Ripper. P.S. Do not be offended that I sign with a pseudonym.

This letter was later considered a fake, composed by a newspaperman for the sake of another sensation, as, indeed, almost all other messages from Jack.

THE HOUSE IN THE PRESS

One of the reasons for the popularity and persistence of the Jack the Ripper story is the increased attention it receives in the press. There was a lot of crime in prim Victorian London, and the slums of Whitechael were generally considered a dangerous place.
However, the ominous sight of the corpses left by the Ripper gave the newspapers their bread - a sensation. Just at that time the press was becoming an important factor in the struggle for social reforms, and unusual murders made it possible to emphasize the abyss that separated the rich metropolitan quarters of the impoverished working outskirts.
Indeed, in Victorian London, 6% of the female population traded in their bodies. Attacks on Whitechapel prostitutes gave rise to talk about several social ulcers at once, and at the same time about the incompetence of the authorities. While describing the gruesome details of the murders, the newspapermen mocked the helplessness of the Metropolitan Police. When its commissioner, Sir Charles Warren, learned of Jack's latest victim, resigned, no one doubted that his move was due to a desire to protect his name from further attacks by the yellow press.

MYSTERIOUS JACK

Who is this elusive killer? One of the main suspects was the fraudster Michael Ostrog, who worked under various aliases. However, there was not enough evidence for an arrest. As long as the image of Jack is alive in books, films and our imagination, the search for his true face will continue - perhaps even more fervently than a century ago. Ripperologists study many versions - from a cannibal maniac to a deranged social reformer.
In 1970, Dr. T. Stowell stated that the cold-blooded killer was Duke Edward of Clarence, the grandson of Queen Victoria. However, in his book Was Clarence Jack the Ripper? Michael
Harrison rejects this candidacy by offering her place as the tutor of the Duke - the Cambridge poet and ardent misogynist J. Stephen. However, this suspicion is also devoid of evidence. Perhaps the truth about Jack the Ripper will someday be revealed - among stolen documents from the case and hidden diaries. However, now the ruthless maniac killer manages to keep his secret.

RANGE OF SUSPECTS

The search for Jack the Ripper has been the idol of many amateur detectives and professional detectives, but we still don't know who he is.
For unclear reasons, the police dropped the case just three weeks after the November 1888 murder of Jane Kelly. The version here is this: the Whitechapel Public Order received a note saying that Jack drowned in the Thames. In early December, a body was washed ashore, which was identified as Montague John Druitt. He became the prime suspect.
However, the data collected on Druitt, including his age and occupation, were questionable. The butcher, the midwife, crazy professor. There was talk about Aron Kosminsky, a Jewish barber who ate in the garbage dumps and in 1890 was sent to a psychiatric hospital.
Suspicions against all these people cannot be called absolutely groundless, but nothing more definite has been found out in any case.

Nowadays, a killer who poisoned a dozen people will not even make it into the national news, and several thousand victims of a local war (very decent numbers 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 that more books have been written about Jack the Ripper than about all American presidents combined. 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, the abdominal cavity was opened, some organs were cut out and taken 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 citizen, Charles Cross, was walking through the Whitechapel district at 4:00 am (the usual time for the start of a working day or the end of a 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 cuts 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 slaughtered. 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 spent the last years of 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 with a long thin knife - most likely, a 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 fundamentally changed the matter, since good medical education at that time it 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 on 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 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 crimes, Robert Louis Stevenson's play The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was being staged in London. 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) - a good example of "crime fantasy".

Wells and Jack in the movie Every now and then

In The Ripper (1994), Michael Slade developed the idea of ​​ritual murder, and in Time After Time (1979), Carl Alexander, H.G. Wells creates real car time. 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.

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The Ripper was not the first in the world 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.

Jack the Ripper - a photo of a robot made in our time according to a psychological portrait

Jack the Ripper is possibly incorrectly described in Wikipedia. People wrote about the maniac, not seeing before them the acts of interrogation of all participants in those events. We will show everything as it happened.

In 1888, London's East End witnessed a series of brutal murders of prostitutes attributed to a maniac nicknamed Jack the Ripper. To this day, these crimes have remained unsolved. Was Jack the Ripper a maniac surgeon? Or an adherent of ritual murders? Or maybe a mentally ill member of the royal family? ..

At the end of the 19th century british empire experienced its heyday. Her possessions were scattered all over the globe They were inhabited by people of various races and religions. But at the center of this vast empire was a place where, as journalists wrote, the sun never set. The East End of London was a disgrace to Britain and the entire civilized world. People lived here in poverty and squalor. Child mortality in this area of ​​the British capital was twice the national average.

Prostitution and unbridled drunkenness, sexual molestation of minors, murder and fraud have become common features of the local way of life. All this turned out to be a well-manured breeding ground for a killer whose black fame has reached our days. The streets and back streets of the East End became the scene of his bloody deeds.

The crimes of Jack the Ripper are incomparable, of course, with those massive horrors that the twentieth century presented to mankind. He killed, however, with savage cruelty, only five women. But in this case, the question is who the perpetrator was. There are serious suspicions that Jack the Ripper was a member of the upper strata of British society. It was these suspicions that aroused so much public interest in the Beast of the East End.

First victim of Jack the Ripper

While Jack the Ripper went down in crime history as a vile killer, his dark hold on the East End was short-lived. He struck the first blow on August 31, 1888. Mary Ann Nichols, a prostitute who traded in the Whitechapel area, was brutally murdered that day. Her corpse was found in a labyrinth of dark streets. Forty-two-year-old "Pretty Polly" was known as a drunkard and frequenter of all local eateries. With a high degree of probability, the police assumed such a scenario of the crime. "Pretty Polly" addressed a tall passer-by with the usual question on such occasions: "Looking for fun, mister?" Most likely, she asked for four pence for her services. This measly amount was enough to pay for a place in a rooming house and get a few sips of cheap gin.

As soon as the man took her to a dark place, the prostitute's fate was sealed. A hand reached out to her throat, and in a couple of seconds it was cut from ear to ear. “Only a crazy person could do something like that! exclaimed the police doctor. “I have never seen anything like it. Only a person who knows well how to handle a knife could slaughter her in this way. Since murders in the impoverished and dangerous area of ​​the East End were common, the police did not attach much importance to this case. But only for one week. On September 8, "Dark Annie" Chapman, a forty-seven-year-old prostitute, seriously ill with tuberculosis, was found stabbed to death near the Spitelfiod market.

And although there were no signs of rape, the nature of the murder, as in the first case, indicated that the perpetrator cut and gutted the victim under the influence of strong sexual arousal. In addition, the dismemberment of the body of "Dark Annie" (all her insides lay next to the corpse) spoke of the killer's knowledge of anatomy or surgery. So it was clearly not an ordinary criminal.

Jack the Ripper victims

The second murder had an unexpected continuation. On September 28, a mocking letter arrived at the news agency in Fleet Street. It said: “Rumors are reaching me from all sides that the police have caught me. And they still haven't even figured me out. I prey on women certain type and I will not stop cutting them until they bind me. The last one was a great job. Lady didn't even have time to scream. I love this kind of work and I'm ready to repeat it. Soon you will know about me again by a funny trick. When I finished my last job, I took the ink in a ginger lemonade bottle with me to write the letter, but it soon thickened like glue and I couldn't use it. So I decided that red ink would do instead. Ha! Ha! Next time I will cut off the ears and send them to the police, just like that, as a joke.

The letter was signed "Jack the Ripper". The following letter, sent to the Whitechapel policing commission, had half a kidney enclosed. The sender claimed that the kidney had been cut from the victim he had killed and that he had eaten the other half. Of course, the investigators were not sure that the same person who sent the first letter sent the second letter. But it was already known that Jack the Ripper cuts out some organs from his victims. Skillfully cutting their throats, he dismembers the bodies, cuts the faces, opens the abdominal cavity, removes the insides. He leaves something next to the corpse, takes something with him.

The third victim of Jack the Ripper was Elizabeth Stride, nicknamed "Long Liz" because of her height. On September 30, a junk dealer, passing with his cart on Burner Street in Whitechapel, noticed a suspicious bundle and reported it to the police. So the body of forty-four-year-old Liz was found. As in previous cases, the victim's throat was slashed. The killer was behind her. But there were no injuries or signs of sexual excesses on the body. The police decided that the criminal was ashamed of his vile deeds. However, on the same day, they discovered victim number four.

Jack the Ripper murders

Katherine Adows, in her forties, was found dismembered, her face was cut, the extracted entrails lay on her right shoulder, both ears were missing. By that time, London was already gripped by a wave of fear. Many women began to carry knives and whistles to call the police. The Illustrated London News jokingly suggested that noble ladies get pearl-handled pistols in case the Ripper wanted to expand social sphere murders.

One of the stores even began to advertise steel corsets. And in Whitechapel itself, policewomen began to dress and make up like prostitutes in the expectation that the criminal would take the bait and get caught. It came to a farce. So, a journalist dressed up as a woman of easy virtue approached a disguised policeman and asked: “Are you one of us?” He replied: “No way!” — and arrested a nimble reporter.

The murder of Iddowes alarmed the police to the extreme. Her body was mutilated much more than in previous cases. A bloody path led from the corpse to the scraps of a tattered apron lying around the entrance. And next to the door on the wall was written in chalk: "The Jews are not the kind of people who can be blamed for anything." Sir Charles Warren, the head of the police, personally erased the inscription and in doing so may have destroyed a very important piece of evidence. But he feared that with the then influx of Jews from the East End of Eastern Europe this inscription could cause a wave of hostility towards them.

Who was Jack the Ripper?

Rumors about who the killer might have been spread at a rapid pace. forest fire. Some frightened residents of the area even said that some policeman was doing this while patrolling the streets. Among the suspects was a certain Russian doctor named Mikhail Ostrog. From somewhere, a version was born that he was allegedly sent by the tsarist secret police to incite hatred towards Jewish emigrants. There were those who claimed that the criminal was some kind of crazy surgeon. Suspicion touched even Sir Charles Warren himself, a well-known Freemason. It has been suggested that he erased the inscription on the wall in order to save the killer-Mason from retribution.

The last murder took place on November 9th. The only difference was the fact that the victim belonged to a higher category of prostitutes - she had her own room. Mary Kelly, twenty-five years old, was murdered and brutally mutilated in the room she rented.

This time, Jack the Ripper had plenty of time to enjoy his nefarious work to his heart's content. On the morning of November 10, the owner of the house, Henry Bowers, while going around the tenants and collecting rent, knocked on Mary's door. The attractive blonde spent the entire previous evening doing her usual job - pestering passers-by, begging for money. The last man she was seen with, tall, dark-haired, with a mustache and wearing a felt hunting hat, was probably her killer.

At autopsy, by the way, it turned out that the woman was in her third month of pregnancy. This chain of brutal murders ended. However, even now, more than a century later, the mystery of the short but bloody revelry of Jack the Ripper remains unsolved. In 1959, seventy-one years after the series of murders, an old man recalled how, as a child, he once pushed a cart down Khanburi Street and heard shouts of "Murder!"

The old man said: “I was a boy, therefore, without hesitation, I ran up and squeezed through the crowd ... And there she lay, and steam still came from her insides. She was wearing red and white stockings. The then boy saw Jack the Ripper's second victim, Annie Chapman. One of the suspects caused particular excitement in the community, as it was the grandson of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence.

Suspicion fell on him only because there was a lot of talk about his madness. Immediately after the series of murders, the prince was rumored to have been sent to a psychiatric hospital to avoid scandal. The Duke was the eldest son of the future King Edward VII. He was said to be bisexual and mentally damaged after contracting syphilis. But the number one suspect was likely John Druitt Montagu, whose body was found in the Thames a few weeks after Mary Kelly's murder.

Jill the Ripper?

Another author, William Stewart, suggested that Jack the Ripper did not exist, but in fact there was Jill the Ripper, a midwife who traded in clandestine abortions. At one time she was in prison for prostitution. After being released, Jill allegedly began to cruelly take revenge on society.

High-ranking police officer John Stalker, who retired as deputy chief constable of Greater Manchester, after studying the Ripper case, said: “There is still not the slightest real proof against anyone who could be represented in court. The truth is that Jack the Ripper was never afraid of getting caught. I'm sure the police have been close to him more than once, but...

The police in 1888 were faced with a rather new phenomenon for them - a series of sexual murders committed by a man who was unfamiliar with his victims. Even now, a hundred years later, it is very difficult to solve such crimes.” And yet there is a man who is intimately familiar with the Ripper case and who is convinced that the perpetrator of those horrific murders can be identified. John Ross, a former police officer, now runs the so-called "black museum" of the police. Not at all inclined to jump to conclusions, he tells visitors to his unusual exhibition that Jack the Ripper is actually an immigrant named Kosminsky.

By the way, almost nothing is known about this man, except for his last name. Nevertheless, Mr. Ross claims that the data obtained by the police at one time when examining the scene of the incident point precisely to Kosminsky. By the way, not only Ross thinks so. In February 1894, Mr. Ross's predecessor, the equally avid analyst Sir Melvy D. McNaughton, wrote a seven-page memorandum and pinned it to the Jack the Ripper documents.

In this reference, he tried to refute some of the most common versions of the time. The certificate says: “Kosminsky is a Polish Jew. This man went crazy as a result for long years a life of loneliness and vice. He hated women, especially prostitutes, and was prone to murder ... He is associated with many crimes, which makes him suspect.

Famous artist?

More recently, the American writer, best-selling detective author Patricia Cornwell announced to the whole world that she had finally managed to rip off the mask behind which the psychopathic killer was hiding: Jack the Ripper, the writer claims, was none other than Walter Sickert, the famous English artist, founder of English impressionism. “I literally put my reputation on the line, because if someone manages to refute my evidence, I will feel like an idiot and look like an absolute layman,” says the eminent writer.

To unravel the old mystery, Cornwell put not only her reputation, but also a significant part of her (it should be noted, considerable) fortune. The mystery of Jack the Ripper haunted her for several years, becoming an "idea fix". Looking for clues, she bought over 30 paintings by Walter Sickert, several letters, and even his desk. But the queen of the American detective did not stop there: in the hope of finding traces of the killer's DNA, she gutted one of the artist's paintings, which caused anger on both sides of the ocean.

Cornwell is far from the first to associate the name of Walter Sickert with Jack the Ripper. The artist was known for his decadent lifestyle, dark plots and active interest in the murders committed by a mysterious maniac.