Does the name Bucks Row mean something to you? How about the name of the person who is associated with Jack the Ripper?
This is Whitechapel, the area in the eastern of London where a number of women working as prostitutes were mutilated and murdered in the latter half of 1888. To this day there remains much debate about not only who Jack the Ripper really was but which of the women in the Whitechapel murders were actually his victims. Out of the 11 or so bodies though there was a group called as the “Canonical Five.”
Mary Ann Nichols, nicknamed Collie was the first of these. Killed on the 31st of August 1888, her body was discovered in the early hours of morning in Buck’s Row. Buck’s Row which has since been renamed Durward Street was a back alley in Whitechapel, a couple of hundred meters away from the London Hospital.
Some of the original buildings and Brick Lane still exist today, including the long brick walls stretching east from board school to where Collie’s body is found. For those of a strong disposition you can still trace the Ripper’s steps today, with various guided tours and excursions around the sites of the murders.
Number two of the Canonical five was Annie Chapman who was also nicknamed Dark Annie. She was killed in the 8th of September, dead on the backyard with her uterus removed. Throughout the police investigation, huge numbers of letters were sent to the police. Most of them don’t pay attention to it, but there were a handful that the police took more seriously. The first of these was the dear boss letter, received on the 29th o f September.
It was the first time the serial killer signed himself Jack the Ripper and also referred to clipping a lady’s ear off which rang a long bells the very next day. The 30th of September was the day that became known as the double event because within the space of 24 hours, two mutilated bodies were discovered by police.
Victim number three was Elizabeth Stride also known as Long Liz. The Swedish blond 43-year-old was found in the early hours in Duttfields yard of Berner Street. Like Buck’s Row, Berner Street was also renamed to play down the ghoulish connotations. Catherine Eddowes was a bit different. Her body was found outside of Whitechapel, in Mitre Square in the city of London. This was the farthest west of all the murders and the fact that she was found on the same day as Elizabeth Stride has made some repologist [ph] as those who study the case are called claim her murderous proof that there wasn’t just one Ripper but at least two killers at large at the same time.
It was Eddowes corpse however, that persuaded the police that the Dear Boss letter was probably genuine as well as missing a uterus and a kidney. She was found with one ear severed. It was this kind of mutilation that led people to suspect that the killer maybe a surgeon or a butcher. The next missive were attributed to the killer, was the “Saucy Jacky” postcard which was delivered on the 1st of October and refer to both ear removal and so called double event of the previous day.
Those details were already known by journalist however and so the card could have still opposed. With such wide spread publicity, a reporting of the murders, citizens were understandably nervous and one of them George Lusk, read the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee to patrol the streets at night. It was to Lusk that the next letter is addressed. It is widely thought to be the most probably authenticate piece, largely because it arrived accompanied by a box containing half a human kidney preserved in alcohol.
The writer made a gruesome claim about the other half. I fried and ate it the letter said, “It was very nice.” The last of the Canonical Five was Mary Jane Kelly nicknamed Ginger. She was the only one who had been found indoors, discovered on the bed in her single room at Miller’s Court in Spitalfields. The corpse was the most mutilated so far, the heart being completely removed and many other internal organs taken out of her body and left around the home.
Even with Contemporary technology, we are still not close to solving the mystery and the least of possible assessment seems only to grow as the years go by. Will we ever know the truth?
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