Jack the Ripper re-set

I’ve just been looking over my research for the last book – Return of the Ripper? The Murder of Frances Coles – and it got me thinking, not about who the Ripper was but about how he managed to escape being caught. Out of all the murders, and for the uninitiated there are believed to be 5, he walked calmly away into the night unseen. Question is how? I mean how does a serial killer, particularly one operating on the streets, kill, mutilate and disappear?
In the book I examined the cases, the modus operandi, the investigation etc which gave me an overview of just what Whitechapel’s police were up against back in 1888.But I never gave too much thought as to how he got away with it. I was writing about a murder on the periphery of the Ripper era so had other priorities. But recently I have had to look into the death of Martha Tabram, a disputed Ripper case, and that made me begin to question what we know about this man and how he operated. Tabram is, as far as I am concerned, his first, I think even though she was killed differently she has all the hallmarks of our friend Jack. For me she marks the start of a killing spree that gripped the world and began the evolution of modern policing. At that time there was no such thing as crime scene photography, or crime scene protection. There were no forensic teams, no understanding of murder, no profiling suspects and no police strategies designed to aid officers in any follow on investigation. But from her murder in August 1888 and those that followed, systems, and procedures, began to evolve. Police learned the importance of the crime scene itself, what it reveals, what it hides, how it unfolded and in some cases why. Examining doctors began to realise the importance of detailed evidence, what that evidence revealed and why it was paramount in the follow on enquiries. They also learned, though very slowly, just how vital calculating time of death was to the investigating officers in trying to place a killer at the scene. So, from her appalling death on the landing of St George Yard Building came an understanding that crime scenes tell stories.
What they don’t necessarily tell is the who, and the why, of the murder itself. That’s what got me thinking.
We all know Jack the Ripper, the top hat, cane, cloak, dark night, cobbled street killer who was never seen, never heard and never caught.

Question is why?

By the time of Catherine Eddowes killing in Mitre square 29 September police should have had enough clues to pin him down and if they couldn’t catch him at least ensure it was impossible to strike again. But they didn’t. Despite a heavy police presence on Whitechapel’s streets, a growing knowledge and local understanding of the growing dangers of being out in the early hours of the morning, and descriptions of varying quality published almost daily, he continued to kill at will. So, why was that possible?

When I was writing about Frances Coles, a murder 3 years after the carnage of 1888, that question still puzzled me.

Over the years there have been numerous suspects. To my mind none of them fit. Oh they could have been around, maybe even questioned, who knows? But they don’t feel right, can’t explain why maybe it’s because my notion of who Whitechapel’s serial killer was is different to everyone else’s. For me JTR was a sailor, a merchant navy man if you like, a man who lived by the tides and the voyages in and out of London docks. Recent research into a different subject gave me the opportunity to look into the types of vessels operating out of London in the 1880’s and the voyages they made. Intriguingly, leastways for me, I found those that did the distance runs, Chile, south America, New York and so on created the best opportunities. What I mean by that is that the crews that made up these ships, all which were often made up of men that had been sailing up and down the channel between long distance voyages, were men familiar with Whitechapel. Often these sailors used the local doss houses scattered all around the district, disappeared for a week or so then maybe took on voyage south, say to Chile, and were then absent for six to nine months. Perfect cover for a serial killer. Look at the so called canonical 5, end of August through to end of September, five weeks or so then nothing until November then nothing again until July 1889 and Alice McKenzie. Perfect sailing times. Oh, I know she’s not seen as a Ripper killing but everyone except the examining doctor thought she was.

Food for thought? One other point before I close. Do you really think Jack took organs from his victims? If he did how? I mean how did he carry them away? There were no plastic shopping bags back then there were no mobile ambulances either. The point being organs could well have been lost well before the autopsy.

Frances Coles and The Ripper

Return of The RipperIn February 1891 Jack the Ripper returned, or did he?

That is the basis of my book. Did Jack the Ripper return to Whitechapel and murder Frances Coles?

I wanted to write her story because I believe no-one had ever done justice to the narrative around her death. For over 130 years she has been largely ignored or simply lumped into the Jack the Ripper saga almost as an afterthought. Maybe it is easier to accept she had become his last victim than to really look seriously at her case and question the events of 13 February ’91. Otherwise her death simply becomes another Victorian murder never likely to be solved because she had probably been a victim of the man in the cloak wearing a tall hat, who had stalked Whitechapel’s streets back in 1888. But I wanted to know if that were really true.

The question I asked myself was whether it was a reasonable conclusion to draw or was that conclusion flawed? Did Jack really wander back onto London’s streets three years after the last of what are commonly known as the canonical 5, or did another murderer stalk those same streets?

Personally, I’ve never been wholly convinced by the notion that the murders back in 1888 were all the work of one man. Take a look at the killing of Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly. In particular the detail surrounding their deaths. In many ways each murder is different. Granted there are certain similarities but maybe enough differences to question the wisdom of modern day thinkers. Some were killed on the street, one definitely indoors, some mutilated, some not and so on. Then there are the others either side of those 5 murders. Rose Mylett, Emma Smith, Martha Tabram, Alice McKenzie, Frances Coles and a few that got away. So, to my mind at least, that suggests multiple murderers and a crime list lumped together by media, police, and a reading public all too eager to accept the so-called,’informed view.’

Television and Hollywood favoured the Tall Hat guy. The mysterious figure appearing out the London smog, unseen until he struck. Numerous writers added flesh to the bones, so to speak, and pointed at the mad man, the American, the artist, the policeman, or the doctor. Take your pick, they can all be made to fit. But if we really knew who, if any, really did fit the bill there would be no more books about Jack the Ripper, would there?

So, in the case of Frances Coles, pointing a finger in his direction keeps his story alive and ensures her murder remains forever unsolved. A good enough reason I thought to re-open her case and take a more detailed look. What research revealed is not just how complex the case against the Ripper really is but also just how macabre it is. Here is a man, I’m pretty sure it was a man, operating at the dead of night, in most cases out on the street, surrounded by police and carrying out the most horrific, brutal, bloody attacks on women then escaping unseen. How?

Surely not possible, a killer in plain sight? It has to be a possibility that’s exactly what he was. A man visible, maybe known to the police, perhaps through his occupation, a street presence accepted and never questioned. Why? Simply because police knew him, had maybe even questioned him, but a man who was never considered a killer because his occupation put him out on the street. Credible? I think so. The story told some years after the murders had stopped by sailor, James Brame, though discredited because it was an exaggerated tale, did probably have an element of truth within it. He claimed the Ripper was a sailor and worked in tangent with another man and always, when out to kill, dressed as a slaughter man. Why not?

Whilst I don’t believe Brame knew the identity of the Whitechapel killer there are elements of his story, all of which I examined in ‘Return of the Ripper? The murder of Frances Coles,’ that resonate for me. It has to be possible that far being the man in the top hat the killer was, as Brame described, a man of the street and as such ignored by everyone involved in the case. It certainly made me think, which brings me back to Frances, and for me at least challenges Jack’s presence in Swallow Gardens back in 1891.It has to be unlikely, despite what the press thought at the time, that she was caught by the world’s most famous serial killer’s return to old haunts. But I can understand just why his name was dragged into her murder and if I’m honest I can’t, with conviction, discount him.

All of which means if not him then who?

Her murder certainly asked questions of the investigating police and the methods they had used to investigate the original 1888 killings. It also re-invigorated a bias press and in many ways helped moved forward police procedure when it came to how they handled murder sites. Lessons had been learned from that earlier catalogue of murder and new ones would be learned at future murder sites. But at the time of Frances’s death there were still police inadequacies. History shows they improved significantly, as did the science behind forensic pathology. Unfortunately none of it helped bring justice for her or her family.

In the book I’ve tried to examine the arguments that raged around her death and the testimony presented to police by witnesses and the various inquests. I also examine in detail the other unsolved murders that were relevant and there were quite a few. My intention was to present a narrative that is both detailed, concise and questioning. Looking at her murder and those considered to be the work of Jack the Ripper, in tandem if you like, helps to give a more rounded picture of London back then and just how dangerous the streets were after dark. It also lets the reader make their own mind up as to the veracity of the Ripper legend and whether or not he was Whitechapel’s only killer.

Doctor Forbes Winslow’s investigation

According to record Dr Forbes Winslow believed he knew the identity of Jack the Ripper.

Who was he? I think perhaps the first criminal psychologist. I was attracted to his story when I researched Frances Coles and the whole Jack the Ripper legend. He was a man of wealth, took his father’s name, followed in the same medical footsteps and had a serious interest in mental illness. No crank, he became fascinated by murder and those who perpetrated it. So, when the Ripper murders began to be reported by the press he was drawn into the investigation, though not by the police. Any involvement by his profession in crime generally back in the late nineteenth century was seen more as a hindrance than a help. Something Forbes Winslow I’m sure would have a realised and maybe even accepted. But it did not stop him involving himself in the investigation whenever he could although generally that was through the media. Newspapers loved him, they sought his views and he gave them freely.Return of The Ripper
I think for him Jack the Ripper and the nature of the crimes he committed demanded a level of psychiatric analysis only he felt capable of providing. It wasn’t just the killing that fascinated him but the level of mutilation he inflicted on his victims after he had killed. For Forbes Winslow I think it fair to say he recognised in that a level of psychosis rarely seen and never before understood. A hallmark, if you like, which identified a certain character trait. Without realising it I think he was beginning to profile Whitechapel’s killer. He was not the only one, of course, others had tried. But maybe the good doctor’s conclusions were not so wide of the mark. For him Jack the Ripper was, as he put it, a man suffering from religious mania. A man with an obsession. One which drove him to violence. He was also a man living in and around Whitechapel. A killer that rented rooms near to where he killed and moved to other lodgings immediately after killing. He was also, thought doctor Forbes, a well made man, not a poor man. Someone able to fund his life style and a man who most likely kept trophies, articles he took from his victims.

All this he told police. I am sure they listened but they did nothing else. But Forbes never gave up. at the height of the killings, he believed he knew of rooms the killer had rented and of his church going habits. Again all information given to police and none of it, I would imagine, taken seriously. So Forbes Winslow, whether through frustration or anger, began to go out onto Whitechapel’s streets at night in the hope of either stopping the killer or at least better understanding just how the area functioned. By the later part of 1888 he had become a familiar face moving around the various pubs and lodging houses. Known to police and the women who often frequented them if not by name certainly by sight. Though as far as is known it brought nothing new to the investigation.

When the murders stopped his opinion was simply that the killer had moved away, not that he had died. Late in life he even offered up a potential name. A man he claimed who had sailed away to Australia and was still alive at the time living somewhere in South Africa. The story, in part at least, is verifiable and intriguing. But is it true?

Like all things Jack the Ripper nothing is ever as it seems but what Forbes Winslow did was offer up a captivating, fascinating notion that London’s serial killer was alive and well at the start of the twentieth century. That the murders, which he believed started with Martha Tabram and ended with Alice McKenzie, were never repeated elsewhere in the world. Jack’s manic psychotic desires had been satiated on Whitechapel’s dark, dirty streets and provided it stayed that way his anonymity was guaranteed.

Maybe he was right. I have my doubts. But nevertheless doctor Forbes Winslow’s involvement in the Jack the Ripper story is an important and, I think, often overlooked part. He may not have found the killer, may not even have got as close as he thought, but he did offer up a credible solution. All these years later it’s impossible to know just if he did ever get close or whether his theories really are a valid contribution to the unsolved Whitechapel cases of 1888.

I have examined some of his conclusions in more detail in, ‘Return of the Ripper? The Murder of Frances Coles,’ because I feel there is a relevance. The 1880’s were pretty desperate for a lot of people living in Whitechapel. Murder was a major problem throughout the whole decade and Forbes Winslow along with advances in police procedure helped shape policing at the start of the twentieth century. So, I feel he deserves a little credit.