Jack The Ripper: Analyzing The Psychology Of The Famous Criminal
During 1888, the inhabitants of the district of Whitechapel (London), They lived in terror of a wave of crimes that devastated this working-class neighborhood at the end of the 20th century. XIX
Five prostitutes murdered between August, September and November, and a trail of clues led to the search for a tireless and elusive murderer who outwitted the police force and investigators of the time, who, even today, continues without being positively identified. and definitively.
While it is true that over time the name of five “official” victims of Jack the Ripper has been known, it should be mentioned that up to a total of thirteen have been attributed to him. All of them were prostitutes who sold their bodies to the sailors who arrived at the EastendEdit (as the area where Whitechapel was located was known), in exchange for a few pence that could provide them with a roof over their heads in some seedy boarding house, and possibly a loaf of stale bread to put in their mouths, to avoid spending nights sleeping rough or wandering the streets again, as had already happened to many.
Let’s see the names and dates of the deaths of those known as “canonical victims”:
Four of the bodies were found spread out in the middle of the street, except for that of Mary Jane Kelly (the last of the five, who was in a small rental room facing the street). Their throats had been cut from left to right with a violent cut that in some cases reached up to the spine and that had been made with some type of scalpel or very sharp machete.
Incisions had been made in the abdominal cavity of all of them, except for Elizabeth Stride (the fourth murdered, who was scathingly nicknamed ““Lucky Liz”), spilling out the intestines, liver and even the uterus.
The possible identities of the murderer
Mary Jane Kelly suffered amputations all over her body: in addition to having her nose, ears and breasts removed, Jack left behind a remains of tattered flesh that bore no resemblance to what was said to be the beautiful and candid young woman.
Due to the shelter that the place where his body was found provided from possible onlookers passing through the area, Experts suggest that Jack was able to give free rein to his deepest impulses sadistic and cruel within those four walls, since the state in which the body was left had not been seen in any of the other prostitutes.
Some of the suspects who have opted for the title of “Jack the Ripper” are:
Walter Kosminski
In favor: Several discoveries made in September 2014 attribute the authorship of the events to this Polish Jew. He was known to be a sex maniac that roamed the area. According to researcher Russell Edwards, a bloody shawl belonging to Catherine Edowes contained Kosminski’s mitochondrial DNA.
Against: The reasons why it could be ruled out as a suspect is that it is a shawl that does not seem typical of a prostitute with an almost impoverished life, in addition to the fact that the evidence that this type of DNA can provide does not point to a single culprit.
Prince Albert Victor Edward
The Duke of Clarence or Eddy, grandson of Queen Victoria and future heir to the Crown.
In favor: In 1970, a certain Doctor Stowell told a writer of the time that forty years ago he contacted Caroline Acland, daughter of the Royal Family’s personal physician, Sir William Gull (who is also considered one of the most plausible suspects). According to her statements, her father had found a series of parchments and manuscripts in which it was reported that the Prince had died in 1892 of venereal disease, specifically syphilis, not of a flu epidemic as was done. official. As it was said, His lust and sexual depravity led him to want to explore the realms of the macabre
Against: Unfortunately for those who believed they had unmasked the murderer, it is known that the morning after one of the crimes, the heir was traveling in Scotland.
Sir William Gull and Freemasonry
He is the personal doctor of the British Royal Family.
In favor: The Royal Conspiracy theory maintains that Prince Edward had an affair with a young prostitute named Annie Crook.
It was Walter Sickert (another suspect) who introduced them, without revealing Eddy’s identity to her. The two would end up getting married and secretly having a daughter. To try to cover up this scandal that would turn the Crown upside down and put her heir in question, Queen Victoria had Annie locked up in a psychiatric hospital so that a lobotomy could be performed on her so that she could not divulge anything of what had happened. It was Gull himself who carried it out. The girl was left in the care of Mary Jane Kelly, a personal friend of her mother, who attempted a crude blackmail operation against the Crown along with her four friends. Therefore, Queen Victoria commissioned Mr. Gull (who was an active member of Freemasonry) to eliminate them. Years ago, he suffered a stroke that left him with consequences in the form of hallucinations.
As the defenders of this conjecture say, Gull traveled inside a horse-drawn cart driven by a coachman who had to trick the unfortunate victims into getting on. Once inside the wagon, Gull did the rest. The coachman’s second task was the immediate escape from the place. Two other Freemasons (Inspectors Warren and Macnaghten) had the mission of covering up the identity of the doctor so that he could complete his mission and to eliminate any evidence he might leave behind.
Against: As tempting as the evidence is (some see signs of Masonic rituals in the murders, such as the fact that the beheadings were carried out from left to right), it seems that Sir William must be ruled out as the man who hides behind “Jack the Ripper”, since there was a lot of manipulation of evidence and dates, not to mention the inclusion and exclusion of characters in the events.
Walter Sickert
Famous Polish painter of the time of Jewish origin.
In favor: According to Patricia Cornwell’s book “Portrait of a murderer: Jack the Ripper. Case closed*”,*** we conclude that this man is the one and only indisputable murderer of Whitechapel A difficult childhood due to the almost total amputation of his virile member due to a malformation that made sexual intercourse impossible, DNA samples found in the defiant letters that the newspapers and the Scotland Yard police station received, along with clues about the scenes of the crimes found in his paintings and that only the investigators knew about, are some of the arguments of those in favor of his guilt.
Against: Those who question it allude to the low specificity of mitochondrial DNA as irrefutable evidence, in addition to doubting the judgment of those who see evidence of the homicides in Sickert’s paintings.
Towards a sketch of the psychology of Jack the Ripper
The famous former FBI agent and criminologist Robert K. Ressler speaks in his book “serial killers” (2005) of disorganized type murderers:
“A disorganized crime scene reflects the confusion that reigns in the murderer’s mind and presents features of spontaneity and some symbolic elements that reflect his delusions. If the body is found (…), it will probably have terrible injuries. (…) The crime scene is also the scene of death, because the criminal does not have sufficient mental clarity to move or hide the body”. (p.127-128)
This corresponds almost entirely to jack profile whoever he was, since none of the scenarios he left behind suggest an organizational pattern (beyond victimology or the instruments used).
Social origin
In his other book,Inside the monster: an attempt to understand serial killers” (2010), mentions that the fear that this murderer caused in his time is due to the fact that he was one of the first to choose unknown victims, with whom it seems he had no emotional or family ties. At that time, “(…) the emotional components of violence within the family were understandable, and he suggested that the investigations in this case led to erroneous conclusions due to this inability to understand violence against strangers.
After an in-person visit to the scene, he ruled that the police were wrong to look for ‘upper class individuals.’ According to his investigations, It was someone from the same social class as the prostitutes, due to the places they frequented and the circumstances surrounding the crimes. Had he been someone of high standing, his presence in the area would not have gone unnoticed by the neighbors.
He was a “disorganized killer”
In the same way as in his previous publication, he maintains that “Jack the Ripper” was a disorganized murderer, due to crescendo in the violence with which he committed his deaths. If he reached the zenith of his mental disturbance, he would most certainly have been incapable of continuing to commit such acts, with which he “would have ended up committing suicide or locked up in an asylum.” In either case, he would have disappeared from society.
Lastly, it adds the sexual component to the murders, despite the absence of intercourse. pre either postmortem. According to her, she wrote, “(…) the attack with the knife on the body replaced the attack on the penis.” The same author coined the term “regressive necrophilia” to refer to this “practice of resorting to such penis substitutes.”
And he continues: “In most serial murders, the weapon of choice has been the knife, followed by the strangulation method and, thirdly, suffocation. Serial killers do not usually use guns, since they kill from a distance and they seek the personal satisfaction of killing with their own hands. (p. 79).
Other evidence in favor of a sexual component is the removal of the uterus that was found in some of the corpses. Mary Jane Kelly also had both of her breasts removed, on one of which she placed her ears and nose, as a grotesque decoration.
Jack the Ripper in popular culture
After 127 years, the “Jack the Ripper” case continues to generate press This infamous murderer has become an icon of popular culture and his crimes have given rise to multiple novels and films in which various hypotheses are considered.
For better or worse, this character continues to make people talk today, and we are sure that in the future new evidence will resurface that reinforces the hypotheses described here or that will reveal other possible culprits of these massacres.
