(centre right),
George Yard (centre left),
Hanbury Street (top),
Buck's Row (far right),
Berner Street (bottom right),
Mitre Square (bottom left), and
Dorset Street (middle left) The large number of attacks against women in the East End during this time adds uncertainty to how many victims were murdered by the same person. Eleven separate murders, stretching from 1888 to 1891, were included in a Metropolitan Police investigation and were known collectively in the police docket as the "Whitechapel murders". Opinions vary as to whether these murders should be linked to the same culprit, but five of the eleven Whitechapel murders, known as the "canonical five", are widely believed to be the work of the Ripper. Most experts point to deep
slash wounds to the throat, followed by extensive abdominal and genital-area mutilation, the removal of internal organs, and progressive facial mutilations as the distinctive features of the Ripper's
modus operandi. The first two cases in the Whitechapel murders file, those of
Emma Elizabeth Smith and
Martha Tabram, are not included in the canonical five. Smith was robbed and
sexually assaulted in
Osborn Street, Whitechapel, at approximately on 1888. She had been bludgeoned about the face and received a cut to her ear. A blunt object was also inserted into her
vagina, rupturing her
peritoneum. She developed
peritonitis and died the following day at
London Hospital. Smith stated that she had been attacked by two or three men, one of whom she described as a teenager. This attack was linked to the later murders by the press, but most authors attribute this murder to general East End
gang violence unrelated to the Ripper case. Tabram was murdered on a staircase landing in George Yard, Whitechapel, on 7 August 1888; she had suffered 39 stab wounds to her throat, lungs, heart, liver,
spleen, stomach, and abdomen, with additional knife wounds inflicted to her breasts and vagina. All but one of Tabram's wounds had been inflicted with a bladed instrument such as a
penknife, and with one possible exception, all the wounds had been inflicted by a right-handed person. However, this murder differs from the later canonical murders because although Tabram had been repeatedly stabbed, she had not suffered any slash wounds to her throat or abdomen. Many experts do not connect Tabram's murder with the later murders because of this difference in the wound pattern.
Canonical five The "canonical five" Ripper victims are
Mary Ann Nichols,
Annie Chapman,
Elizabeth Stride,
Catherine Eddowes, and
Mary Jane Kelly. The body of Mary Ann Nichols was discovered at about on Friday 1888 in Buck's Row (now
Durward Street), Whitechapel. Nichols had last been seen alive approximately one hour before the discovery of her body by a Mrs. Emily Holland, with whom she had previously shared a bed at a common lodging-house in Thrawl Street, Spitalfields, walking in the direction of
Whitechapel Road. Her throat was severed by two deep cuts, one of which completely severed all the
tissue down to the
vertebrae. Her vagina had been stabbed twice, and the lower part of her abdomen was partly ripped open by a deep, jagged wound, causing her bowels to protrude. Several other incisions inflicted to both sides of her abdomen had also been caused by the same knife; each of these wounds had been inflicted in a downward thrusting manner. . The door through which
Annie Chapman and her murderer walked to the yard where her body was discovered is beneath the numerals of the property sign. One week later, on Saturday 1888, the body of Annie Chapman was discovered at approximately near the steps to the doorway of the back yard of 29
Hanbury Street, Spitalfields. As in the case of Nichols, the throat was severed by two deep cuts. Her abdomen had been cut entirely open, with a section of the flesh from her stomach being placed upon her left shoulder and another section of skin and flesh—plus her
small intestines—being removed and placed above her right shoulder. Chapman's autopsy also revealed that her
uterus and sections of her
bladder and vagina had been removed. At the
inquest into Chapman's murder, Elizabeth Long described having seen Chapman standing outside 29 Hanbury Street at about in the company of a dark-haired man wearing a brown
deerstalker hat and dark overcoat, and of a "shabby-
genteel" appearance. According to this eyewitness, the man had asked Chapman, "Will you?" to which Chapman had replied, "Yes." Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes were both killed in the early morning hours of Sunday 1888. Stride's body was discovered at approximately in Dutfield's Yard, off Berner Street (now
Henriques Street) in Whitechapel. The cause of death was a single clear-cut incision, measuring six inches across her neck which had severed her left
carotid artery and her
trachea before terminating beneath her right jaw. The absence of any further mutilations to her body has led to uncertainty as to whether Stride's murder was committed by the Ripper, or whether he was interrupted during the attack. Several witnesses later informed police they had seen Stride in the company of a man in or close to Berner Street on the evening of 29 September and in the early hours of 30 September, but each gave differing descriptions: some said that her companion was fair, others dark; some said that he was shabbily dressed, others well-dressed. , as discovered in
Mitre Square Eddowes's body was found in a corner of
Mitre Square in the
City of London, three-quarters of an hour after the discovery of the body of Elizabeth Stride. Her throat was severed from ear to ear and her abdomen ripped open by a long, deep and jagged wound before her intestines had been placed over her right shoulder, with a section of the intestine being completely detached and placed between her body and left arm. The left kidney and the major part of Eddowes's uterus had been removed, and her face had been disfigured, with her nose severed, her cheek slashed, and cuts measuring a quarter of an inch and a half an inch respectively vertically incised through each of her eyelids. A triangular incision—the
apex of which pointed towards Eddowes's eye—had also been carved upon each of her cheeks, and a section of the
auricle and
lobe of her right ear was later recovered from her clothing. The
police surgeon who conducted the
post mortem upon Eddowes's body stated his opinion these mutilations would have taken "at least five minutes" to complete. A local cigarette salesman named
Joseph Lawende had passed by a narrow walkway to Mitre Square named Church Passage with two friends shortly before the murder; he later described seeing a fair-haired man of medium build with a shabby appearance with a woman who may have been Eddowes. The murders of Stride and Eddowes ultimately became known as the "double event". A section of Eddowes's bloodied apron was found at the entrance to a tenement in Goulston Street, Whitechapel, at . A chalk inscription upon the wall directly above this piece of apron read: "The Juwes are The men That Will not be Blamed for nothing." This graffito became known as the
Goulston Street graffito. The message appeared to imply that a
Jew or Jews in general were responsible for the series of murders, but it is unclear whether the graffito was written by the murderer on dropping the section of apron, or was merely incidental and nothing to do with the case. Such graffiti were commonplace in Whitechapel. Sir
Charles Warren, the
Police Commissioner, feared that the graffito might spark antisemitic riots and ordered the writing washed away before dawn. The extensively mutilated and
disembowelled body of Mary Jane Kelly was discovered lying on the bed in the single room where she lived at 13 Miller's Court, off
Dorset Street, Spitalfields, at on Friday 1888. Her face had been "hacked beyond all recognition", with her throat severed down to the spine, and the abdomen almost emptied of its organs. Her uterus, kidneys and one breast had been placed beneath her head, and other
viscera from her body placed beside her foot, about the bed and sections of her abdomen and thighs upon a bedside table. The heart was missing from the crime scene. Multiple ashes found within the fireplace at 13 Miller's Court suggested Kelly's murderer had burned several combustible items to illuminate the single room as he mutilated her body. A recent fire had been severe enough to melt the
solder between a kettle and its spout, which had fallen into the grate of the fireplace. as discovered in 13 Miller's Court,
Spitalfields, 9 November 1888 Each of the canonical five murders was perpetrated at night, on or close to a weekend, either at the end of a month or a week (or so) after. The mutilations became increasingly severe as the series of murders proceeded, except for that of Stride, whose attacker may have been interrupted. Nichols was not missing any organs; Chapman's uterus and sections of her bladder and vagina were taken; Eddowes had her uterus and left kidney removed and her face mutilated; and Kelly's body was extensively
eviscerated, with her face "gashed in all directions" and the
tissue of her neck being severed to the bone, although the heart was the sole body organ missing from this crime scene. Historically, the belief that these five canonical murders were committed by the same perpetrator is derived from contemporaneous documents which link them together to the exclusion of others. In 1894, Sir
Melville Macnaghten, Assistant
Chief Constable of the
Metropolitan Police Service and Head of the
Criminal Investigation Department (CID), wrote a report that stated: "the Whitechapel murderer had 5 victims—& 5 victims only". Similarly, the canonical five victims were linked together in a letter written by police surgeon
Thomas Bond to
Robert Anderson, head of the London CID, on 1888. Authors Stewart P. Evans and
Donald Rumbelow argue that the canonical five is a "Ripper myth" and that three cases (Nichols, Chapman, and Eddowes) can be definitely linked to the same perpetrator, but that less certainty exists as to whether Stride and Kelly were also murdered by the same person. Conversely, others suppose that the six murders between Tabram and Kelly were the work of a single killer. Macnaghten did not join the police force until the year after the murders, and his memorandum contains serious factual errors about possible suspects.
Later Whitechapel murders Mary Jane Kelly is generally considered to be the Ripper's final victim, and it is assumed that the crimes ended because of the culprit's death, imprisonment,
institutionalisation, or emigration. The Whitechapel murders file details another four murders that occurred after the canonical five: those of Rose Mylett, Alice McKenzie, the Pinchin Street torso, and Frances Coles. The
strangled body of 26-year-old Rose Mylett was found in Clarke's Yard, High Street,
Poplar on 1888. There was no sign of a struggle, and the police believed that she had either accidentally hanged herself with her collar while in a
drunken stupor or committed suicide. At the inquest into Mylett's death, the jury returned a verdict of murder. Alice McKenzie was murdered shortly after midnight on 17 July 1889 in Castle Alley, Whitechapel. She had suffered two stab wounds to her neck, and her left
carotid artery had been severed. Several minor bruises and cuts were found on her body, which also bore a seven-inch long superficial wound extending from her left breast to her
navel. One of the examining pathologists, Thomas Bond, believed this to be a Ripper murder, though his colleague George Bagster Phillips, who had examined the bodies of three previous victims, disagreed. Opinions among writers are also divided between those who suspect McKenzie's murderer copied the
modus operandi of Jack the Ripper to deflect suspicion from himself, and those who ascribe this murder to Jack the Ripper. "The Pinchin Street torso" was a decomposing headless and legless torso of an unidentified woman aged between 30 and 40 discovered beneath a railway arch in Pinchin Street, Whitechapel, on 1889. Bruising about the victim's back, hip, and arm indicated the decedent had been extensively beaten shortly before her death. The victim's abdomen was also extensively mutilated, although her genitals had not been wounded. She appeared to have been killed approximately one day prior to the discovery of her torso. The dismembered sections of the body are believed to have been transported to the railway arch, hidden under an old chemise. At on 13 February 1891, PC Ernest Thompson discovered a 31-year-old prostitute named Frances Coles lying beneath a railway arch at Swallow Gardens, Whitechapel. Her throat had been deeply cut but her body was not mutilated, leading some to believe Thompson had disturbed her assailant. Coles was still alive, although she died before medical help could arrive. A 53-year-old
stoker,
James Thomas Sadler, had earlier been seen drinking with Coles, and the two are known to have argued approximately three hours before her death. Sadler—a known
client of Coles—was arrested by the police and charged with her murder. He was briefly thought to be the Ripper,
Other alleged victims In addition to the eleven Whitechapel murders, commentators have linked other attacks to the Ripper. In the case of "Fairy Fay", it is unclear whether this attack was real or fabricated as a part of Ripper lore. "Fairy Fay" was a nickname given to an unidentified "after a stake had been thrust through her abdomen", but there were no recorded murders in Whitechapel at or around Christmas 1887. "Fairy Fay" seems to have been created through a confused press report of the murder of Emma Elizabeth Smith, who had a stick or other blunt object shoved into her vagina. Most authors agree that the victim "Fairy Fay" never existed. A 38-year-old widow named Annie Millwood was admitted to the Whitechapel Workhouse Infirmary with numerous stab wounds to her legs and lower torso on 1888, informing staff she had been attacked with a
clasp knife by an unknown man. She was later discharged, but died from apparently natural causes on . Another suspected precanonical victim was a young dressmaker named Ada Wilson, who reportedly survived being stabbed twice in the neck with a clasp knife upon the doorstep of her home in
Bow on 1888 by a man who had demanded money from her. A further possible victim, 40-year-old Annie Farmer, resided at the same lodging house as Martha Tabram and reported an attack on 1888. She had received a superficial cut to her throat. Although an unknown man with blood on his mouth and hands had run out of this lodging house, shouting, "Look at what she has done!" before two eyewitnesses heard Farmer scream, her wound was light, and possibly
self-inflicted. "The
Whitehall Mystery" was a term coined for the discovery of a headless torso of a woman on 1888 in the basement of the new
Metropolitan Police headquarters being built in
Whitehall. An arm and shoulder belonging to the body were previously discovered floating in the
River Thames near
Pimlico on 11 September, and the left leg was subsequently discovered buried near where the torso was found on 17 October. The other limbs and head were never recovered and the body was never identified. The mutilations were similar to those in the Pinchin Street torso case, where the legs and head were severed but not the arms. " of October 1888 Both the Whitehall Mystery and the Pinchin Street case may have been part of a series of murders known as the "
Thames Mysteries", committed by a single serial killer dubbed the "Torso killer". The
modus operandi of the Torso killer differed from that of the Ripper, and police at the time discounted any connection between the two. Only one of the four victims linked to the Torso killer, Elizabeth Jackson, was ever identified. Jackson was a 24-year-old prostitute from
Chelsea whose various body parts were collected from the River Thames over a three-week period between 31 May and 25 June 1889. On 1888, the body of a seven-year-old boy named John Gill was discovered in a stable block in
Manningham, Bradford. Gill had been missing since the morning of 27 December. His legs had been severed, his abdomen opened, his intestines partly drawn out, and his heart and one ear were missing. Similarities with the Ripper murders led to press speculation that the Ripper had killed him.
Carrie Brown (nicknamed "
Shakespeare", reportedly for her habit of quoting Shakespeare's
sonnets) was strangled with clothing and then mutilated with a knife on 1891 in
New York City. ==Investigation==