Herald Português

Serial Killers · 5 chapters · 23 min

Jack the Ripper: The Five Women of Whitechapel

1888 to 2019Whitechapel and Spitalfields, in the East End of London; the City of London

The story in brief

London, autumn 1888. In Whitechapel, the poorest district of the richest city in the world, five women are killed in ten weeks. A letter signed with a nickname makes the case the first to cause a frenzy in the press of the whole world, and the police never find out who did it. This is their story: Polly, Annie, Liz, Kate and Mary Jane. An account of real crimes, without violent detail.

The chapters

  1. Chapter 1 · 4 min · Free

    Four Pence

    Everyone knows the nickname the papers gave the killer. Almost no one knows the women’s names.

    Sources: Inquest of Mary Ann Nichols (1888); Charles Booth (1889); Hallie Rubenhold, The Five (2019)

  2. Chapter 2 · 4 min · Free

    The Name

    In September, London panics. And a letter in red ink gives the killer the name that caught on.

    Sources: Inquest of Annie Chapman (1888); The “Dear Boss” letter (1888); Punch (22 September 1888)

  3. Chapter 3 · 5 min

    Two in One Night

    In the same early hours, two women are killed less than an hour apart. And a line written in chalk is gone before daybreak.

    Sources: Inquests of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes (1888); Metropolitan Police notice (30 September 1888)

  4. Chapter 4 · 5 min

    From Hell

    A small box comes by post. Then weeks of silence. And then, the youngest of the five.

    Sources: The Daily Telegraph (19 October 1888); Inquest of Mary Jane Kelly (1888)

  5. Chapter 5 · 5 min

    The Five Names

    A hundred and thirty years of suspects and theories. And a book that changed the question: not who he was, but who they were.

    Sources: Melville Macnaghten (1894 and 1914); Robert Anderson (1910); Hallie Rubenhold, The Five (2019)

What you’ll be able to tell

This story belongs to the journey “Legend and Record”. By the end of it, you can tell what the legend made up and what the documents prove, case by case.

Stories in this journey

  1. Jack the Ripper: The Five Women of Whitechapel
  2. H. H. Holmes: The Castle the Papers Built
  3. Rua do Arvoredo: The Sausage Legend of Porto Alegre
  4. Elizabeth Báthory: The Countess and the Blood Legend

Sources

  • The 1888 inquests (The Times, The Daily Telegraph, Daily News, The Star)
  • The Metropolitan Police notice of 30 September 1888
  • The “Dear Boss” letter (1888)
  • Charles Booth (1889)
  • Robert Anderson (1910)
  • Melville Macnaghten (1914)
  • Hallie Rubenhold, The Five (2019)

Serial Killers: every story