The Ripper's Mystery Letter

10/14/2024

By M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
Not only was the identity of Jack the Ripper a mystery, but also if indeed he was the author of several letters received by the police after the murders. A forensic linguist from the University of Manchester has found part of the answer.

"Dear Boss" letter supposedly written by Jack the Ripper

A forensic linguist from The University of Manchester who analyzed letters supposedly signed by Jack the Ripper, has concluded that two of the most famous examples were written by the same person.

Following the murders, police and newspapers were sent more than 200 letters supposedly from the Ripper, and which magnified his notoriety. There is a theory that some of the letters were written by reporters in order to increase the circulation of their respective newspapers.

Most that were signed "Jack the Ripper" were, and are still regarded as hoaxes.

The impetus for the numerous letters was when the police decided to publish four of the letters, which had been received thus far.

Dr. Andrea Nini a forensic linguist with the University of Manchester examined two of the earlier letters: the "Dear Boss" letter and the "Saucy Jack" postcard.

He said:

I came across the Jack the Ripper letters a few years ago and I was surprised to know that there had not been any forensic linguistics analysis of them, so I thought that I could apply modern forensic linguistic techniques to uncover evidence about their author.

My conclusion is that there is very strong linguistic evidence that these two texts were written by the same person. People in the past had already expressed this tentative conclusion, on the basis of similarity of handwriting, but this had not been established with certainty. I also found evidence that could link the author of these two letters to the so-called ‘Moab and Midian’ letter, which some people believe was a hoax created by the Central News Agency of London.

Jack the Ripper named himself by sending newspapers a letter and a postcard in 1888

Jack the Ripper wasn't always known as Jack the Ripper. Prior to the death of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes who were both killed on September 30, 1888 he was called the "Red Fiend", "The Whitechapel Murderer" and "Leather Apron".

He named himself in a letter sent to the Central News Agency as "Jack the Ripper" three days prior to the slaughter of Stride and Eddowes. The newspaper ignored the letter and sent it to the police on September, 29.

Addressed to "The Boss, Central News Office, London City", it read:

Dear Boss,
I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they wont fix me just yet. I have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track. That joke about Leather Apron gave me real fits. I am down on whores and I shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled. Grand work the last job was. I gave the lady no time to squeal.
How can they catch me now. I love my work and want to start again. You will soon hear of me with my funny little games. I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with but it went thick like glue and I cant use it. Red ink is fit enough I hope ha ha. The next job I do I shall clip the ladys ears off and send to the police officers just for jolly wouldn't you. Keep this letter back till I do a bit more work, then give it out straight.

My knife's so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get a chance.

Good Luck.
Yours truly
Jack the Ripper

Don't mind me giving the trade name. Wasn't good enough to post this before I got all the red ink off my hands curse it. No luck yet. They say I'm a doctor now. ha ha

Illustrated Police News Alice MacKenzie c. July, 1889

The police believed the letter to be a hoax, but within 24 hours two more prostitutes were killed. This is when they decided to actually consider the letter to be authentic, especially since Catharine Eddowes' earlobes were mutilated as he had specified in the letter.

Desperate for a lead, on October 1, the police made the letter public. That same day a postcard written in a similar handwriting was addressed the same as the letter. The scrawl was in red ink and it appeared to have bloodstains on it.

The postcard read:

I was not codding dear old Boss when I gave you the tip, you'll hear about Saucy Jacky's work tomorrow double event this time number one squealed a bit couldn't finish straight off had not the time to get ears for police. thanks for keeping last letter back till I got to work again.

Jack the Ripper.

The murder of Frances Coles on February 13, 1891

The postcard references the two murders, and the attempt of mutilating the victim's ears.

Publishing the letters caused hoaxers to swamp police with bogus ones. Manpower was spent assessing each letter, trying to determine if it was authentic and then trace the writer.

The fact that the author of the letter and the postcard, sent them to a news agency versus a newspaper indicated he was familiar with the working of the press.

On October 16, 1888 George Lusk, the President of the Mile End Vigilance Committee received what is now the second most famous of all the letters, "From Hell" which came with half of a preserved human kidney, purportedly taken from one of the victims.

A common theme running through the Ripper letters was sending a body part to the police, and a missive sent to Lusk in mid-October made reference to cannibalism.

Even though the five main murders attributed to Jack the Ripper occurred in 1888, police investigated eleven killings committed in Whitechapel and Spitalfields between 1888 and 1891.

Mary Jane Kelly was the last of what are considered the canonical five, or authenticated victims done in by Saucy Jack. The belief was that he stopped because he died, went to prison or an asylum or left the country. However there were four other women murdered afterward that some argue were Ripper victims as well. They are: Rose Mylett, Alice McKenzie, the Pinchin Street torso and Frances Coles.

The murders were committed during a time when immigrants from Ireland, and Jews fleeing from Eastern Europe overcrowded the East End of London. The parish of Whitechapel had swelled to 80,000 inhabitants by 1888. Due to poverty, many women were forced into prostitution, and there were over 60 brothels and 1,200 women who sustained themselves this way. The crimes strengthened the public belief that Whitechapel was a den of immorality and decay.

"The Whitehall Mystery": An illustration of the discovery of a female torso in the basement of the Norman Shaw Building (Source - The Illustrated Police News newspaper, October 1888)

A decomposing torso was discovered at Pinchin Street, Whitechapel beneath a railway arch in September, 1889. The woman which has never been identified was estimated to be between the age of 30 to 40, and had bruising on her back and arms indicating she had been beaten shortly before being killed. Not only was she decapitated but her legs were sawed off. Her abdomen was mutilated, but her genitals were not cut. It was estimated she was killed a day prior to the discovery somewhere else, and the torso was taken to the railway and hidden under an old chemise. The missing body parts were never found.

This murder was tied into another crime which predated the Ripper murders. Between May and June 1887 parts of a woman's body was found in the Thames near Rainham. First a bundle with the torso was discovered, then through May and June other body parts. The head and upper chest were never found.

Investigators concluded she had not been dissected by a medical student, but that a knowledge of anatomy was evident in the way she had been cut up.

Between September and October, 1888 parts of a woman's body were found at three different locations in the center of the city, including what would become the future police headquarter known as Scotland Yard. This would be dubbed the Whitehall Mystery. The headless torso was found in the basement of the new Metropolitan Police hedaquarters still under construction in Whitehall. The shoulder and arm had been found floating in the Thames neat Pimlico on September 11, almost a month before. The left leg was buried near where the torso was found, and unearthed on October 17. As the parts were found, they were matched by a police surgeon as belonging to the same victim. The rest of the victim was never found nor was she identified. The mutilations were similar to the victim found on Pinchin Street.

Dorset Street, Spitalfields c.1902

A female torso was found in the Thames on June 4, 1889. The following week other parts were found in the river. Eleven body parts were discovered in different places, and again it was concluded the person who committed the crime had medical knowledge. The woman was 8 months pregnant. The head was never found but she was identified as Elizabeth Jackson a homeless prostitute from Chelsea.

There were other cases in which it was debated whether they were the handiwork of the same person.

The following murders all predated Whitechapel killings. In September, 1873, fifteen years before the Ripper murders, the left quarter of a woman's trunk was found near Battersea. Four other body parts were found in the following days. The nose and the chin were cut from the face and the head had been scalped.

The police surgeon reconstructed the corpse, and it was reported she had been cut up dexterously and not hacked. A reward for 200£ was offered but the case remained unsolved.

In June, 1874 a woman's dismembered body was found in the Thames at Putney. The torso only had one leg attached. The police surgeon stated the body had been cut at the spinal cord, then was treated with lime before being dumped into the river. The case like the others remained unsolved.

In October, 1884 there was another case related to the discovery of human remains near Tottenham Court Road in Bedford Square. A skull with flesh still adhering to it, as well as a large piece of flesh from the thighbone was discovered. Then a woman's arm was thrown over the railing with a tattoo on it indicating she was a prostitute.

Then five days later a torso was found at Fitzroy Square. An inquest was held in December, which showed the body was skillfully dissected. It was reported in the Pall Mall Gazette, "the side walk in front of the house is constantly patrolled by police...it is believed that the parcel was deposited between ten o'clock and ten fifteen, when the police relief takes place." The place was in front of a military drill-hall and armory. Undoubtedly the perpetrator was familiar with police schedules and wanted to have the parcel found. At the inquest it was concluded the parts found belonged to the same woman.

Another parcel was found in the Mornington Crescent enclosure on December 9, 1884 which consisted of the right arm, a right and left foot and right forearm, which were inspected by a division surgeon who concluded the body had been skillfully dissected and were from a different person than the one found at Tottenham Court.

The murders remained unsolved.

Pinchin Street torso (Source-The Penny Illustrated Paper c.1889)

The bodies found in Whitehall and Pinchin Street became known as the Thames Mysteries, and were attributed to the "Torso Killer". Was he also Jack the Ripper? Some argue they had different M.O.s and police discounted they were the same person.

It was inevitable that any murders with evidence of mutilation were compared to the Ripper murders.

On December 29, 1888 the body of John Gill, age 7, was found in a stable block in Manningham, Bedford. He had been missing for two days. His legs were cut off, his abdomen slit open and his intestines were pulled out. His heart and ear were removed. The similarity to the Ripper murders was not missed. William Barrett, 23, who employed him was arrested twice for the crime, but was released due to insufficient evidence, and no other person was prosecuted.

Even the murder of Carrie "Shakespeare" Brown in April 24, 1891 in New York City was examined as a possible Ripper victim. Known for quoting Shakespeare she was strangled with a piece of clothing and mutilated with a knife. She had cuts on her legs and back and a large incision in her groin area. One of her ovaries was found on the bed. The Metropolitan police believed this was not a Ripper case.

East End Horrors illustration c.1888

Despite the belief the Ripper murders were not a common occurrence, there were several murders where the victims were dismembered, however not as frequently as the years surrounding the Thames Embankment Murders. The murders that were dubbed the Torso Mysteries of 1873 and 1874 were the most similar.

Was this the handiwork of the same person? Was the perpetrator incarcerated or institutionalized around 1874, and then later released to continue in his murderous urges?

The water of the Thames has not only welcomed murder victims, but suicides and those who were just unlucky. In 1882, there were 544 corpses found in the river, and 277 remained with open verdicts. The newspapers of the day noted that the Thames "afforded...the perpetration of secret murders". The criminals understood what the surgeons did as well, which was that once the body was recovered from water, it made identification of the body and cause of death much more difficult to prove.

Jack the Ripper's Bedroom by Walter Sickert c.1905-07

There were other killings that were examined to determine if they were Ripper murders. One case known as "Fairy Fay" involved a report that the body of a woman was found in a doorway close to Commercial Road, the day after Christmas, 1887. She had a stake driven through her abdomen. It's believed this report of Fairy Fay never existed, and was based on the murder of Emma Elizabeth Smith who had a stick or other object shoved into her vagina.

On February 25, 1888 Annie Millwood, 38, came to the Whitechapel Workhouse Infirmary with stab wounds to her legs and lower torso. She told the staff she was attacked by a stranger wielding a clasp knife. She was treated and discharged but died a month later from natural causes. Was this the Ripper's first murder?

A suspect that was looked at during modern times was the artist Walter Sickert (1860-1942). He took an interest in the crimes of Jack the Ripper, and believed he had stayed in a room used by the killer. His landlady told him she suspected a previous lodger who stayed there in 1881, was the Ripper.

The artist made a painting of the room in 1905-07 and titled it Jack the Ripper's Bedroom.

During the 1970s, he was considered as possibly being Jack the Ripper or his accomplice. Many dispute this theory since he spent the majority of 1888 outside of England, and was in France during the time of the Whitechapel murders.

Mortuary Photograph of Catherine Eddowes, a victim of Jack the Ripper c.1888

Most of the police files relating to the investigation of these murders were lost during the Blitz. The files that were not destroyed describe where police went house-to-house throughout Whitechapel, searching for clues or witnesses.

Animal slaughterers, butchers, doctors and surgeons came under special scrutiny due to the mutilation committed on the bodies. Over 75 butchers and slaughterers, along with their employees for the past six months were questioned.

After the murder of Stride and Eddowes the police commissioner offered a reward £500 for the arrest of the perpetrator. This would be equivalent to over £15,000 present day.

In October, 1888 police surgeon Bond offered what is considered an early offender profile. He had examined the Ripper's victims along with post-mortem notes. He wrote:

All five murders no doubt were committed by the same hand. In the first four the throats appear to have been cut from left to right, in the last case owing to the extensive mutilation it is impossible to say in what direction the fatal cut was made, but arterial blood was found on the wall in splashes close to where the woman's head must have been lying.

All the circumstances surrounding the murders lead me to form the opinion that the women must have been lying down when murdered and in every case the throat was first cut.

AI-generated image of Aaron Kosminski who is believed to be the Ripper by different enthusiasts. c.2024

Bond did not believe the killer had any special knowledge of anatomy, even as a butcher. He believed the suspect was a solitary individual, who had bouts of "homicidal and erotic mania" and his hypersexuality was expressed through the mutilations inflicted on the women.

There was no evidence of sexual assault on the victims, but psychologists see the penetration of the knife, and leaving the victims in "sexually degrading positions with the wounds exposed" which indicated he found sexual satisfaction from the acts.

Authorities also looked at the timing of the crimes in an effort to identify the perpetrator. The killings occurred around weekends and public holidays. The crimes scenes were close to each other. Some believe this indicated the Ripper was employed and lived locally.

Others believed the killer was an educated man like a physician, or an aristocrat who traveled into Whitechapel to commit the murders. These theories were based on fear of science and the medical profession, and exploitation of the poor by the wealthy.

Over one hundred men were named as suspects by different sources, some of them years after the Ripper murders, but in the end Red Jack's identity remains a mystery.

In 2022, Jack the Ripper’s only known facial composite was found in archives. The image was etched into the handle of a wooden walking stick, which was owned by Scotland Yard Detective Frederick Abberline who was removed from the case in 1889. The cane was gifted to Abberline after he was taken off the case. He retired in 1892 after 30 years as a detective and died in 1929, without apprehending the Ripper or knowing who he was. The cane was stored at the Police College in Bramshill, Hampshire, which was shut down in 2015.

One of the suspects believed by many to be Jack the Ripper was named Aaron Kosminski. He was a Polish Jewish barber who worked in Whitechapel where the murders took place. He was admitted to a mental institution in the early 1890s, shortly after the Whitechapel murders. He died in 1919, at age 53.

In February, 2024 an AI-generated image was made of what Kosminski looked like. Jeff Leahy a Ripper enthusiast used Midjourney software to create the image. He used two pictures of Kosminski's sister Matilda, one of his uncle and another of a close relative. He had a picture of his brother-in-law which proved useful since the families were closely related since cousins would marry for generations.

A computer-generated image of Aaron Kosminski, the prime suspect in the brutal 1888 Jack the Ripper killings.

In January, 2025, researcher Russell Edwards claims he has a "100 per cent DNA match" linking Aaron Kosminski to Jack the Ripper.

The DNA was taken from a blood-stained shawl found on Catherine Eddowes' body in 1888. This item was purchased at an auction by Edwards in 2007.

DNA analysis found a match for both the victim and Kosminski on the shawl.