The nights in Whitechapel were thick with London’s industrial soot and cloacal fumes from the gutter, and Saucy Jacky was on the prowl. “Respectable” women were abed and largely avoided Whitechapel to begin with. Wine-drunk prostitutes, meanwhile, were ready at hand, and Jack the Ripper had a very quick hand indeed. For a time Scotland Yard believed that the Ripper was a trained surgeon—one way of explaining the killer’s fondness for excising his victims’ organs (heart, kidneys, uterus). Throughout the investigation, police surgeon Thomas Bond registered vehement opposition to this hypothesis. Shoving blunt objects into a prostitute’s vagina is hardly evidence of medical training.
Jack the Ripper was the first celebrity serial killer and inspired copycats on two continents. Still, no one has adequately established his identity. Titillating conjectures include Lewis Carroll, the Duke of Clarence, Mary Pearcey, Prime Minister William Gladstone, and the painter Walter Sickert. Casebook.org notes that 500 men were suspected or accused at one time or another.
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