and women. He then cuts up their bodies and then scatters the pieces. It is not known how many he has killed as his victims are usually estranged from their families and on the fringes of society.
At one time these various killings were thought to be the work of one man—the San Jose Ripper. He first struck on 20 April 1989, when the bodies of Edwin Mata Madrigal and Marta Navarro Carpio were found in a river. Then at 11.15 a.m. on 13 November 1989 human remains were discovered in a drain in San Jose. Police dogs located the body parts of two corpses, though their heads and hands were not found and only one of their feet was recovered. The victims, a man and a woman, were thought to be aged between 18 and 25.
Pieces of another two corpses of a similar age were collected between December 2000 and February 2001. This time the women had a bite mark made by the teeth of a man on her right breast, while the man had a piece of wood shoved up his anus. The corpses were badly mutilated and, again, the heads, hands and feet were missing.
Again they were in various waterways and had been tattooed. Both these cases exhibited the MOs of both the Psychopath and the Quarterer. The police believe that the San Jose Ripper may be toying with them.
England—Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper has never been caught, or even, convincingly identified—so, technically, he is still at large. Whoever he was, he killed five women for certain in a ten-week period from 31 August to 9 November 1888, though he may have been responsible for the deaths of four more. All five had their throats slashed and were disembowelled and mutilated. The killer paid special attention to the destruction of the breasts and female sexual organs. Interestingly, if you plot the five murders on a map, they mark out the points of a pentagram, the five- pointed occult star.
The murders all took place in the Whitechapel area of London’s East End, which was well known for vice at the time. In 1888, there were 62 brothels and 233 boarding houses catering to prostitutes and their clients in the narrow lanes there. Pox-ridden, middle-aged, alcoholic prostitutes hung around in alleyways and doorways, offering their sexual favours standing up. Usually they would simply bend down and hoist up their skirts so their client could enter them from the rear. This made it particularly easy for Jack the Ripper to pull a knife and despatch his victim before she realized what was happening.
Forty-five-year-old Emma Elizabeth Smith was possibly the first victim of the Ripper. On the night of 3 April 1888, she solicited a well-dressed gentleman. Later that night, she collapsed in the arms of a constable, saying that she had been attacked by four men. They had cut off her ear and shoved a foreign object up her vagina. She died a few hours later.
Then on 7 August 1888, Martha Tabram was stabbed to death. There were 39 frenzied wounds on her body, mainly around the breasts and sexual organs. Both Smith and Tabram, like the Ripper’s later victims, had their backs turned when they were attacked.
The first of the women known for certain to have been killed by the Ripper was 42-year-old Polly Nichols. Her body was found in Buck’s Row at 3.15 a.m. on 31 August 1888. She did not cry out. The attack took place under the window of a sleeping woman who did not wake. The body revealed that she fought for her life, but was overcome by her attacker. Her throat had been slashed twice, so deeply that she had almost been decapitated. There were deep wounds around her vagina, but no organs had been removed. Pathologists examining the corpse concluded that the killer had some medical knowledge. Polly had almost certainly turned her back on her killer for an assignation there on the street. While she was turned away from him, he pulled out a knife, put it to her throat and pushed her forward on to it as he slashed her. This explained the depth of the wound and would have meant that all the blood would have sprayed forward and not over the assailant, leaving him clean to make his escape unnoticed.
The police realized that they had a maniac on their hands. Detectives were sent out into the East End, searching for men who mistreated prostitutes. The name “Leather Apron” came up several times in the investigation. A shoemaker called Pizer was picked up. He used a leather apron and sharp knives in his trade, but his family swore that he was at home on the three occasions women had been attacked.
On 8 September 1888, 47-year-old Annie Chapman was bragging in the pubs of Whitechapel that the killer would meet his match if he ever came near her. She was wrong. Later, she was seen talking to a “gentleman” in the street. They seemed to strike up a bargain and went off arm-in-arm. Half-an-hour later, she was found dead in an alleyway. Her head was only connected to her body by a strand of flesh. Her intestines were found thrown over her right shoulder, the flesh from her lower abdomen over her left. Her kidneys and ovaries had been removed. The killer had taken them with him. He had also left a piece of leather near the corpse. The police realized that this was all too convenient. The killer was obviously an avid reader of the newspapers and had read of the arrest of Pizer. He also left a blood-soaked envelope with the crest of the Sussex Regiment on it. It had been reported that Martha Tabram had been seen in the company of a soldier shortly before her death and the newspapers said that her wounds could have been caused by a bayonet or army knife.
Three weeks after the death of Annie Chapman, the Central News Agency received a letter that gloated over the murder and the false clues. It regretted that the letter was not written in the victim’s blood, but it had gone “thick like glue” and promised to send the ear of the next victim. The letter was signed “Jack the Ripper”. On 30 September 1888, the Central News Agency received another letter from the Ripper, apologizing that he had not enclosed an ear—but promised that he was going to do a “double”.
At 1 a.m. that night, 45-year-old “Long Liz” Stride, a Swedish prostitute whose real name was Elizabeth Gustaafsdotter, was found in a pool of blood with her throat slashed. The delivery man who discovered her body heard the attacker escaping over the cobblestones. Around the same time, 43-year-old prostitute Catherine Eddowes was being thrown out of Bishopsgate Police Station where she had been held for creating a drunken disturbance. As she walked towards Houndsditch she met Jack the Ripper. He cut her throat, slashed her face and cut at her ear, though it was left still attached. He removed her intestines and threw them over her shoulder. The left kidney was missing altogether.
The murder of two women in one night sent London into a panic. Queen Victoria demanded action, but the police seemed powerless. East-End resident George Lusk set up the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee to patrol the streets. Two weeks later, Mr Lusk received a small package through the post. It contained half of Catherine Eddowes’ kidney. The other half had been fried and eaten, according to the accompanying note which was again signed “Jack the Ripper”. Queen Victoria concluded that the Ripper must be a foreigner. No Englishman would behave in such a beastly way, she said. A cabinet meeting was called to discuss the matter. They ordered checks on all the ships tied up in the London docks. This proved to be a huge waste of police manpower.
The last victim that was certainly the Ripper’s was unlike the others. She was young, just 24, and attractive. Her name was Mary Kelly and she only turned to prostitution occasionally to pay the rent. She was killed indoors and she also cried out.
On the night of 9 November 1888, she was seen on the street soliciting a “well-dressed gentleman”. Sometime between 3.30 and 4 a.m., the woman sleeping in the room above Kelly’s heard Kelly scream: “Oh, murder.” In the morning, the rent man found her mutilated corpse.
Being indoors and undisturbed, the Ripper had been able to spend more than an hour on his grisly task. Mary Kelly’s clothes were found neatly folded on a chair so it is thought that she took her “gentleman” back to her room and undressed herself ready for sex. It was then that he pulled out his knife. This time she had been facing him, saw the murder weapon and cried out. He slashed her throat, almost decapitating her, but blood splashed on his clothes, which were found burnt in the stove. Then he set about her corpse. Both breasts were cut off and placed on the table, along with her nose and flesh from her thighs and legs. Her left arm was severed and was left hanging by the flesh. Her forehead and legs had been stripped of flesh and her abdomen had been slashed open. She was three months pregnant at the time of the attack. Her intestines and liver had, once again, been removed and her hand was shoved into the gaping hole left. There was blood around the window where the Ripper was thought to have escaped, naked except for a long cloak and boots.
Other murders followed that may have been the work of the Ripper. The headless corpse of Elizabeth Jackson, a prostitute working in the Chelsea area, was found floating in the Thames in June 1889. In July that year, Alice McKenzie, a prostitute in Whitechapel, was found with her throat cut from ear to ear and her sexual organs
