Annie Chapman Murder

On September 8th, the murder of Annie Chapman was reported in the London Echo, “All the circumstances favour the theory that they (the east-end murders) are the work of a lunatic with homicidal tendencies. The swiftness and secrecy of the murders, and the success of the perpetrator in destroying all traces of his presence, rather support the theory…The dissatisfaction arises from the fact that the police, as they have become militarized, seem to have lost the art of detecting murders.” The press continually was dissatisfied with the work of the police as a new body appeared, and still no suspect was apprehended. More “ruffian assaults” were reported in the newspapers as the death count of the Whitechapel murders continued to grow. The press …show more content…
The Evening News published several pages on the murders and added their own interpretation of the murderer at large: “Sexual insanity, however, is, on the face of the facts, the only intelligible motive of the murder.” This is one of the few instances that the press suggests the crimes being committed for sexual fulfillment, rather than just insanity. The Evening News suggests the Ripper is not only a lunatic, but one with a perverted sexual lust that is only satisfied through the murder and genital mutilation of East-End prostitutes. This theory derives from their report that the murderer committed the crime to remove Elizabeth Stride’s uterus. In the same issue, the Evening News also mentions a letter and a postcard that were sent to the Central News Agency on September 27 and October 1, both pieces claiming to be written by “Jack the Ripper” (the first mention of that phrase in the press), and the press writes them off as practical jokes. Hundreds more letters were sent to both the press and the police, the newspapers considered them all to be hoaxes written by members of the …show more content…
This, along with a similar writing style, suggests that that both correspondences were written by the same person, and possibly by someone connected to the murders. The “Dear Boss” letter had not yet been released to the public either. The ear was partially cut off Eddowes, but not removed from the body, just as the letter suggests. There was also a time factor in the double murder, the murders so close together it is speculated that the Ripper’s work was interrupted, leading him to the killing of a second victim a few minutes later. Whoever wrote the postcard knew about the double murder before the rest of the press and public, and knew the contents of the “Dear Boss” letter, but nothing else is known about the mysterious