I. The Police
The Whitechapel (H) Division of Scotland Yard played a key role in creating an image of Jack the Ripper and in aggravating tensions between the stories told by the press and the public of Whitechapel. Before the Ripper killings, Whitechapel was a filthy slum full of prostitutes, violent gangs, corruption, and crime. In these “bad old days,” the police were already dealing with many crimes and gang violence. The Metropolitan Police had become more organized to reduce gang activity in London; their detectives were not trained for something like the Ripper. “Until 1842, the police saw themselves primarily as performing the function Parliament had established them for: prevention of crime.” A detective unit did not even exist until …show more content…
The police were chasing their tails once again, and the killer was still at large. Five days later, a former butcher, Joseph Isenschmid, was brought to Chapman 's inquest, along with ‘Leather Apron’. Isenschmid was another working-class version of the murderer, but the police questioned his capability of committing the crimes due to his mental instability. Pizer was cleared at the inquest, and Isenschmid was certified as a lunatic and found innocent of the crime. A man named Edward McKenna was detained, because he was seen in the East End carrying a knife. However, the coroner’s inquest into Chapman’s cause of death resulted in the same conclusion: "Willful murder against some person or persons, unknown." To clarify, this verdict is the charge of the willful murder of Annie Chapman against a person or persons whose identities were not determined at the coroner’s …show more content…
This is one of the few allusions to the ‘mad doctor’ theory that was later made famous by the press. The press often described the ripper as insane or unstable. At the time of the killings, Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was performed as a play. The story deals with the torn personality of Dr. Jekyll and his alter ego Mr. Hyde. The performance of the play coincided with press releases about the Ripper, and the press began to compare the two, contributing to the ‘mad doctor’ theory of the Ripper. The idea was the Ripper could be a respectable doctor by day, like Dr. Jekyll, and at night he turns into a beast with a lust for blood, like Mr. Hyde. The doctors who examined Stride 's body, however, did not testify that any professional knowledge would be required to make the
The Whitechapel (H) Division of Scotland Yard played a key role in creating an image of Jack the Ripper and in aggravating tensions between the stories told by the press and the public of Whitechapel. Before the Ripper killings, Whitechapel was a filthy slum full of prostitutes, violent gangs, corruption, and crime. In these “bad old days,” the police were already dealing with many crimes and gang violence. The Metropolitan Police had become more organized to reduce gang activity in London; their detectives were not trained for something like the Ripper. “Until 1842, the police saw themselves primarily as performing the function Parliament had established them for: prevention of crime.” A detective unit did not even exist until …show more content…
The police were chasing their tails once again, and the killer was still at large. Five days later, a former butcher, Joseph Isenschmid, was brought to Chapman 's inquest, along with ‘Leather Apron’. Isenschmid was another working-class version of the murderer, but the police questioned his capability of committing the crimes due to his mental instability. Pizer was cleared at the inquest, and Isenschmid was certified as a lunatic and found innocent of the crime. A man named Edward McKenna was detained, because he was seen in the East End carrying a knife. However, the coroner’s inquest into Chapman’s cause of death resulted in the same conclusion: "Willful murder against some person or persons, unknown." To clarify, this verdict is the charge of the willful murder of Annie Chapman against a person or persons whose identities were not determined at the coroner’s …show more content…
This is one of the few allusions to the ‘mad doctor’ theory that was later made famous by the press. The press often described the ripper as insane or unstable. At the time of the killings, Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was performed as a play. The story deals with the torn personality of Dr. Jekyll and his alter ego Mr. Hyde. The performance of the play coincided with press releases about the Ripper, and the press began to compare the two, contributing to the ‘mad doctor’ theory of the Ripper. The idea was the Ripper could be a respectable doctor by day, like Dr. Jekyll, and at night he turns into a beast with a lust for blood, like Mr. Hyde. The doctors who examined Stride 's body, however, did not testify that any professional knowledge would be required to make the