Ripper horror still intrigues
Dr Drew Gray, an expert on Jack the Ripper who has just returned from a Ripper conference in the USA.
“TOM knocked on the door of 13 Miller’s Court but got no answer. He peered into the flat through a broken window and had the shock of his life.
“Mary Kelly’s body still lay on the bed but it had been horribly mutilated. According to McCarthy, who arrived soon after, she had ‘been completely disembowelled,’ her face so ‘gashed and mutilated that she was quite beyond recognition.’ Her heart was missing.”
So wrote University of Northampton lecturer Dr Drew Gray in a recent blog recalling the subject of the notorious 19th century serial killer Jack the Ripper.
In his blog, Dr Gray, author of the book London’s Shadows: The Dark Side of the Victorian City, also recorded his experiences at Drexel University, Philadelphia, where he recently presented a keynote address on the subject of the social background of the Ripper murders.
The conference was attended by delegates from across the USA, Canada and Britain - including members of the Vidocq Society whose members assist police forces in solving cold case files - and was designed to explore the fascination that a series of murders which happened in London more than 120 years ago still holds for so many people across the world.
Dr Gray said: “There were even people there from literature who were using murder and the Ripper, creating myths about the murders in question. One woman I met was doing a PhD thesis on the relationship between Mary Kelly and her boyfriend. There were people there talking about Northamptonshire author Alan Moore (whose From Hell series inspired the most recent film adaptation of the case). There was a great mix of different people.”
More than a century after the crimes took place, the Jack the Ripper murders probably need little explanation. But in 1888 five female prostitutes were mysteriously murdered and the killer, who in most cases severely mutilated the bodies of his victims, was never found.
These infamous murders in Whitechapel even had a county link as Northamptonshire-born police officer Henry Moore became the lead investigating officer involved with the case and is believed to have remained in charge of the investigation until 1896, by which time the offender’s distinctively characteristic style of murders had ceased.
Perhaps it was the fact that the killer was never caught or perhaps it was the horrific nature of the crimes, but for some reason the Jack the Ripper cases have remained in the public’s consciousness, inspiring films, books and sometimes wildly convoluted theories as to the murderer’s identity.
Dr Gray, a senior lecturer in the history of crime, said: “All sorts of suspects have been suggested including Queen Victoria’s surgeon William Gull and her grandson Prince Albert Victor, through to an elusive Polish immigrant called Kosminsky and an American doctor called Tumblety.”
A new book by former University of Northampton history lecturer Elizabeth Hurren even draws a link between the murders and the trade in human body parts which took place at that time for the sake of medical research.
In those days surgeons would pay very high prices for parts of human bodies and people would even go to the horrific lengths of selling their still-born babies.
Dr Gray said: “I think I have always assumed that Jack the Ripper must have been some kind of psychotic serial killer. I can’t imagine that anyone sane would have committed these offences but there are those who believe it was a doctor or a mortuary assistant.
“I have never been interested in who the Ripper was but I am interested in exactly why we are interested.”
Dr Gray added: “I take students to Whitechapel every year, which has dramatically transformed since the 1880s but you wouldn’t know that the Ripper murders had taken place there. There is no memorial to the victims.
“These were five very poor women, selling their bodies out of desperation, it was a very sad situation to find themselves in. If you look at the conditions these people were living in and the deep poverty, it is a terrible indictment of that society for the Victorian society was one of the richest but some people were so poor they were prepared to put themselves into the clutches of a serial killer and that is a terrible state to be in.”
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talubear
Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 08:48 AMIn response to 'Jackson' You are obviously thick as there is a University of Northampton as I have just spent 3 years there completeing myt degree in Psychology. I also happen to know Dr Drew Gray, partly due to him being a lecturer there and he is a very knowledgeable man unlike you Jackson. So in anwser to your rant he has got a proper job and he is very good at it too. What are you knowledgeable in apart from lack of accuracy. You dont have to be in medicine to be a doctor. Keep up the good work Drew it makes foor excellent reading.
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Monday, December 5, 2011 at 07:13 PMThere is no University of Northampton You pal are weird. Are you making money out of this? Get a proper job. "So wrote University of Northampton lecturer Dr Drew Gray in a recent blog recalling the subject of the notorious 19th century serial killer Jack the Ripper". How much does your PR department cost? What are you a "dr" of? I bet it is not medicine. Blog off somewhere else you halfwit. Who pays your wages by the way?
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