Kolchak: The Night Stalker: A Black and Evil Truth (19 page)

APPENDIX

JACK THE RIPPER

[Next to Janos Skorzeny, I think Jack the Ripper is one of history’s most fascinating villains. Kolchak appears to have been particularly fascinated by the stories of this killer. The material he amassed was far to lengthy to include in a book this size, and he indicated he had hopes, some day, of doing such a book from the viewpoint of a Victorian-era reporter “on the scene.”

I felt that, while interesting, the material that follows had little to do with the events in Las Vegas, so it is included here for readers with a taste for the ghoulish–JR]

Jack the Ripper’s stomping grounds were the areas of Whitechapel and Spitalfields in London’s East End, an area of abject poverty and great violence, regarded by many of the time as one of the most dangerous places, foot for foot, on earth.

On Easter Monday, 1888, a whore named Emma Smith was found on Osborne Street in Whitechapel “hideously mutilated” by a knife. There were no clues.

On the first Tuesday in August, victim number two was discovered at Whitechapel’s Grove-Yard buildings, dead about three hours with no less than thirty-nine stab wounds in her body (much like the New York slaying of Kitty Genovese who was stabbed to death while thirty-nine witnesses did nothing to help her). The London Times called the murderer a “perfect savage.” The victim: a Whitechapel harlot.

On September 1, at about 4:00 A.M., Police Constable Neil (also identified as Neill, O’Neil, and O’Neill) discovered the third victim in a Bucks Row, Whitechapel doorway, her throat slit from ear to ear, the blood still pulsing from her neck. Mary Ann Nichols, streetwalker, dead but still warm.

On September 8, a Spitalfields strumpet named Annie Chapman of Hanbury Street was killed in similar fashion and the September 10 Times said, “her head was almost severed from her body and [the corpse] was completely disemboweled.”

Soon after the killer sent a letter to Scotland Yard: ‘This is the fourth. I will murder sixteen more and then give myself up.” It was signed “Jack the Ripper.”

While the police worked themselves into a frenzy trying everything from using paid informants to disguising themselves as streetwalkers, the “Ripper” sent them letters written (it was later determined by laboratory analysis) in blood, assuring them that “all decent women are perfectly safe.”

He struck again in a double killing on September 30, first cutting the throat of a harlot named Elizabeth Strade in a factory gateway on Berner Street in Whitechapel. Then he swiftly moved on as if interrupted before he could also disembowel her. This was his fifth victim.

On the sixth murder, to again quote The London Times, “She was found lying on her back with her head inclined to the left side. Her left leg was extended. The throat was terribly cut; there was a large gash across the face from the nose to the right angle of the cheek, and part of the right ear had been cut off. There were also other indescribable mutilations. It is stated that some anatomical skills seem to have been displayed in the way in which the lower part of the body was mutilated.” The victim: Catherine Eddowes, whore. From this it was assumed the killer might be a medical student or even a doctor. Or simply, a mad butcher.

On October 2, the Times received a letter from “Jack the Ripper” in which he promised to cut off the ears of his next victim to send to Scotland Yard. On the same day Scotland Yard received a note stating, “I was not coddling, dear old Boss, when I gave you the tip. You’ll next hear about Saucy Jacky’s work tomorrow. Double event this time. Number on squealed a bit. Couldn’t finish it straight off. Had not time to get ears for the police.” Actually, it seems the card was late and the “double event” promised had actually taken place on September 30.

The citizens rose up in arms and vigilance committees were formed. George Lusk headed up the Whitechapel one and in mid-October, he received this message from the “Ripper”: “I write you in black ink, as I have no more of the right stuff. I think you are all asleep in Scotland Yard with your bloodhounds, as I will who you tomorrow night. I am going to do a double event [the September 30 murders], but not in Whitechapel. Got rather too warm there. Had to shift. No more till you hear from me again. Jack the Ripper.”

Some seven days later Lusk received a cardboard box containing a bloody piece of meat along with the following note: “From Hell. Mr. Lusk. Sir, I send you have a Kidne [sic] I took from one woman, prasarved [sic] it for you, tother [sic] piece I fried and ate it; it was very nice. I may send you the bloody knife that ook it out if only you will wate [sic] while longer.” It was signed: “CATCH ME WHEN YOU CAN, Mr. Lusk”

The “Ripper’s” worst and final murder was a classic that even latecomers have been hard pressed to equal for sheer ghoulish brutality. On November 9, at 26 Dorset Street, Spitalfields, he carved up Mary Jane Kelley, also a whore, but the only one who died in her own lodgings, leading some to contend she knew the “Ripper” personally or at least intended to service him as a “client.” To quote the Times once more: “The poor woman lay on her back on the bed, entirely naked. Her throat was cut from ear to ear right down to the spinal column. The ears and once had been cut clean off. The breasts had also been cut cleanly off and placed upon a table which was by the side of the bed. The stomach and abdomen had been ripped open while the face was slashed about so that the features of the poor creature were beyond all recognition. The kidneys and heart had also been removed from the body and placed on the table by the side of the breasts. The liver had likewise been removed and laid on the right thigh. The lower portion of the body and the uterus had been cut out, and these appeared to be missing. A more horrible or sickening sight could not be imagined.”

After that “Jack the Ripper” disappeared as quietly and suddenly as he had appeared and, though there are reports from several “eyewitnesses” who claimed to have seen him in ensuing weeks, Jack the Ripper was never found and the cases never solved.

[Kolchak once expressed the theory that “Jack the Ripper” might actually have been a woman, “possibly a whore or even an abortionist.” As far as I know at this writing, he is the only one who has ever taken this tack, but that, too, is typical of him. From reading his notes and checking several volumes on the subject, I think “Jack the Ripper” may well have been a member of London’s Scotland Yard, or even the royal family itself. Perhaps, because of my association with Kolchak, and the experiences I had in Las Vegas, I may have become somewhat sensitive to the smell of a cover-up, but I theorize that the “Ripper” was caught, and that he (or she) was someone very prominent, and that it was all hushed up, the killer being quietly “put away” forever.–JR]