50 Fun Facts About Jack the Ripper

In which year were the Jack the Ripper murders committed?

The killer was active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London's East End.

In which part of London did the Ripper operate?

Whitechapel's population had swelled to around 80,000 by 1888.

Besides Jack the Ripper, what other nickname did the police files and press give the killer?

A local bootmaker known by that nickname was arrested and released after his alibis checked out.

Who is widely believed to have written the letter that coined the name 'Jack the Ripper'?

The letter was disseminated in the press and is generally regarded as a hoax.

How many murders did the Metropolitan Police include in the Whitechapel murders file?

They stretched from April 1888 to February 1891, though only five are widely attributed to the Ripper.

What term is used for the group of victims widely believed to be the Ripper's work?

Macnaghten's 1894 memo insisted the murderer had 'five victims and five victims only'.

Who was the first of the five widely accepted victims, found in Buck's Row on 31 August?

Buck's Row has since been renamed Durward Street.

Who found the body of the first accepted victim in Buck's Row?

Her body lay in front of a gated stable entrance.

Annie Chapman was found on 8 September in the back yard of number 29 on which road?

A witness described a dark-haired man in a brown deerstalker asking her 'Will you?'

What did the press call the two murders committed in the early hours of 30 September?

Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes died within three-quarters of an hour of each other.

Catherine Eddowes was killed in Mitre Square, which lay in whose jurisdiction rather than the Met's?

Most of the City Police files on the case were destroyed in the Blitz.

Why is there doubt over whether Elizabeth Stride was a Ripper victim?

Some think the killer was interrupted in Dutfield's Yard.

A chalk message about 'the Juwes' was found above a piece of bloodied apron on which road?

It became known as the Goulston Street graffito.

Which Police Commissioner ordered the graffito washed away before dawn?

He feared it might spark antisemitic riots.

Which victim was killed indoors, in her room at 13 Miller's Court, on 9 November?

She is generally considered the Ripper's final victim.

Roughly how old was the Miller's Court victim when she died?

Her origins are obscure; she told her partner she was born in Limerick.

What evidence suggested Kelly's killer burned items in her fireplace to light the room?

The fire had been hot enough for the kettle's spout to fall into the grate.

Which police official wrote in 1894 that the Ripper had 'five victims and five victims only'?

He did not join the police until 1889 and his memo contains factual errors about suspects.

Which detective inspector, sent from Scotland Yard, is the best-known police figure in the case?

He was a former clockmaker from Dorset who later worked for the Pinkerton agency in Monte Carlo casinos.

Who was Abberline's own prime suspect?

Chapman, born Seweryn Kłosowski, was hanged in 1903 for poisoning three wives.

Where was the head of the CID, Robert Anderson, during the September murders?

His absence prompted Warren to appoint Chief Inspector Donald Swanson to coordinate the enquiry.

Whose report on the killer's character is regarded as the earliest surviving offender profile?

He thought the killer had no anatomical knowledge and was a solitary man prone to periodical mania.

How many butchers and slaughterers did Inspector Swanson report visiting?

The alibis of local butchers were checked and they were eliminated.

Which prominent person suspected the killer was a butcher or drover on the cattle boats?

The boats' movements did not match the murder dates.

What reward did the City Police Commissioner offer after the two murders of 30 September?

The Whitechapel Vigilance Committee separately offered £50 of its own.

Who led the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee?

He received the From Hell letter and a grisly parcel.

What was preserved in the box that came with the From Hell letter?

It was kept in spirits of wine and examined by Thomas Openshaw of the London Hospital.

Which organisation received the Dear Boss letter in September 1888?

It was forwarded to Scotland Yard on 29 September.

Which postcard, postmarked 1 October 1888, referred to the two killings of 30 September?

Its handwriting resembled the Dear Boss letter, but it was posted after the murders were public gossip.

What did the Dear Boss writer promise to do to the next victim, seemingly borne out with Eddowes?

Her ear appears to have been nicked incidentally, and no ears were ever sent to police.

Which journalist was named in a 1913 police letter as the author of the Dear Boss letter and postcard?

Fred Best of The Star reportedly confessed in 1931 that he and a colleague wrote Ripper letters to keep the story alive.

Which Polish-born barber, sent to an asylum in 1891, was named a suspect by Macnaghten and Swanson?

A 2014 shawl DNA study linking him was dismissed by experts including Sir Alec Jeffreys.

Which barrister and schoolmaster suspect drowned himself in the Thames in December 1888?

His body was found near Chiswick on 31 December.

Michael Ostrog, the third suspect in Macnaghten's memo, falsely claimed to have been what?

Researchers found he was a con man and thief with no record of violent crime.

Which American quack doctor suspect had once been arrested over the Lincoln assassination?

He was released without charge in 1865 and was in England in 1888.

Which royal was first floated as a suspect in a 1962 biography of his father?

Stephen Knight's Final Solution later built an elaborate Masonic conspiracy around him.

Sir William Gull, named in the royal conspiracy theory, held which position?

Coachman John Netley was cast as his accomplice.

Which crime novelist declared the painter Walter Sickert to be the Ripper in a 2002 book?

She bought 31 of Sickert's paintings in her hunt for his DNA.

Which children's author has been named as a suspect despite never featuring in the police inquiry?

Modern authors can accuse anyone, since everyone alive at the time is long dead.

Who coined the term 'ripperology' in the 1970s?

Periodicals called Ripperana, Ripperologist and Ripper Notes publish research on the case.

Approximately how many people did police interview during the investigation?

Upwards of 300 were investigated and 80 detained.

Which fabled earlier London attacker, said to leap over walls, already carried the same first name?

He supposedly leapt over walls to strike at victims and escape.

Roughly how many newspaper copies covering the murders were sold each day at the height of the case?

Cheap halfpenny papers and rising literacy made it the first worldwide media frenzy over a killer.

Which pub in Commercial Street long served as the focus of Ripper walking tours?

At least one canonical victim had drunk there.

In a 2006 BBC History magazine poll, Jack the Ripper was voted what?

A Jack the Ripper Museum opened in east London in 2015 to protests.

Which fish and chip shop name drew boycott threats when a second branch opened in Greenwich in 2021?

Similar protests had greeted the Ripper Museum in 2015.

Buck's Row, where the first canonical victim was found, was later renamed what?

Mary Ann Nichols had last been seen alive about an hour earlier by Emily Holland, with whom she once shared a lodging-house bed.

Who was the last victim in the Whitechapel murders file, found under a railway arch in February 1891?

Her throat was cut but her body not mutilated, suggesting PC Ernest Thompson had disturbed the attacker.

Which stoker was charged with the 1891 Swallow Gardens murder and briefly suspected of being the Ripper?

He had been drinking and arguing with the victim hours earlier; the case was discharged for lack of evidence in March 1891.

In which East End district was the strangled body of Rose Mylett found in December 1888?

With no sign of a struggle, police suspected she had accidentally hanged herself on her collar while drunk.