Jack the Ripper – the Perpetual Mystery
The Metropolitan Police never
caught the man known as Jack the Ripper, but I wonder if, in a modern world,
police would have caught up with the infamous murderer.
Victorian detective work was
different to modern police methods, and this is particularly apparent when
considering the way that murders were investigated. In the dark, smog-laden and
gas-lit streets of 19th century London, the best method of
apprehending a murderer was to catch him in the act with the blood of his
victim still on his hands – in short, to catch the killer literally red-handed.
The only other viable method was
to find an eyewitness who could positively identify the perpetrator, but, of
course, the recollection of eyewitnesses is notoriously unreliable. In the
Ripper case, there was neither a red-handed suspect nor witnesses, so whatever
evidence the unidentified killer did leave behind him was essentially ignored.
Three Victorian similarities
with current practice were comprehensive autopsies to determine the cause of
death; the taking of witness statements; and house-to-house enquiries. But what is undeniably the commonest technique
in the armoury of the police – fingerprint analysis – wasn’t even considered.
The use of fingerprints has a
very long history. Documents tell us
that in both ancient Babylon (c. 1760 B.C.) and China in the Qin Dynasty (221 –
205 B.C.) officials recorded fingerprints from crime scenes, but it wasn’t
until late in the 18th century that German anatomist Johann Mayer
realised that fingerprints are unique to each individual.
We owe modern fingerprint
analysis methods to two Indians, Azizul Haque and Hem Chandra Bose who did the
initial work on the classification system that eventually came to be named
after their supervisor, Sir Edward Richard Henry. The Henry Classification
System was first used in Scotland Yard in 1901.
But the use of fingerprints to
apprehend criminals was well-established some time before that, at least in
fiction. Life on the Mississippi, by
Mark Twain, contains a story of a murderer being identified by his thumbprint. And
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional sleuth Sherlock Holmes, who in a very real
sense introduced the idea of a detective who actually detected, rather than
relying on informers or catching a criminal in the act, also used fingerprints.
The advances in forensic science
over the last century or so make it unlikely that, had the Ripper been
perpetrating his crimes today, he would remain at large for long, but in 19th-century
London no amount of fingerprint evidence would have helped, simply because the
police never identified a believable perpetrator. After the events, a number of
police officers produced their own pet theories about the identity of the
murderer, and over the last twenty years or so non-fiction authors and
investigators have added to the multitude of theories.
But the reality is that we are
no closer today to determining the identity of the world’s most notorious
serial killer than were the Police of the Metropolis under the leadership of
Sir Charles Warren while the murders were being carried out. And at this
remove, it is virtually impossible that a definitive answer to the mystery will
ever be found.
Jack Steel puts forward his theory on the identity of Jack the Ripper
in his gripping new conspiracy thriller, The Ripper Secret.
