Anna, Kory, Megan F., Katharine

1.We find it unclear who is doing the crimes but we do believe it is one person rather than a group of men, which is one possible theory. We find it hard to believe that it would be more than one person because it would be more difficult to keep that many people quiet. Considering there have been no noise complaints during any of the crimes, it would be hard to believe that there was a gang of men and they could keep so quiet.

2.Sex crimes are talked about openly because some of the women were raped before they were killed. It’s mentioned in the book that women were usually killed in an isolated place where no one would be able to see the murder happen. It also mentioned that the times the murders occurred were at dark and in secluded places; that means that those women were probably walking by themselves at night, making it easier for the killer to murder them. Prostitution was talked openly as well. These women were prostitutes but were married as well. In the case of Nichols, she was a working prostitute but her husband didn’t know

  1. The case is interesting for a number of reasons. Any case involving a cereal killer is interesting to the public. The people of Whitechapel found it disturbing that women were being mutilated all over the city. People must have been terrified, especially women.\

4. The Whitechapel neighborhood is not described as that of high standing. The people who lived there were described as “unfortunates” and they were all of the lower working class. Because of its location and population the text describes it as the part of the city for drinking and prostitution, which seemed to be all too popular for the women who were murdered.

  1. This case caused a lot of controversy between the people and the government. Police did not want to release to much significant information about the crimes to the public because there was a good chance that the killer was reading it. The public became extremely frustrated with the government and police because they believed they were not doing enough to catch the murderer.
  1. Our entire group found the cases of Jack the Ripper to be interesting. If you try and relate to the people going through this experience while they read the news papers, you find yourself trying to piece together the crimes with the evidence you are presented with. We all concluded that when we began formulating a theory and a possible suspect something new in the evidence threw us off. We also believe that the press played a huge roll in not catching Jack the Ripper. When the press would publish quotes from police about possible leads and evidence, the killer could possibly be reading this and change his tactics to keep the police guessing. When police believed the murderer was a left handed person, the next person that was killed had there throat slit by a person that looked to be predominantly right handed.

7. Grapes and Cachos:The claims made by numerous witnesses speak of the victim, Elizabeth Stride, found dead in the street and clutching in her hands grapes and or cachos. The claims vary greatly in description of what she was holding and or not holding and how her hands were positioned. The three doctors present at the scene of the murder, Drs. Phillips, Blackwell and Baxter,each describe quite different views. Dr. Blackwell claims he saw in the victims hand cachos and it was he who removed them from her hand. On the contrary Dr. Baxter claims he removes only cachos from her hand and places them in the care of Dr. Blackwell. P.C. Lamb on first interview claims he saw nothing in her hands but then after being examined again claims he saw grapes and cachos in her hands. These varying reports all provide unclear evidence to the police. Packer the store owner sheds a little light on the subject of items in the witnesses hands when he claims to have sold the victim grapes at his store earlier i n the night. These varying claims lead our group to believe that the appreance of grapes and or cachos were not vital to associating the crime with Jack the Ripper.