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Arguably the first, and most likely still most famous, modern example of a Serial Killer.
The Ripper is commonly held to have killed at least five prostitutes in Whitechapel area of London's East End in the fall of 1888:
- Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols
- Annie Chapman
- Elizabeth Stride
- Catherine Eddowes
- Mary Jane Kelly
There is however some controversy concerning the actual total, with some investigators including other prostitute murders performed in a broadly similar fashion before and after the 'canonical' five. In addition, there is (and will likely always be) a lack of consensus in the case of Elizabeth Stride, the only canonical victim to show no signs of mutilation. All five of the canonical victims died with their throats cut, and all but Stride were heavily mutilated postmortem; this, combined with a witness report and the fact that Stride's body was still warm when police arrived, led investigators to assume that in Stride's case the killer was interrupted, leading to the attack on Eddowes later the same night (what has come to be known as the 'Double Event').
From the complex nature of the mutilations, involving relatively quick and neat removal of specific organs, it is probable that the killer had at least some knowledge of anatomy — as would a doctor, butcher or (in the theories involving Royalty) a keen hunter. Unlike the other victims, Mary Kelly was killed indoors, safely away from any prying eyes, and thus, the mutilations to her body were considerably more severe than the others'.
The murder and mutilation of prostitutes cut almost straight to the heart of Victorian morbidity, causing a wave of panic in London. This was exacerbated by a series of taunting letters to the Central News Agency and the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee between the "Double Event" and Mary Kelly's death. One of these letters purported to include half of Catherine Eddowes' missing kidney -"The oter half I fried and ate it was very nise". All except this last are now usually considered to be hoaxes perpetrated by the reporters themselves, including the one in which the Ripper received his famous name.
Besides these communications, the only clue the killer left behind was found on the night of the 'Double Event', consisting of some bloody pieces of Eddowes' apron found in an alleyway; it is theorised that they were thrown there after the murderer used them to wipe his hands. A chalk inscription above the apron pieces, "The Juwes [presumably, Jews] are the men who will not be blamed for nothing", was also assumed to have been written by the killer for reasons unknown. However the inscription was cleaned away before it could be properly recorded, due to fears that it would incite the populace, and given the general anti-Semitism of the times it cannot be definitively established whether the phrase refers specifically to the Ripper murders.
Things became even more complicated when the killings (probably) stopped after Mary Kelly's death, and the case went more or less cold. Although as noted a few similar murders briefly revived fears for some years thereafter, it was and is widely believed that the killer's growing psychosis reached full expression with the Kelly murder, after which s/he either committed suicide, died naturally or was committed for other reasons.
The suspects named then and since represent an extraordinary cross-section of society of the time, ranging from a homeless Jewish butcher to various middle-class medical students to the Heir to the British Empire. The theory that the killer was a woman, a vengeful/insane midwife dressed as a man, has also been bandied about from time to time. Another popular notion has it that the killer had been infected with syphilis — a venereal disease that causes progressive brain damage in its last stages — and was out for revenge. Another (the basis for most of the Royal theories) held that the five victims were bound by knowledge of a highly sensitive secret harboured by one, probably Kelly, and killed by Mysterious Government Agents to keep them from talking.
Chief Inspector George Abberline, the distinguished DI in charge of the case, apparently pinned his colours on George Chapman, a Polish immigrant barber-surgeon who killed three wives in succession; when Chapman was convicted, he sent the officers a telegram reading "You've got the Ripper at last!" However, Chapman's known MO was poison, not the knife and, while it it not unknown for serial killers to change their MO, it is virtually unheard of to go from a rage-driven knife murder to the more distanced poisoning.
More recently, there has been some speculation that the Ripper was American, based on a similar contemporary murder in New York and the coincidence of the chief suspect in that case having spent some time in England. Another controversial new theory — advanced by crime writer Patricia Cornwell — features the painter Walter Sickert, whose works show a distinct fascination with low Victorian life, as either directly responsible for the killings or aiding in the Royal cover-up. Cornwell's theory is almost universally mocked by serious Ripperologists as a case of deciding the culprit before examining the evidence.
The name "Jack the Ripper" influenced the nicknames of a lot of later killers, especially Peter Sutcliffe, the "Yorkshire Ripper".
The Ripper case is particularly tantalizing for writers who want to make An Aesop or Historical In Joke about Victorian London, as the case was never solved and much of the documentary evidence associated with it has been either lost or destroyed. It is also fairly common in stories whose pitches involve the phrases " Very Loosely Based On A True Story" or " But It Really Happened".
It has also attracted a reasonable number of dedicated students called "Ripperologists" and also a fair number of guided walks in the East End on the subject.
Related tropes:
The following works feature appearances by or references to the Ripper case.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- Who could forget Jojos Bizarre Adventure and its Vampire Jack the Ripper, transformed by a super powered Aztec mask-awakened arch-vampire, of a sort bred by ogres to be consumed? No, really.
- The Detective Conan movie, The Phantom of Baker Street involves both hunting for Jack the Ripper in a computer game and the descendant of the real ripper.
- Ciel in Kuroshitsuji investigates the Jack the Ripper murders. The chainsaw was a nice touch.
- He makes an appearance in Hiromu Arakwas's Shanghai Youma Kikai
- And in Nobuhiro Watsuki's Embalming, along with Mary Jane Kelly and George Abberline.
- After the intro, Soul Eater opens with Maka and Soul defeating a version of Jack the Ripper, which was a guy in bondage gear with giant claws.
- Though if you want to get technical, that was actually supposed to be the Jack The ripper, but turned into a kishin egg from eating human souls.
Comic Books
- The DCU's first Else Worlds graphic novel, Gotham by Gaslight, features a Victorian era Batman tracking the Ripper to Gotham City. Surprisingly enough, no attempt was made to link him to any of Batman's usual villains.
- The Else World Wonder Woman: Amazonia is set in a world where Jack has become King, and the British Empire is a misogynistic dystopia. (Er, even more so, I mean.)
- In the mainstream DCU, Jack the Ripper was Red Jack (a Star Trek Shout Out), a godlike being who later fought the Doom Patrol. Or he was Mary Kelly's boyfriend, encouraged by the demon Buzz from Peter David's Supergirl. Or he was posessed by a different demon, Calibraxis from Hellblazer. Or, just possibly, he was Vandal Savage, and was stopped by Resurrection Man.
- In an issue of Superboy, Project Cadmus is hired to analyse the Ripper's DNA and find out who he was. Instead, Mad Scientist Dabney Donovan uses the sample to create a monster called Ripjak.
- In an early 1970s Superman story, the ghost of the Ripper fell in love with Lois Lane while she and Clark Kent were doing an extended visit with one of his descendants; the ghost arranged a form of mystical time travel to send Lois back to Whitechapel to be murdered by his earlier self so she could join him in the afterlife, only to be foiled by his own obsessions — the earlier Ripper refused to harm Lois because she "was not like the others".
- Alan Moore's From Hell; the title is a reference to the letter to the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee that contained what was claimed to be Catherine Eddowes' kidney.
- Paul Cornell's Wisdom has the eponymous hero battling hundreds of Jack the Rippers. A villain basically opens up portals to Alternate Universes and unleashes their versions of Jack the Ripper onto the streets of modern day London, with plenty of Shout Outs to other versions of Jack the Ripper in popular culture.
- A Star Trek The Next Generation comic drove holodeck problems about as far as they could go by having the alien Jack the Ripper (from the episode below) take over the system.
- An issue of The Maze Agency had a killer picking off members of a group of 'Ripperologists' (people interested in the mystery of Jack the Ripper) by cutting their throats, using a twisted interpretation of the poems the Ripper sent to the newspapers to determine the order.
- The first CSI graphic novel had a Jack the Ripper copycat killing prostitutes in Las Vegas during a convention of Ripperologists.
- The protagonist in Hiromu Arakawa's short series "Shanghai Youma Kikai" is is revealed to be a demon, and the origional Jack the Ripper near the end of the first chapter.
- The Buffy The Vampire Slayer comic spin-off "Tales of the Vampires" included a story in which the Ripper was a vampire, the twist being that the policeman investigating turned out to be a vampire as well, who enventually killed the Ripper for being too splashy and risking exposing the existence of vampires to the public.
Film
Literature
- The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes.
- Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper, a short story by Robert Bloch.
- There is an entire cottage industry built around non-fiction "true crime" books identifying the Ripper. Over 200 such books have been published, and most of them identify wildly different people as the Ripper.
- In Shadowrun: Streets of Blood, the main characters encounter a crazed serial killer who is actually a clone of Jack the Ripper. Over the course of the story the characters solve the mystery of who the original ripper was.
- That's what the antagonists want them to think. In reality, the Killer's psychosis was the result of severe conditioning. And the people who cloned him had no idea who the real Ripper was, they just cloned the person that would fit into their schemes to discredit the monarchy.
- Bertolt Brecht's Author Tract Threepenny Novel identifies the Villain Protagonist Macheath with Jack The Ripper.
- A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny features Jack's dog as the main character. In the novel Jack is actually on the side of good and kills to obtain the materials to stop an eldritch armageddon.
- I don't remember reading Jack actually killing anyone who wasn't attacking him; I don't have the book with me, but I'm pretty sure it only said that he sliced part of a lady's cloak of. And anyway, Jack was never explicitly identified as "Jack the Ripper"; the name and the Knife (yes, it's meant to be capitalized) are supposed to lead the reader to think that. (He was also apparently immortal and identified with Cain, of "and Abel" fame, IIRC.)
- Terry Moore's "Molly and Poo" short stories feature the Ripper.
- A Study in Terror (see above) had a novelisation by Ellery Queen that included Ellery himself as a character in the framing story.
- Many novels have Sherlock Holmes going up against the Ripper mystery. One, Michael Dibdin's The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, is notable for the Ripper being Holmes himself, when he's subsumed by his alternate personality, Professor Moriarty.
- One of Boris Akunin's Erast Fandorin detective stories is about the titular nineteenth century sleuth catching Jack the Ripper. This particular version of Jack the Ripper is a Russian who came to Britain and then left back home (he's caught in Moscow).
- The Michael Slade novel Ripper describes a series of occult-themed murders in 1990s Vancouver (investigated by Slade's fictional elite task force Special X) which are revealed over the course of the novel to be directly inspired by/copied from the Ripper murders by way Aleister Crowley (!), thus advancing an occult-motivated theory of the original crimes as well (and postulating an identity for the Ripper himself).
- Anno Dracula by Kim Newman follows the investigation of the Ripper murders in an alternate history where Count Dracula married Queen Vicky and became ruler of England.
- The Warhammer spin-off novel Beasts in Velvet by Jack Yeovil (actually Kim Newman again) features the Warhammer universe's version of the Ripper murders, investigated by the Warhammer universe's version of Dirty Harry. (It's Better Than It Sounds.)
- In the Philip Jose Farmer novel A Feast Unknown, Jack the Ripper is the father of the two heroes Lord Grandrith and Doc Caliban (expies of Tarzan and Doc Savage, respectively).
- The Doctor Who Expanded Universe novel Matrix has the
Knacker's Yard Valeyard become the Ripper, in order to feed the Dark Matrix, a Gallifreyan AI containing all the evil of the Time Lords. This creates an Alternate Universe where the Matrix becomes the "Spirit of Jack the Ripper" and exerts a baleful influence over Britain into the 20th century.
- The Haunting Of Alaizabel Cray has a character named Stitch-Face. He's a serial killer who has murdererd several women, before removing their tongues, eyes and kidneys, and in cases where he's interrupted he kills again shortly after in the same place- although some of the cases are the work of a copycat and part of something darker. Did I mention that this guy aids the protagonist and is ultimately instrumental in stopping the return of the local malevolent evil?
- Jack the Ripper shows up in the 1888 segments of Final Destination: Destination Zero. Turns out he died when Death caused him to be crushed and ground up in the mechanisms of a bridge.
- Paul West's novel The Women of Whitechapel and Jack the Ripper focuses on the Ripper's targets.
- Dacre Stoker's and Ian Holt's Dracula the Un-Dead proposes that the Ripper was not just a vampire, but a lesbian vampire—specifically, Countess Elizabeth Bathory, quite undead.
- The Peculiar Mating Habits of Wasps is a story in which Watson notices that Sherlock Holmes has no alibi for the nights of the Ripper murders, and begins to suspect foul play. As evidence mounts, Watson finally follows Sherlock only to find out that Holmes has indeed been behind the slayings and the prostitutes had all been approached by the same client: a man infected by an alien creature which was controlling him, using the prostitutes as incubators for it's eggs. Holmes had been following it and killing the larvae, explaining the mutilations. The story ends with the whole affair taken care of, with an obligatory title drop.
Live Action TV
- Star Trek The Original Series — In the episode "Wolf in the Fold", which postulates that the Ripper was — and is, and will be — actually an immortal energy being that feeds on the biological signatures of human fear. Adapted by Robert (Psycho) Bloch from his short story, noted above.
- Kolchak The Night Stalker — In the original series episode "The Ripper".
- Babylon 5 — In the episode "Comes the Inquisitor", the inquisitor Sebastian is revealed to be Jack the Ripper, cryogenically preserved by the Vorlons and revived when needed.
- A typo in the script led to Sheridan saying that Jack the Ripper was active in the West End rather than the East End; unfortunately, as the camera was focused on his face at the time, the subsequent dub to have him say East rather than West was extremely obvious.
- The Outer Limits — In the Revival episode "Ripper".
- Special Unit Two — Jack turns out to be an ogre, but one entirely unlike Shrek.
- Sanctuary — Jack the Ripper is given the name John Druitt (after Montague Druitt, one of the real-life leading suspects for the murders), is the villain of the pilot and Sanctuary head Helen Magnus' former fiancée. He later reappears as an ally, minus the insanity that caused him to murder...Maybe.
- A 2009 ITV drama called Whitechapel has someone re-creating the Ripper murders in 2008 London. More or less, as location filming problems and the changing geography of the city (most of the relevant streets have now gone in slum clearances) has meant some murders have moved location slightly, something noted by the characters. The first episode does have someone stabbed 39 times in line with the Martha Tabram murder (one of the non-canonical ones before the five), but survives when the one aimed for her heart glances off a rib.
- For extra points, many of the characters have very similar names to the real life figures- although the lead detective's first name is changed as it was the same as a serving police officer, which is not allowed.
- The Collector. Mary Kelly (Jack's last victim) was The Ripper.
- Psychoville featured Jack as 'the one who was nevered captured' as a part of David's hallucination while in a waxworks museum full of serial killers. Then followed up with a creepy mucical number.
- In Goodnight Sweetheart (a time-travel sitcom in which only certain people can time travel between the 1940s and 1990s by walking up a street in London) at one point Gary walks up it the wrong way from the 1940s and ends up in the 1890s. It emerges that Jack the Ripper was also a time traveller, and simply hid from the police in a different time. His disappearance is explained when he pursues Gary to the 1990s and is promptly run over by a car.
- Parodied by The Two Ronnies in their The Phantom Raspberry Blower Of Old London Town series of sketches, written by Spike Milligan (as you can immediately tell from the Goon-esque title).
Music
- Screaming Lord Sutch's "Jack The Ripper", which has been covered by many other artists, including the Gruesomes, the White Stripes, and the Fuzztones.
- Nick Cave did a song entitled "Jack The Ripper", which, ironically enough, is not a Murder Ballad.
- Morrissey's "Jack The Ripper."
- Iced Earth song "Jack" was inspired by Jack the Ripper.
- There is a deathcore band called Whitechapel, named presumably in reference to the area in which the murders were carried out.
Tabletop RPG
- In the Dungeons And Dragons campaign setting Ravenloft, the darklord Malken was an amalgam of Jack the Ripper and Mister Hyde: A serial killer who was the evil alter ego of Nova Vaasa's good-hearted ruler, Sir Tristen Hiregaard.
- There is also a monster in the extraneous source book Cityscape, that is called a Ripper. Although it isn't human it is an obvious reference due to its ability to hide among humanity and serial killer nature.
- Another domain, Paridon (a not-quite Victorian London setting— no gaslights and almost no firearms) has its very own Ripper, "Bloody Jack," who kills every 13 years. It's actually a series of non-human killers harvesting... something... for the domain's darklord.
- And the domain of Invidia (at least in 2nd Edition) had the Midnight Slasher stalking the streets killing women who was actually female herself. The domain's then-darklord had an affair with her father, driving him to kill his wife and then himself. As a final act, the darklord then kissed the child (who had witnessed the deaths) on the forehead, driving her into madness and pathological hatred.
- One of the included adventures in the Ravenloft expansion Masque of the Red Death had the heroes investigating the actual Ripper murders (on a more supernatural version of Earth). The killer turned out to be the deranged spirit of a doctor's dead wife possessing the bodies of homeless men.
- Hunter: the Vigil has it that Jack the Ripper stopped killing (in a manner the public would notice) because he became a member of The Ashwood Abbey, who felt they could direct his darker impulses in more constructive directions (or rather, destruction directed towards the supernatural). This proved ineffective, as he repeatedly relapsed into killing innocents, though the Abbey tried to cover it up. They finally decided to do away with him, since even depraved, hedonistic, wealthy thrill-seekers have standards. They gave him the concession of not eating him, something he apparently did.
- Death wasn't the end of Jack, though. When he died, he spawned a spirit of murder incarnate, who still stalks Britain to this day.
- The folks at The Wraith Project made his knife into a Dark Artifact.
- The default Mutants And Masterminds campaign setting has Jack-a-Knives, a Jack the Ripper interpretation as a possessing spirit.
Theatre
- Frank Wedekind's play Pandora's Box.
- Jill The Ripper is a play based around the theory that Jack The Ripper was a woman.
Video Games
- Medievil 2 has a boss named "The Ripper" who runs around 1800s Whitechapel and kills prostitutes. You do the math. He kills Sir Dan's love interest, leading Dan into a Ten Minute Retirement... until he finds a time machine...
- Ditto Arcanum. Turns out the killer is actually trying to prevent a highly powerful demon from unsealing the can — the killers body.
- The Virtual Boy game Jack Bros had an adorable Super Deformed Jack the Ripper as one of the playable characters, along with Jack Frost and Jack O'Lantern.
- This is a reference to Mega Ten where Jack Frost and Jack O'Lantern are in nearly every game, and Jack the Ripper is their slightly-less-commonly-recurring "brother."
- Shadowman had a plot about a demon called Legion gathering five serial killers and using magic to make them immortal as part of a plan to bring about The End Of The World As We Know It. Four of the killers were fictional but the fifth was Jack The Ripper, the game also reveals that Jack killed and dissected the women in the hopes of discovering their souls and the murders stopped after he followed Legion to a hellish afterlife to construct his Evil Tower Of Ominousness.
- In the computer game adaptation of Space 1889, you may encounter (and fight) Jack the Ripper while exploring London.
- Sakuya Izayoi, of the Touhou series has a bomb in Perfect Cherry Blossom and Imperishable Night called "Jack the Ripper." Appropriate, considering her attacks consist of throwing thousands upon thousands of knives at enemies. Her other spellcards in her boss appearance also have a "serial killer" theme, being called "Another Murder" or "Killer Doll"
- Jack from the Dreamcast fighting game, Power Stone, nicknamed "Jack the Slayer" is an insane and psychotic serial killer who takes delight in murdering people with a pair of knives and looting the corpses.
- In the Adventure Game Waxworks, one of the scenarios has Jack the Ripper as the protagonist's demon-possessed twin brother. Your job is to hunt him down and kill him without getting caught by a lynch mob or the police.
- In City Of Heroes, a set of bones in the Atlas Park MAGI office are noted to have been housed in the British Museum during the Jack the Ripper killings, which stopped after the bones were placed under MAGI's care in Paragon City.
- Fallout 3 contains chainsaw swords called Rippers, and one of them is a unique model called Jack.
- A "Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper" adventure game by Frogwares. Perhaps notable in that the player character collects evidence that positively identifies one (historical) person as the murderer (but he isn't arrested for it since the real killer was never caught).
- In World Heroes 2 Jet and Perfect, there's one character simply called "Jack". The game's based around Time Travel, so of course it's the Jack. He uses Freddy Krueger-esque claws and foot-mounted knives to battle, has a red mohawk, and tends to get a bit... messy. His intro pose shows him in Victorian-era garb, which his shreds.
- Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow features an enemy called "Ripper", a recolor of the already annoying Fleaman who is turned into an actual threat by his troublesome habit of hurling knives.
- A Vampyre Story mentions a "Jack the Gimper"-there's even an autographed photograph in the protagonist's bedroom, a throwback from when it was where the villain's mother got her head down. It's implied that you'll have to deal with him in the sequel.
Western Animation
- The Batman The Brave And The Bold episode "Trials of the Demon!" was apparently based on the Ripper murders (made Lighter And Softer so as to be allowed in such a show) with the Ripper replaced with the Gentleman Ghost and the murders substituted with reversible "soul stealing". Note how the story had Batman in his Gotham By Gaslight costume, and Whitechapel is actually mentioned. Sherlock Holmes gets thrown in for good measure.
- On the X Men episode "Descent", a man implied to be the Ripper showed up in the employ of Nathaniel Essex, he who would become Mr. Sinister.
- Had Spider Man The Animated Series been renewed for a sixth season, there would've been a story arc in which Carnage would be sent to Victorian London through a dimensional wormhole and would commit the Ripper murders (Offscreen, obviously.)
- In the Simpsons episode "Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind", Chief Wiggum asks sarcastically to a fleeing Homer, "Well then, if you know everything, who was Jack the Ripper?" to which Homer replies "The Queen's private surgeon". Chief Wiggum has only one response, "Wow."
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