Why was Jack the Ripper never caught?
Date post added: 5th November 2025
There’s a current obsession with true crime that holds endless fascination for people. From podcasts to novels, documentaries to period dramas, the crime genre is incredibly popular. But fact can be stranger than fiction. The ‘true’ historic tale of the infamous serial killer, Jack the Ripper continues to be a conversation point. This gruesome tale of East End murders still intrigues us. Hence our ever popular Jack the Ripper walk which will transport you back to where it all began in 19th-century East London.
Here, we answer some of the most common questions about Jack the Ripper, the police investigation and the Ripper murder victims.
Who was Jack the Ripper?
Jack the Ripper was the perpetrator of the grisliest, unsolved crimes in British history. Jack the Ripper’s reign of terror over the narrow East End alleyways of Spitalfields and Whitechapel occurred in the 19th Century, but is still talked about over a century later. Believed to have committed at least five gruesome murders between August and November 1888, Jack the Ripper preyed on impoverished women in the Whitechapel district.
In a sense, Jack the Ripper preyed on Scotland Yard and the City of London Police too. Time and time again he slipped their nets. The police force was never able to catch him.
Today, with the help of renowned crime historian and London Walks guide Donald Rumbelow and Blue Badge guides, Ripper experts and London Walks stalwarts Delianne Forget and Richard Walker, we delve into the key question – why was Jack the Ripper never caught?
Who were Jack the Ripper’s victims?
The Ripper’s victims Mary Ann Nicholls (known as Polly), Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly are known as the Canonical Five. But some Ripperologists believe that the true extent of the notorious serial killer’s rampage may have been far more extensive. Indeed, a police file called The Whitechapel Murders details 11 women who were murdered on London’s streets between April 1888 and February 1891. Despite macabre clues left at the crime scene, the identity of Jack the Ripper – the primal, prototype serial killer – was never uncovered.
What challenges did investigators face in trying to catch Jack the Ripper?
It’s important to remember that this was 19th Century London. A time before the sophisticated technology and techniques we know from CSI and the like.
One of the main challenges for police officers investigating the Jack the Ripper murders were the conditions in the East End of London at the time. In Spitalfields, the centre of the Ripper murders, there was gross overcrowding. In London as a whole, there were 50 people per acre. In Spitalfields, this number rose to an astonishing 800 people per acre.
Slums were being cleared, new businesses were being created, all forcing people into smaller and ever more cramped lodgings. People slept seven, eight or nine to a room. In the casual lodging houses, up to 80 people were crammed together into one dormitory. In this foetid landscape, lit only with dim gaslights, a serial killer could lurk unnoticed, mingling with the crowds. And it was into this unsanitary, overcrowded environment that many Jewish refugees sought safety having fled antisemitism and pogroms in Eastern Europe.
Did Jack the Ripper leave any evidence?
It’s hard to tell. Remember, the police weren’t working with modern day forensic science and DNA evidence. Fingerprinting, for example, was known but not used in policing until the first fingerprint-generated conviction in 1905. Blood grouping wasn’t known at all, meaning that forensic evidence left at the scenes of the murders was a closed book. Detectives were simply unable to investigate it, to “read it”, to conduct DNA tests the way they would be able to today. It can be hard to imagine the difficulties of the Ripper police investigation from our tech-enabled perspective today.
What was Jack the Ripper’s technique?
The attacks were swift with gruesome mutilations. The murderer removed victims’ organs. That’s why it’s been suggested that they were a doctor or a butcher proficient in such surgical operations.
Picture this: possibly the most chilling of all the Ripper murders – that of Catherine Eddowes. Her body was discovered in Mitre Square, near the eastern boundary of the City of London. Her throat had been slashed. She’d been disembowelled. Her face was disfigured. Jack the Ripper also took Catherine’s uterus and left kidney as horrific mementoes of his deed. This grisly act of mutilation became part of the notorious serial killer’s modus operandi.
How did Jack The Ripper avoid getting caught?
A key reason that the Ripper was never caught is a simple one – murder was still uncommon during the reign of Queen Victoria. In the Metropolitan Police area, there were 13 murders in 1887, 28 in 1888 and 17 in 1889.
With murder so uncommon, murder investigations were too. But contrary to popular myth, there was a tremendous amount of support for the police force during their quest to uncover Jack the Ripper’s identity. It was only the hostility of W.T. Stead, the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, that caused so many problems. Stead had a personal axe to grind. He saw himself as the champion of the working classes following the rough handling of the Bloody Sunday riots of 1886 by the police. Footnote: Stead’s own end was the stuff of history books – he went down with the Titanic!
Who is the most plausible Jack the Ripper?
The police interviewed over 2,000 people. More than 300 people were investigated and 80 people were detained. There were several strong suspects, but none were ever charged.
Probably the most likely suspect is Aaron Kosminski. But other contenders include John Pizer, Montague Druitt and Michael Ostrog. Latterly, various renowned people were linked to the crime including Prince Albert Victor (Queen Victoria’s grandson), artist Walter Sickert and even author Lewis Carroll. But they were never considered in the police investigation.
Let’s explore the compelling evidence against the key suspects.
Who was Aaron Kosminski?
Aaron Kosminski was an East End barber and a Polish immigrant. Why is his name in the frame?
It’s all down to a blood-spattered shawl, said to have been taken from the scene of Catherine Eddowes’ murder in September 1888. It was purchased at auction by Russell Edwards who used DNA analysis to link the shawl to Aaron Kosminski. In 2011, the shawl was analysed by Dr Jari Louhelainen of Liverpool John Moores University who found evidence of split body parts consistent with human kidney removal. Louhelainen also found that mitochondrial DNA taken from the shawl matched that of direct descendants of both Catherine Eddowes and Aaron Kosminski. Well, that’s the contention. Other Ripperologists say this much disputed “development” in the case is utter nonsense.
Who was the “Leather Apron”?
In the early days of the Whitechapel murder investigations, the “Leather Apron” was a key suspect. Who was the so-called “Leather Apron”? A Whitechapel bootmaker called John Pizer, originally from Poland.
Pizer had previously been convicted of stabbing. And apparently, Police Sergeant William Thicke felt he was guilty of a string of minor assaults on sex workers. Hence the link to the Whitechapel Murders.
Which Jack the Ripper suspects did the police investigate?
The true identity of Jack the Ripper may never have been uncovered due to Victorian prejudice. This was most clearly seen with the ‘Macnaghten Memoranda’. Sir Melville Lesley Macnaghten was the Assistant Chief Constable of Scotland Yard’s CID from June 1889 to December 1890. That’s six months after the last of the Ripper murders took place. Macnaghten’s memoranda, intended to be an internal document, suggested three potential Ripper suspects – Aaron Kosminski, Montague Druitt and Michael Ostrog. All were linked to common police prejudices at the time.
Macnaghten suggested Montague Druit, citing he was “a doctor and of good family” and “sexually insane”. The police didn’t want to be outwitted by someone “sexually insane” in this most career-damaging set of crimes. Gay men were, at the time, regarded as mentally unstable as demonstrated in Psychopathia Sexualis published in 1886, then regarded as the standard work on homosexual criminal behaviour.
Aaron Kosminski was named for being “a Polish Jew” and “insane owing to many years indulgence in solitary vices.”
Michael Ostrog, the last suspect named by Macnaghten, was “a convict, who was subsequently detained in a lunatic asylum as a homicidal maniac.” Police at the time regarded serial killing as a crime like any other.
How did hoaxes affect the Jack the Ripper investigation?
Some say that the first time Jack the Ripper struck was not when he murdered Mary Ann Nichols, but earlier, with the slaying of Martha Tabram on 7th August 1888. What is clear, however, is that public interest around the murders was intense. The Daily Telegraph and The Times both carried transcripts of the Ripper victim inquests.
The police received many letters said to be written by the murderer. But only two revealed facts about the case not within the public domain and claiming their name was Jack the Ripper – the moniker by which the murderer would become known. The first has become known as the “Dear Boss” letter of September 1888. It was the first letter signed “Jack the Ripper” and contained some pretty specific details of Catherine Eddowes’ murder.
The most horrific of the letters was received by George Lusk, head of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee on 16th October 1888. It contained half a human kidney. Lacking modern crime detection techniques, the police were unable to tell whether the letters were authentic or chilling hoaxes. These letters may well have muddied the waters.
What we do know about Jack the Ripper: his victims
With the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy enough to understand why the police failed in their attempt to catch Jack the Ripper and bring him to justice. What’s also clear is that the grisly story of “the autumn of terror” – and its “From Hell, Sir” protagonist Jack the Ripper – has held us in thrall for well over a century. But you know something, there has been a breakthrough in our time.
We’re still largely in the dark about who Jack the Ripper was, but we’re no longer in the dark about his victims. We no longer see them as bit-part players – “lowest of the low, down and out prostitutes.” If there is a measure of justice it’s because recent investigations have brought the murdered women into the foreground, seen them whole, understood their plight, respected them as human beings. And their stories are central to our Journey to the Autumn of Terror in the East End of London walk
The Jack the Ripper story is the infamous, unsolved British crime – but it’s also the story of five women who need to be rescued, in memory, from the evil shadow that psychopath cast over them. This does that.
David Tucker
David – the Seigneur of this favoured realm – broods over words, breeds enthusiasms and is “unmanageable.”* He’s a balterer, literary historian, university lecturer, journalist, logophile and lifelong thanatophobe. For good measure, he’s the doyen of London guides.
Pippa Jackson
Pippa is a word nerd and content aficionado with a background of working in TV on both sides of the globe. She loves to discover and share the diverse and wonderful stories of her much-loved London. When she’s not writing blogs and articles, you’ll find her walking beside the Thames or even paddleboarding on it (in the finest of conditions only!) or enjoying a coffee in the sunshine with a good book.