The 5 canonical victims of Jack The Ripper
There are five canonical Jack the Ripper victims, but who were these women and how did they end up as targets?
Image: 1888 illustration of Mary Jane Kelly | Public Domain
Jack the Ripper is arguably one of the most infamous serial killers in crime history. Although there are many theories regarding the identity of the Ripper, he was never found or convicted for his crimes. There are five canonical victims of the Ripper, whose lives were tragically and brutally cut short.
Join us at Sky HISTORY as we take a closer look at the five canonical victims of Jack the Ripper.
1. Mary Ann Nichols
Mary Ann Nichols – also known as Polly – was the first victim of Jack the Ripper. She was found dead near a stable entrance on 31st August 1888.
Mary Ann had five children, but she struggled with alcohol abuse. When her marriage ended, she spent her life moving through different boarding houses and workhouses. She survived via charitable handouts and prostitution.
At the time of her death, she lived in a common lodging house in Whitechapel. Her body had been mutilated when she was discovered. Her throat had been slit so severely that she was nearly decapitated, and she had severe abdomen wounds that revealed her organs.
2. Annie Chapman
Annie Chapman was the next Ripper victim who was found dead on 8th September 1888.
Chapman had a problem with drinking, but she weaned herself off alcohol by 1880. This changed when her son was born crippled and her daughter died of meningitis at age 12. Chapman and her husband both fell into alcoholism following this.
Following a mutual separation with her husband in 1884, Annie moved through common lodging houses in Spitalfields and Whitechapel. She made money through prostitution, but also through selling flowers and crocheting.
Chapman was killed similarly to Mary Ann Nichols. She had severe abdominal wounds and some of her internal organs had been removed completely.
3. Elizabeth Stride
The next victim of the Ripper was Elizabeth Stride, killed on 30th September 1888.
Elizabeth was born in Sweden and moved to London in 1866. She married ship carpenter John Stride in 1869, though their marriage began to deteriorate by 1874.
The two seemed to be separated for a time, but records show that they reunited briefly in around 1881. By 1882, Stride was living in a lodging house. In 1884, John Stride passed away from tuberculosis.
Stride lived in a lodging house at 32 Flower and Dean Street. Much like the other women, she was casually involved in sex work, though she started doing so as early as 1865.
Elizabeth had not been mutilated after her death. This initially made historians wonder whether she was indeed a canonical victim of the Ripper, but her death occurred only an hour before the Ripper’s fourth victim and they had the same slashed throat.
4. Catherine Eddowes
Catherine Eddowes was killed an hour after Elizabeth Stride on 30th September 1888.
Catherine started a relationship with a former soldier named Thomas Conway while living in Birmingham. They had two children while there and two more when they moved to London in 1868.
Catherine had a problem with drinking, which put a strain on her relationship as Thomas was teetotal. Their relationship became violent and in 1880, she left Thomas.
She lived with a new partner, John Kelly, in a lodging house in Spitalfields in 1881. Catherine earned money through casual sex work, sewing, and cleaning.
Catherine was arrested for public intoxication on 29th September but was released at around 1am on 30th September. She was last seen walking towards Mitre Square. This was where her body was later found severely mutilated and disembowelled.
Her cheeks were slashed, as were her eyelids and throat. Her nose was partially cut off completely and her abdomen was cut. Her intestines had been removed and placed on her shoulder. She was also missing part of her uterus and her left kidney.
5. Mary Jane Kelly
The final canonical victim of the Ripper was Mary Jane Kelly, but unlike the other four victims, her early life is not well documented. It is thought that she was born in County Limerick in Ireland in around 1863.
She married a coal miner in 1879 when she was 16, but he was killed in a mining explosion a few years later. She then moved to Cardiff to live with a cousin before moving to London in 1884. Mary was similar to the other victims in that she supported herself via sex work and lived in various lodging houses.
She began a relationship with a man named Joseph Barnett in 1887. They lived together in one room in Spitalfields, but they argued when Mary allowed fellow prostitutes to sleep in their room when the nights were cold. Barnett left the lodgings a week before Mary’s murder.
Mary was found viciously mutilated in her room on 9th November 1888. Her throat was slashed, but her face was unrecognisable due to her wounds. Her abdomen was entirely open and her organs had been removed and placed around her room. Her heart was removed, but it was never found.
The victims
The five canonical victims of Jack the Ripper were vulnerable women who were down on their luck. They had come out of failed marriages or relationships and were struggling to make ends meet.
Each one of them ultimately became a target because of this, highlighting the brutal and unforgiving nature of the struggles that many women faced in Victorian England.
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