Topic > Jack the Ripper 1880: Man or Midwife

One hundred and thirty years ago, in a neighborhood of East London called Whitechapel, five gruesome murders were committed by a figure shrouded in mystery, Jack the Ripper. By 1888, newspapers had slowly moved from being purely local to circulating easily across cities and nations. This spread the case like wildfire, and that flame still burns today. “Ripperologists,” as they are called, carry on that flame, proposing theories that are valid or simply out of the ordinary. Despite these theories, scientific evidence was recently found on a Ripper letter that could forever change the most infamous cold case: female DNA. Now, the theories that I support bolster the idea of ​​a female Jack the Ripper (or Jill the Ripper, as he is called) have been supported and put into the spotlight. Two of the most popular theories are that Jack was a midwife or convicted murderer years after the Whitechapel murders. The third theory is mine: one of the victims was Jack the Ripper himself. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The Midwife Theory is the most popular Female Ripper theory and one of the oldest theories. In the Evening News of 1888, two letters theorized that the murderer was a woman, and one, sent by a particular "JO", suggested that the murderer was a "woman accustomed to midwifery" and was more inclined to mutilate bodies in such a way, as opposed to a normal man who was probably unmarried, who would presumably be kinder and less brutally violent, but would derive some form of perverse sexual pleasure from the deaths. The theory was supported, at least in part, by Dr Thomas Bond, who provided professional advice during the initial investigation. After Mary Jane Kelly's murder, he released a report listing all of his theories based on the previous murders and examination of Kelly's body. Its eighth list stated that the killer had “no scientific or anatomical knowledge” and that he did not even have the technical knowledge that a butcher or animal slaughterer might have. While this appears to have no connection with JO's statement and midwifery theory in general, one would indeed expect midwives to have a separate set of skills, with no knowledge of butchering or surgical procedures. They would, however, have basic knowledge of where the uterus and lower organs were located (all were taken from the victims at one point or another), allowing them to cut open the bodies, take whatever organs they wanted, and leave the scene of crime. in enough time to avoid detection. C-sections were used by doctors in 1888, although they were not as successful as they are today, for obvious reasons. In these cases, a doctor would be on call along with the attending midwife, allowing them to observe the surgery. This would allow her to see how to open a body to reach the uterus. Of course, the big question is: why? Why would a midwife decide to mutilate five women? There are three different reasons that I think are the most likely. First, midwives are women who cannot have children or have many. If it is the former, it is possible that he killed the women because they could have children and decided not to have any at all despite that ability. Secondly, and abandoning this last option, he could have killed them since they had the option of not having children. A married woman at that time would have had no say in when she would become pregnant, or the ability to choose how many children she might have.A prostitute, like the victims, could have an abortion and even give up on getting pregnant. A third possible reason could be the slow but steady increase in male obstetricians since the early 17th century. The fear of being expelled from one of the few jobs a woman could have held could have pushed her to murder. Instead of killing the obstetricians, however, she would kill the women and place the blame on a man. This would make women fear having a man as their midwife and risk him killing her and pushing them out of that career for a while. The problem, however, is that women still made up the majority of the career and no one was being removed from the job yet. There would have been no need to be alarmed, unless, of course, the midwife had been maniacal or extremely paranoid. In 1890, on October 24, Phoebe Hogg and her baby were murdered. Later, a woman's body would be found on a pile of trach in Hampstead, London, with her head crushed and almost severed from her neck. Then, an eighteen month old baby was found dead in Finchley, cause of death was suffocation. The killer was a woman between the ages of 23 and 24, born Mary Eleanor Wheeler. Not much is known about her early life, except that her father was tried for murder and executed when she was a teenager, which may have had an effect on her psyche that can only be surmised. The rest of her life known to us begins with her relationship with the carpenter named John Charles Pearcey. Although they never married, Mary used his surname as her own and continued to do so for the rest of her life, despite their eventual separation due to his numerous affairs. She quickly moved into Frank Hogg's house and began a relationship with him. Both had many affairs, although their union was harmonious, at least compared to the previous one. Soon, however, things began to get worse. Hogg had impregnated a woman known as Phoebe Styles and was planning to marry her. At first, Mary did not take this well, although after talking, Hogg convinced her that their sexual relationship would continue, which made her happy; for a while. After the birth of the baby, Mary decided to take action. He invited Phoebe to his house for tea and in the afternoon screaming could be heard which quieted down until dark, when the body was found. Her connection to the Jack the Ripper case is tenuous but considering her vague past and the similar method of throat cutting, she had become infamous as one of the Ripper's most prominent female suspects. It should also be noted that Mary was exceptionally strong at the time of the trial and that as a woman, walking around with blood on her clothes would have been permissible as she could have passed herself off as a midwife. If Mary was the Ripper, why would she do it? kill five Whitechapel prostitutes? To try to understand her motivations, one must look to her lover, Frank Hogg. It was noted that Hogg had a few affairs, just like Mary, before deciding to marry Phoebe once she became pregnant. It's not a far-fetched theory to suggest that he may have visited some girls while working in London. Pearcey may have had the same bouts of jealousy he had with Phoebe and decided to get rid of his competition. As previously mentioned, passing yourself off as a midwife would have been easy, many at the time were freelancers and did not carry any kind of badge or document to prove their line of work. Mary could have easily lured the prostitutes as a friendly gesture, killed them, and returned home, all without suspicion. However, the flaws of this theory are the fact that the only thing that connects the Ripper and Pearcey is thehis abnormal strength and the way the victim's throat was cut, and the fact that the walk from Pearcey's house in Kentish Town to Whitechapel takes almost two hours. walk, although if she had had a cart or carriage - which is doubtful, she didn't need one, and carriages are for high class people, although a taxi might be an option - she would have managed to get to Whitechapel in half an hour. Even so, it was too far to have to go there and back just to kill prostitutes all on the weekend. The list of suspected Rippers is long and has expanded over the years. Despite the numerous conspiracies circulating, no one suspects the victims themselves, in particular Mary Jane Kelly, the last victim of the Ripper in the "canonical five" and his greatest victim.gruesome killing. Kelly herself was an enigma, "the story clouded by the fact that all we know about her is what she told people." Her sketchy past began in Ireland, where she moved with her family. She married young, but was widowed a year or two later, which forced her to move in with her cousin in Cardiff, where she became a prostitute. After that she moved around a bit, with different men. All this information comes from a certain Joseph Barnett, whom she had met a year before her death and who had separated a month before the murder. His appearance was also unclear, especially his hair. Three of her nicknames, "Fair Emma", "Ginger" and "Black Mary" indicate that she was blonde, redhead or brunette. The one thing that all accounts agreed on was that she was a very attractive young woman. This would allow Kelly to easily find a woman of her approximate height and with blue eyes to kill in her place. All that would have to be done would be to mutilate the face beyond recognition, which was Kelly's alleged body. In Dr. Bond's autopsy report, it is described that "the face was slashed in all directions, the nose, cheeks, eyebrows and ears were partially removed." Beyond that description, in photos of Kelly's body, her face is completely unrecognizable, blood-saturated hair soaked everywhere. The only reason they could have assumed it was Kelly was the fact that the body was found in his room, which is proof enough, unless Kelly lured his victim under the guise of protection from the cold or from the street. The night of the murder is also more than a little confusing. Kelly met a man, reportedly carrying some sort of bag, who seemed closer to her than a normal customer might, as he appeared to joke with her and offer her the use of his handkerchief. They went up to his bedroom apartment, and that seemed to be the end, and that was the last time anyone other than this man would see Kelly alive. Or at least that's how it seemed. Later that morning, around eight or ten o'clock, two different people claimed to have seen Kelly wearing her favorite shawl and walking around town, before the body had even been found. Later, two of Kelly's neighbors reported that people were coming in and out of her apartment all night, which doesn't make sense. A killer doesn't leave the crime scene, especially since he would be in the middle of extracting Kelly's body at that moment. The only way it would have made sense was if he faked his death, lured an innocent girl and mutilated her body so badly that it was unrecognizable. Faking her death would have allowed her to escape London without alarm and cover up any leads leading back to her. The real question, of course, is why. There are many reasons, most of which suggest that Kelly, 1988.