Crime and Punishment / 1888
Crime and Punishment: Ripper Investigation
The Ripper investigation was large and energetic, but Whitechapel's conditions and limited technology made success unlikely.
What To Remember
- H Division questioned more than 2,000 people and carried out house-to-house searches.
- Police searched lodging houses and questioned butchers, slaughtermen and other knife users.
- Witness evidence, press rumours and police boundaries made the investigation harder.
Searching the area
Police visited houses, businesses and lodging houses near murder sites to ask questions and look for suspicious behaviour.
Lodging houses mattered because poor people moved constantly and many residents had no fixed address.
Butchers, slaughtermen and people with knife skills were questioned because the wounds suggested cutting or anatomical knowledge.
Witnesses and evidence
Without fingerprints, DNA or CCTV, witness statements were central.
That was a weakness because witnesses could be drunk, frightened, mistaken, or influenced by newspaper rewards and attention.
Matthew Packer's changing story about Elizabeth Stride is a good example of evidence that sounded useful but became unreliable.
Coordination problems
Police used posters, flyers and newspapers to request information, which widened the search but also fed rumours.
The double event showed the problem of force boundaries: Stride was in Metropolitan Police territory, while Eddowes was killed in the City of London Police area.
Warren's correspondence with City Police officials shows that coordination between forces was a real concern.
Revision Prompt
What did the police do to catch the Ripper, and why did those methods fail?