Patricia Cornwell - Portrait Of A Killer - Jack The Ripper - Case Closed

Psychopathic killers often try out their modus operandi before going through the plan. Practice makes perfect, and the killer gets a thrill from the near-strike. The pulse picks up. Adrenaline surges. The killer will continue to go through the ritual, each time getting closer to actualizing the violence. Killers who mimic law enforcement officers have been known to install emergency grille lights or attach magnetic bubble lights to the roofs of their cars and pull over women drivers many times before actually going through with the abduction and murder.

Jack the Ripper very likely went through dry runs and other rituals before he killed. After a while, dry runs aren't just about practice and instant gratification. They fuel violent fantasies and may involve more than just stalking a victim, especially if the perpetrator is as creative as Walter Sickert. A number of strange events continued to occur in various parts of England. At approximately ten o'clock on the night of September 14th, in London, a man entered the Tower Subway and approached the caretaker. "Have you caught any of the Whitechapel murderers yet?" the man asked as he pulled out a foot-long knife that had a curved blade.

He then fled, yanking off "false whiskers" as he was pursued by the caretaker, who lost sight of him at Tooley Street. The description the caretaker gave the police was of a man five foot three with dark hair, a dark complexion, and a mustache. He was about thirty years old and was wearing a black suit that looked new, a light overcoat, and a dark cloth double-peaked cap.

"I have got a jolly lot of false whiskers amp; mustaches," the Ripper wrote on November 27th.

After the Tower Bridge was completed in 1894, the Tower Subway was closed to pedestrians and turned into a gas main, but in 1888 it was a hellish cast-iron tube seven feet in diameter and four hundred feet long. It began at the south side of Great Tower Hill at the Tower of London, ran under the Thames, and surfaced at Pickle Herring Stairs on the south bank of the river. If what the caretaker told police was accurate, he chased the man through the tunnel to Pickle Herring Stairs, which led to Pickle Herring Street, then to Vine Street, which intersected with Tooley Street. The Tower of London is about half a mile south of Whitechapel, and the subway was sufficiently unpleasant that it is unlikely many people or police used it to cross the river, especially if one were claustrophobic or fearful of traveling through a dirty, gloomy tube under water.

No doubt the police considered the man with the false whiskers a kook. I found no mention of this incident in any police reports. But this;'kook" was rational enough to pick a deserted, poorly lit place for the brazen display of his knife, and it is unlikely he viewed the caretaker as one who could physically overtake him. The man had every intention of causing a stir and no intention of being caught. Friday the 14th was also the day that Annie Chapman was buried.

Three days later, on September 17th, the Metropolitan Police received the first letter signed "Jack the Ripper."

Dear Boss,

So now they say I am a Yid when will they lern Dear old Boss? You an me know the truth don't we. Lusk can look forever he'll never find me but I am rite under his nose all the time. I watch them looking for me an it gives me fits ha ha. I love my work an I shant stop untill I get buckled and even then watch out for your old pal Jacky

Catch me if you can

The letter came to light only recently because it had never been included in the Metropolitan Police records. Originally, it had been filed at the Home Office.

At ten o'clock at night on September 17th - the same day that the Ripper made his debut in what we know as his first letter - a man appeared at the district police court of Westminster. He said he was an art student from New York, and was in London to "study art" at the National Gallery. A Times reporter relayed a dialogue that is so comical and clever it reads like a script.

The "American from New York" said he'd had trouble with his landlady the night before and was seeking advice from the magistrate, a Mr. Biron, who asked what sort of trouble the man meant.

"A terrible shindy," came the reply.

(Laughter)

The American went on to say he had given the land lady notice that

he wanted to leave her premises on Sloane Street, and she had been

"annoying" him in every way since. She had pushed him against a

wall, and when he inquired about dinner, she almost spat in his face

with "the vehemence of her language" and stigmatized him "as a low

American."

"Why don't you leave such a land lady and her apartment?" Mr.

Biron asked.

"I went there with some furniture, and I was foolish enough to tell

her that she might have it and take it out in the rent. Instead she took

it out of me."

(Laughter)

"And I could not take it away," the American went on. "I should be

positively frightened to try."

(Renewed laughter)

"It seems you have made a very ridiculous bargain," Mr. Biron told

him. "You find yourself in an exceedingly embarrassing position."

"I do indeed," the American agreed. "You can have no conception of

such a land lady. She threw a pair of scissors at me, lustily screamed

'murder,' and then caught hold of the lappels [sic] of my coat to prevent my escape, really a most absurd situation." (Laughter)

"Well," said Mr. Biron, "you have brought all the unpleasantness on yourself."

This was the lead police story in The Times, yet no crime had been committed and no arrest was made. The best the magistrate could offer was perhaps to send a warrant officer by the Sloane Street address to "caution" the landlady that she best behave. The American thanked "his worship" and expressed his hope that the caution "would have a salutary result."

The reporter identified the New York art student only as the "Applicant. " No name, age, or description was given. There was no follow-up story in days to come. The National Gallery did not have an art school or students. It still doesn't. I find it strange if not unbelievable that an American would use the language the so-called art student did. Would an American use the word shindy, which was London street slang for fight or row? Would an American say that the landlady "lustily screamed 'murder' "?

Screaming "murder" could have been a reference to testimony at Ripper victim inquests, and why would the landlady scream "murder" when she was the attacker, not the American? The reporter never mentioned whether the "American" spoke like an American. Sickert was quite capable of faking an American accent. He had spent years with Whistler, who was American.

About this time, a story began to circulate through the news that an American had contacted a sub-curator of a medical school in hopes of buying human uteri for?20 each. The would-be purchaser wanted the organs preserved in glycerine to keep them pliable, and planned to send them out with a journal article he had written. The request was refused.

The "American" was not identified, and no further information about him was given. The story gave rise to a new possibility: The East End murderer was killing women to sell their organs, and the stealing of Annie Chapman's rings was a "veil" to hide the real motive, which was to steal her uterus.

The stealing of human organs might seem ridiculous, but it had been barely fifty years since the infamous case of Burke and Hare, the "Resurrectionists" - or body snatchers - who were charged with robbing graves and committing as many as thirty murders to supply doctors and medical schools in Edinburgh with anatomical specimens for dissection. Organ-stealing as a motive for the Ripper's murders continued to be circulated and more confusion eddied around the Ripper crimes.