How did Jack the Ripper get away with it?

Answer 1

The following points have been attributed to how the Whitechapel murderer was able to avoid detection:

1. He likely lived in the Whitechapel area. The locations he took his victims and the speed with which he killed them indicates he was familiar with the movements of local constabulary.

2. His appearance was common. He was not a well dressed figure, as in the lower East End of London a well dressed gentleman was such an uncommon sight as to have drawn immediate attention.

3. All of his victims, with the exception of Mary Kelly, were killed within areas where butcher-shops and slaughterhouses were common. A man calmly walking, even bespattered with blood, would not have caused undo alarm in these areas.

To put is simply, he was a killer ahead of his time. In the Victorian era forensics were non-existant. Fingerprints were known buy not used with any consistancy. Blood typing was Science Fiction. You almost had to be caught in the act or nothing could be proved. There are many serial killers that have above average IQs. I believe JTR was one of them.

Answer 2

He was able to get away with it because the the police force didn't have all the criminal tracking tech they have now. the only way to catch a criminal was to catch them in the act, or persuade the criminal to confess, and neither of those things were ever going to happen, the Ripper got away with it. Also he got away with it because living conditions were really bad back then. There were hardley any street lights and the sreets were very narrow too. This made it a good place to do murder. Also the air was almost always relly thick and very foggy so if there was anyone around, they wouldn't be able to see.

Answer 3

Jack the ripper didn't get away with his murders from just plain wit, there was many different factors but the main one is the living conditions. there was almost no street lighting and the path between the houses were very narrow so he was able to kill his victims in darkness. another factor is just plain luck that there was no police or to many wittnesses there

Answer 4

Jack The Ripper was never caught because he was smart, lucky, and he was a modern killer in the Victorian Age. Meaning, there was no blood-typing, finger-prints were in their infancy, little understood, rarely used, there would be no DNA for at least 100 years in the future, and he was a 'stranger on stranger' killer. It is much harder to catch a killer that kills people he has no connection to.

Our relationships are what glue us together as a society, as a people. When we are strangers we remain unconnected. Its hard to put two people together that have no knowledge of each other.

Please remember, these killers are usually smarter than your average person. Luck sometimes plays a role, for some killers more than you can imagine. These were the basic reasons JTR was never caught in his time.

However. It is entirely possible, perhaps even likely, that the Whitechapel Murderer was indeed caught for another crime. He may have been imprisoned for the rest of his life without the police realizing whom it was they had. This is the most likely explanation for why the murders abruptly stopped after the ninth victim, Francis Coles.

Answer 5

Jack The Ripper got away with murder because forensics in Victorian England was almost nonexistant. At the time there was not even a blood test that could determine species. In other words, blood was blood to them. It could have been bird, cow, human and any combination that your mind can think up. Fingerprints were around but would not be used with any accuracy until almost the turn of the 20th century. There was no such thing as fiber analysis, blood spatter, hair and skin ID, and the list goes on.

And this killer was one smart cookie. It seemed he could easily stay at least 2 steps ahead of the law. I can imagine their frustration at not making any progress toward an arrest.

In all probability, the Ripper would not have been so lucky had he been killing in the 21st century. Science just had to catch up.

Answer 6

The Ripper was able to escape not once but many times without detection. It is obvious that this man had intimate knowledge of the Whitechapel area. He used this knowledge and the cover of darkness to escape capture repeatedly. He did have some close calls, such as the night of the 'double event'. He was interrrupted during his murder of Elizabeth Stride, and less than a hour later was most likely seen with Catherine Eddows just moments prior to her body being found. So, his success was due to knowing the neighborhoods in which he killed, committing his butchery quickly, and he was extremely lucky on several occations.

Answer 7

Jack the Ripper was never found. No one knew who he was. Jack the Ripper could possibly be a doctor, as he knew his way around his victim's bodies.