Saucy Jacky

The Whitechapel Murder File contains eleven murders.

Doctor Bond, a Metropolitan Police consultant, examined the Whitechapel Murders, attributing five of the killings to Jack the Ripper. Many commentators consider Doctor Bond’s assessment the first modern criminal profile. At the same time, Ripperologists refer to the five murdered women identified by Dr. Bond, i.e. Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly, as the ‘canonical five’ victims of Jack the Ripper.

Many people, including some Ripperologists, consider the ‘canonical five’ to be Jack the Ripper’s only victims. They believe his motivation was to explore the human body’s inner workings, including the handling of intestines and organs. They may be correct, but we should never forget that this bizarre notion is only a theory to make sense of Jack’s actions.

While the ’canonical five’ killings are similar, this fact alone does not mean Jack the Ripper committed all five killings. Equally, just because some aspects of the eleven Whitechapel murders differ, these differences do not establish the existence of more than one killer.

The Juan Díaz de Garayo y Ruiz de Argandoña case offers fascinating insights into the modus operandi of a real-life serial killer. Garoya was a Spanish serial killer who strangled, drowned or stabbed six victims, including five women and a 13-year-old girl, during the 1870s. His death toll should have been higher, but four women managed to fight him off.

Spaniards called Garayo ‘The Sacamantecas’ (‘The fat extractor’) after the legendary bogeyman or criminal who roamed the countryside to kill people and extract their fat to eat or to sell.

At first, Garayo, a lust-motivated serial killer, murdered prostitutes he had hired. As time passed, he became more violent, attacking, raping and murdering women travelling alone. He killed his last two victims in consecutive days by stabbing them with a razor.

Manuela Audícana, a 52-year-old farmer from Navarrete, was Garayo’s last victim. Garoyo eviscerated her, extracting her intestines and a kidney. Garayo’s motive for mutilating Audicana was to divert suspicion from himself and disguise the real reason for the murders.

Before Garoyo’s arrest, the idea that the murders were the work of a Sacamantecas circulated widely. Garayo, who had heard this rumour, disembowelled his last victim in a desperate attempt to substantiate the rumour and create a make-believe villain for the authorities to chase. Because popular opinion held that Sacramentecas were wandering traders, Garoyo, a local farmer, hoped to steer the police investigation towards outsiders and away from locals.

The Spanish authorities executed Garoyo in 1881, slightly less than seven years before the murder of Emma Smith, the first Whitechapel victim. Did Garoyo’s killing spree inspire the murders in Whitechapel? It is possible, as many of the features in the Spanish killings are also present in the Whitechapel Murders.

The Whitechapel Murders were not the only serial killings in London during the late 1880s. The less well-known but equally beguiling Thames Torso Murders occurred between 1887 and 1889. Indeed, one of the Whitechapel Murders – known as the Pinchin Street Torso because a constable found a woman’s body minus its head and legs in Pinchin Street, Whitechapel – is also one of the Thames Torso Murders. The other three Thames Torso Murders were the Rainham Mystery, the Whitehall Mystery, and the murder of Elizabeth Jackson.

Once again, while some commentators think Jack the Ripper was responsible for the Thames Torso Murderer, most Ripperologists believe otherwise. They consider the modus operandi of the Thames Torso Murderer to differ from the techniques employed by Jack the Ripper. They claim Jack mutilated the abdominal and genital areas of his victims, while the Thames Torso Murderer merely dismembered his victims’ bodies. Of course, this rationale falls apart if Jack was responsible for some – or all – of the Whitechapel Murders not involving substantial abdominal or genital mutilation.

Only by carefully examining all the evidence can we hope to learn the extent of Jack the Ripper’s crimes.