James Berry, a dour and somewhat pious ex-policeman who hailed from Yorkshire, was Britain's hangman from 1884 to 1892 and was responsible for carrying out 200 executions. In this biography, the reader is taken into the world of Victorian crime and punishment.
James Berry was an ex-policeman who was Britain's hangman from 1884-92, throughout the period of the Whitechapel murders. Stewart Evans here takes the reader on a fascinating journey into the world of Victorian crime and punishment.
This is the first publication of the 208 surviving letters, all allegedly from the killer with all the key letters reproduced for the first time in colour. It will allow the reader to solve the Ripper mystery by comparing handwriting.
Presenting conclusions garnered from a careful survey of all the documents associated with Jack the Ripper--including the gore-spattered letters written by the killer--the authors offers a thorough examination of the compelling serial murder case. Reprint.
In 1888 the dreaded figure of Jack the Ripper stalked London’s East End murdering prostitutes. His crimes set in motion a huge police operation and have held a dark fascination over the public’s imagination for over a century, yet his identity has never been proved. Now, for the first time, two leading Ripper experts have joined forces to treat the case like a police investigation. Drawing on their unparalleled knowledge of the Jack the Ripper murders and their professional experience as police officers, they uncover clues that have remained undetected for over a hundred years. There are five `canonical’ Ripper victims, yet Scotland Yard’s `Whitechapel Murders’ files include another six suspected victims. Drawing the reader into the world of police investigation in Victorian London, Evans and Rumbelow reveal the conflict between the City and Metropolitan forces and the ridicule heaped on the police by the press. Investigating each murder, they conclude that only four of the eleven victims were actually killed by the Ripper. Perhaps most tellingly, they question the motives behind the destruction of evidence – particularly the message `The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing’, which was chalked on the wall near one murder site and rubbed out on order of the Chief Commissioner – and ask whether the enigmatic Dr Robert Anderson, officer in charge of the investigation, knew the Ripper’s true identity. Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates strips away much of the nonsense that has accumulated since 1888 and reopens files on a case that will perhaps never be fully solved but will always fascinate.
