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Jack The Ripper

Jack the Ripper

magazine, featuring cartoonist Tom Merry's depiction of the unidentified Whitechapel murderer Jack the Ripper.]] Jack the Ripper is the pseudonym given to an unidentified serial killer (or killers) active in the largely impoverished Whitechapel area of London in the second half of 1888. The name is taken from a letter to the Central News Agency by someone claiming to be the murderer, published at the time of the killings. Although many theories have been advanced, Jack the Ripper's identity may never be determined. The legends surrounding the Ripper murders have become a complex muddle of genuine historical research, freewheeling conspiracy theory and dubious folklore. The lack of a confirmed identity for the killer has allowed subsequent commentators, historians and amateur sleuths — dubbed Ripperologists — to point their fingers at a wide variety of candidates. Newspapers, whose circulation had been growing during this era, bestowed widespread and enduring notoriety on the killer due to the savagery of the murders and the failure of police to effect a capture, with the Ripper sometimes escaping discovery by mere minutes. Victims were women earning income as casual prostitutes. Typical Ripper murders were perpetrated in a public or semi-public place; the victim's throat was cut, after which the cadaver was subjected to abdominal and sometimes other mutilations. Many now believe that the victims were first strangled in order to silence them. Due to the nature of the wounds on some presumed Ripper victims, several of whom had internal organs removed, it has been proposed that the killer had a degree of surgical or medical skill, or was perhaps a butcher, although this point, like most of the beliefs about the killer and facts in the case, is in dispute.

Victims

The number and names of the Ripper's victims are the subject of much debate, but the most accepted list is referred to as the "canonical five." It includes the following five prostitutes (or presumed prostitute in Eddowes' case) in the East End of London:
- Mary Ann Nichols, (maiden name Mary Ann Walker, nicknamed "Polly"), born on August 26, 1845, and killed on Friday, August 31, 1888.
- Annie Chapman, (maiden name Eliza Ann Smith, nicknamed "Dark Annie"), born in September 1841 and killed on Saturday, September 8, 1888.
- Elizabeth Stride, (maiden name Elisabeth Gustafsdotter, nicknamed "Long Liz"), born in Sweden on November 27, 1843, and killed on Sunday, September 30, 1888.
- Catherine Eddowes, (used the aliases "Kate Conway" and "Mary Ann Kelly," from the surnames of her two common-law husbands Thomas Conway and John Kelly), born on April 14, 1842, and killed on Sunday, September 30, 1888.
- Mary Jane Kelly, (called herself "Marie Jeanette Kelly" after a trip to Paris, nicknamed "Ginger") reportedly born in either the city of Limerick or County Limerick, Munster, Ireland ca. 1863 and killed on Friday, November 9, 1888. This list should be treated with caution. Its authority rests on a number of authors' opinions, but the initial basis for these opinions mainly came from notes made privately in 1894 by Sir Melville Macnaghten as Chief Constable of the Metropolitan Police Service Criminal Investigation Department, papers which came to light in 1959. Macnaghten's papers reflected his own opinion and were not necessarily shared by the investigating officers (such as Inspector Frederick Abberline). Macnaghten did not join the force until the year after the murders, and his memorandum contained serious errors of fact about possible suspects. For this and other reasons, some Ripperologists prefer to remove one or more names from this list of canonical victims: typically Stride (who had no mutilations beyond a cut throat and, if one witness can be believed, was attacked in public), and/or Kelly (who was younger than other victims, murdered indoors, and whose mutilations were far more extensive than the others). Others prefer to expand the list by citing Martha Tabram and others as probable Ripper victims. Except for Stride (whose attack may have been interrupted), mutilations became continuously more severe as the series of murders proceeded. Nichols and Stride were not missing any organs, but Chapman's uterus was taken, and Eddowes had her uterus and a kidney carried away and was left with facial mutilations. While only Kelly's heart was missing from the crime scene, many of her internal organs were removed and left in her room. The five canonical murders were generally perpetrated in the darkness of night, on or close to a weekend, in a secluded site to which the public could gain access and on a pattern of dates either at the end of a month or a week or so after. Yet every case differed from this pattern in some manner. Besides the differences already mentioned, Eddowes was the only victim killed within the City of London, though close to the boundary between the city and the metropolis. Nichols was the only victim to be found on an open street, albeit a dark and deserted one. Many sources believe Chapman was killed after the sun had started to rise, though that apparently was not the belief of the police at the time. A major difficulty in identifying who was and was not a Ripper victim is the large number of horrific attacks against women during this era. Most experts point to deep throat slashes, mutilations to the victim's abdomen and genital area, removal of internal organs and progressive facial mutilations as the distinctive features of Jack the Ripper.

Possible victims

Victims of other contemporary and somewhat similar attacks and/or murders have also been suggested as additions to the list. Those victims are generally poorly documented. They include:
- "Fairy Fay", reportedly a nickname for an unnamed murder victim found on December 26, 1887. The cause of death was given as "a stake thrust through her abdomen." It has been suggested that "Fairy Fay" was a creation of the press based upon confusion of the details of the murder of Emma Smith (see below) with the claims of a friend of Emma Elizabeth Smith (see below), interviewed after that murder, that she had been attacked the prior Christmas. The term "Fairy Fay" does not appear until many years after the murders, and it seems to have been taken from a verse of a popular song called "Polly Wolly Doodle" that starts "Fare thee well my fairy fay". At this time there is no real evidence for her existence; St. Catherine's House has no record of her or any woman named "Fay" during the time period.
- Annie Millwood, born ca. 1850 (approximate date), reportedly the victim of an attack on February 25, 1888, resulting in her hospitalisation for "numerous stabs in the legs and lower part of the body." She was released from hospital but died from apparently natural causes on March 31, 1888.
- Ada Wilson, reportedly the victim of an attack on March 28, 1888, resulting in two stabs in the neck. She survived the attack.
- Emma Elizabeth Smith, born ca. 1843 (approximate year). She was attacked on April 3, 1888, and a blunt object was inserted into her vagina, rupturing her perineum. She survived the attack and managed to walk back to her lodging house with the injuries. Friends brought her to a hospital where she told police that she was attacked by a gang of two or three, one of whom was a teenager. She fell into a coma and died on April 5, 1888.
- Martha Tabram, (maiden name Martha White, name sometimes misspelled as Martha Tabran, used the alias Emma Turner), born on May 10, 1849, and killed on August 7, 1888. She had a total of 39 stab wounds. Of the non-canonical Whitechapel murders, Tabram is named most often as another possible Ripper victim, due to the evident lack of obvious motive, the geographical and periodic proximity to the canonical attacks, and the remarkable savagery of the attack. The main difficulty with including Tabram lies in the fact that the killer used a different modus operandi (stabbing, rather than slashing the throat and then cutting), but it is now accepted that a killer's modus operandi can change, sometimes quite dramatically.
- "The Whitehall Mystery", term coined for the headless torso of a woman found in the basement of the new Metropolitan Police headquarters being built in Whitehall on October 2, 1888. An arm belonging to the body had previously been discovered floating in the Thames near Pimlico, and one of the legs was subsequently discovered buried near the spot where the torso was found. The other limbs and head were never recovered and the body never identified.
- Annie Farmer, born in 1848, reportedly was the victim of an attack on November 21, 1888. She survived with only a light, though bleeding, cut on her throat. The wound was superficial and apparently caused by a blunt knife. Police suspected that the wound was self-inflicted and ceased to investigate her case.
- Rose Mylett, (true name probably Catherine Mylett, but was also known as Catherine Millett, Elizabeth "Drunken Lizzie" Davis, "Fair" Alice Downey or simply "Fair Clara"), born in 1862 and died on December 20, 1888. She was reportedly strangled "by a cord drawn tightly round the neck," though some investigators believed that she had accidentally suffocated herself on the collar of her dress while in a drunken stupor.
- Elizabeth Jackson, a prostitute whose various body parts were collected from the River Thames between May 31 and June 25 of 1889. She was reportedly identified by scars she had had previous to her disappearance and apparent murder.
- Alice McKenzie (nick-named "Clay Pipe" Alice and used the alias Alice Bryant), born ca. 1849 and killed on July 17, 1889. The reason of death was reportedly the "severance of the left carotid artery" but several minor bruises and cuts were found on the body.
- "The Pinchin Street Murder", a term coined after the finding of a torso similar in condition to "The Whitehall Mystery", though the hands were not severed, on September 10, 1889. An unconfirmed speculation of the time was that the body belonged to Lydia Hart, a prostitute who had disappeared. "The Whitehall Mystery" and "The Pinchin Street Murder" have often been suggested to be the works of a serial killer, for which the nick-names "Torso Killer" or "Torso Murderer" have been suggested. Whether Jack the Ripper and the "Torso Killer" were the same person or separate serial killers of uncertain connection to each other (but active in the same area) has long been debated by Ripperologists. Elizabeth Jackson has also been suggested as another victim of the "Torso Killer".
- Frances Coles, (also known as Frances Coleman, Frances Hawkins and nicknamed "Carrotty Nell"), born in 1865 and killed on February 13, 1891. Minor wounds on the back of the head suggest that she was thrown violently to the ground, and then her throat was cut. Otherwise there were no mutilations to the body.
- Carrie Brown, (nicknamed "Shakespeare," allegedly because of her habit of reciting sonnets by William Shakespeare while drunk), born ca. 1835 and killed on April 24, 1891, in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. She was strangled with clothing and then mutilated with a knife. Her body was found with a large tear through her groin area and superficial cuts on her legs and back. No organs were taken, though an ovary was found upon the bed. Whether it was purposefully removed or fell out of the gap is unknown. At the time, the murder was compared to those that happened in Whitechapel though, apparently, London police eventually ruled out any connection. Some Ripperologists also cite cases involving mutilated boys as being similar enough to other Ripper murders to merit close attention. A few of the letters sent to police at the time that claimed to have come from the killer contained threats about killing children.

The Ripper letters

Over the course of the Ripper murders, the police and newspapers received many thousands of letters regarding the case. Some were from well-intentioned persons offering advice for catching the killer; the vast majority of these were deemed useless and subsequently ignored. Perhaps more interesting were hundreds of letters which claimed to have been written by the killer ("Jack the Ripper" was a nickname coined by one such writer); however, the vast majority of such letters are considered hoaxes. Many experts contend that none of them are genuine, but of the ones cited as perhaps genuine, either by contemporary or modern authorities, three in particular are prominent:
- The "Dear Boss" letter, dated September 25, postmarked and received September 27, 1888, by the Central News Agency, was forwarded to Scotland Yard on September 29. Initially it was considered a hoax, but when Eddowes was found with one ear severed, the letter's promise to "clip the ladys ears off" gained attention. Police published the letter on October 1, hoping someone would recognise the handwriting, but nothing came of this effort. The name "Jack the Ripper" was first used in this letter and gained worldwide notoriety after its publication. Most of the letters that followed copied the tone of this one. After the murders, police officials contended the letter was a hoax by a local journalist.
- The "Saucy Jack" postcard, postmarked and received October 1, 1888, by the Central News Agency, had handwriting similar to the "Dear Boss" letter. It mentions that two victims—Stride and Eddowes—were killed very close to one another: "double event this time." It has been argued that the letter was mailed before the murders were publicised, making it unlikely that a crank would have such knowledge of the crime, though it was postmarked more than 24 hours after the killings took place, long after details were known by journalists and residents of the area. Police officials later claimed to have identified a specific journalist as the author of both this message and the earlier "Dear Boss" letter.
- The "From Hell" letter, postmarked October 15 and received by George Lusk of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee on October 16, 1888. Lusk opened a small box to discover half a human kidney, later said by a doctor to have been preserved in "spirits of wine" (ethyl alcohol). One of Eddowes' kidneys had been removed by the killer, and a doctor determined the kidney sent to Lusk was "very similar to the one removed from Catherine Eddowes," though his findings were inconclusive [http://www.casebook.org/ripper_letters/]. The writer claimed to have "fried and ate" the missing kidney half. There is some disagreement over the kidney: some contend it had belonged to Eddowes; others argue it was "a macabre practical joke, and no more." [http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/dst-cmdlusk.html] Some sources list another letter, dated September 17, 1888, as the first message to use the Jack the Ripper name. Experts believe this was a modern fake inserted into police records in the 20th century long after the killings took place. They note that the letter has neither an official police stamp verifying the date it was received, nor the initials of the investigator who would have examined it if it were ever considered as potential evidence. Neither is it mentioned in any police document of the time, and some who have seen it claim that it was written with a ballpoint pen, which was not invented until some fifty years after the Ripper crimes.

Goulston Street graffiti

After the "double event" of the early morning of September 30, police searched the area near the crime scenes in an effort to locate a suspect, witnesses or evidence. At about 3:00 a.m., Constable Alfred Long discovered a bloodstained scrap of cloth near a tenement on Goulston Street. The cloth was later confirmed as part of Eddowes' apron. There was graffiti in white chalk on the wall above where the apron was found. Long reported the message as "The Juwes are the men That Will not be Blamed for nothing." Other police officers recalled a slightly different message: "The Juwes are not The men That Will be Blamed for nothing." Police Superintendent Thomas Arnold visited the scene and saw the graffiti. He feared that with daybreak and the beginning of the day's business, the message would be widely seen and might worsen the general Anti-Semitic sentiments of the populace. Since the Nichols murder, rumours had been circulating in the East End that the killings were the work of a Jew dubbed "Leather Apron". Religious tensions were already high, and there had already been many near-riots. Arnold ordered the graffiti erased from the wall. While the graffiti was found in Metropolitan Police territory, the apron was from a victim killed in the City of London, which had a separate police force. Some officers disagreed with Arnold's order, especially those representing the City of London Police, who thought the graffiti was part of a crime scene and should at least be photographed before being erased, but Arnold's order was upheld by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Charles Warren. The graffiti was wiped from the wall at about 5:30 a.m. Most contemporary police concluded that the graffiti was a semi-literate attack on the area's Jewish population. Author Stephen Knight suggested that Juwes referred not to "Jews," but to Jubelo, Jebula and Jebulum, the three killers of Hiram Abiff, a semi-legendary figure in Freemasonry, and furthermore, that the message was written by the killer (or killers) as part of a Freemasonic plot. This idea has been rejected by most experts, and there is no evidence that anyone prior to Knight had ever referred to those three figures by the term "Juwes". Author Martin Fido notes that graffiti makes use of double negatives, a common feature of Cockney speech. He suggests that the graffiti might be translated into standard English as "The Jews are men who will not take responsibility for anything" and that the message was written by someone who believed he or she had been wronged by one of the many Jewish merchants or tradesmen in the area.

Investigation

Before detailing the investigation into the Jack the Ripper crimes, it is important to note that investigative techniques and awareness have progressed greatly since the crimes. Many valuable forensic science techniques taken for granted today were unknown to the Victorian-era Metropolitan Police. The concept and motives of serial killers were poorly understood. Police recognized a sexual motive or element to the attacks, but were otherwise thoroughly unfamiliar with such crimes.

Media

Metropolitan Police (22nd September 1888) criticising the police's alleged incompetence]] The Ripper murders mark an important watershed in modern British life. While not the first serial killer, Jack the Ripper was the first to create a worldwide media frenzy around his killings. Reforms to the Stamp Act in 1855 had enabled the publication of inexpensive newspapers with wider circulation. These mushroomed later in the Victorian era to include mass-circulation newspapers as cheap as a halfpenny, along with popular magazines such as the Illustrated Police News, making the Ripper the beneficiary of previously unparalleled publicity. This, combined with the fact that no one was ever convicted of the murders, created a haunting mythology that cast a shadow over later serial killers. Some believe the killer's nickname was invented by newspapermen to make for a more interesting story that could sell more papers. The moniker first appeared in a letter ostensibly written by the murderer which most experts now believe was a hoax by a journalist. This practice then became a standard all over the world with examples such as the Boston Strangler, the Green River Killer, the Axeman of New Orleans, the Beltway Sniper, the Hillside Strangler, and the Zodiac Killer, besides the derivative British Yorkshire Ripper almost a hundred years later, and the unnamed perpetrator of the "Thames Nude Murders" of the 1960s, whom the press dubbed Jack the Stripper. Jack the Stripper The poor of the East End had long been ignored by affluent society, but the nature of the murders and of the victims forcibly drew attention to their living conditions. This attention meant that social reformers of the time were finally able to get the respectable classes to listen and believe that something needed to be done to help the poor. A letter from George Bernard Shaw to the Star commented sarcastically on these sudden concerns of the press:

Whilst we Social Democrats were wasting our time on education, agitation and organization, some independent genius has taken the matter in hand, and by simply murdering and disembowelling four women, converted the proprietary press to an inept sort of communism.

Suspects

Many theories about the identity of Jack the Ripper have been advanced. None is entirely persuasive, and some can hardly be taken seriously at all. See list of proposed Jack the Ripper suspects for further information.

Jack the Ripper in popular culture

Jack the Ripper has been featured in a number of works of fiction, either as the central character or in a more peripheral role. See Jack the Ripper fiction for further information. The Ripper has also been referenced in other ways in popular culture. Artists as varied as Motörhead, Macabre, Roland Kirk, Morrissey, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, LL Cool J, The White Stripes, Judas Priest, Grim Reaper, Queensrÿche, Falconer, My Chemical Romance, Link Wray, The Legendary Pink Dots, Iced Earth, Screaming Lord Sutch, and Nationalteatern have recorded songs titled or about Jack the Ripper. Chicago-based pop-rock band Spitalfield took its name from what members describe as a village where Jack the Ripper came from. The name for this location is actually Spitalfields, and it is not a village but a section of London's East End. A number of companies also produce Jack the Ripper figurines or toys (including Mezco and McFarlane Toys), sometimes leading to public protest, as when the family of victims of serial killer Robert William Pickton objected to the sale of Ripper dolls at the Vancouver Virgin Megastore. [http://www.missingpeople.net/family_of_missing_woman_wants_se.htm]

References

- The Complete History of Jack the Ripper by Philip Sugden, ISBN 0786702761
- The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook by Stewart Evans and Keith Skinner, ISBN 0786707682
- Jack the Ripper: The Facts by Paul Begg, ISBN 1861056877
- The Cases That Haunt Us by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker, ISBN 0-671-01706-3

External links

- [http://www.casebook.org/index.html Casebook: Jack the Ripper] has an extensive collection of contemporary newspaper reports related to the murders as well as articles by modern authors.
- [http://www.met.police.uk/history/ripper.htm The Metropolitan Police history of Jack the Ripper] discusses the investigation into the killings.
- [http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/museum/item.asp?item_id=39 The National Archives - Jack the Ripper] images and transcripts of letters claiming to be from Jack the Ripper.
- [http://www.RipperNotes.com/ Ripper Notes: The International Journal for Ripper Studies] and [http://www.Ripperologist.info Ripperologist: The Journal of Jack the Ripper, East End and Victorian Studies] are professional periodicals devoted to scholarly examination of the case. Category:Unidentified serial killers Category:Unsolved murders Category:Tower Hamlets Jack the Ripper Category:British cultural icons Category:British criminals Category:Crime in London ja:切り裂きジャック simple:Jack the Ripper

Whitechapel

Whitechapel is a neighbourhood in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in England, roughly bounded by the Bishopsgate thoroughfare on the west, Hanbury Street on the north, Brady Street/Cavell Street on the east and Commercial Road on the south. Its heart is Whitechapel Road itself, named for a small chapel of ease dedicated to St. Mary: its earliest known rector was Hugh de Fulbourne in 1329. By the late 1500s Whitechapel and the surrounding area had started becoming 'the other half' of London. Located downwind of the genteel sections of west London which were to see the expansion of Westminster Abbey and construction of Buckingham Palace, it naturally attracted the more fragrant activities of the city, particularly tanneries, breweries, foundries (including the Whitechapel Bell Foundry which later cast Philadelphia's Liberty Bell and London's Big Ben), slaughterhouses and, close by to the south, the gigantic Billingsgate fish market, famous in its day for the ornately foul language of the extremely Cockney fishwomen who worked there. Population shifts from rural areas to London from the 1600s to the mid 1800s resulted in great numbers of more or less destitute people taking up residence amidst the industries and mercantile interests that had attracted them. By the 1840s Whitechapel, along with the enclaves of Wapping, Aldgate, Bethnal Green, Mile End, Limehouse and Stepney (collectively known today as "the East End"), had evolved, or devolved, into classic "dickensian" London, rivaled in the western world for grinding poverty only by the Manhattan slum of Five Points and, later, Manhattan's Lower East Side. Whitechapel Rd. itself was not particularly squalid through most of this period—it was the warren of small dark streets branching from it that contained the greatest suffering, filth and danger, especially Dorset St. (now a private alley), Thrawl St., Berners St. (renamed Henriques St.), Wentworth St. and others. Lower East Side In the Victorian era the basal population of poor English country stock was swelled by immigrants from all over, particularly Irish and Jewish. 1888 saw the depredations of the Whitechapel Murderer, later known as Jack the Ripper. In 1902, American author Jack London, looking to write a counterpart to Jacob Riis's seminal book How the Other Half Lives, donned ragged clothes and boarded in Whitechapel, detailing his experiences in The People of the Abyss. Riis had recently documented the astoundingly bad conditions in the leading city of the United States. Jack London, a socialist, thought it worthwhile to explore conditions in the leading city of the nation that had created modern capitalism. He concluded that English poverty was far rougher than the American variety. The juxtaposition of the poverty, homelessness, exploitive work conditions, prostitution, and infant mortality of Whitechapel and other East End locales with some of the greatest personal wealth the world has ever seen made it a focal point for leftist reformers of all kinds, from George Bernard Shaw, whose Fabian Society met regularly in Whitechapel, to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who boarded and led rallies in Whitechapel during his exile from Russia. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Whitechapel remained poor (and colourful) through the first half of the 20th Century, though somewhat less desperately so. It suffered great damage in the V2 German rocket attacks and the Blitz of World War II. Since then, Whitechapel has lost its notoriety, though it is still thoroughly working class. The Bangladeshis are the most visible migrant group there today and it is home to many aspiring artists and shoestring entrepreneurs. Business interest is expected to escalate when the East London line of the tube is extended northwards to Dalston and southwards to West Croydon. The Royal London Hospital, home to Joseph Carey Merrick ("the Elephant Man") in his final years, is situated opposite Whitechapel tube station and is a prominent local landmark. Joseph Carey Merrick Since at least the 1970s, Whitechapel and other nearby parts of East London have figured prominently in London's art scene. Probably the area's most prominent art venue is the Whitechapel Art Gallery, founded in 1901 and long an outpost of high culture in a poor neighbourhood. As the neighbourhood has gentrified, it has gained citywide, and even international, visibility and support. As of 2005, the gallery is undergoing a major expansion, with the support of £3.26 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The expanded facility is due to open in 2007/8.

Nearest places

- Aldgate
- Bethnal Green
- Bermondsey
- Stepney
- Shoreditch
- Wapping

Nearest Underground stations

Wapping
- Aldgate East tube station
- Aldgate tube station
- Bank tube station also a DLR terminus
- Liverpool Street station
- Shadwell station
- Tower Gateway DLR station
- Tower Hill tube station
- Whitechapel tube station Nearest railway stations:
- Fenchurch Street railway station
- Liverpool Street station

External links

- [http://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/data/in-your-ward/whitechapel.cfm Official web site] for the ward of Whitechapel
- [http://www.casebook.org/victorian_london/index.html Primary source articles]
- [http://www.thhol.org.uk/ Tower Hamlets History Online]
- [http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/London/Writings/PeopleOfTheAbyss The People of the Abyss]
- [http://www.whitechapel.org The Whitechapel Gallery] Category:Districts of London Category:Tower Hamlets

Jack the Ripper

Victims

Possible victims

The Ripper letters

Goulston Street graffiti

Investigation

Media

Whilst we Social Democrats were wasting our time on education, agitation and organization, some independent genius has taken the matter in hand, and by simply murdering and disembowelling four women, converted the proprietary press to an inept sort of communism.

Suspects

Jack the Ripper in popular culture

References

External links

Pseudonym

A pseudonym (Greek: false name) is a fictitious name used by an individual as an alternative to his or her legal name. A pseudonym is distinct from an allonym, which is the name of another actual person assumed by one person, usually historical, in authorship of a work of art; e.g., when ghostwriting a book or play, or in parody, or when using a front such as by screenwriters blacklisted in Hollywood in the '50s, '60s, and '70s. To be pseudonymous means that the person is using a pseudonym. In some cases, the pseudonym has become the legal name of the person using it.

Pseudonyms in print

When used by an author, a pseudonym is also called a pen name (or in French nom de plume.) Some authors use pseudonyms for a variety of reasons; for example, to experiment with a new genre without the risk of upsetting regular readers. One author may have several pseudonyms depending on the genre. This use of pseudonyms is especially common if the new genre is of a somewhat risqué nature; such was the case of Pauline Réage, the pseudonym under which an editorial secretary with a reputation of near-prudery published Histoire d'O (Story of O), an erotic novel of sadomasochism and sexual slavery. Occasionally, a pseudonym is employed to avoid overexposure. Prolific authors for pulp magazines often had two and sometimes three short stories appearing in one issue of a magazine; the editor would create several fictitious author names so that readers would not realize this. Popular authors also sometimes use pseudonyms to distinguish different types of writing. For instance, mathematician Charles Dodgson used Lewis Carroll for his fantastic fiction. Science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein set his early stories in a single future history; when he wrote stories not in this setting he used pseudonyms to avoid confusing readers. He also wrote stories under pseudonyms so that John W. Campbell could publish more of his work in his magazine at the same time. These stories were later reprinted under his real name. Pseudepigraphy, a particular form of pseudonym or pen name, is the technique of adopting the name of well-known figures as the publicly ascribed author on whom the actual writers attempt to pass off their work — typically to attain greater interest or credibility or pious tradition. It was traditionally employed in the Western world from Hellenistic times all the way up to the Middle Ages, particularly in theology and scripture. Examples include Pseudo-Dionysius and the author of the Book of Enoch, or, according to liberal scholars, the ascribed Solomonic authorship of the Song of Songs. A pseudonym may also be used to protect the writer, as in the case of Andy McNab the former SAS soldier famous for his book about a failed SAS mission titled Bravo Two Zero. (However, some critics have suggested that the primary motivation here may have been to boost the mystique of the SAS to help market McNab's books.) Ibn Warraq has been used by dissident Muslim authors.

Regnal name

In many monarchies, the prince starting his reign chooses his official name (regnal name) to be used hence, which may differ from his (birth) name till then; sometimes he selects one of his existing names, sometimes a completely different one. The same is true of the newly elected Pope, where it fits just as well in the monastic tradition of choosing a new religious name when entering orders. The choice of an existing name may simply be a matter of tradition or intend to honour a specific predecessor, and/or emphasize the hereditary legitimity of succession, or may actually convey a programme or intention.

Nom de guerre

Pseudonyms are adopted by resistance fighters, terrorists and guerrillas often to make enquiries more difficult, to seek and create an aura of mystery, and to protect their families from reprisal, although other reasons may often be included. The expression nom de guerre (IPA: /nɒm də gɛɹ/, "name of war") is often used for such pseudonyms (though this expression is rarely, if ever, actually used in French). It is occasionally used as a stylish substitute for nom de plume. Noms de guerre were frequently adopted by recruits in the French Foreign Legion as part of the break with their past lives. Pseudonyms used by some members of the French resistance were integrated into their last names after World War II; for instance, Jacques Delmas, alias Chaban, became Jacques Chaban-Delmas. Within Communist parties and Trotskyist organisations noms de guerre are usually known as party names. This took hold because revolutionaries were often persecuted by states (and also, in the case of Trotskyists, by pro-Soviet communist parties). Not only this, Athos, Porthos and Aramis in The Three Musketeers used those names instead of their real names: Le Comte de la Fère, M. du Vallon, and Chevalier d'Herblay, respectively. Some of the more famous noms de guerre include:
- Che Guevara
- Carlos the Jackal
- Abu Mazen is the nom de guerre of Mahmoud Abbas, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority
- Abu Ammar was PLO leader Yasser Arafat's nom de guerre
- Abu Ala is the nom de guerre of Ahmed Qurei
- Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, Jordanian terrorist with the possible real name "Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh" Some famous party names include:
- Fahd
- Lenin
- Freddy Forrest (Raya Dunayevskaya) and Johnston CLR James.

The origin of "nom de guerre"

The assigning and adopting of noms de guerre was a long standing tradition in the French army, it certainly existed before 1651. In 1716 the practice became more formalised and the French army required all regular soldiers to have a nom de guerre. The names could be arrived at through the choice of the soldier, or perhaps the soldier’s company captain. Some of the naming practices adopted by particular companies enabled the men to be identifiable as members of their companies, much like a serial number: Practices such as assigning men the names of vegetables (the Company of Casaux of the Régiment de Boulonnois-infantrie, between 1764 to 1768). These names would be retained by the soldiers when they left service and would often be passed on to their wives and children. It is important to understand the old French practice of assigning Noms de guerre when tracing French family histories. Source: The Military Roots of the 'dit' Names by Luc Lépine (From December 2002 Connections © 2002 QFHS) Translated by Lorraine Gosselin. Sourced from: Quebec Family History Society website (http://www.cam.org/~qfhs/ main page) (http://www.cam.org/~qfhs/lib_connart4.html sourced page)

Pseudonyms in entertainment

When used by an actor, performer, or model, a pseudonym is a stage name or screen name. Actors — and others in show business — rarely use a pseudonym to disguise themselves. Actors who are members of a less-privileged ethnic or religious group have often adopted stage names, typically changing their surname or entire name to mask their original background — as has been done in other fields as well. This phenomenon was common in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century, as ethnic minorities began to attain a greater role in acting and films, yet social trends had not yet reached the point where such minorities would be accepted with their original non-mainstream identity. Popular Jewish comedian and "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart was born Jonathan Stewart Leibowitz. When asked why he dropped Leibowitz in a "60 Minutes" interview, Stewart explained that it "sounded too Hollywood". John Wayne, building a reputation as a tough guy, felt that his given name, Marion Morrison, did not connote the image he sought to assume. Stan Laurel, born Arthur Stanley Jefferson, was apparently happy to be known as Stan Jefferson until he realised that it had thirteen letters. In many cases, a screen name was constructed simply because a studio executive did not like the actor's real name. Today, the most common reason for a performer to adopt a pseudonym is that someone else has already achieved fame with that name. Performing arts guilds (SAG, WGA, AFTRA, etc.) enforce rules on the use of names formerly registered for credits, generally refusing to allow an identical name to be used again. In some cases, a stage name is intended to separate the public persona from the private life. But while keeping a real name for private use may help one go unrecognized in public, it can rarely be kept entirely secret and may become an item of gossip in itself. In the music world, pseudonyms have been used to allow artists to collaborate with artists on other labels while avoiding the need to gain permission from their own labels. George Harrison, for example, played guitar on Cream's song "Badge" (which he also co-wrote with Eric Clapton). He was credited on the recording as "L'Angelo Mysterioso" ("The Mysterious Angel"). Most hip hop artists prefer to use a pseudonym that represents some variation of their name, personality, or interests. Prime examples include Ol' Dirty Bastard (who was known under at least six aliases), Diddy (formerly known as Sean Combs, P. Diddy, and Puff Daddy), Ludacris, LL Cool J, and Chingy. See List of hip hop musicians.

Other pseudonyms

Others in public life have adopted pseudonyms for many reasons. In the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries, it was established practice for political articles to be signed with pseudonyms, the most famous American example being the pen name Publius, used by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, in writing The Federalist Papers. Malcolm X, the civil rights campaigner, (born Malcolm Little), adopted the 'X' to represent his unknown African ancestral name. Many Jewish politicians re-adopted Hebrew family names on return to Israel, dropping westernized versions that may have been in the family for generations; Golda Meir, for example, was born Golda Mabovitz in Russia, and lived in USA before emigrating to Palestine; she adopted her Hebrew name on becoming a government minister in 1956. Famous pseudonyms of people who were neither authors nor actors include:
- Le Corbusier, the architect, was Charles Édouard Jeanneret.
- Aphex Twin, prolific techno artist Richard D. James, who uses up to 11 other different names on various releases.
- Alan Smithee is a name commonly used by directors who want to disown their own movie.
- George Spelvin and Georgina Spelvin are names used in American theater when the actor playing the part is unknown at printing time, wishes to remain anonymous, or the part is double cast or played by an actor who plays more than one character in the cast.
- Luther Blissett is a shared pseudonym often used for activist and artistic purposes, especially in the Italian art scene.
- David Agnew is used on BBC programmes where a writer's name cannot be used for contractual reasons.
- Nicolas Bourbaki was a famous pseudonym for a group of mathematicians.
- Student was William Sealey Gosset, discoverer of Student's t-distribution in statistics.
- Hambali is Riduan Isamuddin, the leader of Jemaah Islamiah, a terrorist group; he was born Encep Nurjaman On the internet, pseudonymous remailers utilising cryptography can be used to achieve persistent pseudonymity, so that two-way communication can be achieved, and reputations can be established without linking a physical identity to a pseudonym. Users on Namespaces such as Wikipedia also often use a pseudonym instead of their birth names.

External links

- [http://www.famousfolk.com/ An extensive list of pseudonyms]
- [http://go.to/realnames List of pseudonyms]
- [http://www.trussel.com/books/pseudo.htm Another list of pseudonyms]
- [http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl101.html The U.S. copyright status of pseudonyms]
- Category:Semantics

Serial killer

Serial killers are individuals who, on multiple occasions spread out through time, murder victims who are generally unknown to them beforehand. murder] Their crimes are committed as a result of a compulsion that, in many but not all cases, has roots in the killer's (often dysfunctional) youth, as opposed to those who are motivated by financial gain (e.g., contract killers) or ideological/political motivations (e.g., terrorists, democide). Many times, this compulsion is linked to the individual's sexual drive.

Defining serial murder

The term "serial killer" was coined either by FBI agent Robert Ressler or by Dr. Robert D. Keppel in the 1970s (the credit for the term is still disputed); "serial killer" entered the popular vernacular in large part due to the well-publicized crimes of Ted Bundy and David Berkowitz ("Son of Sam") in the middle years of the decade. The term allows criminologists to distinguish those who claim victims over a long period of time from those who claim multiple victims all at once (mass murderer). A third type of multiple killer is a spree killer. The following are brief definitions of these three types:
- A serial killer is someone who commits three or more murders over an extended period of time with cooling-off periods in between. In between their crimes, they appear to be quite normal, a state which Hervey Cleckley and Robert Hare call the "mask of sanity." There is frequently—but not always—a sexual element to the murders.
- A mass murderer, on the other hand, is an individual who kills three or more people in a single event and in one location. The perpetrators sometimes commit suicide, meaning knowledge of their state of mind and what triggers their actions is often left to more speculation than fact. Mass murderers who are caught sometimes claim they cannot clearly remember the event.
- A spree killer commits multiple murders in different locations over a period of time that may vary from a few hours to several days. Unlike serial killers, however, they do not revert to their normal behavior in between slayings. All of the above types of crimes are usually carried out by solitary individuals. There have been examples in all three categories whereby two or more perpetrators have acted together. Author Michael Newton states that this happens in about a third of the cases. Lee Boyd Malvo and John Muhammad are prime examples. Both are known for the Beltway sniper attacks. Serial killers are generally, but not always, male. Noted female exceptions include Aileen Wuornos, Myra Hindley and Erzsébet Báthory. Serial killers are specifically motivated by a variety of psychological urges, primarily power and sexual compulsion. They often have feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness, sometimes owing to humiliation and abuse in childhood or the pressures of poverty and low socioeconomic status in adulthood, and their crimes compansate for this and provide a sense of potency and often social revenge, by giving them a feeling of power, both at the time of the actual killing and also afterwards for power-control killers. The knowledge that their actions terrify entire communities and often baffle police adds to this sense of power. This motivational aspect separates them from contract killers and other multiple murderers who are motivated by profit. For example, in Scotland during the 1820s, William Burke and William Hare murdered people in what became known as the "Case of the Body Snatchers." They would not count as serial killers by most criminologists' definitions, however, because their motive was economic. Of course, people do things for multiple motivations. This ignores the other, more miniscule serial killer categories, visionary and missionary types, and barely covered the lust killer. The above stated definition covers only power-control killers, and hedonistic killers. A visionary killer is motivated to commit their series of murders by delusional visions and/or thoughts (e.g Richard Chase). These are highly disorganized generally and lie in delusion rather than sexual urges. The missionary killer has an object, such as the Zebra Killers or KKK members, their series of kills has an actual object and is not rooted in sexual urges. The hedonistic lust killer does not care generally about the attention or the actions pre-mortem, but wish to kill solely for use of the body post-mortem like Ed Gein. In many cases, a serial killer will plead not guilty by reason of insanity in a court of law. This defense is almost uniformly unsuccessful. In most U.S. jurisidictions (i.e., the states), the legal definition of insanity is still generally based upon the classic common law "right or wrong" test delineated by an English court in the 1843 M'Naughten case. The M'Naughten rule, as it's generally known in the legal profession, hinges upon whether the defendant knows the difference between right and wrong at the time of the offense. With serial killers, extensive premeditation, combined with lack of any obvious delusions or hallucinations that would hinder the defendant's ability to elude detection after commiting multiple murders, make this defense extremely difficult. The United States Bureau of Justice Statistics defines a serial killing as: "involving the killing of several victims in three or more separate events." This definition is especially close to that of a spree killer, and perhaps the primary difference between the two is that a serial killer has a cooling-off period. They will commit a murder and temporarily feel sated until they feel their homicidal urges resurface. The time period between murders can vary between a few days to several years and will often decrease the longer the offender goes uncaught. For example, Jeffrey Dahmer murdered his second victim nine years after his first, but his last eight victims were murdered in a span of just seven months. Spree killers, on the other hand, do not have a cooling-off period and are in a state of constant hunting until they are caught or killed, even though their murder spree may sometimes extend to a period of several months. Serial killers frequently have extreme sadistic urges. Ones who lack the ability to empathize with the suffering of others are frequently called psychopathic or sociopathic, terms which have been renamed among professional psychologists as in i had hot anal sex with your mom on your bed, orantisocial personality disorder. Some serial killers engage in lust and torture murder, loosely defined terms involving, respectively, mutilation for sexual pleasure and killing victims slowly over a prolonged period of time.

Psychology and development

Most serial killers have dysfunctional backgrounds. Frequently they are physically, sexually or psychologically abused as children. There can be a close correlation between their childhood abuse and their crimes. For example, John Wayne Gacy was often beaten by his father and derided as a "sissy" and accused of being homosexual; in adulthood, Gacy would rape and torture boys and denounce them as being "faggots" and "sissies". Gacy was married to a woman and identified himself as a heterosexual. Carroll Cole, on the other hand, was abused by his mother, who would engage in extramarital affairs and force Cole to watch, beating him in order to ensure he did not tell his father. In adulthood, Cole murdered any "loose" woman who reminded him of his mother, in particular married women who were looking for sex behind their husbands' backs. Some serial killers are seemingly not subjected to any abuse in childhood, although they may have been illegitimate or put up for adoption, or just passed around from relative to relative, creating feelings of being unwanted and rootless. It is often impossible to know exactly what happened in any individual's childhood, so some killers may deny having been abused, while others may falsely claim they were abused in an attempt to gain sympathy or tell psychologists what they want to hear. The element of fantasy in serial killer's development cannot be overemphasized. They often begin fantasizing about murder during—or even before—adolescence. Their fantasy lives are very rich and they daydream compulsively about dominating and killing people, usually with very specific elements to the murderous fantasy that will eventually be apparent in their real crimes. Some killers are influenced by reading about the Holocaust and fantasize about being in charge of concentration camps. In such cases, however, it is generally not the political ideology of Nazism that they enjoy or are inspired by, but simply an attraction to the brutality and sadism of its application. Others enjoy reading the works of Marquis de Sade, who lends his name to the word "sadism" due to his stories, which were packed with rape, torture and murder. Many use pornography, frequently the violent type involving bondage, although they may also read "detective magazines" that feature stories of real-life homicide cases. Others may even be fascinated and aroused by less obviously disagreeable material. Dahmer, for example, was fascinated by the character of Emperor Palpatine in Return of the Jedi, and even bought yellow contact lenses to make himself resemble the evil character, while several killers say their fantasies have been influenced by the Bible, in particular the Book of Revelation. Some serial killers display one or more of what are known as the "MacDonald Triad" of warning signs in childhood. These are:
- Fire starting, invariably just for the thrill of destroying things.
- Cruelty to animals (related to "zoosadism"). Most children can be cruel to animals, such as pulling the legs off of spiders, but future serial killers often kill larger animals, like dogs and cats, and frequently for their solitary enjoyment rather than to impress peers.
- Bedwetting beyond the age when children normally grow out of such behavior. However, this triad which was developed in 1963 has recently been called into question by researchers. They note that many children and teenagers set fires or harm animals for many reasons (boredom, imitation of adult punishment of household pets, exploration of a "tough guy" identity, or even feelings of frustration). It is thus difficult to know whether these variables are in fact relevant to serial murder etiology and, if so, how precisely they matter. Most serial killers claim their first victim when they are in their early to mid-twenties, although this can vary, with one killer claiming the first of his victims when he was 38, and another who was just 15 when he admitted to murdering four people during the previous two years. Many experts have claimed that once serial killers start that they cannot (or only rarely) stop. Recently this view has been called into question as new serial killers are caught through methods that were previously unavailable, such as DNA testing. Some argue that those who are unable to control their homicidal impulses are more easily caught and thus overrepresented in the statistics. The rate at which they claim victims can also vary a great deal. Juan Corona murdered 25 people in just six weeks, whilst Fred West and his wife Rosemary claimed 12 victims over a period of twenty years.

Prevalence

There have been conflicting reports as to the extent of serial murder. The FBI claimed in the 1980s that at any particular time there were roughly thirty-five active serial killers in the United States, meaning that the serial killers in question have committed their first murders but have not yet been apprehended or stopped by other means (e.g., suicide or a natural death). This figure has often been exaggerated. In his 1990 book Serial Killers: The Growing Menace, Joel Norris claimed that there were five hundred serial killers active at any one time in the United States, claiming five thousand victims a year, which would be approximately a quarter of known homicides in the country. These statistics are regarded as suspect and unsupported by evidence. Some have argued that those who study or write about serial killers, be they employed in the judicial profession or journalists, have a vested interest in exaggerating the threat of such offenders. In terms of reported cases, there appear to be far more serial killers active in developed Western nations than elsewhere. There are several reasons that may contribute to this:
- Detection techniques in developed nations are better. Multiple victims of one offender are quickly identified as being linked, so the apprehension of the offender comes quicker than in a nation where the police are generally more underfunded and have fewer resources.
- Developed nations have a highly competitive news media, so cases are reported more quickly.
- The United States and Western Europe have avoided the large-scale, state-sanctioned censorship that news outlets in certain nations have, in which stories related to serial murder have been suppressed. An example of this is the case in Ukraine of serial murderer Andrei Chikatilo, whose activities continued largely unreported and poorly investigated by police in the former Soviet Union due to the idea that only supposedly corrupt capitalistic Western countries bred such killers. After the collapse of the USSR, there were a number of reports of prolific serial killers whose crimes had previously been hidden from the West behind the Iron Curtain.
- Cultural differences could account for a larger number of serial killers, not just a larger number of reported cases.

Serial murder before 1900

See also List of serial killers before 1900 Although the phenomenon of serial murder is generally regarded as a modern one, it can be traced back in history, albeit with a limited degree of accuracy. In the 15th century, one of the wealthiest men in France, Gille de Rais, is said to have abducted, raped and murdered at least a hundred young boys. The Hungarian aristocrat Elizabeth Báthory was arrested in 1610 and subsequently charged with torturing and butchering as many as 600 young girls. Although both De Rais and Báthory were reportedly sadistic and addicted to murder, they differ from typical modern-day serial killers in that they were both rich and powerful. Based upon the lack of established police forces and active news media during those centuries, it may very well be that there were plenty of other serial killers at that time who were either not identified or not publicized as well. Between 1790 and 1830 Thug Behram allegedly took part in the murder of 931 people by strangulation, later confessing to have personally strangled 125 of this total. He committed these killings as a member of the Thuggee cult, to which between 50,000 and 2,000,000 deaths in India are attributed. The cult's activities prompted a campaign against them by the British authorities in India. As a result of misinterpretation of the original manuscript sources, Behram is often considered to be the most prolific serial killer in history, yet this could be questioned not merely because the number he confessed to personally strangling was far lower than the 931 he is often stated to have killed, but also depending on the precise definition of serial killer, a definition which takes into account not simply numbers killed, but the manner in which they were killed and the killer's motive (see below). Some historical criminologists have suggested that there may have been serial murders throughout history, but specific cases were not adequately recorded. It may even be the case that mythological beasts such as werewolves and vampires were inspired by medieval serial killers. After all, a werewolf is said to be a normal person who is occasionally overtaken by an animalistic urge to kill people savagely, and such a myth may have made an adequate explanation for cases of serial murder when the concept of psychology was several centuries away from being defined and studied. The idea of historical serial killers motivating the concept of such myths, however, is little more than speculation, although perhaps significantly there are a number of killers who were obsessed with blood and often even drank that of their victims. In his famous 1886 book Psychopathia Sexualis, Richard von Krafft-Ebing notes a case of serial murder in the 1870s, that of an Italian man named Eusebius Pieydagnelle who had a sexual obsession with blood and confessed to murdering six people. The unidentified Jack the Ripper killer slaughtered prostitutes in London in 1888. Those crimes gained enormous press attention at the time because, although there were plenty of murders in Victorian Britain motivated by robbery and theft, it was almost unheard of for someone to kill people simply for pleasure. London was also the center of the world's greatest superpower at the time, so having such dramatic murders of financially destitute women in the midst of such wealth focused the news media's attention on the plight of the urban poor and gained coverage worldwide. Joseph Vacher was executed in France in 1898 after confessing to killing and mutilating 11 women and children, while American serial killer H. H. Holmes was hanged in Philadelphia in 1896 after confessing to 28 murders.

Types of serial killer

Organized and disorganized types

The FBI has roughly categorized serial killers into two different types: organized and disorganized.
- Organized types are usually of high intelligence and plan their crimes quite methodically, usually abducting victims, killing them in one place and disposing of them in another. They will often lure the victims with ploys appealing to their sense of sympathy. For example, Ted Bundy would put his arm in a fake plaster cast and ask women to help him carry books to his car, where he would beat them unconscious with the cast and spirit them away. Others specifically target prostitutes, who are likely to voluntarily go with a serial killer posing as a customer. They maintain a high degree of control over the crime scene, and usually have a good knowledge of forensic science that enables them to cover their tracks, such as by burying the body or weighting it down and sinking it in a river. They follow their crimes in the media carefully and often take pride in their actions, as if it were a grand project. The organized killer is usually socially adequate and has friends and lovers, often even a spouse and children. They are the type who, when captured, are most likely to be described by acquaintances as "a really nice guy" who "wouldn't hurt a fly". Some serial killers go to lengths to make their crimes difficult to discover, such as falsifying suicide notes, setting up others to take the blame for their crimes, and faking gang warfare.
- Disorganized types are often of low intelligence and commit their crimes impulsively. Whereas the organized killer will specifically set out to hunt a victim, the disorganized will murder someone whenever the opportunity arises, rarely bothering to dispose of the body but instead just leaving it at the same place in which they found the victim. They usually carry out "blitz" attacks, leaping out and attacking their victims without warning, and will typically perform whatever rituals they feel compelled to carry out (e.g., necrophilia, mutilation, etc.) once the victim is dead. They rarely bother to cover their tracks but may still evade capture for some time because of a level of cunning that compels them to keep on the move. They are often socially inadequate with few friends, and they may have a history of mental problems and be regarded by acquaintances as eccentric or even "a bit creepy". They have little insight into their crimes and may even block out the memories of the killings. A significant number of serial killers show certain aspects of both organized and disorganized types, although usually the characteristics of one type will dominate. Some killers descend from being organized into disorganized behavior as their killings continue. They will carry out careful and methodical murders at the start, but as their compulsion grows out of control and utterly dominates their lives, they will become careless and impulsive.

Motive types

The organized and disorganized model relates to the killer's methods. With regards to motives, they can be placed into five different categories:

Visionary

Contrary to popular opinion, serial killers are rarely insane or motivated by hallucinations and/or voices in their heads. Many claim to be, usually as a way of trying to get acquitted by reason of insanity. There are, however, a few genuine cases of serial killers who were compelled by such delusions. Herbert Mullin slaughtered 13 people after voices told him that mur