Jack the Ripper: The Hand of a Woman

the infamous ‘Dear Boss’ letter was delivered to Scotland Yard. It had been received by the Central News Agency two days before, but had been considered a hoax and the Agency delayed passing it on to the police. At first, it appeared to be just another one of the many hundreds of letters that Scotland Yard had received about the Whitechapel murders up to that time. The authors of some of these letters taunted the police in their efforts to capture the murderer. Others berated them for not having done so, while even more claimed the dark and dubious distinction of being the actual murderer. All these letters had to be investigated, which took up valuable police time and resources, and a handful of hoaxers were arrested and charged, including two women. But what was different about this particular letter, the text reproduced here in full, was not that its author claimed to be the murderer, but that it appeared to be spattered with blood, and the disturbing name signed at its end.
    25 Sept 1888
 
Dear Boss
     
    I keep on hearing the police
have caught me but they won’t fix
me just yet. I have laughed when
they look so clever and talk about

being on the right track. That joke
about Leather Apron gave me real
fits. I am down on whores and
I shant quit ripping them till I
do get buckled. Grand work the last
job was. I gave the lady no time to
squeal. How can they catch me now.
I love my work and want to start
again. You will soon hear of me
with my funny little games. I
saved some of the proper red stuff in
a ginger beer bottle over the last job
to write with but it went thick
like glue and I cant use it. Red
ink is fit enough I hope ha ha.
The next job I shall do I shall clip
the lady’s ears off and send to the
police officers just for jolly wouldn’t
you. Keep this letter back till I
do a bit more work then give
it out straight. My knife is so nice
and sharp. I want to get to work
right away if I get a chance.
     
    Good luck.
 
    Yours truly
 
Don’t mind me giving the trade name 
     
    Written on the bottom of the letter at right angles to the main body of the text was:
    wasn’t good enough
to post this before
I got all the red
ink off my hands
curse it.
No luck yet.       They
say I’m a doctor
now ha ha
 
Jack the Ripper
     
    The ‘name genie’ had escaped from the bottle, never to be returned, and that was part of the problem. Up until this time, the murderer had acquired the androgynous title ‘The Whitechapel Murderer’ and, as such, could have been either male or female. Jack the Ripper, however, was specifically male and the name now became synonymous with the Whitechapel murders. But a forensic investigation and comparison of handwriting samples carried out by Dr Andrew Cook, in Jack the Ripper: Case Closed (2009), proved beyond reasonable doubt that the letter was written by Frederick Best, a journalist. He was employed by Thomas P. O’Connor, journalist, politician and editor of the London Star newspaper, founded the previous year, and which published its first edition on 3 May 1888. It was, no doubt, a deliberate ploy – or conspiracy – by O’Connor and Best to increase circulation figures, in which event it was hugely successful. The day after the murder of Mary Kelly, 300,000 copies of the Star were sold, more than any other evening newspaper. The fact that the letter was a hoax was neither here nor there. The nickname sank deep into the public’s psyche and, from that moment on, it became almost impossible for anyone to consider that the murderer could have been anyone other than a man.
    Early on in our investigation I realised just how hard it was going to be to overturn such deeply held and ingrained beliefs. When I briefly mentioned our hypothesis to my sister, her initial reaction was “It couldn’t have been a woman, because everyone knows that Jack the Ripper was a man.” In fact virtually nothing is known about the Ripper, including the question of his or her sex.
    When writing his memoirs during his retirement in 1938, fifty years after the murders, Walter Dew, the young inspector in the CID who was involved in the investigation, expressed what was probably the view of the entire Metropolitan and City Police forces when he said: “I was on the spot, actively engaged throughout the whole series of crimes, I ought to know something about it. Yet I have to confess I am as mystified now as I was then by the man’s [my italics] amazing elusiveness.” Speaking of