The Dreadful Acts of Jack the Ripper and Other True Tales of Serial Murder and Prostitutes
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From award-winning criminologist R. Barri Flowers and the bestselling author of Dead at the Saddleworth Moor, Prostitution in the Digital Age, and The Sex Slave Murders, comes the gripping historical true crime book, The Dreadful Acts of Jack the Ripper and Other True Tales of Serial Murder and Prostitutes.
The renowned Ripperologist taps into his expertise on serial murderers and sex trade workers in offering an in-depth look at four noteworthy cases in which the two worlds collide frighteningly.
Jack the Ripper, the infamous and unidentified Victorian serial killer of at least five prostitutes in the dangerous section of London, known as Whitechapel, in 1888. The Ripper, who slashed and horribly mutilated his sex worker victims, set the tone for diabolical, vicious, serial slayers to follow for all time.
Aileen Wuornos was an American prostitute, who doubled as a serial killer in murdering seven johns in Florida between 1989 and 1990. She claimed they tried to or succeeded in raping her during the course of prostituting herself. In the process, Wuornos ended up being apropos for this book as a sex worker and serial predator.
Kendall Francois was an African American serial killer, dubbed the “Poughkeepsie Killer,” who strangled to death eight streetwalker prostitutes in Poughkeepsie, New York, between 1996 and 1998. Francois used his own residence as a horrifying house of homicides and burial ground.
The Edmonton Serial Killer represented one or more mostly unidentified serial killers who targeted and murdered dozens of prostitutes in the city of Edmonton in Alberta, Canada, between the mid-1970s and the early 2000s, and possibly beyond that. The sex trade worker victims were often picked up in the city’s red-light district stroll, murdered, and dumped in various killing fields in rural areas around Edmonton.
The book will also chronicle the infamous and colorful 19th century New Orleans prostitute and serial killer, Mary Jane Jackson, and modern-day American serial killers of prostitutes, Walter Ellis, nicknamed the “North Side Strangler,” and Vincent Johnson, dubbed the “Brooklyn Strangler.”
Included is a bonus true crime short on Douglas Clark and Carol Bundy, a serial killer couple who targeted prostitutes on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California; as well as excerpts from two fascinating historical true tales of child murder, serial murder, and jealous rage.
For fans of true crime tales and literary criminology, this gripping volume written by someone with the verisimilitude that the subject matter merits will surely hold your attention from start to finish.
R. Barri Flowers
R. Barri Flowers is an award winning and Publishers Weekly bestselling author of romantic suspense, mystery, thriller and crime novels, with twenty Harlequin titles published to date, such as Honolulu Cold Homicide and Special Agent Witness. Chemistry and conflict between the hero and heroine, attention to detail, and incorporating the very latest advances in criminal investigations, are the cornerstones of his crime thriller fiction.
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The Dreadful Acts of Jack the Ripper and Other True Tales of Serial Murder and Prostitutes - R. Barri Flowers
THE DREADFUL ACTS OF JACK THE RIPPER
And Other True Tales of Serial Murder and Prostitutes
By R. Barri Flowers
THE DREADFUL ACTS OF JACK THE RIPPER
And Other True Tales of Serial Murder and Prostitutes
Copyright 2017 by R. Barri Flowers
All rights reserved.
Cover Image Copyright Zacarias Pereira da Mata, 2017
Used under license from Shutterstock.com
BOOKS BY R. BARRI FLOWERS
TRUE CRIME BOOKS
Murder Chronicles: A Collection of Chilling True Crime Tales
Murders in the United States: Crimes, Killers, and Victims of the 20th Century
Serial Killer Couples: Bonded by Sexual Depravity, Abduction, & Murder
The Sex Slave Murders: The True Story of Serial Killers Gerald & Charlene Gallego
TRUE CRIME SHORTS
Dead at the Saddleworth Moor: The Crimes of Ian Brady & Myra Hindley
Killers of the Lonely Hearts: The Tale of Serial Killers Raymond Fernandez & Martha Beck
Mass Murder in the Sky: The Bombing of Flight 629
Missing or Murdered: The Disappearance of Agnes Tufverson
Murder During the Chicago World’s Fair: The Killing of Little Emma Werner
Murder at the Pencil Factory: The Killing of Mary Phagan 100 Years Later
Murder of a Star Quarterback: The Tragic Tale of Steve McNair & Sahel Kazemi
Murder of the Banker’s Daughter: The Killing of Marion Parker
Murder of the Doctor’s Wife: The 1867 Crimes of Bridget Durgan
Terror in East Lansing: The Tale of MSU Serial Killer Donald Miller
The Gold Special
Train Robbery: Deadly Crimes of the D’Autremont Brothers
The Amityville Massacre: The DeFeo Family’s Nightmare
The Pickaxe Killers: Karla Faye Tucker & Daniel Garrett
The Sex Slave Murders 2: The Chilling Story of Serial Killers Fred & Rosemary West
The Sex Slave Murders 3: The Horrific Tale of Serial Killers Leonard Lake & Charles Ng
CRIMINOLOGY BOOKS
Male Crime and Deviance: Exploring Its Cause, Dynamics, and Nature
Prostitution in the Digital Age: Selling Sex from the Suite to the Street
Runaway Kids and Teenage Prostitution
Sex Crimes, Predators, Perpetrators, Prostitutes, and Victims
The Dynamics of Murder: Kill or Be Killed
The Prostitution of Women and Girls
THRILLERS
Before He Kills Again
Dark Streets of Whitechapel: A Jack the Ripper Mystery
Dead in Pukalani: An Eddie Naku Maui Mystery (Book 1)
Dead in Kihei: An Eddie Naku Maui Mystery (Book 2)
Deadly Defense: A Grace Gaynor Christian Mystery (Book 1)
Justice Served: A Barkley & Parker Mystery
Murder in Maui: A Leila Kahana Mystery (Book 1)
Murder on Kaanapali Beach: A Leila Kahana Mystery (Book 2)
Murder of the Hula Dancers: A Leila Kahana Mystery (Book 3)
Persuasive Evidence: A Jordan La Fontaine Legal Thriller
State’s Evidence: A Beverly Mendoza Legal Thriller
PRAISE FOR TRUE CRIME BOOKS BY R. BARRI FLOWERS
Must read for all true crime fans.
— Amazon reviewer on Serial Killers and Prostitutes
Selected as one of Suspense Magazine’s Best books.
— John Raab, CEO/Publisher on The Sex Slave Murders
A gripping account of the murders committed by husband-and-wife serial killers Gerald and Charlene Gallego.
— Gary C. King, true crime author on The Sex Slave Murders
Vivid case studies of murder to complement this well researched criminology text.
— Scott Bonn, Ph.D., criminology professor on The Dynamics of Murder
A model of exposition not to be missed by anyone interested in the annals of American criminal behavior.
— Jim Ingraham, Ph.D., professor emeritus of American Studies at Bryant University on The Pickaxe Killers
R. Barri Flowers always relates an engrossing story.
— Robert Scott, true crime author on The Sex Slave Murders
Striking, well-written tales sparkle in this ocean of murder.
— Diane Fanning, true crime author on Masters of True Crime
Exhaustively researched, each storyteller brings their own unique prose to these pages, creating what will soon become a true crime classic.
— Kevin M. Sullivan, true crime author on Masters of True Crime
This book should be a mandatory purchase and read for any true-crime buff.
— Steven A. Egger, Ph.D., associate professor on Masters of True Crime
Incredible cases, psychopathic killers, unwitting victims, along with the very best writers, make for an exciting, no-holds-barred, soon-to-be true-crime classic.
— Dan Zupansky, host of True Murder on Masters of True Crime
An indispensable sourcebook for anyone interested in American homicide, from law-enforcement professionals to armchair criminologists.
— Harold Schechter, true crime historian on The Dynamics of Murder
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
Jack the Ripper: The Whitechapel Killer
Aileen Wuornos: The Serial Killer Prostitute
Kendall Francois: The Poughkeepsie Killer
The Edmonton Serial Killer
Douglas Clark and Carol Mary Bundy: Killers on the Sunset Strip (bonus true tale)
Murder During the Chicago World's Fair: The Killing of Little Emma Werner (bonus excerpt)
Murder of the Doctor’s Wife: The 1867 Crimes of Bridget Durgan (bonus excerpt)
Appendix: Serial Killers and the Sex Trade
Endnotes
About the Author
PREFACE
Throughout history there have been killers who have targeted, almost as a sport, more than one person to kill at various times and locations as serial slayers. Though the motivations and modus operandi have varied from killer to killer, in many instances, the objects of these murders have been prostitution-involved females. Their sex-for-sale profession and its often unsavory, out-of-bounds, and in-the-shadows nature has made them an easy and desirable target for serial killers to go after.
And so they have, often with abandon and in the cruelest ways possible. The infamous Jack the Ripper
of London’s East End of the late 1880s may not have been the first serial murderer of all time or the first to prey upon prostitutes, but he was the first to truly put the spotlight on this type of killing of this particular group of victims. Many other serial predators would come after the Ripper, with a decided predilection for female workers in the sex trade industry.
Society has often turned its back on this sexually exploited and vulnerable group of women and girls, as if to say they are worthless or have put themselves in harm’s way and left to suffer the consequences. Of course, many recognize the hardships and dynamics that force many sex trade workers into the business against their wishes, such as poverty, substance abuse, running away or being thrown out of abusive homes, mental illness, pimps, unemployment, and other factors.
Obviously, some prostitutes, such as high-class call girls, are in the profession primarily to enrich themselves by taking advantage of the marketplace and an almost endless stream of high-powered clients or johns who will risk almost anything to be serviced by them, including arrest and incarceration. Fortunately, these sex workers and their customers are less likely to find themselves in harm’s way or in trouble with the law than prostitutes who ply their trade and the johns who solicit them on the dark streets, corners, and alleyways of red-light districts.
The dichotomy between the prostitution classes, morality and immorality, public interest and disinterest, law enforcement and non-enforcement of the law, and opportunity versus inopportune pursuit, are all par for the course for serial killers in hunting prostitutes whenever the fever rises in them.
As an award-winning criminologist with a Master’s degree in Criminal Justice, bestselling author R. Barri Flowers has written extensively on the crime of murder, serial killers, and prostitution for both the true crime and criminology markets. His well-researched and informative titles in this regard include Dark Streets of Whitechapel, Sex Crimes, Prostitution in the Digital Age, The Dynamics of Murder, The Sex Slave Murders, Serial Killer Couples, Runaway Kids and Teenage Prostitution, Murder Chronicles, and Murders in the United States, to name a few.
Considered an expert on serial killers, the author has appeared on such true crime television shows as the Biography Channel’s Crime Stories, Investigation Discovery’s Wicked Attraction, and Oxygen’s Killer Couples documentary series.
The Dreadful Acts of Jack the Ripper and Other True Tales of Serial Murder and Prostitutes will focus on the crossroads of these two disparate groups that fate has brought together time and again, often with grave consequences, for many prostitution-involved individuals—with an in-depth look at several high profile and little known historical cases of such serial killers and victims.
Jack the Ripper, the unidentified and notorious Victorian serial killer of at least five prostitutes in the dangerous section of London, known as Whitechapel, in 1888. The Ripper, who slashed and horribly mutilated his sex worker victims, set the tone for diabolical, vicious serial slayers to follow for all time.
Aileen Wuornos was a white American prostitute, who doubled as a serial killer in murdering seven johns in Florida between 1989 and 1990. She claimed they tried to or succeeded in raping her during the course of prostituting herself. In the process, Wuornos ended up being apropos for this book as a sex worker and serial predator.
Kendall Francois was an African American serial killer, dubbed the Poughkeepsie Killer,
who strangled to death eight streetwalker prostitutes in Poughkeepsie, New York, between 1996 and 1998. Francois used his own residence as a horrifying house of homicides and burial ground.
The Edmonton Serial Killer represented one or more mostly unidentified serial killers who targeted and murdered dozens of prostitutes in the city of Edmonton in Alberta, Canada, between the mid-1970s and the early 2000s, and possibly beyond that. The sex trade worker victims were often picked up in the city’s red-light district stroll, murdered, and dumped in various killing fields in rural areas around Edmonton.
The book will also chronicle the infamous and colorful 19th century New Orleans prostitute and serial killer, Mary Jane Jackson, and modern-day American serial killers of prostitutes, Walter Ellis, nicknamed the North Side Strangler,
and Vincent Johnson, dubbed the Brooklyn Strangler.
Included is a bonus true crime short on Douglas Clark and Carol Bundy, a serial killer couple who targeted prostitutes on The Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California; as well as excerpts from two fascinating historical true tales of child murder, serial murder, and jealous rage.
For fans of true crime tales and literary criminology, this gripping volume written by someone with the verisimilitude that the subject matter merits will surely hold your attention from start to finish.
JACK THE RIPPER
The Whitechapel Killer
For more than a century, the moniker that most epitomizes a frightening and vicious serial killer is Jack the Ripper.
He became infamous as a diabolical killer in the late 19th century, murdering multiple prostitutes in and around the dangerous and crowded slum areas of London’s East End in the district of Whitechapel. None of the Ripper’s victims stood a fighting chance, as they were caught off guard by a knife-wielding, determined murderer, who targeted ladies of the night to feel his wrath. Though the actual number of murders committed by Jack the Ripper remains debatable to this day, the consensus among criminologists, both past and present, is that at least five sex trade workers were stabbed to death. Most of them were terribly mutilated by the killer who, by most accounts, got away with his vicious crimes. In spite of much speculating and various possibilities as to the identity of Jack the Ripper, the case has never been officially solved. The dark shadow of Jack the Ripper continues to strike fear in the hearts of people worldwide.¹ This is especially true for prostitution-involved individuals who still look over their shoulders for other Ripper-like serial killers who, in following in his footsteps, take direct aim at this vulnerable segment of society as killers, hoping to also remain on the prowl while murdering sex workers on their own terms.
Whitechapel
In Victorian England, the East End Whitechapel district represented the worst of life in London. Though it was home to scores of immigrants, many of whom were skilled and seeking a better life, the place was rampant with homelessness, squalor, overcrowding, drunkenness, criminality, violence, and prostitution. According to Jacob Adler, a Yiddish theater actor, The further we penetrated into this Whitechapel, the more our hearts sank. Was this London? Never in Russia, never later in the worst slums of New York, were we to see such poverty as in the London of the 1880s.
² One writer described Flower and Dean Street as perhaps the foulest and most dangerous street in the whole metropolis.
³ Similarly, Dorset Street, in the East End’s Spitalfields rookery, was referred to as the worst street in London.
⁴
These thoughts were echoed in the memoirs of former Detective Chief Inspector Walter Dew of London’s Metropolitan Police Service in which he indicated that, with respect to Whitechapel, even before the advent of Jack the Ripper [it] had a reputation for vice and villainy unequalled anywhere else in the British Isles.
⁵
Common lodging houses in Whitechapel offered cheap accommodations for communal living, bringing together the penniless, desperate, mentally ill, and criminal elements as a breeding ground for illness, trouble, chaos, exploitation, and victimization. The vulnerable were no match for those who could easily overpower them in making the most of a hellish environment at the expense of others.
The extreme poverty that existed in Whitechapel forced many women into prostitution. In October 1888, an estimated 1,200 sex workers operated there, plying their trade on foggy, reeking nights with menace every which way.⁶ Sex-for-pay was a common practice in numerous lodging houses, brothels, and right on the streets in what amounted to survival sex or sex to feed alcohol or drug habits for prostitution-involved females. There was no shortage of clients for the Whitechapel sex workers, as both destitute and wealthy men from throughout London vied for their services at little cost. Unless there was a public disturbance, prostitutes and customers were free to practice prostitution without fear of the police or arrest.
Unfortunately, the horrible conditions in Whitechapel made it an ideal setting for those who wished to harm prostitutes, and also afforded the perpetrators a relatively easy escape route among its overcrowded slums. This led to more than a few violent encounters, including the emergence of the serial killer known as Jack the Ripper.
The Whitechapel Murders
Living or working in Whitechapel during that era was especially challenging for women. They were often victims of physical and sexual violence by cruel, hateful, chauvinistic, and intoxicated male perpetrators, and generally had nowhere to turn for protection. Between April 3, 1888 and February 13, 1891, things reached a boiling point as eleven women were brutally murdered in and around Whitechapel. Most of the victims were sex workers. The investigation and search for the killer or killers was spearheaded by the Metropolitan Police Service of Greater London, and included the City of London Police as well as organizations such as the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, a volunteer patrol force of locals. The crimes were referred to officially as the Whitechapel murders.
The victims were as follows:
* Emma Elizabeth Smith was killed on Tuesday, April 3, 1888, on Osborn Street and Brick Lane in Whitechapel.
* Martha Tabram was killed on Tuesday, August 7, 1888, at the George Yard Buildings, George Yard, in Whitechapel.
* Mary Ann Nichols was killed on Friday, August 31, 1888, in Buck’s Row in Whitechapel.
* Annie Chapman was killed on Saturday, September 8, 1888, in the backyard at 29 Hanbury Street, Spitalfields.
* Elizabeth Stride was killed on Sunday, September 30, 1888, in the entry to Dutfield’s Yard at 40 Berner Street in Whitechapel.
* Catherine Eddowes was killed on Sunday, September 30, 1888, in Mitre Square in the City of London.
* Mary Jane Kelly was killed on Friday, November 9, 1888, at 13 Miller’s Court, 26 Dorset Street, Spitalfields.
* Rose Mylett was killed on Thursday, December 20, 1888, in Clarke’s Yard, off High Street in Poplar.
* Alice McKenzie was killed on Wednesday, July 17, 1889, in Castle Alley in Whitechapel.
* An unidentified female torso was discovered on Tuesday, September 10, 1889, beneath a railway arch on Pinchin Street in Whitechapel.
* Frances Coles was killed on Friday, February 13, 1891, below a railway arch at Swallow Gardens in Whitechapel.
The eleven Whitechapel murders quite naturally left everyone on edge and put the focus on the impoverished and decrepit environment of the East End that led to the fatal attacks. The investigation had authorities particularly focused on butchers, physicians, slaughterers, surgeons, and others with skills that involved cutting, gutting, and related procedures that seemed consistent with the manner of death for most of the Whitechapel victims. This resulted in a number of arrests, inquiries, finger-pointing, and the creation of a ruthless killer identified as Jack the Ripper. However, the general view is that in spite of the common setting and circumstances of the victims, given the inconsistences in the manner of some of the deaths, there was likely more than one perpetrator of the murders. To this day, the crimes have gone unsolved and no culprit or culprits were ever brought to justice.
Jack the Ripper Murders
Within the Whitechapel murders, five of the killings were believed to have been the work of a single serial murderer, the so-called Jack the Ripper. Referred to as the Canonical Five, the victims include Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly. Unlike the other Whitechapel murder victims, the Ripper victims were killed in a similar and precise manner, such as the deep slashing of their throats; facial, abdominal, and genitalia mutilations; and postmortem removal of internal organs. Moreover, the five women worked as East End prostitutes and were killed in the dark of night or the wee hours of the morning, near or on the weekend, and around the end of or early in a month.
The view of the Canonical Five being the work of a single assailant was held by Sir Melville Macnaghten, who was appointed as the Metropolitan Police Service Assistant Chief Constable and Criminal Investigation Department’s second in command at Scotland Yard in June 1889. He was promoted to Chief Constable in 1890. In a February 1894 confidential report, Macnaghten declared that the Whitechapel murderer had five victims—and five victims only.
⁷ Similarly, in a November 10, 1888, letter written to the London Criminal Investigation Department head, Robert Anderson, police surgeon Thomas Bond connected the Ripper killings to a single assailant, arguing,
All five murders no doubt were committed by the same hand. In the first four the throats appear to have been cut from left to right, in the last case owing to the extensive mutilation it is impossible to say in what direction the fatal cut was made, but arterial blood was found on the wall in splashes close to where the woman’s head must have been lying. All the circumstances surrounding the murders lead me to form the opinion that the women must have been lying down when murdered and in every case the throat was first cut.⁸
This notwithstanding, a killer’s modus operandi is not set in stone. It is possible that Jack the Ripper began his reign of terror one way and ended it another to throw the authorities off track and