‘Jack the Ripper’ gets his name

On September 27, 1888, the Central News Agency in London receives a letter with the salutation, “Dear Boss” and signed by someone calling himself “Jack the Ripper.” Written in red ink and promising more gruesome murders, the letter is widely panned as a hoax, but it makes the name Jack the Ripper infamous.

Between 1888 and 1891, 11 women were killed in and around the working-class Whitechapel district of London. Five of those victims are commonly believed to have been killed by the person known as Jack the Ripper. The British press seized on the ghastly murders, using names for the killer including "The Whitechapel Murderer," the “Red Fiend” and “Leather Apron.” The apron name was coined by the tabloid The Star based on rumors that London sex workers were being extorted by a man wearing a leather apron.

By mid-September 1888, at least two women had been murdered and mutilated in the streets of Whitechapel, but no suspects were in custody. That's when the “Dear Boss” letter arrived at the Central News Agency.

Signed “Jack the Ripper,” the letter read, in part:

The news agency waited two days before passing the letter along to the police, who initially dismissed it as a sick prank. Then, on September 30, two more women were found dead on the streets of Whitechapel, one of them with a mutilated ear. Amid growing public alarm and criticism of the police investigation, facsimiles of the “Dear Boss” letter were released to the public in early October, helping spread the name “Jack the Ripper.”

On October 1, the Central News Agency received a second communication, now known as the “Saucy Jacky” postcard, reportedly smeared with what appeared to be blood. When the postcard went public, the floodgates opened and the London police received hundreds of copycat missives from “Jack the Ripper.”

From the start, some journalists and Scotland Yard detectives suspected that the original two letters from Jack the Ripper were the creations of a twisted prankster. Journalist George R. Sims called Jack the Ripper “a grim practical joker" who had "succeeded in getting an enormous amount of fun out of a postcard which he sent to the Central News.”

As for the true identity of the letter writer, there were many suspects, including Thomas Bulling, a journalist who worked at the Central News Agency. He claimed to have received a third letter from Jack the Ripper, but instead of handing the original to the police, he transcribed it word for word on a typewriter. Some theorize he was worried that the police would recognize his handwriting.

The Whitechapel murders were never solved. Likewise, the identity of the writer who coined the name "Jack the Ripper" remains unknown.