Book Description

"Ripper Notes: Murder by Numbers" is a collection of essays about the famous unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper and related topics. Wolf Vanderlinden's questions the conventional wisdom about the time of death of Annie Chapman, the second of Jack's generally accepted victims, by a careful examination of the medical evidence and contradictions in witness testimony. Amanda Howard compares serial killers like Andrei Chikatilo, the BTK strangler, Albert Fish and the Green River Killer to see what they might tell us about the Ripper case. Also, Jeffrey Bloomfield gives the details on two forgotten cases of prostitutes murdered in London a few years before the more famous 1888 killings, Bernard Brown discusses the police officer who thought he almost caught the Whitechapel murderer, Des McKenna asks whether witnesses confused two different women as being Mary Kelly (generally considered the last Ripper victim) and Robert J. McLaughlin reports on a Punch & Judy-like theatre performance based upon the murders. There are also several short pieces looking at the latest news in Ripperology, the boom in books about the case, and similar topics. Ripper Notes is a nonfiction anthology series covering all aspects of the Jack the Ripper case.