Sources D And E example essay topic

From source A you can learn that the murder of all the victims and Polly Nicholls were very alike because the injuries sustained were similar as 'extraordinary violence' was used in all of the murders. This suggests that the murders were carried out by the same person and by someone who is described as a 'demented being' because nobody in the right mind would have killed the victims with such horrific violence. Also the victims had been very poor so there was no motive for the murders which suggests that the murderer and the victims were strangers. 3.

Sources D and E are very useful in helping to understand why the Ripper was able to avoid capture because in source D the witness statement from Elizabeth Long is unreliable. This is because she was unsure about his height, just describing him as a little taller than the deceased. She was also unsure about his attire saying that she thought he could have been wearing a dark coat. To the police this could have described nearly all of the men in Whitechapel. She does not say what his face was like and fails to give an approximate age which would even further hinder the police.

This source is only reliable for a lose description of the killer. Source E, an article published in a local newspaper, is an attack on the policing in Whitechapel at the time of the first two murders. It is however more useful as a description of Whitechapel. The warren of streets, passages and alleys are described as 'a network of narrow and dark crooked lanes. ' This invokes the image of a labyrinth of dark twisting streets, which would be extremely hard to catch the Ripper. He could move in and out of Whitechapel undetected which would make it very difficult to catch him in the act as there are not enough police.

The darkness of the streets would also make it very easy for the Ripper to avoid capture and it would make it difficult for witnesses to pick out the feature of him which is probably why Elizabeth Long was unsure about the man she saw talking to Annie Chapman before she was killed because at the time she saw the man it would have been dark. If the description of the infamy that occurred on the streets of Whitechapel at night was accurate, source E is unhelpful to our understanding why the Ripper was never caught, as the police had relevant information about the area at night, and knew why the murders could occur. Source E also states that murders followed an 'informants' warnings and that the murders were a result of police not paying attention to those warnings. I think this was published for publicity showing that the press also hindered the police investigation making it even harder to catch Jack the Ripper by following genuine leads.