Jack and Donald and Vladimir
Cowards share a common element; an adoring fanbase
by Elaine Gilmartin
Walk the streets of London’s Whitechapel neighborhood most nights and you will encounter a group of tourists listening avidly to a character actor dressed in period attire recounting in graphic detail the proclivities of one past resident popularly known as Jack the Ripper.
Beginning late summer 1888 and culminating by late fall, at least five women discovered savaged on the streets and rented rooms of this particularly rough neighborhood were attributed to one individual never officially identified by investigators but was infamously known as Jack the Ripper.
The horrors inflicted on the victims need not be recounted here, but suffice it to say the moniker was appropriate. Jack became legend, his story made legendary in books and film.
What garners little attention and brought to life by author, Hallie Rubenhold’s book, “The Five,” is that these women each were individuals, each had families who loved and missed them, each had experienced loss, of a spouse, a child, a life to addiction. Each was human.
But what of the lure of Jack? One of the most cowardly figures in history, his victims were malnourished, highly inebriated women. Witnesses said several appeared to be close to blackout stages of…
