The Mammoth Book of Killers at Large (52 page)

Most of the killings have been committed in a wooded area south of the Florencio Freeway that runs from San José out to Cartago. The area stretching south to Desamparados is now called the “triangle of death” by the locals. The killings often occur near a brook or river, also giving the perpetrator the nickname “The Psychopath of the Rivers”.

To start with, the killer also exhibited a unique pattern to his murders. After the murder of two couples, he then murdered a single women. But, in that case, he did not mutilate the bodies, though it was thought that he carried out acts of necrophilia. His attacks occurred every other month, on a full moon. However, the pattern has now become less clear. The authorities now think that killer began with a murder known as Alajuelita Massacre – the murder of seven women and girls on 6 June 1986 in the town of Alajuelita, which lies within the triangle of death. His last known attack was on 26 October 1996 when he found Ileana Alvarez and Mauricio Cordero parked in their Nissan Sentra. He forced them to get out of the car and walk 500 yards before he shot them. However, the police now think he may also be responsible for the disappearance of 12 other young people in 1996.

Several psychological profiles of the killer have been drawn up. One sees him as a “Rambo” type – a deranged former military or police official. Another theory is that he was a Nicaraguan guerrilla, or a Costa Rican who had gone to fight in the civil war there. Other theories say he could be the son of a wealthy politician or a landowner. Police believe the killer is probably in his thirties or forties, and could be highly intelligent.

On 26 June 1998, the Judicial Investigative Organization of Costa Rica announced they had arrested a serial killer who operated in the triangle of death. The killer was a 52-year-old construction worker, the father of 11 children whose favourite hobby is hunting. He sexually abuses his victims, then kills them with hunting rifles, and buries them under concrete. However, there seems to be no connection between this new unnamed killer and the Psychopath.

There is also another serial killer at large in Costa Rica known as
El Descuartizador
– “The Quarterer”. He specializes in killing drug addicts – usually defenceless youths and women. He then cuts up their bodies and then scatters the pieces. It is not known how many he has killed as his victims are usually estranged from their families and on the fringes of society.

At one time these various killings were thought to be the work of one man – the San José Ripper. He first struck on 20 April 1989, when the bodies of Edwin Mata Madrigal and Marta Navarro Carpio were found in a river. Then at 11.15 a.m. on 13 November 1989 human remains were discovered in a drain in San José. Police dogs located the body parts of two corpses, though their heads and hands were not found and only one of their feet was recovered. The victims, a man and a woman, were thought to be aged between 18 and 25.

Pieces of another two corpses of a similar age were collected between December 2000 and February 2001. This time the women had a bite mark made by the teeth of a man on her right breast, while the man had a piece of wood shoved up his anus. The corpses were badly mutilated and, again, the heads, hands and feet were missing.

Again they were in various waterways and had been tattooed. Both these cases exhibited the MOs of both the Psychopath and the Quarterer. The police believe that the San José Ripper may be toying with them.

England – Jack the Ripper

Jack the Ripper has never been caught, or even, convincingly identified – so, technically, he is still at large. Whoever he was, he killed five women for certain in a ten-week period from 31 August to 9 November 1888, though he may have been responsible for the deaths of four more. All five had their throats slashed and were disembowelled and mutilated. The killer paid special attention to the destruction of the breasts and female sexual organs. Interestingly, if you plot the five murders on a map, they mark out the points of a pentagram, the five-pointed occult star.

The murders all took place in the Whitechapel area of London’s East End, which was well known for vice at the time. In 1888, there were 62 brothels and 233 boarding houses catering to prostitutes and their clients in the narrow lanes there. Pox-ridden, middle-aged, alcoholic prostitutes hung around in alleyways and doorways, offering their sexual favours standing up. Usually they would simply bend down and hoist up their skirts so their client could enter them from the rear. This made it particularly easy for Jack the Ripper to pull a knife and despatch his victim before she realized what was happening.

Forty-five-year-old Emma Elizabeth Smith was possibly the first victim of the Ripper. On the night of 3 April 1888, she solicited a well-dressed gentleman. Later that night, she collapsed in the arms of a constable, saying that she had been attacked by four men. They had cut off her ear and shoved a foreign object up her vagina. She died a few hours later.

Then on 7 August 1888, Martha Tabram was stabbed to death. There were 39 frenzied wounds on her body, mainly around the breasts and sexual organs. Both Smith and Tabram, like the Ripper’s later victims, had their backs turned when they were attacked.

The first of the women known for certain to have been killed by the Ripper was 42-year-old Polly Nichols. Her body was found in Buck’s Row at 3.15 a.m. on 31 August 1888. She did not cry out. The attack took place under the window of a sleeping woman who did not wake. The body revealed that she fought for her life, but was overcome by her attacker. Her throat had been slashed twice, so deeply that she had almost been decapitated. There were deep wounds around her vagina, but no organs had been removed. Pathologists examining the corpse concluded that the killer had some medical knowledge. Polly had almost certainly turned her back on her killer for an assignation there on the street. While she was turned away from him, he pulled out a knife, put it to her throat and pushed her forward on to it as he slashed her. This explained the depth of the wound and would have meant that all the blood would have sprayed forward and not over the assailant, leaving him clean to make his escape unnoticed.

The police realized that they had a maniac on their hands. Detectives were sent out into the East End, searching for men who mistreated prostitutes. The name “Leather Apron” came up several times in the investigation. A shoemaker called Pizer was picked up. He used a leather apron and sharp knives in his trade, but his family swore that he was at home on the three occasions women had been attacked.

On 8 September 1888, 47-year-old Annie Chapman was bragging in the pubs of Whitechapel that the killer would meet his match if he ever came near her. She was wrong. Later, she was seen talking to a “gentleman” in the street. They seemed to strike up a bargain and went off arm-in-arm. Half-an-hour later, she was found dead in an alleyway. Her head was only connected to her body by a strand of flesh. Her intestines were found thrown over her right shoulder, the flesh from her lower abdomen over her left. Her kidneys and ovaries had been removed. The killer had taken them with him. He had also left a piece of leather near the corpse. The police realized that this was all too convenient. The killer was obviously an avid reader of the newspapers and had read of the arrest of Pizer. He also left a blood-soaked envelope with the crest of the Sussex Regiment on it. It had been reported that Martha Tabram had been seen in the company of a soldier shortly before her death and the newspapers said that her wounds could have been caused by a bayonet or army knife.

Three weeks after the death of Annie Chapman, the Central News Agency received a letter that gloated over the murder and the false clues. It regretted that the letter was not written in the victim’s blood, but it had gone “thick like glue” and promised to send the ear of the next victim. The letter was signed “Jack the Ripper”. On 30 September 1888, the Central News Agency received another letter from the Ripper, apologizing that he had not enclosed an ear – but promised that he was going to do a “double”.

At 1 a.m. that night, 45-year-old “Long Liz” Stride, a Swedish prostitute whose real name was Elizabeth Gustaafsdotter, was found in a pool of blood with her throat slashed. The delivery man who discovered her body heard the attacker escaping over the cobblestones. Around the same time, 43-year-old prostitute Catherine Eddowes was being thrown out of Bishopsgate Police Station where she had been held for creating a drunken disturbance. As she walked towards Houndsditch she met Jack the Ripper. He cut her throat, slashed her face and cut at her ear, though it was left still attached. He removed her intestines and threw them over her shoulder. The left kidney was missing altogether.

The murder of two women in one night sent London into a panic. Queen Victoria demanded action, but the police seemed powerless. East-End resident George Lusk set up the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee to patrol the streets. Two weeks later, Mr Lusk received a small package through the post. It contained half of Catherine Eddowes’ kidney. The other half had been fried and eaten, according to the accompanying note which was again signed “Jack the Ripper”. Queen Victoria concluded that the Ripper must be a foreigner. No Englishman would behave in such a beastly way, she said. A cabinet meeting was called to discuss the matter. They ordered checks on all the ships tied up in the London docks. This proved to be a huge waste of police manpower.

The last victim that was certainly the Ripper’s was unlike the others. She was young, just 24, and attractive. Her name was Mary Kelly and she only turned to prostitution occasionally to pay the rent. She was killed indoors and she also cried out.

On the night of 9 November 1888, she was seen on the street soliciting a “well-dressed gentleman”. Sometime between 3.30 and 4 a.m., the woman sleeping in the room above Kelly’s heard Kelly scream: “Oh, murder.” In the morning, the rent man found her mutilated corpse.

Being indoors and undisturbed, the Ripper had been able to spend more than an hour on his grisly task. Mary Kelly’s clothes were found neatly folded on a chair so it is thought that she took her “gentleman” back to her room and undressed herself ready for sex. It was then that he pulled out his knife. This time she had been facing him, saw the murder weapon and cried out. He slashed her throat, almost decapitating her, but blood splashed on his clothes, which were found burnt in the stove. Then he set about her corpse. Both breasts were cut off and placed on the table, along with her nose and flesh from her thighs and legs. Her left arm was severed and was left hanging by the flesh. Her forehead and legs had been stripped of flesh and her abdomen had been slashed open. She was three months pregnant at the time of the attack. Her intestines and liver had, once again, been removed and her hand was shoved into the gaping hole left. There was blood around the window where the Ripper was thought to have escaped, naked except for a long cloak and boots.

Other murders followed that may have been the work of the Ripper. The headless corpse of Elizabeth Jackson, a prostitute working in the Chelsea area, was found floating in the Thames in June 1889. In July that year, Alice McKenzie, a prostitute in Whitechapel, was found with her throat cut from ear to ear and her sexual organs cut out. And street-walker Frances Cole, also known as “Carroty Nell” because of her flaming red hair, was found in Whitechapel with her throat cut and slashed around her abdomen. A policeman saw a man stooped over the body, but he ran away before the constable could get a good look at him.

The description of the Ripper that has seized the public imagination comes from a friend of Mary Kelly’s who saw her with a man that night. He was five feet six inches tall, about 35, well-dressed with a gold watch chain dangling from his waistcoat pocket. Kelly was seen in conversation with him.

“You will be all right for what I have told you,” he said.

“All right my dear,” she replied, taking him by the arm. “Come along, you will be comfortable.”

A few hours later a chestnut vendor saw a man matching that description, wearing a long cloak and silk hat with a thin moustache turned up at the end and carrying a black bag.

“Have you heard there has been another murder?” he said.

“I have,” the chestnut seller replied.

“I know more of it than you do,” said the man as he walked away.

There are a huge number of theories as to the identity of the Ripper. The police had 176 suspects at the time. The most popular is the mad Russian physician Dr Alexander Pedachenko who worked under an assumed name in an east London clinic that treated several of the victims. A document naming him as the Ripper was said to have been found in the basement of Rasputin’s house in St Petersburg after the mad monk’s assassination in 1916. However, some have pointed out that Rasputin’s house did not have a basement.

A Dr Stanley is another popular suspect. He is said to have contracted syphilis from a Whitechapel prostitute and thus took vengeance on them all. He fled to Buenos Aires where he died in 1929, after confessing all to a student.

V. Kosminski, a Polish Jew who lived in Whitechapel, threatened to slice up prostitutes. He went insane and died in an asylum. East European Jewish immigrants, who were unpopular in London at the time, were regularly blamed for the Ripper killings. It was said that the murders were ritual Jewish slaughters performed by a
shochet
, a butcher who kills animals according to Talmudic law. This theory was given some little credence by the confused message “The juwes are not the men that will be blamed for nothing” that was scrawled on a wall in Whitechapel after the murder of Catherine Eddowes. “Juwes”, the Masonic spelling of“Jews”, also gave rise to the theory that the murders had been some Masonic rite. The police commissioner Sir Charles Warren was himself a high-ranking Mason. He had the graffiti removed to prevent inflaming anti-Jewish feelings in the area, he said. Sir Charles Warren resigned after the murder of Mary Kelly, admitting his utter failure to solve the case.

Another Polish immigrant, Severin Klosowich – alias George Chapman – was also suspected. He was a barber’s surgeon in Whitechapel and kept sharp knives for bloodletting and for the removal of warts and moles. He poisoned three of his mistresses and went to the gallows in 1903.