Text written by WikiBrother Gabriel Brandino , from @moshinhell
Jack the Ripper was perhaps one of the most famous serial killers of all time, and it's only fitting that the band Judas Priest wrote a song in his honor. Let's talk a little about the song "The Ripper," where we are placed in the killer's perspective.
Jack, also known as the Whitechapel Murderer (because the crimes took place in the Whitechapel district of London), cruelly murdered five women between August and November 1888. Everyone knows his identity was never discovered, which makes the case even more fascinating. The victims, all prostitutes, became known as the "Canonical Five," and were always killed in the early hours of the morning.
"You'll be surprised,
you'll be shocked.
In the streets of London,
where there's darkness and fog,
when you least expect me,
and you turn your back,
I will attack."
In October 1888, police surgeon Thomas Bond stated that the killer possessed the scientific and anatomical knowledge to perform the cuts and organ removals from his victims with such mastery. The crimes always consisted of leaving the victim with cuts to the throat and various bodily mutilations. Among the more than 100 suspects, many were forensic doctors and even butchers, precisely because of how the mutilations were performed on the victims.
“I smile as I creep
Through the shadows close to the wall
I laugh as I crawl
But you won’t hear me
Heed my warning
Never turn your backs
On the Ripper”
His last crime, that of young Mary Kelly , may have been the pinnacle of his deranged sadism. Kelly's body was covered in two liters of blood, one of her breasts was found next to her foot, her thigh was scraped and cut, and her bones and some organs were ripped out and scattered around the room where she was killed.
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“In any narrow alleyway
Is where we'll probably meet
Beneath a gas lamp
When the air is cold and damp
I am an unpleasant surprise
I am a demon in disguise
I am a step in the night
I am a scream of terror
Heed my warning
Never turn your backs
On the Ripper
The Ripper”
The police were increasingly shocked by the brutality of the crimes, but they didn't know where to look, and numerous letters began arriving at the police station. Most of them, however, were fake.
Recently, multi-instrumentalist Kip Winger , founder of the glam and progressive metal band Winger , created a "sequel" to this story in the form of a musical. He tells the story of the "canonical five," and in the play, they return to take revenge on their tormentor.
The musical is divided into two acts. The first act is a journey back in time where each of the five canonical girls is encountered in a series of interviews about the night of their murders. In the second act, the girls take on a mission and travel through the mind of the serial killer to force him to reveal what he did to the world.
The five canonical women then torment their killer, forcing him to confront his demons, and then drag him to hell. “We are five massacred women! Remember our names! The five canonical women, five canonical women, Kelly , Chapman , Eddowes , Nichols , and Stride !”
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