Thomas Bond: Jack the Ripper’s Criminal Profiler

On the morning of August 31, 1888 the body of Mary Ann Nichols was discovered in Buck’s Row, in the low-class Whitechapel part of London. Her throat was slashed and her lower abdomen was ripped open by a deep, jagged wound. Eight days later, the body of Annie Chapman was discovered, also with severe throat wounds and a slashed abdomen. And so, the infamous Jack the Ripper case began.

In all, five female prostitutes, termed the “Canonical Five,” are believed to have gone to their deaths by the butchery of Jack the Ripper. Several others, both before and after, occurred in the overcrowded, lewd Whitechapel neighborhood in the East End of London, but most researchers link only Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly with any certainty to the Ripper. To be sure, it confounded London’s Metropolitan Police Service and investigators from Scotland Yard; the true identity of Jack the Ripper has never been discovered, but stemming from the investigation is what some call the first modern example of criminal profiling.
Thomas Bond

One of the most fascinating documents to come down to us from the time of Jack the Ripper is the report written by Dr. Thomas Bond, a police surgeon who was asked in late October of 1888 to examine the materials collected thus far in the investigation and give his opinion on how much surgical skill and knowledge the killer had. In an age before formal training, like masters in criminology degrees offer today, Bond used the evidence and notes from the first four murders to begin an assessment that would, with any luck, lead in the direction of the killer. Then, just a little over two weeks later, a fifth and final Ripper victim was discovered in the wee hours of the morning of November 9.

Bond performed a medical examination and two days later, on November 10, 1888, his notes were dated and completed. He asserted that the deaths of the prostitutes were, in fact, linked and the work of a single man. He cited the evidence that four of the five women had their throats cut, from left to right, though the fifth, Kelly, was too mutilated for him to make any real judgment. According to Bond, the murderer wouldn’t necessarily have been splashed or “deluged” with blood, but his hands and arms and parts of his clothing would be smeared in it; more chillingly he stated, “The object was mutilation.”

Perhaps most significantly, Bond’s notes specifically stated, “In each case the mutilation was inflicted by a person who had no scientific nor anatomical knowledge. In my opinion he does not even possess the technical knowledge of a butcher or horse slaughterer or any person accustomed to cut up dead animals.” This has led to some squabbling over the past century, as different authors and researchers have come to varied conclusions on the surgical skill of the Ripper.

Finally, Bond offered his last two points in the note, which go beyond analyzing the medical training of the murderer and offer one of modern history’s very first criminal profiles.

Bond said, “The murderer must have been a man of physical strength and of great coolness and daring. There is no evidence that he had an accomplice. He must in my opinion be a man subject to periodical attacks of Homicidal and erotic mania… The murderer in external appearance is quite likely to be a quiet inoffensive looking man probably middle aged [sic] and neatly and respectably dressed. I think he must be in the habit of wearing a cloak or overcoat or he could hardly have escaped notice in the streets if the blood on his hands or clothes were visible.”

Bond finished his notes with the assertion that the killer must be a solitary man, a man who was living off a small pension and a man living among “respectable persons” – who must have been aware that all was not in his right mind, but who would likely not speak up, for fear of scandal in an otherwise polite society.

While his meticulous observation didn’t lead to the discovery of the murderer, Dr. Bond’s work nonetheless served to highlight the importance of criminology, which would over the course of the following century evolve into a sprawling academic field which now features both a masters in criminology and Ph.D. programs as well.

This article was written by Jon Spears, who researches famous criminal cases throughout history with his knowledge from his masters in criminology studies, from Jack the Ripper to Charles Mansion to even more recent murders, such as the Laci Peterson and Natalee Holloway cases. Spears has a thorough background in criminology after receiving his masters in criminology.