Jonathan A's Atlanta's Black Jack The Ripper of 1911 Forum

[Jonathan A]

Perhaps the Atlanta Ripper was the author of all these crimes. You might think that theory far fetched, given the distance between Atlanta, Bristol, and Augusta but it would be remarkably coincidental for there to be three black serial killers, operating at the same time and with similar modus operandi and yet of time frames contradict each other. One must be left to wonder.

One of the contentions, as you know Jon, is that there was no serial killer loose in Atlanta...and that the murders were simply regular fare for the Fourth Ward ( Atlanta's Whitechapel...which I intend to cover one day ).
If I get some time, I will go back to the papers....

Chief of Police Beavers stated that he believed that there was one person doing the blunt of the crimes according to the Georgian article that you posted on the death of Minnie Wise(the one who had her finger cut off) shortly before the police arrested her hubby for the murder. It seems that the police were divided on the theory of a black Jack until the 1913 murder of Lula Smith in which on of the articles that you posted said that murder convinced scores of city detectives that there was really a Black Jack at work.
Given the brutalities of the murders, their similarities and differences, it seems unlikely that these would have been a series of copycats as some claim. The similarities being the style of murder and some of the dumping ground. The Atlanta Georgian 1909 article that you posted said that the police came up with the theory of a negro Jack when they had come across a black woman found in the same spot and matter as another black woman had died less than a week ago. Detective Bullard told Todd Henderson that he believed he was the killer because a half a dozen Negroes had died around where he lived. In 1918, the police attributed a black woman's murder case to Jack because they said that years earlier that a similar crime had happened there years ago at exactly the same spot and no clues were found. It is well known that serial killers like to revisit sites for murder.

[Howard Brown]

Jon:
I agree....every other sentence mentioned black this or black that or African American community or black women....I mean, the reader got the idea that it was about a black killer from reading the first paragraph.

[Howard Brown]

So much for the myth of the Atlanta killer...at least at this point in the murders :

This is 35 days after the previous article.

Atlanta Constitution
April 7, 1912
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[Howard Brown]

Atlanta Constitution
April 9, 1912
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[Howard Brown]

Atlanta Constitution
April 25, 1912
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[Jonathan A]

Atlanta Constitution
Sept 2, 1911
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[Jonathan A]

Mary Kate Sledge
Lures girl to lonely spot then kills her

Atlanta Constitution
April 8, 1912
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[Jonathan A]

Negro crushes skull of his better half

Atlanta Constitution
July 20, 1911
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[Howard Brown]

Atlanta Constitution
March 8, 1914
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[Howard Brown]

Atlanta Constitution
February 12, 1913
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[Howard Brown]

Atlanta Constitution
August 25, 1913
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[Howard Brown]

Neighbors

The first victim from Ponce De Leon Avenue in 1913 ( see previous post)....the victim lived at # 58...the one in August at 59....!!!!!!!
These murders occurred in Atlanta's 4th Ward ( curiously, New York's 4th Ward was where Carrie Brown was murdered in 1891 and Philadelphia's 4th Ward was split by the pretty shady Ninth Street, part of its 'Whitechapel').
The Atlanta murders occurred spitting distance from Atlanta's main drag, Peachtree Street...similar to Manhattan's Broadway or Philly's Broad Street.
Atlanta Constitution
March 11, 1913
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[Jonathan A]

Atlanta Constitution
February 12, 1913
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Lizzie Watts, no relation to Addie Watts

[Jonathan A]

Rosa Rivers

[Howard Brown]

Jon:
I don't think the author of the book realized that the two 1913 murders of women working on Ponce De Leon street involved women living directly across the road from each other.