Showing posts with label Journalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Journalism. Show all posts

Sunday, May 31, 2026

Jack the Strangler Post-Mortem.

Strangler Suspect, Jacob Tolker
(New York Journal, May 14, 1897)
Eight women were strangled—seven fatally— on Manhattan’s East Side, between May 1894 and August 1900. While the police closed three of the cases, their solutions were so weak that the New York City newspapers continued to list them all as unsolved and continued to speculate that one man committed all eight crimes. “It is not difficult to construct a hypothetical 'Jack the Strangler' who prowls up and down Second Avenue and from time to time surrenders himself to his cruel, cowardly mania.” Said the New York Journal. Was there a mad strangler at loose on Second Avenue, or was “Jack the Strangler” the product of sensational journalism?