 Extensive newspaper coverage bestowed widespread and enduring international notoriety on the Ripper , and his legend solidified . A police investigation into a series of eleven brutal killings in Whitechapel up to 1891 was unable to connect all the killings conclusively to the murders of 1888 . Five victims — Mary Ann Nichols , Annie Chapman , Elizabeth Stride , Catherine Eddowes , and Mary Jane Kelly — are known as the " canonical five " and their murders between 31 August and 9 November 1888 are often considered the most likely to be linked . The murders were never solved , and the legends surrounding them became a combination of genuine historical research , folklore , and pseudohistory . The term " ripperology " was coined to describe the study and analysis of the Ripper cases . There are now over one hundred theories about the Ripper 's identity , and the murders have inspired many works of fiction . 
