Ratcliff Highway Murders - Significance

Significance

Londoners were familiar with violent attacks in the street at night, and Ratcliffe Highway had a particularly bad reputation for robbery. Yet this murder shocked London and much of England, because the Marrs had been a hardworking family with no apparent ties to criminal elements. They seemed to be entirely random victims, and their brutal deaths violated the social ideal that law-abiding people who lived decent lives and worked hard had nothing to fear.

London was panicked by the idea that a stranger or a gang could enter homes and leave everyone dead. This was the ultimate fear: that one's own home was not safe.