Who was Jack the Ripper?

Note ‘from killer’ sells for £22,000 as
fresh theories emerge about the 1888 Whitechapel murders

In Depth

The hand-written note, posted to west London’s Ealing police
station, warns that the killer’s knife “is still in good
order”.

The card is dated 29 October 1888, “which was 11 days before
Mary Kelly – believed to be Jack the Ripper’s final victim – was
murdered”, says the BBC.

Jonathan Riley, of Grand Auctions in Folkestone, Kent, said a
British private collector won a bidding war with an American to buy
the rare letter. It first entered the market when it was sold by
the widow of a Metropolitan Police constable who was given it as a
memento when he retired, in 1966.

Riley said: “He happened to be in the right place at the right
time, he was retiring, and took it and stuck it in a drawer for
30-odd years…”

According to the auction house: “The great beauty of the
card is that with its police provenance it is a unique Ripper item
for sale, and no one can prove it is the Ripper himself, but
equally no one can prove it is not.”

What did Jack the Ripper do?

The mysterious killer is believed to have murdered at least five
prostitutes: Mary Ann Nicholls, on 31 August 1888; Annie
Chapman, on 8 September; Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddoweson,
on 30 September; and Mary Jane Kelly, on 9 November. With the
exception of Stride, all of the women were horribly mutilated.

These deaths are often referred to as the “canonical five”
Ripper murders. However,  according to Casebook, a website dedicated to Ripper-related
information, some experts believe the first victim was a prostitute
called Martha Tabram, who was stabbed to death on 6 August
1888.

The name Jack the Ripper originates from a letter
written by someone who claimed to be the killer published in London
newspaper at the time of the murders.

As details of his gory deeds emerged, fear spread and “the
streets of London emptied after nightfall, leaving the once
bustling Victorian capital deathly silent while the Ripper roamed
the streets”, says The Sun.

Who was Jack the Ripper?

The murders stopped as quickly as they had begun following
Kelly’s death. The identity of the killer was never established,
and the police officially closing the investigation in 1892.

But the crimes never faded from public consciousness, with
hundreds of so-called Ripperologists coming up with their own
theories over the decades. “The line-up of possible suspects has
included the father of Winston Churchill, author Lewis Carroll, and
Prince Albert Victor, grandson of Queen Victoria and second in line
to the British throne,” says History.com.

During the course of their investigations, police viewed several
men as strong suspects, though none was ever formally charged.

These included Montague John Druitt, a gay barrister who
later committed suicide; Seweryn Klosowski, a
barber from Whitechapel who poisoned three of his
wives; Aaron Kosminski, a Polish paranoid
schizophrenic; and Michael Ostrog, a Russian
conman.

What are some of the theories around the murders?

In 1992, Ripperologists around the world “were stunned by the
discovery of a previously unknown memoir, claiming to have been
written by Liverpool cotton merchant James Maybrick”, says The Daily Telegraph.

In the 9,000-word volume, Maybrick confessed to the brutal
murders of five women in the East End of London, as well as a
prostitute in Manchester.

He signed off the diary: “I give my name that all know of me, so
history do tell, what love can do to a gentleman born. Yours Truly,
Jack The Ripper.”

But within months of the book hitting the shelves, “Ripper
experts, who subjected it to careful analysis, began to question
its authenticity”, says the Telegraph.

More recently, researchers – including Withnail and I
writer and director Bruce Robinson – who have spent years poring
over the story, have insisted that the Ripper was not a fiend, or a
criminal genius.

Rather, “he was a psychopath shielded by servants of the
Victorian state”, Robinson told The Daily Telegraph in 2015. More
specifically, he was “shielded by the fraternal bonds of Freemasonry”, he said.

Robinson’s theory is that all of the killings bore the
unmistakable stamp of being “perversions of Freemasonic
ritual”.

The most recent theory, which came to light in February, is that
the Ripper may have been a Dutch serial killer and
sailor. Crime historian Dr Jan Bondeson recently named
Hendrik de Jong as a prime suspect. De Jong murdered two wives in
his homeland and is believed to have travelled to London
regularly.

Bondeson said: “We can’t say for certain he was Jack the Ripper,
but he is a credible candidate who until now has been ignored in
England yet was seen as a prime suspect in the Dutch newspapers of
the time.”