Mention the words
"London" and "Ripper" in the same sentence and most of us
will naturally think of the serial killer who butchered English prostitutes in
the late 1880s.
The identity of Jack the
Ripper is probably the most famous unsolved crime in history. With the horror
and the history surrounding the events, it has become an increasingly popular
topic in recent years with many new suspects being put forth. This list looks
at 10 of the most interesting suspects – some considered by the police at the
time, and others recently suggested.
There were top 10 suspects
that had been recognized to Jack the Ripper which is:
# 10. Lewis
Carroll
Carroll, author of Alice’s Adventures
in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, was named as a suspect based upon
anagrams which author Richard Wallace devised for his book Jack the Ripper,
Light-Hearted Friend. This claim is not generally taken seriously by other
scholars. Wallace claimed that the books contained hidden but detailed
descriptions of the murders. This theory gained enough attention to make
Carroll a late but notable addition to the list of suspects, although one that
is generally not taken very seriously. It should be noted that Carroll was very
interested in word tricks and this certainly gives a little more weight to the
theory.
#9. Prince Albert
Prince Albert Victor, Duke of
Clarence and Avondale (8 January 1864 – 14 January 1892) was first mentioned in
print as a potential suspect in 1962 when author Philippe Jullian published a
biography of his father, Edward VII of the United Kingdom. Jullian made a
passing reference to rumours that Albert Victor might have been responsible for
the murders. Though Jullian made no reference to the date when the rumour first
started and did not detail his source, it is possible that the rumour derived
indirectly from Dr. Thomas E. A. Stowell. The theory was brought to major
public attention in 1970 when Stowell published an article in The Criminologist
which revealed his suspicion that Prince Albert Victor had committed the
murders after being driven mad by syphilis. The suggestion was widely dismissed
as Albert Victor had strong alibis for the murders, and it is unlikely that he
suffered from syphilis.
#8. Jill the Ripper
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and William
Stewart advanced theories involving a female murderer dubbed “Jill the Ripper.”
Supporters of this theory believe that the murderer worked, or posed, as a
midwife. She could be seen with bloody clothes without attracting unwanted
attention and suspicion and would be more easily trusted by the victims than a
man. A suspect suggested as fitting this profile is Mary Pearcey, who in October
1890, killed her lover’s wife and child, though there is no indication she was
ever a midwife. E. J. Wagner, in The Science of Sherlock Holmes, offers in
passing another possible suspect, Constance Kent, who had served 20 years for
the murder of her younger brother at the age of sixteen. There is some
inconclusive DNA evidence taken from the letters sent to the police – this
evidence does not rule out the possibility of the killer being a woman.
#7. Dr Thomas Neill
Cream
Cream was a doctor secretly specializing in abortions. He was born in
Scotland, educated in London, active in Canada and later in Chicago, Illinois.
In 1881 he was found to be responsible for fatally poisoning several of his
patients of both sexes. Originally there was no suspicion of murder in these
cases, but Cream himself demanded an examination of the bodies, apparently an
attempt to draw attention to himself. Imprisoned in the Illinois State
Penitentiary in Joliet, Illinois, he was released on 31 July 1891, on good
behaviour. Moving to London, he resumed killing and was soon arrested. He was
hanged on 15 November 1892. According to some sources, his last words were
reported as being “I am Jack…”, interpreted to mean Jack the Ripper. He was
still imprisoned at the time of the Ripper murders, but some authors have
suggested that he could have bribed officials and left the prison before his
official release, or that he left a look-alike to serve the prison term in his
place.
#6. “Dr” Francis Tumblety
Francis Tumblety was a seemingly
uneducated or self-educated Irish-American raised from an infant in Rochester,
New York, where he ostensibly trained as a homeopathic physician at Hahneman
Hospital. He earned a small fortune posing as a quack “Indian Herb” doctor
throughout the United States and Canada, and occasionally travelling across
Europe as well. Tumblety was in England in 1888 and had visited the country on
other occasions; during one such earlier trip he became closely acquainted with
Victorian writer Thomas Henry Hall Caine, with whom it was suggested he had an
affair and from whom he tried to borrow money. He claimed to have treated many
famous English patients, including Charles Dickens, for a variety of illnesses.
He was arrested on 7 November 1888, on charges of “gross indecency”, apparently
for engaging in homosexuality. Notorious in the United States for his scams,
including selling forged Union military discharge papers during the American
Civil War and impersonating an army officer, news of his arrest led some to suggest
he was the Ripper.
#5. Aaron Kominski
Kominski was a member of London’s Polish Jewish population. He worked in
London as a hairdresser, but he was born in Kłodawa. He was certified insane
and admitted to Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum in February 1891. He was named as a
suspect in Chief Constable Melville Macnaghten’s memoranda, which stated that
there were strong reasons for suspecting him, that he “had a great hatred of
women, with strong homicidal tendencies”, and that he strongly resembled “the
man seen by a City PC” near Mitre Square. Aaron Kosminski meets some of the
criteria in the general profile of serial killers as outlined by Federal Bureau
of Investigation (FBI) criminal profiler John Douglas and Robert Ressler. He
also lived within a mile of the sites of the murders.
#4. Thomas Cutbush
In
November 2008, a newspaper reported that files released from Broadmoor high
security hospital indicate that Thomas Hayne Cutbush may have been responsible
for the murders, which ceased from the time of his detention. Cutbush was sent
to Lambeth Infirmary in 1891 suffering delusions thought to have been caused by
syphilis. After stabbing one woman and attempting to stab a second he was
pronounced insane and committed to Broadmoor that same year, where he remained
until his death in 1903. The paper also reported that Cutbush was the nephew of
a Scotland Yard superintendent, and speculated that this may have led to a
cover-up of the killer’s identity. The idea that Cutbush was the Ripper was
first raised by newspapers shortly after his arrest.
#3. Sir William Withey Gull
Gull was physician-in-ordinary to Queen Victoria. He was named as the
Ripper as part of the evolution of the masonic/royal conspiracy theory. Thanks
to the popularity of this theory among fiction writers and for its dramatic
nature, Gull shows up as the Ripper in a number of books and films (including a
1988 TV film Jack the Ripper starring Michael Caine and the graphic novel From
Hell written by Alan Moore). It is just possible that Gull’s “candidacy” as a
Ripper suspect is due to an odd item connected to his career. In April 1876
Gull was one of the physicians called to “the Priory”, the home of the
barrister Charles Bravo when he was poisoned. Gull (like the other physicians)
did what he could do, but he was hampered in not knowing the nature of the
poison involved. His bedside manner on this occasion, even given the horror of
speeding events or sheer desperation, were hardly conducive to easing the dying
man’s mind. Gull would testify at the massively covered coroner’s proceedings
that summer, and insist it was suicide.
#2. George Chapman
Chapman was born Seweryn Kłosowski in Poland, but went to the United
Kingdom sometime between 1887 and 1888, later (c. 1893/94) assuming the name of
Chapman (no relation to Annie Chapman, one of the victims). Without question a
duplicitous and cold character who undertook several aliases, he was guilty of
successively poisoning three of his wives, crimes for which he was hanged in
1903. He lived in Whitechapel, London, at the time of the killings where he had
been working as a barber since arriving in England. He was at one time the
favored suspect and is considered by many modern commentators to be the most
likely killer. Chapman is supposed by some to have had the medical skills
necessary to commit the mutilations (although the level of skill evidenced by
the Ripper is a matter of debate, and divided medical opinions at the time).
However, the main argument against him is the fact that he murdered his three
wives with poison, and it is uncommon (though not unheard of) for a serial
killer to make such a drastic change in modus operandi.
#1. Montague John Druitt
Druitt
was born in Wimborne Minster, Dorset, England, the son of a prominent local
physician. He was educated at Winchester College and New College Oxford. He
graduated from Oxford in 1880 and two years later was admitted to the Inner
Temple and called to the bar in 1885. He practiced as a barrister and a special
pleader until his death. His body was found floating in the River Thames off
Thorneycroft’s torpedo works near Chiswick on 31 December 1888. Medical
examination suggested that his body was kept at the bottom of the river for
several weeks by stones placed in his pockets. The coroner’s jury concluded
that he committed suicide by drowning “whilst of unsound mind.” His
disappearance and death shortly after the fifth and last canonical murder
(which took place on 9 November 1888) and alleged “private information” led
some of the investigators years later to suggest he was the Ripper, thus
explaining the end to the series of murders.
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