The question of the identity of the serial killer known as ‘The Whitechapel Murderer’, ‘Leather Apron’ or, most famously Jack the Ripper has been hotly contested since the culprit first brought terror to the back streets and dives of East London in 1888.
For nearly 130 years, the identity of the murderer has been the topic of debate across the world with theories over the killer’s real life persona ranging from Prince Albert to local meat driver and every strata of Victorian society in between. The moniker Jack the Ripper comes from what became known as the “From Hell Letter” where the killer identifies himself to police by the now infamous nickname.
The three most popular theories are that the murderer of Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly and perhaps up to six more women was in fact either Aaron Kosminski, Walter Sickert or James Maybrick.
Aaron Kosminski was a Polish Jew who emigrated from Poland to England in the 1880s. He worked as a hairdresser in Whitechapel in the East End of London. From 1891, he was institutionalised in an insane asylum.
Police officials from the time of the murders named one of their suspects as “Kosminski” (the forename was not given), and described him as a Polish Jew in an insane asylum. Almost a century after the final murder, the suspect “Kosminski” was identified as Aaron Kosminski; but there was little if any evidence to connect Aaron Kosminski with the same Kosminski who was suspected of the murders and their dates of death are different. Possibly, Kosminski was confused with another Polish Jew of the same age named Aaron or David Cohen (real name possibly Nathan Kaminsky), who was a violent patient at the same asylum.
In September 2014, author Russell Edwards claimed to have proved Kosminski’s guilt using mitochondrial DNA evidence from a shawl he believed to have been left at a murder scene. His claim has not been published or verified by the peer-review process, and his methods and findings have been criticised. [Wikipedia]
Walter Sickert was an English painter and printmaker who was a member of the Camden Town Group in London. He was an important influence on distinctively British styles of avant-garde art in the 20th century.
Sickert was a cosmopolitan and eccentric who often favoured ordinary people and urban scenes as his subjects. His oeuvre also included portraits of well-known personalities and images derived from press photographs. He is known to have had a fascination with the Ripper and often dressed in the style of the Ripper as portrayed in the media of the time.
The theory that Sickert was the Ripper has led author Patricia Cornwell to invest £6,000,000 in the search for what she perceives to be the truth. Cornwell’s book Jack the Ripper – Case Closed was released to much controversy, especially within the British art world, where Sickert’s work is admired, and also among “Ripperologists,” who dispute her research methods and conclusions. Cornwell has lashed back at these critics, claiming that, if she were a man or British, her theory would have been accepted. She has also made remarks indicating that those who study the Ripper case would rather have the mystery than its solution.
James Maybrick was a Liverpool cotton merchant. After his death, his wife, Florence Maybrick, was convicted of his murder by poisoning in a sensational trial. The “Aigburth Poisoning” case was widely reported in the press on both sides of the Atlantic.
More than a century after his death, Maybrick was accused of being the Ripper, but critics countered that the evidence offered for this, a diary said to have been written by him, was a hoax. The first forensic tests were inconclusive but in 2017 Bruce Robinson and a team of researchers who believe the diary to be genuine found new evidence to support their claim. This evidence has now been published and adds weight to their argument.
The memoir includes the line: ‘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.’
One thing the above theories have in common is that all the candidates for the title of Most Revered Serial Killer in Victorian London are men.
A relatively new theory however is that Jack was in fact Jill.
Beautiful medical student Lavornia Wardwood who studied at Oxford University was an aspiring surgeon. Whilst she was known to be an exceptionally able student she was also capable of flying into an uncontrollable rage at any moment and there is documentary proof that she had at least one conviction for wounding her lover with a breadknife.
New evidence has come to light linking Wardwood to Whitechapel at the time of the Ripper killings and the historian behind the study insists that it is irrefutable. Her movements coincide directly with those of the Ripper, placing her in close proximity to all five of the women butchered in 1888.
With this in mind, the historian whose tireless work it has been to uncover the truth will go before Judge Ian Pringle QC this week to ask for a posthumous not guilty verdict for Wardwood.
Once the evidence has been seen by Judge Pringle QC, who is viewed by many as sympathetic to this line of defence, his argument that Wardwood was “too bright” to be convicted under modern standards in law will be seen by Parliament and Buckingham Palace at some point in 2018.
