John Pizer
Resided – 22 Mulberry Street.
Age - Approx - 38
Height - Approx 5ft 4"
Complexion - Dark
Hair - Black
Small turned up dark moustache
Stout build
John Pizer was a Polish Jew who worked as a cobbler in Whitechapel. After the death of Mary Ann Nichols police were told of a man who went around threatening women who had been nicknamed ‘Leather Apron.’ Because of his habit of wearing a leather apron and witness descriptions that matched Pizer’s appearance, many locals suspected he was "Leather Apron." Pizer had a prior conviction for a stabbing offence, and Police Sergeant William Thicke believed that he had committed assaults on prostitutes.
After the murders of Mary Ann Nichols and Annie Chapman, Thicke arrested Pizer on the 10th of September, though it was reported that "there is no evidence whatsoever against him." Pizer was cleared of suspicion when it was discovered he was staying with relatives at the time of one of the murders, and had talked with a police officer while watching a fire on the London Docks at the time of another.
Severin Antoniovitch Klosowski - a.k.a. George Chapman.
Born in Poland – Circa 1865
Lived - 89 Whitechapel High Street
Age - Approx - 22
Height - Approx 5ft 8"
Complexion - Dark
Hair - Black
Thick-turned-up dark moustache
Medium build
Klosowski moved to England somewhere around 1887 and worked in Whitechapel as a barber. Here he met a woman called Annie Chapman although this was not the same woman as the Ripper victim and after living together for a year, he took her surname and became known as George Chapman. Annie moved out when George brought another woman home to live with.
In 1891, Chapman married Lucie Badewski and they spent a brief time in America, where it was thought Chapman attacked a woman before returning to London. Inspector Abberline suspected Klosowski was Jack the Ripper when Badewski told him that her husband would go out late at night for hours on end and turn up in the early morning. He had also been suspected because his appearance fitted that of a witness statement at the time. Between 1897 and 1902 Chapman poisoned three of his partners. He was arrested and hanged in 1903. Although Klosowski was violent to his partners he was not thought to be the Ripper due to his choice of poisoning, which was clearly different to the Ripper
Aaron Kosminski
Born – Circa 1864/65
Age - Approx - 23/24
Height - Unknown
Complexion - Dark
Hair - Black
Small turned up dark moustache
Medium build
Aaron Kosminski, a Polish Jew, was said to have been identified as Jack the Ripper by Joseph Lawende, a fellow Jew, but who refused to testify against his fellow countryman. Kosminski was taken into the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum in 1891 for threatening a woman with a knife, his paranoid schizophrenia and behaviours included a fear of being fed by other people, refusal to bathe, self-abuse, and hearing voices and noises in his head.
Sir Melville Macnaghten, Assistant Chief Constable of the London Metropolitan Police, suggested Kosminski was a suspect for being the Ripper in 1894, because of his “great hatred for women” and “strong homicidal tendencies.”
In 2014 DNA analysis linked Kosminski with a shawl belonging to Catharine Eddowes, though experts believed the tests were unreliable and had been cross-contaminated.
Francis Tumblety
Born in Ireland circa 1833
Stayed in Batty Street
Age - Approx - 55
Height - Unknown
Complexion - Pale
Hair - Black
Large turned-up dark moustache
Medium build
Tumblety was taken to New York by his parents when he was about two years old. When he was seventeen, Tumblety left home and seemed to have made a living selling pornographic books. He moved to Detroit and began to sell patent medicines and herbal remedies claiming to be a “great physician” but he was considered to be a fraud by many of his peers, although he made a considerable amount of money selling these medicines. Tumblety moved to Canada, New York and Washington, D.C. before he arrived in Boston somewhere around 1857, where he was believed to be connected to the death of one of his patients. In 1863, he moved to St. Louis and was suspected and arrested for being involved in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, but he was released through lack of evidence.
Tumblety began to show a deep hatred for women, which he blamed on a failed marriage to a prostitute, and flouted his newfound wealth at all-male parties, where he was alleged to have shown his guests a collection of uteruses that he had collected from “every class of woman.” In 1875, Edward Hanratty took a spoonful of one of Tumblety’s potions and died that very night. Tumblety then moved to England and on the 7th of November, he was arrested for engaging in a homosexual encounter. Possibly aware that he was being watched by the police for the recent murders in Whitechapel, Tumblety fled to France on the 20th of November while on police bail.
Posing under the name of Frank Townsend, Tumblety then made his way back to America, where the New York Times reported he had been a suspect in the Ripper murders, and he was put under surveillance by the New York police. It is thought that Tumblety was followed to America by Inspector Walter Andrews of the English Police, who wanted to extradite Tumblety, but the New York City Police said there was no proof of Tumblety being connected to the murders in Whitechapel and refused to extradite him. Tumblety died in 1903 of heart disease.
Walter Sickert
Born – circa 1860
Age - Approx - 28
Height - Unknown
Complexion - Fair
Hair - Fair
No moustache
Medium build
Born in Munich and moving to England in 1869, Walter Sickert became known for his dark and moody paintings of prostitutes and some believed he included clues and symbology relating to Jack the Ripper in some of these paintings.
Sickert became interested in the Ripper and believed he once stayed in a bedroom used by Jack, and he used this room as a subject for his painting, ‘Jack the Ripper’s Bedroom.’
It has been suggested that Sickert was left impotent after unsuccessful surgery on his penis and that he took out his sexual frustrations on the prostitutes of Whitechapel.
In her book, ‘Sickert and the Ripper Crimes’ Jean Overton Fuller claims that Florence Pash, an acquaintance of Sickert’s, had said that Sickert told her he had seen all the bodies of the Ripper victims and he described their injuries so graphically, which led her to believe that he must have been at the sites of the murders and had not recounted them from newspaper images, or his imagination. Pash also claimed that she knew Mary Jane Kelly and said Mary had served as a nanny for Walter Sickert.
In her book, ‘Portrait of a Killer, Jack the Ripper – case closed’ Patricia Cornwell claimed she had found evidence of Sickert’s DNA from saliva on one of his letters, which matched the DNA of one of the letters written by Jack the Ripper.
In 1973 Joseph Sickert’s story claiming that he was the illegitimate son of Walter Sickert, went on to say that Joseph’s grandmother’s illegal marriage to Prince Albert Victor was witnessed by Mary Jane Kelly and the other Ripper victims who went on to blackmail the government and were subsequently killed by Sir William Gull to protect the image of the Royal Family.
Montague John Druitt
Born - 1857
Stayed at 140 Minories
Age - Approx - 31
Height - Unknown
Complexion - Fair
Hair - Dark
No moustache
Slim build
Montague John Druitt was born into a low upper-class family at Wimborne Minster, Dorset, in 1857. In 1880 he became a schoolmaster at George Valentine’s school in Blackheath, some six miles away and over the River Thames from the area of Whitechapel, in 1885 he qualified as a barrister.
Druitt had a passion for cricket and was well known for his bowling prowess, he played for Dorset County Cricket Club and later became a member of the Marylebone Cricket Club. Unfortunately, the Druitt family seemed to be plagued by a hereditary psychiatric illness which took the form of depression in his mother, who died in an institution, while his grandmother, aunt and eldest sister all committed suicide.
On Friday the 30th of November 1888, Druitt was dismissed from his position at the school for unclear reasons, some believe that Druitt was homosexual and had a predilection for young boys, which may have been a reason for his brother saying at his inquest that Montague “had got into serious trouble” but again, this has never been substantiated.
Many people believed Druitt had lost his mind and committed suicide after he killed Mary Jane Kelly, although this doesn’t have much status as he carried on working for three weeks until he lost his job. In 1894 Assistant Chief Constable, Sir Melville Macnaghten, named Druitt as a suspect and claimed that even his family believed he was the Ripper.
The murder of Martha Tabram is probably the best evidence for Druitt not being the Ripper because, at the time of her death, Druitt was involved in a week-long cricket event in Bournemouth over a hundred miles away. When Druitt’s body was found floating a month later in the River Thames, his pockets contained not only stones that had weighed him down for a month, but also a return railway ticket to Hammersmith, a silver watch, a cheque for £50 and £16 in gold, nearly seven and a half thousand pounds in today’s money. It is more likely that the trouble he was in and the fact that he had lost his job was more a factor in his suicide.
Prince Albert Victor
Duke of Clarence and Avondale
Born - 1842
Age - 46
Height - Unknown
Complexion - Fair
Hair - Fair
Small turned-up moustache
Slim build
One of the reasons why there is no positive identification, clues, or even definite suspect for the Whitechapel murders is the possibility that Jack the Ripper was known to the police and that a cover-up was set in place to protect his identity. The only reason for this would be that the killer was of Royal importance and could ruin trust in the people and possibly bring the nation crashing down.
In 1889, rumours about Prince Albert Victor, grandson of Queen Victoria, were spread implying that he had been seen visiting male prostitutes, in what was called at the time, the Cleveland Street Scandal and his sexuality, intellect, and mental health came under question, although there has never been any evidence to prove he was homosexual.
One theory put forward in the 1960s claims that the Prince caught syphilis while in India and subsequently losing his mind, decided to take revenge on the prostitutes of London. Another theory is that he married a commoner and had a child with the woman, the child would therefore be the legitimate heir to the throne and that Mary Jane Kelly and her friends knew this and were trying to blackmail the government. This would cause a scandal and the Royal Family arranged for Kelly and the other women to be done away with. It has also been suggested that the police knew the identity of Jack, but would not release the information for a hundred years to protect the family, surely, a reason to protect something or somebody at the highest level.
The one-hundred-year theory also correlates to the 1989 film release, naming William Withey Gull to be the killer.
Official records prove that Prince Albert Victor was not in London at the time of the murders and has hundreds of alibis to collaborate with this.
.jpg)
William Withey Gull
Lived: 74 Brook Street
Born: 31st December 1816, England
Age - 72
Height - Unknown
Complexion - Dark
Hair - Fair
No moustache
Heavy build
The physician to Queen Victoria, William Gull was alleged to have been a Freemason who killed the 5 canonical victims who were trying to blackmail the government over the illegal marriage of Prince Albert Victor and Annie Crook. Other theorists claim that Gull, along with accomplice coachman John Netley, killed the women after suffering several strokes and losing his mind. Medium, Robert Lees, said he had a psychic vision of Gull and even saw him on a bus. He was said to have led police to the address of a doctor who was arrested and sent to an asylum. Gull lived one and a half miles from the mutilated bodies found in 1873 and 1874 at Tottenham Court Road and Mornington Court.
In 1871, William Gull had successfully treated the Prince of Wales of typhoid and later went on to become a physician to Queen Victoria. Can William Gull be seen to be a major suspect due to his health? At the time of the murders, he was aged 71 and had suffered the first of several strokes in 1887 before he died in 1890.
William Withey Gull came to the fore in 1984, when the TV film, Jack The Ripper, named him as the Ripper and coachman John Netley, his accomplice. It was suggested they carried out the murders as part of a bizarre theory that includes the Royal family and the Freemasons who wanted to silence the five prostitutes, led by Mary Jane Kelly, who said they knew of a secret marriage between Prince Albert Victor, Queen Victoria’s grandson, and commoner, Annie Elizabeth Crook.
In 1887, medium Robert James Lees told police that he had had a psychic vision that revealed the identity of Jack the Ripper, who he later recognised on a bus.
Lees claimed he came to the notice of the Royal Family after a séance when it was alleged that the late Prince Consort spoke through Lees’ mouth, this led him to become Queen Victoria’s medium, although there has been no corroborative evidence regarding this statement.
William Gull’s wife had allegedly been infuriated by a psychic medium (presumably Lees) and a policeman (possibly Abberline) who asked impertinent questions and suggested that Sir Gull had ‘occasional lapses of memory’ after his stroke and once found blood on his shirt.
There is a strong case for a murderer and his accomplice to use a coach for their getaways as they wouldn’t be seen or even stopped by police, it would also be a safe place inside the vehicle where the attacks could have taken place before being dumped. It could also account for the double event on the 30th of September 1888, with Netley murdering Elizabeth Stride, while Gull killed Catharine Eddowes.
Frederick Bailey Deeming
Born – 1853
Age - 35
Height - Unknown
Complexion - Fair
Hair - Fair
Fair moustache
Medium build
Born in 1853, in Leicestershire, Frederick Bailey Deeming left home and went to sea at the age of 16 before he started a career in crime. In 1892, Deeming travelled to Australia with his wife Marie, they had two children, but he was found guilty of stealing plumbing materials and served six weeks in prison. When he is released on bail, Deeming and his family disappear, supposedly making their way back to England.
During 1888 - 1889, Deeming went to South Africa and became involved in a diamond smuggling operation, he returned to England several times and Marie has another child. In 1889, he returned once again to England and bigamously married his landlady’s daughter, Helen Matheson, but a month after the wedding he disappeared with Helen’s expensive wedding presents. Deeming then returned to Marie, who now has his fourth child, but his attempts to swindle a jeweller fail and once again he travels to South Africa but is captured on arrival and sent back to England to serve nine months in prison.
After his release, Deeming moved to Dinham Villa, Rainhill, Liverpool and is visited by Marie and the children, he complains about defective drains and has the kitchen floor replaced. On the 22nd of September 1891, Deeming married Emily Lydia Mather. Deeming then takes Emily to Australia, and on the 24th or 25th of December, killed her and buried her under a hearthstone in the bedroom. The body was found three months later, the post-mortem showed the skull to be fractured by several blows, but the cause of death was possibly her throat having been cut.
On the 12th of March 1892, Deeming was arrested under a false name for the murder of Mather and sent to Melbourne, he had in his possession her prayer book and several other of her items. At roughly the same time of his arrest in 1892, the remains of Marie and her four children were discovered buried beneath the floor at Dinham Villa, Rainhill. Deeming tried to plead insanity and blamed his attacks had been caused by losing his mind after contracting syphilis, but he was found guilty and was hanged on 23 May 1892, an autobiography he wrote during his last days was destroyed. Frederick Bailey Deeming was suspected of being Jack the Ripper in 1891/2, but it couldn’t be proved if he were in England or South Africa in 1888, although many experts believe he was in Whitechapel at the time and think him to be the most likely candidate to be Jack the Ripper.
James Maybrick
Born 1838
Age - 40
Height - Unknown
Complexion - Fair
Hair - Fair
Fair moustache
Medium build
In 1992, a journal came to light after it had been given to Michael Barrett by his friend Tony Devereux, who in turn was given it by Barrett’s wife. The journal appeared to be a handwritten diary detailing the gruesome murders and mutilations of Jack the Rippers’ five canonical victims along with two other women that have not been identified. Although the author never names himself, the information included references to the life and times of James Maybrick and leads the reader to believe it was written by him. The diary was signed ‘Yours truly, Jack the Ripper’ and dated May 3rd, 1889. The diary caused a great deal of scepticism and interest as can be imagined, but when Barrett later said he had forged the document it seemed the truth had been found out. Then, in another twist, Barrett retracted his confession and so it went on, with believers and sceptics arguing the case back and forth.
In 1993, the plot thickened even more, when Albert Johnson purchased a gold watch, on opening it, he discovered the initials of Mary Anne Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catharine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly, along with the words, J Maybrick and “I am Jack” scratched inside. The diary and watch went through a series of tests to authenticate and date the pieces, but these all proved inconclusive.
Coincidence or not? James Maybrick chose his family motto, which reads:
“Time reveals all.”
Vassily Konovalov
Age - Approx - 31
Height - Unknown
Complexion - Dark
Hair - Dark
Moustache - Unknown
Build - Unknown
Born in 1857 in Torshok, Russia, Vassily Konovalov was believed to be a junior surgeon at a local hospital before coming to England where he might have worked as a barber. He was described as being broad-shouldered, of medium height, with blue eyes, heavy black eyebrows, and a curly waxed black moustache.
In 1887 a young woman’s body was found in front of the Montrouge church, the woman’s head, leg, and right arm had been severed, and the right breast and uterus had been removed. According to the Ochrana Gazette, the torso had been wrapped in wax cloth and tied with a whipcord of English origin.
Author of ‘The Identity of Jack the Ripper’ Donald McCormick, claimed to have seen this news item from 1909 which also mentioned the killing of five women in London and another woman in Petrograd. In his book, McCormick refers to a letter by Sir Basil Thomson, assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police, which allegedly said, ‘In Paris recently I learned in talks with the French that they had always thought that the “Ripper” was a Russian named Konovalov, who used the alias “Michael Ostrog” under which name Scotland Yard knew him as an ex-convict and medical student.’
An extract from DR Thomas Dutton’s Chronicles of Crime reads.
‘I have learned from a French doctor of a Russian junior surgeon, or feldscher, who was known to him in Paris about 1885-88. He was suspected of having killed and mutilated a grisette in Montmartre, but he left Paris before he could be arrested. This may account for Scotland Yard’s search for a Russian surgeon they believed to be in hiding. At last there appears to be a motive. This surgeon, whose name was Konovalov, was said to have a violent hatred for prostitutes due to a relative of his having suffered cruelly from a woman of the streets.’
Konovalov was a known transvestite and was wearing women’s clothing when he was arrested and sent to an asylum in Russia, where he died sometime around 1908. Disguised as a woman, Konovalov would have easily avoided detection in the streets of Whitechapel where the police were intent on looking for a Polish Jew.
It is possible that Konovalov hated or was jealous of women because of his gender issues and killed the women of Whitechapel because he coveted something he could not be or have, the body and femininity of a woman.
The description of Konovalov fits the final police assessment of what the ‘Ripper’ looked like.
William Henry Bury
Born – circa 1860
Age - Approx - 28
Height - Unknown
Complexion - Fair
Hair - Dark
Moustache - Small
Medium build
After moving to Dundee on the 20th of January 1889, Bury strangled his wife, broke her leg while stuffing the body into a crate, and stabbed her abdomen several times with his penknife. Chalked on the rear door of his flat, the words, “Jack the Ripper is at the back of this door,” and on the stairway to the cellar, “Jack the Ripper is in this seller.” Bury’s wife Ellen had told neighbours in Dundee, “Jack the Ripper is quiet now,” and “Jack the Ripper is taking a rest.” This could have been the motive to kill his wife if she knew of his involvement in the Whitechapel murders.
William Beadle, author of Jack the Ripper: Anatomy of a Myth, suggests that Rose Mylett was killed with a rope similar to the one used by Bury to kill his wife, and at the time, Mylett lived within walking distance of Bury's Home in Spanby Street. He also likened the wounds on Martha Tabram to the type of penknife Bury always carried.
Robert Donston Stephenson
Age - 47
Height - Unknown
Complexion - Fair
Hair - Fair
Fair Moustache
Medium build
Robert Donston Stephenson was staying in the London Hospital just 150 yards from where Mary Ann Nichol’s body was found in Buck’s Row. Stephenson was connected with the notorious occultist, Aleister Crowley and was believed to have studied the occult and performed black magic rituals, one of these rituals it has been suggested, was to mutilate the body of his wife, whose unidentified body has been claimed to be the Rainham Torso, one of the four unsolved Whitechapel Mysteries.
Donston was said to have a collection of ties encrusted with blood and candles made from human fat.
George Hutchinson
Age - Approx - 28
Height - Unknown
Complexion - Pale
Hair - Dark
Moustache - Dark
Build - Medium
George Hutchinson told police that at 2 a.m. on the morning, Mary Jane Kelly was killed, he had followed Kelly and a man wearing a long coat, who was about 5ft tall, with a fair complexion and moustache and of Jewish appearance, to Miller’s Court. Curious about the stranger, Hutchinson said he followed the couple and waited for three-quarters of an hour to see if the man came out, but he never did. Some believe Hutchinson gave the police such an elaborate statement to divert attention from himself.
John Williams
Age - 44
Height - Unknown
Complexion - Fair
Hair - Fair
No moustache
Stout build
Physician to Queen Victoria, John Williams was known to his family as ‘Uncle Jack.’ In 2011, Tony Williams, a distant relative of the surgeon, found a document from 1885 noting an abortion had been performed on a woman named Mary Anne Nichols, along with three glass slides that are claimed to have smears from a uterus, and a razor-sharp 6-inch surgeons’ knife in his great uncle’s possessions. Angry about his wife’s infertility, John Williams may have killed the Whitechapel victims to collect their uteruses for his research into this matter.
Francis Thompson
Born – circa 1860
Age - Approx - 28
Height - Unknown
Complexion - Fair
Hair - Dark
No moustache
Medium build
Lived: Providence Row Night Refuge, 50 Crispin Street, Spitalfields.
Francis Thompson was a devout Roman Catholic and studied to be a priest, he wrote of his hatred for prostitutes and had become known to the authorities after showing signs of religious mania and pyromania. After this, Thompson studied medicine for six years before addiction to opium led him to spend three years on the streets of Whitechapel
Thompson once stayed at the Providence Row Night Refuge, where it is possible he met Mary Jane Kelly when she stayed there before her moving to Miller’s Court.
It is also possible that Thompson and Kelly had a dalliance while in Providence Row and he fell in love with her, but Kelly moved on and Thompson lost contact with her and started searching Whitechapel for her. Thompson may have known some of Kelly’s acquaintances and tried to find out where she was staying from them. When they refused to tell him of Mary Jane’s whereabouts he lost his anger and killed them. When he eventually found Kelly, after getting the information from Catharine Eddowes and killing her, Mary Jane Kelly didn’t want to carry on the affair, and in his rage, and to his own justification, he committed the atrocities on Mary.
Before the Whitechapel murders of 1888, Thompson wrote about seeking out women and disembowelling with a knife and afterwards wrote about killing prostitutes with knives. It has been said that Thompson carried a dissecting knife in his coat and was taught a rare surgical procedure that seems to resemble the mutilations of some of the Ripper victims.
One of Thompson’s first poems, The Nightmare of the witch-babies clearly shows a reference to the Whitechapel killings.
A lusty knight
Ha! Ha!
On a swart steed
Ho! Ho!
Rode upon the land
Where the silence feels alone
As he rides through a desolate streetscape, the knight catches sight of a beautiful woman.
'What is it sees he?
Ha! Ha!
There in the frightfulness?
Ho! Ho!
There he saw a maiden
Fairest fair:
Sad were her dusk eyes,
Long was her hair;
Sad were her dreaming eyes,
Misty her hair,
And strange was her garments' flow'
Soon he begins to stalk her.
'Swiftly he followed her
Ha! Ha!
Eagerly he followed her.
Ho! Ho!'
But then he discovers she is unclean.
'Lo, she corrupted!
Ho! Ho!'
He decides to kill her by slicing her stomach open in the pretence of finding and killing any unborn offspring she may have. It ends with his rapture at finding not just a single foetus but two.
'And its paunch was rent
Like a brasten drum;
And the blubbered fat
From its belly doth come
It was a stream ran bloodily under the wall.
O Stream, you cannot run too red!
Under the wall.
With a sickening ooze - Hell made it so!
Two witch-babies, ho! ho! ho!'
​
Mary Eleanor Wheeler
Circa 1866 – 23rd December 1890
Age - Approx - 22
Height - Unknown
Complexion - Dark
Hair - Dark
No moustache
Slim build
Mary Eleanor Wheeler was born in 1886, it has been said that when Mary was aged 14, her father Thomas Wheeler was convicted of murdering a local farmer by the name of Edward Anstee and was hanged on the 29th of November 1880, at St Albans Prison in Hertfordshire. This has been questioned by Sarah Beth Hopton, author of Woman at the Devil’s Door – The Untold True Story of the Hampstead Murderess who claims she found a retraction of a news article connecting the two.
In her late teens, Mary began a relationship with a carpenter by the name of John Charles Pearcey, Mary would continue to use the surname Pearcey from that time on, even though they were never married. Mary Pearcey is believed to have suffered from depression, and epilepsy, and drank heavily, she was described as being 5ft 6 inches tall, weighed 9 stone and had russet hair and blue eyes, she enjoyed the company of wealthy men.
After the relationship with Pearcey broke down, she moved in with a furniture remover named Frank Samuel Hogg, who began to have an affair with a woman by the name of Phoebe Styles. In 1889, Phoebe gave birth to a daughter, Hogg and Styles married and lived in Kentish Town, Camden, the daughter was named Phoebe Hogg. On the 24th of October 1890, Mary had a boy deliver a note inviting Mrs Phoebe Hogg around for tea, the mother and child turned up around 4:00 p.m. A little later, neighbours heard the sounds of screaming and an altercation possibly between the two women. At 7:00 p.m. that evening, a man returning from work came across the body of Mrs Phoebe Hogg on the pavement of Crossfield Road, Hampstead. The woman had suffered a fractured skull and a wound to the throat that nearly severed her head and had been wrapped in a cardigan. The woman had bruises on her hands indicating she had tried to defend herself; it was later declared that the murder had taken place somewhere other than where the body was found.
Later that evening a policeman found a bloodied pram in Hamilton Terrace, about a mile from where Phoebe’s body was discovered. The next morning the body of eighteen-month-year-old Phoebe Hogg was discovered, the little girl had died from suffocation. Later that day, Frank Hogg read in the evening paper about the murdered woman and asked his sister Clara to go around to see if Mary knew where Phoebe was. Strangely, she said no, but agreed to go to the morgue with them to see if the body was indeed Phoebe. At the morgue, her behaviour became strange and she tried to stop Clara from identifying the body and the pram. One of Mary’s neighbours later told police she had seen Mary pushing the pram with a large object in it on the night of the murder. Police searched Mary’s kitchen and found the walls and ceiling spattered with blood, along with a blood-stained poker, carving knife, skirt and apron. When asked why the items were covered with blood, Mary chanted, ‘Killing mice, killing mice, killing mice.’ When the police arrested Mary they found her to be wearing Phoebe Hogg’s wedding ring.
Mary was found guilty of murder and sentenced to be hanged. Before she died Mary asked for a message to be placed in a Spanish newspaper. The cryptic message read: ‘M.E.C.P. - Last wish of M.E.W.; Have not betrayed.’
In her book, Mary Beth Hopton suggests that Mary Eleanor Wheeler, later known as Mary Pearcey, was possibly the killer known as Jack the Ripper.
Inspector Abberline is alleged to have suspected that Jack the Ripper was a woman, who possibly posed as a midwife to avoid detection, Mary Pearcey was the only woman suspected at the time of the murders.
In 2019, Science magazine stated after genetic analysis of saliva from stamps attached to some of the Ripper letters were of female origin. This leads to a fascinating but serious question: Was Mary Eleanor Pearcey really Jack, or maybe Jill the Ripper?
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
Hyam Hyams
Age - Approx - 35
Height - 5ft 7"
Complexion - Dark
Hair - Dark
Dark moustache
Medium build
Lived: Wentworth Court, Wentworth Street
Hyam Hyams's background and history have been compared similarly to Jack the Ripper after F.B.I. profiling was done on the notorious serial killer. Hyams, a Polish Jew with a family history of insanity, was the victim of a broken and dysfunctional family and was relied on by his mother to work to maintain her and his siblings from a young age in the harsh streets of the East End. Growing up with legs that didn't straighten at the knees caused him to walk with them bent and to drag his feet and he would probably have been subject to bullying and teasing. As a young adult, Hyams became heavily reliant on alcohol, he contracted a venereal disease and developed epilepsy. After marrying, Hyams became delusional and accused his wife of cheating on him, (the cause of his venereal disease) which resulted in violence and attacked her with knives and other such weapons. He claimed she wanted him dead and that while on one of his regular stays at the Infirmaries and Asylums during his life she had persuaded a doctor to poison him (the cause of his epilepsy). Hyams had attacked his mother with a hatchet, stabbed his wife, and regularly attacked inmates and medical staff while incarcerated.
Working as a cigar maker, Hyams suffered a fractured elbow which caused him to give up his profession, after this event, he became more erratic, violent, paranoid, and delusional
Hyams lived in the heart of the Ripper murders and probably knew the local 'unfortunates by sight, his family had homes or businesses near the locations of the murders and even next door to Mr Christmas's Laundry where the knife was found by Thomas Coram.
​
​
​
Charles Lechmere
Age - Approx - 39
Height - Unknown
Complexion - Fair
Hair - Fair
Fair moustache
Medium build
Lived - 22 Doveton Street
Charles Lechmere aka Charles Cross
Lived: Doveton Street
At about 3.30 a.m. on the Morning of Friday 31st of August 1888, Charles Lechmere left his home in Doveton Street to walk to his place of work at Broad street, a forty minute walk away. Lechmere could use several routes for his journey, one being via Whitechapel Road, another being via Hanbury Street.
On this particular morning, Lechmere chose to go via Whitechapel Road, although both routes took the same time, and after a nine minute walk he arrived at Buck’s Row to find what he thought was a tarpaulin in a gateway but after a closer inspection, found it to be the body of Mary Ann Nichols.
Robert Paul, also on his way to work said he saw Lechmere standing “where the woman was” but he later said he saw him standing “in the middle of the road.” Paul thought Nichols was still alive and said they should sit the body up, but Lechmere refused to touch the body. At this point, neither men saw any blood, and it seems that Nichols clothes still covered her injuries.
Both men decided to move on as they were late for work and agreed to tell the first policeman they saw. At 3.45. a.m. they saw PC Mizen and informed him of the body, at which time Lechmere left. PC Mizen then went to Buck’s Row where he met PC Neil who had discovered the body. By this time Nichols was lying in a small pool of blood. PC Mizen then went to fetch Doctor Rees Llewelyn who lived nearby.
Between 3.50 a.m. and 4.00 a.m. Dr Llewelyn arrived at Buck’s Row and concluded that Nichols had been murdered and death had occurred within the last half an hour.
Lechmere didn’t attend the first day of the inquest but showed up on the second day and gave his name as Charles Allen Cross, the surname of his father, which it seemed he had used for about twenty years.
It has been said that criminals often revisit the sites of their crimes. If Lechmere was the Ripper, he didn’t need too as he passed the murder scenes every day on his way to work. Annie Chapman, who was murdered on Saturday the 8th of September was on his other route to work and would be a good reason why he was close to the murder scene.
Was it possible that Lechmere killed Mary Ann Nichols in the short period before being spotted by Robert Paul, covered her throat where her throat had been slashed twice, then slashed her abdomen several times and rearranged her clothing, then standing up, stowing his knife and showing no signs of being out of breath, over excited, or having time to clean his hands.
Some investigators believed that Lechmere was not only the murderer who killed the victims in Whitechapel, but also was the person who killed and mutilated the women involved in the Torso mysteries.
Whatever the truth is, Charles Lechmere is the only person to have been seen at the immediate murder scene of any of the victims within minutes of their death.
​
​​
​
Born: Aldgate, London 1856
Born in Middlesex Street, only 200 yards from Mitre Square, where Catharine Eddowes was murdered, Jacob Levy, the son of a butcher, would go into the family business in later life where he would learn the skills required to know the anatomy of animals at the very least. His knowledge of the area around Whitechapel would have been good and it has been reported that he had relatives living in Wentworth Model Dwellings, Goulston Street, where the infamous message in chalk was left on the wall and where part of Catharine’s apron was found.
In 1886, aged 30, Levy was sentenced to a year in prison for stealing some meat but was admitted to Essex County Asylum.
Levy’s previous behaviour had troubled his wife who said he had trouble sleeping and roamed the streets for hours at a time. She also stated that he cried for no apparent reason, heard strange noises, and felt that he felt he could do “violence to someone” if he wasn’t refrained.
At some point in time, Levy contracted syphilis from a prostitute which some people believe could be a motive for killing.
In 1890, Levy was taken into the City of London asylum as being insane, possibly a hereditary problem, as his eldest brother was also diagnosed with insanity. However, this isn’t clear as his mental health may have deteriorated through his affliction with syphilis. He was described as being 5 ft 3” tall and in good bodily health.
On the night of Catharine Eddowes's death, Joseph Lawende, Harry Harris, and Joseph Hyam Levy witnessed a man with Eddowes who matched the build and size of Jacob Levy, Eddowes was 5 ft tall, and either recognising him as a fellow Jew, or even knowing him by sight, would later refuse to testify against him.
Ten minutes after this sighting, Eddowes was found mutilated. If Jacob Levy was the Ripper, did he leave the message and apron in Goulston Street before entering the building where his relatives could give him an alibi, or did he quickly return to his home in Middlesex Street?
​
Joseph Barnett
Age - 30
Height - 5ft 7
Complexion - Fair
Hair - Black
Moustache - Black Moustache
Build - Stout
Lived - 13 Miller’s Court
Joseph Barnett worked as a fish porter before he lost his job (possibly for theft) and had once worked as a horse slaughterer when he would have gained experience with a knife.
Barnett lived with Mary Jane Kelly until the 30th of October 1888, ten days before her murder. It is possible that Barnett was fed up or jealous with having to share the lodgings with other friends or prostitutes that Kelly brought home to sleep with (possibly in a lesbian relationship) so he tried to stop Kelly from her life of prostitution by killing Nichols, Chapman, Stride, and Eddowes, who is believed to have thought he was the Ripper.
On the 8th of November, Barnett met Mary Jane at 13 Miller’s Court who was in the company of Maria Harvey, maybe realising that his love for Kelly was unrequited and that she didn’t want him back, he returned in the early hours of the morning and killed her in a fit of rage.
Barnett was interrogated for four hours after the Murder of Kelly but was released without charge, but the evidence against him is very strong.
​
