Jack The Ripper - Mark Whitehead [36]
After this point there were no more Ripper-style killings. The file at the Met remained open but suspects were thin on the ground. The Ripper disappeared into the fog of history in much the same way that movies depict him swirling off into London pea-soupers. Behind him he left the bodies of at least four women (Nichols, Chapman, Eddowes and Kelly) and quite probably six (these plus Tabram and Stride), possibly more. Ahead of him lay a century and more of theorising, arguments, backbiting, fraudulence and the mutilated corpses of several reputations.
The Suspects Assemble
‘Theories! We were almost lost in theories; there were so many of them’ Inspector Abberline, quoted in Cassell’s Saturday Journal, 22 May 1892
‘Too many Rippers and not enough corpses’ could easily be the motto of anyone hoping to solve Jack the Ripper’s crimes. The sheer wealth of possible Rippers ranges from those considered by the police at the time right up until the present day.
Given that various theorists could devote a whole book to just one of these possible Rippers, we can’t possibly hope to do justice (or bring justice) to any of them.You too could be a Ripperologist – just perm one from any of the following then match it against the murdered prostitutes that best fit your theory.
FBI psychological profile
In 1988 the Feds prepared a profile, specifically for the documentary ‘The Secret Identity of Jack the Ripper’. It contained the following observations: ‘A local, resident male in his late twenties. Since the murders generally occurred at weekends, he was probably employed. Murders took place between midnight and 6am, suggesting that he was single, with no familial ties. Of low class, since murders evinced marked unfastidiousness. Not surgically skilled or possessing anatomical knowledge. Probably known to the police. Seen by acquaintances as a loner. Probably abused/deserted as a child by his mother.’
‘Dr Stanley’ (?–c.1918)
Fingered by Leonard Matters in The Mystery of Jack the Ripper (1929, reissued 1948)
The first full-length English language Ripper tome ‘names’ this brilliant Royal surgeon. His son supposedly caught syphilis from Mary Jane Kelly, leading to his untimely death. Once ‘Stanley’ had eased his grief by carving up Kelly and her associates he took a world cruise, settling in Buenos Aires in 1908. Matters’ source was an unreferenced Buenos Aires journal in which an anonymous former student of Stanley’s was summoned to the great man’s deathbed in time to hear his confession. Daniel Farson, in Jack the Ripper (1972), cited a letter from a Mr Barca of Streatham. Barca claimed that a Buenos Aires dive called Sally’s Bar had been reputed to be owned by Jack the Ripper. Colin Wilson would later hear from Mr AL Lee of Torquay. Mr Lee’s father had supposedly met Dr Stanley while working at Golden Lane mortuary. All well and good, except Matters admitted in his book that the name was fictitious. And Kelly’s postmortem makes no mention of syphilis.
Olga Tchkersoff (?–?)
Fingered by ET Woodhall in Jack the Ripper: Or When London Walked in Terror (1937)
Tchkersoff was a Russian immigrant whose sister, Vera, was a prostitute who died after an abortion. Needless to say, it was all Mary Jane Kelly’s fault again. The death of Olga’s father from pneumonia and her mother due to alcoholism in 1888 pushed Olga over the edge and the rest is history. Possibly. After Mary Kelly’s murder, Inspector Abberline postulated a ‘Jill the Ripper’ to his mentor, Dr Thomas Dutton. Abberline’s reasoning rested mainly on Mrs Maxwell’s testimony that she’d seen Kelly alive the morning after her murder. If the killer was female, she could have burned her own bloodstained clothes then worn Kelly’s to leave Miller’s Court, which may have accounted for Mrs Maxwell’s supposed sighting, (although Kelly’s clothes were reportedly found piled neatly on a chair at Miller’s Court).
Another ‘Jill the Ripper’ theory was expounded by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. A midwife would probably already