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– he did murder women. Between 1895 and 1901 he poisoned three successive wives with antimony (which, he believed, left no trace). For these crimes, he was tried and hanged in 1903. The more the trial revealed about Klosowski’s background, the more convinced Inspector Abberline was that he was Jack the Ripper. Klosowski was a qualified junior surgeon who had been a barber’s assistant in Whitechapel during the murders, emigrating to America in mid-1890. During his stay in New Jersey, a prostitute was strangled and mutilated in Manhattan. This immediately sparked rumours that the Ripper had emigrated, but there is no proof that Klosowski was even in Manhattan. He returned to London in 1891–2 where he resumed his career as a barber.

The similarities between his appearance and eyewitness descriptions are notable, particularly that of George Hutchinson. Klosowski also fits many criteria supplied in the FBI’s profile. He was charming and violent towards women, and sadistic enough to slowly poison his three victims. His callousness towards his wives’ suffering was noted by more than one witness. He threatened his first wife, Lucy Baderski, with a knife more than once. At the best estimate, he had first emigrated to the East End around eighteen months before the beginning of the crimes; long enough to acquaint himself with the area and pick up some conversational English. Moreover, he favoured a sailor’s cap and carried a little bag...

It’s said, when Klosowski was convicted, Abberline turned to Inspector Godley, the arresting officer, and said: ‘You’ve got Jack the Ripper at last!’ However, Klosowski was only 23 when the crimes were committed, much younger than any witness description estimated. More problematic is the switch from one modus operandi to another. Serial killers have been known to experiment with other methods. The Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, briefly switched from killing his victims with a hammer to strangling them with a piece of flex to divert police attention from the fact that he was still killing but soon reverted. To accept that Klosowski was Jack the Ripper we have to believe that he was capable of switching from viciously mutilating prostitutes to poisoning his wives. A change in behaviour that great is a serious leap.

Another poisoner got in on the act: Dr Thomas Neil Cream was hanged for the poisoning of four prostitutes in Lambeth in 1892. As the trapdoor opened, he is alleged to have said, ‘I am Jack the...’ (Relax, he was actually in jail in America at the time of the killings.) Other wife murderers include William Henry Bury. He stabbed his wife to death in Glasgow in 1889 but had lived at Bow during the previous year. Graffiti outside his lodgings claimed that ‘Jack the Ripper is at the back of this door’. Frederick Bailey Deeming killed two wives, one in Liverpool (as well as his children) in 1891, a second in Australia in 1892. He was said to have confessed to the last two Ripper crimes. His solicitor denied it.

James Kelly killed his wife in 1883. Doctors doubted he was insane but he was locked up in Broadmoor anyway. He escaped in January 1888 but turned himself in in 1927, remaining in Broadmoor until his death. James Tully’s theory (The Secret of Prisoner 1167 [1997]) is that Kelly killed his wife when she discovered his affair with Mary Kelly. He escaped Broadmoor to find that Mary had aborted the child she was bearing him. He killed each woman after asking about her whereabouts and finally Mary herself. Supposedly, the authorities were so embarrassed by his escape they covered the whole thing up.

Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward (‘Prince Eddy’) (1864–92)

Fingered by Phillippe Julien in Edouard VII (1962) and Dr Thomas Stowell in ‘Jack the Ripper – A Solution?’ (Criminologist, November 1970). Stowell coyly identified the Ripper as ‘Mr S’ and later denied, despite obvious inferences in the article, that he had ever suggested Eddy was the Ripper. Cleared by Michael Harrison in Clarence:The Life of HRH The Duke of Clarence and Avondale 1864–1892 (1972)

Grandson of Queen Victoria,