A series of murders that took place in the East End of London between August and November 1888 have been attributed to an unidentified assailant nicknamed Jack the Ripper. Since then, the identity of the Ripper has been widely debated, with over 100 suspects named.Eddleston, pp. 195–244 Though many theories have been advanced, experts find none widely persuasive, and some are hardly taken seriously at all.
Contemporaneous police opinion Metropolitan Police files show that their investigation into the serial killings encompassed eleven separate murders between 1888 and 1891, known in the police docket as the "Whitechapel murders". Five of these—the murders of Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly—are generally agreed to be the work of a single killer, known as "Jack the Ripper". These murders occurred between August and November 1888 within a short distance of each other and are collectively known as the "canonical five". The six other murders—those of Emma Elizabeth Smith, Martha Tabram, Rose Mylett, Alice McKenzie, Frances Coles, and the Pinchin Street torso—have been linked with the Ripper to varying degrees.
The swiftness of the attacks and the manner of the mutilations performed on some of the bodies, which included disembowelment and removal of organs, led to speculation that the murderer had the skills of a physician or butcher. However, others disagreed strongly, and thought the wounds too crude to be professional.e.g., Letter from Thomas Bond to Robert Anderson, 10 November 1888, quoted in Rumbelow, pp. 145–147; Dr Percy Clark, assistant to George Bagster Phillips interviewed in the East London Observer, 14 May 1910, quoted in Cook, Jack the Ripper, p. 187 and Evans and Rumbelow, p. 238 The alibis of local butchers and slaughterers were investigated, with the result that they were eliminated from the inquiry.Rumbelow, p. 274; Inspector Donald Swanson's report to the Home Office, 19 October 1888, HO 144/221/A49301C, quoted in Begg, Jack the Ripper: The Definitive History, p. 206 Over 2,000 people were interviewed, "upwards of 300" people were investigated, and 80 people were detained.Inspector Donald Swanson's report to the Home Office, 19 October 1888, HO 144/221/A49301C, quoted in Begg, Jack the Ripper: The Definitive History, p. 205; Evans and Rumbelow, p. 113; Evans and Skinner, The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook, p. 125
During the course of their investigations of the murders, police regarded several men as strong suspects, but none were formally charged.
George Chapman
Seweryn Antonowicz Kłosowski ( George Chapman; no relation to victim Annie Chapman; 14 December 1865 – 7 April 1903) was born in Congress Poland but emigrated to the United Kingdom sometime between 1887 and 1888—shortly before the start of the Whitechapel murders. Between 1893 and 1894, he assumed the name of Chapman. He successively poisoned three of his wives and became known as "the Borough poisoner". He was hanged for his crimes in 1903. At the time of the Ripper murders, he lived in Whitechapel, London, where he had been working as a barber under the name Ludwig Schloski.Rumbelow, pp. 188–193; Sugden, p. 441. According to H. L. Adam, who wrote a book on the poisonings in 1930, Chapman was Inspector Frederick Abberline's favoured suspect,Adam, Hargrave Lee (1930), The Trial of George Chapman, William Hodge, quoted in Begg, Jack the Ripper: The Definitive History, p. 281; Evans and Rumbelow, p. 229; Fido, p. 177; and Rumbelow, p. 193 and the Pall Mall Gazette reported that Abberline suspected Chapman after his conviction.Pall Mall Gazette, 24 March 1903 and 31 March 1903, quoted in Evans and Skinner, The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook, pp. 646–651 Some argue against the idea that Chapman was the likely culprit, as he killed his three wives using poison. It is uncommon, though not unheard of, for a serial killer to make such a drastic change in their modus operandi.Begg, Jack the Ripper: The Definitive History, p. 282; Cullen, p. 204; Evans and Rumbelow, p. 229; Marriott, p. 247; Rumbelow, p. 195; Detective Inspector Edmund Reid quoted in Evans and Rumbelow, p. 237
Montague John Druitt
Montague John Druitt (15 August 1857 – early December 1888) was a Dorset-born barrister who worked to supplement his income as an assistant schoolmaster in Blackheath, London, until his dismissal shortly before his suicide by drowning in 1888.Rumbelow, p. 155 His decomposed body was found floating in the Thames near Chiswick on 31 December 1888. Some modern authors suggest that Druitt may have been dismissed because he was homosexual and that this could have driven him to commit suicide.Marriott, pp. 233–234 However, both his mother and his grandmother suffered mental health problems,Begg, Jack the Ripper: The Definitive History, p. 260 and it is possible that he was dismissed because of an underlying hereditary psychiatric illness. He was said to be "sexually insane" and was allegedly suspected of being the Ripper by members of his family. His death shortly after the last canonical murder (which took place on 9 November 1888) led Assistant Chief Constable Sir Melville Macnaghten to name him as a suspect in a memorandum of 23 February 1894. However, Macnaghten incorrectly described the 31-year-old barrister as a 41-year-old doctor.Fido, p. 203; Marriott, pp. 231–234; Rumbelow, p. 157 On 1 September, the day after the first "canonical" murder, Druitt was in Dorset playing cricket; most experts now believe that the killer was local to Whitechapel, whereas Druitt lived miles away, on the other side of the Thames, in Kent.Marriott, p. 223 Inspector Frederick Abberline appeared to dismiss Druitt as a serious suspect on the basis that the only evidence against him was the coincidental timing of his suicide shortly after the last canonical murder.Interview in the Pall Mall Gazette, 31 March 1903, quoted in Begg, Jack the Ripper: The Definitive History, p. 264
Jacob Isenschmid
Jacob Isenschmid, or Joseph Isenschmid (born ), was a Swiss butcher living in the Milford Road. He experienced severe depression and other psychiatric disorders, and he had a history of violent attacks on women in the Whitechapel area, which had led to his hospitalization for psychiatric treatment in the past. On 11 September 1888, two physicians reported to the police that they suspected Isenschmid of being the Ripper due to his strange habits. Isenschmid's wife told police that he was violent and erratic, that he always carried large knives (even when they were not required for his trade), that he had threatened to kill her on at least one occasion, and that he had left home for no reason two months prior and returned only sporadically. Isenschmid was arrested on 13 September, and a psychiatric evaluation found he was violently insane and potentially dangerous, with a judge ordering him imprisoned in a mental hospital. However, the "Double Event" murders of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes occurred on 30 September while Isenschmid was in the hospital, exonerating him of the murders.Paul Begg, Jack the Ripper: The Uncensored Facts, a documented history of the Whitechapel murders of 1888, Editorial Robson Books, Londres, Inglaterra (1988), págs. 201-202.
Aaron Kosminski
Aaron Kosminski (born Aron Mordke Kozminski; 11 September 1865 – 24 March 1919) was a Polish Jew admitted to Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum in 1891.Colney Hatch Register of Admissions, quoted in Begg, Jack the Ripper: The Definitive History, p. 269 "Kosminski" (no forename given) was named as a suspect by Sir Melville Macnaghten in his 1894 memorandumMacnaghten's notes quoted by Evans and Skinner, The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook, pp. 584–587; Fido, pp. 147–148 and Rumbelow, p. 142 and by former Chief Inspector Donald Swanson in handwritten comments in the margin of his copy of Assistant Commissioner Sir Robert Anderson's memoirs.Begg, Jack the Ripper: The Definitive History, p. 269; Evans and Rumbelow, p. 243; Evans and Skinner, The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook, p. 635; Rumbelow, p. 179
Anderson wrote that "the only person who had ever had a good view of the murderer unhesitatingly identified the suspect the instant he was confronted with him". This suspect also apparently fit their profile: "a sexual maniac of a virulent type; that he was living in the immediate vicinity of the scenes of the murders; and that, if he was not living immediately alone, his people knew of his guilt, and refused to give him up to justice". Furthermore, a "house-to-house search was conducted" for "the case of every man in the district whose circumstances were such that he could go and come and get rid of his bloodstains in secret". Sir Robert Anderson goes on to state the conclusion the police came to following this investigation "was that he [Jack the Ripper] and his people were certain low-class Polish Jews" but since the person who identified him was also a Polish Jew and "people of that class in the East End will not give up one of their number to Gentile justice", the suspect was never prosecuted. Anderson was firmly convinced of the suspect's guilt, also writing within the "Whitechapel Murders" section of his memoirs that undiscovered murders' are rare in London and the 'Jack-the-Ripper' crimes are not within that category". Some authors are sceptical of this, while others use it in their theories.Begg, Jack the Ripper: The Definitive History, p. 276; Evans and Rumbelow, pp. 249–253; Rumbelow, p. 182
In his memorandum, Macnaghten stated that no one was ever identified as the Ripper, which directly contradicts Anderson's recollection.Evans and Rumbelow, p. 255 In 1987, author Martin Fido searched asylum records for any inmates called Kosminski and found only one: Aaron Kosminski. Kosminski lived in Whitechapel,Begg, Jack the Ripper: The Definitive History, pp. 269–270; Marriott, p. 238; Fido, p. 215 but he was largely harmless in the asylum. His insanity took the form of auditory hallucinations, a paranoid fear of being fed by other people, a refusal to wash or bathe, and "self-abuse".Asylum case notes quoted by Begg, Jack the Ripper: The Definitive History, p. 270 and Fido, pp. 216, 228 In his book The Cases That Haunt Us, former FBI profiler John E. Douglas stated that a paranoid individual such as Kosminski would likely have openly boasted of the murders while incarcerated had he been the killer, but there is no record that he ever did so.
It is possible 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 Colney Hatch Asylum. In 2014, DNA analysis tenuously linked Kosminski with a shawl said to have belonged to victim Catherine Eddowes, but experts—including Sir Alec Jeffreys, the inventor of genetic fingerprinting—dismissed the DNA-based claims about Kosminski as unreliable. This was because the genetic match, determined from maternal descendants of Eddowes and Kosminski, was based on mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondrial DNA can be shared by thousands of individuals and, therefore, can be reliably used in crime analysis only to exclude suspects, not to implicate them. Many consider it conjecture without substantial evidence that the shawl, allegedly taken from the crime scene by police constable Amos Simpson, even belonged to Eddowes—who was impoverished and arguably could not have afforded to purchase it herself. In March 2019, the Journal of Forensic Sciences published a study that claimed DNA from both Kosminski and Eddowes was found on the shawl. A 2019 BBC documentary entitled Jack the Ripper: The Case Reopened, broadcast and presented by Emilia Fox, concluded that Kosminski was the most likely suspect. Other scientists cast doubt on the study, and the journal printed an expression of concern after the authors were unable to produce the original data.
Michael Ostrog