At 10.45 am on the morning of 9 November, 1888, the body of Mary Jane Kelly, a 25 year old prostitute of Irish descent, was found in her lodgings at 13 Miller’s Court, Whitechapel. She had been murdered. She was lying naked on her bed, her uterus and kindeys had been removed, her breasts cut-off, her abdomen lay on the table beside her bed, her face had been hacked and disfigured beyond recognition, and the room was drenched in blood. At this final gruesome crime scene the murder spree of Jack the Ripper is believed to have come to an end. Other serial killers have been more prolific but none have been more notorious. So here I put before you the case against the most likely suspects in the Ripper murders, and you can decide who you think may, or may not have been, Jack the Ripper.

Joseph Barnett, who was born and raised in Whitechapel, was the lover of the Ripper’s final victim, Mary Jane Kelly. He was, by all accounts, deeply in love with Mary, and he was desparate for her to stop prostituting herself to other men. He thought he could do this by supporting her through his job at Billingsgate Fish Market. However, in July, 1888, he was dismissed and lost his licence to work in the market after being accused of theft, though no charges were ever brought. Barnett’s attempts to dissuade Mary from her chosen profession having failed he resorted to killing prostitutes to scare her off the streets. When this in turn failed they had a furious row at 13 Miller’s Court on 30 October, 1888, and Barnett stormed out. He was to return on the morning of 9 November and murder Mary in such a frenzied attack and in such a vile way that it could only have been the work of a spurned lover. The manner in which the face was so horribly disfigured would indeed seem to indicate this. It was also the case, that Mary’s door was locked so the likelihood is that the killer let himself in and then must have locked the door behind him when he left. He must, therefore, have had a key. Which indeed Barnett would have had. However, in the week running up to the murder Kelly and Barnett had often been seen together and were apparently on good terms, and he had continued to send her money.

Those witnesses who had briefly glimpsed the Ripper in the act had described him as being 5′7, aged about 30, with fair hair and a moustache. Barnett was indeed 30, being born in 1858, he was of similar height and had fair hair and a moustache. He also fitted many aspects of the FBI profile of Jack the Ripper. He was a white male aged between 28 and 35, he worked in a profession where he could have indulged his violent tendencies, he would have regularly boned and gutted fish. He’d had an absent father, his father had died when he was aged 6, and he had a speech impediment which would have caused him great anger and frustration. He was not, however, a suspect at the time and is it really plausible that he would have resorted to murder, and such vile murders, simply to persuade his lover to change her ways? There was also no physical evidence to link Barnett to the crimes.

Montague John Druitt, fitted the notion of the Gentleman Ripper. He was the son of a physician but trained as a barrister. He attended Winchester Public school and went to Oxford University. He was an all-round sportsman and a talented debater. Life looked good for Montague John Druitt. Yet he committed suicide, his body, weighed down with stones was dragged from the Thames on 30 December, 1888. It was decided at his autopsy that he had been in the water for around a month, so he would have killed himself just a few weeks after the last Ripper murder. Why would Montague Druitt have killed himself? To supplement his income as a barrister he worked as a teacher in a boys school, a post from which he was dismissed, no reason ever having been given. It has been rumoured since that he was a homosexual and had been accused of molesting the boys in his care. There is no evidence for this other than conjecture, but his mother was a depressant who was committed to an asylum in 1890. Perhaps, it ran in the family. He did not fit the description of the Ripper, he was tall, slender, dark, and did not sport a moustache. He also only ticked a few of the boxes of the FBI profile. But his family thought he was the Ripper. Inspector MacNaughten, in his famous memorandum on the Ripper case certainly thought he might be guilty. He wrote, ” I have always held strong opinions regarding him, and the more I think the matter over, the stronger these opinions become.” He continued, in his report to Scotland Yard, ” From private information I have little doubt that his own family suspected him of being the Whitechapel murderer, it was alleged that he was sexually insane.” Druitt, however, did not live in London but resided in Kent, though his legal chambers were in London. The murders did cease after his death but then again there was no physical evidence to link him to the crimes.

Dr Thomas Neill Cream, was already a serial killer long before the Ripper murders even began. Though he was born in Scotland he spent much of his life in Canada, where he graduated from medical school with honours and a promising career beckoned. Instead he chose to work as an abortionist and a seller of sham elixirs. Any number of women died under his knife but he always evaded capture and was never charged. He was though constantly on the move and 1878 found him resident in Chicago. Still his luck continued. However, when the husband of one of his patients discovered they were having an affair, Cream decided to murder him. This he got away with but then bizaarly demanded an exhumation of the body and an autopsy. When the autopsy found that the man had died of strychnine poisoning, Cream was arrested and charged with murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. Why he did this, we don’t know, but then it would transpire that he liked to take a chance.

Prison records indicate that Cream served only 10 years of his sentence and was released for good behaviour on 31 July,1891. If so then Cream would have been incarcerated at the time of the Ripper murders. The Chicago prison authorities were notoriously corrupt so it is not impossible that he could have been released earlier, but there is no evidence for this. At some time, however, he must have taken ship for London because by the Autumn of 1891, he was living in south London. Many of Cream’s prevoius murders had been the result of botched operations or poisonings to cover his tracks, now he was killing women because he enjoyed it. In London he soon made the acquaintance of two prostitutes both of whom he poisoned, he then went on to to poison two other women who were not prostitutes. Again he took a chance and decided to accuse his neighbour of the murders and tried to extort money from him. He even bragged about his knowledge not only of the poisonings but also of the Ripper murders. Unfortunately, one of the people he boasted to was a police sergeant, and he was arrested. Tried and convicted of murder he was sentenced to death. Just before he hanged he blurted out the words, “I am Jack th . . .” This desparate last utterance really is the only known connection between Cream and the Ripper murders. Whilst he certainly had the medical knowledge often ascribed to the Ripper, though it has also been suggested that a competent butcher or indeed fishmonger could have done similar disembowlments, there is no evidence that he was anything but in prison at the time of the murders, and he certainly didn’t fit the physical description of the Ripper, being dark, tall and bald. He was, however, a known killer of women, though poison was his preferred weapon of choice.

William Henry Bury, first became a suspect in the Ripper murders on the other side of the Atlantic when the New York Times drew comparisons between his murder of his wife and the murder of Polly Anne Nichols. It is believed that Bury was living with his wife Ellen, in the East End of London at the time of the murders before moving to Dundee soon after they ended. Certainly, the police took the possibility of him being the Ripper seriously enough to despatch Inspector Frederick Abberline to Scotland to investigate further. What he discovered was that Ellen had previously worked as a prostitute, and he saw that the words Jack the Ripper were scrawled on the front door to his house. Bury would have been 29 at the time of the murders and fitted the physical description of the Ripper in many other respects being of average height, stocky, and fair. He was also known to have had a troubled childhood, was prone to rages, quick to resort to violence, and he regularly carried a knife. So he fitted the FBI profile of the killer. Despite this, Abberline decided he was not worthy of further consideration. Bury was hanged for the murder of his wife in April, 1889.

Aaron Kosminsky, was a Polish Jew who before he was overcome by insanity had worked as a barber. He was mentioned as a suspect in the MacNaughten Memorandum where it was said that he “had a great hatred of women and homicidal tendencies.” There was little in his behaviour to indicate this, however. His insanity rather seemed to consist of eating his food off the ground, howling like a dog, shouting at passers-by in a garbled Yiddish and Polish (he spoke no English) and refusing to wash or bathe. The only man who had got a good view of the Ripper, however, identified him as the killer but it was not possible to bring a prosecution because he refused to testify against a fellow Jew. Kosminski also lived within a mile of where the murders were committed. He was committed to Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum in February, 1891. There is some doubt, however, as to whether the man committed to the asylum is the one referred to in MacNaughten’s Memorandum. MacNaughten claimed that he died soon after the murders ended but the Kosminski in the Asylum did not die until, 1919.

George Chapman (Severin Antionovich Klosowski) arrived in England from Poland in 1888, just a few months before the first Ripper murder. Prior to his arrival he had studied as a surgeon in Russia. He was a very unattractive character, a mysogynist, a serial bigamist, and prone to extreme bouts of violence. Once in England he settled in the East End of London where he found work as a barber. He soon married, even though he already had a wife in Poland, who on hearing of his marriage was to pursue him to England and whom he would later try to murder. Soon after the murders ceased in early 1891, he emigrated to New Jersey in America with his then wife Bessie Taylor. He returned to London in 1895, where he opened his own barbers shop and for a time was doing quite well. Bessie, by this time seems to have disappeared and he married the alcoholic Mary Spink. Their relationship was a fractious one and he regularly beat her, indeed he was known to be a ferocious wife-beater. Eventually, Chapman poisoned her, as she lay dying he was heard to refer to her repeatedly as Polly, the name of the Ripper’s first victim. On 20 March, 1903, he was arrested for the murder of Bessie Taylor, Mary Spink, and his last wife, Maud Marsh. On hearing of the news Inspector Abberline exclaimed, ” at last we have him, Jack the Ripper.” Abberline later wrote, ” the date of his arrival in England coincides with the murders in Whitechapel, the murders in London ceased when he left to go to America when similar murders began to be perpetrated there. The fact that he studied surgery in Russia before he came to London, and the fact the murders had been carried out by an expert surgeon.” All these things, including his extremely violent nature and love of knives, convinced Abberline that Chapman was the Ripper. He would, however, have been only 23 years of age at the time of the murders, considerably younger than the Ripper was believed to be, though in many other respects he did fit the physical description. George Chapman was hanged at Wandsworth Prison on 7 April, 1903. He was not questioned about his possible involvement in the Whitechapel murders. 

John Pizer, was a Polish Jew who was also known as “Leather Apron,” who lived and worked in Whitechapel. His job as a bootmaker meant that he was often seen wearing a leather apron. When a discarded blood-stained leather apron was found at the scene of the one of the murders the Ripper Press and the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee (whose Chairman, George Lusk, had recently been sent the notorious “From Hell” letter by the supposed Ripper which included among its contents half a human liver) whipped public opinion into a frenzy over the killer so vicious and so prolific he had to wear an apron to soak up all the blood.  Pizer, whose job as a bootmaker meant that he was often seen wearing a leather apron was arrested and charged with the murders but was soon after released when he proved that he was actually in the presence of a police officer at the time of one of the murders. Though he was an abusive and bad-tempered man who regularly consorted with prostitutes there was no evidence that could link him to the crimes other than that leather apron which was later proved to belong to one of the victims. He was later to successfully sue the City of London Police for wrongful arrest. 

Francis Tumblety, may or may not have been Jack the Ripper, but he is certainly one of the most interesting and colourful characters to be associated with the Whitechapel murders. Tumblety, a flamboyant homosexual from Rochester, New York, of Irish descent, was a quack doctor, forger, distributor of pornographic literature, abortionist, and seller of fake herbal remedies. In 1865, he had been arrested and accused of being involved in the plot to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln but was later released without charge, and his hobby appears to have been collecting female uteri, of which he had a great many. He also had an intense. hatred of women. A certain Colonel Dunham, who had been a dinner guest of Tumblety’s, recorded how when he asked why there were no women present Tumblety’s “face turned as black as thunder,” referring to women as cattle he then proceeded to lecture his guests about the wickedness of womankind and denouncing all women especially fallen ones. He later explained that his contempt for women derived from his own experience as a cuckolded husband. But it wasn’t possible to believe anything Tumblety told you. He then showed his guests around his own museum of pickled female body parts.

Tumblety, who had been responsible for the deaths of a number of women who had come to him for help with medical complaints or to have their pregnancy aborted was always on the move. He was invariably involved in some sort of scam or other and as a result he would often travel across the Atlantic to Europe to escape his pursuers. At the time of the Whitechapel murders he was resident in the East End not far from where the murders were committed and it is known that he had tried to purchase uteri from local hospitals. He also carried with him a medical bag similar to the one the Ripper was believed to have had on his person.

On 8 November, 1888, he was arrested for gross indecency with a young man and this would seem to preclude him from being able to have committed the Mary Kelly murder which occurred on the 9th. There is no evidence, however, that he was under lock and key at this time. The Police had suspected Tumblety for sometime with something far worse than his consensual sexual dalliances with young men, and on the 12 November he was arrested and charged on suspicion of the Whitechapel murders. Incomprehensibly, he was then granted bail and the trial postponed until December. On 24 November, he fled London and took ship back to America. British Police immediately contacted their Americans counterparts and a watch was put on all the ports. Tumblety, however, eluded these and managed to slip back into New York. In the meantime an Inspector Andrews was despatched to America to find Tumblety and bring him back. The New York Police did indeed track Tumblety down but it was decided that the British could not provide enough evidence against him for extradition proceedings to go ahead. All this was widely reported in the American press but was hushed up back in Britain, which has since led people to suspect that the Authorities were embarrassed at having allowed the Ripper to escape their grasp. Needless to say, Tumblety escaped justice for his many crimes, and he died in St Louis in 1903, a very rich man.

So was Tumblety Jack the Ripper? There are certain factors that mitigate against this conclusion. He was, for example, an avid self-publicist, braggart and liar, are we to believe that a man such as this could have kept quiet about being the worlds most notorious murderer, not even confessing to his crimes as he lay on his deathbed. He was also 55 years of age at the time of the murders, considerably older than the Ripper was described as being, and this also does not  fit the FBI profile of the likely killer, and he would have struggled to be as fleet-footed on the dark, dangerous, fog-bound streets of Victorian London as the Ripper must have undoubtedly have been. It is also unusual for a homosexual to manifest his fury and frustration in violently physical visitations or assaults upon women. 

Michael Ostrog, was a Russian born con-man and habitual criminal who was named in the MacNaughten Memorandum as a possible suspect in the Whitechapel murders. Indeed, MacNaughten refers to him as the mad Russian doctor, a homicidal maniac who was habitually cruel to women. The basis of his accusations, however, seem to be that he was known to regularly carry knives and surgical instruments about his person. There is no proof that he was even in Whitechapel at the time of the murders, and nothing to indicate in his life of petty crime that he had a tendency towards violence.  

Thomas Haynes Cutbush, was the relative of a senior Metropolitan Police Officer. He is known to have contracted venereal disease from a prostitute in 1888, which seriously effected his brain. On 15 March, 1891, he was sentenced to be remanded at Lambeth Infirmary as a wandering lunatic. He later escaped and viciously attacked and stabbed the first two women he came across. He was quickly recaptured and for reasons of public safety transferred to the secure Broadmoor Lunatic Asylum. It was Assistant Chief-Constable MacNaughten’s own admission that he had secret information regarding the Ripper murders and had destroyed documentation relating to it that has led many to believe that he was protecting the reputation of another senior member within the force. It is this alone that has made Thomas Cutbush a possible suspect in the Whitechapel murders. Though it should be noted that this claim was made in the Sun Newspaper as early as 1894.

Prince Albert Victor, was the second son of Queen Victoria and therefore second-in-line to the throne after his brother Edward. He would, however, have made a poor King, for he was mentally retarded and unstable, and rumoured to be homosexual. He has also been the focus for any number of fanciful and exotic conspiracy theories regarding the Whitechapel murders. The main one being that he had contracted syphilis from an East End prostitute and having become insane was driven to murder; or that the murders were carried out on his behalf to cover up his own miscreant behaviour that may have resulted in the birth of an illegitimate child. These theories do not seem to tie in with the rumours of his homosexuality and his alleged presence at the Cleveland Street male brothel when it was raided by the police, and where a number of prominent and high-profile Victorians were indeed arrested. There is little doubt that Prince Albert Victor was indeed a rum character but there is little evidence to link him to the Ripper murders. Fortunately, perhaps, for the Royal Family he died in 1892.

Other Suspects:

Lewis Carroll (author) it has been suggested that coded anagrams in his novels Alice Through the Looking Glass and Alice in Wonderland make reference to him being Jack the Ripper.

Walter Sickert (Artist) produced many paintings that appear to portray the Ripper’s victims and he had an enduring fascination with the case that he often shared with Lewis Carrol.

Sir William Gull (Doctor) he was Queen Victoria’s personal physician and is believed by some to have been the man who committed the murders in order to protect Prince Albert Victor.

James Maybrick (Liverpool Merchant) who owned up to being the Ripper in his still much disputed diaries.

George Hutchinson, who went to the police to claim that he had witnessed the murder of Mary Kelly and later became a suspect himself.

There are others, but as you go along they become less and less credible. Even so, from the evidence I produce here, who do you think was Jack the Ripper?