Jack the Ripper: the suspects
A number of theories have been put forward concerning the identity of Jack the Ripper but none of them have offered conclusive evidence as to his identity. Here are some of the suspects:
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Walter Richard Sickert (1860 - 1942) the German born British artist and painter Photo: ALAMY
• Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward, the Duke of Clarence
• One of Queen Victoria’s numerous grandchildren, the Duke of Clarence,
“was as heedless and as aimless as a gleaming gold-fish in a crystal
bowl,” and reputedly suffered from syphilis which drove him to insane
murders, and a subsequent imprisonment (by the knowing Royal Family) and
death in asylum in 1892. However, chronological issues with evidence
make this story flimsy at best.
• Joseph Barnett
• A fish porter at Billingsgate Market, by 1888, Joseph Barnett knew
Mary Jane Kelly, one of the victims, quite well. The theory goes that
deeply in love with her, he committed the first murders to keep her off
the street – and turned on her when that failed. Interestingly, his
physical appearance and psychological profile closely match those of
witnesses and the FBI psychological profile.
• Alfred Napier Blanchard
• A red herring in the case, Alfred Napier
Blanchard (having been, “mad drunk,” and inebriated for perhaps two or
three days) stormed into the Bishopsgate Station one night after the
murders, and claimed that he was in fact Jack the Ripper. A salesman of
questionable products, he was held throughout the weekend of the 5th to
the 8th of October, 1888, and was released by a Mr. Colmore, whose last
words on the matter, “What a foolish man you have been. You are
discharged.” • W.H. Bury
• Hanged in April 1889 for the murder of his wife, Ellen, in Dundee, Bury’s Modus Operandi’s similarity to that of Jack the Ripper stirred police inquisitiveness for some time – similarly to the Ripper’s victims, Ellen was strangled to death and stabbed deeply in the abdomen. He was also known for sleeping with a pen-knife beneath his pillow, but the police investigation did not consider him as a major suspect.
• David Cohen
• Apparently a poor, Polish Jew, Cohen’s real name might have been Nathan Kaminsky – David Cohen was supposedly a generic name for unknown East End Jews. The evidence against him rests on his admission to an asylum at the right time for the murders, as well as extremely violent behaviour ascribed to him. The murders also stopped shortly after his death – but the ‘name confusion’ makes the link between Kaminsky and Cohen tenuous at best.
• Dr. T. Neill Cream
• A Scottish doctor, Cream was an abortionist and lady-killer, who nevertheless escaped conviction till he poisoned one of his patients and subsequently blamed the pharmacist – when the body was exhumed, the strychnine was found in her body. Good behaviour got him out of prison early, though, but he could not stop the murders. The murder of Matilda Clover finally pinned the blame on him, and as he hung, he said three words – “I am Jack.” However, the style of the murders (and the fact that he was in prison when they were committed) makes this theory rather sketchy.
• Frederick Deeming
• A sailor who suffered of, “brain fever,” and often noted as a cheat, Deeming’s murder of his two wives and children were found by the owner of his house through the smell of decomposition. Jailed in Perth in 1892, he told other inmates that he was Jack the Ripper, but the fact that he was in South Africa at the time rules him out from being a suspect, even if the style of murder was similar.
• Montague John Druitt
• A Classics Graduate and boarding school teacher, the loss of his father and the mental illness of his mother seemed not to perturb him unduly – until his body was found in Thames on New Year’s Eve, 1888. Having just been laid off his job, wild stories abounded, including homosexuality as well as the familial loss. Inspector Macnaghten of Scotland Yard, though, believed that, as he fitted in with many of the witness reports (including dress and age), he was the Ripper. However, it seems unlikely for him to have known the area at all, and the labelling of the suspect as, “foreign-looking,” seems to rule him out.
• Micheal Ostrog
• Working under several aliases, the Russian has been seen as two very different possible persons – on the one hand, Macnaghten labelled him as a, “mad Russian doctor…and unquestionably a homicidal maniac,” but the records (which stop in 1904) show him only as a petty criminal who once threatened the police with a revolver but was arrested. Despite tallying somewhat with witness accounts, the divergent ideas make it hard to discern if he truly had any link to the murders.
• Lewis Carroll
• Born Charles Lutwidge Dudson, the theory against him rests on odd, not even properly fitting anagrams by Richard Wallace – for example, 'So she wondered away, through the wood, carrying the ugly little thing with her. And a great job it was to keep hold of it, it wriggled about so. But at last she found out that the proper way was to keep tight hold of itself foot and its right ear'. becomes, 'She wriggled about so! But at last Dodgson and Bayne found a way to keep hold of the fat little whore. I got a tight hold of her and slit her throat, left ear to right. It was tough, wet, disgusting, too. So weary of it, they threw up - jack the Ripper.' Whilst this theory is fantastical at best, Carroll did make reference to the ripper once in his private diary, discussing, “his very ingenious theory about ‘Jack the Ripper’” – a theory yet to be found
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