Jack The Ripper Caught In The Act

An Overlooked Prime Suspect

Jack The Ripper. A notorious killer roaming the streets in the east end of London during the latter part of 1888 killing women. The killer was able to approach and dispatched his victims quickly then  flee the scene undetected . There was no apparent motive or pattern to the crimes, he was never apprehended. The identity of the killer is still unknown and technically the case is still open.

Actually the situation may be  quite different. While it is true the killer was able to quickly approach and dispatch his victims he may not have been as cunning as history portrays him. In all likelihood he had been interrupted on two occasions, discovered at the scene of one of the crimes and his name known, though not as the killer but as a witness who was never suspected. There is a definite pattern to the killings and a possible motive behind one.

Not only may the killers name be known but also where he lived, worked and chose the victims he did, as well as why the murders occurred where they did and why he was never caught.

If all this seems preposterous and you are wondering where the information comes from, the answer is rather shocking. Much of it comes from the mouth of the man who may have been committing the crimes. One man may even have knew the killers identity. What may have really been going on is as interesting, if not more so than the legend .

There have been many books written on the subject. The basic premise often being the same. The story unfolds and a convincing argument put forth to support the authors claim that a particular individual may have been the killer.  

In all cases the suspect put forth is never actually placed at the scene of the crimes nor can it clearly shown the suspect would have had the opportunity to be at any of the crime scenes. In some cases it could later be shown the suspect was somewhere else at the time one or more of the murders were committed. The odd part is, some of these books while putting forth their suspect refer to a man who may in fact have been the actual killer.

One fact is apparent. The killer had to be present at each crime scene.  Unless a  suspect   can be placed at the scene of the crime or connected to the crime scenes in some way there is no direct connection between the suspect and the crimes.  Without this connection you could point the finger at anyone living in the area at the time and build a case for them being the killer. Once a suspect appears it is also important to look for indications  

he could not have committed one or more of the crimes as this would eliminate him as a suspect.  

The ideal suspect would be one that could be placed at the scene of crime and tied to the other crime locations but who could not be eliminated from having committed any of the crimes. It would be icing on the cake to have this person in their own words implicate themselves.

There are aspects of the ripper case that have always puzzled investigators, such as why the killer  left Whitechapel and went into the city of London to commit the fourth murder.

Another interesting fact is all the victims lived in the same small area of Whitechapel and probably knew each other. Why is a killer out of thousands of potential victims available be picking women that live so close together?

The police conducted extensive house to house searches, questioned thousands of people but turned up nothing. Why? Where was the killer?

If there was a suspect  that could explain these things odds are we would be on the right track. As it happens there is such a person but for some reason never came under suspicion.

This book is about that person.

There is one man who enters the picture and is even a participant in the investigation but  never investigated or suspected. Looking closer at this man it becomes obvious rather quickly something is wrong.  Enough is known about this man and his movements that it is difficult to avoid coming to one inescapable conclusion. In order for this person to be innocent of any involvement with the crimes there must have been a second person doing the killing. Introducing a second person as the killer opens a can of worms. Things become bizarre, fall apart and nothing makes sense.

At the time of the murders it would have simplified matters considerably if the police had checked to verify this mans story, which they didn't or went back and took a closer look at this man later in the investigation, which they didn't. If either of these things had been done this man would have been eliminated as having any involvement with the murders or became their prime suspect. Since this was never done the remnants of information we have left leaves us in a catch-22 situation. It cannot proven with 100 percent certainty this man was the infamous Jack The Ripper meaning if he were not the culprit there must have been a second person doing the killing. On the other hand it is so improbable there could have been a second person doing the killing this man must be the culprit.

Much of what is written about the ripper murders and presented as fact, isn't.  It is necessary to separate fact from legend to develop a clearer picture of what happened, which as it turns out is easier said than done. Many of the documents in the case have disappeared, been destroyed or lost. The bulk source of information from the time comes from newspapers but they are notoriously unreliable. Often the stories were embellished and sensationalized to sell newspapers.  Tabloid newspapers today seem timid by comparison.

Inquest were held and witness testimony presented but the statements of various witnesses sometime contradicted each other or the known facts. Trying to understand what happened based on eyewitness statements often requires one witness statement to be accepted but another ignored.  Problem is how does one know they are accepting or ignoring the correct statements? Change which statement you decide to accept or ignore changes the conclusions. One could easily decide upon a suspect first then pick and choose witness statements to support it.

In fact this is the problem in a nutshell. There is so much information and disinformation available it is quite easy to make a case for anyone being the killer simply by picking and choosing what information to accept or reject. The situation is such you could probably decide the cartoon character Porky Pig is the culprit and find one way or another to support that theory.

Rather than rely to heavily on  such information it may be best to simply ignore many aspects of the case not because it strengthens or  weakens conclusion but because it doesn't change the outcome one way or the other.  

To understand why the ripper murders became so famous it is important to understand the situation at the time of the murders. It was a slow time for newspapers, not much was happening news wise. Police are investigating the Whitechapel Murders which the newspapers begin to sensationalize to sell papers. A letter is received purportedly from the killer signed Jack The Ripper. It was that letter that set off a frenzy. Everything gets blown out of proportion. Newspapers run with the story, each wanting an exclusive and to outsell the other. It has become big business. Everyone wants in on a piece of the action. Witnesses come forward, some reliable some just to get their name in the paper  or become part of the events The Circus has come to town. Jack The Ripper has become a world wide phenomena.

In all the confusion what was really going on may have fell through the cracks.

The Story

Between 1888 and 1891 the London police maintained a file on 11 murders known as the Whitechapel murders.  These eleven murders can be divided into two groups. The first group encompasses all eleven murders into an investigation called the Whitechapel murders. The second group consist of five specific murders out of the eleven which showed the same type of wounds to the throat or abdominal injuries. Four of these five victims