Who he really was Jack the Ripper? No one has ever managed to put a face and a name to the most famous and studied murderer of all time. The elusive mystery of this serial killer is not due to his intelligence or his ability to leave no traces. Most likely, The Ripper was able to take advantage of the errors, gaps and uncertainties that dotted the entire investigative phase. For some, however, the Whitechapel monster could also have counted on a possible social position so high as to allow him to act undisturbed. A total immunity that would have even come from the British Crown.
The five murders
We know very little about Jack the Ripper. His story is shrouded in the same darkness that characterized the nights of Whitechapelthe slum area of London’s East End where the killer committed at least five of his murders between the summer and autumn of 1888. In fact, many studies agree on the theory according to which the victims could be many more than those confirmed, as many as sixteen in total (the five mentioned in all the accounts, plus another eleven). This uncertainty arose from the notable quantity of attacks against women that occurred at the time and, more generally, from the violent climate that reigned in Whitechapel.
The Ripper operated in one of the most turbulent, poor and overcrowded areas of Londonwhere crime seemed unstoppable and living conditions were precarious to say the least. Almost a microcosm apart from the rest of the city, where laws and human solidarity arrived very rarely. The murders occurred in a context of poverty and social tensions so strong and unmanageable that they became, in a certain sense, one of the tools thanks to which the serial killer avoided justice.
The first victimMary Ann Nichols (aged 43), was found at 3.45am on 31 August 1888 in Buck’s Row. The body of the second, Annie Chapman (aged 47), was found at around 6am on 8 September 1888. The body of Elizabeth Stride (aged 44), was found inside a doorway in Berner Street and was found by a coachman at around 1am on 30 September 1888. That same night, the body of the fourth murdered woman, Catherine Eddowes (aged 46), was also discovered in Mitre Square. The fifth and final victim attributed to the serial killer, Mary Jane Kelly (aged 25), was found on 9 November 1888 at around 10.45am in her room in Miller’s Court.
The modus operandi was almost always the same: throat-slitting, mutilation and removal of internal organs. Only the dead body Elizabeth Stride was not touched (except for the throat slash): according to investigators, the arrival of the coachman who found the body could have distracted Jack the Ripper, preventing him from continuing the massacre. Proof of this would also be the horrendous wounds on Eddowes’ body: as if the murderer had vented on her the fury he had had to hold back immediately before with Stride, in order not to be discovered.
Mary Ann, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary Jane were all poor women, living on the margins of society, with a heavy past behind them. For decades scholars and public opinion believed that they were prostitute. The book “The Five Women: The True Story of Jack the Ripper’s Victims” by Hallie Rubenhold (Neri Pozza, 2020) questions this thesis, delving into the daily lives of the Ripper’s victims.
In fact, in 136 years of studies, much more attention has been paid to the identity of theassassin than to the personality and stories of his victims. In some ways it was inevitable that this would happen, given that none of the theories about the true face of Jack the Ripper have ever been incontrovertibly proven.
Who was Jack the Ripper?
On December 31, 1888, the body of a young lawyer was found in the Thames, Montague John Druittson of a famous London doctor. The man is said to have committed suicide. The police, noting the coincidence between this death and the end of the (confirmed) Whitechapel murders, came to suppose that Jack the Ripper was actually Druitt.
According to another hypothesis the murderer would have been George Chapman (born Seweryn Klosowski), a surgeon’s apprentice who emigrated from Poland to London. He was living in Whitechapel at the time of the murders and is said to have poisoned all three of his wives. He was hanged in 1903. Aaron Kosminski, a Polish barber of Jewish origin, was also accused of being the Ripper. He had a shop in the area where the five women were murdered and suffered from schizophrenia. He was admitted to a mental asylum in 1894, where he died 25 years later in 1919.
Among the other accused were John Pizer, a Polish Jewish shoemaker from Whitechapel and even Lewis Carrollauthor of Alice in Wonderland (hypothesis judged unfounded). These are just some of the most important names in a long list of suspects which also includes an excellent character: “A member of the royal family,” as Royal Central wrote. An ancestor of Charles III, to be precise.
The Queen’s nephew
In 1962, a surprising theory emerged about the possible identity of the Ripper. In his biography dedicated to Edward VII, the writer Philippe Jullian pointed the finger at Albert Victor of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1864-1892), Duke of Clarence, a son of Edward VII and a direct grandson of Queen Victoria. The Duke was betrothed to Mary of Teck (Queen Elizabeth’s grandmother), but died of pneumonia at Sandringham on 14 January 1892. Mary married the future George V, younger brother of Albert Victor, in 1893.
According to Jullian’s reconstruction, the Duke of Clarence he allegedly began killing prostitutes as a sort of revenge after contracting syphilis from one of them. However, there are four flaws in this strange story: the author did not specify his sources, which should already put us on guard. According to the most recent studies, the Ripper’s victims were not prostitutes. The venereal disease theory has never been proven and, finally, documents from the time tell us that the duke had an alibi for all the murders.
In fact, between the end of August and the beginning of September 1888, that is, at the time of the first murder, Albert Victor would have remained in Yorkshire, then he would have moved to York right at the time of the second murder. At the end of September, when the third and fourth victims were discovered, the duke would have arrived in Scotland and in the hours of the fifth death he would have found himself, instead, in Sandringham.
The Plot Against the Duke of Clarence
There is also a second, even more imaginative, theory regarding Alberto Vittorio: in fact, in the book “Jack The Ripper. The Final Solution (1976) by Stephen Knight, (which gave rise to the comic series “From Hell” (1991-1996) by Alan Moore and the 2001 film “The True Story of Jack the Ripper”, with Johnny Depp), an alleged plot is even described, born at the British court to protect the Crown from a scandal.
According to this theory, Albert Victor secretly married a Catholic girl, Annie Elizabeth Crook, and the couple had a baby girl. Queen Victoriahaving learned of her nephew’s conduct, would have sought advice from the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury. Thus the royal physician Sir William Gull would have been instructed to kidnap Annie and, in an attempt to erase the young woman’s memories of her marriage and pregnancy, would have driven her to madness.
At this point the story becomes even more bizarre: the daughter of the Duke of Clarence was supposedly entrusted to the care of Mary Jane Kelly (the fifth victim of the Ripper), who would have revealed the identity of the little girl to her friends, namely Mary Ann Nichols, Elizabeth Stride and Annie Chapman and Catherine Eddowes. Since too many people would have known the secret of Albert Victor, the British government would have decided to close the matter definitively, hiring a hitman to kill the witnesses: Jack the Ripper.
It is clear that the story, although chilling, does not hold up: no one has ever proven that the five confirmed victims of the maniac were friends. Even the passage regarding Dr. Gull and the alleged attempts to erase Annie’s memory appear surreal, as does the marriage of the Duke of Clarence to a catholic woman. Not to mention that none of this has ever been proven.
Furthermore, the serial killer attacked his victims. He attacked their bodies in such a violent, sadistic and cruel way that he attracted the attention of citizens and the press.
A modus operandi that does not seem to be that of a hitman, that is, of a person paid to kill in the quickest and most silent way possible. The identity of Jack the Ripper still remains a mystery. However, perhaps, a possible solution, even if complicated to find after all this time, should not be sought in royal family British.