Jack the Ripper — Serial Killer

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WHO WERE THE THREE MAIN SUSPECTS?

At the time of the murders there were several main suspects. In 1894 Metropolitan Police Chief Constable Macnaghten named these three men as the most likely suspects on the Jack the Ripper case:

Aaron Kosminski

Aaron Kosminski closely fit the description given by witnesses who had reported catching a glimpse of Jack the Ripper. In fact, he was identified by one witness as being Jack the Ripper, but no charges were formally brought against him. The witness refused to testify against "a fellow Jew." Kosminski seemed to fit the profile in every way. He was a Polish Jew, a hairdresser who worked with sharp instruments, and a resident of Whitechapel. He also had a known hatred for prostitutes. Kosminski was placed in a lunatic asylum in 1889 because he would only eat food from the gutter and was also rumored to hear voices. He died in 1919.

Montague J. Druitt

Teacher M. J. Druitt also fell under Constable Macnaghten's suspicion. In fact, Druitt's own family believed he might be Jack the Ripper. Druitt was a cultured man who had studied medicine and law, but he had confessed to violent urges and was described as being "sexually insane." He was dismissed from his teaching post among rumors that he was a homosexual and was last seen alive about a month after the murder of Mary Kelly. It is known that he committed suicide on December 31, 1888, by drowning himself in the Thames River; what isn’t known is why he did it. Druitt appeared to have been suffering from mental illness and severe depression. His suicide could have been directly related to his dismissal from his teaching post, or it could have been a result of guilt over his actions. It’s interesting to note, though, that his death corresponded to the cessation of the murders.

Michael Ostrog

Michael Ostrog was a Russian doctor who also went by several aliases. He was a strong suspect because his whereabouts at the time of the murders could never be accounted for. Macnaghten described him as "a mad Russian doctor and a homicidal maniac who frequently carried surgical knives." Ostrog had been a surgeon in the Russian Navy, so he had the medical background that experts believed the Ripper needed to match the surgical precision of the mutilations. However, although he was described in the Police Gazette as a "dangerous man," Ostrog was not known to be a killer. He had been arrested numerous times for fraud and theft, but he had never been arrested for murder. The details of his life are sketchy, but from existing records it is known that he spent much of his time drifting in and out of prisons and asylums. He was last heard about in 1904, when he was released from prison. The date of his death is unknown.

WHO WERE OTHER SUSPECTS?

George Chapman aka Severin Klosowski

There is no doubt that Severin Klosowski, who also went by the name of George Chapman, fit the description given by the people who alleged to have seen Jack the Ripper. A Polish Jew, hairdresser and barber by trade, and a resident of Whitechapel, he became a serious suspect for the crimes. Chapman was known to be violent and homicidal. He was accused of poisoning three women and was eventually sentenced to hang for those offenses. However, he was much younger than the estimated age of the man the witnesses had glimpsed. In 1888, Chapman would have been only 23. His execution, for the poisonings and not for the Ripper murders, was carried out in 1903.

William Bury

William Bury lived in Mile End, where two other knife attacks on women occurred. He was known to sleep with a knife under his pillow and had at times worked as a butcher. Bury fit the general description of the Ripper and lived in the vicinity where the crimes took place. In April of 1889, he was charged and sentenced to death by hanging for the murder of his wife, Ellen Eliott. She had been strangled, but her corpse had been mutilated in a style similar to Jack the Ripper's victims. Just before his death, Bury made the ambiguous statement, "I suppose you think you are clever to hang me." It is believed he could have been referring to the fact that they were hanging Jack the Ripper.

Joseph Barnett

Joseph Barnett had a strong tie to one of the victims, Mary Kelly. He lived with her for a time, supported her, and kept her off of the streets. The loss of his job forced her back into a life of prostitution. Barnett despised her lifestyle, and some people believed that he may have murdered the other prostitutes to frighten her into quitting. Barnett lived in the area in which the crimes occurred and could have known the other victims, at least by sight. As a result, they probably would not have feared his approach. Mary Kelly and he had parted company after a heated argument, but they still kept in contact. In fact, he had been at the house the day of her murder. The most incriminating evidence against him was the fact that whoever murdered Mary Kelly locked the door when he left, and Barnett was likely to have still had a key.

An American Suspect

American Francis Tumblety was investigated by Scotland Yard for the Ripper crimes, but his name as a suspect did not turn up until 1993, when some old papers were discovered. In a letter written to journalist G.R. Sims in 1913, Chief Inspector Littlechild identified him as a suspect whose name had been lost for over 100 years. Tumblety was at the least a disturbed and eccentric figure. In America, he had fallen under suspicion of being in on the conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln, but he was cleared of the charge. Tumblety was fond of aliases and was also in the habit of showing off by wearing military garb and medals he had not earned. In addition, he set himself up as a doctor, though his credentials were questionable.

Tumblety fit the profile of a serial killer in that he was known to have a deep-rooted hatred for women. He was in London at the time and may have been the mysterious "Batty Street Lodger." (The Batty Street Lodger was a suspect whose name remains unknown but who fit the description of Jack the Ripper. He rented a room in the Whitechapel area during the time of the murders and vanished shortly after.) Tumblety had some anatomical knowledge and was known to collect female wombs. The Ripper murders stopped after he fled England. The only drawback to the theory that he was Jack the Ripper is that he may have been incarcerated on another charge at the time of Mary Kelly's murder.

Other Candidates

During the course of the investigation over 160 suspects were brought in for questioning. Over time, countless others suspects have been named as being Jack the Ripper, some for valid reasons, other from sheer speculation. It would be impossible to list them all. George Hutchinson, a witness in the Mary Kelly murder, appeared to know too much. Spiritualist Robert Stephenson dabbled in the occult and had an uncanny interest in the murder, as well as a collection of bloodstained neckties. Fogelma, a deranged Norwegian sailor, kept newspaper accounts of the Ripper crimes in his sea trunk. The most unlikely candidate who had come under suspicion of being Jack the Ripper was author Lewis Carroll.

WHICH SUSPECTS WERE RULED OUT?

Several suspects strongly fit the profile of Jack the Ripper and were investigated at the time of the murders. These suspects have since been ruled out.

John Pizar

Because he was a shoemaker and a Jew, John Pizar closely fit the Jack the Ripper profile – a stereotyped description of a short man with a dark beard, moustache, and foreign accent. For a time, he was the public's choice because he was a craftsman who had access to sharp blades. The fact that Pizar also had prior stabbing convictions and a known dislike for prostitutes made him the perfect candidate.

Since he was in the habit of wearing a leather apron for his work, the media called him "Leather Apron." However, since Pizar had a solid alibi at the time of the murders, it is unlikely he was the Ripper.

Thomas Cream

Thomas Neil Cream, an American doctor, had been arrested for poisoning prostitutes. He had murdered four women by poisoning them with strychnine. However, his crimes, though ghastly, were of a different nature than the Ripper murders, and serial killers rarely change their way of committing murder. When he was hanged for his crimes in 1892, he made the dying confession that he was Jack the .... He was hanged before he could finish his sentence. However, since Cream was in prison at the time of the killings, he could not possibly have committed the Ripper crimes.

Alexander Pedachenko

Alexander Pedachenko was a Russian doctor who was supposedly linked to the Ripper murders. Some people believed that Michael Ostrog was an alias of his, and that they were one and the same person. Pedachenko, according to what little is known about him, was a lunatic with criminal tendencies who had been trained as a barber's surgeon. He was convicted of murdering a woman in St. Petersburg, and it is believed that he died in a lunatic asylum. Like Michael Ostrog, there is no known date of his death, which supports the idea that he and Ostrog might have been the same person. However, though Pedachenko was known to use a series of aliases, there is little to link him to the Whitechapel crimes.

Frederick Deeming

Deeming, a man known for his criminal activities, divided his time between Africa, Australia, and England. When the body of his second wife was discovered beneath the floorboards of their Australian house, it led to an investigation into the disappearance of his first wife and children in England. The Liverpool police investigated his previous residence and discovered the bodies of his first wife and four children beneath the floorboards, also with their throats slashed. While in prison, Deeming confessed to other inmates that he was Jack the Ripper. He was hanged for his crimes in May of 1892. However, though the method of killing his family was similar to the Ripper crimes, police investigation proved without a doubt that he was in South Africa at the time of the Whitechapel murders.

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