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| GRISLY HISTORY: Steve Wilson with his assistant, Tameika Jane Roebuck, has uncovered more evidence that his Great Great Grandfather was Jack The Ripper. |
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| RESEARCH: Is this the face of evil? Alleged Jack the Ripper Andrew John Gibson, also known as Walter Thomas Porriott |
FAMILY OUTS RELATIVE AS WORLD'S FIRST SERIAL KILLER
STEVE Wilson, 55, is convinced he is related to one of the most infamous serial killers who ever lived.
He has spent much of the past 25 years hunting down the truth about his great-great grandfather, Walter Thomas Porriott, a convicted killer and conman who died in Brisbane in 1952.
And he now believes his evil ancestor, who is buried in Brisbane, was Jack The Ripper - the infamous serial killer who stalked Whitechapel in London.
The savage murders of five prostitutes on the foggy streets of London in 1888 were never solved.
Porriott was the name Mr Wilson's ancestor was using at the end of his life. He is said to have married 20 times, usually to fleece his brides of their family money.
He was born Andrew John Gibson in 1870 but the April 1915 Police Gazette listed many aliases
Vandals smash grave of 'Jack the Ripper'
A HISTORIC Brisbane grave belonging to a bigamist killer and one of the many people suspected of being Jack the Ripper has been destroyed by vandals.
Porriott is buried with his last wife, Bessie, but was so reviled even by his own family that his name does not appear on the gravestone, just the words "Bessie and her husband".
The gravestone, with a thin outline of the Ripper etched in the sandstone, sits high on a hill in Toowong cemetery. It was vandalised in August.
"Porriott had a pathological hatred of prostitutes," says Mr Wilson at his Sydney home, where he has books and reams of archival material he says confirm Porriott as the killer.
"When I was eight my grandmother died and we inherited all her things, including all these medical books that belonged to Porriott," says Mr Wilson, a nurse.
"He was an extraordinary conman and fraudster who posed as a doctor for much of his life so he knew a lot about anatomy like the Ripper.
"Porriott wrote a medical textbook called Health and Vigour while posing as a doctor in Sydney in 1914 and in the book he explains his hate for prostitutes. He says they are the cause of all diseases and that they should all be wiped out with "an axe at the very roots of this deadly evil'. "
Porriott was a teenager in England when all five murders were committed. Mr Wilson has a copy of a bad cheque Porriott once wrote in 1892.
He has meticulously compared the handwriting with the infamous "Dear Boss" letter a man signing himself "Jack The Ripper" wrote to London's Central News Agency on 27 September, 1888, after the second murder, declaring: "I'm down on whores and I shant (sic) quit ripping them until I get buckled."
Mr Wilson says "Porriott wrote with a funny-shaped 'n' exactly the same as the Dear Boss letter. It's obvious they were done by the same hand."
Porriott served 44 years in prison for various crimes in Australia, England, America and South Africa.
He sailed from England to Australia on November 9, 1888, hours after the mutilated body of fifth Ripper victim Mary Kelly was found.
In 1951, aged 81, he married 58-year-old spinster Eliza "Bessie" O'Leary and died the following year.
Mr Wilson says there is as much evidence fingering Porriott as the Ripper as there is for the many other suspects.
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OTHER RIPPER SUSPECTS:
Montague Druitt: Barrister, schoolteacher drowned himself in the Thames in December, 1888.
Francis Tumblety: Irish-born conman - was in Whitechapel at the time of all five murders. Hated prostitutes.
Sir William Gull: Physician to Queen Victoria. Murders to cover up Duke of Clarence's love child.
He has spent much of the past 25 years hunting down the truth about his great-great grandfather, Walter Thomas Porriott, a convicted killer and conman who died in Brisbane in 1952.
And he now believes his evil ancestor, who is buried in Brisbane, was Jack The Ripper - the infamous serial killer who stalked Whitechapel in London.
The savage murders of five prostitutes on the foggy streets of London in 1888 were never solved.
Porriott was the name Mr Wilson's ancestor was using at the end of his life. He is said to have married 20 times, usually to fleece his brides of their family money.
He was born Andrew John Gibson in 1870 but the April 1915 Police Gazette listed many aliases
Vandals smash grave of 'Jack the Ripper'
A HISTORIC Brisbane grave belonging to a bigamist killer and one of the many people suspected of being Jack the Ripper has been destroyed by vandals.
Porriott is buried with his last wife, Bessie, but was so reviled even by his own family that his name does not appear on the gravestone, just the words "Bessie and her husband".
The gravestone, with a thin outline of the Ripper etched in the sandstone, sits high on a hill in Toowong cemetery. It was vandalised in August.
"Porriott had a pathological hatred of prostitutes," says Mr Wilson at his Sydney home, where he has books and reams of archival material he says confirm Porriott as the killer.
"When I was eight my grandmother died and we inherited all her things, including all these medical books that belonged to Porriott," says Mr Wilson, a nurse.
"He was an extraordinary conman and fraudster who posed as a doctor for much of his life so he knew a lot about anatomy like the Ripper.
"Porriott wrote a medical textbook called Health and Vigour while posing as a doctor in Sydney in 1914 and in the book he explains his hate for prostitutes. He says they are the cause of all diseases and that they should all be wiped out with "an axe at the very roots of this deadly evil'. "
Porriott was a teenager in England when all five murders were committed. Mr Wilson has a copy of a bad cheque Porriott once wrote in 1892.
He has meticulously compared the handwriting with the infamous "Dear Boss" letter a man signing himself "Jack The Ripper" wrote to London's Central News Agency on 27 September, 1888, after the second murder, declaring: "I'm down on whores and I shant (sic) quit ripping them until I get buckled."
Mr Wilson says "Porriott wrote with a funny-shaped 'n' exactly the same as the Dear Boss letter. It's obvious they were done by the same hand."
Porriott served 44 years in prison for various crimes in Australia, England, America and South Africa.
He sailed from England to Australia on November 9, 1888, hours after the mutilated body of fifth Ripper victim Mary Kelly was found.
In 1951, aged 81, he married 58-year-old spinster Eliza "Bessie" O'Leary and died the following year.
Mr Wilson says there is as much evidence fingering Porriott as the Ripper as there is for the many other suspects.
--------------------------------
OTHER RIPPER SUSPECTS:
Montague Druitt: Barrister, schoolteacher drowned himself in the Thames in December, 1888.
Francis Tumblety: Irish-born conman - was in Whitechapel at the time of all five murders. Hated prostitutes.
Sir William Gull: Physician to Queen Victoria. Murders to cover up Duke of Clarence's love child.
www.CourierMail.com.au
18.11.12
COMMENT: Australian Ripperologist Paul Tully says the theory about Walter Porriott being Jack the Ripper cannot be completely dismissed. As with most - if not all - of the various Ripper theories, there is a wealth of intrigue and speculation but little hard evidence to back the competing claims. Walter Porriott was a con-man, thief, bigamist and killer and hurriedly left London within a day of Jack the Ripper's last murder of Mary Kelly on 9 November 1888. If Porriottt's handwriting matches the "Dear Boss" letter's handwriting of September 1888, that would be proof they were written by the same person, although it would not automatically prove the author was Jack the Ripper. But the "Dear Boss" letter contained previously unreleased information about the murder which would strongly suggest the author was indeed the "Butcher of Whitechapel". Steve Wilson should be congratulated for being prepared to put his great grandfather's grisly history on the line and his potential alter ego as Jack the Ripper.
