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Jack the Ripper nightmares: Five theories about the Ripper’s identity

The killer was an immigrant … a doctor … a mad midwife … Queen Victoria's grandson. 

Anne-Marie Kilday and David Nash consider what five theories about Jack the Ripper's identity can tell us about society's greatest fears over the past 130 years.

Mary Ann Nichols was the first of five women believed to be victims of serial killer Jack the Ripper

WHEN Mary Ann Nichols was kicked out of Willmott’s lodging house in the early hours of Friday morning, August 31, 1888, she was undaunted. 

Nichols, known as Polly to friends and family, had spent her last penny on alcohol, but was confident she would soon find a man who would pay for her services or let her share his bed.

“Never mind,” she said. “I’ll soon get my doss money. See what a jolly bonnet I’ve got now.” 

She staggered out the door and walked the streets of Whitechapel. 

At the corner of Whitechapel Rd and Osborn St she met a lodging house friend, Emily (or Ellen) Holland, who pointed out that it was 2.30am and urged Nichols to go back to Willmott’s. 

There had been two women murdered in Whitechapel that year and it was dangerous to be out on the streets. But Nichols refused and headed off to look for a client.

It was the last time anyone saw her alive. At 3.40am, 130 years ago today, Charles Cross was walking to work and saw something on the ground outside a stable. 

It was Nichols’ body.

He called over a friend Robert Paul. Cross assumed she was dead but Paul thought she was still breathing. They pulled her skirt down over her knees to preserve her dignity and left the scene to find a police officer.

An etching from Le Journal Illustre on February 13, 1891, depicting the Jack the Ripper murders in Whitechapel.A newspaper sketch of Insp Frederick George Abberline from about 1888.

Meanwhile, PC John Neil also stumbled across the body and alerted other constables.

Nobody knew it at the time, but this was the first in a series of killings by a man who would come to be known as Jack the Ripper. 

It sparked an intense police investigation under the command of Insp Frederick Georbge Abberline. However, the case has never officially been solved.

Nichols was born Mary Ann Walker in London in 1845, the daughter of a locksmith turned blacksmith.

Click full story: The Daily Telegraph

Will we ever find out who Jack the Ripper really was?

He remains the ultimate criminal enigma – and Jack the Ripper committed his dastardly deeds exactly 130 years ago.

From autumn into early winter 1888, he murdered at least five women in the streets of London, and the case continues to intrigue and horrify.

The late author and journalist Richard Whittington-Egan was intrigued his whole life. He spent much of his childhood and youth quizzing old people who had lived through it all in the capital’s East End.

Richard, who died two years ago, wrote a classic 1975 book about the Ripper, which has been out of print and selling for a fortune as it’s so rare. Thankfully, that volume has now been updated and enlarged, and is available again at long last.

As the late, great Richard demonstrated, Jack the Ripper remains a mystery, with a long list of suspects. Even the number of women he killed is anything but certain.

“Between August 31 and November 9 1888, in what has been picturesquely described as an Autumn of Terror, some person or persons unknown did murder and grotesquely mutilate five prostitutes in the East End of London,” he wrote.

Most of us know that the five women who had their throats cut were Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly.

When Jack the Ripper gave himself up!

When ‘Jack the Ripper’ gave himself up in Wexford.

It was early in the morning when Jack the Ripper gave himself up in Wexford.

At least, that’s who he told the police he was.

The man, about 25-years-of-age according to a report in The Irish Times on March 28th, 1889, had “the appearance of one who is in the habit of working in a steamer or foundry,” and readily confessed to murdering a woman he named as Mary Anne Cooper in London two years previously.

Prison records at the time indicate the anonymous man in question was Arthur Williams, a 33-year-old clerk of no fixed abode and originally from Portsmouth in England.

On his arrest on March 26th, Williams was remanded for eight days. His claims evidently did not hold water, and he was released on the 29th.

The report noted: “The police think that he is misrepresenting the facts.”

The case of Arthur Williams occurred in the months following one of the darkest periods in Britain’s criminal history - the Whitechapel murders.

For a period at the end of 1888, London’s East End was terrorised by an unknown, and still unidentified, serial killer with the moniker ‘Jack the Ripper’.

An unprecedented media frenzy followed.

‘Jack the Ripper’ preyed on women, typically prostitutes. Estimates on the total number of victims vary, but it is widely accepted that five women were brutally murdered by ‘Jack the Ripper’ between August 31st and November 9th, 1888.

Jack the Ripper cast finalised for production in Seoul from January to March



“Jack the Ripper” has finalized its cast!

On December 27, the upcoming musical revealed its starring cast and their individual posters.

“Jack the Ripper” will be celebrating its 10th anniversary through a special commemorative run starting on January 25 at the Woori Art Hall in Seoul Olympic Park. VIXX’s Ken, Uhm Ki Joon, Fly to the Sky’s Hwanhee, Jung Dong Ha, and Choi Sung Won, will all be playing the lead role of the chivalrous surgeon named Daniel.

Uhm Ki Joon, who played the role of Daniel at the very beginning of the musical’s run, decided to appear in the musical for its 10th anniversary in spite of his busy schedule.

Actors Shin Sung Woo, Seo Young Joo, and Kim Beop Rae have been cast in the role of the serial killer Jack. Lee Gun Myung, Min Young Ki, Kim Joon Hyun, and Phillip Jeong have been cast for the part of Anderson, who chases Jack in the story.

CSJH The Grace’s Stephanie and Kim Yeo Jin will play the role of Gloria, the ambitious woman who falls in love with Daniel, while Baek Joo Yeon and Sonya will play Anderson’s ex-girlfriend Poly.

“Jack the Ripper” will run from January 26 to March 31 at the Woori Art Hall in Seoul Olympic Park.

Full details:
 https://www.soompi.com/article/1283827wpp/vixxs-ken-uhm-ki-joon-confirmed-jack-ripper