Jack the Ripper’s identity takes new turn as expert weighs in with new theory
The answer could lie in the meat markets, slaughterhouses, knackermen and butchers near where the women's bodies were found.
Jack the Ripper got his name from a sensational letter, the “Dear Boss letter,” sent to the Central News Agency in September 1888, claiming responsibility for the Whitechapel murders and signing off as “Jack the Ripper”. Though likely a journalistic hoax to boost circulation, the name stuck.
But who really was he? A new theory from a pair of historians shines light on the gruesome murders that have remained a mystery since they were committed 137 years ago in Whitechapel and the City of London. In a five-part series on The Rest is History podcast that launches on Monday, Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook will weigh in with their five cents on the serial killings.
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Most historians agree that the five women – Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly – were murdered by the same man.
Listeners will have to wait for the final episode on December 22 to hear the final conclusion about the killer’s identity. They will go through suspects, from Queen Victoria’s grandson and her physician to the cricketer WG Grace.
The idea that Jack the Ripper had to be wealthy or an aristocrat, rather than “some anonymous bloke”, was spurred by the inventor of modern tabloid journalism, WT Stead. Holland likens it to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal – “upper-class members of the elite preying on working-class girls.”
Rather, the answer could lie in the meat markets, slaughterhouses, knackermen and butchers near where the women’s bodies were found. “If you’re a knackerman, a slaughterman or a butcher, you’ve got knives, anatomical expertise and a reason to have blood all over you,” explains Holland.
Holland argues that the crimes captured the public imagination because the gothic novel The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and the first Sherlock Holmes novel were published two years before the murders.
Holland described the killings as “the first true crime story of the modern age”, adding that they “establish the entire template for both detective fiction and true crime … and influence the golden age of British horror”.
“Jack the Ripper has become a figure of mystique and glamour, and that’s almost the most hideous thing about it. You think about all the detective novels, thrillers, films, TV dramas and, indeed, podcasts that revolve around the murder of women by men for entertainment – he’s the primal example of it.”
