Charles Lechmere was walking to work in the London District of Whitechapel at 3:40am on the 31st of August, 1888, when he stumbled across the body of a woman lying on the pavement. This being London's notorious East End, Lechmere assumed she was passed out drunk, but before he had a chance to investigate further, a second figure followed from the fog. His name was Robert Paul, and between them they debated what to do next - Paul wanted to prop the young lady up to aid her recovery, but Charles thought it better to leave her be.
Unable to agree on the best course of action, they went looking for help. While they were gone, a local bobby on his beat by the name of PC John Neil arrived on the scene. He was carrying a lantern, and it illuminated something that neither Charles Lechmere nor Robert Paul had noticed in the dim morning light - a pool of dark liquid slowly spreading from beneath the woman’s neck.
She wasn't passed out drunk - she was dead. Nobody knew it at the time, but the most infamous serial killer in history had just claimed his first victim. Over the following 70 days, London was gripped by fear as the mysterious murderer who came to be known as Jack the Ripper claimed 4 more lives.
Sure, the world had already seen serial killers, but Jack wanted more than any that had come before- because he mutilated his victim’s bodies with shocking brutality. But just when it seemed as though the killing would never end, only 2 months on, the Ripper was gone. Whoever or whatever had been stalking the streets of London had just.
. . disappeared.
The last Ripper victim was buried more than 130 years ago, but interest in this most gory of unsolved mysteries has never waned. Endlessf professionals and amateur sleuths alike, have poured millions of hours into piecing this puzzle together, but even today questions remain. How did the killer commit his crimes on the busy streets of London without ever being caught?
Why were so many people murdered in such a short space of time, and why, so far as we know, did the Ripper never take another life after his killing spree ended in November 1888? And of course, then there’s the most important question of all. .
. who was Jack the Ripper? I don't claim to have a definitive answer to that last question, but if you stick around to the end, I have a very, *very* strong candidate to tell you about - one who isn’t usually even mentioned when people talk about Jack the Ripper.
But first things first - it's probably worth recapping the case for those of you who aren't up to date on your 130-year-old true crime stories. That first victim - the one found by Charles Lechmere and Robert Paul, was identified as Mary Ann Nichols. A subsequent post mortem revealed the true extent of her injuries, most of which had been hidden beneath her clothes when her body was found.
Her neck had been severed by two cuts so deep the knife had scraped her vertebrae, and she'd been stabbed multiple times in the stomach and groin. It was a brutal assault, but Jack the Ripper was just getting started. Just over a week later the body of Annie Chapman was found on Hanbury Street near Spitalfields market in the early hours of the morning.
Just like Mary, Annie's throat had been severed by two deep cuts, but with this second killing the mutilations were far more severe - Mary’s torso had been badly slashed, but Annie Chapman had practically been dissected. The killer had removed several of her internal organs, arranging them around the body, and her uterus and parts of her bladder and vagina had been taken from the scene entirely. In the space of just 9 days, two innocent women had been murdered in horrific fashion.
The people of London were terrified. . .
but they were also fascinated. Jack the Ripper was the first serial killer to hit the global headlines - he was sensationalised by newspapers all around the world. From the outset people were enthralled, but as the days went by, interest in the Ripper shot sky high, when, all of a sudden this spectre stalking the streets of London… started writing letters.
There were hundreds of them in total, some sent to the media, others to the police. But while the vast majority are today thought to have been hoaxes - because what could be funnier than pretending to be a psychopathic serial killer - there is one single slip of paper some experts believe was scribbled by the real Ripper - the so-called 'From Hell' letter. If you're wondering what it was about this particular missive that suggests it was genuine, I can tell you it had nothing to do with handwriting analysis or the origin of the postmark.
No, it was much simpler than that - the letter was delivered along with half a human kidney. And as we're about to find out, the police had a pretty good idea of where it might have come from. 12 days after Annie Chapman met her maker, the next two ripper victims were killed within an hour of each other.
Elizabeth Stride was first, but her murder was a little unusual - like before, her throat had been cut, but the rest of her body was left untouched. Most ripperologists - yep, that’s a thing - believe the killer was interrupted before he got the chance to. .
. get to work. That would explain why he killed again so fast, before the hour had passed, and Catherine Eddowes, whose' body was found just 45 minutes aft, received the full Ripper routine, so to speak.
Like Annie Chapman, Eddowes' body had been horrifically mutilated. With her abdomen sliced open and several of her internal organs arranged around the body, but this time the ripper had also taken the time to disfigure his victim’s face. Once again, some organs were missing from the scene entirely - including a whole kidney (if you’re wondering what happened to the half not delivered with the letter, the author claimed to have eaten it).
It's hard to imagine a more gruesome murder, but as it turns out, the people of London didn't have to. Because Jack the Ripper saved his most devastating work until last. And the unlucky recipient was, Mary Jane Kelly - found on the morning of Friday the 9th of September.
Unlike every other ripper victim, she was murdered indoors - in the single bedroom she rented in a building off Dorset Street. According to an FBI criminal profile written in the 1980s, the additional privacy gave the Ripper the time to truly indulge his twisted fantasies. And indulge them he most certainly did.
It's estimated he spent around 2 hours with the body, inflicting mutilations that are quite simply beyond words - when he was finished, Mary Jane’s own mother wouldn't have recognised her. If you have an incredibly strong stomach, pictures do exist of the crime scene - but that information comes with a very serious warning - the images are some of the most disturbing ever captured on film, and once seen they can never be unseen. By this point in our story, the London Police Force were in the midst of the biggest manhunt in recent memory.
Several thousand Londoners were interviewed, around 300 suspects were actively investigated, and more than 80 people were brought in for questioning. But of course, nobody was ever convicted, and the crimes remain quite possibly the most famous cold case in the world. As many as 500 people have been accused of being Jack the Ripper over the years.
Some of these suggestions are, as you would expect, batshit insane. Some ripperologists - mostly the unhinged ones - believe Prince Albert, grandson of Queen Victoria and second in line to the throne was Jack the Ripper. According to the theory, he had an illegitimate child with a Whitechapel prostitute and, understandably embarrassed by this decidedly unprincely behaviour, proceeded to eliminate everyone who knew his dirty little secret.
Another, shall we say 'left-field' theory is that Alice in Wonderland author Lewis Caroll was the killer. The reasoning behind this one is actually quite compelling at first glance - author Richard Wallace found that if you rearranged the letters in certain sections of Caroll’s poems, they spelled out a detailed confession of his guilt. That’s absolutely true by the way - there really *is* a hidden confession in Lewis Caroll’s poems.
But before you go and burn your copy of Alice Through the Looking-Glass in protest, it turns out that if you take a long enough passage of text from literally any book in history you can scramble the letters to say anything you like - a fact that was proven quite spectacularly when critics of Wallace's work rearranged the first few lines of his own book to spell out a confession that he'd framed OJ Simpson and secretly written Shakespeare's sonnets. Aside from the utter lack of evidence, the likes of Prince Albert and Lewis Caroll simply don’t fit the killer’s profile. One of the most striking things about the Ripper murders is just how tightly grouped they were - all 5 victims were killed within a mile of each other.
That suggests the real ripper lived somewhere nearby - a deduction doubly backed by the fact he knew the streets of Whitechapel like the back of his blood-soaked hand. The Ripper is often portrayed in books and films as a suave aristocrat that preys on the poor, but it's much more likely he was an ordinary working man from Whitechapel. His choice of victim is also interesting - you probably noticed that all five were ladies who were killed at night, but they were also ladies *of* the night - prostitutes.
Maybe prostitutes made for an easy target, or perhaps the Ripper had it in for them specifically. Apply this general profile to the most common ripper suspects, and a few interesting candidates begin to stand out. ## John Pizer Unless you're a real Ripperologist, you probably aren't aware that the serial killer called Jack the Ripper was once known by a different name - Leather Apron.
After the murder of Mary Ann Nichols, police spoke to many of her friends and acquaintances, several of whom were fellow prostitutes. During those interviews, one phrase kept cropping up over and over again - Leather Apron. That turned out to be a nickname of sorts, one given by the prostitutes of Whitechapel to a mysterious man many of them had been threatened by in the past.
He was said to wear a distinctive leather apron and carry a long, sharp knife in his belt, and while nobody seemed to know his real name, Whitechapel's prostitutes were clearly absolutely terrified of him. Soon enough, the police identified this prostitute-botherer as local boot maker John Pizer. He was called in for questioning, and it soon transpired he'd been responsible for a number of minor assaults on prostitutes.
He also had a prior conviction for stabbing someone. It's to imagine a more perfect ripper candidate - Pizer was local, he had a thing for prostitutes, and he'd already shown himself to be a little bit stabby. Unfortunately there is one small flaw that we simply can’t ignore.
. . he had a cast iron alibi for not one, but *two* of the murders.
## James Maybrick Another name commonly tossed about is that of James Maybrick, a prominent Liverpool cotton merchant who was himself murdered by his wife, soon after the last Ripper victim met the knife. That’s a pretty good start - one of the oddest things about the entire case is the abrupt end to the murders, so any suspects that either died, got locked up, or moved away, automatically gets a bonus point. So, did Mr Maybrick kill her husband after finding out who he really was?
Perhaps. But the key piece of evidence that points to Maybrick as the killer is actually a diary, one that didn't surface until more than 100 years after his death. Published in 1992, it was found by a scrap metal dealer from Liverpool called Michael Barrett who claimed to have been given it by a friend.
The diary detailed all 5 ripper murders, as well as two others the police had never even connected with the case, and while no name was included, it didn't take long to figure out who the diary belonged to - James Maybrick. Of course, when a hundred year old diary randomly turns up conveniently confirming the identity of the most famous felon of all time, there are always going to be people who call bullshit. But Barratt was more than happy to submit the diary for testing, and initial analysis was positive - it was written in a genuine victorian notebook in genuine victorian ink.
It also contained a wealth of information that seemed to be consistent with Maybrick's life. Either the diary was genuine, or it was one hell of an impressive hoax. But just when it looked like this century-long case could finally be closed, Michael Barratt was exposed, by himself - he admitted to having forged the diary with his wife.
Despite the confession, some ripperologists still believe Maybrick was Jack the Ripper. For one thing, it isn't entirely clear whether Barratt's confession of forgery was actually real - he later retracted it, then retracted the retraction, then retracted the retraction of the retraction, then. .
. you get the idea. Still, if the diary was the only evidence in Maybrick's favour it would be easy to dismiss him as a suspect - why would Barratt admit to forging something that was genuinely genuine?
. But in 1993, a Victorian pocket watch was discovered with an engraving on the inside cover containing Maybrick's name, the initials of the ripper's 5 victims, and the words 'I am Jack. ' Now I know what you're thinking - that was obviously forgery too.
But analysis of the watch by two experts concluded not only that it dated back to the right time period, but that the engravings on the inside were several decades old at least, perhaps even older. Bearing in mind that Maybrick wasn't even suggested as a suspect until the 'discovery' of the diary in 1992 and we're left with a bit of an enigma. Could he have been the killer?
Let me know what you think in the comments section. ## Aaron Kosminski Back in 2019, newspapers around the world proudly proclaimed that the infamous killer known as Jack the Ripper had finally been caught by that most unerring of detectives - modern forensic science. The stories were triggered by an academic paper that claimed to have linked DNA found on a shawl belonging to Catherine Eddowes to a living relative of one Aaron Kosminski, a paranoid schizophrenic who lived and worked in Whitechapel at the time of the murders.
Kosminski is thought to have been one of the original ripper suspects back in the 1880s, and interestingly he was admitted to a mental hospital in 1891, not long after the killing spree came to an end. Kosminski is widely regarded as one of the most likely Ripper candidates, but the deeper you dig into his story, the more holes you find. It turns out that the forensic evidence on which his entire case stands was based on mitochondrial DNA - something that can be shared by thousands of different people.
Not only that, but nobody seems to be 100% certain that the shawl definitely belonged to Catherine Eddowes in the first place. OK, so you're probably starting to see a pattern here - for every plausible candidate, there's an equally plausible explanation as to why they probably *weren't* Jack the Ripper. The truth is, the same can be said for almost every ripper suspect you care to mention… but not quite all of them.
And I've saved the man I believe to be the best candidate till last. ## Charles Lechmere Jack the Ripper was famous for his elusiveness, so it only seems right that my personal favourite was hiding in plain sight for more than a century before anyone suspected him. Unlike many of the more famous ripper suspects, this man wasn’t a prince, a famous author, or a wealthy aristocrat.
He was about as normal a man as you could ever imagine. So utterly inconspicuous that he’s already appeared in this video and there’s every chance you never gave him a second glance. Any guesses?
Let’s go back to the Ripper’s first victim for a second, Mary Ann Nichols. Did you notice anything strange about her murder? Unlike most victims, her body was left relatively unmolested (at least by Jack the Ripper's standards) and the killer took the time to cover up most of her injuries beneath her clothes, while every other victim was left quite deliberately on display.
It’s a small detail, but it may well have huge implications. Traditionally, Ripper researchers have assumed Mary’s murder was slightly less brutal than the others because Jack was still learning his trade. And that’s certainly a possibility.
But what if the mutilations were less severe because the killer never got the chance to finish them? I started this video by telling you that Charles Lechmere stumbled across Mary’s body on his way to work - that’s exactly what was recorded in the police report. But if we imagine the scene from Robert Paul’s perspective, things look a little bit different.
I mean, think about it - Paul basically arrived to find Charles Lechmere standing over the body of a murdered woman. Could he have been the Ripper all along? If he was, when he heard Robert Paul approaching he had a split second decision - either make a run for it, or stay put and pretend to have just found the body.
I didn't make up that little detail about Lechmere being reluctant to move the body by the way - that was in the police report too. If he was the killer, he would have known that moving Mary would make it abundantly clear she'd been murdered. It also seems that Lechmere kept a deliberately low profile in the days after the murder - he didn't come forward to give evidence at the inquest until Robert Paul mentioned him to the press, and even then, he ended up giving evidence under a different name - Charles Cross.
That was the family name of one of his two stepfathers who’d died years earlier and it's possible he used it routinely, but it's also possible he was trying to cover his tracks. Unfortunately we know very little about Lechmere’s life - he was never considered a suspect by police at the time, so he wasn't investigated, and as an ordinary working class man living in Whitechapel, few records of his life have survived. Pretty much all we do know is his address - 22 Doveton Street - and his occupation - he was a meat cart driver for a local company called Pickfords.
It isn’t much to go on, but even these scant details are intriguing. Being a meat car driver, Lechmere would have commonly handled animal carcasses, which is a pretty good reason for wandering about with blood on your clothes. Not only that, but if you map his likely route to work based on his home address and the address of his employer, it’s clear he would have passed conveniently close to the locations of at least 3 Whitechapel murders in the early hours of the morning, exactly when all the ripper victims were found.
There's also the irrefutable fact that he looks exactly like Old Man Marley from Home Alone, and as far as I'm concerned that's reason enough to be suspicious. If someone had thought to point the finger at Lechmere 130 years ago, perhaps the case would have been closed and we wouldn't still be talking about the mysterious Jack the Ripper today. But they didn't, and with so much water having passed under the proverbial bridge since then, we simply don't have enough evidence to make firm conclusions.
Most of the people who lived through the Ripper murders have been dead for well over a hundred years at this point, and the bulk of the police files about the case were destroyed during the Blitz. As frustrating as that is, these huge evidential blindspots are a big part of what makes the story of Jack the Ripper such a compelling one, even today. Lechmere may well have been the killer, but we can’t rule out the possibility that he was just some random guy who was unlucky enough to find a dead body on his walk to work - somebody had to, and a man who lived and worked in Whitechapel was more likely to do so than most.
Any one of the people looking out at you might have been Jack the Ripper, or perhaps we’ve never even been close to correctly identifying the real killer and his name has already been lost to history. Whatever the truth, these were some of the most brutal and disturbing crimes ever committed, and yet, whoever carried them out got away scot free. Just think about that for a second - whoever Jack the Ripper was, he'll have had friends, colleagues, lovers.
Thousands of people must have spent time with the most notorious killer in history without ever even realising it. And if that doesn’t creep you out, nothing will. Thanks for watching.
