4467 days ago
Two experts claim to have solved the mystery of the identity of Jack the Ripper, the notorious murderer of five prostitutes in London in the 1890s. This kind of rings a bell or two as we have heard these claims once or twice before. The murders took place largely in the Spitalfields district just a stone’s throw away from the City of London, although one took place in an alleyway a couple of miles away in Whitechapel. Ever since the world has been fascinated by the Ripper. Was he a Prince of England, a Liverpool Doctor, a loony Jew, a freemason or just an ordinary bloke with a penchant for killing hookers? The truth is that we will never know.
The latest name in the frame is Charles Cross, a cartman whose walk from his home in Doveton Street on the borders of Bethnal Green and Stepney to his work in Broad Street took him past the scenes of all the murders*. Okay, that bit is circumstantial. But he was the person who found the first body (that of Polly Nicholls). Indeed as the Old Bill arrived he was actually crouching over it. He claimed he was seeing if she was okay (given how victims were disembowelled this should not have required detailed examination), the authors of the latest book on the Ripper reckon that he was interrupted disembowelling the young lady.
Oh did I mention that there is a book being published?
