After 118 years, Jack the Ripper’s name remains the most
familiar of all murderers, no other single criminal has been so exhaustively
examined in literature and on stage and screen. The Ripper murdered and
dismembered at least five and possibly nine or more prostitutes in London’s East
End in 1888, in one of the most gruesome, gory serial killings in British or any
other history. “Saucy Jack” was never captured in the foggy night streets of
Whitechapel or Spitalfields, and his pseudonym was derived from his signatures
on the bizarre, mocking notes he reputedly sent to the police. (Sept. 30th:
“Double even this time. Number one squealed a bit – could not finish straight
off – had no time to get the ears for police.”) “Bloody Jack” was described as a
man of medium height who wore a deerstalker cap, sported a small mustache and
“talked like a gentleman.” For almost a century writers have speculated on the
Ripper’s real identity, naming literally hundreds of “suspects,” including even
Prime Minister Gladstone and Albert Victor Christian Edward, Duke of Clarence
and Avondale, Queen Victoria’s grandson and heir to the throne of England. After
some time the murders stopped but the Ripper was never caught.