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FROM HELL DVD |
Jack the Ripper: Six Degrees of SeparationFrom the FROM HELL DVD supplement by DAVID J. SCHOW(NB: DJS also unearthed and supplied the 1980 Australian TV documentary, Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution, based on the book by Stephen Knight.* Portions of the documentary are seen via various options on the "Six Degrees" menu. It is quaintly dated, and convenient to From Hell inasmuch as Knight's theory as to the Ripper's true identity paralleled some of the plot conceits of the movie.) Herewith, 26 of the most historically popular Ripper suspects: FRANCIS TUMBELTYOne of many self-professed "doctor" suspects, Tumbelty was a man who also affected a military-style uniform as his everyday dress. He pretended to be a Union Army surgeon and confidant of President Lincoln after coming to trial for the poisoning deaths of several of his patients in other parts of America. He had been known to vocally denounce women, especially "fallen" women, and had a collection of pickled uteruses in a display case in his home. He moved to Europe in the 1860s, where he commenced a love affair with another man, Sir Henry Hall Caine. He was arrested in Liverpool in 1888 for various indiscretions and assaults. Shortly thereafter he was charged and detained for the Whitechapel murders. Freed on bail with his hearing delayed, he fled to France and ultimately returned to the States by ship, during which time he eluded detectives on both shores who were on the lookout for him. Since there was no actual proof he committed the Whitechapel murders, although he was at liberty in London during the correct times for some of them, he was not extraditable, and it has been suggested that Scotland Yard strongly desired to suppress the fact that they had lost track of their prime suspect. After ducking the police successfully for several years, Tumbelty died in St. Louis in 1903 JAMES MAYBRICKWhen The Diary of Jack the Ripper appeared in the early 1990s, one James Maybrick was put forth as the murderer and diarist. His guilt can be discounted since the book itself was a forgery, and his candidacy, a hoax. GEORGE CHAPMANSeverin Antoniovich "George" Klowsowski was known as a hospital attendant or "barber surgeon" (from the days where medicine and hairdressing were intertwined). He was also known as Ludwig Klosowski or "Zagowski." Again, no hard evidence connects Klosowski to the Whitechapel murders apart from a few coincidences of time and place, and the fact that he happened to be devoted to the pursuit of murdering four of his assorted wives for settlement and trust monies. For these murders, he was hung at Wandsworth Prison on 7 April 1903. "THE LODGER""The Lodger" was a popular play (and subsequent film) based on newspaper accounts (and later, a memoir) by Dr. L. Forbes Winslow, an amateur sleuth, medical theorist, and self-proclaimed "practical detective." Winslow haunted the Whitechapel slums following the death of Annie Chapman, looking for Ripper clues and expounding theories to the point where he claimed authorship for most of the conclusions reached by Scotland Yard. Based on his inquiries, he formulated a profile of the Ripper on details given to him by Mr. E. Callaghan of 20 Gainsborough Square in Victoria Park, who had let a room to a supposed "Mr. G. Wentworth Bell Smith," who frequently complained about the prostitute traffic in Whitechapel, who supposedly kept three loaded revolvers in his room, and had bragged of several "wonderful surgical operations" he had performed. No evidence of this lodger has ever been made public, apart from Winslow's description of him as about five feet ten inches tall and knock-kneed, with a close-cut moustache and beard. This mystery man is important to the mythos of Jack the Ripper primarily because "The Lodger" -- the stage play and subsequent film versions -- is the source for the most popular public conception of the Whitechapel killer as a dark figure in a top hat and astrakhan coat, bearing a doctor's bag, all attributes of the supposed Mr. Bell Smith noted by Winslow. AARON KOSMINSKIPolish Jew and resident of Whitechapel, Kosminski was a Ripper suspect mostly by virtue of his experience as a butcher. He is said to have become insane "owing mostly to a series of solitary vices" and was finally remanded to the custody of a lunatic asylum in 1889. The evidence connecting him to any of the Ripper murders is strictly circumstantial. JOSEPH BARNETTA fish porter and intimate of Mary Kelly, Barnett was suspected primarily because of his tempestuous relationship with the prostitute prior to her murder. It is thought that Barnett initiated the campaign of murder to scare Kelly out of a life of prostitution, after losing his job and becoming unable to provide for her. Many of the details of Kelly's murder sync up with Barnett as a suspect, such as the mysterious locked door to Number 13 Miller's Court ... to which Barnett might have possessed a key. Barnett also fits, in many respects, the official FBI profile generated for the Ripper. Police questioned him for four hours following the murder of Kelly, then released him. PRINCE ALBERT VICTORA popular Ripper suspect due more to his lineage than any real facts, great leaps of logic must be made to even approach the assumption that the Whitechapel murderer was His Royal Highness, Prince Albert Victor, the Duke of Clarence, commonly known as "Eddy," the eldest son of the future King Edward VII. While most theories revolve around tales of dissolution, boy brothels and venereal diseases that caused "softening of the brain," whether Eddy was even a homosexual is in serious doubt. The theory is primarily the product of sensationalistic sensibilities, the kind that fuel the yellow journalists of Fleet Street (always anxious to indict the privileged) ... yet, as Donald Rumbelow points out, "(c)learly the evidence is thin indeed for supposing that Clarence was Jack the Ripper, and yet he plays an equally prominent role in at least two other theories." Eddy's popular partners in crime were most commonly thought to be Sir William Gull, his physician, and James Kenneth Stephen, one of his tutors at Cambridge. SIR WILLIAM GULLLauded by no less than Queen Victoria herself (for curing the Prince of Wales of typhoid fever in 1871), Sir William Gull became Baronet and Physician Extraordinaire to the Crown, as well as being the "house doctor," in essence, to the entire royal family. The most damning evidence against Gull, as a Ripper suspect, came from a spiritualist named R. J. Lees, who claimed to have visions in which he saw Jack the Ripper. Due to coincidences matching Lees' predictions with police murder evidence -- in particular, his vision of Mary Kelly's death -- the police briefly used Lees as a sort of human bloodhound, tracking the Ripper's path after the murder of Kelly. Lees led the authorities to Gull's house, where Gull's wife regaled them with hideous stories about her husband's absences during the various murders, and his predilection for torturing animals and abusing their son. When questioned, Gull admitted to memory lapses, probably the result of a stroke in 1887. The Duke of Clarence theory pops up again here, the spin being that Gull was deliberately nominated as a fall guy to protect the Duke. There is some question as to whether the "doctor" discovered by Lee was actually Gull, and in any event, Gull was 70 years old and partially paralyzed by the timeframe of the Ripper murders. Gull died following a third stroke in 1890. JAMES KENNETH STEPHENTutor to the Duke of Clarence at Cambridge for two years beginning in 1883, Stephen was the son of a barrister. In 1887 he suffered an injury which resulted in minor brain damage, the effect of which is usually described as a slowly increasing dementia. He became a patient of Sir William Gull in 1887, and failed at his legal avocations shortly thereafter. By 1891 he had produced two volumes of poetry which analysts often point to as the linchpin for his hatred of women ... and the supposed basis for the suggestion that Stephen might have externalized this hatred, via his "mania," in 1888 in the form of Jack the Ripper. Further "proof" was offered by the similarity of Stephen's penmanship to that of the Ripper letters to journalists and the police. The most bizarre "evidence" was the intimation -- wholly theoretical -- that Stephen had been engaged in a homosexual relationship with the Duke of Clarence, and that the rebuff of such a liaison was the basis for some obscure revenge in the form of the murder of East End prostitutes. The almost complete scarcity of actual evidence pretty much eliminates Stephen from the Ripper suspect list, no matter how tempting some of the coincidences might be. FRANCIS THOMPSONA poet of the Aesthetic school, Thompson is a favorite of Ripperologists who prefer to credit the motive for the series of Whitechapel murders to a man obsessed with "doing God's work" in a messianic-style quest. Thompson owned a leather apron and possessed surgical knowledge from his stint in a medical factory. The prime evidence against him is geographical: All five murders of the classic Ripper canon were committed within easy distance of Christ Church in Whitechapel, which, under Roman Catholic law, would have provided sanctuary from arrest for any fugitive. Further, each murder was shown to have fallen on or near the feast days for a number of saints of the church, and theorists have gone so far as to intimate that these five feast days (for the patron saints of Innocence, Butchers, Soldiers, Doctors, and Scholars) are mirrored in the five killings, which in turn mirror the five stigmata of Christ on the cross. None of this claptrap actually implicates Thompson, who died in 1907. MONTAGUE JOHN DRUITTRumored to be "of good family," Montague John's father was a famous surgeon and two of his brothers were doctors, giving rise to the misconception that Druitt himself was also a doctor (some accounts claim he was a dentist), though he studied to be a lawyer. Believed by his own family to be "sexually insane" (Druitt's mother also spent her last days in an asylum), the most compelling evidence linking him to Jack the Ripper is his timely suicide. He was last seen alive on 3 December 1888, shortly after the Mary Kelly murder. Shortly afterward, Druitt weighted his pockets with stones and hurled himself into the Thames. His body was not discovered until New Year's Eve. "JILL THE RIPPER"Theorists have postulated that "Jack" might have been a "Jill" on the following bases: Likely candidates would have to be able to move about Whitechapel with impunity, sometimes with bloodstained clothing, and have an adequate excuse for being discovered near or in the vicinity of a victim. A midwife would have been ideal -- even better than the other popular profile, which was that of a policeman. A midwife might also have been an abortionist; either would of necessity possess the basic anatomical knowledge needed to commit the mutilations. Much of this contention arises from the fact that Mary Kelly was three months pregnant at the time of her murder. Motive was reduced to some form of payback or revenge. No female Ripper suspects were ever specified. WILLIAM HENRY BURYInvestigators noticed a striking similarity to the stab wounds inflicted during Bury's murder of his wife, Ellen (in 1889) with the wounds found on the body of Ripper victim Polly Nichols. Ellen Bury, in addition, was an ex-prostitute. Bury was officially investigated, but the police did not consider him a Ripper suspect. He was hanged in 1889 for his wife's murder. JAMES KELLYKnown to be of unsound mind and a resident of the East End, James Kelly stabbed his wife to death, but was not put forth as a Ripper suspect until the 1980s, in several sensational books purporting to have solved the crime at last. Only problem: Nothing implicates him. ROBERT D'ONSTON STEPHENSONOne of the recent rash of modern "new" Ripper suspects, the only facts implicating Stephenson was his pronounced interest in the Ripper murders, and the fact that he lived in the East End. He apparently wrote numerous letters and articles concerning the case, but was not known to have been violent toward women. GEORGE HUTCHINSONA Ripper suspect by virtue of the thinnest thread: Some felt his description of the man he spotted outside of Mary Kelly's room in the night of her murder was too detailed for comfort. He was questioned and released; police never seriously considered him a suspect. MICHAEL OSTROGThief, con artist, burglar and petty criminal and career jailbird, Ostrog was a Russian convict and another of the "doctor" suspects, chronically cruel to women and known to favor knives. He was ultimately committed to an insane asylum as a homicidal maniac. DR. THOMAS NEILL CREAMMurderer, abortionist, blackmailer, arsonist and poisoner, legend has it that Neill Cream said "I am Jack the -- !" just as the trap was sprung, hanging him for the murders of four London prostitutes in 1892. Cream was also known as "the Lambeth Poisoner." It is most tempting to credit him, a known murderer, with also being Jack the Ripper ... but he wasn't. FREDERICK BAILY DEEMINGAccording to Donald Rumbelow, Frederick Baily Deeming murdered his first wife and four children in 1891, burying their bodies under the kitchen floor of his home, near Liverpool, before emigrating to Australia with his second wife, who was also killed within a month of his arrival in the new country. After his trial and execution in 1892, a plaster death mask was sent to New Scotland Yard, where for years it was ballyhooed as a death mask of Jack the Ripper. In prison, Deeming claimed to be the Ripper, but since he was already in jail at the time of the Whitechapel murders, this was merely a boast. DR. ALEXANDER PEDACHENKOWilliam Le Queux put the Pedachenko name to Jack the Ripper, making the Whitechapel killer, in essence, a Russian spy! Le Queux claimed to have come into possession of declassified Russian documents, including a report by an agent named Nideroest that the identity of the Ripper had been revealed to him by an old Russian anarchist named Zverieff, who claimed to have know Pedachenko, who also was presumed to have gone under the name of Vasilly Konovalv, or Luiskovo. Presumably, the Russian secret police were supposed to have sent Pedachenko to London as an agent provocateur to discredit the anarchists using England as a base for their attacks on the Tsarist regime. Alternately, several sources suggested Pedachenko was sent to wage the Ripper campaign of terror as proof of the incompetence of British police! No meaningful evidence supporting his existence has ever been revealed. LEWIS CARROLLThe idea that the author of Alice in Wonderland might have been a Ripper suspect tilts the whole concept of Ripperology deeply into the surreal. Charles Lutwidge Dawson ("Carroll" was a pen-name) taught at Christ Church until 1881, and there is absolutely no evidence linking him to the Whitechapel murders. That did not stop eager theorists from proposing that Carroll did the crimes (some say with an Oxford colleague, Thomas Vere Bayne). One dedicated amateur sleuth suggested that Carroll's writings contained anagrammatical confessions to the murders; another claimed that Carroll, who enjoyed the company of many women, did the deeds out of some sort of misdirected homosexual rage. All this proves is that it is very possible to concoct theories from air, which allow enthusiasts with otherwise baseless claims to publish new books every year "revealing" the true identity of Jack the Ripper. THOMAS CUTBUSHA clerk who contracted syphilis in 1888 and who was arrested for several knife attacks against women in 1891. Apparently his technique of slashing the dresses of his victims was in imitation of another man identified as "Colicott." After being detained at a lunatic asylum in 1891, he escaped and was re-arrested. Once it was determined that Cutbush had never been out of Kennington, England for his entire life, the London police were able to refocus their sprawling victim list of Ripper possibles down to the essential, and historically enduring, five victims. DR. HERBERT STANLEYAnother favorite among Ripperologists who love clues above and beyond evidence, the facts indicting the possibly fictional Dr. Herbert Stanley are not only second-hand, but third-hand! The 1929 Leonard Matters book, The Mystery of Jack the Ripper, is based almost wholly on a translation, from Spanish, of a death-bed confession supposedly overheard by a Spanish surgeon. The story hewed to the typical format / motive of a doctor avenging himself on East End prostitutes. There is no proof, nor official record, of Dr. Herbert Stanley having ever actually existed. JOHN (JACK) PIZER a.k.a. "Leather Apron"Locally known as 'Leather Apron," Pizer was a bootmaker called in for questioning after the Annie Chapman murder because he was locally notorious for maltreating prostitutes. Pizer, fearing for his life, was doubly frightened when a piece of tradesman's leather apron, like his own, was found near Chapman's body, and a witness excitedly claimed that not only had Pizer attacked or threatened a woman, but had also been seen wearing a deerstalker hat similar to the one worn by one of Annie Chapman's suitors on the night of her murder. Pizer owned many long-bladed knives (used in boot finishing). Due to all this, Pizer's brother advised him to lay low as the Ripper killings mounted in notoriety, and Pizer hid out until he was found for questioning. Meanwhile, newspapers libeled him, labeling Leather Apron as the killer. Pizer left the court completely exonerated, and commenced legal action against the newspapers. WILLIAM PIGGOTTA man who closely resembled John Pizer, also detained for questioning following the "Leather Apron" furor. He was noticed in a pub wearing bloodstained clothing. When interviewed he was rambling and incoherent, and never offered sufficient explanation for the bloodstains. He was declared insane and remanded to the custody of a lunatic asylum. WALTER SICKERTGerman artist and actor most recently thrown back into the spotlight by a much-ballyhooed $4 million "investigation" conducted by novelist Patricia Cornwell. Sickert's use of prostitutes as models, his familiarity with Whitechapel, and the fact that some of his paintings resemble the Ripper murder scenes are the prime pivots of Cornwell's argument. She also appears to have used modern profiling techniques to isolate Sickert as a suspect, but each cited "detail" is highly arguable and often does not conform to the realities of East End life and culture during the Victorian age. While sensational and highly speculative, they provide no real proof that Sickert might have been Jack the Ripper.
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