Profile: Jack the Ripper

The Cases That Haunt Us

CBS News is running a story by Stephanie Slifer today about the most serial notorious killer of all time: Jack the Ripper. The occasion is the 125th anniversary tomorrow of the brutal slaughter of Mary Ann Nichols, the first of the series of predatory sexual “Whitechapel Murders” that terrorized London’s destitute East End in the late summer and fall of 1888. Ms. Slifer’s intriguing piece accurately describes the first detailed behavioral and psychological profile of the Ripper, created by John Douglas when he headed the FBI’s Investigative Support Unit.

The only part of the story with which I would take issue is the statement that the crimes remain unsolved and the identity of the killer remains unknown.

We believe we’ve solved it and know the identity of the killer.

Yes, I know: Everyone thinks he or she has figured out the identity of the killer. They run from Queen Victoria’s grandson, Prince Albert Victor, to the Royal Physician, Sir William Gull; abortionist Dr. Thomas Neill Cream; legal solicitor Montague John Druitt; cotton merchant James Maybrick; phony doctor Francis Tumblety; immigrant hairdresser Aaron Kominsky, also known as Kosminksy; poisoner George Chapman; painter Walter Sickert – Patricia Cornwell’s choice; even Alice in Wonderland author Lewis Carroll and at least two dozen others.

John first presented his profile on a television program hosted by Peter Ustinov. Among the “highlights,” John cited a mentally unstable loner who was known in the area and would not have seemed out of place. He would have been a functional paranoiac and his sexuality would have been problematic as there was no evidence of sexual assault or sadistic torture,  yet he removed body organs postmortem.

When we were researching our book The Cases That Haunt Us, we went to London, retraced all of the crime scenes and possible routes the Ripper might have taken, and spent considerable time at Scotland Yard. We triangulated the three accounts written by detectives and investigative supervisors and came to the startling conclusion that by the end of the crime series, the police actually knew the identity and had good reason not to reveal it. We also came to the conclusion that the “Dear Boss” letter to the police that first announced the name “Jack the Ripper” was a fake and that the killer never called himself that. But a later communication, the “From Hell” letter, was genuine.

We went through the list, analyzed each possibility and, one by one, eliminated all of the “usual suspects.” Some, like Prince Jack, Dr. Gull and Mr. Sickert, we were sorry to get rid of; they would have provided the most intriguing stories and could have changed thinking about British history and society of the time. But alas, none of them fit.

Once we were convinced we had a clear profile portrait of the UNSUB, we thought it might be possible to come up with a name. And for this we turned to Professor Martin Fido, the noted British scholar, literary critic, crime historian and “ripperologist.” Fido believed as we did that the police memoirs offered strong clues to the identity, but that the suggested name one gave for the suspect was wrong. He conducted an exhaustive systematic study of various contemporaneous population rolls – shopkeepers, prisons, lunatic asylums, all kinds of lists – and pinpointed the one individual who met all of the criteria.

So John and I believe we have solved the mystery of Jack the Ripper’s identity, using all of the techniques of behavioral profiling and criminal investigative analysis. We don’t think anything that came out before or after The Cases That Haunt Us has changed our view one iota.

And to find out who it was and why we are so convinced, as we used to say in second grade class reports: Read the book!

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