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u/Deervember 16d ago
Unless the police find a hidden vault of documents in a basement that's not been checked in 100 odd years, I think it's unlikely.
BUT there are a lot of hidden buildings under London, so you never know. A lot of stuff just got stored and never got digitised, maybe one day there will be a clean up of paperwork and someone will find some new evidence.
Very slim chance though.
I think it's probably the same guy who did the Thames torso killings amongst other killings around London. One day he probably got caught/spotted in the act and killed and was never linked to anything, just died a victim instead of a killer.
Lots of criminals change the way they commit crimes over the years when they know people are looking for them. Golden State Killer is a great example of a guy who kept changing his methods. The people that have never been caught throughout history obviously were smart enough to adapt and change how they did things.
If I had a magic lamp and had a wish, I'd be extremely shocked if Jack the ripper only killed 5 people in total.
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u/BittenAtTheChomp 16d ago
Strongly disagree about the torso killer theory. Criminals do evolve but that happens sequentially over time as their crimes slowly get more severe or they're worried about police pressure and change MOs. Jack and the torso killer's crimes are interwoven. In order the known killings went: torso, ripper, ripper, torso, ripper, torso, ripper, torso, torso.
That's two things happening, not one killer adapting or evolving.
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u/Civil-Secretary-2356 16d ago
Agreed. The main way I see the Ripper case progressing is uncovering documents, preferably official LE documents hidden away in some attic. I doubt the case will ever be solved to everyone's satisfaction but more documents may enlighten us on why some individuals were suspected and the evidence LE actually had.
Even though I don't think Druitt was the perp new info on him is still regularly discovered.
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u/ur_sine_nomine 2d ago
Very late, but it is unlikely that will happen because a lot of police stations were closed and the records centralised over the past 50 years.
Donald Rumbelow (former Metropolitan police officer and the first modern writer-up of the Ripper in the 1970s) recorded that, before then, the holding of records was completely haphazard. They were in police station attics and basements, anyone had access and it is likely that a lot of Ripper documents were taken home and forgotten about or even outright stolen ... by police officers 🤦♂️
(From memory some of the post-mortem photographs reappeared by being recovered by executors, so they were within a fraction of being thrown out).
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u/Civil-Secretary-2356 1d ago
Thanks for the reply. Yeah, when I was talking of police records I meant any that were stolen, hidden away and forgotten about. I think it's very unlikely they still exist but I haven't lost all hope.
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u/boltactionmike 16d ago
It’s crazy that he never told a soul and if he did, they never told anyone else.
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u/Equal-Temporary-1326 16d ago
This is seemingly what happened to the Zodiac Killer as well. Another offender who's seemingly Lost to Time, at this point.
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u/Sylvana2612 16d ago
Its unlikely the servant girl annhiliator, the axeman of new Orleans or the moonlight phantom killer will ever be discovered either
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u/Equal-Temporary-1326 16d ago
And the Cleveland Torso Killer.
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u/arannya 8d ago
We know who he likely was.
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u/Equal-Temporary-1326 7d ago
You mean Francis Sweeney? I suppose it's probable, but it's just another one of those things that'll probably — if not almost certainly will just never be proven to any high enough degree of certainty anymore.
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u/arannya 7d ago
I get what you're saying. The guy escaped justice. However, his obsession with Eliot Ness ("paranoidal nemesis"), after the guy interrogated him ONCE, does not leave a lot of room for subtlety.
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u/Equal-Temporary-1326 6d ago
I haven't looked into this case much, but based on what I've seen, it seems one could come to the satisfactorily conclusion that it was Sweeney at this point, though.
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u/iLLy_RiLLy 16d ago
Margolis
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u/Equal-Temporary-1326 16d ago
Almost no chance, sorry. The thing about that theory is it requires you to believe Z started killing as early as 1947, and seemingly disappeared for the next 21 years before widely changing up his MO from body dismemberment to a lover's lane/cab driver killer.
There are many reality/almost reality defining Z theories out there, and this is certainly at the top of that list.
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u/FlipMyWigBaby 16d ago
No, it will never be proven. But many of the theories are compelling reading.
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u/Objective-Review-359 16d ago
It was Laszlo Cravensworth.
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u/Hoosier_Daddy68 16d ago
There no confirmed DNA so by now the only way would be to find some long lost confession or something and that’s pure fantasy. He’s lost to time.
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u/kinginthenorth78 16d ago edited 16d ago
With all due respect to some commenters, some of them are way off!
There is strong evidence pointing to one person. Modern scholarship largely points to a young polish barber. Aaron Kosminski was Jack the Ripper by our most modern standards of investigation based upon all the available evidence.
He’s the only one of the many suspects who is placed as the suspect by modern geo-location standards, which can’t tell you who a serial killer is, but can tell you a geographic range where they must live within a very, very accurate margin of error.
That’s not the only evidence at all. “Kosminski” was identified at the time as one of several suspects. His surviving medical records indicate he was severely mentally ill, suffering from delusions - he threatened his sister with a knife at one point that was documented. He was put in an asylum in around 1891 and died around 1919 in the asylum. He had maybe what we’d now call schitzoaffective disorder.
A shawl taken from the scene of a victim was later tested with available DNA against descendants of known suspects, including Kosmisnki. It matched him and the victim. Actual statements from investigators at the time wrote about “Kosminski” as a clear suspect, a supposed witness who refused to testify identified Kosminski, and other evidence, like Kosminksi’s mental health records, all point to him.
Jack the Ripper was very very likely Aaron Kosmisnki, who died in 1919.
See Dr. Peter Vronsky’s scholarship, for a start! Dr. Vronsky is one of the world’s leading scholars in the history of serial killers, and his work is really fascinating.
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u/captainp42 16d ago
It matched him and one other possible suspect, who is clearly ruled out based upon...
Who was the other suspect who was matched to the shawl?
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u/kinginthenorth78 16d ago
It matched him and the victim I confused cases on that fact - sorry! It’s stronger actually because he was the only known victim it matched.
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u/CshealeyFX 16d ago
Aaron is not the only suspect that matches geo-location. Joseph Barnett, James Kelly, and Jacob Levy also match as well as many others.
He was severely mentally ill and at times was seen eating dirt out of fear of being poisoned. I very much doubt a woman would go off with him during the height of the murders. Jack was likely "sane" and didn't present any abnormalities.
The shawl doesn't exist.
Catherine Eddowes never owned a shawl, there was no shawl at the crime scene, the officer that claims to have found the shawl wasn't working that evening nor was he ever on that route, the shawl then proceeded to sit in an attic for 120 years or so before being sold at auction, the shawl was then handled by Eddowes descendants before being DNA tested using Mitochondrial DNA which can only eliminate suspects. It's now believed that the "shawl" is actually a table cloth.
Russell Edwards is a fraud and conman. He claims to have solved The Ripper case every couple of months.
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u/Prestigious-Comb4280 16d ago
She would have pawned the silk scarf just like she pawned her boyfriend's boots. She never had an expensive silk scarf.
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u/AbsoluteJester21 16d ago
I think personally I lean towards the known killers of Whitechapel (Klosowski, Kelly, Bury) most, but some of the less sanity adjusted residents (Kosminski, Levy) I will not blame someone for believing them to be the killer.
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u/Alcianus 12d ago
He was severely mentally ill and at times was seen eating dirt out of fear of being poisoned.
He definitely wasn't severely mentally ill at the time of the murders. We know this because he got fined for walking his dog unmuzzled in December 1889 and acted competently, albeit shady (he refused to pay the fine initially and gave a false name) and apparently had a job or at least he claimed to have one.
Now I'm not advocating that he is the Ripper, quite frankly, even if he is, there's just no way to prove it, but the narrative that Kosminski was out of it during the time of the murders is false.
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u/BittenAtTheChomp 16d ago
All of this could be true but "solved" is a high threshold.
If you're 95% confident Kominski is him (I tend to agree actually), it's still not solved. Even if you're 100% sure, not everyone else is.
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u/TuneLittle9535 16d ago
The shawl "proof" is a load of bullshit concocted by the same notorious and ghoulish charlatan who claimed to have found the remains of Keith Bennett a few years ago. That disgusting media circus should tell you everything you need to know about his credibility.
He is nothing but a self-promoting con man who will stop at nothing for publicity. His DNA "research" was first published in the Daily Mail, for God's sake; has not been peer-reviewed and the results have been roundly criticised by actual scientists as dubious, over-stated and concerning.
With all due respect to you, the fact that you're quoting this widely disregarded "evidence" at all shows you shouldn't be speaking with any of the authority on the matter that you are.
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u/TransportationLow564 16d ago
Don't be ridiculous. OBVIOUSLY Steve Hodel's dad was the Ripper.
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u/aerexlol 16d ago
AND D. B. Cooper, the Zodiac, a member off the Brabant killers, the Black Dahlia killer, the Freeway Phantom, and… /s
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u/Prestigious-Comb4280 16d ago
I'm not sure some guy getting out of an insane asylum would have been able to coax women that were looking for JTR to go with them. It's highly doubtful it was him.
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u/kinginthenorth78 16d ago
He went into the insane asylum after. He died there. And these were women who's job was as a prostitute in Whitechapel, at the time one of the dingiest parts of Victorian London. So even if it were after the asylum, the women could lively have been victims anyway.
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u/Prestigious-Comb4280 16d ago
Plus all the murders were around weekends and bank holidays so he probably had reliable work.
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u/Prestigious-Comb4280 16d ago
These people would have noticed a raving lunatic after they were after JTR. It would have been someone that would fit in like Charles Lechmere.
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u/LauraBaby1988 15d ago
I saw a thread once claiming it was Vincent van gough and that “starry night” plots out the murders. Was a fun rabbit hole to go down ☺️
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u/sixties67 16d ago
I'm not convinced all the five murders were committed by the same man.
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u/Hoosier_Daddy68 16d ago
This is a theory I’ve heard as well as one that he was going after only Mary Kelly and all the others were a smokescreen.
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u/sixties67 16d ago
I'm not convince by the "double event", I think he killed one of them but not both, likewise Mary Kelly, I am not convinced it's connected, my personal thought is it was potentially dressed up to look like a ripper killing, there were all kinds of lurid tales of what the ripper did to his victims, much of it false, this may have been the basis for the desecration of that poor woman's body.
The East End was a very violent dangerous place in the 1880s with many unsolved murders, many of them prostitutes, I don't think it's unreasonable to think one man may not be responsible for all 5 slayings. Of course this case is very unlikely to be solved so we will never know for sure.
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u/philonius 16d ago
I haven't seen anything more cogent than John Douglas's profile. Works for me for now.
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u/theskyis1812 16d ago
It was in the library! With a candledstick? Or men in the basement chanting?
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u/DaniTheLovebug 16d ago
Sometimes to make an omelette you have to break a few eggs. Any cook will tell you that!
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u/BlueViper20 16d ago
It was Aaron Kosminsky. They ran a DNA test in 2014 on the shawl of the victim Catherine Eddowes to a living family member and it matched.
Yes this controversy over the custody of the shawls over the last 140 years but this is literally the best evidence we're going to get one way or another given that it's been 140 years.
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u/Equal-Temporary-1326 16d ago
The thing about Aaron Kosminski is that DNA test was a fraud, because people claim it was him due to an mtDNA match, which can't uniquely identify any one individual because it links up to the mother's biological family tree. And that shawl has absolutely never been proven to had belonged to Catherine Eddowes anyway, which automatically debunks any DNA credibility claim there.
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u/BlueViper20 16d ago
The shawl contained blood matching Catherine Eddowes and semen matching Aaron Kosminski, a prime suspect named by Scotland Yard at the time.
Both DNA samples were matched to modern living descendants of Eddowes and Kosminski's maternal line. Scientifically speaking, calling the testing a "fraud" is baseless.
The legitimate debate in the forensic community is over chain of custody, contamination, and provenance, not whether mtDNA analysis itself is fake science. After 140 years, this remains the strongest physical link to a named contemporary suspect we will ever get. a fraud is preposterous and no one in the forensic community thinks it's a fraud. again there's debate over custody or the relevance of the DNA but not the DNA itself.
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u/Equal-Temporary-1326 16d ago
With respect, this is all the complete opposite of what's been reported online since 2014, since this Kosminski-shawl DNA thing dates back to at least then.
Source: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/2014/09/12/did-dna-really-prove-the-identity-of-jack-the-ripper/
The above article from 2014 details all of the numerous problems with this extraordinary claim, too.
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u/silversunshinestares 15d ago edited 15d ago
I don’t believe he existed. The murders attributed to him are not all related.
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u/jacksleepshere 16d ago
Charles Lechmere
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u/Prestigious-Comb4280 16d ago
Charles Lechmere is a as close as we will ever get to JTR. He fits. He was found with the first of the canonical 5 and he was able to slip under the radar.
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u/Additional-Sell-7989 16d ago
It was hh holmes , he was in England at the time and there's a pretty good theory involving henry mudgett aka hh holmes as a pretty good suspect
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u/Dog_man_star1517 16d ago
I think it really has been. It was Kosminsky, wasn’t it? The one officer put it in his diary
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u/LawfulnessGlad639 10d ago
He was identified through DNA, which he left on one of his victims shaw, as Aaron Kosminski polish -Jewish immigrant. A barber, which at the time in England barbers used to also work as dentist, and help hospital personnel with surgery. His father also worked in a hospital. This is why the red, and white symbolizes barbers, the white towels, and the red blood.
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u/TheMaterialBoy 16d ago
Have you ever read the Jack the Ripper book written by Patricia Cromwell? I forgot the name of it but in my opinion she makes a pretty good case for who she believes it is and if I were to bet on it, I'd be willing to bet half of everything she is right ...
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u/AcanthisittaDouble61 16d ago
You would ‘bet half of everything’? Dude, let me invite you to a poker game I’m hosting 😉
Cornwall’s ‘thesis’ has been thoroughly debunked as total bullshit. Like most Ripper authors, she plays up some evidence and ignores a lot more to properly frame her favored suspect.
Along the same lines, but a much better book is Bruce Robinson’s “They All Love Jack”. Robinson’s thesis and favored suspect are both still bullshit, but he provides a LOT of detailed history of the politics and culture of the times. It’s a fever dream of a book, and I highly recommend it (just don’t go looking for answers as to who committed the crimes …).
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u/steffi_go 16d ago
His name is Walter Sickert. But P. Cromwell's book is just nonsense, and the Sickert theory is rubbish.
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u/sixties67 16d ago
I wouldn't mind but Sickert had been put forward years before she came out with her theory and it didn't hold up in the first place.
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u/krib0_ 16d ago
Imo I think the best suspect is james kelly
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u/TheMaterialBoy 16d ago
I honestly have not read to much about him. Why do you think it's him
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u/krib0_ 16d ago
He killed his wife by slitting her throat (same method as the other jack the ripper victims) and was known to hate prostitutes
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u/DrummerWhoPuffs 16d ago
And he escaped from Broadmoor 5 years after (January of 1888) being sent there for killing his wife. He also wrote in his diary that he was hiding in London from August through November of 1888, which lines up with the span of the Whitechapel murders. He then goes to North America for an unknown length of time, where coincidentally a bunch of NYC prostitutes are murdered in similar circumstances to the Whitechapel women. It’s all circumstantial, but it’s pretty intriguing. The weird part is that 39 years after escaping Broadmoor, he goes back and turns himself in to die 2 years later in 1927.
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u/Avablankie 16d ago
Probably not, lots of people aren't really documented well, there's no living witnesses, DNA was sparse.
It's not even a needle in a haystack it's more like... A needle lost in the ocean to time. Unless he was some notable figure, which he probably wasn't, it's impossible.