Ripper Series: The Suspects, Part One

Welcome to part two of my Ripper Series, where we break down the murders, theories, and stories of Jack the Ripper in the late 1800s. There were a large number of suspects, from lowly street criminals to the elite members of English society, so strap in for a long list of suspects!

Top Three Suspects

Montague John Druitt

Montague was a barrister and teacher interested in surgery who was said to be insane. Druitt suffered a series of personal crises during the 1880s, including his dismissal from teaching at a boarding school, his father's death, and his mother's institutionalization due to mental illness. While no concrete evidence connects him to the Ripper murders, the fact that the reign of terror ended immediately after he disappeared and was found dead was enough for London detective Melville Leslie Macnaghten, who listed Druitt as one of the top three suspects of his 1894 report.

Michael Ostrog

Ostrog was a Russian thief and swindler with a lengthy criminal record who had been placed in an asylum because of his supposed homicidal tendencies. There were records proving he was charged and jailed for fraud in France and England, but no records showed that he was violent; he just happened to be jailed frequently in 1888.

Aaron Kosminski

Aaron was a Polish Jewish resident of Whitechapel who was known to have hostility towards women, especially prostitutes, and was hospitalized in an asylum several months after the last murder.

The "Lower Class" Suspects

It's difficult to separate the Ripper murders from the Whitechapel district. Whitechapel was incredibly small, densely populated, and deep in poverty, making it a magnet for prostitutes and providing the perfect scene to commit crimes by the desperate and dangerous members of society. The theory that the killings were done by a local, a criminal with extensive knowledge of the streets of Whitechapel, has long proved a solid one. Local men were a huge focus of the large lineup of suspects, including:

Joseph Barnett

Joseph was born and raised in Whitechapel, a Billingsgate fish porter, AND the ex-boyfriend of Mary Jane Kelly. It was rumored that Joseph killed other prostitutes in hopes of steering his girlfriend away from the occupation, and when he failed, he murdered her.

Charles Allen Lechmere

Charles was a local meat cart driver who discovered the body of Mary Ann Nicols. In a police statement, Lechmere gave a fake name, Charles Cross. Lechmere's working route passed several Ripper murder sites, and other victims were killed near where he and his mother lived. In a strange twist, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes were both murderers on September 30th, Lechmere's first night off work in months.

David Cohen

Another resident of Whitechapel, David Cohen, aroused suspicion not just for his regular displays of violence towards women but also because of his incarceration in Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, which coincided with the sudden end of the murders.

The Medical Rippers

At the time, doctors needed corpses to examine, experiment, and study, which supposedly stimulated a back-alley market in dead bodies for dissection. Additionally, many doctors were callous to female patients, especially prostitutes, by performing forced examinations. A few medical professionals were under suspicion, including:

• Dr. D'Onston Stephenson was believed to be a Satanist who contracted a venereal disease from prostitutes.

• Dr. Francis Tumblety was an American quack who was known for being an unstable misogynist with a lust for collecting body parts.

• Queen Victoria's surgeon, Sir William Gull, had been close to the monarchy since the early 1870s. He was considered a suspect as a lone assailant and/or part of a conspiracy cover-up.

As I said, the list of suspects is long, meaning my Ripper Series will have two blogs just about the suspects. One surprising suspect is tied to Queen Victoria and is part of a deep rumor and conspiracy. Do you believe the elites can cover up the deepest and darkest of stories? Come back tomorrow for part two!