Jack the Ripper: The Secret Police Files (45 page)

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Authors: Trevor Marriott

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I did hope that by taking this show nationwide I might find someone who had a family member or relative from Whitechapel in 1888 who might come forward one night and offer up new important documentation or information on the case, or perhaps disclose to me a story handed down from Whitechapel in 1888. I was pleasantly surprised as many people after the shows around the country came forward and volunteered stories from 1888 on the case.

In Essex a woman came forward stating she was a distant relative of Charles Cross one of the two men who found the body of Mary Nichols. She firmly believed that he was in fact her killer and ultimately was Jack the Ripper.

In Birmingham an elderly male told a story that he had many years previous worked with a Jewish man whose relatives lived and worked in Whitechapel at the time of the murders. The story told to him was that the work colleagues had told him that the Jewish community in Whitechapel identified the killer as one of their own, a young Jewish butcher. In order for this not to come to the notice of the police thereby bringing shame and likely retribution on all the Jews living in and around Whitechapel certain high-ranking Jewish members of the community had the offender killed and with the help of a doctor and a rabbi made the death out to have been by natural causes so as not arouse any police suspicion.

On the Isle of Man another interesting story emerged from a middle-aged woman. This was interesting because I had never heard this mentioned before. She told the story that her great, great-grandmother was walking home with several other women the night of the Stride murder in Berner Street, and they heard all the commotion following the discovery of the body. They looked up and saw a male shinning across the rooftops. This is an interesting story because it is believed that the killer was disturbed carrying out this murder and therefore could have made his quick and hasty getaway down to the bottom of Dutfield’s Yard and up and across the rooftops.

Prior to appearing in Derby with the show I received and email from a lady who had only recently found out that she was the great, great-granddaughter of George Chapman the suspect suggested by Inspector Abberline. Since this find she was anxious to know if there was any foundation to the suspicions. I wrote back telling her that in my opinion his viability as to being a prime suspect is poorly deserved. She did indicate that she would be attending the show and I invited her to meet with me following the show.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

EPILOGUE

So now the mystery surrounding Jack the Ripper has been thrown wide open. He singularly has for over 125 years according to some has been credited with the killing of only five prostitutes in Whitechapel, this may not now be the case as my investigation has cast a doubt about all of these five murders being committed by the same person, as well as the earlier murder of Martha Tabram and the later murders of McKenzie and Coles who have been suggested as being Ripper victims. So it is quite feasible there could have been different killers involved in the commission of these murders in Whitechapel with none of them acting together in a joint enterprise.

My investigation uncovered a total of 17 unsolved Ripper-like murders, which occurred between 1863 and 1894 not only in London but also in Germany and the USA. I have previously suggested that a German merchant seaman Carl Feigenbaum now identified as Anton Zahn could have been responsible for one, some, or all of these murders. My view on that has not changed. If he had killed on several different continents then he would be looked upon as the world’s first transcontinental serial killer.

So that still leaves unanswered questions. Was there such a person as Jack the Ripper or was he just a myth? The results of my long and protracted investigation tell me that there was no singular Jack the Ripper and that in fact he was nothing more than a myth. The police seldom referred to the killer as Jack the Ripper choosing to refer to the killer as The Whitechapel Murderer. However in my opinion, there is clearly a case to suggest that at least three of the victims Chapman, Nichols and Eddowes were killed by the same hand in Ripper-like fashion.

As I have previously stated the name Jack the Ripper was believed to have been created by a member of the press by the name of Thomas Bulling. During the murders a letter was sent to the Central News Agency Office purporting to be from the killer, it was signed Jack the Ripper. It has become known as “The Dear Boss” letter.

The letter was dated September 25th 1888 and was received at the press offices on September 27th 1888. Bulling was also believed to have written the “
Saucy Jack”
postcard also sent to the Central News Agency on October 1st 1888 and also signed Jack the Ripper. The handwriting on both has many similar characteristics and is strikingly similar to the handwriting of Bulling, which I have looked at in correspondence Bulling wrote in the normal course of his daily press work in 1888.

From that day on the myth was created and has to this day resulted in all of the Whitechapel murders being attributed to the same killer, whether the police looked upon them in the same light we may never fully know. If we were to remove the name of Jack the Ripper from the investigation and the long-standing theory that he removed organs from some of the victims at the crime scene, and the belief that he killed all of the victims what remains? The answer is nothing more than a series of similar unsolved murders all of which bear some similarities to each other, which had it not been for those three main aspects of this case which has been keeping the myth alive all would have drifted into total obscurity.

The search to obtain the truth still goes on however the passage of time has not been kind to my 21
^stcentury investigation in relation to all of these murders, which occurred 125 years ago. However, I remain the ever-eternal optimist that one day new evidence may come to light to finally close a murder case which has and still does to this very day fascinate people worldwide.

Jack the Ripper: The Secret Police Files (45 page)

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