For over 130 years, Jack the Ripper has remained one of the most infamous serial killers of all time, but the Ripper was never caught and their identity was never revealed – although there have been many theories
Jack the Ripper terrorised London between August 31 and November 9, 1888, brutally killing five women in Whitechapel. The women; Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly, became known as the ‘canonical five’. All of them had their throats slit and were stabbed numerous times, whilst their abdomens and genitals were horrifically mutilated.
The serial killer’s identity still remains a mystery over 130 years later, with the murderer never being caught. But over the decades since his reign of terror, numerous theories have been shared about his identity as well as the motivation for his crimes. A new documentary, Jack the Ripper – The Case Reopened, which airs on BBC 2 tonight at 9pm, will see Silent Witness star Emilia Fox and Britain’s top criminologist Professor David Wilson use modern technology to re-examine the murders and identify the most likely suspect.
But before they do so, we’re taking a look back at some of the biggest and most popular theories about the Ripper’s identity, with one of the most recent being featured in a book released in August 2023, called One-Armed Jack: Uncovering the Real Jack the Ripper. The book was written by former police volunteer Sarah Bax Horton, whose great-great-grandfather was a policeman involved in the original Jack the Ripper investigation.
Witnesses previously described the infamous killer as being a man in his mid-thirties, with a stiff arm, an irregular gait, and bent knees and Sarah claims to have uncovered damning medical records that helped her solve the case. She believes the killer was Hyam Hyams, a cigar maker and heavy drinker who suffered from epilepsy and was said to be in and out of mental hospitals.