It’s getting to that time in the night where
nobody is out on the streets unless they’re
either up to no good or on their way home.
But here you are, standing in the streets
of London’s East End, shivering from the
cold.
No self-respecting young lady would be doing
this – but you’re not a self-respecting
young lady by most people’s standards.
You’re a lady of the night, forced to make
a living by selling your body to strange men.
It’s a dangerous career at the best of times,
putting yourself at the mercy of strangers
night after night.
But now things are more perilous than ever
thanks to the notorious Jack the Ripper, a
killer who mutilates the bodies of his victims
in gruesome ways.
He’s responsible for the deaths of at least
four other young prostitutes in the area,
but still hasn’t been caught.
Society turns a blind eye when the victims
are women like you.
That’s when you hear the clunky noise of
footsteps behind you.
It’s that time again.
You take a deep breath and brace yourself
to turn around and approach him as seductively
as you can.
Hopefully he’s a nice one…
But instead of seeing a regular sleazy gentleman
looking for some fun, in front of you stands
an insane-looking figure with a blade in his
hand.
You try to run, but he’s faster and pulls
you to the ground.
And the last thing you ever see is an ugly
face grinning at you manically.
But who is he?
Jack the Ripper was an infamous criminal who
went on a murder spree in 1888.
His numerous victims were all female prostitutes
from the Whitechapel district of London’s
East End, a poor and crime-ridden area.
And he didn’t just kill his victims – he
mutilated their bodies, removed their internal
organs, and left them behind in alleyways.
But despite his high profile, little is known
about Jack the Ripper, and historians still
don’t agree on his identity.
Although he sent numerous letters directly
to the London Metropolitan Police taunting
them about what he’d do next, they never
could figure out who he was, and his killing
spree seemed to come to an end before they
could find him.
The mystery has spurred plenty of speculation.
There have been over 500 suspects, from all
walks of life.
But one of the most surprising people implicated
is Prince Albert Victor – the grandson of
Queen Victoria herself, the monarch of England
at the time.
Could an heir to the throne really be responsible
for such heinous crimes?
It might sound ridiculous, but if the rumors
going around about the Prince at the time
are true, he may have had some dirty secrets
he needed to cover up…
The stories about Prince Albert Victor certainly
paint him as an interesting character.
Some say he struggled in school, was deaf,
or had a learning disability.
But most juicy of all is the allegation he
was gay, which was a pretty big deal back
in the nineteenth century – not least because
it was illegal.
He never married either, but more on that
later.
In 1889, police closed down a male brothel
in London and allegedly discovered one of
the clients had a connection to the young
Prince.
There was another strange rumor that he caught
syphilis from a prostitute in the West Indies,
which brings us to the first theory about
Prince Albert being Jack the Ripper.
After catching syphilis, the disease was said
to spread to his brain and make him insane.
Since a prostitute had given him the infection
that was ruining his life, he became determined
to seek his revenge on all prostitutes in
the world.
And thus, Jack the Ripper was born.
Unfortunately, there are two major reasons
why this theory probably isn’t true.
Firstly, there’s no evidence he actually
did have syphilis, or even went to a brothel.
Secondly, he wasn’t even in London when
the Jack the Ripper murders were happening.
The Royal Family kept excellent records of
the activities of its members even back then,
and the documents prove Albert was traveling
outside of London at the time.
Of course, they would say that, wouldn’t
they?
But if you’re not quite convinced, there’s
another major theory regarding the involvement
of the Prince in the Jack the Ripper killings…
Remember how I said Albert never married?
Well, rumor has it he fell in love with a
young shop girl by the name of Annie Crook.
Knowing his family would never approve of
him marrying a commoner like her, they married
in secret and even had a child.
But one day, the Royal Family found out.
The Queen and other major royals were horrified
at the scandal and knew they’d have to go
the extra mile to put things right.
So, they did what any loving family who wanted
the best for their child would do.
They hired agents to dispose of the wife,
the baby, and anyone else who got in the way.
One day, agents raided the house of Annie
Crook and her daughter.
A doctor took Annie to a mental institution
and brutalized her to the point where she
forgot the whole incident had even taken place.
She was certified as insane and locked away
forever.
But Annie and Albert’s daughter, Alice Crook,
wasn’t with her at the time of the raid
– she’d been left with a good friend of
her mother, who just so happened to be a prostitute.
Nobody knew where young Alice Crook was, but
the friend who was looking after her decided
for some reason that the best thing to do
in that situation was to blackmail the government.
Stick it to the man, you commoner with zero
connections or money!
I’m sure the amazing justice system will
work in your favor!
As a result, the Royal authorities took things
one step further and killed both the friend
herself and her friends, in case they decided
to try anything.
Jack the Ripper was simply a clever cover-up
to explain the killings to the public.
So, in this version Prince Albert wasn’t
committing the murders himself – he was
just directly responsible for everyone else
being killed.
If you’ve been keeping up, you’re probably
wondering what happened to the daughter, Alice
Crook.
Was she murdered too?
No – the doctor Sir William Gull took her
into his custody and cared for her, so she
eventually grew up to live a normal life and
lived happily ever after.
Oh no, wait – it didn’t go quite like
that.
One day, a man came out claiming to be the
grandson of Alice Crook, making him the great-grandson
of Prince Albert.
And this is where it gets weird – he claimed
his grandfather was the doctor who declared
Annie Crook as clinically insane.
Kind of messed up, but okay.
There’s some evidence this could plausibly
be true.
We know Annie Crook was a real woman who ended
up getting institutionalized, and a clairvoyant
gave a description of Jack the Ripper similar
to that of the doctor who played a key role
in this all.
But that’s about it.
Let’s be honest now, it’s not exactly
the strongest evidence.
Besides, there are some serious reasons to
doubt this story.
There’s no proof the women murdered actually
had any link to Prince Albert Victor.
Besides, the man who leaked the story about
Alice Crook being his grandmother ended up
admitting the whole thing was a hoax later
down the line.
Well, thank god about that, because it would
be really weird if she actually had a child
with that creepy doctor.
But it raises the question – who was Jack
the Ripper?
One of the major suspects is a Victorian painter
called Walter Sickert.
The evidence implicating him is basically
his own art.
He made some weird stuff, like creepy paintings
of women that looked like autopsies of victims,
and he even named one of his paintings ‘Jack
the Ripper’s bedroom.’
An American crime novelist became convinced
he was the real Jack the Ripper and tried
to prove the case.
And guess who just so happened to be one of
his models?
It was only Annie Crook, the supposed romantic
interest of Prince Albert Victor himself!
This is where things get pretty confusing.
But if you thought that was strange enough,
wait until you hear the next suspect: Lewis
Carroll.
Yep, Lewis Carroll as in the author of Alice
Wonderland and numerous other successful children’s
books.
Why on earth would anyone suspect him?
Well, the evidence is certainly a bit of a…
reach.
It seemed like someone out there really wanted
him to be guilty, and managed to find some
anagrams in one of his children’s books
that were claimed to be subliminal messages
about Jack the Ripper.
And that’s it.
A few hyper-forced anagrams.
I think I’ll let Lewis off the case.
If, you’re not quite sold, then here’s
another suspect: Dr Thomas Neill Cream.
Unlike the other guys, he actually admitted
to being Jack the Ripper.
Unfortunately, he only uttered his confession
when he was a few moments away from death…
Dr Thomas Neill Cream was a physician sentenced
to be hanged for an unrelated murder.
We don’t know much about him, but his executioner
claimed that the last words the doctor uttered
before dying were a confession he was Jack
the Ripper.
Naturally, nobody had a chance to question
him on it, and there’s absolutely zero evidence
suggesting he might have been involved.
In fact, he was in prison for the time of
all the murders.
So, was he the mastermind behind Jack the
Ripper pulling all the strings behind prison
bars?
Or just the ultimate troll who wanted to inject
some mayhem before dying?
Our penultimate suspect is Mary ‘Jill the
Ripper’ Pearcey.
That’s right, a woman – here at The Infographics
Show we’re not sexist, we know women can
kill people too!
Another convicted murderer, she was accused
of murdering her lover’s wife.
And why do people suspect her of being Jack
the Ripper?
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – as in, the author
of the Sherlock Holmes books – suggested
a woman could easily have been Jack the Ripper
by pretending that she was a midwife who needed
to carry around bloody garments.
And I guess Mary fit the bill for him because
she was the only convicted female murderer
at that time.
I mean, I’m not saying it’s not true,
but…
Before you switch off, let me present to you
the final suspect.
Somebody who many people actually suspect
is Jack the Ripper, and for good reason: there’s
some solid evidence to prove it.
A man called Aaron Kosminski arrived in England
in 1881 after fleeing from Poland.
He lived in Mile End Old Town, close to the
area where the Jack the Ripper carried out
his murderers.
We don’t know much about Aaron, but he was
one of the key suspects in investigations
at the time, and he eventually died in an
asylum.
He certainly ticks a lot of boxes for a potential
serial killer.
But the next part of the story doesn’t start
until more than one century later, when the
shawl of one of Jack the Ripper’s victims
was purchased at an auction in Suffolk in
2007.
I’ll stop right there, because you probably
have a lot of questions.
How did the shawl turn up in the auction?
Well, it turns out that the acting Sergeant
at the scene of the death did what any trained
professional would do when confronted with
the only piece of forensic evidence in the
entire Jack the Ripper escalade.
He thought his wife would appreciate the gift
and took it back for her.
Maybe it was their wedding anniversary and
he hadn’t had time to nip to the shop for
flowers…
As you’d expect, his wife was horrified
at the blood-stained shawl and never wore
it.
But still the item wasn’t returned to the
police station – instead, it was passed
through the family for generations until it
eventually showed up for the auction in 2007.
And then a man saw it for sale and thought
it would make a nice present for his wife.
Nah, just kidding, the guy who won the bidding
actually wanted to try and figure out who
Jack the Ripper was.
He went beast mode and hired his own personal
molecular biology expert to help him figure
out who the DNA belonged to.
Of course, there were no samples of the suspects
at the time, so it was never going to be an
easy task.
But pioneering techniques saw the use of genetic
tests on the shawl to match samples to living
relatives of the subjects.
Three and a half years later, results showed
that the DNA of a living relative of Kosminsk
were on the shawl.
Even better, tests studying the appearance
of the DNA suggested the killer had brown
hair and eyes – this matched the one reliable
witness statement the police had collected
of Jack the Ripper.
Well, at least the police managed to do something
productive other than steal clothes from murdered
women.
In the eyes of the armchair detective who
bought the shawl, the case had been solved.
Prince Albert, Lewis Carroll, and that weird
painter weren’t Jack the Ripper.
Aaron Kominski was.
Some have doubted his claims, saying the shawl
has been touched by many people over the years
and can’t be used reliably as evidence.
But all in all, it seems like a fair assumption.
The Royal Family might not have been behind
the Jack the Ripper murders, but they’re
still a strange bunch.
If you don’t believe me, check out our videos
about why growing up as a British Royal sucks
and when royal inbreeding went wrong.
