Jack the Ripper

Appropriately, on Halloween, myself, and some flatmates and classmates, took a Jack the Ripper walking tour through Whitechapel.


We visited some of the murder sites, discussed the suspects and looked at some of the still-standing pubs that victims frequented, including the Ten Bells (which doesn't allow tours, but while we stood outside, some of the nutty patrons started to pretend to murder each other... very funny) and the White Hart, which we stopped for a drink in after the tour...

At the first murder scene we visited, in Mitre Square, my flatmate Anne (from Toronto), started to feel faint, so she went to sit on a nearby bench. I saw her do this, so I tapped another flatmate, Helen, and asked what was wrong. She replied, in her lovely scottish accent, that Anne was feeling faint, like she was going to pass out.

Right at that moment, our super-awesome tour guide said the ghost of the victim, Catherine Eddows, still haunts the square, and that he's had several dozen people pass out while standing in the area, and even more people report that they were feeling faint and about to blackout.

We all turn and look at Anne, who suddenly looks paler than before... She didn't pass out tho, and we're looking forward to taking our apparently psychicly sensitive friend on more ghost tours...

We saw a few more murder sites that night, and while standing at one of the better preserved spots (the buildings and cobblestones from 1888) our guide told us his theory on the murderer. According to him, the killer must have been royal, or connected to the royals, as the murderer was wealthy and had access to a royal carriage. And, the killer must've had medical knowledge, which is one of few generally accepted truths in the case.

Our guide supposes it was the royal surgeon, covering up for the Queen's grandson Prince Albert (who is also considered a supsect). Apparently, the prince knocked up a prostitute, Mary Kelly, the only victim who was murdered in her home. Hers was also the most brutal killing, as nearly all her skin was removed... So, our guide's theory is that the Prince really loved Mary, and "married" her in an informal ceremony after she was impregnated. Her friends, who were the other victims (it's well known the victims were all friends, and shared the same pimp), attended. As the Prince was next in line for the throne, that meant Mary's baby was also in line for the throne... and not only was Mary a hooker, she was--even worse, and I'm not joking--an Irish Catholic.

So, our guide thinks she was either killed or shipped back home to Ireland--and someone killed in her place, hence the skinning to prevent identification. (Keep in mind, at this point, fingerprinting had not yet been invented...) And, to ensure secrecy, all the other attendees of the wedding were murdered. Prince Albert later died of the flu... suspicious? It may have been syphillis, or it may have been murder as well.

The other key clue is the royal surgeon's coach driver... A royal coach was not allowed to be stopped by police--to do so was punishable by execution--and the driver was a person of interest police during the Ripper murders. They spoke to him twice. Once, he offered no information. The second time, he couldn't, as his tongue had been surgically removed...

So why the cruelty of the crimes? In that area of London, there were over twenty murders a day, so it's not as though the plain and simple beating death or cut throat on a prostitute would have garnered any attention. However, the royal surgeon was completely nuts; he was shortly after 1888 locked into a mental institution, where a frontal lobotomy was performed... Throw in the fact that the royal surgeon was a freemason (davinci code fans, unite!) and the freemason way of killing a betrayer was to slit the throats, cut open the body, pull out the intestines and stomach and place them over the shoulder... which is exactly the position several of the victims were found in...

It's not like we'll ever know who did the crimes, but either way, an excellent way to spend Halloween...