Throughout his political career he was disliked and made many enemies even among his own close associates describing him as, “rude and offensive”. He had a reputation for being a good orator in the House of Commons and the cry would go out, “Randy's up”, and the chamber would quickly fill. His speeches were described as often controversial, but always brilliant.
He resigned as Chancellor in 1886, thinking his resignation would not be accepted by Lord Salisbury, it was, and he spent the last eight years of his life in the political wilderness. He remained in the House of Commons but seemed a spent force; somehow his speeches had lost their effectiveness.
He later contracted syphilis where and when it is not known, however this brought on general paralysis and he died on January 24th 1895 at the age of 45.
Churchill’s modern-day link to Jack the Ripper revolves around him supposedly being the highest Freemason in the country and was therefore part of what is described by several modern-day authors as the Royal Conspiracy, which I have previously documented. Despite what the authors suggest they have not been able to prove Churchill was ever connected to the masons. However, given his high government positions over the years I would suggest that he probably was a mason.
Churchill is also said to fit the detailed description given by the witness George Hutchinson of a man seen with Mary Kelly shortly before she was murdered. The Pall Mall Gazette June 28th 1884 described Churchill as, “Of average height with a wide turned up moustache, beautifully dressed, his gold chain has the solid appearance of real 18 carat”.
Churchill was a high profile member of society in 1888. He would have been easily recognizable and I doubt for one minute would have risked walking the streets of Whitechapel. If there were any truth as to his involvement then it would have been in a non-active capacity. I personally have never subscribed to the Royal Conspiracy theory, or any suggestion that the murders were the work of the Freemasons.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE POLICE OFFICIALS IN LATER YEARS
For 125 years Ripper researchers and the general public at large have subscribed to the theory that the police did in fact know the identity of the killer, I do not agree and have set out below the details and quotes made by senior police officers involved in the investigation at varying times after the murders ceased which corroborate my belief:
October 23rd 1888
Sir Robert Anderson, Ass. Comm, Met Police said:
“But that five successive murders should have been committed, without our having the slightest clue of any kind is extraordinary, if not unique, in the annals of crime.”
November 4th 1889
Sir Robert Anderson in the Pall Mall Gazette in an interview with American journalist:
“Our failure to find Jack the Ripper as they call him.”
This is the same Sir Robert Anderson who in his book published in 1910 and up until that time had stated on many occasions he knew the identity of the Ripper but didn’t name him.
November 1890
James Monro following his resignation as Metropolitan Police Commissioner, November 1890 stated:
“The police had nothing positive in the way of clues about the identity of the Ripper.”
February 15th 1891
Significantly, in the Lloyds Weekly News of February 15th 1891, Sir Edward Bradford, by this time, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, felt convinced from evidence of previous murders in Whitechapel that the murdered woman (Coles) was a victim of the same killer responsible for the Ripper murders two years previously.
If there had already been a previous positive identification (Kosminski), why would Bradford, who would surely have known about it, have thought the Ripper to be still at large?
In 1891, after the murder of Frances Coles on 13th February that year, the police believed that they had found the Ripper in Thomas Sadler. However, he was found not to be Coles’ killer, and he faded into obscurity. At this time the Ripper still had not been found.
May 1892
In Cassell’s Saturday Journal Chief Inspector Abberline is quoted:
“Theories! We were lost almost in theories; there were so many of them.”
June 1892
Sir Robert Anderson in Cassell's Saturday Journal, 1892 stated:
“The mention of this appalling sequence of still undiscovered crimes.”
February 1893
Eastern Post and Daily Chronicle, Superintendent Thomas Arnold said:
“We had some of the finest men from all parts of London, but all their efforts were useless.”
May 1895
In 1895 following a non-fatal attack on another prostitute in Whitechapel the police arrested a William Grant Grainger. The police including Swanson believed that Grainger was the Ripper. Nothing was found to connect him with being Jack the Ripper. This clearly shows that the police were still trying to find Jack the Ripper and had no clues as to his identity even as late as 1895.
At that time Swanson who led the Ripper investigation when interviewed by the Pall Mall Gazette at this time however stated:
“The Whitechapel Murders were the work of a man who is now dead.”
So this in itself must eliminate Aaron Kosminski as he was institutionalized at that time and he didn’t die until 1919.
March 1903
Chief Inspector Abberline now retired and living in Bournemouth said to the Pall Mall Gazette:
“We have never believed all those stories about Jack the Ripper being dead, or that he was a lunatic, or anything of that kind.”
September 1908
Speaking retrospectively to the Daily Chronicle Sir Robert Anderson said:
“I told Sir William Harcourt that I could not accept the responsibility for the non-detection of the author of the Ripper crimes.”
April 23rd 1910
Detective Inspector Reid speaking in Lloyds Weekly:
“ Now we have Sir Robert Anderson saying that Jack the Ripper was a Jew, that I challenge him to prove, and what is more it was never suggested at the time of the murders. I challenge anyone to prove that there was a tittle of evidence against man, woman or child in connection with the murders, as no man was ever seen in the company of the women who were found dead.”
February 4th 1912
Detective Inspector Reid speaking again in Lloyds Weekly:
“I challenge anyone to produce a tittle of evidence of any kind against anyone. The earth has been raked over, and the seas have been swept, to find this criminal 'Jack the Ripper’, always without success. It still amuses me to read the writings of such men as Dr. Anderson, Dr. Forbes Winslow, Major Arthur. Griffiths, and many others, all holding different theories, but all of them wrong. I have answered many of them in print, and would only add here that I was on the scene and ought to know.”
1914
Sir Melville Macnaghten author of the now questionable Macnaghten Memorandum written in 1894, wrote in his 1914 book titled “Days of my years”:
“No light was vouchsafed to us, and after two or three weeks it seemed as if the Muswell Hill murder was going to climb on the shelf of undiscovered crimes alongside Jack the Ripper and the Cafe Royal case of eighteen months before.”
Unless every single comment made by all the above high-ranking police officers who were all actively involved in the investigation is a lie, (Anderson, Abberline, Swanson, Monro, Moore, and Reid) no person was known to have committed the Whitechapel murders, or for that matter no one was ever regarded as a prime suspect, and all of the murders remain to this day unsolved.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
125TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR
2013 would be the 125th anniversary of the Whitechapel murders, the year perhaps when the final pieces of the jigsaw would emerge. Would Ripper researchers who have perhaps been sitting on important documents all of these years finally decided to release them into the public domain? Were there even any important documents still in existence, which had previously not seen the light of day?
At the conclusion of my long and protracted cold case reinvestigation into this mystery, the results of which in my opinion have now dispelled many of the previously accepted facts surrounding this mystery, and to commemorate the 125th anniversary I decided to put together a two hour one-man theatre show titled, “Jack the Ripper - A 21st Century Investigation”.
This would be the opportunity for me to travel the length and the breadth of the country disclosing the results of my investigation to the many people still fascinated by this mystery. The format was simple, by means of Microsoft PowerPoint I put together an audio visual show, which contained 120 slides consisting of photographs of the victims, and suspects, as well as the more recent photographs taken when carrying out the mortuary tests to prove or disprove the organ removal theory.
With the help of a concert promoter Johnny Mans we were able to secure 70 theatre dates which in itself showed that theatre managers were prepared to stage a show in total contrast to the normal theatre shows of music and comedy.
Overall the show was well received. In my introduction at the beginning of this book I stated that the public had been misled by the total distortion of the facts by the press and media over the years. That soon became apparent with my nightly questions to the audience. The first being how they perceived Jack the Ripper to have looked in 1888? At this point I would show the audience a picture of a man in a tall black hat, wearing a long black cape and carrying a black bag. A picture which has appeared on many Ripper books and has also featured in many Ripper documentaries, an image falsely created as someone dressed in that way would certainly not have been trawling the backstreets of Whitechapel at four in the morning. Almost every night at least 50% of the audience put their hands up in the belief that this was how they perceived the killer to have looked.
Another nightly audience survey revolved around suspects. Each night I would ask the audience to reveal to me the names of their preferred suspects. The first thing I noticed was that night after night the same names were put forward, these being Francis Tumblety, Aaron Kosminski, the Royal Prince, Sir William Gull, Walter Sickert, George Chapman.
All of these have been the subject of many television documentaries and recently published books. My follow-on question to the audience related to how they had come to suspect these various suspect’s names that they were suggesting. Each person answered in the same way, as a result of a television documentary or as a result of what they had read.
Another interesting survey during the show was to try to find out how deep the public had really gone into studying this mystery themselves, or was their knowledge gained simply from television documentaries or reading books. In an attempt to answer this when discussing the apron piece and the suggestion that the killer cut or tore this from the apron Eddowes was wearing I asked how many believed this explanation.
The results of this night after night were staggering only one or two members of each nightly audience agreed with this explanation. The results of a follow-up question confirmed that the public had generally not researched this part of the mystery in any great detail. It should be noted that hardly any of the television documentaries have expanded upon this issue. So again it goes to show that although the general public has a passing interest in this mystery in my opinion they still have been misled by what they have seen and read.
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 21st century 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.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Marquess of Salisbury
Pamela Clark-Royal Archives Windsor Castle
Robin Harcourt-Williams-Chief Archivist, Hatfield House
Michael Barrett
D. P. Hardy & Co.
Patricia Cornwell
The Times Newspaper
The Daily Telegraph Newspaper
The Metropolitan Police Force
The City of London Police Force
The National Maritime Museum
The Marine Institute Newfoundland
The Guildhall Library, City of London
The Docklands Museum London
The Bremen State Archives
Sing Sing Correctional Facility
Jack the Ripper: The Secret Police Files Page 33