Suspects
Jack the Ripper suspects, compared on the evidence
Every dossier uses the same template, and every point links to its claims and source passages. There are no scores, rankings or percentages: compare what the documents say and what they do not.
Baseline
Unknown offender (the 'null hypothesis')
The working default: the murderer was never identified and may never have been named in any surviving record. Every named-suspect theory must beat this baseline.
Examined in depth (2)
Charles Allen Lechmere ('Charles Cross')
Carman for Pickfords who, by his own inquest evidence, found Mary Ann Nichols in Buck's Row around 3.40 a.m. on 31 August 1888. Treated as a witness for over a century; proposed as the Ripper since 2000, chiefly on timing, name use, a disputed exchange with PC Mizen and route geography.
Aaron Kosminski
Polish-Jewish hairdresser in Whitechapel, committed to Colney Hatch in February 1891 and Leavesden in 1894, died 1919. The 'Kosminski' of Macnaghten's 1894 memo and Swanson's marginalia, and generally taken to be Anderson's unnamed 'Polish Jew'. The suspect with the most senior contemporary police backing — but that backing rests on undocumented recollections that conflict with each other and with the records.
Standard dossiers (8)
Montague John Druitt
Barrister and assistant schoolmaster (b.1857) who drowned himself in the Thames in December 1888. Macnaghten's preferred suspect in 1894.
Francis Tumblety
American quack 'doctor' (c.1833–1903), arrested in London on 7 November 1888 for gross indecency, who jumped bail and fled to the US. Named in 1913 by ex-Special Branch chief Littlechild.
Seweryn Kłosowski ('George Chapman')
Polish-born barber-surgeon in the East End from c.1887–88, later hanged (1903) for poisoning three women. Abberline's suspect.
Michael Ostrog
Russian-born confidence trickster and thief, one of Macnaghten's three named suspects.
James Maybrick
Liverpool cotton merchant (1838–1889), named in 1992 on the basis of a diary in which the writer claims to be the Ripper.
Walter Sickert
Painter (1860–1942) fascinated by the case; promoted as the Ripper chiefly by Patricia Cornwell (2002).
George Hutchinson
Labourer who, three days after Kelly's murder, gave police a detailed description of a man he said he saw with her; proposed as a suspect since 1998.
William Henry Bury
Lived in Bow 1887–Jan 1889; murdered and mutilated his wife in Dundee in February 1889; hanged 24 April 1889.
Brief entries (15)
Thomas Hayne Cutbush
Kennington man named by The Sun in February 1894; the Macnaghten memo was written to refute this.
John Pizer ('Leather Apron')
Bootmaker arrested on 10 September 1888 amid the 'Leather Apron' panic.
Joseph Barnett
Mary Kelly's partner, first proposed by Bruce Paley.
Jacob Levy
Butcher of Middlesex Street, proposed by Mark King (1999).
Carl Feigenbaum
German seaman executed at Sing Sing in 1896 for a New York murder.
Frederick Bailey Deeming
Wife-murderer hanged in Melbourne in 1892.
Thomas Neill Cream
Poisoner hanged at Newgate in 1892.
'David Cohen' / Nathan Kaminsky
Martin Fido's candidate for the police 'Polish Jew' (1987).
Joseph Fleming
Former partner of Mary Kelly.
Jacob Isenschmid
Swiss butcher reported by doctors in September 1888.
James Thomas Sadler
Seaman arrested for the 1891 Coles murder.
Hyam Hyams
Epileptic cigar-maker repeatedly confined 1889–1913.
Robert Donston Stephenson
Journalist and occultist; London Hospital patient from July 1888.
James Kelly
Broadmoor escapee (January 1888) who had murdered his wife.
James Kenneth Stephen
Poet and tutor to Prince Albert Victor, named by Michael Harrison (1972).
Fringe theories (3)
Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence
Grandson of Queen Victoria (1864–1892), first linked in print in 1962 and by Stowell in 1970.
Sir William Gull
Royal physician (1816–1890), cast as the killer in the 'royal/Masonic conspiracy' (Knight 1976, From Hell).
Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson)
Author of the Alice books, named in 1996 by Richard Wallace on the basis of anagrams.