- Jack the Ripper “Dear Boss” letter. September 27, 1888
If only…
Jill the Ripper?
Many of us are familiar with Jack the Ripper, the unidentified serial killer from 1880′s White Chapel. But what if it wasn’t Jack at all, what if Jack was actually Jill.
There is a theory that Jack the Ripper wasn’t a man at all, but rather a woman. For one if it was a female midwife they would be able to subdue their victims just by applying pressure on their pressure points thus making killing and mutilating their victim easier. Also the killer if she was female could disguise herself in the victims clothing to make leaving the crime scene easier and less noticeable.
One of the ripper’s victims, Mary Kelly, was thought to have died between 3 and 4 am. But Mrs. Maxwell gave aw testimony saying she saw Mary Kelly not once but twice after she was thought to have died. When detectives asked if she was sure she was adamantly sure she had seen Mary Kelly wearing the outfit she was seen in earlier that day. Could the killer have been posing as Kelly to escape unnoticed?
In William Stewart’s book “Jack the Ripper: A New Theory” he narrowed down the class of who a female ripper could have been. He said that the ripper could have been a midwife-probably an abortionist- who was betrayed by one of her patients and then sent to jail. Her motive for killing was to get revenge on her own sex for betraying her.
While there is not much supporting this theory it is an interesting one none the less and one I hadn’t heard of. We may never know the true identity of Jack the Ripper but it is fun to speculate.