Probably one of the most famous unsolved mystery of all time. Who committed the awful crimes that suddenly ended as quickly as they began?

Jack the Ripper was a serial killer who murdered five women in the East End of London in 1888. All his victims were prostitutes who lived a very poor life in the slums of Victorian Whitechapel. He slit the women’s throats and then disembowelled and mutilated most of them. His reign of terror lasted twelve weeks, from the end of August that year, until the second week of November. The title of “Jack the Ripper” came from a letter sent to a news agency in that year , which many experts thought to be written by the killer himself. In the letter he professed to be “down on whores” and revelled in the fact that the police couldn’t catch him. At the end, it was signed by his so-called trade name, “Jack The Ripper.” At the time in history, there was no such thing as forensics, and this contributed to making the man’s identity a secret to this day. Many suspects were derived from conjecture in a desperate attempt to apprehend the killer. Some of the prime suspects were: Montegue John Druitt, a doctor who disappeared around the time of the final murder. His body was discovered later, floating in the Thames River, the following month. Sewern Klosowski, a barber, who came to London from Poland and changed his name to George Chapman. He was hanged in 1903 for poisoning three of his wives. James Maybrick, a rich cotton trader, whose diary was discovered by a scrap metal merchant in Liverpool. In it there was a confession to the murders. It described how Maybrick went on a murderous rampage after discovering his wife had been unfaithful. It included, “I give my name that all know of me, so history do tell, what love can do to a gentle man born. Yours truly, Jack the Ripper.” Later though, the merchant confessed to writing the diary himself but then retracted that statement again. Maybrick was poisoned by his own wife who was convicted of the crime. Michel Ostrog was named a suspect by a detective from Scotland Yard but Ostrog’s criminal records revealed that he was a petty criminal with no record of any violence and in fact, he may have been behind bars in France at the time of the Whitechapel murders. The Duke of Clarence, Albert Victor Christian Edward was alleged to have suffered from syphilis which drove him to commit the murders. Francis Tumblety, a “quack” doctor who had homosexual tendencies, which were illegal at the time, who’s name didn’t appear as a suspect, surprisingly until 1996. Walter Sickert, a famous painter, was thought to be the Ripper’s accomplice and later, the Ripper himself. Both were dismissed later. Aaron Kosminsky was named a suspect for his involvement with anti-Semitism. There was very little evidence to link him to the murders. He later died in a lunatic asylum. Joseph Barnett became a suspect when it was thought that he was in love with one of the victims and committed the murders to scare her off the streets but later killed her as well because the plan didn’t work. His physical appearance closely matched witnesses descriptions of the Ripper as well as a psychological profile completed by the FBI. Lord Randolf Churchill, Sir Winston Churchill’s father, who was said to have led a royal masonic conspiracy to murder prostitutes in the East End was a suspect just because he closely matched a description given by a witness to one of the slayings. Frederick Deeming was a sailor who murdered his two wives and children in a same style as the Ripper and was imprisoned in Perth in 1892. He told other inmates that he was Jack the Ripper but he was in South Africa at the time, which ruled him out. Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland, who was born Charles Lutwidge Dudson in 1832, was suspected as having odd sexual interests because of a close relationship with some young girls and photographed nude and semi-nude children. Charles Cross, a key witness, who found the first victim, was later thought to have been the Ripper because all the later murders took place between Cross’ home and his yard, at the same time he would be walking to work. This is one of the most famous mysteries in the world and there have been many books and movies on the subject but it is still just that, a mystery.