Jack the Ripper: The Five Victims, the Letters, and the Suspects

Jack the Ripper is the name given to the unknown man who killed at least five women in Whitechapel and Spitalfields, in the East End of London, between August and November 1888. The name itself came from a letter that many historians think a journalist wrote. Nobody was ever charged. The Metropolitan Police's own history of the case says, "no person was ever convicted of any of them."

Below are the five women and what happened to each of them, the letters, the men police named years later, the DNA claim that keeps coming back, and the 2019 book that changed how the victims are remembered. The sources are listed at the end.

How many people did Jack the Ripper kill?

Five is the usual answer, but that number comes from one police official's opinion. The Metropolitan Police file on the Whitechapel murders covers 11 deaths, from April 3, 1888, to February 13, 1891. According to the Met, "mainly as a result of Macnaghten's beliefs," five of them came to be treated as the Ripper's work: Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly. Writers call them the Canonical Five.

The BBC's history page puts the total at "five, or possibly six." The possible sixth is Martha Tabram, who was stabbed to death in George Yard, Whitechapel, in August 1888. Some researchers count her. Others do not.

The five women

Mary Ann Nichols, August 31, 1888

Nichols was 43. She was born Mary Ann Walker off Fleet Street in 1845, married William Nichols in 1864, and had five children with him before they separated. In the last week of her life she moved between common lodging houses on Flower and Dean Street and Thrawl Street. In the early hours of August 31, she was turned out of a lodging house kitchen because she did not have the money for a bed. At about 3:40 a.m., a carman named Charles Cross found her body in Buck's Row, Whitechapel, on his way to work.

After her murder, Scotland Yard sent Detective Inspectors Frederick Abberline, Henry Moore, and Walter Andrews to help the local H Division.

Annie Chapman, September 8, 1888

Chapman was 47. She had married John Chapman, a coachman, in 1869, and they had three children. A little before 6 a.m., John Davis, who lived on the third floor of 29 Hanbury Street in Spitalfields, found her body in the back yard. Her uterus had been taken. At the inquest, police surgeon Dr. George Bagster Phillips said there were "indications of anatomical knowledge."

Elizabeth Stride, September 30, 1888

Stride was 44 and had grown up in Sweden. She moved to London in 1866, married John Stride there in 1869, and from 1882 lodged on and off at 32 Flower and Dean Street. At 1 a.m., a jewelry seller named Louis Diemschutz drove his pony and cart into the yard beside 40 Berner Street and found her body. Her throat had been cut. The Met notes that, unlike the other four, she was not mutilated.

Catherine Eddowes, September 30, 1888

About 45 minutes later, City of London police constable Edward Watkins found Catherine Eddowes in Mitre Square, Aldgate. She was 46 and had been born in Wolverhampton. Her uterus and left kidney had been taken. Because Mitre Square is inside the City of London, the City Police, under Detective Inspector James McWilliam, joined the hunt. The two murders on one night became known as the "double event."

A piece of Eddowes's apron was found later that night in Goulston Street, and there was writing on a wall in the same street. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Charles Warren, called it "evidently written with the intention of inflaming the public mind against the Jews." Thousands of Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe had settled in Whitechapel and Spitalfields, and the London Museum notes that some locals were suspicious of them. Warren had the writing wiped off before it could be photographed. In a report to the Home Office dated November 6, 1888, he said that if it had been left, "there would have been an onslaught upon the Jews."

Mary Jane Kelly, November 9, 1888

Kelly was about 25. Casebook records that she was born in Limerick, Ireland, and moved to Wales with her family as a child. She rented a single room at 13 Miller's Court, off Dorset Street in Spitalfields. At 10:45 a.m. on November 9, her landlord sent a man named Thomas Bowyer to collect overdue rent. He knocked, got no answer, pushed aside the curtain, and saw her body. She was the only one of the five killed indoors, and her body was brutalized beyond recognition. The Met says the evidence suggests the killer took her heart.

Were the victims sex workers?

For more than a century, they were all called prostitutes. The record does not support that. The London Museum says the press "wrongly labelled all of the women as 'prostitutes'" and that "Mary Jane Kelly is the only one known to have been working in the sex trade at the time of her murder." The National Archives goes further and says "none of the women were known to the police as sex workers."

What the five did share was poverty. Nichols, Chapman, Stride, and Eddowes all slept in common lodging houses on or near Flower and Dean Street, and they paid for a bed one night at a time. Nichols was turned away from one on the night she died.

The letters, and where the name came from

The National Archives says the police and newspapers received thousands of letters about the case, and many of them claimed to be from the killer. Three matter most.

"Dear Boss." This letter was dated September 25, 1888, and reached the Central News Agency on September 27. It was written in red ink, with a postscript in red pencil or crayon, and it was signed "Jack the Ripper." That is the first known use of the name. The agency forwarded it to the Metropolitan Police on September 29. The Daily Telegraph printed it on October 1, and the Evening News printed a copy of the handwriting on October 4. The research site Casebook says the evidence "weighs heavily in favour of it being a contemporary hoax, most likely written by a journalist."

"Saucy Jacky." A postcard written in red pencil reached the same agency on the morning of October 1. It mentioned a "double event this time." For years that was taken as proof it came from the killer, because it seemed to arrive before the news. But word of the two murders had spread all through September 30, and London had several mail collections a day, including on Sundays. Someone could have read the news and posted the card the same day.

"From hell." On October 16, 1888, George Lusk, president of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, received a small parcel at his home in Mile End. Inside was a letter that began "From hell" and half of a human kidney. Dr. Thomas Openshaw, curator of the Pathology Museum at the London Hospital, said it was half of a left human kidney, but he could not say whether it came from a woman or how long ago it had been removed. Another doctor, William Sedgwick Saunders, called it "a student's antic." The Met says the police and the police surgeon thought it was probably a hoax by a medical student.

The National Archives sums up all the letters this way: there is "no strong evidence that any of them were written by the murderer."

Who was suspected? Nobody was charged

The London Museum says police carried out thousands of interviews, but "the police never charged anyone." Most of the famous names come from papers written years later.

The most important of these is a memo by Sir Melville Macnaghten, dated February 23, 1894. He wrote that the killer had five victims and five only, which is where the usual count comes from. He named three men he thought more likely than others. The Met's own history warns that there is "no evidence of contemporary police suspicion against the three at the time of the murders," and that the memo "contains several odd factual errors."

Aaron Kosminski. A Polish Jewish man who lived in Whitechapel. Macnaghten wrote that he was sent to an asylum "about March 1889." Two senior officers, Assistant Commissioner Robert Anderson and Chief Inspector Donald Swanson, later wrote that a witness had identified him but would not testify against "a fellow Jew." Casebook points out that the details Anderson and Swanson gave do not all match the real Aaron Kosminski. He died in an asylum in 1919. He was never charged.

Montague John Druitt. Macnaghten called him "a doctor & of good family." In fact he was a barrister and an assistant master at a school in Blackheath. His body was found in the River Thames on December 31, 1888. Macnaghten said Druitt's own family suspected him. No evidence from 1888 links him to the murders.

Michael Ostrog. A thief who used many false names. Macnaghten admitted his "whereabouts at the time of the murders could never be ascertained." Casebook records that a court in Paris sentenced him to two years in prison for theft on November 18, 1888.

Other names came later still. In a 1913 letter to the journalist George R. Sims, John Littlechild, who had run Scotland Yard's Special Branch in 1888, named an American, Francis Tumblety. Tumblety had been arrested in London on November 7, 1888, on charges of gross indecency. He was bailed, fled to France under a false name, and sailed to New York. In 1962, a theory first appeared that Prince Albert Victor, Queen Victoria's grandson, was the killer. Court and royal records place him at Abergeldie in Scotland from September 27 to 30, 1888, and Queen Victoria wrote in her journal that he had lunch with her on September 30, the day of the double event. The BBC calls the evidence against him "insubstantial."

Then there is the American theory. In 2017, the TV series American Ripper followed Jeff Mudgett, a lawyer, as he argued that H.H. Holmes was the Ripper. Part of his case is a gap in Holmes's paper trail from mid-1888 to early 1889. Sky HISTORY's own summary of the evidence comes down to one word: "circumstantial."

Did DNA prove who Jack the Ripper was?

No. In 2014, a businessman named Russell Edwards published a book called Naming Jack the Ripper. In 2007 he had bought a shawl that was said to have been found next to Catherine Eddowes. He paid Dr. Jari Louhelainen of Liverpool John Moores University to test it. Louhelainen said mitochondrial DNA from the shawl matched a living descendant of Eddowes and a living relative of Kosminski, and the book said Kosminski was "definitely, categorically and absolutely" the killer.

Scientists pushed back within weeks. On October 20, 2014, The Independent reported that Louhelainen had made an "error of nomenclature." The variant he called rare is in fact shared by "more than 99 per cent of people of European descent." If that is right, the geneticist Professor Jeffreys told the paper, there is "no significance whatsoever in the match." Forensic scientists in Rotterdam and Innsbruck agreed. Historians raised a second problem. The shawl is not in the police list of Eddowes's belongings, and there is no record that the constable whose family supposedly kept it was ever at the crime scene.

Louhelainen and a colleague published the work in the Journal of Forensic Sciences in March 2019. Even that paper admitted that the characteristics it found "are surely not unique." In August 2024, the journal attached an Expression of Concern to the paper. In January 2025, Edwards and descendants of both Eddowes and Kosminski asked for a new inquest. CBS News reported that an earlier request had already been refused by the then attorney general, who said there was "not sufficient new evidence." Kosminski has never been charged with anything, and a shawl with an unproven history cannot change that.

The Five, and how the victims are remembered now

Hallie Rubenhold's The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper came out from Doubleday in 2019. Her own page calls it the first full-length biography of the five victims. She follows each woman from childhood and points out that none of them was born in Whitechapel, and that each had been a wife, a mother, or both. She also argues that the "prostitute" label stuck to all five without good evidence. The book won the Baillie Gifford Prize for nonfiction in November 2019, worth £50,000. Rubenhold described the women as "ordinary people, like you and I, who happened to fall upon hard times."

Jack the Ripper on screen

The case has been retold in films, TV dramas, and documentaries for more than a century. A recent serial killer documentary worth watching is Jack the Ripper: Written in Blood, a three-part drama documentary that began on Sky HISTORY on April 8, 2025. It follows how the press covered the murders, The Star newspaper in particular, and it spends real time on the lives of the women.

Why was the case never solved?

The police in 1888 did not use fingerprints. Casebook notes that fingerprinting was offered to the Metropolitan Police in 1886 and turned down, and the first murder conviction based on fingerprints anywhere came in Argentina in 1892. Detectives also had to sort through thousands of letters, and the ones signed "Jack" were most likely hoaxes. Inspector Henry Moore's last surviving report on the murders is dated 1896.

No one has ever been tried for these murders. Every name above is a theory.

Jack the Ripper FAQ

Was Jack the Ripper ever caught?

No. Nobody was ever charged with the five murders, and no court has ever ruled on any suspect.

Why is he called Jack the Ripper?

The name comes from the "Dear Boss" letter, which reached the Central News Agency on September 27, 1888. It was the first letter signed that way. Many historians think a journalist wrote it.

Who was the most likely suspect?

There is no agreed answer. In 1894, Macnaghten named Kosminski, Druitt, and Ostrog, and senior officers later favoured Kosminski. None of them was ever charged, and the evidence against each is weak.

Where did the murders happen?

In Whitechapel and Spitalfields in the East End of London, plus Mitre Square in Aldgate, which is in the City of London.

More true crime

For other cases, see our list of The World's Most Famous Serial Killers, or read what researchers say about the traits of a serial killer. You can also read about serial killers in England, Harold Shipman, the Zodiac Killer, unsolved murders, and Ted Bundy.

Sources

• "Jack the Ripper." Metropolitan Police history page, archived February 4, 2010. web.archive.org.
• "Jack the Ripper." London Museum, London Stories, accessed September 30, 2026. londonmuseum.org.uk.
• "Hoax letter signed by Jack the Ripper." The National Archives, accessed September 30, 2026. nationalarchives.gov.uk.
• "Jack the Ripper." BBC History, Historic Figures, accessed September 30, 2026. bbc.co.uk.
• Casebook: Jack the Ripper, victim pages for Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly, accessed September 30, 2026.
• Casebook: Jack the Ripper, letter pages for "Dear Boss", "Saucy Jacky", the Lusk letter, and the Lusk kidney, accessed September 30, 2026.
• Macnaghten, Melville. Memorandum, February 23, 1894, transcribed at Casebook. casebook.org.
• Warren, Charles. Letter to the Home Office, November 6, 1888, transcribed at Casebook. casebook.org.
• Bond, Thomas. Post-mortem notes on Mary Jane Kelly, November 1888, transcribed at Casebook. casebook.org.
• Casebook: Jack the Ripper, suspect pages for Aaron Kosminski, Montague John Druitt, Michael Ostrog, Francis Tumblety, and Prince Albert Victor, accessed September 30, 2026.
• "Was HH Holmes Really Jack the Ripper?" Sky HISTORY, about September 2017. history.co.uk.
• Connor, Steve. "Jack the Ripper: Scientist who claims to have identified notorious killer has 'made serious DNA error'." The Independent, October 20, 2014. independent.co.uk.
• Reed, Mick. "Still a mystery: DNA hasn't named Jack the Ripper after all." The Conversation, November 3, 2014. theconversation.com.
• Casebook: Jack the Ripper. Dissertation on the Edwards shawl claims, accessed September 30, 2026. casebook.org.
• Louhelainen, Jari, and David Miller. "Forensic Investigation of a Shawl Linked to the 'Jack the Ripper' Murders." Journal of Forensic Sciences 65(1):295-303, published online March 12, 2019. doi.org.
• "Expression of Concern." Journal of Forensic Sciences 69(5):1938, published online August 12, 2024. doi.org.
• Geggel, Laura. "The Questionable Science Behind the New Jack the Ripper Claim." Live Science, March 20, 2019. livescience.com.
• "Jack the Ripper victim's relative demands new inquest after possible DNA breakthrough." CBS News and AFP, January 13, 2025. cbsnews.com.
• "Book about Jack the Ripper's victims wins top UK nonfiction prize." Al Jazeera and AP, November 20, 2019. aljazeera.com.
• Rubenhold, Hallie. The Five. Author's book page, accessed September 30, 2026. hallierubenhold.com.
• "Jack the Ripper: Written in Blood." Sky, series page, accessed September 30, 2026. sky.com.