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"JACK THE RIPPER"

The name summons images of foggy London alleyways, of a man slinking about in a long cape with shifty eyes barely discernible in the shadows, and of the hapless women who met their ends on the wrong side of a knife wielded by a psychotic serial killer. Long before such a pseudonym became commonplace in our modern day and age, Jack the Ripper was the epitome of the definition more than one hundred years ago.

Available information about Jack the Ripper is seemingly endless, from print books to web sites and films. Yet none of these sources have irrefutably proven the identity of Jack the Ripper. Some writers and "Ripperologist's" claim to have the solution to the century-old mystery (each one differing in their findings), yet it is doubtful any of the individual conclusions will ever be regarded as collectively legitimate.

Many of the Ripper murder sites are still in existence; such as Miller's Court (where Mary Kelly met her horrific end); Mitre Square (Eddowes murder); Buck's Row (re-named Durward Street, and where Mary Ann Nichols was killed); Berner Street (re-named Henrique Street, the scene of Elizabeth Stride's murder); and George Yard Buildings (now known as Gunthorpe, where alleged first victim Martha Tabram was killed).

The remains of Mary Kelly were discovered in her room at Miller's Court in Whitechapel on November 8, 1888. Her murder was purported to be the last at the hands of the Ripper, and by far the most brutal. Apparently Kelly owed back rent for her lodgings and when the landlord came to collect late in the morning of the 8th, he happened to look inside her room through a window and espied the grotesque tableau upon the bed...

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