Jack The Ripper Murder

appeared to be wooden'. He also claimed to have seen a knife protruding from James pocket. James was questioned but soon cleared of any suspicion of being Jack the Ripper because according to the press reports, he was a well-known local lunatic. Exactly how a lunatic wandering around Whitechapel possibly armed with a knife, when there was a knife wielding killer on the loose, could be considered harmless is hard to understand. James was described as wearing a two peaked cap similar to one worn by the suspect Leather Apron.
WILLIAM JAMES
William James, a 33 year old hawker, was indicted for the manslaughter of William Hall. The incident occurred on 7
December 1888. Hall, a sorter in the general Post Office was walking home along Marshalsea Street
In court,
James denied striking Hall and said he only pushed him in self-defense because he was making improper overtures to the woman he was with, who was a married woman. James, who had a previous conviction for assault admitted he was guilty of manslaughter by a shove.
JILL THE RIPPER
William Stewart, in the 1939 book - Jack The Ripper - A New th Theory, suggested that the Ripper was a woman abortionist or midwife who might have been betrayed, perhaps by a woman she had helped. The midwife was then sent to prison; where upon her release had sworn revenge on her own sex. Stewart believed the abortionist-midwife would be able to pass through the streets with blood-stained clothing without attracting undue attention, and would explain why when Mary
Kelly was murdered; she was laid on the bed unclothed with her clothes neatly folded on a chair, awaiting an abortion from the midwife she had contracted. Stewart however was not the only theorist to believe that the Ripper may have been a woman. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock
Holmes, had earlier suggested that the killer might have disguised himself as a midwife when making his escape through the crowded streets while heavily
Maxwell was quite adamant that it was Kelly she saw and not someone else. Abberline cross questioned
Maxwell again and again, but failed to prove she was lying or perhaps mistaken. Abberline asked Dutton, - 'Do you think it could be a case of not Jack the Ripper, but Jill the Ripper.
And was it possible that the killer may have dressed up in
Kelly's clothes to disguise herself, and when spoken to by
Maxwell pretended to be Mary Kelly'. Dutton replied 'He believed it was doubtful, but if the killer were female the only kind capable of perpetrating such an act would be a midwife, for they might just possibly possess enough surgical skill and knowledge of anatomy to carry out these diabolical crimes'.
William Stewart was pre-dated in his assumption that the
Ripper was a woman by Lawson Tait, an eminent surgeon, who suggested In 1889 that the Ripper was 'A big strong woman who worked in one of the local slaughterhouses’, who concealed her bloodstains by rolling up her skirt, and walking through the streets covered by a heavy petticoat.
JILL THE SAILOR
On 8
September 1955 the London Evening News told the interesting story of an ex-convict SYF45 (name not revealed), who was told by a fellow prisoner in Parkhurst that his