Was Sir William Gull truly Red Jack? Though he was never arrested or charged, pilfered Masonic notes indicate that he was privately tried, convicted, and lobotomized for his brutality. But if that was the case, he could only have been responsible for the so-called "canonical five." Others claim it was sweet, simpleminded Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, that donned the Leather Apron and became the Whitechapel Whorereaver. Such accusations prioritize the myth of the gentleman murderer, a dastardly lie, no doubt spread by the lower classes.
But on the other end of the social spectrum, there are equally problematic theories. Those who follow Holmes and Conan Doyle's belief that it was a woman look mostly to the widow, Mirah Deronda, whose older brother, Ezra Mordecai Cohen, was one of the most notorious of the Whitechapel Kabbalist sorcerers who held sway over the London Jewish community in the late 1860s. Others simply shrug and claim it was Joseph Barnett, the jealous lover of victim Mary Kelly. Such thoughts endorse Occam's razor in stripping the murders of their conspiracy theorist leanings, but they do little to explain the occult notation and deft surgical precision with which the Ripper acted.
The truth of the matter is, we have no good answer for who or what perpetrated the Whitechapel Horrors, though three credible theories stand out as both sound and likely:
The Whitechapel Demon: The first of these theories, suggests that Leather Apron was no man, but a spirit--the acrobatic London stalker commonly called Spring-heeled Jack. By invoking the name of the elusive fiend, however, we essentially admit that we know nothing more. Spring Heeled Jack remains a mystery--is it a man in a suit? Is it a spirit of the night? A great bat winged monster? A Spring Heeled Red Jack is not unlikely, but knowing does not truly answer our queries. Besides, we have enough unpleasantness to lay at the feet of the black-clad beast, without adding the murder and dismemberment of at least five prostitutes to the tally.
The Whitechapel Monster: The second theory takes on John Utterson's assurance, in his 1886 memoir, that Dr. Henry Jekyll, committed suicide. It urges us to believe that Jekyll faked his own death and that Red Jack was none other than Jekyll's shadow-self, Edward Hyde. Hyde's proclivities during the time of his experimental existence certainly included both the visiting of demimondaines and the brutalization of the fairer sex (just ask Mary Reilly), but a few inconsistencies remain. Why, for instance, kill MP Carew if the ripper murders were truly an expression of contempt for women?
The Whitechapel Hatter: The last theory, by far the strangest, and the one I personally endorse, suggests that the Ripper was the worst kind of fiend--a seemingly kind old man. Not just any man, mind you, but the Reverend Charles Dodgson who, under a pseudonym, delighted children and adults alike with his fanciful books of rhymes and riddles.
Always a lover of anagrams and wordplay, proponents of this theory draw direct connections between notes left at crime scenes specific passages in Dodgson's books. The murder sites suggest mathematical puzzles of which the Reverend was exceedingly fond, and, most damning of all, the so-called Ives testimony in which accredited medium, Vanessa Ives, reported that the face of Dodgson appeared to her during an inquiry into the ripper, appearing from the shadows first as eyes and a ghastly smile. Sadly, by the time this vision was received in January of 1899, Carroll was dead, and the ripper's victims cold in the ground and near-forgotten.
There are those who claim that Dodgson, never a robust man, and certainly frail by 1891 when Carrie "Shakespeare" Brown, the last of the non-canonical victims was killed. To that theorists, and this author, give a tragic rejoinder, the final piece of the ripper puzzle. The disappearance of Alice Liddell soon after her eighteenth birthday in 1870, was considered by most to be the result an elopement or perhaps a drowning. The most uncharitable suggested her defilement or murder at the hands of Dodgson, and certainly, his unsavory closeness to the family did little to dispel those accusations. But if we are to believe that the Great Detective was not without insight into the case in supposing Red Jack to instead be Red Jane, a darker picture emerges. An Alice Liddell working in tandem with her benefactor/tutor/lover, carrying out his twisted decrees, appears to be the link between the Ives testimony and the Great Detective's theory. Whether the ripper murders ceased because of her actual death, or some other reason, we may never know. But it is now often whispered that, though the infamous ripper letter was addressed "From Hell," it came by way of Wonderland.
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