What got you hooked?

[brummie]

Just interested to know how various members came to get into JTR investigation. For me I guess as long as I can remember I've been fascinated by a good unexplained mystery but it was reading a book called Jack The Ripper: Summing up and verdict by Colin Wilson and Robin Odell in the early nineties that got me into JTR. Since then I've read dozens of other books and numerous articles and web entries, I guess you could say I'm hooked.

[Doug Irvine]

I saw an old Star Trek episode called Wolf in the Fold. It's the one were Scotty is implicated in in a ripper style murder. As a kid watching this I had no idea who Jack the Ripper was. My curiosity was piqued so I started to investigate into him and just never stopped.

[Malcolm X]

seeing the Ripper movies when i was a kid.......... and trying to solve the KELLY murder in later years

[The Good Michael]

Well, it was this older girl. I told her I didn't want any of the nasty stuff, but I'd help her roll a joint. First I kind of liked the smell, I suppose. Then, I decided t..... er, oh! How I got hooked on Jack the Ripper? Never mind.

Mike

[Brenda]

I like to pick an unsolved mystery, find out everything I can about it, and then try to "solve" it. I bit off more than I could chew with the Ripper case. Has there ever been a case more unsolvable than this one?

There is so much more to the study of JTR than just the murders. I've learned about everything from Victorian mannerisms to Victorian door locks. But I think it is this site that has really kept the case alive for me through the years. I enjoy the dissertations, the threads, and following the arguments and feuds.

Even though the Ripper was a horrible man, Ripperology is good clean fun.

[Lika]

I got into this cause I saw a german programme called galileo mystery with the theme (Translated) "Was Jack the Ripper german?" cause of Sickert.
Anyway I found it fascinating cause noone really knows who Jack really was and the fact that he is in my eyes undoubtly the greatest serial killer ever.

[Mr.Hyde]

Mr.Hyde

Just interested to know how various members came to get into JTR investigation. For me I guess as long as I can remember I've been fascinated by a good unexplained mystery but it was reading a book called Jack The Ripper: Summing up and verdict by Colin Wilson and Robin Odell in the early nineties that got me into JTR. Since then I've read dozens of other books and numerous articles and web entries, I guess you could say I'm hooked.

Hi.
Read Sherlock Holmes when ~ 10 years old.1958/9.
"Jekyll and Hyde" thereabouts.
Plus the movies.
The two JTR movies from 1958,1959 and the "Thriller" episode "Yours Truly,Jack the Ripper" completed the job a year or two later when we got a TV.
Although written 3 years before JTR struck in Whitechapel,"J&H" seemed to be about the same person.Serial murderers evolve,often from fires and/or hurting small animals or children.There are some interesting clues in that novella.Well hidden.Lead to one person.
Currently researching screenplay on JTR.Screenwriter currently on two other projects.Several years away.

[sdreid]

Fully hooked with Barlow & Watt in the 70s. Been nibbling at the bait since radio in the late 40s - perhaps Lodger.

[smezenen]

A few years ago i took a criminology class for one of our papers we had to draw the name of a seriel killer from a hat then write a short brief on the crime. I drew Jack wrote my paper got a B and moved on to other classes but Jack stuck in the back of my mind. A few months ago i retired from the military and got a new job watching paint dry all night in a radio operations center. I had nothing to do but surf the internet and ran across the Casebook site. Now you cant get me off it. Is there a JTR anonomus chapter, I may need one.

[iris84]

A friend of mine recommended the "From Hell" film while we were working together. For her, she took it at face value. Was more interested in Johnny Depp than the historical side. But I was intrigued. It wasn't until a few months back that the interest reached the heights that it has now. My partner and I were watching Whitechapel on itv. I'd seen documentaries on the killings beforehand, but Whitechapel really set me off. So I started reading up on the ripper. Before stumbling across casebook, however, I'd always believed the c5 were the only ripper victims. But reading Tabram's profile, I became more convinced she was a victim of the ripper. I'm now also convinced that Millwood was, too.

As someone with a keen interest in writing, I'd been looking for a topic that would really capture my imagination. My previous book tapered out as I lost interest. But I've now started a novel based on the ripper killings. But I have a feeling my interest, or, as my partner calls it, obsession, won't end there. After all. Who doesn't want to solve the case?

[Mike Covell]

As a kid I was always interested in the unexplained, and true crime. Through college I began collecting Ripper books, but life got in the way.
After being diagnosed with a bad heart, and having both time and money at my disposal, I decided to begin researching again, and chose to look at local aspects of the case. This led me of course to Robert D'Onston Stephenson, and the rest, as they say, is history.

[Nothing to see]

Fully hooked with Barlow & Watt in the 70s. Been nibbling at the bait since radio in the late 40s - perhaps Lodger.

The radio stuff. That's way before I was born. Sorry. But Barlow and Watts. Yes. Saw it, got hooked. They presented Stephen Knight's theory, as I remember. But let's face it. Every TV show and movie since then has pretty much done the same.

But yeah. I think from that time, hooked on trying to work out who Jack was. And why he dun it. I know, I need to get a life.

[Celesta]

I can't walk away from a good mystery, whether it's set in ancient times and can only be resolved through archeology, whether it's a geological mystery that needs to be solved, or JtR. Nothing absorbs me more than an unsolved mystery.

Of course if it was solved then it wouldn't be a mystery. I love not knowing the answer but make myself crazy trying to find the answer. I first heard about JtR as a kid and have always been interested, but I guess it was Pat Cornwell who lured me into it to the extent that I am now. I read some about it earlier, but this book was finally what got me so hooked. JtR doesn't get as much attention here as it does in Britain, to my knowledge.

[Vingle]

Lysette Anthony.

[Robert]

Not much compare, but Dan Farson.