The Jack the Ripper Mystery is Finally Solved — Scientifically

[Doctored Whatsit]

And here’s the key point: even if you distrust Smith’s memoir as a whole, you still need to explain why his list of five traits—medical student, asylum history, prostitute associate, coin fraud, Rupert Street resident—lines up exactly with Francis Thompson. That convergence is so improbable (roughly 1 in 20 quadrillion) that it outweighs Edwards’ private gripe about Smith’s storytelling style.

So, by all means, let’s treat Smith’s near-miss anecdotes with caution. But dismissing his entire record—including the Rupert Street suspect—because a clerk called him a raconteur is not serious historical method.

There is absolutely no reason to explain how Smith's "five traits" line up with Francis Thompson. They are merely Smith's observations, and his alone. Others more closely involved in the investigation had different opinions. There is no strong factual evidence that his "five traits" would positively identify JtR.

[Richard Patterson]

There is absolutely no reason to explain how Smith's "five traits" line up with Francis Thompson. They are merely Smith's observations, and his alone. Others more closely involved in the investigation had different opinions. There is no strong factual evidence that his "five traits" would positively identify JtR.

If we start dismissing the testimony of the men who actually ran the investigation, then we don’t just weaken my case — we collapse the entire foundation of Ripperology.

Sir Henry Smith wasn’t a journalist spinning theories thirty years later; he was Acting Commissioner of the City of London Police during the only canonical murder in City jurisdiction. His “five traits” weren’t a casual opinion, they were the distilled observations of a man with command of 700–800 officers and direct involvement at Mitre Square.

You say there’s “no reason” to explain how those traits line up with Francis Thompson. I’d argue the opposite. The extraordinary thing is that they do line up — and not loosely, but precisely: ex-medical student, asylum history, association with prostitutes, coin fraud, Rupert Street residence. Five points, independently rare, converging on one man. The mathematical odds of a random Londoner fitting all five are not just slim, they are astronomically small.

If we brush that aside because Smith sometimes told a tall tale at dinner, then we’re effectively saying: none of the original investigators matter. But if we value the investigation, then when one of its senior figures leaves us such a specific suspect profile, we have a duty to test it against the historical record. When we do, the match to Thompson is undeniable.

So yes, other officials had other opinions — Anderson, Abberline, Macnaghten all had their own favorites. But only Smith gave us a list of converging traits testable against real biographies. That is why explaining the Thompson match isn’t optional. It’s central to the evidence we still have.

[Doctored Whatsit]

If we start dismissing the testimony of the men who actually ran the investigation, then we don’t just weaken my case — we collapse the entire foundation of Ripperology.

Sir Henry Smith wasn’t a journalist spinning theories thirty years later; he was Acting Commissioner of the City of London Police during the only canonical murder in City jurisdiction. His “five traits” weren’t a casual opinion, they were the distilled observations of a man with command of 700–800 officers and direct involvement at Mitre Square.

You say there’s “no reason” to explain how those traits line up with Francis Thompson. I’d argue the opposite. The extraordinary thing is that they do line up — and not loosely, but precisely: ex-medical student, asylum history, association with prostitutes, coin fraud, Rupert Street residence. Five points, independently rare, converging on one man. The mathematical odds of a random Londoner fitting all five are not just slim, they are astronomically small.

If we brush that aside because Smith sometimes told a tall tale at dinner, then we’re effectively saying: none of the original investigators matter. But if we value the investigation, then when one of its senior figures leaves us such a specific suspect profile, we have a duty to test it against the historical record. When we do, the match to Thompson is undeniable.

So yes, other officials had other opinions — Anderson, Abberline, Macnaghten all had their own favorites. But only Smith gave us a list of converging traits testable against real biographies. That is why explaining the Thompson match isn’t optional. It’s central to the evidence we still have.

But you are dismissing Abberline, Swanson etc who saw far more of the action than did Smith, and you concede that Smith didn't always tell the truth. What is the historical factual known evidence that JtR was an ex-medical student with asylum history, who associated with prostitutes, operated coin fraud and lived in Rupert St? Creating and putting these five traits together is just Smith's opinion, and only his.

Yes, the traits are central to your case that Thompson was JtR, but please give us the factual evidence that Smith was correct to claim these traits were those of JtR.

[rjpalmer]

We know his tales are not accurate, because he tells of just missing JtR by a few minutes, whereas his account of the Eddowes murder at the time it happened never put him anywhere near the event, later in the book he seemed to suggest it might have been Kelly's murder, in which he had no known involvement. He is not reliable.

Hello Doctored Whatsit,

Just my two cents, but I don't know why students of the Whitechapel Murders are always so eager to give Sir Henry the bum's rush. It has become the standard, expected opinion, often voiced. But Smith strikes me as a likeable and lively fellow--far more down-to-earth than Sir Robert Anderson and more candid.

The above comment makes it sound as if Smith falsely put himself in Mitre Square within minutes when he was elsewhere, but what does he actually write in his memoirs?

He admits he was sleeping at a station near Southwark Bridge and was alerted to the murder by telegraph and speaking tube:

"The night of Saturday, September 29, found me tossing about in my bed at Cloak Lane Station, close to the river and adjoining Southwark Bridge. There was a railway goods depot in front, and a furrier's premises behind my rooms ; the lane was causewayed, heavy vans were going constantly in and out, and the sickening smell from the furrier's skins was always present. You could not open the windows, and to sleep was an impossibility. Suddenly the bell at my head rang violently.

What is it?" I asked, putting my ear to the tube.

" Another murder, sir, this time in the City." Jumping up, I was dressed and in the street in a couple of minutes. A hansom-to me a detestable vehicle-was at the door, and into it I jumped, as time was of the utmost consequence. This invention of the devil claims to be safe. It is neither safe nor pleasant. In winter you are frozen ; in summer you are broiled. When the glass is let down your hat is generally smashed, your fingers caught between the doors, or half your front teeth loosened. Licensed to carry two, it did not take me long to discover that a 15-stone Superintendent inside with me, and three detectives hanging on behind, added neither to its comfort nor to its safety.

Although we rolled like a "seventy-four" in a gale, we got to our destination - Mitre Square - without an upset, where I found a small group of my men standing round the mutilated remains of a woman."

There is nothing in the contemporary record to show that Smith's account is inaccurate. Indeed, it was reported that he was quickly alerted to the murder in Mitre Square and soon arrived at the scene with McWilliam and others (Echo, 1 October):




Smith then claims he roamed the district or districts for what must have been upwards of four hours, not returning to the station until 6 a.m. I know of nothing that disproves this.

And I'm not convinced that Smith's reference to the sink in Dorset Street is a garbled memory. It may be or it may not be. It's not really clear what he means--whether it was something discovered on the night of the double event but unrelated to the Miller's Court murder---or whether Smith would later be among the unnamed officers who were in Miller's Court along with Anderson, Arnold, etc. in November. I would be somewhat surprised if he hadn't made an appearance.

I admit that his writing is oddly unclear on this point, but there is not enough surviving documentation to for me to be confident one way or t'other.

Anyway, I try to avoid the reductionist attitude: 'if we don't know about it, then it didn't happen.'

Regards.

[The Rookie Detective]

So the coin link is an invention. Thompson never passed off polished farthings. You are strangely linking Smith’s man to Thompson purely because of the word ‘coins.’ No one could take this seriously.

Storrington Priory wasn’t an asylum and Thompson was sent there in 1889. Smith informed Warren about his medical/student suspect after the murder of Annie Chapman. Therefore it’s absolutely impossible that he was talking about Thompson.

According to this article, Thompson was indeed in Storrington in 1889.

From there he wrote one of his longest poems called "Ode to the setting Sun"



Interesting article.

[Herlock Sholmes]

It’s never been doubted RD.

[Doctored Whatsit]

Hello Doctored Whatsit,

Just my two cents, but I don't know why students of the Whitechapel Murders are always so eager to give Sir Henry the bum's rush. It has become the standard, expected opinion, often voiced. But Smith strikes me as a likeable and lively fellow--far more down-to-earth than Sir Robert Anderson and more candid.

The above comment makes it sound as if Smith falsely put himself in Mitre Square within minutes when he was elsewhere, but what does he actually write in his memoirs?

He admits he was sleeping at a station near Southwark Bridge and was alerted to the murder by telegraph and speaking tube:

"The night of Saturday, September 29, found me tossing about in my bed at Cloak Lane Station, close to the river and adjoining Southwark Bridge. There was a railway goods depot in front, and a furrier's premises behind my rooms ; the lane was causewayed, heavy vans were going constantly in and out, and the sickening smell from the furrier's skins was always present. You could not open the windows, and to sleep was an impossibility. Suddenly the bell at my head rang violently.

What is it?" I asked, putting my ear to the tube.

" Another murder, sir, this time in the City." Jumping up, I was dressed and in the street in a couple of minutes. A hansom-to me a detestable vehicle-was at the door, and into it I jumped, as time was of the utmost consequence. This invention of the devil claims to be safe. It is neither safe nor pleasant. In winter you are frozen ; in summer you are broiled. When the glass is let down your hat is generally smashed, your fingers caught between the doors, or half your front teeth loosened. Licensed to carry two, it did not take me long to discover that a 15-stone Superintendent inside with me, and three detectives hanging on behind, added neither to its comfort nor to its safety.

Although we rolled like a "seventy-four" in a gale, we got to our destination - Mitre Square - without an upset, where I found a small group of my men standing round the mutilated remains of a woman."

There is nothing in the contemporary record to show that Smith's account is inaccurate. Indeed, it was reported that he was quickly alerted to the murder in Mitre Square and soon arrived at the scene with McWilliam and others (Echo, 1 October):




Smith then claims he roamed the district or districts for what must have been upwards of four hours, not returning to the station until 6 a.m. I know of nothing that disproves this.

And I'm not convinced that Smith's reference to the sink in Dorset Street is a garbled memory. It may be or it may not be. It's not really clear what he means--whether it was something discovered on the night of the double event but unrelated to the Miller's Court murder---or whether Smith would later be among the unnamed officers who were in Miller's Court along with Anderson, Arnold, etc. in November. I would be somewhat surprised if he hadn't made an appearance.

I admit that his writing is oddly unclear on this point, but there is not enough surviving documentation to for me to be confident one way or t'other.

Anyway, I try to avoid the reductionist attitude: 'if we don't know about it, then it didn't happen.'

Regards.

Hi RJ,

I was musing about Smith's claim to have been within 5 minutes of JtR being inaccurate. The murder was said to have been discivered at 1. 44 am, by which time JtR had already vanished. The news got back to the station at 1.55 am, when people started to get notified. Smith would have done well to get to Mitre Square by say 2.15 am, then, I think he went to the mortuary, and then after briefing, presumably wandered off scouring the streets. Even if he did find a sink with blood in it, and even if that was relevant to JtR, he wasn't likely to have been within an hour of him. But it really isn't important.

[Fiver]

What is the historical factual known evidence that JtR was an ex-medical student with asylum history, who associated with prostitutes, operated coin fraud and lived in Rupert St? Creating and putting these five traits together is just Smith's opinion, and only his.

Yes, the traits are central to your case that Thompson was JtR, but please give us the factual evidence that Smith was correct to claim these traits were those of JtR.

Smith never claimed that those were the traits of JTR. He said they were the traits of a man he suspected was JTR.

Lets look at Smith's actual statements.

1. "He had been a medical student". Again, this is an attribute of Smith's suspect, but Smith also said "I visited every butcher's shop in the city." Clearly, Smith did not believe the Ripper must have had medical training.

2. "He had been in a lunatic asylum". This was not Smith saying the Ripper must have been in an asylum, merely that his suspect had been in one. This does not match what is known of Thompson.

3. "He spent all his time with women of loose character". This does not match what is known of Thompson.

4. "Whom he bilked by giving them polished farthings instead of sovereigns". There is no example of Thompson doing this.

5. "I thought he was likely to be in Rupert Street, Haymarket." This is Smith's guess as to where his suspect was. Smith also said "Did he live close to the scene of the action? or did he, after committing a murder, make his way to lighting speed to some retreat in the suburbs?" Smith's words show he did not believe that the Ripper must have lived on Rupert Street, that was just the location of a specific suspect.

If Smith's suspect was Thompson, then Smith's reasons for suspecting him were mainly based on false information. In the end, Smith said "He proved an alibi without the shadow of doubt."

[Fiver]

According to this article, Thompson was indeed in Storrington in 1889.

Nice find. Smith's suspect, however, had been in an asylum some time before the Ripper killings.

[Richard Patterson]

Smith never claimed that those were the traits of JTR. He said they were the traits of a man he suspected was JTR.

Lets look at Smith's actual statements.

1. "He had been a medical student". Again, this is an attribute of Smith's suspect, but Smith also said "I visited every butcher's shop in the city." Clearly, Smith did not believe the Ripper must have had medical training.

2. "He had been in a lunatic asylum". This was not Smith saying the Ripper must have been in an asylum, merely that his suspect had been in one. This does not match what is known of Thompson.

3. "He spent all his time with women of loose character". This does not match what is known of Thompson.

4. "Whom he bilked by giving them polished farthings instead of sovereigns". There is no example of Thompson doing this.

5. "I thought he was likely to be in Rupert Street, Haymarket." This is Smith's guess as to where his suspect was. Smith also said "Did he live close to the scene of the action? or did he, after committing a murder, make his way to lighting speed to some retreat in the suburbs?" Smith's words show he did not believe that the Ripper must have lived on Rupert Street, that was just the location of a specific suspect.

If Smith's suspect was Thompson, then Smith's reasons for suspecting him were mainly based on false information. In the end, Smith said "He proved an alibi without the shadow of doubt."

Fiver, you’ve revealed more about yourself than about the case.

You’ve been a Casebook member since 2019, you wear the badge of “Assistant Commissioner,” and your posts show the same pattern: you don’t want the mystery solved. You need the case to stay unsolved, because that preserves your role as a gatekeeper. The thrill for you isn’t in evidence, it’s in endless debate — in being seen as the man patrolling the boundaries of possibility. If the case is solved, the kudos you earn by dismissing others evaporates.

That’s why you consistently degrade the work of investigators like Major Henry Smith rather than grapple with the convergence of evidence. That’s why you “pathologize” anyone who dares name Thompson. And that’s why your replies are filled not with meaningful contributions but with evasions.

Now to the factual record you brush aside:

1. “Smith never claimed those traits were of JTR.”
   False. Smith describes his prime suspect in From Constable to Commissioner (1910): an ex-medical student, asylum patient, constant with prostitutes, bilking them with polished farthings, and in Rupert Street. He explicitly writes: “I have no doubt we had him, but he produced an alibi.” He is not listing random trivia; he is explaining why this man was considered the Ripper.
2. “This does not match Thompson.”
   False again. Thompson studied medicine for six years at Owens College, dissected hundreds of cadavers (his sister Mary testified to the repeated fees for cadavers). He suffered a breakdown in 1882, his uncle testified to it, and he was sent to Storrington Priory. That is asylum history. He lived with a prostitute for over a year and scoured Whitechapel for her when she fled in June 1888. He literally carried a dissecting scalpel as he wandered the streets.
3. “No example of Thompson giving polished farthings.”
   You know full well this is Smith’s phrase for the kind of trick played on prostitutes by certain men. In Thompson’s case, John Walsh records the coin story in his biography (Strange Harp, Strange Symphony), and Everard Meynell repeats the anecdote in Poems. To pretend this is wholly absent is to deliberately ignore sources.
4. “Rupert Street was just Smith’s guess.”
   No. Smith’s force trailed his suspect in that very district — the Haymarket. Thompson lived yards away, in Panton Street, during this exact period. That is not a “guess,” it is geographic convergence.
5. “Smith said the suspect proved an alibi.”
   Yes, he wrote that. But “proved” in Victorian police memoirs often meant a patron vouched for him — not a courtroom-tested fact. If that alibi had been beyond doubt, Smith would never have bothered to immortalize the man in his memoirs. The persistence of the description shows how strongly the suspect fit.

And here’s what you continually ignore:

• Thompson’s poetry (Nightmare of the Witch-Babies, Finis Coronat Opus) contains imagery of knife, womb, disembowelling, and confessions that parallel the murders with disturbing precision.
• His timing: the murders begin after his prostitute leaves him, and they cease the very month he is hospitalized for exhaustion.
• His psychology: laudanum addict, pyromaniac, suicidal, with violent contempt for prostitutes (“putrid ulcerations of love, venting foul and purulent discharge”).
• His geography: documented at Providence Row refuge, yards from Whitechapel, on the very night Nichols was murdered.
• His training: six years in anatomy and pathology under Dr. Julius Dreschfeld, pupil of Virchow, giving him the exact technique later mistaken by Bond as “unskilled.”

You ignore all of this because admitting it would collapse the myth you’re invested in.

Fiver, the truth is simple: the statistical probability of any other man in London 1888 matching all five of Smith’s Rupert Street traits is about 1 in 20 quadrillion. Thompson matches them all. Others match one or two. None match the full set.

So the real question is this: do you love evidence, or do you love the mystery? Because if you loved the evidence, you’d see it converges in only one direction.

[Lewis C]

Lewis,

Here is the link to the thread in question. My post is based on the research from Chris and I in no way, imply my research in this.

"Puckeridge" - Casebook: Jack the Ripper Forums (Post #13 and #14 by Chris)

Thanks Jerry, I'll check that out.

[The Rookie Detective]

There are currently no fewer than 8 threads....

8 threads....

Yes...8 threads discussing Francis Thompson.


You wait ages for a Thompson thread, and 8 turn up altogether.


The Bus analogy of Ripperology right there.

[Lewis C]

Yes, I do recall a peculiar gait being mentioned. I just don't recall where. Wasn't it suggested that Henry Wentworth BellSmith had a peculiar gait? I seem to recall that a peculiar gait and strange eyes were on Wickerman's list of Ripper attributes. Perhaps it may have been the Bethnal Green Botherer.

IIRC, in the recent book about Hyam Hyams, the author refers to a witness or witnesses that said a suspect had a peculiar gait and said that Hyams had or may have had one.

[Filby]

Filby, I appreciate you pressing the “sexual component” question, because it lets us look straight at what Thompson himself put on paper.

In Nightmare of the Witch-Babies we meet the “lusty knight” — a figure who doesn’t woo but rends, who rides not toward love but toward desecration. He is conjured in the poem as the scourge of a degenerate world, a knight whose passion is cutting, whose lust is mutilation. It isn’t romantic fantasy. It’s sexualised violence reframed as cleansing — the same twisted impulse we see in the Ripper murders, where the body of a prostitute becomes the text upon which rage and obsession are carved.

Now place that alongside what Thompson published under the pseudonym “Francis Tancred” in Catholics in Darkest England. Here he writes as a crusader, explicitly borrowing the name of a medieval knight of Jerusalem, and describes London’s streets as a kind of fallen Holy Land, black even in daylight, filled with “girls harlots in the mother’s womb.” He casts himself as one who “unveils secret meanings,” who “diagnoses the disease” of the city, and then — chillingly — declares that “the Assassin has left us a weapon which but needs a little practice to adapt it to the necessity of the day.”

This is not the language of a gentle poet. This is Thompson self-fashioning as the very “lusty knight” of his verse — a crusader-assassin, licensed in his own mind to cleanse London of corruption. The sexual motive is there, but refracted through a religious and moral lens: prostitutes are not women to him, they are “ulcers,” “blasphemies,” “harlots in the womb.” Cutting them open was, in his warped psyche, both a lust and a purification ritual.

And remember, when the West India Docks went up in flames on the very night of Nichols’ murder, Thompson was sleeping rough at a Salvation Army shelter nearby. Contemporary voices worried that the Army’s militant revivalism might inspire a deranged imitator to see killing as crusade. Thompson all but confesses to see killing as crusade. Thompson all but confesses to that role in his Tancred essay. When he tells readers that “the Assassin has left us a weapon which but needs a little practice to adapt it to the necessity of the day,” he is not writing as a detached social critic. He is writing as a man who already carries a surgeon’s scalpel in his pocket, who has lived among the very “harlots in the womb” he describes, and who has framed himself as both poet and knight, lusting not for love but for mutilation and purification.

So the “lusty knight” is not an ambiguous metaphor. It is Thompson’s alter ego. The poems, the essays, the biographical facts — they align. He saw himself as a crusader in London’s “darkest England,” wielding the blade of the Assassin in a moral war against prostitutes. When we recognise that, the supposed gap between literature and life collapses. His verse is his confession; his “lusty knight” was not imagined, but embodied in Whitechapel’s streets.

Richard,

I do appreciate further explanations supporting supporting the work. And respect the work you put into it - obviously more than I have done. I'm easily persuaded as long as it makes reasonable sense and if facts don't contradict.

Filby.