The Jack the Ripper Mystery is Finally Solved — Scientifically

[Mike J. G.]

Fair points I just don't see Chapman changing from what Jack did with mutilation etc to be a calculating poisoner. I think Bury a much stronger suspect than Chapman. For various reasons not least the fact he performed post mortem mutilation on his wife.

Yeah I don't really disagree too much, tbh. I doubt Chapman was the man. I think it was a lot easier before the boom in behavioural science research to accept that a poisoner could well be a mutilator as well, and I definitely don't think Abberline was naive in thinking it could have been Chapman, he was wrong for the right reasons, IMO, if that makes sense.

[John Wheat]

Yeah I don't really disagree too much, tbh. I doubt Chapman was the man. I think it was a lot easier before the boom in behavioural science research to accept that a poisoner could well be a mutilator as well, and I definitely don't think Abberline was naive in thinking it could have been Chapman, he was wrong for the right reasons, IMO, if that makes sense.

I'd agree with that Mike. I don't think Chapman was the Ripper but I wouldn't go as far as to say he definitely wasn't. I make no secret in my belief that Bury was the Ripper. However if it was proved he wasn't I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

[Paddy Goose]

I know the person who posted this on a Facebook group has written a book on Francis Thompson and I'm not sure if he frequents here...

Yes that person posted here before. And he started several threads. About his suspect.

This thread has become instead a gathering place on the top line of Casebook Forums for each poster to mention their favorite suspect. And I think we know who the "usual suspects" who do that sort of posting are.

It's like Pavlov's Dogs.

[Doctored Whatsit]

I am having major problems taking this thread seriously, sorry!

I realise that research into Thompson's life produces slightly different information, and slightly different dates according to the source, but this is the information I had, and why I totally rejected him as a potentially serious suspect -

As to the alleged medical expertise frequently quoted here, my version is that he enrolled at St Bartholomew's Hospital, but was there only a few months, attended a handful of lectures, and never progressed beyond the introductory phase, and left because of poor health and opium addiction.

He found one or two low paid clerical jobs, and wrote some of his early poetry, but his poor health and addiction resulted in him becoming a vagrant for about three years. His ability as a poet was recognised by Wilfred Meynell, who "rescued" him and chose to rehabilitate him. Thompson was said to be so weak after three years of vagrancy, ill health and his addiction, that it was thought that he might die, but a few weeks in hospital organised by Meynell saved him, although his poor health remained until he died aged only 48. With regard to him allegedly living right on the doorstep of the murders, Meynell found him a simple flat in St Giles-in-the-Wood, Oxfordshire, where he lived, close to Meynell himself. His health was said to be so poor that he needed regular medical attention which Meynell arranged. The Times reported him as still being at St Giles in early 1889.

Therefore, I don't think that he had any medical expertise, I don't believe he was in London during the Autumn of 1888, and I don't believe he was anywhere near fit enough to be JtR.

I don't doubt that someone will claim that there is a more reliable source that said that his medical training was very advanced, that his health was really good, and that he was living in the East End in the Autumn of 1888, but I don't believe it.

[Lewis C]

I am having major problems taking this thread seriously, sorry!

I realise that research into Thompson's life produces slightly different information, and slightly different dates according to the source, but this is the information I had, and why I totally rejected him as a potentially serious suspect -

As to the alleged medical expertise frequently quoted here, my version is that he enrolled at St Bartholomew's Hospital, but was there only a few months, attended a handful of lectures, and never progressed beyond the introductory phase, and left because of poor health and opium addiction.

He found one or two low paid clerical jobs, and wrote some of his early poetry, but his poor health and addiction resulted in him becoming a vagrant for about three years. His ability as a poet was recognised by Wilfred Meynell, who "rescued" him and chose to rehabilitate him. Thompson was said to be so weak after three years of vagrancy, ill health and his addiction, that it was thought that he might die, but a few weeks in hospital organised by Meynell saved him, although his poor health remained until he died aged only 48. With regard to him allegedly living right on the doorstep of the murders, Meynell found him a simple flat in St Giles-in-the-Wood, Oxfordshire, where he lived, close to Meynell himself. His health was said to be so poor that he needed regular medical attention which Meynell arranged. The Times reported him as still being at St Giles in early 1889.

Therefore, I don't think that he had any medical expertise, I don't believe he was in London during the Autumn of 1888, and I don't believe he was anywhere near fit enough to be JtR.

I don't doubt that someone will claim that there is a more reliable source that said that his medical training was very advanced, that his health was really good, and that he was living in the East End in the Autumn of 1888, but I don't believe it.

Hi DW,

Maybe the source that you're using is better than the wiki article on Thompson, but here's the part of that article that's most relevant here:

"Thompson studied medicine for nearly eight years at Owens College, now the University of Manchester. While excelling in essay writing, he took no interest in his medical studies; he had a passion for poetry and for watching cricket matches.^[2] He never practised as a doctor, and tried to enlist as a soldier but was rejected for his slightness of stature. Then in 1885 he fled, penniless, to London, where he tried to make a living as a writer, in the meantime taking odd jobs – working for a bootmaker (John McMaster of Panton Street) and booksellers, and selling matches.^[3] During this time, he became addicted to opium, which he had first taken as medicine for ill health, having experienced a nervous breakdown while still in Manchester. He lived on the streets of Charing Cross and slept by the River Thames, with the homeless and other addicts."

There's no mention of St Bartholomew's Hospital in the article. It says that he studied medicine for nearly 8 years though he wasn't interested in it. Earlier it had said that he studied medicine at the behest of his father. It's saying that he did live in London at the time of the murders, though not as close to where the murders occurred as Patterson is claiming. I do think that the question of whether he was physically strong enough to have committed the Whitechapel murders is a valid one.

[Doctored Whatsit]

Hi DW,

Maybe the source that you're using is better than the wiki article on Thompson, but here's the part of that article that's most relevant here:

"Thompson studied medicine for nearly eight years at Owens College, now the University of Manchester. While excelling in essay writing, he took no interest in his medical studies; he had a passion for poetry and for watching cricket matches.^[2] He never practised as a doctor, and tried to enlist as a soldier but was rejected for his slightness of stature. Then in 1885 he fled, penniless, to London, where he tried to make a living as a writer, in the meantime taking odd jobs – working for a bootmaker (John McMaster of Panton Street) and booksellers, and selling matches.^[3] During this time, he became addicted to opium, which he had first taken as medicine for ill health, having experienced a nervous breakdown while still in Manchester. He lived on the streets of Charing Cross and slept by the River Thames, with the homeless and other addicts."

There's no mention of St Bartholomew's Hospital in the article. It says that he studied medicine for nearly 8 years though he wasn't interested in it. Earlier it had said that he studied medicine at the behest of his father. It's saying that he did live in London at the time of the murders, though not as close to where the murders occurred as Patterson is claiming. I do think that the question of whether he was physically strong enough to have committed the Whitechapel murders is a valid one.

Yes, it is quite astonishing that every account of his life is different, either in facts or dates or both. The claim that Thompson was actually in Oxfordshire in 1888 and 1889, for instance seems to have been established by correspondence from Meynell, and an article in The Times, so I believe it. His spell as a vagrant is sometimes said to be 1882 or 1883 to 1885 or 1886, and sometimes as late as 1885 to 1888. The latest date that I have for him being taken in by Meynell is spring of 1888, but all dates I have seen remove him from the East End for that late summer and autumn.

Everything that I consider reliable puts him in very poor health by 1888, including the suggestion that this may have been when he was hospitalised. Also I am as sure as I can reasonably be that he was not in London in the autumn of 1888. His medical studies are a problem, because I have come across several different versions of what he did, but my information about Owens College is that Thompson was there to study classics and literature, and that he left after a few terms because of family financial pressures! Every account is different, so it is a real problem.

[Lewis C]

Yes, it is quite astonishing that every account of his life is different, either in facts or dates or both. The claim that Thompson was actually in Oxfordshire in 1888 and 1889, for instance seems to have been established by correspondence from Meynell, and an article in The Times, so I believe it. His spell as a vagrant is sometimes said to be 1882 or 1883 to 1885 or 1886, and sometimes as late as 1885 to 1888. The latest date that I have for him being taken in by Meynell is spring of 1888, but all dates I have seen remove him from the East End for that late summer and autumn.

Everything that I consider reliable puts him in very poor health by 1888, including the suggestion that this may have been when he was hospitalised. Also I am as sure as I can reasonably be that he was not in London in the autumn of 1888. His medical studies are a problem, because I have come across several different versions of what he did, but my information about Owens College is that Thompson was there to study classics and literature, and that he left after a few terms because of family financial pressures! Every account is different, so it is a real problem.

Good points, and checking the citations in the wiki article, the sources for footnotes 2 and 3 are from 1923 and 1912 respectively. Rather dated sources, and there's a good chance that more recent research has given us more accurate information.

[Doctored Whatsit]

His medical studies are a problem, because I have come across several different versions of what he did, but my information about Owens College is that Thompson was there to study classics and literature, and that he left after a few terms because of family financial pressures! Every account is different, so it is a real problem.

I should have explained that the family's financial pressures were caused by the death of Thompson's father when Francis was still in his teens, so Francis T had to abandon his studies and find work. I believe he was the eldest child. I don't see any way he could have stayed at Owens College for almost eight years in these circumstances.

[GBinOz]

I should have explained that the family's financial pressures were caused by the death of Thompson's father when Francis was still in his teens, so Francis T had to abandon his studies and find work. I believe he was the eldest child. I don't see any way he could have stayed at Owens College for almost eight years in these circumstances.

Hi Doc,

My impression is different. According to my research Charles Thompson died in 1896 when Francis was 37 years old. I have read that Charles complained of the expense of paying for his son's excessive (in his opinion) requirement for cadavers to dissect towards his six year study at Owens College. My understanding is that Francis enjoyed the dissections, but had no interest in the exams that would lead to a qualification. YMMV.

Cheers, George

[Doctored Whatsit]

Hi Doc,

My impression is different. According to my research Charles Thompson died in 1896 when Francis was 37 years old. I have read that Charles complained of the expense of paying for his son's excessive (in his opinion) requirement for cadavers to dissect towards his six year study at Owens College. My understanding is that Francis enjoyed the dissections, but had no interest in the exams that would lead to a qualification. YMMV.

Cheers, George

Thank you George, and apologies. It seems that my original sources for Thompson's early life were incorrect as they apparently wrongly identified his father. Charles was, it seems, a homeopathic doctor, and indeed Francis did spend several years at Owens College, an extended period because of poor health, I now read.

However, I still have him in poor health with an infection, perhaps the early stages of tuberculosis, addicted to opium (laudanum) whilst a vagrant, and being rescued by Meynell, when the latter was presented with his poetry no later than early 1888. Some sources say that Meynell settled Thompson into a charitable lodging house in St John's Wood, north London, before taking him to St Giles-in-the-Wood. Not all sources say the same thing!

There are numerous biographies, and unfortunately they all seem to be different! So, I happily concede that Thompson had a medical background, but I still have him in poor health, and apparently not in the East End in the autumn of 1888.

[andy1867]

Funnily enough I used AI to find the Ripper....It was Marc Bolan....apparently...It also told me Sheffield Wednesday would be in The Champions league this year...I'm really perplexed at The ripper bit tho...

[Richard Patterson]

Thanks for engaging with this. Let me put my cards on the table calmly and clearly.

1) Thompson wasn’t a “remote poet” — he was in the East End.

John Evangelist Walsh’s Strange Harp, Strange Symphony reproduces Thompson’s own description of queueing at Providence Row Night Refuge: “the nightly crowd of haggard men… the manager… picks out men for the vacant beds… the cold clang with which the gates of mercy shut…” That passage only reads like that if you were there. Providence Row (Crispin St) sits within a short walk of Miller’s Court. This places Thompson physically in the Whitechapel lodging-house world in 1888, not in some genteel remove.

2) The “Rupert Street suspect” → Thompson is the only documented 5-for-5 match.

Major Henry Smith (City Police, 1910) listed the Haymarket/Rupert St man they shadowed as: (i) ex-medical student, (ii) asylum history, (iii) consorted with prostitutes, (iv) passed polished farthings as sovereigns, (v) lived in the Haymarket district. Thompson uniquely hits all five: six years’ medical training at Owens College; breakdown and treatment at Storrington; a period supported by a prostitute who later fled him; the polished-farthings story recorded by his biographers; and residence in Panton Street (one block from Rupert Street) in 1885–86, with continuing postal ties into Charing Cross/Haymarket. If anyone can show another named suspect who cleanly matches all five, I’m all ears.

3) Medical method, not just “he knew anatomy.”

At Owens he wasn’t dabbling—he was trained in the Virchow autopsy technique (the organ-block method then in vogue), repeatedly dissecting cadavers to the point his father complained about the cost of bodies. Two details from the murders are consistent with someone steeped in that school: (a) rapid removal of Eddowes’s uterus while sparing the bladder in poor light (classic “keep your plane / guard the viscus” muscle memory), and (b) extraction of Kelly’s heart via the abdomen (Virchow’s teaching allowed for access routes that don’t start with a formal thoracic opening). No one is arguing a polished theatre operation in a yard; we’re talking habituated hand-skills under stress. That matters.

4) “But the weapon wasn’t a scalpel.”

Agreed. I’ve never claimed the murder knife was a scalpel. The point is comfort with blades and tissue. Thompson himself wrote he’d “shaved with a dissecting scalpel” when rough sleeping. The murders read like someone who was (a) unafraid of deep work in soft tissue, and (b) could locate, detach, and carry away target organs fast. That profile fits a lapsed medical man far better than a clerk, a sailor, or a barrister.

5) “He was too frail.”

He survived years of street living, night after night in doss-house queues, walking the city for hours, in opium withdrawal cycles. That’s hardiness of a different kind. More importantly, there’s no evidence these murders required overpowering healthy, resisting victims in daylight. They were ambushes in darkness with intoxicated, undernourished women who were used to withdrawing with men to secluded spots. “Frail poet” is a literary frame—not a criminological one.

6) “No violence in his history; it’s only poetry.”

This isn’t “he wrote a nasty line, therefore he’s a killer.” It’s a convergence: medical training + knives + geography + police-style biographical fit + the documented loathing of prostitutes in his private letters (“putrid ulceration of love…”) + fixation on sacrificial cutting. Add one more: the prostitute who supported him dumped him and vanished from his life shortly before the murders; in his writings the wound is obvious. Motive ≠ proof, but motive and means and opportunity begin to look like a pattern.

7) “He wasn’t in Whitechapel during the Autumn of Terror.”

The timeline often gets muddled by later convalescence. The sequence that best fits the primary material is: rough sleeping and refuges (incl. Providence Row) into autumn 1888; Meynell contact/aid; Storrington placement after the murders peak, aligning with the observed cessation after Kelly. If one wants to posit he was safely tucked away in Oxfordshire in September–November, the burden is to show solid, date-stamped records that move him out of the East End during those weeks. I’ve yet to see that hold up against his own Providence Row testimony and the Meynell correspondence cadence.

8) “Bayes? You’re over-claiming.”

I’m not asking anyone to swallow a black-box formula. The mathematics were used in the plainest sense: take five rare traits from Smith’s Rupert St brief (med student, asylum, prostitute-linked, polished farthings, Haymarket address) and estimate how many men in 1888 London would hit all five simultaneously. Then fold in independent biographical traits strongly associated with our offender (knife-work competence, East End dossing, nocturnal wandering, explicit anti-prostitute animus in private prose). You can make the assumptions conservative, down-weight dependencies, and the combined match still lands Thompson as a massive statistical outlier relative to any other named suspect. Call it Bayes, call it common sense compounding—the direction of travel is the same.

9) “Letters were hoaxes.”

Maybe some, maybe most. I don’t need any letter to make the case. But two things are still germane: the voice (gleeful sadism; “Ha! ha!” beats; medical innuendo) and the press-world interface. At the very moment the “Dear Boss” letter was sent, Thompson was submitting to Meynell and working around the press. He also loved adopting personae and archaic registers in prose and verse. I treat the letters as corroborative texture, not pillars.

10) Providence Row is the missing bridge.

Plenty of clever suspects have been floated with a pet angle: clever diary, clever shawl, clever map. Providence Row is not a gadget—it is location, routine, and access. Thompson’s own words place him in the queue, in the choosing, in the nightly drift of rejected men “off the dreary crowd.” That’s the Whitechapel ecology of 1888, and it’s where the victims lived and died.

To be crystal clear: if someone can present another suspect who (a) matches all five traits of Major Smith’s Rupert Street man, (b) can be put in the same East End lodging-house circuit during the murders with first-person detail, and (c) brings habituated organ-work skill, I’ll happily weigh them side-by-side. Until then, on means, motive, method, and map, Thompson is the best-evidenced fit we have.

(And for those querying sources on the above: start with Walsh’s Strange Harp, Strange Symphony for Providence Row; then the Meynell materials and Thompson’s letters for knife and attitude; then Owens College/Manchester training for Virchow-style practice; and Major Henry Smith’s 1910 memoir for the Rupert Street profile. The pieces are not exotic—they’re just finally being stacked together.)

[FISHY1118]

I'm not opposed to talking about means, it's just in that the post that you responded to, I was talking about motive. But yes, if you can give an explanation for why there's more reason to think that Thompson had a motive than to think that Bury had a motive, I'd be interested.

Not more reason just a reason .

There on the first page of this thread .

He had a documented history of psychotic violence toward women — including written hatred of prostitutes and dark fantasies of killing them.
→ He lived within 100 metres of the 1888 murder sites.
→ He was an active arsonist and fire-starter — linked to sadistic psychopathy.
→ He wrote essays at the time describing prostitutes as “putrid ulcers,” “blasphemies,” and called for them to be drowned in the Thames.
→ He delighted in reading and writing about the killing of women with blades — even his own play had this as its central scene.
→ His movements align perfectly with the timeline of the murders and when they ceased (he was removed from the area right after the final killing

[Herlock Sholmes]

. He had a documented history of psychotic violence toward women

He just didn’t.

. He was an active arsonist and fire-starter

He just wasn’t.

His movements align perfectly with the timeline of the murders

They just don’t.

[Richard Patterson]

With respect, flat denials like “he just didn’t / wasn’t / don’t” aren’t an argument. Thompson’s record speaks for itself:

1. Violence & Misogyny – Thompson’s unpublished works (Nightmare of the Witch Babies, Finis Coronat Opus) graphically describe cutting open women. He also wrote of prostitutes as “filth to be cleansed” — in his 1891 essay signed “Francis Tancred” he suggested they should be thrown into the Thames. That is a documented disdain for women, not an invention.
2. Fire-starting – Thompson’s pyromania is recorded from boyhood. John Walsh’s Strange Harp, Strange Symphony recounts his Corpus Christi fire incident at Ashton, where he nearly set the altar alight. Later, he scattered burning charcoal in the vestry, and even set fire to his lodgings, nearly killing his landlady. When confronted, he coldly replied: “A house on fire is no place for tarrying.”
   Now add this: on the night of 31 August 1888, when Mary Ann Nichols was murdered, the West India Docks blazed with two enormous fires — Spirit Quay and Shadwell. Thompson was staying at the Salvation Army Shelter just minutes away. Those fires pulled H Division police off Whitechapel streets and brought in raw recruits — precisely when the Ripper struck. That isn’t a coincidence; it’s tactical opportunity.
3. Timeline & Geography – Walsh confirms Thompson queued with “the nightly crowd of haggard men” at Providence Row Refuge in Whitechapel. He was there, living among the destitute, carrying his dissecting scalpel (his own January 1889 letter admits he shaved with it). The murders ceased only after Thompson entered hospital in late 1888.
4. Police Profile – Major Henry Smith (City Police Commissioner) described a prime suspect as an ex-medical student, asylum inmate, coin fraudster, and prostitute associate connected to Rupert Street. Francis Thompson is the only man who matches all four rare traits.

So we have: documented misogynistic violence in his writings, a lifelong pattern of arson culminating in the very night of the first canonical murder, confirmed presence in Whitechapel refuges, a scalpel in his possession, medical knowledge under the Virchow system, and alignment with Smith’s suspect profile.

That is evidence. To dismiss it with “he just didn’t” is to ignore the record. If there’s counter-evidence that clears Thompson, I’m open to it — but the facts as they stand place him squarely at the centre of the case.