The Jack the Ripper Mystery is Finally Solved — Scientifically

[GBinOz]

✅ Key unique matches between Thompson and the Ripper profile include:
→ He was medically trained (passed his medical exams, lived with a surgeon, knew dissection techniques).
bladder

I think this aspect has been understated. Thompson's father complained of being called on to fund what he considered to be excessive numbers of cadavers for his son to dissect. Muscle memory would have been a factor in the removal of Eddowes uterus in the dark WITHOUT damage to the bladder, and the removal of Kelly's heart from the pericardium via the abdomen - a little known technique taught by Virchow to, among others, Francis Thompson.

[Paddy Goose]

...Church of Charles Cross...

Diary obsession

and we should collectively weep for the state of ripperology.

Weep? Au contrare. I salute those who have made hundreds upon hundreds of posts here about Cross, even if against the suspect theory. You kept the subject alive to infinity and beyond. Think about it. You can't have a sporting event with only one team. As for the Diary, you Hurley are now firmly ensconced as one of a select cadre of Surviving Diarists for your great many constant, never ending, never once stopping posts (and still counting) on Diary threads. It takes hard work, stamina, and patience. Staying power!

Yes Richard posted here and I remember him well. A good natured lad from Down Under. And we had another Aussie too in days of yore, Jonathan Hainsworth of whom I have fond memories. They were good sports.

Again I salute you new current posters and your perseverance. And I agree with most of you to boot.

[Fiver]

✅ Key unique matches between Thompson and the Ripper profile include:
→ He was medically trained (passed his medical exams, lived with a surgeon, knew dissection techniques).
→ 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).
→ He was a known night-wanderer, dressing in disguises, carrying scalpels, and writing about his “prowling by night.”
→ His writings match both the tone and the sadistic psychological profile seen in the Ripper letters.

I see the source does not understand the meaning of the words "unique" or "matches".

* Plenty of suspects were medically trained, so this cannot be unique. Assuming that the Ripper had medical training is an a assumption, and was strongly disagreed with by many of the doctors who actually examined the victims.
* There is no documentation of Thompson being violent with anyone. The source appears to be outright lying about this.
* Thompson appears to have lived within 100 meters of 1 of the murder sites. This is true of many of the suspects and we have no evidence about how close Ripper lived to his victims. IIRC, we don't even know where, if anywhere, that Thompson was living for most of the murders, since he was frequently homeless.
* I've seen claims that Thompson was an arsonist. I've yet to see any evidence that he was.
* Thompson is hardly unique in saying negative things about prostitutes. The sources omits that Thompson also described a prostitute as his savior in his poetry. And the source is assuming the victims were killed because they were prostitutes, when they may have been killed because they were easier targets that the authorities were less likely to care about.
* The majority of people who write about violence towards women are not serial killers.
* We have no idea of his movements during the time of the murders. Thompson didn't leave London until 1889. He is far from the only suspect who died, was incarcerated, or left the area after the Kelly murder.
* Plenty of homeless would be considered night wanderers, including some of the victims. Being homeless is not proof of being a serial killer.
There is no evidence that the Ripper wore disguises and I doubt that a homeless addict like Thompson did.
The Ripper victims were not killed with a sclapel - this is a point against Thompson being the Ripper.
There is no evidence that the Ripper ever wrote about being homeless.
* There is no agreement on if any of the Ripper letters were authentic. Thompson far from the only person whose writing is claimed to match some of the Ripper letters.

[Herlock Sholmes]

There’s no evidence that he was in Whitechapel at the time of the murders. There’s no evidence that he was an artist and, again if I recall correctly, he had a problem with flowing blood which was why he never became a doctor.

[Herlock Sholmes]

He uses ‘carried scalpels’ as a point in favour of him as the killer. Why? We know that a scalpel wasn’t the murder weapon. After reading Paradox, which was Patterson’s book on Thompson I read Strange Harp, Strange Symphony by John Evangelist Walsh (on Gary Barnett’s recommendation) which is a biography of Thompson. If I recall correctly he carried a scalpel to shave with when he was sleeping rough.

[seanr]

The only thing I learnt from this is that the author does not understand Bayes' Theorem.

[Lewis C]

He starts out saying, "This is about truth, justice, and history." If one really cares about those things, he better not say unequivocally that a particular person was Jack the Ripper without being pretty darn sure.

A couple times, he compares Thompson to other suspects. If it has been proven that Thompson was JtR, then there's no need to compare him to anyone. Does anyone ever say that John Wilkes Booth is a better suspect in the Lincoln murder than x?

One of the things used in the probability analysis is the Ripper letters. But we don't know which letters if any were written by the Ripper.

It says that he lived within 100 meters of the murder sites. Did he really live that close to the Nichols site? Anyway, there are a lot of people who lived close enough to all of the murder sites.

A lot of weight is given to his writings, but creative writers do sometimes deal in the macabre.

He was medically trained, but it's debatable that JtR needed to have had medical training. Does the model assume that he did?

After listing several reasons to suspect Thompson, he says, "The chance that all this would match Thompson and NOT the killer is astronomically tiny." Since he has picked items that he says match Thompson, assuming that he's right about that, the chance that they match Thompson is 100%. And there's no basis for saying that all the items almost certainly match JtR. For example, JtR might not have had medical training.

Then there's this: "He had a documented history of psychotic violence toward women — including written hatred of prostitutes and dark fantasies of killing them." He seems to be confusing writing about violence toward women with actually engaging in violence toward women.

[Herlock Sholmes]

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 so I thought his post might be worthy of some debate here -

Friends — please read this carefully. This is about truth, justice, and history — and about a rare chance you now have to help make sure that truth is recognised and remembered, not buried or ignored.
For 136 years, the identity of Jack the Ripper remained one of the world’s most notorious unsolved crimes. The five women who were murdered were dehumanised, their memory clouded by endless false theories. The case became a carnival of myths, movies, books — everything but the real truth.
Now — that truth has finally emerged.
Francis Thompson is Jack the Ripper.
This is no longer a theory. It is now backed by the first scientific-level mathematical analysis of the case — hard, testable, repeatable, and overwhelming in its clarity.
Let me briefly explain:
✅ Using modern probabilistic analysis (Bayesian maths), the odds that Thompson is the killer, given the combined known facts, are over 100,000 times stronger than for any other suspect — including the ones long favoured by police figures like Macnaghten or Anderson.
✅ Key unique matches between Thompson and the Ripper profile include:
→ He was medically trained (passed his medical exams, lived with a surgeon, knew dissection techniques).
→ 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).
→ He was a known night-wanderer, dressing in disguises, carrying scalpels, and writing about his “prowling by night.”
→ His writings match both the tone and the sadistic psychological profile seen in the Ripper letters.
✅ When all of this was entered into formal probability calculations, the numbers simply don’t lie:
→ The chance that all this would match Thompson and NOT the killer is astronomically tiny — well below accepted thresholds for scientific proof in any field.
→ The chance that any other suspect better fits the known evidence is mathematically destroyed — including Macnaghten’s suspect (Druitt) and Anderson’s (Kosminski), whose identifications lack any serious match on modern forensic profiling.
✅ Importantly, this also matches new understandings of criminal psychology — Thompson fits the modern FBI serial killer profiles far better than any other proposed figure from that time.
In short:
→ The maths is solid.
→ The evidence is vast and consistent.
→ The logical conclusion is no longer in doubt: Francis Thompson was Jack the Ripper.
⸻
WHY THIS MATTERS TO SHARE NOW
This is a once-in-a-lifetime moment — when a massive, world-famous unsolved case is finally solved with real science.
And here’s what happens next — and how you can help:
✅ The sooner this discovery spreads, the faster the truth will replace the lies and false myths that surround this case.
✅ The five poor women — who were dehumanised for 136 years — can finally be honoured as human beings, with a truthful accounting of their killer.
✅ You personally will be remembered as one of those who stood for truth when it mattered most. Those who help share this early will be cited in future histories of the case — in forums, articles, books, and even documentaries.
✅ You will be seen by your friends, family, and future generations as someone who helped correct history — a person of open mind, integrity, and moral courage.
✅ And even beyond this case — in a time of misinformation and media noise — you will be helping show that truth and science still matter, that real evidence can win through.
⸻
BENEFITS TO HUMANITY
Don’t underestimate the larger cultural good this brings:
✅ Restoring the victims’ dignity.
✅ Ending the glamorisation of a sadistic killer.
✅ Stopping the endless recycling of false suspects.
✅ Showing that reason and evidence can still triumph — a lesson deeply needed in today’s world.
✅ Helping new generations learn the real history, not cheap myth.
✅ Creating closure for descendants, and a just remembrance for those whose voices were silenced.
✅ And yes — in its own way, contributing to healing, peace, and awareness — by replacing long-standing falsehood with hard-won truth.
Sharing this discovery early will accelerate the timeline by bringing Thompson’s case into the heart of criminology, forensic psychology, and police education — forcing a rethink of outdated serial killer profiles. It shows how respected literary figures, educated men, and even public moralists can harbour hidden violent pathology — something that police forces still underestimate today. The faster this spreads, the sooner criminal profilers will integrate these lessons, leading to more accurate identification of active serial killers, faster interventions, and ultimately more lives saved. Every month this remains obscure delays future breakthroughs in catching similar offenders.
Every time this discovery is shared, you help prevent millions of young students — many still children — from being unknowingly exposed to, and influenced by, the work of the man we can now prove was Jack the Ripper: Francis Thompson. Today, right now, Thompson’s poetry is still taught in English curriculums in schools and universities across the world. It is included in major anthologies, often alongside Wordsworth and Keats. His writings sit on the shelves of tens of thousands of local libraries, especially in children’s sections where his gentler religious poems and so-called inspirational verses are placed.
In fact, data from global educational databases show that Thompson’s poems appear in at least 5 million English-language school textbooks currently in circulation worldwide — across the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, Ireland, South Africa, India, and many Asian countries where British literature is taught. Over 70,000 schools worldwide have at least one anthology or reading collection that contains his work. In the UK alone, an estimated 850,000 students per year encounter his poetry in school. The figure in the US is close to 1.2 million.
Teachers and students are reading these lines — completely unaware that they were written by a man who ambushed, mutilated, disembowelled, and left at least five innocent women dying on filthy London streets — and who then went on to dine with the aristocracy, earning fame and income writing poems and stories directly based on his murders. One of his most chilling admissions — that “He who grasps the child grasps the future” — is quoted in children’s literature and textbooks to this day.
If this remains hidden, countless students will continue to unknowingly absorb the work of a killer who expressed extreme hatred for women, called prostitutes a “putrid ulceration,” and advocated for drowning the poor and “fallen” women in the Thames. This is not just academic — it’s a moral issue. We have a duty to stop children being influenced by the words of Jack the Ripper.
By sharing this now, you help ensure that education systems around the world can begin the process of reviewing what is being taught — to remove the poison of this man’s work from the minds of young people. The sooner this is public, the faster educational bodies will act — but that cannot happen unless the discovery spreads widely enough first.
This is your chance to help fix that — for the sake of truth, for justice for the women, and to protect the next generations from the corrupt legacy of one of history’s most evil men.
⸻
IN SHORT — this is the moment.
The sooner this spreads, the greater the good it does — for truth, for justice, for history, for the memory of the five women, and for our collective cultural health.
Those who share and support this now will be seen as the vanguard of that change. Their names will be remembered — not as people who doubted or delayed, but who helped truth win.
Please — take this moment. Share. Speak. Help carry this breakthrough forward.
Beauty is truth, truth beauty — and the world needs more of both.

I’m assuming that this is Richard Patterson, Geddy. He has posted on here in the past. This sounds like a cynical and unpleasant advertising ploy. How desperate are some people to be ‘the one’? First we get The Church of Charles Cross TV Mission then we got the Shawl DNA Debacle Show and now a lower than whaleshit attempt to make people feel guilty for not denouncing a troubled poet as a serial killer. It’s like a twisted, dishonest attempt a cancelling someone. Stomach-churning crap. Combine this with Diary obsession and we should collectively weep for the state of ripperology.

[Lombro2]

Pro

-Lancashire lad
-artistic
-liked poetry
-obviously homicidal

PS Got any profile shots of his head?

[Geddy2112]

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 so I thought his post might be worthy of some debate here -

Friends — please read this carefully. This is about truth, justice, and history — and about a rare chance you now have to help make sure that truth is recognised and remembered, not buried or ignored.
For 136 years, the identity of Jack the Ripper remained one of the world’s most notorious unsolved crimes. The five women who were murdered were dehumanised, their memory clouded by endless false theories. The case became a carnival of myths, movies, books — everything but the real truth.
Now — that truth has finally emerged.
Francis Thompson is Jack the Ripper.
This is no longer a theory. It is now backed by the first scientific-level mathematical analysis of the case — hard, testable, repeatable, and overwhelming in its clarity.
Let me briefly explain:
✅ Using modern probabilistic analysis (Bayesian maths), the odds that Thompson is the killer, given the combined known facts, are over 100,000 times stronger than for any other suspect — including the ones long favoured by police figures like Macnaghten or Anderson.
✅ Key unique matches between Thompson and the Ripper profile include:
→ He was medically trained (passed his medical exams, lived with a surgeon, knew dissection techniques).
→ 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).
→ He was a known night-wanderer, dressing in disguises, carrying scalpels, and writing about his “prowling by night.”
→ His writings match both the tone and the sadistic psychological profile seen in the Ripper letters.
✅ When all of this was entered into formal probability calculations, the numbers simply don’t lie:
→ The chance that all this would match Thompson and NOT the killer is astronomically tiny — well below accepted thresholds for scientific proof in any field.
→ The chance that any other suspect better fits the known evidence is mathematically destroyed — including Macnaghten’s suspect (Druitt) and Anderson’s (Kosminski), whose identifications lack any serious match on modern forensic profiling.
✅ Importantly, this also matches new understandings of criminal psychology — Thompson fits the modern FBI serial killer profiles far better than any other proposed figure from that time.
In short:
→ The maths is solid.
→ The evidence is vast and consistent.
→ The logical conclusion is no longer in doubt: Francis Thompson was Jack the Ripper.
⸻
WHY THIS MATTERS TO SHARE NOW
This is a once-in-a-lifetime moment — when a massive, world-famous unsolved case is finally solved with real science.
And here’s what happens next — and how you can help:
✅ The sooner this discovery spreads, the faster the truth will replace the lies and false myths that surround this case.
✅ The five poor women — who were dehumanised for 136 years — can finally be honoured as human beings, with a truthful accounting of their killer.
✅ You personally will be remembered as one of those who stood for truth when it mattered most. Those who help share this early will be cited in future histories of the case — in forums, articles, books, and even documentaries.
✅ You will be seen by your friends, family, and future generations as someone who helped correct history — a person of open mind, integrity, and moral courage.
✅ And even beyond this case — in a time of misinformation and media noise — you will be helping show that truth and science still matter, that real evidence can win through.
⸻
BENEFITS TO HUMANITY
Don’t underestimate the larger cultural good this brings:
✅ Restoring the victims’ dignity.
✅ Ending the glamorisation of a sadistic killer.
✅ Stopping the endless recycling of false suspects.
✅ Showing that reason and evidence can still triumph — a lesson deeply needed in today’s world.
✅ Helping new generations learn the real history, not cheap myth.
✅ Creating closure for descendants, and a just remembrance for those whose voices were silenced.
✅ And yes — in its own way, contributing to healing, peace, and awareness — by replacing long-standing falsehood with hard-won truth.
Sharing this discovery early will accelerate the timeline by bringing Thompson’s case into the heart of criminology, forensic psychology, and police education — forcing a rethink of outdated serial killer profiles. It shows how respected literary figures, educated men, and even public moralists can harbour hidden violent pathology — something that police forces still underestimate today. The faster this spreads, the sooner criminal profilers will integrate these lessons, leading to more accurate identification of active serial killers, faster interventions, and ultimately more lives saved. Every month this remains obscure delays future breakthroughs in catching similar offenders.
Every time this discovery is shared, you help prevent millions of young students — many still children — from being unknowingly exposed to, and influenced by, the work of the man we can now prove was Jack the Ripper: Francis Thompson. Today, right now, Thompson’s poetry is still taught in English curriculums in schools and universities across the world. It is included in major anthologies, often alongside Wordsworth and Keats. His writings sit on the shelves of tens of thousands of local libraries, especially in children’s sections where his gentler religious poems and so-called inspirational verses are placed.
In fact, data from global educational databases show that Thompson’s poems appear in at least 5 million English-language school textbooks currently in circulation worldwide — across the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, Ireland, South Africa, India, and many Asian countries where British literature is taught. Over 70,000 schools worldwide have at least one anthology or reading collection that contains his work. In the UK alone, an estimated 850,000 students per year encounter his poetry in school. The figure in the US is close to 1.2 million.
Teachers and students are reading these lines — completely unaware that they were written by a man who ambushed, mutilated, disembowelled, and left at least five innocent women dying on filthy London streets — and who then went on to dine with the aristocracy, earning fame and income writing poems and stories directly based on his murders. One of his most chilling admissions — that “He who grasps the child grasps the future” — is quoted in children’s literature and textbooks to this day.
If this remains hidden, countless students will continue to unknowingly absorb the work of a killer who expressed extreme hatred for women, called prostitutes a “putrid ulceration,” and advocated for drowning the poor and “fallen” women in the Thames. This is not just academic — it’s a moral issue. We have a duty to stop children being influenced by the words of Jack the Ripper.
By sharing this now, you help ensure that education systems around the world can begin the process of reviewing what is being taught — to remove the poison of this man’s work from the minds of young people. The sooner this is public, the faster educational bodies will act — but that cannot happen unless the discovery spreads widely enough first.
This is your chance to help fix that — for the sake of truth, for justice for the women, and to protect the next generations from the corrupt legacy of one of history’s most evil men.
⸻
IN SHORT — this is the moment.
The sooner this spreads, the greater the good it does — for truth, for justice, for history, for the memory of the five women, and for our collective cultural health.
Those who share and support this now will be seen as the vanguard of that change. Their names will be remembered — not as people who doubted or delayed, but who helped truth win.
Please — take this moment. Share. Speak. Help carry this breakthrough forward.
Beauty is truth, truth beauty — and the world needs more of both.