The profusion of stories about the killer's identity have all contributed to a culture of mythology and ghoulish entertainment, ranging from the great Victorian painter Walter Sickert to a Polish immigrant and even Queen Victoria's grandson.¹⁾

There were other suspects, but only three remained under investigation. Aron Kosinski, a Polish immigrant, barrister Montague John Druitt, and Russian doctor Michael Ostrog were all maniacs who despised prostitutes. ²⁾

Many prostitutes were murdered in Whitechapel during the time of Jack the Ripper's notoriety. The London Metropolitan Police Service recorded eleven of these. Five of these eleven are thought to have had the same idiosyncrasies and were murdered by Jack the Ripper. These five were dubbed the Canonical Five, and their bodies were dismembered and their organs meticulously taken. ³⁾

The name “Jack the Ripper” was derived from a letter reportedly written by the assassin in 1888. The letter's validity, on the other hand, has been hotly contested. ⁴⁾

Another idea holds that Jack was not “Jack” at all, but a woman, as proposed by famous Inspector Frederick Abberline at the time of the killings. According to Donald McCormick, author of The Identity of Jack the Ripper, published in 1959, Abberline discussed the hypothesis with his instructor, Dr. Thomas Dutton, after Mary Kelly's death. Caroline Maxwell's testimony, who lived in the vicinity, was crucial to the case. ⁵⁾

Respectable London society saw the East End with either compassion or contempt. Despite being a neighborhood where talented immigrants, primarily Jews and Russians, flocked to create new lives and companies, the neighborhood was infamous for terrible poverty, violence, and crime. According to modern-day criminal investigations, this was the primary reason Jack the Ripper chose this particular location to perpetrate his heinous crimes. ⁶⁾