Was Jack the Ripper a woman?
A knife allegedly used by serial killer Jack the Ripper is displayed at a press preview of the ‘Jack the Ripper and the East End’ exhibition at Museum in Docklands, in London, on May 14, 2008. The latest theory, proposed by author John Morris, suggests that Jack the Ripper was in fact a woman, Lizzie Williams.
One of England's most notorious serial killers, Jack the Ripper, has spawned countless theories as to his real identity.
In the latest book about the unsolved killing spree, which took place in Victorian England, author John Morris has suggested that Lizzie Williams, a woman, was in fact the killer, according to the Birmingham Mail.
Williams was the wife of Sir John Williams, the royal physician himself suspected of being the killer by many criminologists.
In his new book, "Jack The Ripper: The Hand Of A Woman," Morris claims that Williams killed the five prostitutes in White Chapel because she was enraged over being infertile, said LiveScience.
Morris pointed to evidence such as the fact that none of the prostitute victims were sexually assaulted, and the evidence that three of them had their wombs removed, a clue that could point to Williams' bitterness over being barren, according to The New York Daily News.
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Morris also said the personal items of one of the victims were arranged at her feet "in a feminine manner," according to LiveScience. He also wrote of physical evidence found near the bodies which included the remnants of women's clothing which did not belong to the victims, and three buttons like those from a woman's shoe lying in the blood of one of the victims.
The theory has been received with some skepticism from Ripper experts, and Morris told the Birmingham Mail, "The case for a woman murderer is overwhelming. But unfortunately it does not sit well in some quarters where such a theory flies in the face of long-held beliefs."
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"There’s absolutely no doubt that the Ripper was a woman. But because everyone believes that the murderer was a man, all the evidence that points to a woman has always been ignored."
Morris also turned up one more motive for Williams to kill one of the prostitutes, Mary Jane Kelly, suggesting that she was having an affair with Sir John Williams, according to The New York Daily News.
So was Jack the Ripper in fact Jackie the Ripper?
Perhaps only the Ripper knows.