In the Australian 20th April a brief article was published on a new Ripper suspect.  Tony Williams is a writer and has claimed that his ancestor John Williams was the murderer.

Sir John Williams was a Welsh doctor and a personal friend of Queen Victoria.  The writer unearthed evidence linking Sir John to the murders while carrying out research on the doctor.  He discovered that he had treated all five victims and performed an abortion on Polly Nichols, based on old medical notes and diaries.

The motive was for medical research because his wife was unable to have children.

Well...

Jack the Ripper had medical expertise so that's a plus for this accusation.  The theory that the Ripper removed the wombs from some of the victims for medical research has been a long established theory.  However, if Sir John knew each victim then he would have planned to meet them at certain places or could easily lure them.  In real life that happened; however, on the night of the double murder Kate Eddowes spent several hours in the police station sobering up.  On her release she was murdered.  No way could Williams have orchestrated the murder of Liz Stride and Eddowes in that manner if he told Eddowes to meet him at Mitre Square.

Plus the Whitechapel murders were sex crimes.  According to Tony Williams the motive was research - doesn't happen.

I can't make any more comments until i read his book.  But the National Library of Wales has dismissed the research.

Mandy & Stargazer, this next one's for you.

I read Patricia Cornwall's theory on Jack the Ripper (actually i finished a month ago) in her believing the artist Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper.  She made some good points, and i place Sickert fairly high on my list.  I think his deformity gives him a good motive and he certainly was a late night wanderer.  But i'm not convinced.

Cornwall made a lot of conjectures.  She was vague on what happened to Sickert after Mary Kelly.  In my opinion you cannot point the finger at the Ripper without knowing exactly what happened to that person after Kelly.  He probably went to France.  Cornwall believed that other murders happening two years later were attributed to Sickert, but those murders, according to the head police doctor Phillips, were not from Jack the Ripper.

An important witness in the Liz Stride murder said the Ripper called out the word, 'Lipsky', hinting that the Ripper was a Jew.  Sickert was not.  But given that Sickert was an actor and ripperologist Phillip Sugden believes it was a diversion, then my argument may not be strong on this one.

She's placed a huge amount of emphasis on the paintings and the letters.  The letters were hoaxes and even if Sickert did write the letters, nothing more can be proven.  She believed his paintings were full of malevolence and contempt for the lower class woman - emphasising that the paintings mimiced his fantasies.  This, again, does not mean anything.  I mean, jeez, some of my early poems from adolescence still shock me today but none of it is real.  Everyone has unacceptable fantasies, and so did Sickert.  Following them through is another issue.

Plus there's the issue of anatomical knowledge.  Jack the Ripper could even have been a surgeon but Cornwall has completely refuted what Dr Phillips has confirmed.

Jack the Ripper worked during the week because the murders occurred on weekends.  Sickert was an artist who could kill any night.  Why weekends?  Cornwall ignored this entirely.

Finally, based on the psychological profile developed by Special Agent John E. Douglas of the FBI in 1988, Walter Sickert doesn't fit the profile of a serial killer.  The only way serial killers can stop their atrocities is if they are jailed or committ suicide.  Sickert couldn't just stop.  He lived till old age.  There is only one characteristic that Sickert fits in the profile - that is, Jack the Ripper would have worked in a solitary job where he could live in his fantasies.      

So there you have it.  There is a strong case for Walter Sickert but i think that Druitt and Chapman have a stronger one.

Cheers