The TARDIS is drawn to London1888, where the Doctor and Ace
discover a dark secret from
Gallifrey's past, and the name
of their unseen opponent.
It is Jack the Ripper.
This revised series of posts examines
how the Ripper canon has been
depicted in Doctor Who media since
that initial mention of 'Jolly Jack' in
The Talons of Weng-Chiang in 1977,
with particular emphasis on the BBC
Books' novel, Matrix, then the comic
book, Ripper's Curse.
Written by Robert Perry and Mike
Tucker, Matrix (published in 1998)
featured the return of the Valeyard,
and offered yet another contribu-
tion, albeit fictional, to the pseudo-
science that is Ripperology.
Firstly, some context. Interest in the Whitechapel Murders was renewed with the
release of the film From Hell (2001), and the case was re-assessed by the Discovery
Channel’s interactive Trial of Jack the Ripper (2002), were James Maybrick –
revealed as a suspect in 1992 – was found guilty by the audience/jury.
Many theories and suspects have since been advanced in dozens of books.
Bestselling crime writer Patricia Cornwell (see Portrait of a Killer and BBC1′s
Omnibus: Stalking the Ripper, both 2002), named noted Victorian artist
Walter Sickert (first postulated by Stephen Knight in 1976, then Jean Overton
Fuller in 1990) as the Ripper, after spending millions of dollars on research.
She restated her case in Chasing the Ripper (2014) and Ripper: The Secret
Life of Walter Sickert (2017).
Two more suspects were revealed in 2005 - The 21st Century Investigation (by
Trevor Marriott) provided seaman Carl Feigenbaum, whilst Uncle Jack (Tony
Williams and Humphrey Price) cited surgeon Sir John Williams. Three years
later, Marriott presented further findings that the Ripper had claimed two
more victims in Central London, as early as 1863. The year also saw the release
of Euan Macpherson's The Trial of Jack the Ripper, an expansion on his 1986
rediscovery of contemporaneous suspect, William Henry Bury, executed in
Dundee in 1889.
The Crimes of Jack the Ripper, by Paul Roland (updated in 2017), expanded
on Mark King's article in the Ripperologist (1999), and backed his belief that
Jacob Levy (1856-91), a Jewish butcher, was Jack - the same candidate
proposed in the video game, Sherlock Holmes Versus Jack the Ripper (2009).
American profiler Pat Brown also favoured Levy.
In 2010, co-authors David Monaghan and Nigel Cawthorne reasoned in Secret
Confession that a Victorian pornographer, known only as Walter, was the Ripper.
A year later, Ripperologist Robert House supported a coetaneous suspect, Aaron
Kosminski in The Case for Scotland Yard’s Prime Suspect, whilst Tom Slemen
speculated that Jack was in fact a spy, in British Intelligence Agent.
In 2013, twenty-one years after the notorious Ripper ‘diary’ surfaced in
Liverpool, the killer’s latest ‘memoirs’ (The Autobiography by James
Carnac), also purported to provide his true identity. Uruguayan math-
ematician, Eduardo Cuitino also identified Dr. Stephen Appleford (1852-
1940) as his suspect.
The 'Jill the Ripper' theory - favoured by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and first
suggested by Inspector Abberline himself - is expanded again in yet another
book, The Hands of a Woman from John Morris (2013). Here, the latest
candidate, Lizzie Williams, is actually the wife of another suspect (see Uncle
Jack above).
By 2014, Russell Edwards sought to utilise the latest (but ultimately flawed)
DNA techniques to link (fourth canonical victim) Catherine Eddowes' supposed
shawl with Kosminski (see Naming Jack the Ripper).
Channel 5 documentary The Missing Evidence (18/11/2014) explored Christier
Holmgren's choice of suspect (and my personal candidate), Charles Allen
Lechmere, also known as Charles Cross (a witness in the Mary Ann Nichols
murder).
That year, it was also reported that profiling research from Dr. Kim Rossmo
and Steve Le Comber resulted in a proposed base for the Whitechapel
Murderer, namely Flower and Dean Street, a location integral to the case.
2015 saw the publication of Bruce Robinson's controversial tome, They All
Love Jack: Busting the Ripper. James Maybrick's brother Michael was now
advanced as the Ripper, and Freemasonry had again protected the killer.
Later that year, Randy Williams presented not one killer, but a team of three
politically motivated assassins - Louis Deimschutz, Isaac Kozebrodski and
Samuel Friedman.
The story of a new Stateside investigation began on the History channel in
July 2017 - American Ripper detailed Jeff Mudgett's quest to prove that his
descendant and renowned serial killer H H Holmes (1861-1896), was also
active in Whitechapel.
Then a new volume, The Inevitable Jack the Ripper, by Paul Christian
reinforced Cornwell's controversial thesis, that Sickert was the serial killer.
The first series of ITV1′s excellent Whitechapel (2009) even dramatised the
murders of a modern-day Ripper copycat. The aftermath of the Autumn of
Terror was also explored in the BBC drama, Ripper Street, and in the Murder
Squad series of novels from Alex Grecian (both 2012-16). The Scandi crime
novel Keeper linked the Ripper killings with a (fictional) series of murders
in 2015, wherein the author, Johana Gustawsson named John McCarthy
(Mary Kelly's landlord) as Jack. Lesley McEvoy's thriller, The Murder Mile,
followed a series of copycat killings in Yorkshire, committed by a descendant
of Kosminski.
Recent TV documentaries on the subject include Killer Revealed (for
Discovery, 11/10/2009), Tabloid Killer (24/6/2010), The Definitive Story
(11 & 20/1/2011) – both for Channel Five – Marriott's The German Suspect
on National Geographic (April 2012), and Prime Suspect (Discovery, 2013).
BBC Studios marked the 130th anniversary of the Whitechapel Murders
with a new documentary, presented by Professor David Wilson and Silent
Witness actress Emilia Fox. In The Case Reopened (4/4/2019), the national
police computer HOLMES (Home Office Large Major Enquiry System) was
utilised for the first time to evaluate the coldest of cases, and concluded that
Martha Tabram was the first canonical Ripper victim.
Matrix establishes that the infamous murders of 1888 resulted in a bloody
revolution (as was feared by the establishment at the time) that caused an
alternate timeline, where, by 1966, London is under US-controlled quarantine.
The city is beseiged by the walking dead and street-gangs who worship Jack.
Here the Doctor and Ace encounter a local couple. Ian and Barbara, who
never met Susan Foreman at Coal Hill School. They and the visiting American
President, John F Kennedy, are killed by zombies, and the Doctor determines
to put recorded history back on track.
TO BE CONTINUED
* See also:
- The Final Solution (1980)
- Timewatch: Shadow of the Ripper (BBC2, 7/9/1988)
- Crime Monthly (LWT, 1990)
- To Kill and Kill Again (ITV, 2002)
- Vic Reeves Investigates (Sky, 2007)
- Jack the Ripper in America (Discovery, US TX: 16/11/2009, UK TX: 14/3/2010)
- Mystery Files (National Geographic, 2010)
- A Very British Murder: Detection Most Ingenious (BBC4, 30/9/2013)
- Murder Casebook [aka Murders That Shocked the Nation] (C&I Network, 5/11/2013)
- Murder Maps: In the Shadow of Jack (Netflix, 1/12/2015) and Jack the Ripper (Yesterday, 12 & 19/1/20)
- American Ripper in London (History, 2017)
- The Royals and the Ripper (Sky, 2017)
- The Yorkshire Ripper Files: A Very British Crime Story (BBC4, 26-28/3/ 2019)
- Murder, Mystery & My Family: Maybrick (BBC1, 27/7 & BBC2 28/7/2020)
- Jack the Ripper: 5 Victims (5, 12/7/2022)
- Who Was Jack the Ripper? (Netflix, 2023)
- Lucy Worsley Investigates (BBC2, 3/1/2025)
- Written in Blood: Ghastly Murder, Leather Apron and From Hell (Sky History, 8 to 22/4/2025)
