The face of Jack The Ripper?

[faceless]

Jack the Ripper's face 'revealed'

Using new profiling techniques, investigators have created a picture of what they believe the 19th Century murderer would have looked like. The man, who evaded police in the 1880s, is thought to have killed and mutilated five London prostitutes. The Scotland Yard team describe him as "frighteningly normal" but someone capable of "extraordinary cruelty". And investigators have admitted that police at the time were probably searching for the wrong kind of man.

Head of analysis for Scotland Yard's Violent Crime Command Laura Richards, who has studied serial killer Fred West and Soham murderer Ian Huntley, revisited the case using modern police techniques. She brought together a team of experts, including pathologists, historians and a geographical profiler, to find out if the case could ever be solved. The result has been the most accurate physical, geographical and psychological portrait of the Ripper ever put together.

It will be revealed in a documentary on Five on Tuesday.

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I can't see how they came up with that face at all - but it might be worth watching anyway.

[IRiSHMaFIA]

I was always under the impression they weren't exactly sure who it was, so that's a bit puzzling. I bet it's going to be an excellent show though and for sure worth watching. Maybe they'll clear up how they came to the conclusion of what he looked like.

[Skylace]

I can't see how they would have come up with the face either. I would like to see it however. Jack the Ripper has always been very interesting to me.

[Twirley]

[faceless]

[faceless]

Luckily it's on at 8pm, so I can do both shows...

[eefanincan]

Sounds interesting... would love to catch the show.

[IRiSHMaFIA]

I'm just after watching that show and it was fascinating. It's unreal how they were able to get ahold of all the information from that far back and actually make some sense of it all.

Really glad you posted that faceless. Thanks

[faceless]

Jack the Ripper's identity finally uncovered?
An historian has claimed to have discovered the real identity of Jack the Ripper, and believes the notorious Whitechapel murderer was also responsible for killing two more women.
05 Oct 2009

Mei Trow used modern police forensic techniques, including psychological and geographical profiling, to identify Robert Mann, a morgue attendant, as the killer. His theory, the result of two years intensive research, is explored in a Discovery Channel documentary, Jack the Ripper: Killer Revealed.

Trow's research is rooted in information from a 1988 FBI examination of the Ripper case, which had worked up a comprehensive criminal personality profile. The portrait drawn up of Jack was as a white male from the lower social classes, most likely the product of a broken home. It was also thought he would have had a menial job but with some anatomical knowledge, something like a butcher, mortuary or medical examiner's assistant or hospital attendant. Because of prolonged periods without human interaction, Jack would also have been socially inept. It is known that Mann was from an extremely deprived background. His father was absent for much of his upbringing and he had spent some time as a child in a workhouse.

Trow said: "I wanted to go beyond the myth of a caped man with a top hat and knife, and get to the reality, and the reality is simply that Jack was an ordinary man." Trow makes another startling conjecture, that the Ripper killed another two women. He believes Martha Tabram, found with 39 stab wounds to her body in Gunthorpe Street, was the first of Jack's victims, and Alice Mackenzie, brutally murdered eight months after the confirmed five killings, was his last. The two women, along with Polly Nichols and Annie Chapman, would have been delivered to the Whitechapel mortuary in which Robert Mann worked.

After the killing of Polly Nichols, Jack's first recognised victim, Mann unlocked the mortuary for the police so they could examine the body and as such, was called as a witness in her inquest to help establish the cause of death. Most damningly, he undressed Polly's body with his assistant, despite being under strict instructions from Inspector Spratling to not touch the body, and Trow suspects that this was an opportunity to admire his handiwork. The Coroner, in his summation of Robert Mann's testimony, concluded that, "It appears the mortuary-keeper is subject to fits, and neither his memory nor statements are reliable."

Professor Laurence Alison, Forensic Psychologist at Liverpool University, who features in the documentary, said: "In terms of psychological profiling, Robert Mann is the one of the most credible suspects from recent years and the closest we may ever get to a plausible psychological explanation for these most infamous of Victorian murders."

Trow's is the latest in a long line of theories about who Jack the Ripper was. More than 100 suspects have been proposed over the years, including a member of the royal family, a doctor and even the artist Walter Sickert.

JACK THE RIPPER: KILLER REVEALED will be aired on the Discovery Channel on Sunday October 11 at 9pm. The accompanying book, Jack the Ripper: Quest for a Killer, is published by Pen & Sword.

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This story must have made so many authors so much money over the years!

[SpursFan1902]

It is such a fascinating topic. People just love a mystery and this one has had no answer for so long...Is that original show still out there, Face and will you be capping the current one?

[faceless]

It doesn't look like I've got the original one still, but I'll try and get this done on Thursday.

[SquareEyes]

Well, according to an audiobook I heard, Patricia Cornwell thinks she's definitive proof that Jack the Ripper was:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Sickert

And his paintings do bear a resemblance to several of the murder scenes:

http://images.google.com/images?client=opera&rls=en&q=Walter+Sickert&sourceid=opera&oe=utf-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=DEnKStvLLo6TsAa_wInkDg&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=5

Chillingly, he died in 1942 - that doesn't seem too far away, does it, when we're thinking of "Jack the Ripper"!

Cornwell's book does sound very convincing. Nice read/listen. I usually hate Cornwell's fiction, but this fact(ion) is very interesting. If we'll ever know for sure it's true or not is another matter...

Especially when you read stiff like this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2001/dec/08/art.artsfeatures