Original subtitles

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- Tonight, a spree of gruesome murders

that shocks Victorian England and the world,

a homicidal maniac whose true name remains a mystery.

- The police comb through suspect after suspect,

but there's either no evidence to support

that they were there or they have alibis.

So they're left grasping at straws.

- Now we uncover the top theories

about one of history's most notorious serial killers.

- A few contemporaries believe that Jack the Ripper

might well have been a woman.

- I hope to prove my grandfather's grandfather

was also Jack the Ripper.

- Can his or her identity ever be proven?

Who is Jack the Ripper?

♪ ♪

London, England, August 31st, 1888.

It's early morning

in the impoverished East End neighborhood.

- The East End of late Victorian London

was a sprawling metropolis within the city

of London itself.

There were respectable artisans,

and small traders, and shopkeepers,

but for the most part, it was the home to the poor,

the abject poor, and sometimes the homeless poor.

Fishburne: Delivery driver Charles Cross,

walks through the city's dark streets.

- Charles Cross is walking along Box Row

on his way to work at 3:40 a.m.,

and he spots what he perceives is an unclaimed

or discarded tarpaulin, which is quite a find.

Fishburne: But what he finds isn't a tarp.

It's a female body.

- And at first, he thinks that this woman

is either drunk or asleep.

In fact, she's dead.

Her throat has been slit, and she's been mutilated.

Fishburne: Area residents identify the victim

as Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols.

- Polly Nichols began life as the daughter

of a respectable skilled artisan and his laundress wife.

She married young. She had children.

But alcohol and marital discord led her

to leave the conjugal home

and to live a life on the streets

as a sex worker.

- These women were living

very much a day to day existence,

not necessarily knowing where they were going

to sleep that night.

This put them at a very extreme risk to be taken advantage of

because they did not have a steady living.

Fishburne: At the time, most crimes against sex workers

in London received very little attention.

But the brutal nature of this attack

forces police to take notice.

- This was an attack that was beyond brutal

and almost unprecedented.

Murder was not uncommon in the East End,

but a murder like this was definitely something

that drew attention to both police and citizenry.

- After the Nichols murder, Commissioner Warren

assigned first-class inspector Frederick Abberline

in charge of the Whitechapel murders case.

Fishburne: Abberline interviews the local woman,

looking for suspects.

Everyone he speaks to recalls the same elusive figure.

He's even been given a nickname.

- A common thread amongst all the working women

was there was a man that was extorting them for their money.

His nickname was Leather Apron.

The reason they called him Leather Apron

is because that's what he always wore.

And the working women were convinced

that he killed Polly Nichols.

♪ ♪

Fishburne: Soon, the mysterious Leather Apron

is making headlines.

- The press latches onto this story almost immediately

and starts running with it.

- Some of the key sensational newspapers,

like "The Star," or "The Pall Mall Gazette,"

devoted particular attention

to the lurid details of the crime.

All of these created a media spectacle, a frenzy.

Fishburne: The publicity quickly generates

a possible sighting.

- Two days after the murder of Polly Nichols,

a woman sees an individual

who she thinks is Leather Apron

and yells out to a police officer,

"There he goes!"

- The police officer decided to chase him down.

He apprehended him.

The man denies that he's Leather Apron.

The woman still claims that he is.

Ultimately, the police officer lets him go.

Fishburne: Nearly a week passes

as the police try to track down Leather Apron.

Before they can, the killer strikes again.

- At about 6:00 a.m., an elderly man

walking along Hanbury Street near where he lived

saw this body, again, in the shadows of the building.

Later on, after the police were called,

this second victim was identified as Annie Chapman.

- Annie Chapman's wounds were very similar

to Polly Nichols', but much more severe.

The throat was cut deep to the spine again.

The intestines were thrown over the shoulder,

and the uterus was missing.

- Nearby, not far from Annie's body,

was a wet leather apron, which may have been washed

or the killer may have used to wash their hands

and them wiped them on the apron.

Could this be proof that the same killer has struck again?

Fishburne: The press thinks yes.

After the second victim is found,

the public sentiment in the East End turns ugly.

- At this point, the public is becoming more and more frantic.

"Will there be another murder?" "When will it occur?"

"Why can't the police identify the murderer?"

The lack of solving the crime heightened the anxiety,

not just in Whitechapel, but in greater London as well.

♪ ♪

- The newspapers repeat the fact

that these eyewitnesses were describing suspects as Jewish

or "Jewish-looking."

And so it became this idea that a Jewish man

was killing women in Whitechapel.

Fights are breaking out in the streets,

crowds are chanting "down with the Jews,"

and there are full-on riots.

Fishburne: Faced with escalating violence,

police hurry to locate Leather Apron

and quickly nab a suspect.

- The police held an inquest, and they realized

that there was a boot finisher

who was also a Polish Jew named John Pizer.

- And on September 10th, he was arrested.

Pizer's neighbors and friends attested his innocence.

They believe him to be a good man.

That didn't stop the police from harassing him further

and doing a search of his home.

When searching Pizer's home, they found five knives,

which they believed to have blood on them.

Fishburne: While the police analyze the knives,

they interrogate Pizer.

- On the night of Polly Nichols' murder,

Pizer maintains that he was staying at Crossman's Lodge.

On the second night, for Annie Chapman's murder,

Pizer claims he was holed up in his own home,

living in fear.

Fishburne: Police are able to confirm Pizer's alibis

and eliminate the key evidence against him.

- There was no blood on those knives.

After closer examination,

they found out that what was on the knives was actually rust.

- The police ultimately bring in Pizer

for additional questioning

as several eyewitnesses questioned

whether he might've been at the scene

of some of the murders.

They put him through two lineups,

but the lineups amount to nothing essentially

because the accusers turn out to be non-credible.

Fishburne: Pizer is released without charge

on September 11th.

- The fact that these two lineups failed to identify

Pizer raised the ongoing further questioning.

If Pizer wasn't the murderer, then who was?

[dramatic music]

Fishburne: In 1888, residents of London's East End

are on high alert in the wake of the brutal murders

of two young women.

- After Annie Chapman's murder, two weeks pass with nothing.

And so people might be wondering,

"Is he done? Was this it?

Did he leave? Is he in prison?"

Nobody really knows what was happening.

- A few weeks later, not one but two more women

were discovered brutally murdered.

Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes

were discovered within hours of each other.

Both had their throats slashed,

and both had abdominal wounds with their viscera removed.

This was clearly a pattern,

four young women who were brutally murdered

within a short period of time,

all within blocks of each other.

This heightened the anxiety,

not just from the neighborhood, but from the police as well.

- This was something the likes nobody had ever seen.

London was probably dealing

with its first known serial killer.

♪ ♪

- At this point,

even though we now had a third and a fourth victim,

there were no eye witnesses, and there were no leads.

So the police, quite frankly,

were still very much in the dark

as to who the murderer was.

Fishburne: All that changes on October 1st,

when a memo now called the "Dear Boss" letter

transforms a local investigation

into a worldwide phenomenon.

- On September 27th, the Central News Agency

received the "Dear Boss" letter but dismissed it as a hoax,

as there were hundreds of letters coming in.

- But then September 30th occurred,

and Elizabeth Stride

and Catherine Eddowes were murdered.

And in that letter, there were two details

that matched the murders.

The first was that he was gonna get to work right away.

The second was he's gonna

clip the ear off one of the women.

So the police decided to publish that letter.

- It's called the "Dear Boss" letter

because that's how the letter begins.

The killer is addressing the head

of the police as "Boss."

And in it, he mocks the police efforts

and suggests they're miles off track

in their assumptions and searches.

- The "Dear Boss" letter

creates a gripping public persona

and seems to invite both investigators

and the public to want to know more about him.

Fishburne: The disturbing letter ends

with perhaps the most famous alias of all time.

- "My knife's so nice and sharp

"I want to get to work right away if I get a chance.

Good luck. Yours truly, Jack the Ripper."

The "Dear Boss" letter fundamentally changed

how people began to think about the murderer

because it endowed the murderer with a playful,

sardonic, wicked,

and some thought perverted and maniacal lust

to violate the bodies of these sex workers.

This letter associated these murders

as the victims of Jack the Ripper

rather than what they had been beforehand,

the Whitechapel murders.

Fishburne: On November 9th,

the Ripper claims another victim.

25-year-old sex worker, Mary Jane Kelly.

- Mary Jane Kelly's murder was the most horrific

of all of the murders.

She had her own little room at 13 Miller's Court

where she spent her nights, and so the Ripper was able

to take his time with her after he murdered her.

When they opened the room in the morning,

they discovered pieces of her spread out around the room.

She had been carved down to the bone in some cases.

And they also weren't entirely sure

that the body was Mary Jane Kelly

because her face was so mutilated

that identification is nearly impossible.

♪ ♪

- It was long assumed that the killer had anatomical

or medical knowledge of the human body.

And Mary Kelly's murder totally cemented that.

She had many organs removed.

And they were removed cleanly and precisely.

And that took a significant level of skill

to be able to achieve that.

Fishburne: After Kelly's murder,

the killing stopped,

but the culprit remains at large.

- It's easy to go back and look at the police work

of 1888 and be critical.

However, we have to realize they had so few tools

in order to investigate any crime.

So much of the evidence was innuendo,

was suspicion, was rumor.

And that doesn't pin down the identity of Jack the Ripper.

Fishburne: The case languishes for several years

until a new detective is assigned in early 1892.

- Melville Macnaughten is asked to investigate

the Ripper murders further.

Macnaughten began to build a profile,

which a lot of people still turn to today.

He believed the Ripper was well-educated,

potentially a Polish immigrant,

and he also thought that it was somebody

that, again, had anatomical or medical knowledge.

♪ ♪

He conducts different interviews,

compiling suspects,

and a name that pops out to him is Michael Ostrog.

Fishburne: Ostrog seems to fit the profile perfectly.

- Macnaughten stated two main points about Ostrog,

that he had surgical experience from Russia,

and also that he was a homicidal maniac.

He writes,

"This man was said to have been habitually cruel to women

"and for a long time was known to have carried with him

"surgical knives and other instruments,

"and his whereabouts

"at the time of the Whitechapel murders,

could never been satisfactorily accounted for."

Fishburne: Despite a manhunt,

police are unable to locate Ostrog.

Later investigations reveal why.

- Several of the original investigators

went to their graves believing

that Jack the Ripper was Michael Ostrog.

But Ostrog could not have, in fact, been Jack the Ripper

because he was imprisoned in France

at the time under the name of Grand Guidon.

Fishburne: But Ostrog isn't the only potential suspect

named by Macnaughten.

There's another possibility.

♪ ♪

- Macnaughten also named another suspect

in his memoranda, and it wasn't a full name,

it was just simply a last name, Kosminski.

He was a tailor who arrived in Whitechapel in the 1880s,

early 1880s, and later became a barber.

Kosminski was a great fit for the Ripper profile.

He was considered violent towards women,

he had homicidal tendencies,

his mental stability came into question,

and he was also local during the murders.

Tick, tick, tick, tick.

Fishburne: Little else is known

about Aaron Kosminski at the time.

But in 2014, a British author,

Russell Edwards, makes a shocking discovery.

- Edwards attends an auction and buys a shawl

that is supposed to have belonged to Catherine Eddowes

and had been found on her body the night of her murder.

- Her found two blood samples on Eddowes' scarf.

It was his hope that these blood stains

might lead to the identify of the Ripper,

and specifically to Kosminski.

The results were very, very intriguing.

- When they compare the DNA on the shawl

with the DNA of Kosminski's descendants,

they discover a match of 99.2% and a match of 100%.

It sounds like they found him.

However, the DNA on the shawl that was tested

was mitochondrial DNA and not nuclear DNA.

- Nuclear DNA can pretty much identify

an individual, specifically.

On the other hand, mitochondrial DNA can say

this blood came from someone with Eastern European ancestry.

So even though this blood on the scarf of Eddowes

was consistent with Kosminski,

it by no means identified Kosminski as the murderer.

- So it appears Jack the Ripper has again

slipped through our grasp.

Fishburne: Or has he?

[dramatic music]

perhaps Offi

Fishburne: As London police struggle

to find Jack the Ripper,

their task seems nearly impossible.

- The police comb through suspect after suspect,

but there's either no evidence to support

that they were there, or they have alibis.

So they're left grasping at straws.

John Pizer, Michael Ostrog, Aaron Kosminski.

Each of them has seemed like a promising suspect,

but ultimately each is cleared.

Fishburne: But one expert believes

Macnaughten was on the right track with one name,

Kosminski.

It's just a simple case of mistaken identity.

♪ ♪

- Macnaughten's initial instincts

with Kosminski were sound,

but later research led us to a different person

with an even darker history.

Fishburne: In December, 1888, a man named David Cohen

is admitted to a London asylum.

- David Cohen wasn't actually a real name.

It's the name that the police would use

for an unknown Jewish suspect,

much like we use the name John Doe today.

- Whilst committed, Cohen exhibits violent behavior.

He attacks staff. He attacks women.

He shows violent tendencies,

the very tendencies that elevates somebody

to Ripper suspect status.

Cohen also had syphilis and had been treated for it,

which suggests that he potentially engaged

with prostitutes and may have caught it from them,

which would attribute his disdain

to the working ladies of the East End.

Fishburne: Most notable about this suspect is the timing.

- The murders cease after Cohen is committed,

but the police don't make the connection in time,

and he dies before his true identity is known.

Fishburne: Cohen remains anonymous

until 1987 when British researcher, Martin Fido,

claims to finally know his true identity.

- Cohen's real name is believed to be Nathan Kaminski.

Kaminski, Kosminski, it's very easy to see

how Macnaughten could have

confused one name for the other.

Fishburne: And the parallels don't end there.

- Nathan Kaminski was a Jewish resident at the East End

who was treated for syphilis.

There's one other key detail about Kaminski.

He was a boot maker, so he spent hours

working with very sharp tools, and he wore a leather apron.

- It certainly appears plausible

that this simply may have been a mistake

between two names that were very similar.

♪ ♪

- When Inspector Abberline retired in 1892,

that was not the end of the case for him.

He still conducted more research

in compiling a list of suspects.

For him, it was unfinished business.

Fishburne: In 1903, almost 15 years after the crime,

the now retired chief investigator,

Frederick Abberline, announces another suspect.

- So a man named George Chapman was executed

in February, 1903.

And Abberline after reading that saw the similarities

between the Whitechapel murders and the murders

that Chapman did.

It convinced him enough

that Chapman may very well have been Jack the Ripper.

♪ ♪

- George Chapman was not his birth name.

He was born as Seweryn Klosowski,

and he came to London from Poland in 1888,

coincidentally the same year of the Ripper murders.

- In Poland, he was a surgeon's assistant,

dressing wounds and the like.

In London, he became a barber

and ran a barbershop on Cable Street

during the times of the murders.

Klosowski left for America,

and his departure from English shores

coincided with the ceasing of the Jack the Ripper murders.

Fishburne: If Chapman was Jack the Ripper,

it's possible his killing streak didn't stop after all.

- George Chapman marries three more times

over a period of nine years,

and all three succumbed at his hand to poisoning.

Fishburne: Chapman is tried

and executed for his wives' murders in 1903.

♪ ♪

The case generates headlines for weeks.

- Upon his arrest and hanging in 1903,

he says to Inspector Godley,

"Congratulations, you have caught

Jack the Ripper at last."

On Abberline's own admission,

Chapman was not even on his radar

as a suspect at the time of the murders,

but due to subsequent research and Abberline

building a greater profile of what he was after,

George Chapman just ticked every box for him.

♪ ♪

Fishburne: But Abberline's suspicions come too late.

- Chapman was hung, so he went to his death

without ever being identified as Jack the Ripper.

We will never have that answer.

♪ ♪

- Jack the Ripper,

three words at the end of an 1888 letter

that continue to elicit fear to this day.

For over a century, that letter has been thought

to be the only piece of physical evidence

tied to the true killer.

That changes in 2011

when one man uncovers a dark family secret.

♪ ♪

May 7th, 1896, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Inside Moyamensing Prison,

a serial killer is executed by hanging,

his name, H.H. Holmes.

- H.H. Holmes was taken down off of the scaffold

and placed in a double-wide coffin

that was already half full of cement.

Then the coffin was filled the rest of the way with cement

and buried in an unmarked grave.

Fishburne: Decades later,

one man finds out an alarming fact.

- When I was 40 years old

and my grandfather had passed away,

I was given some material which led me to believe

that the man known to history as Dr. H.H. Holmes

was actually Herman Webster Mudgett,

my great-great-grandfather.

For the last 10 to 15 years of my life,

I've been researching the possibility that Dr. Holmes,

along with the 40 other aliases

he used on his criminal exploits,

was also the most notorious cold case of all time,

Jack the Ripper.

♪ ♪

Fishburne: Born Herman Mudgett,

Holmes moves to Chicago in 1886,

where he eventually rushes to build a three-story hotel

for the upcoming World's Fair.

- This World's Fair was especially important

for Chicago because Chicago

won out over so many better-known cities.

This was the chance for Chicago to prove to the world

that they were a city worth reckoning with.

♪ ♪

- Everyone that went to the Fair

needed a place to stay.

Holmes knew that. He planned the building.

He constructed it as a motel in order for innocent victims

to spend the night so that he could choose

which one he wanted to pursue his terrible business.

- He had secret rooms, rooms that could be sealed off

and people could be suffocated

or rooms that could be filled with gas.

After Holmes murdered his victims on the upper floors,

he sent them down chutes into the basement,

where they could be dissolved in vats of acid or quicklime.

He would then sell the skeletons to medical schools

for about $200 each,

which would be $5,000 to $10,000 in today's money.

This is someone who is truly monstrous.

So much time and dedication to create the perfect space

for him to murder exactly when and how he wants to.

Fishburne: Then in 2011,

fresh information raises new questions.

Could Britain's infamous serial killer

actually be H.H. Holmes?

- I was approached by a group of gentlemen

who are also investigating the possibility

that Holmes had been in London

during the infamous Whitechapel murders.

He had been there looking into the possibility

of opening up a business selling human body parts

and articulated skeletons to medical schools

and universities, just as he had done in America.

Fishburne: Jeff believes Holmes' background

is a perfect match for the Ripper.

- H.H. Holmes, as Herman Webster Mudgett,

obtained his degree as a doctor,

a licensed physician to practice medicine in America.

Fishburne: Some speculate that like H.H. Holmes,

Jack the Ripper might be selling pieces of his victims.

- One of the rumors going around at the time

was that there was a doctor who was willing to pay £20

for each human uterus he received.

Two of Jack the Ripper's victims had

their uteri removed.

This is similar to the idea of Holmes

selling human skeletons for money.

Could they be connected?

Fishburne: As a next step,

Jeff investigates the infamous "Dear Boss" letter.

- While I was investigating the possibility

that Holmes had been in London, had written "Dear Boss,"

and had murdered Catherine Eddowes,

I was approached by a gentleman from Pennsylvania,

and he presented me with some handwriting comparisons.

I was shown these handwriting comparisons

with perhaps the most infamous true crime letter of all time,

"Dear Boss."

It chilled me to the bone.

It was obviously the same handwriting.

I knew that graphology and handwriting comparison

was a powerful forensic science.

I went to the scientists at the University of Buffalo

who had designed a computer program,

the CEDAR-FOX system,

which was recognized by the federal courts,

which was recognized by the FBI,

which was recognized by Scotland Yard.

They took the material, the "Dear Boss" letter

and the Holmes correspondence, and their professional opinion

was that it was similar in style.

They ran it through their system,

and when they returned with their results,

over 90% similarity.

I needed to tell the world we had done it.

We had--after 134 years,

we had finally solved Jack the Ripper.

Fishburne: With such a prolific crime spree

in America,

how could Holmes have committed a murder in London?

- While investigating the possibility

that Holmes had been in London

at the exact time of the Whitechapel murders,

we were able to discover letters

that Holmes had written expressing his frustration

with being unable to obtain his favorite American periodicals

while he was in London.

Fishburne: In 2006, Scotland Yard and the BBC

commissioned a composite rendering of Jack the Ripper

based on firsthand accounts from 1888.

- While it's not something that could prove guilt

at a murder trial, the drawing, if you'll take a close look,

has a remarkable resemblance to the photograph

the Boston police took of H.H. Holmes

after they arrested him.

It's almost exact.

♪ ♪

There is a fascination

with how many H.H. Holmes actually murdered,

just as there is a fascination

with serial killing in our society.

We all want to know how many innocents died at his hand.

One day, I hope to prove that H.H. Holmes,

my direct ancestor, my grandfather's grandfather,

is also Jack the Ripper.

♪ ♪

Fishburne: Until that day, the Holmes theory remains

yet another intriguing possibility.

Fishburne: At the time of Jack the Ripper's murders,

and in the decades since,

nearly every investigator has relied

on one crucial assumption,

that the killer was male.

- Most violent murderers of women are men,

but not all of them.

- The poor women of East London were no strangers to courts.

Many were hauled in for disorderly conduct,

for rough taunts, for fighting,

for themselves engaging in violent acts,

sometimes against men, sometimes against other women.

This understanding that women were capable of violence

perhaps fueled at least a few to speculate

that Jack the Ripper might have been Jill the Ripper...

♪ ♪

A female killer.

- The idea of Jill the Ripper actually originates

from the time of the murders themselves.

After the murder of the fifth victim,

Mary Jane Kelly,

Mary Kelly's estimated time of death

was between 3:30 and 4:00 a.m.

And this is based on the doctor looking at her body,

the stiffness of her limbs,

and the temperature of her body,

as well as witnesses who heard

or last saw Mary Jane Kelly alive.

There is, however, one witness, Caroline Maxwell,

who claims to have seen Mary Jane Kelly the morning

after her murder at 8:00 and 9:00 a.m.

Caroline was very certain of her identification

because she knew Kelly and because Kelly was

wearing a very specific outfit that Maxwell had seen before,

including a very specific red shawl.

Despite the fact that her evidence seems

to go against what the doctors have said,

Caroline Maxwell is very certain of both the date

and the time

because of when her husband would have to go to work.

Fishburne: Although it was just one witness' account,

Inspector Frederick Abberline

believes there could be something to it.

- Abberline concludes

that it could've been the Ripper

who put on Mary Jane Kelly's clothes

and was seen by Caroline Maxwell.

So therefore, the Ripper could be a woman.

♪ ♪

Fishburne: Abberline, however,

is never able to identify who this woman might be.

So he moves on to investigate other theories.

But in 1939, author William Stewart

picks up where Abberline left off.

- William Stewart believes that if Jack the Ripper

actually had been a woman that she,

in fact, might've been a midwife.

Many of these young women were prostitutes.

It would not have been uncommon

that they would be seeking an abortion

or, in some cases, a delivery.

So, therefore, a midwife walking those streets

in the middle of the night with an apron with blood

on it would not necessarily have caused suspicion.

It could've been fairly commonplace,

given that environment at that time.

Fishburne: Stewart points to the state

of Mary Jane Kelly's room as further proof.

- A midwife could have gotten close to these women.

When Mary Jane Kelly's body was discovered,

her clothes were folded on the chair next to the bed.

This was an indication that she was very comfortable,

and calm, and was not surprised

by somebody coming in unexpectedly.

Fishburne: But why would a midwife

specifically target Mary Kelly?

- We don't know Mary Jane Kelly was killed,

but Stewart suggests that she asked the midwife

to come to perform an abortion,

changed her mind,

and then threatens to rat the midwife out to the police

since abortions were, at the time, illegal.

Fishburne: If the killer was a woman, who was she?

- Any surgeon will tell you

that to make an abdominal incision,

to remove the viscera, requires a fair amount of strength.

It's not something that can be done without some power.

And it takes some time.

So that, again, leads me to believe

that Jack the Ripper

was a fairly well-built, strong individual.

About two years later, the police identified a woman

who they thought might have been Jack the Ripper.

- In December of 1890, a woman named Mary Pearcey is executed

because she murdered her lover's wife and child

and dumped their bodies in the streets.

Similar to the Ripper's victims,

both the wife and child had their throats cut.

We don't actually know very much about Mary Pearcey.

We don't know for sure that she was a midwife

or had medical knowledge.

But we do know that she was capable

of this kind of violence.

Ripper investigator Melville Macnaughten

describes Pearcey saying,

"I have never seen a woman of stronger physique.

Her nerves were as iron-cast as her body."

Fishburne: Ultimately, no female is arrested

in the Jack the Ripper case.

- I can understand why Macnaughten

may have thought this, but people at the time

especially would not have wanted to believe

that a young woman would've been capable of such things.

Fishburne: At the time,

that was the end of the Jill the Ripper theory

until new evidence surfaces.

- In May of 2006, an Australian researcher,

Ian Findlay,

identified female DNA from the saliva

of one of the envelopes that was sent by Jack the Ripper.

However, I think you need to put this in the context

of even with modern DNA analysis,

you're still dealing with samples over a century old.

And I think that calls into question

how valid those findings are.

It's really a shame that we can't explore this further.

But I think for the time being,

we should continue to refer to him as Jack the Ripper.

Fishburne: There's no doubt that the most famous

unsolved murder case in London's history is

that of Jack the Ripper.

- Jack the Ripper ruthlessly ended the lives of five women.

But his legacy has been

immensely productive of cultural forms,

of novels, documentaries, works of art,

each of which seeks to try to tell this story

and understand its meanings.

Fishburne: But what if this famed British mystery

isn't strictly British?

- In 2005, Trevor Marriott releases a book

that offers a new possibility, a new suspect,

bringing infamy to a relatively unknown.

It suggests that the Ripper might have been

a merchant seaman who never lived in London at all

but was docked at the Thames

during the times of the Jack the Ripper murders.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

In 1894, Juliana Hoffman is found slain

in her New York apartment.

Her throat was cut from ear to ear.

Two years later, the culprit was executed

in Sing Sing Prison via electrocution.

Her killer was a man named Carl Feigenbaum,

and his lawyer upon his execution has said,

"I believe that Carl Feigenbaum,

whom you have just seen put to death in the electric chair,

"can easily be connected with the Jack the Ripper murders

in Whitechapel, London."

Fishburne: When Trevor Marriott digs deeper,

he realizes there's a chance

that Feigenbaum's lawyer was right.

- The docks on the Thames are in very close proximity

to the murder sites in Whitechapel,

so that does lend to the fact

that he could have done this.

He was definitely close enough.

- As a merchant seaman, such as Feigenbaum,

they would never have been caught

because they come into port,

commit the murder, and then leave,

only to return again to commit the next murder.

Fishburne: When Marriott analyzes

London's port records,

his theory becomes more plausible.

- Trevor Marriott believes that Carl Feigenbaum was German.

And his theory on Feigenbaum centers

around the Norddeutscher Lloyd Shipping Company.

According to Trevor's theory,

a lot of vessels from this German shipping company

had boats docked in London at the time of the murders.

And that could place him

on the Norddeutscher line of vessels.

Fishburne: According to Marriott,

the killings might not stop there.

- This theory makes a lot of sense,

in part because the police were looking

very specifically at locals,

at people living there or with connections to the area.

And especially because Jack the Ripper was never caught.

And so Jack the Ripper may have had murders

in other ports of call that were never connected back.

- Marriott does further research

into the Norddeutscher Lloyd Shipping Company

and tracks departures from Bremen and analyzes the times

that they are docked in other countries.

He stated in addition

to the London killings,

there are six prostitutes murdered in Nicaragua

in January, 1889, one in Wisconsin in 1890,

two more in Germany and Switzerland that same year,

and three more in America through 1894,

all of which coincide with those German merchant vessels

coming and going.

Many of the woman had their throats cut,

which is a Ripper trademark.

The targets were also similar. Many were prostitutes.

So there was definitely a crossover between the killings

that Marriott found in other countries,

along with the Ripper murders in London.

Fishburne: But without more solid evidence,

it's impossible to prove Feigenbaum's guilt.

- While there is evidence

that contradicts Feigenbaum as Jack the Ripper,

the underlying theory of the killer

being a merchant seaman is very credible.

- It's interesting, sure, but tying all of this

to one man is a bit of a stretch.

I mean, there are plenty of misogynistic,

violent men in the world.

I mean, just look at how many

we've spoken of just from London.

♪ ♪

- The most powerful evidence that we have

about the Ripper's crimes were the bodies of his victims.

♪ ♪

And while he taunted the police and the public

by producing for himself a diabolical,

wicked, witty public persona,

he left behind so few hard clues

by which we can actually nail down who he was.

Fishburne: Can we ever crack the case of Jack the Ripper?

- I don't think we're ever going to find out

who Jack the Ripper really was,

but I also don't think we're gonna stop looking.

♪ ♪

- There may be no killing spree in history

with more possible suspects

and fewer pieces of concrete evidence

than the one committed

by the self-proclaimed Jack the Ripper.

But with so many obsessed investigators

dedicated to closing this case,

perhaps soon Jack the Ripper will get a new name,

one that finally reveals his true identity.

I'm Laurence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching "History's Greatest Mysteries."