Tony Williams has uncovered a six-inch blade amongst the possessions of his distant relative Sir John Williams, which he believes was the one used by Victorian serial killer Jack the Ripper – the name given to an unidentified serial killer who terrorized the Whitechapel district of London in 1888.

“New evidence has emerged which may identify an abortionist as Jack the Ripper, the notorious serial killer of women in Victorian London,” says John Smeaton of SPUC. “A knife and samples of uterine tissue belonging to Sir John Williams, a famous surgeon who performed abortions, have been discovered by one of his relatives. Sir John was recorded to have had performed an abortion on one of the Ripper’s victims.”

Williams was the surgeon to Queen Victoria and lived in London at the time of the slayings. He was known to his family at the time of the killings as “Uncle Jack.” He left the capital after the murders and went on to establish the National Library for Wales in Aberystwyth.

Tony Williams(49), Sir John’s great-great-great-great nephew, believes the blade he discovered also fits the description of the one used in the attacks. He said: “A pathologist at the time said the ripper had used the same six-inch knife in all the murders. He said it would have been at least six inches long, very sharp, pointed at the top and about an inch in width – a surgeon’s knife. I am convinced that this is the knife used by Sir John Williams to murder those women.”

He has published a book, that features the image of the blade, to expose his uncle’s guilt – “A lot of members of our family don’t really speak about it – I think they are a bit upset. But in my mind the case has been solved – it was Sir John Williams.”

- articles by Matt Quinton and Steven Ertelt rewritten and adapted by admin-

New Evidence suggest that notorious serial killer, Jack The Ripper, who stalked London’s East End, butchering prostitutes and terrorizing the population, might have been a woman. This story first appeared on May, 2006, but now there is more reason to believe those speculations are true. His victims were all prostitutes, murdered and mutilated in the foggy alleyways of Whitechapel. By the surgical nature of the wounds, the killer was assumed to have some surgical knowledge.

An Australian scientist has used swabs from letters supposedly sent to police by the Ripper to build a partial DNA profile of the killer. The results suggest that the person who murdered and mutilated at least five women from 1888 onwards may have been a woman.

Ian Findlay, a professor of molecular and forensic diagnostics had developed a profiling technique that could extract DNA from a single cell or strand of hair up to 160 years old, while conventional DNA sampling methods required at least 200 cells.

He examined the material, which was kept by Scotland Yard until 1961. It includes letters sent to police at the time, some of them signed “Jack the Ripper”. Most are believed to be fakes, but a handful are thought to have been written by the killer. Dr Findlay took swabs from the back of stamps and from the gum used to seal envelopes, and possible bloodstains. He took his haul back to Brisbane, where – concentrating on swabs from the so-called “Openshaw letter” (click on the picture for the full size view of the letter), the one believed most likely to be genuine – he extracted the DNA and then amplified the information to create a profile. The results were “inconclusive” and not forensically reliable, but he did construct a partial profile and based on this analysis, he said, “it’s possible the Ripper could be female”.

The chief suspects were all man, and only Frederick Abberline, the detective who led the investigation, thought it possible the killer was a woman. This was because the fifth victim, Mary Kelly, was “seen” by witnesses hours after she was killed. Abberline thought this was the murderer running away, in Kelly’s clothes.

The only female suspect was Mary Pearcey, who was convicted of murdering her lover’s wife, Phoebe Hogg, in 1890 and hanged. She apparently employed a similar modus operandi to the Ripper.

-article by Kathy Marks, rewritten and addapted by admin-

Derek Brown, a killer who tried to copy the murders of notorious serial killer Jack The Ripper has been jailed for life for murdering two young women – DVD seller Xiao Mei Guo and prostitute Bonnie Barrett. Detectives believe he would have become a serial killer if he had not been stopped.

Loner Derek Brown, 48, was told he must server a minimum of 30 years behind bars for the brutal murders of Xiao Mei Guo and Bonnie Barrett. He butchered the women in his flat before disposing of their bodies, which have never been found. Brown picked up these two women in the same Whitechapel area of east London stalked by the Ripper more than a century ago. He has been identified by victims in five other rapes over two decades and is suspected of carrying out further sex attacks. Police believe he may have killed before and are combing crime files across the country to see if his details match up with other cases.

Judge Martin Stephens said Brown had been convicted on “overwhelming” evidence and told him: “You have shown not a sliver of remorse.
“You murdered two women. Both were vulnerable, plying their trade on the streets, in each case falling into your hands precisely because of their availability and their lack of protection.”
He added: “The anguish of both victims’ families is exacerbated, made much worse by their inability to lay each lady to rest.”

Relatives of both victims made emotional appeals for the killer to tell them what he had done with their remains. Police believe Brown might have disposed of them in the river or by dumping them in hospital bins or an industrial compactor at his workplace.

As for the reasons he has committed these terrible crimes, police think he was motivated by sex and a desire to become notorious like Jack the Ripper, who murdered prostitutes in the 19th Century.

-article from The Sun adapted and rewritten by administrator-