Bringing together ground-breaking forensic discoveries – including vital DNA evidence – and gripping historical detective work, Naming Jack the Ripper constructs the first truly convincing case for identifying the world's most notorious serial killer. In 2007, Russell Edwards, fuelled by fascination and determination, discovered a shawl – an unexpected key in the historical mystery of Jack the Ripper. With an intriguing blend of forensic investigation and historical research, the book explores the gripping evidence, a blood-stained shawl, connected to the universally infamous criminal, Jack the Ripper. Persistent and fearless, Edwards embarks on a captivating seven-year quest to authenticate the shawl and unearth its concealed truths. His search takes him deeper into the heart of one of history's most chilling real crime stories. Tested meticulously by top forensic scientists, the shawl is not just proven to be genuine, but also revealing – it carries the blood of Catherine Eddowes, the fourth victim of Jack the Ripper. In an earth-shattering revelation, the extracted DNA leads Edwards to the most elusive truth – the identity of the notorious Victorian serial killer, Jack the Ripper . . .

The definitive identity of the world’s most notorious serial killer is finally revealed. In this latest edition of Naming Jack the Ripper, three brand-new chapters detail Ripperologist Russell Edwards’ ongoing work since 2014 and how he has solved – for the first time ever – many of the long-unanswered mysteries regarding the how and why of the killings, the Goulston Street Graffito . . . and why the real killer was not charged in 1888. All the experts agreed: we would never know the true identity of the world's most famous serial killer. It has taken 136 years of theorizing and speculation, plus the determination of Russell Edwards, a twenty-first-century businessman fascinated by the nineteenth-century social history of London's East End, to finally solve the mystery of Jack the Ripper. In February 2014, Russell received stunning DNA results and revealed the true identity and name of Jack the Ripper. In the decade since, he has continued his quest to prove the identity of the Ripper beyond the shadow of a doubt. The key to the solution lay in the sole piece of physical evidence to have survived from the murders of five Whitechapel women by the Ripper in 1888. In the early morning of Sunday, 30th September 1888, a shawl lay bloodied alongside the body of the Ripper's fourth victim, Catherine Eddowes. A Metropolitan Police officer, PC Amos Simpson, was attending the crime scene as an acting sergeant and was permitted to take the shawl away. It remained in his family until the author bought it in 2007, following a public auction. But could the shawl's provenance be proved? Russell set about authenticating the shawl by commissioning scientists at Liverpool John Moores University, led by Dr Jari Louhelainen, to use modern forensic techniques to analyze DNA extracted from stains on the shawl – DNA from both Catherine Eddowes and her suspected killer. In this book, Russell examines the police reports, eyewitness accounts, post-mortems, and all known information on the lives of the victims, in his search for vital clues. With the help of modern forensic techniques, Russell's ground-breaking discoveries provide conclusive answers to many of the most challenging mysteries surrounding the case.

The legendary Jack the Ripper murdered as many as ten women between the years of 1887 and 1891 in the East End of London. The debate over his true identity has never been resolved. The unbiased history of the different suspects, including two women, will give even the novice reader the basic ground to make an informed decision regarding the identity of the Whitechapel Murderer. Suspects include influential artist Walter Sickert, children's author Lewis Carroll, Randolph Henry Spencer Churchill (father of Winston Churchill), and others ranging from doctors and politicians to wandering lunatics. Listed alphabetically, the encyclopedic entries provide historical features such as major events in a suspect's life, a complete chronology surrounding the case for particular suspects, suspects' biographical data, and a basic analysis of the relevant theories. The entries explain and analyze the suspect's particular connection to the case and describe theorists and research that have contributed to the suspect's positive or negative candidacy as a viable suspect. Within these pages may lie the true name of Jack the Ripper-the author places all the available facts before the reader, leaving him to draw his own conclusions.

This is the first book to examine murder through the written word--not only the writings of the killers themselves, but also the story of murder as told in literary fiction and the crime dramas that are now a staple of film and television. The authors--a criminologist specializing in cold cases, written evidence, and forensic science, and an anthropologist who has dealt with the signs and ciphers of organized crime and street gangs in his previous work--are widely recognized experts in this emerging specialty field. Based on extensive research and interviews with convicted murderers, the book emphasizes the often-overlooked narrative impulse that drives killers, with the authors explaining how both mass and serial murderers perceive their crimes as stories and why a select few are compelled to commit these stories to writing whether before, during, or after their horrific acts. The book also analyzes the written work of killers, using a combination of machine-based linguistic patterning, predictive modeling, and symbolic interpretation, to make sense of the screeds of everyone from the Son of Sam and the Zodiac Killer to the Columbine attackers, the Unabomber, and the recent spate of mass shooters using social media as their preferred narrative platform. They present a theoretical perspective of murder that is based on both the criminological evidence and written works. In addition, the authors examine famous literature that has dealt ingeniously with murder and its relationship with real crime, from the Greek tragedians to Truman Capote to modern-day productions such as Making a Murderer. This unique approach offers a new means to penetrate the minds of murderers, revealing their motives as well as the wider social meanings of this age-old crime and our continuing fascination with it.

Recreates the atmosphere of Victorian London and invites the reader to formulate his own theory about who the "Butcher of Whitechapel" was.

He was the most notorious killer of all time. Now, after being given unprecedented access to Scotland Yard's most confidential files, the world's foremost authority on Jack the Ripper, Donald Rumbelow, presents shocking new evidence--including postmortem photos of the Ripper's victims, illustrations, letters to the police, and newspaper dramatizations.

Arranged by type of name (generic, descriptive, incident, link, group, pedigree and show, horse and hound, farm, famous, mythical and legendary, and fictional), this is a reference to how people name animals. For each type there is an introductory section followed by numerous examples with the stories behind the particular name.