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Can a Blood-Soaked Shawl Identify Jack the Ripper?

A blood-soaked shawl could solve one of the most infamous cases in history.

Drawing of Jack of the Ripper done in the 1800s by anonymous

Jack the Ripper is perhaps the most famous serial killer in history. But his identity has eluded us.

In Whitechapel, East London, in 1888, Jack the Ripper killed five women, but Scotland Yard suspected 11. He mutilated the women removing the uterus, kidney, and other organs. Some of the victim’s faces were unrecognizable, and their bodies guttered. At the time the belief was he was a Doctor. But anyone with anatomical knowledge could have made the killings.

The killer could not hide his hatred for women.

The victims (known as the Canonical Five)

• Annie Chapman
  The body savagely mutilated the womb taken.
• Mary Ann Nichols
  The body mutilated and the womb removed.
• Elizabeth Stride
  The body mutilated, possibly the killer had been interrupted.
• Catherine Eddowe
  Her face brutalized the uterus and left kidney taken.
• Mary Kelly
  She was skinned to the bones.

The women were all poor and worked as sex workers trying to survive in London’s most…