Jack The Ripper a South African?

[Trevor]

Oh dear, well, I should have seen THIS coming...........................

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/05/02/ripper.ap/index.html

[Snivelly]

I just read this article myself, it's all over the place today!  Eventually they'll blame every man of Jewish descent who happened to be within 100 miles of London during 1888.  The article didn't make it sound as though there was anything more than a passing resemblance to the supposed murderer though.

[Ed, Ego and Superego]

And he was born in  Poland. 

[Yaddo 42]

Sorry, Trevor, SA catching heat again.

Like you guys haven't been blamed for enough stuff. Or that 80s-early 90s period when you guys were the leading candidates for designated movie villains when the Cold War was winding down/over and the Soviets were considered passe'.

Is this Ripper candidate an new name?. I'm not a huge follower of JTR lore, mostly some History Channel shows and a book or two. Wikipedia lists three other Polish Jews as named suspects in Ripper lore, and another Pole, who poisoned three women and was eventually hanged.

I'm half Polish, so guess we'll catch some hell for this also if anyone outside the diehards really cares about who did it. The Mystery is what sustains the interest IMO.

Maybe you all can distract people from this by finding Lord Lucan, or solving what happened to him.

[RCMerchant]

 Iv'e read a few Jack the Ripper books...the whole thing facinates me to no end...a NEW suspect...I need to look up that book...thanks for posting this!

[Raffine]

I actually read a "Jack the Ripper" theory once that speculated the Ripper was none other than Joseph Merrick, AKA The Elephant Man. It seems he was housed in the London Hospital during the Ripper murders and it was close enough to the crime scenes that he could sneak out at night and commit the murders!

By the way, I have no idea if any of this (time, location, etc.) is remotely accurate. 


Of course, EVERYBODY knows the Ripper was actually a bit of ancient evil gas that looked like this:



... and traveled around the galaxy murdering women until defeated in the Star Trek episode "Wolf in the Fold".

I mean, come on! 

Rumor is he was also spotted as a human frog using the alias "Fergus Finglehoff" on Bewitched and as a patient of Dr. Bob Hartley on The Bob Newhart Show.