The Jack The Ripper Witness That Some Think May Have Been The Real Killer
As The Telegraph also writes, because some organs were removed from Jack the Ripper's victims, it's long thought that the perpetrator of the crime had advanced knowledge of anatomy, and was possibly a surgeon or a physician who otherwise came from London high society. To that point, other Jack the Ripper suspects like Montague Druitt had an amateur interest in surgery, and both Michael Ostrog and Sir William Gull, also Jack the Ripper suspects, were physicians. For his part, Ostrog later wound up in an asylum, according to Britannica. Per Jack-the-Ripper.org, in Charles Allen Lechmere aka Charles Cross' case, he was thought to have worked in meat delivery, and may have even had some experience with butchering.
Is all that enough to indict Cross as Jack the Ripper? Could he possibly be responsible for the so-called Thames Torso Murders that happened in London simultaneously (via Casebook)? Though there are inconsistencies in Cross' testimony, he had reason to be in the area where the known Jack the Ripper murders happened, and we will probably never know for certain. But according to acclaimed Ripperologists Christer Holmgren and Edward Stow, who spoke with The Telegraph in 2012, the case is closed. "We think it [is] Charles Cross, the first person who found that first body. He was seen crouching over Polly Nichols and he wast trying to cover up some of the wounds ... The police at the time were looking for some sort of special individual. But most crimes turn out to be someone quite ordinary," Stow said. Cross died in 1920.
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