As first reported by “The Telegraph”, a group of researchers believes that they have finally uncovered the identity of the infamous serial killer known as Jack The Ripper. This team of researchers is being led by “Withnail and I” director and writer Bruce Robinson. They believe that the Ripper was a Liverpool cotton salesman named James Maybrick.
Jack the Ripper's diary and James Maybrick
Twenty-five years ago a diary was uncovered that was attributed to the notorious serial killer. However, many experts were hesitant to take it seriously, believing it to have been forged years after Jack the Ripper's murders took place.
Robinson and his research team say that they managed to trace the diary back to the former estate of James Maybrick in Liverpool named Battlecrease House.
According to the research team, the diary was found back in 1992 by a group of electrical workers who discovered it beneath the floorboards. After that, it ended up with a former scrap metal dealer named Mike Barrett, who hid its origins in order to avoid possible legal repercussions. This all changes the idea that the diary was written long after the Ripper's murders since the diary has been linked to Maybrick's home.
Who was James Maybrick and what did his diary say?
James Maybrick (1838-1889) was a wealthy cotton merchant who lived in Liverpool, a maritime city located in northwest England during the late 19th century.
Maybrick died in 1889, one year after the last murder that can be definitively attributed to Jack the Ripper. His wife was convicted of poisoning him by Liverpool Crown Court that year but was later released in 1904 after that trial was called into question.
The contents of the diary found in Maybrick's home describes in intimate and gruesome detail the killing of six women.
Five of these women were murdered in Whitechapel, London's East End, an impoverished neighborhood where the Ripper's canonical murders occurred. The other woman was murdered in Manchester. The 9,000-word diary is chillingly signed, “I give my name that all know of me, so history do tell, what love can do to a gentleman born.
Yours Truly, Jack The Ripper.”
In 1993, a transcript of the diary titled “The Diary of Jack the Ripper” was published by Shirley Harrison. That book was published by Smith Gryphon Ltd., whose owner is Robert Smith, the owner and custodian of the diary. To honor the twenty-fifth anniversary of its discovery, Smith has written a book that contains new research, “25 Years of the Diary of Jack the Ripper: The True Facts.”
