10 Theories About The Identity Of Jack The Ripper

10. Prince Albert

Prince Albert Victor, grandson of Queen Victoria, is one of the many names floated as the real identity of Jack the Ripper.

2001's From Hell (and the graphic novel on which it was based) fingered the Queen's physician, Sir William Gull, as the serial killer — his heinous killings a revenge, of sorts, for Prince Albert slowly dying of syphilis. That theory and others like it stemmed from a series of newspaper articles between April and May, 1895 in US newspapers claiming a London doctor had suggested the killer was a "medical man of high standing." The doctor in question, Dr. Benjamin Howard (an American who had practised in London), later issued a denial.

There's another argument regarding Prince Albert, however: the heir to the throne himself was the killer.

This theory also involves Gull. In the 1970s, Dr. Thomas Stowell published an article in UK crime magazine The Criminologist, stating that he had been a colleague of Gull's son-in-law. He also had access to Gull's personal papers. According to that piece, one of Gull's patients, identified only as "S," was the real Jack the Ripper. "S" was described as "the heir to power and wealth. His grandmother, who outlived him, was very much the stern Victorian matriarch."

Could the Prince truly have been Jack the Ripper? There were several clues pointing to him.