10 Theories About The Identity Of Jack The Ripper

Of the names featured on this list of suspects, Seweryn Kłosowski (later known as George Chapman) might be the most likely to have actually been Jack the Ripper.

For starters, Klosowski matched descriptions of the killer. Of equal importance, perhaps, was that he is actually known to have been a serial killer. Although that happens to simultaneously be one of the biggest flaws in the argument, as Klosowski became known as the "Borough Poisoner." As the name suggests, he did away with his victims by poisoning them — not slashing their throats and mutilating them.

That having been said, other clues point to Klosowski as the killer. For one, he was in the Whitechapel area during what became known as the Autumn of Terror in 1888. The end of Jack the Ripper's reign, discounting later killings which have never been definitively linked to him, also coincided with Klosowski moving to America.

In his early years, Klosowski was a surgeon's apprentice, to one Moshko Rappaport. Later, Rappaport would observe that his understudy had "diligent, or exemplary conduct, and studied with zeal the science of surgery." The future killer would finish his studies at the Hospital of Praga in Warsaw, Poland, later arriving in London sometime between 1887 and early 1888. In short, he had significant knowledge of human anatomy.

Rather than working in the medical field, Klosowski found employment in barber shops upon his arrival in England. Coincidentally or not, two years after the Ripper murders, he wound up working at an establishment on the corner of Whitechapel High Street and George Yard — mere yards from where Martha Tabram, a possible sixth Ripper victim (who would have chronologically been his first) was butchered.