The story of Jack the Ripper is one that continues to fascinate us to this day. Some people may ask "why?" I think the fascinating thing about Jack the Ripper is the fact that no one was ever found out. There was a list of suspects and plenty to talk about in England's circles of high society but nothing else. You fast forward over 100 years and all we still know is who the victims were, the fact that the victims were all women, the location and so on.
The speculation has run rampant without clear answers, unless you are author Patricia Cornwell, who decidedly fingered Walter Sickert as the killer in one of her books. The book stated that one of Sickert's motivations was the fistula in his penis. If we move away from Sickert we will see that there were other suspects as well, all with different motives. Even with a fair list the fact remains that this case went unsolved and it was really the first notorious case that led to dead end after dead end.
The Jack case was something different not just because the police did not find anything conclusive enough on anyone. The murderer did a great job of making the police look like total idiots. The book What Alice Knew also points at Sickert but it does so on a fictional setting. I see the Jack the Ripper case as the first case where the criminal had a sort of superstar status, due in part to his uncanny ability to stay anonymous through the whole thing.
We will never know, but the Ripperologist inside us will always remain curious and fascinated.
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