A serial killer who haunted Chicago in the 1893 World’s Fair. Now modern science tries to determine if he pulled off the greatest con in history. American Ripper in London: Devil in the Detail, History 2017
‘I am the descendant of the devil – my great-great-grandfather H H Holmes – was America’s first serial killer. A conman and an evil genius he engineered a death factory in the late 1800s that claimed an uncountable number of lives. At the very same time another killer was slaughtering victims on the streets of London.’ ibid. Jeff Mudgett
H H Holmes outsmarted the law for over ten years. He lured victim after victim into his murder castle in Chicago. He conned them out of their money and their property, and ultimately their lives. ibid.
While he confesses to killing twenty-seven people, five of the twenty-seven he named were later found alive, leading us to question what’s true and what’s invented. ibid.
Exposed to corpses at an early age: this fostered his passion for dissection. ibid.
‘That gap – that’s the exact period that Jack the Ripper was committing his murders in London.’ ibid. Jeff Mudgett
‘In 1888 Britain’s first serial killer – Jack the Ripper – went on a killing spree in London. He was never caught. But I know who the Ripper is – his real name is H H Holmes. He was America’s first serial killer. And he’s my great-great-grandfather.’ American Ripper in London II: The Butcher’s Blade, Jeff
‘We have a number of significant statements Holmes made regarding London.’ ibid.
‘H Holmes 36 American’ … ‘He’s coming back from Liverpool to New York May 89’. ibid. historian
‘Travelling the North Atlantic in winter is a rotten journey; if you’re travelling in December you clearly have to travel.’ American Ripper in London III: Whitechapel Runs Red, historian
‘The final Ripper killing was committed indoors which may have inspired Holmes to consider how do I replicate these killings back home.’ ibid.
‘The phrases in the letters were American.’ ibid. forensic linguist
‘The lodger was a medical man. An American’ … One of the leading suspects. ibid.
‘If you took this composite to a judge he’d issue a warrant.’ ibid. Jeff
‘Staring back at me is a very familiar face.’ American Ripper in London IV: Home Sweet Hell, Jeff
In Chicago in the Spring of 1889 H H Holmes hired a construction team to convert his property on 63 and Wallace into what we now know as the Murder Castle. His sinister intent was to build a place to kill and dissect his victims in private. ibid.
‘Carrie Brown was a quintessential Ripper victim: she was a prostitute, she was strangled and disembowelled indoors.’ ibid. Fox
At the site of a cement warehouse that Holmes owned in 1891 they’ve discovered a field of depressions scattered across the river bed, signs that the proof they’re looking for could be hiding just beneath the surface in an undiscovered burial ground. American Ripper in London V
1893: The World’s Fair … One in every four Americans travelling to the Windy City to witness the marvel. ibid.
As many as 5,000 prostitutes worked in over 30 establishments over the city’s red light district. ibid.
Holmes may have used the cement warehouse as a front for disposing of bodies in order to pull off a large scale killing operation. American Ripper in London VI
He drew up plans to franchise the murder castle. ibid.
Holmes had a set of surgical knives. American Ripper in London VII
Holmes had at least two accomplices at the murder castle. ibid.
H H Holmes became America’s most infamous celebrity. He was finally arrested in November 1894. American Ripper in London VIII
‘Compelling evidence that Holmes escaped his death and execution.’ ibid. Jeff
In 1888 the most infamous serial killer of all time began his reign of terror here in London’s East End. Jack the Ripper: Case Reopened, BBC 2019
Jack the Ripper murders are the ultimate cold case. ibid. David Wilson
There is a suspect … that fits the bill … Aaron Kosminski. ibid.
The true identity of Jack the Ripper may have finally been unmasked thanks to new evidence bringing an end to perhaps the most notorious ‘whodunnit’ ever.
DNA found on a shawl next to the mutilated body of one of the notorious serial killer’s five victims 130 years ago has proved a match to barber Aaron Kosminski, 23, experts revealed this week.
He was previously named as a prime suspect by the detective who led the hunt for the Ripper but there was never enough evidence to convict him for the grisly slayings.
But now for the first time supporting DNA evidence has been published in the ‘most advanced study to date regarding this case’.
Researchers analysed a stained silk shawl discovered by 46-year-old Catherine Eddowes’ body in 1888, which had blood and semen on it.
Advance analysis can now sensationally confirm the DNA as a match to Kosminski’s living descendants.
The analysis also suggests the killer had brown hair and brown eyes.
The new details have been published in a paper by Jari Louhelainen, of Liverpool John Moores University, and David Miller of the University of Leeds. Mirror online article 1 April 2019, ‘Jack the Ripper’s true identity finally ‘revealed’ by DNA evidence from crime scene’
During the autumn of 1888 there occurred one of the most baffling crimes in the files of Scotland Yard. In the Whitechapel area of London’s east end women walked in fear of their lives. A wave of terror had been caused by an elusive murderer known as Jack the Ripper. In Search of s3e5 … Jack the Ripper, History 1978
I was Jack the Ripper. I’ve never told anyone that before. What We Do in the Shadows s1e7: The Trial, Laszlo, BBC 2019
London 1888: The most notorious unsolved crime in British history. Five women brutally murdered. The press call their killer Jack the Ripper. And all the women, prostitutes. But could everything we’ve been told be wrong? Jack the Ripper: Hidden Victims I II III, My5 2022
We always remember the killer; we rarely remember the victims. ibid. Kerry Daynes
There’s the insinuation that they are all working as prostitutes which we don’t know. ibid.
Some killers like to hang around. They like to be able to see how an investigation is progressing, and feel reassured that nobody’s on to them. They want as much information as they can gather. ibid.
London is rocked by the brutal murders of five women. The case is fast becoming national news and the killer is dubbed Jack the Ripper. He is the most infamous murderer in British history. But that’s only half the story. Jack the Ripper: 5 Victims, Channel 5 2022
Jacob Rees Mogg resigned to spend more time on his hobby: murdering prostitutes in Victorian London. Frankie Boyle’s New World Order s6e2, BBC 2022
In the autumn of 1888 an horrific story emerged from the capital’s east end. A story so dreadful it sent shockwaves around the world. One after another destitute women of the east end fell victim to a vicious killer known as Jack the Ripper. The Enduring Mystery of Jack the Ripper, 2021
‘The crime [is] one of the most brutal that occurred for some years. For a poor defenceless woman to be outraged and stabbed in such a manner almost beyond belief.’ ibid. Coroner George Collier
A spree of gruesome murders that shocks Victorian England and the world. A homicidal maniac whose true name remains a mystery. History’s Greatest Mysteries s3e10: Jack the Ripper, History 2022
Between the end of August and the beginning of November 1888 five unemployed women who had turned to prostitution were murdered and savagely mutilated by an unknown killer in and around Whitechapel, east London. Timewatch: Shadow of the Ripper, Christopher Frayling reporting, BBC 1988
The assertion in the liberal press that if the killer wasn’t Gentleman Jack he must really be Doctor Jack. ibid.
The tradename caught on very quickly. ibid.
In the autumn of 1888 a series of brutal murders in the East End of London lit a flame that sent shockwaves reverberating around the civilised world and caused a scandal that struck right at the heart of the British establishment. Jack the Ripper: Unmasking the Ripper, 2005
The district where the murders occurred was one of the most crime-ridden and densely populated quarters of the Victorian metropolis. ibid.