Jack the Ripper: A Scientific Analysis

For thirty years Francis Westfield, a high school science teacher in the Stoke-On-Trent area has been collecting in a scrapbook details about Jack the Ripper. Every time a new book or theory emerged on the subject he would study it and evaluate it. In 2010 he decided to read all books on the subject he still had not accessed and see if a better approach could be found. After seeing that all but one book, which tried a Royal family connection which turned out to be fanciful, took the original 5 police suspects at the time, then added an extraneous character brought in as the author’s obvious own pet theory, he realised that no book on the subject had compared all the suspects in an attempt to eliminate them down to one individual serial killer. This he was immediately determined to do. He went on a search engine and found that there had been two hundred suspects named since 1888 (a useful round number!) and set about finding out not only their names and individual backgrounds but how they were supposed to have carried out the crimes and what were their motives.

The book includes firm explanations of why even the newest theories (propounded in October 2014 and December of the same year called: Naming Jack the Ripper and the journalist theory of the cartman (carman and his route) are wrong as well as pencil drawings of the best likeness of Jack the Ripper by one of the sisters of the author (Helen Westfield who is an artist) based on an e-fit profile produced by Laura Richards , the head of analysis for the Metropolitan Police’s violent crime command on 20.1.06. Each victim is profiled and how they died. The area and conditions in society at that time in Whitechapel are described, getting rid of the romantic fog myth along the way. The vigilance committee and its members and the role they played is looked at.

A potted history of each of the suspects is shown with a picture of each suspect if available next to each character. Analysis by FBI and other profilers is recorded. My analysis suggesting from map data and position of the bodies in the geographical pattern they were found that the culprit had two dwelling places over the time of the series of murders and that he had good local knowledge is included. The theory by Arthur Conan Doyle that it could have been a female killer (Jill the Ripper theory) is also included in the analysis.

Finally a mention of all the circumstantial evidence I collated against the only suspect Joe Barnett who the more I tried to falsify or eliminate from the investigation the more that character fitted the evidence. In the last 127 years there have been over 200 suspects for Jack the Ripper the first documented serial killer in the world and many theories have been propounded in order to settle the matter once and for all. All my book suggests is that this scientific approach may give the best chance of showing who he (or she) was.