Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper, also known as Jolly Jack (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang, PROSE: Matrix), Saucy Jack (COMIC: Ripper's Curse), and Leather Apron (PROSE: Matrix) was the name given to a serial killer who brutally murdered prostitutes in London's East End (COMIC: Ripper's Curse) between August and November 1888. (PROSE: A History of Humankind) Most people agreed that he killed only five women, (PROSE: Matrix; COMIC: Ripper's Curse) though some believed he may have killed others, which the Twelfth Doctor noted was more than likely. (PROSE: A History of Humankind)
Potential suspects
There are various conflicting accounts concerning the murderer's identity and his eventual fate.
The fact that internal organs were removed from several victims led to speculation that Jack the Ripper may have had some kind of medical knowledge. (PROSE: A History of Humankind)
The Fellowship committed murders, usually women, to summon the Yssgaroth into the universe. William Blake and the Seventh Doctor saw the group's albino leader at a bordello around the time of the murder of Elizabeth Stride, the third victim. All known members were caught in a fire. (PROSE: The Pit)
The Valeyard used the murders to power the Dark Matrix. He created an alternate timeline where the murders continued leading to anarchy in London. Eventually, he killed through his undead wraiths- animated by the corrupted spirits of twelve of the Doctors- and followers, the Jacksprites. He was defeated by the Seventh Doctor, who used the TARDIS's telepathic circuits to shield his conscious mind from the Valeyard's assault until he could confront his foe. (PROSE: Matrix)
In post-Time War history the Re'nar war criminal Mac'atyde could be directly connected to the last three murders which he intended to blame on the Ju'wes. His pursuer, "Sir Charles Warren", couldn't stop him until the fifth victim was killed because he already knew what Earth history said about the murders. (COMIC: Ripper's Curse)
Inspector Frederick Abberline apprehended a man he identified as Jack the Ripper but kept it a secret because of his connections to the British Royal Family. Later, the Ripper escaped and Abberline approached Henry Gordon Jago and George Litefoot to help him find the murderer, who at that point used the alias "Tom Carlton". He was employed at the New Regency Theatre. (AUDIO: The Wax Princess)
Even though it was unclear if she ever got his real name, (PROSE: A History of Humankind) Jack was believed caught by the Silurian Madame Vastra, who proceeded to devour him. She found him "stringy, but tasty all the same". (TV: A Good Man Goes to War) The Twelfth Doctor noted that Vastra has told him as such and believed her. He was unsure who exactly the killer had been, even considering travel to the era to find out, but he noted that Magnus Greel had taken up the role left by Jack several years later. Whilst some assumed they were one in the same killer, the Doctor confirmed Greel was not Jack. (PROSE: A History of Humankind)
Legacy
In 1940, some commentators in the London press dubbed the Limehouse Lurker to be the new Jack the Ripper after a series of murders around the East End unrelated to the ongoing Blitz. (PROSE: Illegal Alien)
As noted by a man in a Channel 4 documentary, in recalling Jack the Ripper, the public had a tendency to "reinterpret the past according to the ideals of the present". This man argued that in the 1970s, when the British were concerned with bureaucracy and big government, the leading theory was that Jack the Ripper had been a high-ranking Freemason, involved in a national conspiracy. In the 1990s, due to the advent of an American genre of popular films with gay serial killers, the leading theory held that he had been a gay American serial killer, too. Sam Jones remembered this documentary, and it helped her to understand how history changed over the course of time. (PROSE: Interference - Book Two)
The London Dungeon had re-enactments of the Jack the Ripper murders to attract tourists. For "one glorious summer", Tamsin Drew played "a Cockney drab who gets done to death by Jack the Ripper". (AUDIO: Deimos)
Other references
The killings of Li H'sen Chang were blamed on Jack the Ripper by some newspapers. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang) After a series of brutal London murders in 1909, some believed that it meant the return of either Jack the Ripper or Spring-heeled Jack. (PROSE: Birthright, AUDIO: Birthright)
The Fifth Doctor planned to investigate the mystery of Jack the Ripper's identity for the use in his book Doctor Who Discovers Historical Mysteries. (AUDIO: The Kingmaker) By his eighth incarnation, he believed that he knew Jack the Ripper's identity. (PROSE: The Bodysnatchers, Interference) Chris Cwej likewise believed that he knew it. (PROSE: Dead Romance)
The architecture of the Torchwood Hub made Owen Harper think that Jack the Ripper should be prowling around somewhere. (PROSE: Slow Decay)
Shawna Thompson questioned whether the Doctor was "some sort of modern-day Jack-the-Ripper". (AUDIO: Hysteria)
Behind the scenes
Jack was voiced by John DiMaggio in the Futurama episode Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch.
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