The ‘wandering lunatic who was Jack the Ripper’: Alcoholic cripple and frequent resident of mental asylums was notorious serial killer of West London, claims investigator
- Sarah Bax Horton claims to have unmasked the notorious killer from 1888
Jack the Ripper was an alcoholic cripple who was a frequent resident of mental asylums, according to an investigator.
Former police volunteer Sarah Bax Horton claims to have uncovered the identity of the notorious killer who murdered at least five women in Whitechapel in the East End of London in 1888.
She told the Sunday Telegraph she believes Jack the Ripper’s real name was Hyam Hyams, an alcoholic that lived in an area at the centre of the murders and was picked up by the police as ‘a wandering lunatic’ after his alleged killing spree.
Ms Bax Horton, whose great-great-grandfather was a policeman central to the investigation, uncovered witness descriptions of the man believed to be Jack the Ripper and matched them to Hyams physical characteristics.
They described a man in his mid-thirties with a stiff arm and an irregular gait with bent knees. According to his medical notes Hyams, who was 35 in 1888, was unable to ‘bend or extend’ his arm following an injury and was also unable to straighten his knees.
An expert believes Jack the Ripper was Hyam Hyams, an alcoholic who was in and out of mental asylums
A front page from a 1888 report on the murders
Sarah Bax Horton used witness statements and medical records from 1888
Ms Bax Horton told the told the Sunday Telegraph: ‘In the files, it said what the eyewitnesses said – that he had a peculiar gait. He was weak at the knees and wasn’t fully extending his legs.
‘When he walked, he had a kind of shuffling gait, which was probably a side-effect of some brain damage as a result of his epilepsy.’
‘He was particularly violent after his severe epileptic fits, which explains the periodicity of the murders.’
Hyams’ medical notes were taken from various infirmaries and asylums, highlighting his physical and mental decline which coincided with the time of the Ripper’s killing spree between August 31 and November 9, 1888.
Ms Bax Horton said that Hyams broke his left arm in February 1888 and was incarcerated in the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, north London in September 1889.
She added that Hyams was picked up by the police as ‘a wandering lunatic’ towards the end of 1888, explaining why the murders suddenly stopped.
This is not the first time someone has come forward claiming to know the identity of Jack the Ripper and numerous individuals have been accused over the years.
