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Tuesday, 02 December 2008

Could Jack the Ripper be resting in Australia?

30/08/2008 5:00:00 PM.  | AAP

A Brisbane cemetery may be the resting place of one of the most notorious homicide suspects of all time, Jack the Ripper.

On the eve of the 120th anniversary of the first of the murders of five prostitutes in London's Whitechapel area, keen Ripperologists have made the chilling claim he could be buried at Toowong Cemetery, in Brisbane's west.

They claim the man they think was Jack the Ripper was Walter Thomas Porriott, known to police as Andrew John Gibson.

The headstone where he was buried in 1952 does not even mention his name.

Instead it reads: "Bessie" died 25th June 1957 and her husband.

A grainy image on the headstone, depicting a caped-man raising a dagger, adds to the mystery.

Porriott was a convicted killer and fraudster who had 20 wives and was buried at Toowong Cemetery beside his last wife Eliza, known as "Bessie".

He lived in London when all five murders were committed and sailed to Australia after the murders stopped.

The latest Brisbane theory is one of hundreds about the identity of the never caught killer, who went on a brutal rampage through London for five months in 1888.

Brisbane historian and Ipswich City Councillor Paul Tully said the latest claim was "sketchy in detail".

"All of the theories are based on circumstantial evidence and a lot of supposition," he said.

"That's why being another theory, I don't think this is... Jack the Ripper. But it can't be ruled out."

Cr Tully said exhuming the grave for DNA testing would be "inappropriate".

"I don't know that digging up people on a speculative basis would be appropriate."

Mr Tully has previously claimed Ned Kelly's younger brother Dan and fellow gang member Steve Hart survived the famous Kelly gang shoot-out at Glenrowan 125 years ago and came to live in Ipswich.

He has now become a self-professed Ripperologist who is writing a book which details the notorious killer's connection to Australia.

"It is possible we might still find out one day who Jack the Ripper was.

It is equally possible that no one will ever know."

Porriott joins Frederick Deeming, who was hanged in Melbourne in 1892 for killing his wife, as the other Australian link to the Jack the Ripper mystery.

Deeming went to the gallows claiming he was Jack the Ripper.

COMMENTS

Saturday, 30 August 2008

I'm convinced the Ripper was Francis Tumblety.

Posted by: Too Smoky, Pottsville

 
 

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