After spending nearly 20 years investigating the famous murders of the world's most notorious serial killer, author and teacher Richard Patterson has developed a new theory about Jack the Ripper's true identity. According to the author, famous poet Francis Thompson could very well be the man behind London's most sinister serial murders, reports The Daily Mail.
The identity of Jack the Ripper has baffled police and amateur detectives for more than a century. After committing a series of extremely brutal murders that targeted a number of sex workers in Whitechapel, London, in the 1880s, the murderer mysteriously vanished, seemingly beyond the reach of authorities.
Despite the fact that numerous people were suspected of the acts, none of them were definitively identified and convicted as the real Jack the Ripper.
Patterson's study, however, sheds light on a number of interesting details about the Ripper and the poet's profile. Jack the Ripper is notable for having a peculiar knowledge in the art of surgery, which he used in disemboweling his victims. As it turns out, Thompson was also a trained surgeon, according to The Huffington Post.
Apart from the poet's surgical expertise, Francis Thompson was also noted to have had close relations to a local prostitute in the area. Originally from Lancashire, the poet moved to London in 1885 with dreams of becoming a writer. However, his addiction to opium forced him to live in the rough.
Thompson was eventually taken in by a local prostitute who offered him a place to stay. For a year, their friendship blossomed into a budding romance, but when the poet finally got published, she opted to leave him, telling Thompson that the public would not understand their relationship.
"Soon before and soon after the murders, he wrote about killing female prostitutes with knives," Patterson said, believing that the heartbreak triggered a breakdown.
Already mentally unstable, Thompson could have begun lashing out at women in the same profession as the one who left him, thus, becoming Jack the Ripper.
Patterson is set to publish his findings in a book, "Francis Thompson - A Ripper Suspect," which is set to be published in the near future.
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