Former police volunteer claims to know Jack the Ripper's identity

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

A former police volunteer claims to have revealed the identity of the 19th century murderer Jack the Ripper. 

Sarah Bax Horton used witness statements and medical records from 1888, when the notorious killer murdered at least five women in Whitechapel in the East End of London, to solve the inexplicable case. 

She told the Sunday Telegraph that she believes the real name of the killer was Hyam Hyams, an alcoholic who was in and out of mental asylums and lived in an area at the centre of the murders.

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.

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. 

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