WILLIAM SHATNER (VOICEOVER): London, England, July 1888.
Two months before the horrific Whitechapel killing
spree began, an American named Francis
Tumblety arrived in the city.
Although, this was not his first trip to London.
For more than a decade, Tumblety had
sold a number of medicinal remedies
in both the United States and England,
and had also claimed to be a doctor
and treated numerous patients, in spite of the fact that he
was not a licensed physician and had no formal medical training.
And there are those who believe that
this dishonest, self-proclaimed doctor
was, in fact, Jack the Ripper.
LYNN PICKNETT: Francis Tumblety, he
was an American so-called "Indian herb doctor."
In other words, he basically was a quack
who went around selling alleged remedies, cure-alls,
and preying on the gullible.
And he was over in London during the time of the Ripper murders.
MARK DONNELLY: Tumblety was horribly misogynistic.
It seems that early in his life, he had married young,
found out later that the woman he married was a prostitute
and had continued prostitution after they were married.
And so he would often espouse hatred toward all of womankind,
and especially the prostitutes.
He was an unpleasant character.
He used to host dinners, at which his great party trick was
to pass around anatomical specimens
in glass jars of female body parts, including uteruses.
And Tumblety's name has been connected with the whole Ripper
murders because he was a larger-than-life, unsavory
character.
WILLIAM SHATNER (VOICEOVER): As London was shaken
by the first four Ripper murders,
investigators began to suspect that Francis
Tumblety could be the killer.
MARK DONNELLY: Several of the medical examiners
who looked at the mutilated bodies of the victims
did comment that the killer seemed
to possess some rudimentary medical knowledge.
And we know that Tumblety was known in the States
to have performed at least one abortion that went fatally
wrong and was wanted by the police
in both the US and Canada for passing
himself off as a fake doctor.
TONY MCMAHON: There is no doubt that the London
police viewed Francis Tumblety as a key suspect.
They looked at his attitude towards women.
They looked at his desire to be taken
seriously as a surgeon and his odd collection of uteruses.
And they believed that Tumblety could
have been Jack the Ripper.
WILLIAM SHATNER (VOICEOVER): According
to London police records, Tumblety was questioned
about the Ripper murders.
But he was ultimately released for lack of evidence.
Then, shortly after the Ripper's fifth and final victim, Mary
Kelly, was murdered, Tumblety left London
and returned to New York City.
Some historians believe that the timing of these events
is no coincidence.
MARK DONNELLY: When Tumblety first
arrives in London, right after he gets there,
the Ripper murders begin.
And right after he leaves, they stop.
While we don't know exactly where Tumblety was
or exactly what he was doing, there
was a woman who ran a lodging house at 22 Batty Street.
And that is about a 10-minute walk
from each of the crime scenes.
She had a lodger, and she referred
to him as an American doctor.
There were rumors that she had found a bloody shirt
after this lodger had returned late at night, covered in gore.
And then the lodger took up new residence
at the Charing Cross Hotel.
The day after the last Ripper murder,
the lodger from the Charing Cross Hotel
disappeared without paying his bill,
but left behind a small black doctor's bag.
Once it was turned over to the police
and the contents were examined, inside they
found some herbal medicines, some clothing, a little bit
of jewelry, and some pornography, which
Tumblety is known to have sold.
Now, it's hard to know for certain
because this is just a theory.
But based on the timeline and the nature of this individual,
it is quite possible that he could have been
involved in the Ripper murders.
WILLIAM SHATNER (VOICEOVER): The London police
may have had trouble proving that Francis
Tumblety, the so-called American doctor,
could have been Jack the Ripper.
But upon his return to the United States,
the press had no such trouble convicting him
in the court of public opinion.
And many people came to believe that Tumblety
was the real Ripper.