No, Infographics didn't do one of its rare goofs again- this video really is about Jack
the Stripper, the British serial killer who terrorized London during the 1960s,
75 years after the infamous Jack the Ripper evaded police.
The first body was found early on the morning of June 17th, 1959, when two coppers came across
the body of a young woman. The woman had had her clothes ripped open and clearly been strangled,
with her underwear and shoes missing. The woman was ID'ed as Elizabeth Figg, known to locals to
work as a prostitute in the area. Yet when it came to her killer, the only lead the bobbies
could drum up was from a nearby pub owner who had seen a pair of headlights in the area early
in the morning, then saw the headlights click off and shortly after heard a woman's scream.
With no leads, the rozzers gave up on the case, writing off the murder
as just yet another tragic lady of the night being killed off by a bad john.
However, almost four years later a second body would be discovered in a similar condition
and the same area as Figg's. This body would be identified as Gwynneth Rees, also a sex worker.
Rees had also been stripped of her clothes but her body had been decapitated with a shovel, likely
after death. With two bodies in the same condition so close together, The Bill knew that they had a
serial killer on their hands- and this time they wouldn't have to wait long for the next victim.
Hannah Tailford, yet another prostitute, turned up along the banks of the river Thames a year
later. Also stripped of her clothes, Tailford even had had several false teeth ripped out,
and her underwear was discovered shoved down her throat. Investigators believed that she had been
strangled to death after the underwear was forced down her throat. Rather than wait another year,
the killer now known as Jack the Stripper for his penchant of stripping his victims nude,
struck again in April of that year, just months after Tailford's death. This time
it was a pregnant woman named Irene Lockwood, also found stripped and strangled to death.
Jack the Stripper was accelerating his killing, and despite their best efforts the bizzies
couldn't find a single lead. It was believed that the killer strangled his victims before
he stripped them, and other than occasionally finding a victim who had been punched, there
were no other signs of struggle. The bodies had also been kept someplace warm before being dumped,
meaning that it was likely Jack the Stripper was gaining the women's confidence before
killing them. As the victims were all suspected prostitutes, it was almost certain that Jack was
simply paying for their services, lulling them into a false sense of security, and killing them.
Then the five-oh got its first real breakthrough,
when Jack struck again just weeks after his latest murder.
Helem Barthelemy, also a suspected prostitute, was discovered stripped and strangled to death.
Once more there were no witnesses, but this time the killer had left behind a clue- flecks
of paint on the victim's body. Forensics quickly identified the paint as that used in an automotive
paint spray gun and the first real lead fueled an investigation into local auto body repair shops.
Yet this was a very faint clue to work from, and provided no real details to the killer's identity.
In short order, three more bodies were discovered, all stripped,
all strangled to death. However, on two of the bodies more of the same paint was discovered.
As prostitutes in the area were questioned, one came forward who knew the latest victim.
She described a man who had picked up the victim on the night before she was discovered dead,
at last giving the boys in blue a solid lead.
Police would launch an investigation that rounded up almost 7,000 men, all thoroughly interviewed.
Their best lead however would be the paint found on the bodies, which was eventually matched with
paint from a local body repair shop in the area. Given the shop's warmth from all the equipment,
it was thought that the suspect must have been bringing the women here before killing them,
which explained why the bodies had clearly been kept somewhere warm before being dumped.
After thoroughly investigating all of the workers with access to the shop though,
investigators were no closer to nailing down a suspect.
Until they turned their attention to a local security guard.
Mungo Ireland was a security guard who worked in the area, and would have had access to the
workshop. Police began tailing Ireland and interviewing him, and a month after the last
murder he was found dead inside his car. Ireland had run a hose from the car's exhaust and into
the cab, pinning it in place with a cracked open window and suffocating himself. A note
discovered by his wife read, “To save you and the police looking for me, I'll be in the garage.”
The murders stopped after Ireland's death, which would seem to indicate that the peelers
had found their man. However, after his death it was discovered that Ireland may
have been out of the country when one of the victims was murdered-
so then why did he kill himself after he believed he was under investigation? Could he have been
part of yet another criminal ploy that went undiscovered? Ireland's corpse told no stories.
Another local actually came forward and confessed to one of the murders,
but then retracted his confession when he was tried for the crime. With no additional
evidence that linked him to the murder and no ties to the auto repair shop that matched the
paint found on the bodies, a jury found him not guilty and he was acquitted. Many years later,
a reformed mafioso writing a book on crime claimed that while conducting
investigations into the local underworld he discovered information that painted
light heavyweight boxing champion Freddie Mills as the murderer. According to the mafioso,
two local gangsters suspected Mills all along, though Mills was found dead by gunshot in 1965.
Others would pop up as the suspected murderers decades after the killings ended,
but the strongest evidence may have pointed to a killer living right under
London police's nose the entire time. In 1921 Harold Jones, age 15, killed two girls.
Given his very young age he wasn't eligible for the death penalty and instead thrown in prison
for life. Twenty years later though in 1941 he was released from prison for exemplary behavior
and drafted into the Merchant Marine to help run vital supplies between England and America.
Jones changed his name after the war to Harry in an effort to evade his past,
and lived a quiet life as a night watchman. He died of bone cancer in 1971, and while
no physical evidence ever linked him to the murders, some people believe that his proximity
to the murders and two previous killings of young girls matched the same MO of Jack the Stripper.
In the end nobody knows who really was Jack the Stripper, and though DNA evidence of at
least one of the suspects is available by a surviving son, the police never recovered
anything from the bodies which might today still hold traces of the killer's DNA. Much like the
original Jack the Ripper, this serial killer's identity would remain a mystery forevermore.
Now go watch You won't believe who jack the ripper is- new 2019 dna test reveals his identity,
or click this other video instead.