Has Jack the Ripper’s identity finally been revealed? Former Police Volunteer Claims Newly Discovered Medical Records Point To An Alcoholic Being In And Out Of Mental Asylums
- Sarah Bax Horton claims to have unmasked the notorious 1888 murderer
A former police volunteer claims to have revealed the identity of 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 London’s East End, to solve the unexplained case.
She said the sunday telegraph that she believes the killer’s real name was Hyam Hyams, an alcoholic who was in and out of mental asylums and lived in an area at the center of the murders.
Ms Bax Horton, whose great-great-grandfather was a police officer central to the investigation, discovered witness descriptions of the man believed to be Jack the Ripper and compared them to Hyams’ physical features.
They described a man in his late thirties with a stiff arm and an uneven gait with bent knees. According to his medical notes, Hyams, who was 35 years old in 1888, could not “bend or extend” his arm after injury, nor could he straighten his knees.
An expert believes that Jack the Ripper was Hyam Hyams, an alcoholic who was in and out of mental asylums
Sarah Bax Horton used witness statements and medical records from 1888
Ms Bax Horton told the Sunday Telegraph: ‘In the files, it said what the eyewitnesses said – that he had a peculiar gait. She was weak in the knees and was not fully extending her 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 seizures, which explains the periodicity of the killings.”
Hyams’s medical notes were taken from various infirmaries and asylums, noting his physical and mental decline which coincided with the time of the Ripper’s killing spree between August 31 and November 9, 1888.
Mrs Bax Horton said that Hyams broke his left arm in February 1888 and was imprisoned in the Colney Hatch Asylum for Lunatics, 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 people have been accused over the years.
