Suspects
The concentration of the killings at the weekend, and within a few streets of each other, has indicated to many that the Ripper was employed during the week and lived locally. Others have thought the killer was an educated upper-class man, possibly a doctor or an aristocrat, who ventured into Whitechapel from a more well-to-do area; such theories draw on cultural perceptions such as fear of the medical profession, distrust of modern science, or the exploitation of the poor by the rich. Suspects proposed years after the murders include virtually anyone remotely connected to the case by contemporary documents, as well as many famous names, who were never considered in the police investigation. As everyone alive at the time is now dead, modern authors are free to accuse anyone, "without any need for any supporting historical evidence". Suspects named in contemporary police documents include three in Sir Melville Macnaghten's 1894 memorandum, but the evidence against them is circumstantial at best.
Despite the many and varied theories about the identity and profession of Jack the Ripper, authorities are not agreed on a single solution and the number of named suspects reaches over one hundred.
Read more about this topic: Jack The Ripper
Famous quotes containing the word suspects:
“A brother noble,
Whose nature is so far from doing harms
That he suspects none.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“Throughout the centuries, man has considered himself beautiful.... I rather suppose that man only believes in his own beauty out of pride; that he is not really beautiful and he suspects this himself; for why does he look on the face of his fellow-man with such scorn?”
—Isidore Ducasse, Comte de Lautréamont (1846–1870)