James Kenneth Stephen – Was he Jack the Ripper? James Kenneth Stephen was an English poet. He was born in 1859, in London, to James (a lawyer) and Mary Stephen. He died in 1892 at the age of 32, interned in a psychiatric hospital. He was also introduced in the last century as a suspect for the Whitechapel murders, committed by the killer (or killers) known as Jack the Ripper. This is a hotly debated topic. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essay Between April 3, 1888 and February 13, 1891, eleven women (mostly prostitutes) were murdered in the neighborhood from Whitechapel to London. at least five of them were killed by Jack the Ripper, and the other six have been attributed to him but not proven (although it is likely that Jack's body count is only the original five) . Many suspects have been presented in the century since the murders, but none have been definitively identified as the killer. Suspects range from poor dockers to princes vying for the British throne. James Stephen is just one man in the discussion. In reality, there is very little chance that James Stephen is Jack the Ripper. His "connections" to the case (if they can even be called that) are very uncertain and depend on his relationships with other people suspected of being Jack the Ripper. Several suspects can be correctly linked to the case, such as Aaron Kosminski, Walter Sickert, Karl Feigenbaum, and Montague Druitt – Stephen isn't really one of them. Originally introduced as a suspect by author Michael Harrison in 1972, Stephen's links to the case are very weak and lack credibility. His connection to the affair comes from Prince Albert Victor, with whom Stephen was educated, befriended, and eventually became somewhat obsessed, to the point that he refused to eat after learning of the former's death. and died of starvation. It was even suggested that they had a secret relationship, but this was never proven. For what it's worth, Stephen and Albert have had several public romantic relationships or crushes with women. Albert was presented as a possible suspect, but government records show he could not have committed any of the murders because he was not in London on any of the dates involved in the case - and although he could have Indeed, Jack's methodology suggests a knowledge of Whitechapel (a very poor area of ​​London) that someone of Prince Albert's social status would not have had. Albert was in places like Scotland, Sandringham and Yorkshire when the murders were committed, but never in London. Stephen himself therefore looks less and less like the man the detectives were looking for. Standing six feet tall, he towered over all the men spotted by witnesses, all of whom were between 5'5 and 5'8. Another "evidence" cited by Harrison is Stephen's misogyny demonstrated in some poems (although it could be argued that his statements, such as those about the perceived inconsistency between the amount of problems caused by women and men, are satirical and should not be taken seriously) and his mental instability may have been caused by a head injury in his mid-twenties, which of course cannot be taken as proof. It should be noted that Stephen was not known to be violent, especially murderous. Additionally, he was not known to have been in the area at the time of the murders, although of course that doesn't necessarily mean he wasn't Jack the Ripper. As a professor at Cambridge (which is sixty miles from London) he would have had to be in two placesdifferent both to be able to commit murder in London and return to Cambridge to teach the next morning – sixty miles in record time. the night is not possible without a car, especially with the less well-maintained roads of the 19th century. Generally, experts agree that the murderer was a resident of Whitechapel. A letter addressed to George Lusk of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee (a group of men who patrolled the area in an attempt to stop the killings), purportedly written by Jack himself, suggests that Jack did not know how to write or use a pen very well , which would not apply to Stephen. The dates of the murders (weekends and holidays) suggest that Jack had a regular job which would not apply to Stephen either. Overall, Jack's literacy (or lack thereof), his knowledge of anatomy (demonstrated by his manipulation of organs during attacks), and the dates of his murders suggest to me that he might have been a an uneducated butcher or other similar profession who lived in poor Whitechapel, a far cry from an upper-class poet who lived far to the north. To be fair to Stephen's accusers, he cannot be completely ruled out as a suspect by the dates of the murders - he was committed to a mental hospital in November 1891 and died there a few months later after starving to death. The last murder suspected of being committed by Jack was committed by Jack in November 1888, and the last murder suspected of having been committed by Jack was committed in February 1891. In 1896, he was hit by one blades of a windmill while on holiday in Felixstowe, on the east coast of England. Although no serious effects were immediately noticed, anecdotes from people who knew and dealt with him afterward suggest that he sometimes became belligerent, strange, and generally very different from his usual behavior. He became prone to sudden outbursts and bizarre actions, although he was never known to stoop to murder. He suffered from bipolar disorder and this may have been made worse by his injury. He has also been called a misogynist due to some questionable poems. Although I agree with the sentiment that he was a sarcastic person and that these poems are mostly jokes, he does have a few poems with suspicious verses such as those describing his indifference to the murder of an annoying woman . Michael Harrison suggested that Stephen was performing one of his poems, "Air: Kaphoozelum", in which ten women are murdered (although Harrison did not properly verify the facts and named a woman who did not even been murdered). In general, though, it's likely that Jack's victims are limited to the first five women, and with each victim added afterward, it becomes more exaggerated. Graffiti near one of the crime scenes with anti-Semitic sentiments suggests a connection to Freemasonry. , but there is no evidence that Stephen was a Freemason and he was not known to express any anti-Semitism. Links have been made to a leather apron worn by criminals active at the time of the murders, which could of course be linked to Freemasonry (which has received various accusations of anti-Semitism and massive Jewish conspiracy), but as the apron was leather it is more likely that it was not white as has been suggested. A leather apron may have belonged to a butcher or an artist like Walter Sickert. While Stephen certainly did and thought some questionable things, none of them really constitute a good and conclusive connection to the murders. Michael Harrison's accusations never really made sense and.