It is the night of August 31st, 1888. Mary Ann Nichols walks the street of White Chapel looking for her last customer of the night. She sees a figure in the darkness and ambles towards it. Her last customer waits. As she approaches the figure, he beckons her to follow. The strange figure clasps onto her mouth, and all she can do is let out a small gasp as she is being dragged into the night. Silence follows. Hours later, a man called Charles Cross found her mangled body in the alleyway of Bucks Row, the local pub. That night was the night that sparked a murderous rampage through the streets of London. A rampage that lasted nine, blood curdling weeks and ended suddenly on November 8, 1888 with the brutal slaying of Mary Jane Kelley (Jack the Ripper Murders par. 1). Everyone knows this mysterious case of Jack the Ripper, but little do they know, Jack was actually a Jill.

The question of a female Jill the Ripper has been around for decades, but the evidence would indicate that a woman, probably a mid-wife, was to blame. Abortions were widely viewed as “anti-Christ,” and theory leads to the belief that the woman was a mad, childless woman who wanted nothing more than to have a child of her own. When she heard a man named Mr. Williams claim that his ancestor was approached by Mary Ann Nichols and asked to abort her pregnancy, she became enraged. She found Mary and killed her; she showed her motive by the incisions around Mary’s abdomen and the clean removal of her abdominal organs, including the womb (Was Jack Welsh? par. 14 ).

The theory of the midwife is extremely viable. A midwife would have the medical knowledge and the tools to make someone unconscious and kill them with precise incisions through the neck and around the abdominal cavity (Criminals-outlaws par. 4). The murder weapon further implies the presence of a medical person, as it was a surgical knife used to amputate limbs and cut open bodies during autopsies. The mere sight of a mid wife of that time covered in blood was normal as she would have the alibi of birthing a child (par. 4). Living in or near White Chapel during that time period was extremely tense for the prostitutes wanting to make money. Any customer could be a killer, but a woman could go about her day without arousing a single suspicion. Men and women of the time would never suspect the murderer being a woman as women were too fragile to ever kill; however, the midwife took extreme advantage of this and made her way into history.

Her decision to kill one woman started her path to insanity. Her only hope of covering up for herself was to find other victims and make it look like a serial killer. Fortunately for her, she found the perfect ones. All of them were prostitutes, and all of them had destroyed their body in some way or another. Her own hatred of self mutilation made them ideal targets. Three of the deceased were severe alcoholics who not only hurt themselves, but the people around them. Her own clouded mind made her feel like she was doing the world a duty, and so she carried on killing until she met her final victim. Mary Kelley, was said to be pregnant and in need of an abortion. She probably spoke with the midwife about the termination and so she became the Ripper’s last and most gruesome victim. The Ripper had been building up hatred for self-mutilating people, but nothing could compare to her hatred for murderers of the “innocent,” she let out all of her hatred on Mary Kelley; Kelley’s body was so mangled that she was only able to be identified by her hair color and her eyes. This final act marked the end to the Ripper’s terror in the city of London.

These days, anyone could be a killer and no one would notice the deaths of five measly prostitutes, and yet the case of Jill the Ripper will live on in infamy. It is safe to say that suspicions never fell on the ones who had the best opportunity and motive to kill all five. One may ask, “Why did she do it?” This question will haunt many people for decades more. Perhaps she got a perverse pleasure out of killing. Maybe she’d seen too much misery in her life that it drove her over the edge. The major question is: what ever happened to the mysterious Jill?