British analysts have created a composite police drawing of Jack the Ripper, depicting the notorious Victorian serial killer with a mustache, a receding hairline and bushy eyebrows, the makers of a new television documentary said Monday.
Using the 118-year-old statements of 13 witnesses, a Metropolitan Police analyst created an image of what the prostitute-killer is believed to have looked like. The killer’s image was to be unveiled Tuesday on the British television channel Five.
“It’s a popular misconception that nobody ever saw the murderer, that he just vanished into the fog of London,” said former Metropolitan Police commander John Grieve in a statement. “Well that’s just not right. There were witnesses at the time who were highly thought of by the police.”
Grieve examined the witnesses’ statements and found enough similarity to think they could have been talking about the same man. The computer drawing of the murderer’s face was created from the descriptions. The newest investigators believe the murderer was between 25 and 35 years old and between 5-foot-5-inches and 5-foot-7-inches tall.
Jack the Ripper remains infamous, in part because his identity was never unmasked. More than 200 people have been accused of the murders of at least five East London prostitutes in 1888. The suspects have ranged from “Alice in Wonderland” author Lewis Carroll to Sir John Williams, the royal family’s obstetrician, to painter William Richard Sickert.