New Delhi: Jack the Ripper is a pseudonym given to an unidentified serial killer (or killers) active in the largely impoverished Whitechapel area and adjacent districts of London in the latter half of 1888.
In 1888, The Ripper, killed 13 women, most of them sex workers, wreaking terror with his knife for 10 whole weeks in the autumn of 1888.
The lack of a confirmed identity for the killer has allowed police and Ripperologists to accuse a wide variety of individuals of being the Ripper. Many of the theories however, were hardly considered worth persuing and some were downright laughable.
One of the more famous suspects was Lewis Carroll - author of children's classics such as Alice in Wonderland.
One of Carroll's characters - styled more for adult readers than children - was a killer who prayed on harlots and beautiful women, Jabberwocky, which led some contemporary authors (prominently Dr Richard Wallace) to conclude that Carroll had actually been the killer.
However, this theory has been rejected by most as Carroll was either not in Whitechapel or had airtight alibis at the time of at least three of the murders.
The police, over the last 100 years have come up with 23 suspects ranging from cotton merchants to ex-lovers of the prostitutes, labourers, journalists and even the Queen's physician-in-extraordinary.
There was a twist in the case after renowned author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle advanced theories involving a female murderer dubbed "Jill the Ripper."
Their theory claimed that the killer was actually a woman who worked as a midwife and thus could be seen in bloody clothes without attracting any attention. He also said that a woman killer would be more easily trusted by the victims than a male one.
Despite all the conspiracy theories, versions of Ripperologists and police investigations, the Scotland Yard is no closer to solving the murders today as they were in 1888.
The serial killings have become well known as British history's worst unsolved crimes.
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