Real Identity of Jack the Ripper Discovered?

There have been over 100 proposed Jack the Rippers in the years since the 1880s, so this new revelation may be nothing more than a ploy to draw attention to the Discovery Channel’s Jack the Ripper: Killer Revealed on Sunday, October 11th (tune in at 9PM/8 C).  But the new theory is also the result of “two years of intensive research” and it’s based on a fairly comprehensive FBI character sketch of a man who was murdering women and mutilating their bodies a full century before the heyday of murdering women and mutilating their bodies.  The killer’s identity was never discovered, but the latest suspect is notable because he was right under the noses of the inspectors all along.  Who is the latest Jack the Ripper suspect?  

Robert Mann, a morgue attendant who worked with police when they needed to study the victims’ bodies:

After the killing of Polly Nichols, Jack’s first recognised victim, Mann unlocked the mortuary for the police so they could examine the body and as such, was called as a witness in her inquest to help establish the cause of death.

Most damningly, he undressed Polly’s body with his assistant, despite being under strict instructions from Inspector Spratling to not touch the body, and Trow suspects that this was an opportunity to admire his handiwork.

The Coroner, in his summation of Robert Mann’s testimony, concluded that, “It appears the mortuary-keeper is subject to fits, and neither his memory nor statements are reliable.”

Sounds like kind of a lay-up, investigators.  ”Robert Mann couldn’t possibly be the killer – that guy is too deranged and obsessed with dead bodies to be capable of murder.”

Source: The Telegraph.