The Hidden Testimony of Britain's First Serial Killer
November 23, 2009
Television director Monaghan and author Cawthorne (Serial Killers and Mass Murderers
) fail to prove their case that Jack the Ripper, who murdered and mutilated five prostitutes in London's Whitechapel area in 1888, and a pseudonymous author known only as “Walter” were one and the same. The authors spend most of the book re-telling portions of Walter's story from his 11-volume erotic memoir, My Secret Life
, and attempting to prove that Walter—who raped his first girl as 18 and had a lifelong obsession with raping virgins—was responsible for the Ripper killings. But the links Monaghan and Cawthorne try to establish with the Ripper (they note Walter's links to older prostitutes, the type of women Jack killed; they count the number of times certain common words appear in both the book and a letter Jack allegedly sent to the authorities) are flimsy. Whoever Walter was, the authors do not close the case of Jack the Ripper—a case that has mystified the public for well over a century.