Jack the Ripper was a woman. That was the possibility London newspapers began to report: that the killer who had horrified the world for months was a woman disguised as a man, living and working unnoticed in Whitechapel. By the time the story spread, she had reportedly vanished. Police were confidently believed to be “at last on the track” of the murderer, and there was suddenly talk of “his or her crimes”.
Who, it was asked, could walk the streets at night without suspicion, possess the anatomical knowledge the mutilations suggested, and risk being found beside a body? One answer: a woman who was, or had been, a midwife. Discovered bending over a victim, she need only say she had been passing by and thought the woman required her medical attention. Though largely discounted, the Jill the Ripper theory has never completely gone away.
