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This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture.

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The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations, but not necessarily the only ones to the mysteries we will examine.

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During the autumn of 1888, there occurred one of the most baffling crimes in the files of Scotland Yard.

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In the White Chapel area of London's east end, women walked in fear of their lives.

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A wave of terror had been caused by an elusive murderer known as Jack the Ripper.

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The World's Most Wicked

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London, the centre of the Victorian Empire on whose colonies the sun never set.

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The home of kings and queens, of magnificent monuments that only a thousand years of royalty could build.

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It's also a city of cruel paradoxes.

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No one knows how many vagrants

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wandered the East End streets

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attempting to eke out an existence.

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Jack London called them the people of the abyss,

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poor, miserable human beings

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clinging to the garbage heap of life.

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Against this backdrop would be played

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one of the most provocative unsolved crimes

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of the 19th century.

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Investigations continued to this day

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with growing evidence that while

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in fact the ripper's victims were from England's lowest class,

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his deeds directly affected many of the most powerful people in the land.

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On the night of August 31st, 1888,

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Mary Ann Nichols, a woman separated from her husband,

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found herself once again in the wretched East End.

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She had no money to secure a bed at a common lodging house

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where she had previously stayed.

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She pleaded, begging for a free bed.

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Realizing the hopelessness of her cause,

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Mary Nichols decided that she would sell her precious bonnet

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for the entrance fee.

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Less than one and a half hours later,

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she became the first victim of Jack the Ripper.

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Wendy Sturges, a BBC reporter, researched the murders.

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The overcrowding that happened was rife.

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People didn't normally live in a house.

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They had a room in a house and possibly five or six people in their family

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lived in that room.

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There were times when people didn't earn any money whatsoever.

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So they would live in what were called DOS houses or common lodging houses,

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which cost a lot of money.

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And there, people were drunk.

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They didn't have any food.

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They drank gin.

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Gin cost a considerable little amount of money for a colossal amount of gin.

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With your overcrowding and with the drunkenness, there was no privacy.

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Once you're drunk, you lose all sense of yourself and your own character.

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You lose your pride, basically.

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Donald Rumbelow is a member of London's Metropolitan Police Force.

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The East End at this nightly had something like about 7,000 of these women,

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either walking the streets or trying to get into the common lodging houses or DOS houses.

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Even 20 years later, when Jack London came to London,

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he found that women like this could be bought for a loaf of stale bread

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or for a penny or tuppence at the most.

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They were living below the starvation level.

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And so, if somebody offered them as little as sixpence or a shilling

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or even fourpence, which was the price for a bed for the night, they would have gone with him.

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The deaths of wayward women provided headline fare for London's tabloids.

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The question that most fascinated the public,

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how did the killer commit his crimes so easily?

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Once the Ripper had got them to a quiet place, then it would have been quite an easy matter for him

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to have strangled them very quickly into unconsciousness.

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Almost certainly, he would not have used the knife straight away.

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Women died from the effects of a cut throat,

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but there was bruising and there were other marks to show

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that they were probably stunned into unconsciousness, strangled or partly strangled.

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And then, when they were lying on the ground, only then was the knife used.

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The press claimed that the killer threatened all of London.

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In fact, he prowled only within a one and a half square mile area.

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Eight days after killing Mary Nichols, he began stalking again.

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Less than ten minutes walk from the first murder site,

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Annie Chapman would become his second victim.

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Somehow, the psychopathic needs of the killer were not being satisfied.

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He then etched himself in history by being the first murderer to send crazed, rambling notes to the press,

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taunting the police, chiding them, daring them to capture him.

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Dear boss, I keep on hearing the police have caught me, but they won't fix me just yet.

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I have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track.

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That joke about leather apron gave me real fits.

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My knife is so nice and sharp.

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I want to get to work right away if I get a chance.

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Keep this letter till I do a bit more work.

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Then give it out straight.

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Providing police with clues to his real identity became a game.

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He began giving all two accurate predictions of his next plans,

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and finally he invented a name for himself, Jack the Ripper.

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In the darkened alleys of the East End, Catherine Eddowes made her way home alone.

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She was not particularly afraid now. Nothing had been heard from the killer in over three weeks.

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There was no way she could know that on this night, Elizabeth Stride had already been murdered.

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But apparently because the killer was dissatisfied by some aspect of the act, he needed to murder again.

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Another example of the way his disturbed mind was working.

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He began arranging the few meager possessions of his victims in weird patterns at their feet.

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Was he in some way attempting to hint at his real identity?

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Stephen Knight authored a book on the historic murders.

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The greatest clue of all was the only clue to be left by Jack the Ripper,

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and this was a message chalked on a wall near the fourth murder that of Catherine Eddowes.

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The hastily chalked message was cryptic and mysterious.

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Some believed it referred to a secret brotherhood called the Freemasons.

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It had a very weird effect in that the chief commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Charles Warren,

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as soon as he heard about the message rushed to the East End and personally washed it off.

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This was incredible behavior. It was the only clue left by the Ripper and he obliterated it.

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He never explained why.

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Sir Charles Warren was one of the most influential Freemasons in England.

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Was there some Masonic clue in the message that motivated Sir Charles, who was also the police commissioner, to erase it?

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Did his own Masonic membership force him to do this?

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Was it evidence of some sort of cover-up?

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Every profession in this country has members who belong to the Masonic Order.

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It's very much connected with royalty. They are a secret order, not very much of them is known.

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You only know if you talk to any ex-Mason.

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Because of its secrecy, it's a sworn, closed brotherhood that help each other in their own careers.

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At the same time, they help each other keep secrets in and out of their careers.

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And if you have a secret that you wish to be kept, it could not be in safer hands.

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They are sworn more to each other than they are to their wives and their families.

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Freemasonry began in the Middle Ages with the establishment of construction guilds.

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The builders of some of Europe's most magnificent cathedrals, they surrounded themselves in an aura of mystery and religious symbolism,

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soon attracting followers from other arenas.

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Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, was a Freemason.

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Likewise, the first President of the United States, George Washington.

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Even the dollar bill, with its Masonic all-seeing eye of God, reflected how deeply the Masons had penetrated all levels of society.

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But the honorable Earl of Carnivon, Grandmaster of the United Grand Lodge of England at the time of Jack the Ripper,

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was perhaps the most powerful Mason of all.

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Only he and a few other highly ranked Freemasons knew the true power of the secret organization.

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The basic tenet of Freemasonry is secrecy.

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And to protect this, Freemasons say in their ritual that they will go to any lengths.

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Nobody is really expected to take this seriously. It is basically pantomime.

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For instance, in the first degree of Freemasonry, out of the entered apprentice,

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an initiate swears to have his throat cut from left to right if he betrays Masonic secrets.

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He also agrees to cut the throat of a fellow Mason from left to right if he betrays Masonic secrets.

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This is meant to be purely ritual and pantomime.

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But in the case of Jack the Ripper, a leading Freemason took the various brutal oaths of Masonry absolutely literally and carried them out.

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Was Jack the Ripper a high-ranking Freemason?

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To find the answer, in search of cameras would have to explore the world of English royalty.

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The White Chapel of today has changed in many ways since Jack the Ripper's murder spree in the fall of 1888.

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Street names have been altered, many of the old buildings demolished, and most of the murder sites have disappeared.

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The interest and fascination with Jack the Ripper lives on, however, despite the absence of most of the physical evidence,

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including files that were supposedly tucked safely away in the secure vaults of Scotland Yard.

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Dr. J. M. Cameron, chief pathologist of the Home Office, has dealt with the problem of these sketchy files.

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Dr. J. M. Cameron, chief pathologist of the Home Office, has dealt with the problem of these sketchy files while pursuing his own personal investigation.

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I feel that any police officer nowadays would be disgusted with any of his juniors or the pathologist if they were to submit reports,

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as we are led to believe were submitted, in the Jack the Ripper cases.

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There have been many views and past as to who it could have been, whether he was a medical man or had medical knowledge,

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or whether they had any knowledge as to say a butcher or a fishmonger.

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There is no evidence in any of the photographs that I have seen of the victims, which would lead me to believe that he was a doctor,

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because if he was, or if he were to be, he should have been struck off the medical register because of his technique.

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On reviewing all the cases, it is obvious that the majority of the assaults took place from behind.

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None were heard to scream other than one. This assault from behind is not uncommon even today, particularly by an impotent male using the knife as a phallic symbol.

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Despite all of the theories filling the tabloids, the public was in no way prepared for the description of the killer's last murder.

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Marie Jeanette Kelly was killed inside her living quarters, and it was obvious to the police who found the body that the barbarity of this particularly vicious act far exceeded anything that Jack the Ripper had previously exhibited.

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How could the murders have been committed within potential view and earshot of so many people? What made it possible for the killers to escape so easily, especially with the police on alert in Whitechapel?

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If it had been a person, a man, for instance, or a woman from that part of London, a working class person who lived in those overcrowded conditions, there's really little chance that he would have got away with it.

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A man roaming the streets covered in blood, going into a common lodging house, would have been seen by his fellow people. It would have been spotted by his own kind.

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If you think of it as being a middle class person, then essentially you're up against the same problems because the middle class person would either have come from Whitechapel or the environs or have come outside Whitechapel and would need a transport.

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They would have had to hide a Hackney carriage and a Hackney carriage would have had a driver who would have seen a man covered in blood running away from the east end in a hurry.

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So we felt it was more than likely to be a moneyed person, an aristocrat, fairly high up in some sort of government who had this ability to remain anonymous, this ability to run away in a hurry.

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Nevertheless, Scotland Yard thought John Pizer, an obscure little man commonly called Leather Apron, was a possible suspect.

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Also on their list, Dr. Neil Creme and George Chapman, both professional murderers at large with a history of wife killing.

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Also, Montague drew it, a near-due well-lawyer and teacher supposedly going insane who came from a long line of medical doctors.

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And finally, the unstable Duke of Clarence, second in line to the throne who was studying art in Whitechapel at the time of the crimes.

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Some theorize today that for the murderer to repeatedly escape, there probably was a conspiracy involving Buckingham Palace.

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Queen Victoria, the matriarch, the power of England, now sat on an uncertain throne, her monarchy shaken by disloyal colonies and scandals from within.

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Her eldest son, first in line to the throne, who would later become King Edward VII, had embarrassed the Queen with his less-than-discreet private life.

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And his son, the Duke of Clarence, was rumored to be going slowly insane as a result of syphilis, contracted when he was 16.

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Some thought one more family scandal would be the last necessary ingredient to bring down the entire empire.

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Further evidence supporting the royal family involvement.

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Sir William Gull, the personal physician to the Duke of Clarence, was seen rushing along the Whitechapel streets on nights that many of the murders occurred.

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Why was the good doctor in the rough east end late at night?

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The police questioned nearly everyone, but they were actually searching the area for a well-spoken man of medium build, fair complexion between 20 and 40.

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Interestingly enough, the Duke matched that description nearly perfectly.

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Was it possible that a man second in line to the throne of England could have been one of the most brutal murderers in history?

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Reports indicated that Jack the Ripper invariably wore a deerstocker cap and cape on the nights he encountered and later murdered his victims.

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A tire easily obtainable by the Duke, since he was a proficient hunter on his father's reserves.

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Of all the suspects, he was the only free mason.

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But the most potent evidence against the Duke did not come to light until nearly a century after the five killings.

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Sir William Gull, the royal physician to the Duke, maintained a detailed medical history and a diary of his patients entire life.

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In 1970, the information they contained found its way to the eminent British physician and ranking free mason, Dr. Thomas Stowell.

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Although bound by an oath of secrecy, Dr. Stowell charged in a magazine called The Criminologist and during a BBC interview that the Duke of Clarence was indeed Jack the Ripper.

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Strangely enough, seven days later he recanted in the London Times and within a week he was dead.

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Two days later his son reported that the family had burned all the doctors' files in the Jack the Ripper case.

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The only real evidence that linked the Duke of Clarence to the crimes had been destroyed.

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The Duke of Clarence died four years after the Whitechapel murders.

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These years spent in medical confinement. No public reason for his death was ever given.

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Today, Englishmen and foreigners alike might find it difficult to believe that the identity of Jack the Ripper was known and covered up for political reasons.

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Nevertheless, recent evidence suggests this theory of government conspiracy is not beyond the realm of possibility.

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Jack the Ripper was the first mass murderer to receive international press coverage.

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Such publicity undoubtedly stimulated his psychopathic needs.

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Since that time, other violent criminals have been inspired by his ability to capture the attention of the press.

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Unfortunately, this is the most profound part of the legacy left by Jack the Ripper.

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The smashing pins.

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The thrilling victories.

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And the crushing defeats.

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Stories from the Hall of Fame. Bowling.

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Tonight at 8 on the History Channel.

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