Jack the Ripper Suspect – Robert Mann

According to the Mail Online in October 2009, Historian Dr Mei Trow has claimed that Jack the Ripper was mortuary attendant Robert Mann and that he killed seven – not five – women

Mr Trow’s theory is based on two years of intensive research during which he used forensic techniques including psychological and geographical profiling.

The beginnings of Mr Trow’s investigation are rooted in 1988, when a US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) examination of the Ripper case worked up a comprehensive criminal personality profile using standard agency procedures.

The FBI profile of the Ripper concluded that the killer was a white male from the lower social classes, was probably from a broken home, had a menial job such as a butcher or medical examiner’s assistant, and because of prolonged periods without human interaction, was socially inept.

Well that me well be a reasonably accurate profile, however, there were probably over a million people in Britain who fitted that profile in 1888.

Mr Trow also believes that Martha Tabram, found with 39 stab wounds to her body in Gunthorpe Street, was the first of Ripper victims, and that Alice Mackenzie, brutally murdered eight months after the canonical five killings, was his last.

He states that “The two women, along with confirmed victims, would have been delivered to the Whitechapel mortuary in which Mann worked.”

Well that is simply not the case: The bodies of Whitechapel Murder victims Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Alice McKenzie and Frances Coles were taken to the Whitechapel mortuary, however, Liz Stride’s body was taken to St. Georges mortuary, Catherine Eddowes body was taken to the City mortuary, and Mary Jane Kelly’s body was taken to the Shoreditch mortuary. So, Mr Trow’s theory about admiring his own handiwork after the events, wouldn’t have worked in several of the murder cases.

There are several reasons why we should discount Mann as a Jack the Ripper suspect. First of all, Mann was so poor that he was relegated to the workhouse. The poorest of the poor in London at that time were invariably illiterate. Even if he wasn’t illiterate, if we believe in the theory that Jack the Ripper sent letters to the press and others regarding the case, then Mann can’t have been the Ripper; he wouldn’t have been able to afford pens, ink, paper and postage.

Secondly, Mann was roused from a deep sleep at 4:00 am (time verified by Hatfield), on the morning Mary Ann Nichols body was discovered at around 3:45 a.m.. There’s no way that Mann could have killed Nichols at 3:45 a.m., and then get back to the workhouse, clean himself up and dispose of bloody clothes, then get to sleep by 4:00 a.m..

Conclusion: Robert Mann was not Jack the Ripper.