Rochester's Jack the Ripper Connection

The first murder attributed to Jack the Ripper happened on Friday, August 31, 1888 in London’s East End neighborhood of Whitechapel. Mary Ann Nichols was the first of five victims. A 43 year-old prostitute was working the street in order to pay for her room at a local boarding house. The brutality of the killings escalated exponentially with each one, climaxing with the fifth and final murder on November 9, 1888. Mary Jan Kelly was killed in such a horrific manner that when her body was discovered, it was reported that the police at first couldn’t identify the corpse as human. All of the victims had two common denominators; they practiced the oldest profession in the world and they called the streets of Whitechapel home.

Throughout the investigation, the killer taunted the police and newspaper with letters. It was in a letter dated September 25, 1888 that the name “Jack the Ripper” was coined, signed by the madman himself. Scotland Yard worked day and night to compile a profile of Jack the Ripper. Some theorized that the precision of the organ removal meant that he (or she) had a medical background, the brutality showed a hatred towards women, and that he was from a well-to-do family. Others believed that because the murders happened on the weekend because he was a regular working joe that was possibly employed at one of the local slaughterhouses.

There were at least eight serious suspects, two were Americans…H.H. Holmes, would would later be discovered as a serial killer in Chicago near the famous Exposition in 1893, and Frances Tumblety. Tumblety was a Rochestarian, emigrating from Ireland at a young age with his family. He had most of the profile points. “It was no secret that Tumblety hated women. But more so he had a vicious disdain for prostitutes…While living in Washington, DC in 1881 or 1882, it was discovered that he had an extensive and disturbing collection of uteruses and other female body parts preserved in jars.” (Excerpt from Hidden History of the FInger Lakes) Tumblety was in Whitechapel during the killing spree. Police pegged him as a suspect and interrogated him. Although they believed that he was their man, the investigators lacked one important thing - evidence. Reluctantly, they had to release Tumblety from custody and it was no surprise that he jumped on the first ship back to America. Did he get away with the crime of the century?

As of today, 130 years later, the serial killings remain unsolved. It is the cold case of all cold case.

Frances Tumblety lays in eternity at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery on Lake Avenue in Rochester, NY.