Free Republic

After 125 years, "Jack the Ripper" has apparently been debunked. Former murder investigator Trevor Marriott spent 11 years pouring over Scotland Yard files and said he learned that the legend of Jack the Ripper as we know it is wrong, Britain's Daily Express reports. He also said he's figured out who the real Whitechapel killer might be. Marriott concluded that Central News Agency journalist Thomas Bulling reportedly coined “Jack the Ripper” and sent police a letter from “him” 1888. In Victorian-era London, five prostitutes' murders were supposedly committed by Jack the Ripper, a rich, educated man -- possibly a doctor...

THE remains of notorious bushranger Ned Kelly have been found at the former Melbourne prison, Pentridge. An exhaustive 20-month search through historical and genetic records has unearthed one of the most colourful chapters in Australian history, and a man who Attorney-General Robert Clark this morning called "one of the most controversial characters" in our national identity. A DNA sample from Kelly's sister's great grandson, Leigh Oliver, confirmed the remains were those of the bushranger. Doctors and scientists at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine identified the body. Kelly's remains have long been rumoured to be at Pentridge. Attorney General Robert...

The skull that sparked a hunt for Ned Kelly's skeleton may belong to a serial killer once arrested in WA and suspected of being Jack the Ripper. An investigation into the identity of the skull began after former Derby farmer Tom Baxter handed it over in 2009, claiming it belonged to Kelly. It has never been revealed how he got the skull, which was stolen from a glass cabinet in the Old Melbourne Gaol in 1978. Heritage Victoria senior archaeologist Jeremy Smith said yesterday that Mr Baxter had claimed the skull came into his possession about a week after it...