JACK THE RIPPER IN AMERICA

Discovery Channel - Original Air Date: 11/15/09

A former homicide detective, Ed Norris goes looking for Jack the Ripper and posits that Jack may have spent some time in America -- killing women -- after the crimes stopped in England.  He looks at the usual Jack evidence, and quickly dismisses some of the usual suspects (including Francis Tumblety, prime suspect in the recent MYSTERYQUEST show -- whom he says was someone who "really really sticks out" and would, therefore, have been hard to miss).  He reaches the conclusion that the killer was James Kelly, a man who escaped from a lunatic asylum and -- after the Ripper murders -- traveled to America, only to return to the asylum voluntarily at the end of his life, saying he'd been on "the warpath."  The contrasts between this and the last show point out why the Ripper murders have remained unsolved for so long: too many suspects, too many theories, not enough hard evidence.  (Ever wish we had DNA samples available?)  After each Ripper show I watch, I come away thinking, "That's the guy," and then the next show makes an equally compelling case for someone else.  Who done it?  Was Jack the same guy who killed women in America afterward?  I fear we may never know.