THE TRUTH ABOUT JACK THE RIPPER (Print)

THE TRUTH ABOUT JACK THE RIPPER

by Adam Wood

An edited extract from Adam Wood's full biography, Swanson: The Life and Times of A Victorian Detective. This 162-page softcover book features a detailed account of the Whitechapel murders of 1888, a history of Chief Inspector Donald Swanson's handwritten notes discovered 50 years after his death which name the chief suspect and what happened to him, and an examination by the author into the events described in Swanson's marginalia.

Donald Sutherland Swanson was born in the far north of Scotland, leaving for London in 1867. The following year he joined the Metropolitan Police and began patrolling the streets of the capital as a uniformed constable. When he retired 35 years later, in 1903, he had risen to the rank of  Superintendent of the CID at Scotland Yard, the top detective in the country.

On 15th September 1888 Swanson was hand-pickedby Commissioner Sir Charles Warren to lead the investigation into the Whitechapel murders by the so-called Jack the Ripper, as a result learning more about the case than any other officer as he read every report, statement, letter and telegram.

Although the mystery was never officially solved, more than 50 years after Donald Swanson’s death his grandson discovered private handwritten notes which seemed to finally explain what happened to the murderer – and to name him at last.

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