Naming Jack the Ripper: The Biggest Forensic Breakthrough Since 1888

For Sally,

Alexander and Annabel

* * * *

I
t was Saturday, 17 March 2007, St Patrick’s Day. Not that I was even aware of the saint’s day: the date had a much greater
significance for me. It was the day that I attended an auction, the first I had ever been to. A day that started with great excitement and determination, and ended in desperate disappointment.

Why was this auction so important to me? To a casual observer, the catalogue produced by Lacy Scott & Knight, a firm of auctioneers, for the sale that day in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, was
fairly standard: antiquarian books, ceramics, jewellery, clocks, paintings, plenty of Victorian and Edwardian mahogany furniture. At another time in my life, when I was dabbling in antique
furniture, I would have enjoyed browsing through the lots.

But today there was only one item I was interested in, and it was definitely the star item of the day, with an entire page of the catalogue devoted to it. It was an old, silk shawl, damaged,
with pieces missing. I’d been to see it the day before, and had been struck by how beautiful it was, much more so than I expected: the centre panel was plain silk, and at either
end there were broad panels intensely patterned with flowers, Michaelmas daisies predominantly, in gold and red. On one side it was brown with patterned edges, and a wide border at each
end of blue with the flower pattern, and on the other side a lighter brown with blue ends. Even to my untutored eye it was clearly very old.

But its significance was far more than its age. This is what the catalogue listing said:

Unlike the tables and pictures that filled the rest of the list, there was no estimated price given. It simply read: ‘Est: please refer to auctioneers.’

I had done just that. When I saw the shawl on the previous day, when auctions normally hold a viewing day for potential buyers, the auctioneer had told me the reserve price, and I had been
surprised by how low it was: definitely within my budget.

On another page, with a large photograph of the shawl, the catalogue read:

So there you have it. If genuine, this was one of the few physical remains from the scenes of the crimes committed by Jack the Ripper as he terrorized the streets of London,
and carved his way into the British psyche. Everyone has heard of Jack the Ripper. Not many know the full story, but everyone has a vague impression of dark, foggy streets in Victorian London with
a mad serial killer on the loose, attacking and viciously mutilating his prostitute victims. It is perhaps the greatest, most famous unsolved crime in the world, the one that draws tourists from
across the globe to the streets of London’s East End.

Of course, the catalogue was careful to make sure that the claims for the shawl were muted. There was no proof it had belonged to the victim Catherine Eddowes, just a long family history. But,
still, there was a good chance. I had done some research, I believed it was genuine, and I wanted it. I wanted it very badly. I was nursing a nugget of information about the shawl that only I knew,
a secret that made it much more important to me, and one I believed would add a great deal to what little we know about Jack the Ripper.

I set off for the auction early. It started at 10 a.m., and my wife Sally and I were living with our toddler son Alexander in Newmarket, only twenty-five minutes away. She didn’t come
with me: she doesn’t share my fascination with the Ripper story. I dressed casually, keen not to draw attention to myself, but smartly enough to show that I was serious.
I expected a large crowd, and I was right: the huge barn of an auction room, the size of a football pitch and crammed with furniture, was packed with people, and I guessed at least some of them
were there for the same item as me. National and local newspapers had carried stories about the auction, so there was bound to be a high level of interest. Before the sale started a bemused
assistant from the auction firm was holding the shawl up high so that a crowd gathered round him could look at it: he clearly could not understand the massive interest in this old, damaged piece of
material.

I felt a mixture of excitement and apprehension. The auction started, and as lot after lot went by I realized nothing much was being sold: clearly, not just some, but the bulk of people in the
crowded room were there for the shawl. I was worried, I felt sure it would soar way above its reserve, and in my mind I saw it reaching a sum of £150,000 or more. Was I prepared to go that
high? Yes, I wanted it so badly I would have paid whatever it took to get it.

As the morning dragged on, I noticed that Stewart Evans, one of the world’s leading authorities on the Ripper case and a collector of true-crime ephemera, was there. I had seen him on
television being interviewed in various documentaries about the subject so I decided to ask him for his opinion on the shawl, without revealing my own interest. He chatted happily about the Ripper
story, but seemed to be dismissive about the authenticity of the shawl.

‘It’s not for me,’ he said, ‘I’m only here to see who it goes to. Nobody should buy it.’

I felt he might be bluffing, trying to throw me, and anyone else who was drawn to listen to him, off. He looked at me keenly, and I was sure he was sizing up whether or not
I was going to rival him in the bidding.

With half the auction lots sold, a lunch break was called. I wasn’t interested in eating: my stomach was lurching at the thought of what was to come. I made my way to the office to have a
look at the book that was mentioned in the catalogue. When I got there I found a small group of people gathered round a very tall man who was holding up the book, and expounding on the shawl and
its history. I realized this was Andy Parlour, whose research for the appendix was the crucial part of the book in terms of the shawl. He was enjoying telling everyone about it, so I asked a few
superficial questions: I didn’t want to show my hand, but I wanted to hear everything he could share. Luckily, like Stewart Evans, Andy did not need much encouragement to talk. Every so often
I said something like, ‘That’s interesting, mate,’ just to keep him going.

I found it hard to believe that I was actually in the same room as this man, who was a specialist on the shawl, and Stewart Evans, a top expert on the whole Ripper story. And every so often I
reminded myself that I knew something about the shawl that everyone else had missed, even the guys who had given years of research to the subject.

When the auction resumed I decided to stand at Stewart Evans’s shoulder, thinking that he was definitely going to bid, and I’d wait until he did before I joined in. The auction room
had been noisy all morning, people chatting and moving about, but when ‘Lot 235’ was bellowed across the room, a deep hush fell. The assistant gestured to the shawl, now locked in a
glass cabinet at the front of the room.

I cannot remember the first bid: who made it or how much it was for. But bids were soon coming from all parts of the room and the price was shooting up. I couldn’t
see who was bidding. There were three phone lines accepting bids, and the auctioneer was going with practised speed between the phones and the room. I can remember thinking, ‘This thing is
going to go for millions.’

Every now and then the auctioneer, who knew of my interest, would glance at me to see if I was going to join in. But I was hooked on waiting for Stewart Evans to bid, and kept watching him. The
auction rapidly ran through, and before I realized it the auctioneer was saying, ‘Final bids.’ Again he looked at me, again I wavered and did nothing. I was still expecting a bid from
Stewart Evans, and when none came I froze. A combination of nerves, and a fear that, if he was not bidding perhaps he was right to believe the shawl was worthless, gripped me.

‘No more bids. The item remains unsold.’

There were groans around the room. Despite the frenzied bidding, the reserve had not been met. People had waited all day for this, and now they were disappointed. The spectacle was over, and the
whole event had been a waste of everyone’s time.

‘Lot 236’ the auctioneer called, as a rosewood tea caddy went under the hammer. But nobody was paying any attention. Little knots of people drifted out of the saleroom, sharing their
frustration with each other. Others pushed past and left alone, the feeling of being let down etched on their faces.

Nobody was more disappointed than I was.

What had I done? Had I just lost out on owning one of the most vital pieces of tangible evidence from the most famous
murder mystery of all time? Or had I had a narrow
escape, saving me from spending thousands on what was little more than a whim?

When I had told Sally how much I was prepared to put up for the shawl she had laughed, and made me promise that if it turned out to be worthless, I’d give her exactly the same amount of
money to spend as she wished. At least I was spared that!

But the money I had saved did nothing to make me feel better. Like everybody else, I headed wearily towards my car empty-handed; I felt defeated. All I could think was ‘What have I done?
What kind of idiot am I, to be struck dumb at the vital moment?’

It affected me badly and that night I didn’t sleep. The terrible feeling of failure stuck with me through the following Sunday and I continued to beat myself up over it. I talked to Sally,
who sympathized, but could not really understand my pain.

But when Monday morning came, I had a revelation: perhaps all was not lost. I had tried hard to convince myself that buying the shawl could have been a mistake: Stewart Evans didn’t want
it, nobody else was willing to pay the reserve and perhaps they were right – the shawl was just a pointless piece of old fabric that had been imbued over many years with a family myth.

But I knew something they didn’t. As I’ve said, I had my own reason for believing the shawl was hugely significant, perhaps the key to the whole Ripper case. I could not talk to
anybody about it because at this time I knew nobody who shared my interest, and I certainly did not want to alert the ‘Ripperologists’, people like Stewart Evans who devote themselves
to studying
the case, and are acknowledged experts. What I knew was too precious to share with the world at this stage. So despite my doubts, the importance of the shawl would
not be challenged: I still believed in it.