Infamous Killers Idenities.

Jack the Ripper [Finally Identified After Years]

THE identity of Jack the Ripper may finally have been uncovered by a woman who discovered she is a distant relative of a man who fits the profile of Britain’s most notorious serial killer to a T.

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Dianne Bainbridge says distant relative William Belcher matches every characteristic of the profile for Britain’s most infamous serial killer, whose five gruesome murders terrorised London’s Whitechapel area and ended in 1888.

Belcher had experience of butchery, he was a milkman who could move around at odd hours without raising suspicion and he had a history of violence against women. He also left London as the Ripper’s murders appeared to end, moving to Hartlepool with his wife and young daughter and changing his surname to Williams.

He can then be linked to two similar murders in the North of England, both near the train route between London and the town in County Durham.

Mrs Bainbridge, 55, who runs a wedding shop in Newcastle, started her research three years ago after a relative gave her a memento mori card for a boy called James Walter Robert Webber, who died aged seven in 1888.

This card, which parents gave to mourners at funerals in Victorian times, had been handed down through the generations. The name Webber, however, did not fit into the family tree.

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Mrs Bainbridge, a mother of three, obtained the boy’s birth certificate and found he had an older sister, Annie Belcher, who was married to William and lived in Whitechapel in 1888 with him and their four-year-old daughter Kate, but then seemed to vanish.

She then found Annie, William and Kate “Williams” living in Hartlepool from 1888 onwards, with the same middle names, dates and places of birth as the Belchers, and no trace of them before this date.

They told relatives they had lived in Devon before moving to County Durham.

Mrs Bainbridge said: “It felt like they were trying to write off their lives in London and rewrite their history. They were clearly running away from something.

“It was bizarre to discover this. I went out of my way to prove they were not involved with the Ripper, but every time I entered new details, links came up.

“Where William was living in Whitechapel was right in the middle of the murders and the path he took to work every day had murders to its left and right.

“His father-in-law was a butcher, William was involved in the family business and as a milkman he could go out in the early hours without raising suspicion.”

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Facts

-The Ten Bells pub has been linked to several of the Ripper's victims.

-James Maybrick, a wealthy cotton merchant thought by some to be Jack the Ripper.

-Dianne Bainbridge's discovery could shed light on the identity of the notorious serial killer.