Jack the Stripper
Jack the Stripper was the nickname given to an unknown
serial killer responsible for what came to be known as the
London "Nude" Murders (also known as the
Hammersmith Murders or
Hammersmith Nudes case), from 1964-1965.
His victimology was similar to that of his legendary namesake,
Jack the Ripper. He murdered six prostitutes, whose nude bodies were discovered in various locations around London or dumped in the
River Thames.
According to
Anthony Summers, two of his victims - Hannah Tailford and Frances Brown, respectively the Stripper's third and seventh victims - were peripherally connected to the 1963
Profumo Affair. Also, some victims were known to engage in an underground party and pornographic movie scene; several writers have postulated that the victims may have known each other, and that the killer may be connected to this scene as well.
Like the Jack the Ripper killings, the
Stripper's reign of terror seemed to cease on its own, and there were few solid clues for police to investigate. Though his identity remains unknown, crime writer
Donald Rumbelow notes that the killer could have been a young man who committed suicide in South London at the time the murders ended. This main suspect, who was also a favourite suspect of Inspector
John Du Rose, a famous London homicide detective who was put in charge of the case, was a security guard on the Heron Trading Estate in
Acton, whose rounds included a paint shop where one of the bodies was alleged to have been hidden after the crime. Though there was never any hard evidence to link him to the
crimes (
jewelry, etc.), his family found his suicide inexplicable, and his suicide note cryptically said only that he was "unable to take the strain any longer." It is also possible this unknown suspect's suicide was used as a way for the real murderer to disappear: with the main suspect dead and an end to the murders, it made sense to assume the dead man was the killer, and the police would stop looking for the killer.
A recent book also named British
light heavyweight boxing champion
Freddie Mills as the killer, although this has not been substantiated.
The
Alfred Hitchcock movie
Frenzy is loosely based on the case. [
1].
The main books of interest are as follows.
*
Murder Was My Business by John Du Rose (Mayflower Books, St Albans 1973) is the autobiography of the cop who investigated the nude murders, and includes chapters on many of his famous cases.
*
Found Naked and Dead by Brian McConnell, (New English Library, London 1974) is solely about the nude murders, and follows the Du Rose line on the suspect.
*
The Survivor by Jimmy Evans and Martin Short (Mainstream, Edinburgh 2001) is the ghosted gangland memoirs of Jimmy Evans, who claims top cop Tommy Butler was Jack the Stripper. The case isn't proved.
* A new book with a new suspect has just been published.
Jack of Jumps by David Seabrook (Granta May 2006) does not name the suspect but he is an easily identifiable disgraced cop. The suspect is named in a review by Stewart Home entitled Put Up or Shut Up: David Seabrook at the Last Chance Saloon.: http://stewarthomesociety.org/seabrook.htm - Home says Seabrook is wrong and should apologise.
*
Black Sabbath's 1970 album
Paranoid contains a song entitled "Jack the Stripper".
*
Macabre recorded a song titled "Jack the Stripper" contained on the
Murder Metal album, as a hidden track.
*
Stewart Home names suspect put forward in new book and criticises this 'new' theory*
Article on Jack the Stripper at Murder in the UK*
Another article on Jack citing evidence for the modus operandi*
Casebook Jack the Ripper board on the Stripper killings*
Time magazine article on the Stripper killings
