Jack the Ripper Police File Made Public After 136 Years

A Lack of Official Information 

Despite the seriousness of the Ripper crimes, the media attention they received at the time and their infamy in the years since there is remarkably little official documentation about what must be the world’s most famous unsolved serial killer case. Crime investigation was a much less formalised and sophisticated field in 1888 than it later became; in fact, the Whitechapel Murders and criticism of the police’s handling of the cases were instrumental in improving the techniques used. This means that in the autumn of 1888, there was no single ‘Jack the Ripper police file’ or centralised collection of documents and evidence kept by the Metropolitan Police.  

Most official information about the Jack the Ripper case comes from a relatively sparse array of documents, many of which were prepared years later. For instance, one of the most-quoted documents is ‘The Macnaghten Memoranda,’ a confidential report written by Sir Melville Macnaghten in 1891 – Macnaghten wasn’t in the Metropolitan Police in 1888. Other key documents include a letter discussing the case written in 1913 by Chief Inspector John Littlechild.  

Contemporary documents such as post-mortem reports on the victims and coroner’s inquests are highly factual but concern only their immediate subjects. Modern-day investigators and factfinders rely heavily on newspaper archives, as many papers of the time carried statements and detailed summaries of public proceedings otherwise lost.  

Many of the other documents related to the case are still held in secret by the Metropolitan Police, famously including four ledgers holding evidence provided by police informants between 1888 and 1912, which are said to contain otherwise unknown suspects and other information. However, they remain closed in order to protect the names of the informants and the processes by which information was gathered.  

All of this is to emphasise that there is not as much official information about the Jack the Ripper case as you may think – there is certainly no one ‘Jack the Ripper case file’ waiting in Scotland Yard.  

A Personal Collection 

Hence, the interest was generated when a ‘police file’ on Jack the Ripper appeared in public in March 2024. 

The file is not an official document but is a collection of papers and artefacts kept by Inspector Joseph Henry Helson of the Metropolitan Police. In August 1888, Helson was in charge of the Met’s ‘J Division’. As such, he had jurisdiction for the investigation into the murder of Mary Ann Nichols, widely held to be the first of the five ‘canonical’ Ripper victims. The other four killings happened outside of Helson’s ‘patch,’ but he is recorded as attending the inquests into the deaths, and the file includes copies of key documents relating to the Whitechapel murders in the autumn of 1888. 

This includes what is now the only known available contemporary copy of the ‘Saucy Jack’ postcard, which was purported to be sent by the killer to the police (via a London news agency) to taunt them after the ‘double event’ when Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes were murdered. The original document was lost from the official records shortly after the investigation was closed in 1891 and has not yet been rediscovered.  

There is also a copy of the famous ‘Dear Boss’ letter – an earlier letter allegedly written by the killer and, like the postcard, using the signoff ‘Jack the Ripper,’ thus originating the most famous pseudonym in criminal history.  

The file also contains an official morgue photograph of Mary Ann Nichols from a slightly different angle to the one usually reproduced, thus implying that it may be an original print from the time.  

A Historic Suspect 

Other photographs in the collection include two of Michael Ostrog, a Russian emigrant who travelled frequently between London and Paris. He was Helson’s initial suspect and commonly suggested as a candidate for being Jack the Ripper in the late 19th century – he was mentioned as a suspect in Macnaghten’s later report.  

However, the evidence against him at the time was, at best, circumstantial and Ostrog’s criminal record, while extensive, consisted of fraud and burglary rather than crimes of violence. Later research would show that Michael Ostrog was detained in a French prison in August 1888, and so could not have committed the murder. The photographs have Helson’s notes on the back listing Ostrog’s known aliases, criminal record, and physical description.  

Helson’s collection also includes photographs of himself and some of his police colleagues, a set of Victorian handcuffs and a walking stick. There is also his certificate of retirement from when he left the police in 1895 and newspaper clippings from the same time summarising his career.  

This ‘file’ on Jack the Ripper was passed through four generations of the Helson family before being sent to auction in March 2024.  

Discover the Story Behind the Files on The Jack the Ripper Tour 

Here at The Jack the Ripper Tour, we believe that we can present you with just as much information (if not more) about the infamous killer as the files! Why not book a space on one of our tours to discover more?