Could Jack the Ripper have been Dutch serial-killing sailor Hendrik de Jong who murdered two of his ex-wives?
A crime historian has claimed Jack the Ripper could have been a Dutch serial-killing sailor who brutally murdered a total of four women
NOTORIOUS killer Jack the Ripper may have been a Dutch serial-killing sailor, the latest theory has indicated.
Crime historian Dr Jan Bondeson has named Hendrik de Jong as a prime suspect for the identity of one of Britain’s most infamous killers, whose identity has never been known.
De Jong murdered two ex-wives in his homeland and bludgeoned to death two other women in Belgium.
At the time of the Whitechapel murders, de Jong is believed to have worked as a steward on board a ship which made frequent trips from Rotterdam to London, providing him with the perfect means of getting out of the country after his heinous crimes.
He later murdered two of his ex-wives in his native Netherlands in 1893 and bludgeoned to death two women above a pub before attempting to set their bodies on fire in Belgium in 1898.
However, he fled to the United States to evade justice and was sentenced for their murders by a court 'in absence'.
Dr Bondeson, a former senior lecturer at Cardiff University, has pored over Dutch newspapers from the late 1880s and 1890s with the help of Dutch crime historian Bart FM Droog to learn more about de Jong's movements and character.
De Jong was known to visit prostitutes and described as a "pathological liar without empathy or a conscience who was fixated with women".
Dr Bondeson said: "Hendrik de Jong had the killer instinct, being able to plan and execute a murder with cunning and skill, and to get away scot-free without having to face the music.
"He was active at the same time as Jack the Ripper, spoke good English and roughly fits the rather rudimentary contemporary descriptions of the Ripper.
"He was familiar with England in general, and London in particular.
"Since he worked as a ship's steward on a ship between Rotterdam and London, he was in an ideal position to commit the Ripper murders, and his visits to London coincided with the various atrocities of the autumn of terror."
Intriguingly, several Dutch newspapers from the time reported blood-stained surgical instruments were found among his effects when he was arrested on suspicion of the murders of two ex-wives in 1893.
It was also claimed a Dutch police inspector investigating de Jong brought his portrait to Whitechapel where several people declared they had seen him on the prowl.
Dr Bondeson said: "If some of the Dutch newspapers of 1893 are to be believed, blood-stained surgical instruments were found among his effects when he was arrested.
"He possessed several books about surgery and anatomy with a sinister emphasis on the study of the female genitalia and their surgical removal.
"Also according to some of the Dutch newspapers, both men and women in Whitechapel recognised Hendrik de Jong when they were shown his photograph by a Dutch detective and he was known as a notorious customer of prostitutes."
De Jong was born just outside Amsterdam in 1861 and enlisted in the Dutch army as a volunteer trumpeter before starting a new career as a swindler and career criminal.
He wooed Sarah Ann Juett, a nurse from Maidenhead, Berks, while she cared for him in a hospital in Middlesborough in 1892.
He persuaded her to marry him and they moved to his native Netherlands.
But months later she disappeared with de Jong telling her concerned parents she had run off to America with another man.
Shortly after dispersing of Juett, de Jong seduced Maria Schmitz, a wealthy Dutchwoman, and after a whirlwind romance they tied the knot before she too vanished.
Dutch Police strongly suspected they were killed for their money and de Jong had buried their bodies in woodland.
He went on trial for the two murders in 1893 but since their bodies were never found it could not be proved de Jong killed them.
Instead, he was jailed for just three years for a separate lesser offence of swindling a Dutch hotel keeper.
A prince, a poet and a hairdresser: the key suspects
While hundreds of people have been named as possibly being Jack the Ripper the vicious killer has never been found out.
Police suspected the Ripper must have been a butcher, due to the way his victims were killed and the fact they were discovered near to the dockyards, where meat was brought into the city.
Prince Albert
Prince Albert Victor, the Duke of Clarence is perhaps the most well known suspect. Some authors have argued that he was the serial killer, but contemporary documents show that Albert Victor could not have been in London at the time of the murders, and the claim is widely dismissed.
Aaron Kosminski
Police also suspected the Jewish Polish emigrant who worked as a hairdresser who was admitted to Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum and died there. Police officials from the time of the murders named one of their suspects as "Kosminski" (the forename was not given), and described him as a Polish Jew in an insane asylum.
James Maybrick
Cotton merchant Maybrick was the police’s number one suspect for a while following the publication of some of his diary which appeared to suggest he was the killer. Some believe the diary to be a forgery, although no one has been able to suggest who forged it.
Thomas Cutbush
Cutbush, a violent criminal, He worked in Whitechapel at the time of the killings and allegedly harboured a hatred for prostitutes and a grim fascination with medicine and surgery.
Francis Thompson
The spotlight has also fallen on Thompson, a respected poet, is alleged to have carried out the murders because he wrote about killing people, had surgical experience and was known to be close to one prostitute in the Whitechapel area at the time.
Shortly after his release from prison in 1898, de Jong crossed over the border to Belgium where he bludgeoned to death Philomene Wauters and Jeanne Pauwels in their bedrooms above the Cafe Sorbonne in Ghent.
After committing the murders, he attempted to set their bodies on fire.
A huge manhunt was launched for de Jong but he successfully fled to the United States, never to be seen again.
The impudent serial killer wrote a mocking letter to his solicitor from an address in Pennsylvania gloating about his escape.
Dr Bondeson, whose book Victorian Murders was published last December, said it is impossible to know for certain if de Jong was Jack the Ripper but he is a more credible candidate than other names forward for the notorious murderer.
He said: "We can't say for certain he was Jack the Ripper, but he is a credible candidate who until now has been ignored in England yet was seen as a prime suspect in the Dutch newspapers of the time.
"There are many questions that still need answering, not least where did this monster vanish too after killing the two women in Ghent, although I believe it is most likely he went to the United States, a large and then quite undeveloped country where the police were more lax.
"He was a serial killer and having got away with his horrible crimes one must wonder if he went on killing over there and how many murders were committed at his hands."
Jack the Ripper murdered the prostitutes Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly between August 31 and November 9, 1888 in Whitechapel.
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