Suspect in the
Jack The Ripper murders in
London in 1888.
William Gull was a royal
physician, and an aide to
Queen Victoria. According to a popular theory,
Prince Albert (also known at the time as
Prince Eddy) had an affair with a
Whitechapel prostitute, resulting in the birth of a child. In order to cover up this
scandal, the mother was placed into a mental
asylum and the child
fostered. It was then decided that four close friends of the prostitute in question were likely to have been told of the birth, and so William Gull was asked to despatch these women. Unfortunately William Gull was not as mentally
stable as was assumed, and became enthused with his task, ultimately killing 5 prostitutes instead of the originally planned 4. Gull himself lost all grasp on
reality and was placed in an asylum, where he died in 1896.
Although it isn't (currently) possible to
prove that Gull was
Jack The Ripper, it is one of the most widely held theories to date. A forthcoming
film,
From Hell, will be based on the book of the same name by
Alan Moore and
Eddie Campbell. The name comes from the one 'Ripper'
letter thought to be genuine, sent to the
police after the fourth murder and entitled '
From Hell'.