Jack The Ripper

Boston. -- Put aside the subtle arguments about the right to die. Shelve the intricate ethical questions about doctor-assisted suicide. Jack Kevorkian is on the loose again.The state of Michigan has a serial killer on its hands. Or a serial mercy killer. Or a serial aide and abettor to suicide. Choose one of the above. But the distinctions are becoming more blurred all the time.Dr. Kevorkian, trained pathologist and self-proclaimed ''obitiatrist,'' thinks of himself as a maverick and martyr in the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi.

Maryland's Court of Special Appeals upheld yesterday the six first-degree murder convictions of John Allen Muhammad for his role in the sniper shootings in Montgomery County, comparing his crimes to those of Jack the Ripper. The ruling by the judicial panel used emotionally charged language to describe how Muhammad and his teenage accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, terrorized the Washington region, shooting 13 people - killing 10 of them - during three weeks in October 2002. "Jack the Ripper has never yet been brought to justice.

"The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Companion: An Illustrated Encyclopedia," by Stewart P. Evans & Keith Skinner. Carroll & Graf. 692 pages. $35. "Willful murder by a person or persons unknown," concluded inquest jurors looking literally at the hideous remains of women of "the unfortunate class," slashed, sliced and eviscerated in the sordid darkness of Victorian East London. The real Jack the Ripper has never been uncovered, but his legend unceasingly stalks into eternity. No murderer in history has drawn more scholarly, literary or dramatic attention.

LONDON -- The cobblestone street is dark and slick from a drizzly rain; the clouds are heavy and low, swallowing the steeple of nearby Christ Church Spitalfields. But light spills from the Ten Bells. Inside the corner pub, lagers and ales are being poured, and a dozen patrons are drinking, laughing and lounging on tattered couches and at the dark-wood bar. More than 100 years ago, during what came to be called the Autumn of Terror, serial killer Jack the Ripper stalked this small pub in London's East End. Two of his victims were thought to have walked out its door into a night of horror.

"The Bell Tower: The Mystery of Jack the Ripper Finally Solved," by Robert Graysmith. Regnery. 552 pages. $24.95.Who was the fiend who over a few weeks in the fall of 1888 stalked prostitutes of tawdry east-end London, leaving at least five with throats slit ear-to-ear, four skillfully disemboweled, unsullied by sex, missing no more of value than kidneys and wombs-- and in one case a heart?Contemporary clues were few. Letters, many written by a self-proclaimed "Jack the Ripper," were likely hoaxes, including the package, possibly linked to a victim, containing half a kidney with a message: "tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise."

What kind of wacko comes to Baltimore to attend a conference on Jack the Ripper? Well, there's the retired, skull-collecting local judge who became fascinated as a child with true crime stories, presided over more than 200 homicide cases - "but most of them were dull" - and still maintains a crime library in her home and membership in the Society of Connoisseurs in Murder. There's the Liverpool-born, Baltimore-based writer and historian who, in addition to his day job - as a medical editor for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists - co-wrote a fanciful musical based on Jack the Ripper's murder and mutilation of at least five prostitutes in Victorian England.

Described by a prosecutor as a Jack the Ripper who slit a Dundalk woman's throat for pleasure, Ronald Edward Keihl was sentenced to life without parole plus 30 years yesterday in Baltimore County Circuit Court.Keihl, 28, was convicted in November of murder, armed robbery and housebreaking in the August 1992 death of Patricia Jane Kaczynski, 44, whose head was nearly severed as she slept on the couch at her home on Liberty Parkway.Long a suspect in the killing, Keihl was convicted because he boasted to a cellmate, said Assistant State's Attorney Jason G. League.

London -- Jack the Ripper remains as elusive and dangerous as ever after 105 years, especially to publishers purporting to reveal the identity of the 19th century's most infamous serial killer.The latest book may be the Ripper's latest victim."The Diary of Jack the Ripper," due to be published here by Smith Gryphon on Oct. 7 -- and in America about the same time -- has been widely branded a hoax before a single copy has reached the bookstores.Presented as the confessional ramblings of the Ripper, the handwritten diary implicates the 73rd suspect in the grisly East London murders: James Maybrick, a Liverpool cotton merchant poisoned by his American wife with arsenic soaked out of flypaper rolls.

LONDON -- The cobblestone street is dark and slick from a drizzly rain; the clouds are heavy and low, swallowing the steeple of nearby Christ Church Spitalfields. But light spills from the Ten Bells. Inside the corner pub, lagers and ales are being poured, and a dozen patrons are drinking, laughing and lounging on tattered couches and at the dark-wood bar. More than 100 years ago, during what came to be called the Autumn of Terror, serial killer Jack the Ripper stalked this small pub in London's East End. Two of his victims were thought to have walked out its door into a night of horror.

Private words have the habit of taking on very public lives.Here are some diaries that have endured, entertained or backfired:* Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl: Dubbed "the voice of six million vanished souls," Anne Frank's diary is a testimonial to suffering in the Holocaust. The Dutch girl hid in an annex with her family for two years. Anne Frank was caught by the Nazis, and she died in a concentration camp.Her diary entry for July 15, 1944: In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.

If you miss the great Martin Beck mysteries by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, set in Stockholm, or find Henning Mankell's currently popular series about dour Swedish cop Kurt Wallander just too much of a downer, you should be as delighted as I am to welcome to American bookshelves Inspector Konrad Sejer -- a disarmingly thoughtful, refreshingly gentle and totally likable senior police investigator in Oslo. Don't Look Back (Harcourt, 295 pages, $23) is the fifth -- though first to be published here -- in Karin Fossum's Sejer series, well received in Europe.

Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper Case Closed, by Patricia Cornwell. Putnam. 352 pages. $27.95 Rich and vainglorious from writing blockbusting detective fiction, Patricia Cornwell has applied her considerable funds and fertile imagination to the realm of true crime, choosing, as she would, history's most celebrated case. Without troubling to consult, credit or contradict a wealth of investigation over the past 114 years, Cornwell claims to have finally caught London's legendary serial killer, Jack the Ripper.

What kind of wacko comes to Baltimore to attend a conference on Jack the Ripper? Well, there's the retired, skull-collecting local judge who became fascinated as a child with true crime stories, presided over more than 200 homicide cases - "but most of them were dull" - and still maintains a crime library in her home and membership in the Society of Connoisseurs in Murder. There's the Liverpool-born, Baltimore-based writer and historian who, in addition to his day job - as a medical editor for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists - co-wrote a fanciful musical based on Jack the Ripper's murder and mutilation of at least five prostitutes in Victorian England.

"The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Companion: An Illustrated Encyclopedia," by Stewart P. Evans & Keith Skinner. Carroll & Graf. 692 pages. $35. "Willful murder by a person or persons unknown," concluded inquest jurors looking literally at the hideous remains of women of "the unfortunate class," slashed, sliced and eviscerated in the sordid darkness of Victorian East London. The real Jack the Ripper has never been uncovered, but his legend unceasingly stalks into eternity. No murderer in history has drawn more scholarly, literary or dramatic attention.

"The Bell Tower: The Mystery of Jack the Ripper Finally Solved," by Robert Graysmith. Regnery. 552 pages. $24.95.Who was the fiend who over a few weeks in the fall of 1888 stalked prostitutes of tawdry east-end London, leaving at least five with throats slit ear-to-ear, four skillfully disemboweled, unsullied by sex, missing no more of value than kidneys and wombs-- and in one case a heart?Contemporary clues were few. Letters, many written by a self-proclaimed "Jack the Ripper," were likely hoaxes, including the package, possibly linked to a victim, containing half a kidney with a message: "tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise."

London -- Let's get this straight:Jack the Ripper was a quack American doctor named Francis J. Tumblety who had a fondness for young men, a hatred of women and a past that included being briefly implicated in the Lincoln assassination plot.Tumblety murdered four prostitutes on the fog-shrouded streets Victorian London. He became a prime suspect in what were known as the Whitechapel Murders and was arrested by Scotland Yard, although never charged. After several days of interrogation, he skipped bail and fled to America, a trek that coincided with the end of the notorious murder spree.

Maryland's Court of Special Appeals upheld yesterday the six first-degree murder convictions of John Allen Muhammad for his role in the sniper shootings in Montgomery County, comparing his crimes to those of Jack the Ripper. The ruling by the judicial panel used emotionally charged language to describe how Muhammad and his teenage accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, terrorized the Washington region, shooting 13 people - killing 10 of them - during three weeks in October 2002. "Jack the Ripper has never yet been brought to justice.

Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper Case Closed, by Patricia Cornwell. Putnam. 352 pages. $27.95 Rich and vainglorious from writing blockbusting detective fiction, Patricia Cornwell has applied her considerable funds and fertile imagination to the realm of true crime, choosing, as she would, history's most celebrated case. Without troubling to consult, credit or contradict a wealth of investigation over the past 114 years, Cornwell claims to have finally caught London's legendary serial killer, Jack the Ripper.

Described by a prosecutor as a Jack the Ripper who slit a Dundalk woman's throat for pleasure, Ronald Edward Keihl was sentenced to life without parole plus 30 years yesterday in Baltimore County Circuit Court.Keihl, 28, was convicted in November of murder, armed robbery and housebreaking in the August 1992 death of Patricia Jane Kaczynski, 44, whose head was nearly severed as she slept on the couch at her home on Liberty Parkway.Long a suspect in the killing, Keihl was convicted because he boasted to a cellmate, said Assistant State's Attorney Jason G. League.

Private words have the habit of taking on very public lives.Here are some diaries that have endured, entertained or backfired:* Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl: Dubbed "the voice of six million vanished souls," Anne Frank's diary is a testimonial to suffering in the Holocaust. The Dutch girl hid in an annex with her family for two years. Anne Frank was caught by the Nazis, and she died in a concentration camp.Her diary entry for July 15, 1944: In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.