Between 1964 and 1965, at least six women were found nude and dead along the Thames in London. The serial killer, dubbed "Jack the Stripper," was never identified.
February 1964. Hammersmith, West London. The naked body of a woman washed up on the bank of the Thames. Hannah Tailford, age 30. Strangled.
It was the beginning of a killing spree that would terrorize London.
Over the next eighteen months, at least five more women met the same fate. Irene Lockwood in April. Helen Barthelemy in April. Mary Fleming in July. Margaret McGowan in November. Bridie O'Hara in February 1965. All found nude. All strangled. All connected to the sex trade in West London.
The press had a name for the unknown killer. They called him "Jack the Stripper" — an echo of the Victorian monster who had stalked the same city eight decades earlier.
As the body count rose, forensic investigators noticed something peculiar. Tiny flecks of paint covered the skin of the later victims. Laboratory analysis identified it as automotive spray paint.
The implication was chilling. The killer was storing the bodies somewhere near an active spray-painting operation before dumping them. Police scoured the industrial zones of West London and zeroed in on a transformer building near Hammersmith. The paint composition matched.
But matching a location is not the same as matching a man. The trail went cold.
Detective Chief Superintendent John du Rose of Scotland Yard took charge. His team compiled a list of over 7,000 potential suspects drawn from vehicle registrations, employment records, and known associates of the victims.
Du Rose whittled the list down methodically — to 20, then to 3.
He also employed a psychological gambit. At a press conference, he publicly announced that the net was closing. The message was aimed directly at the killer.
In June 1965, the murders stopped abruptly.
Years later, du Rose revealed that his prime suspect had committed suicide shortly after the killings ceased. He never officially named the individual.
Subsequent investigative journalism has pointed to Mungo Ireland, a Scottish former police officer who was working for a security firm at the time. Ireland died by suicide in March 1965. His note reportedly said only that he could "not stand it any longer."
But other candidates remain. A boxing promoter. A taxi driver. Even another police officer. Without a confession or definitive forensic link, the case stays open.
Jack the Stripper lacks the gothic fame of his Victorian namesake. The case rarely makes the lists of history's great mysteries. Perhaps because the victims were women on society's margins — their deaths deemed less worthy of remembrance.
But six women were murdered in eighteen months in one of the world's greatest cities, and the killer was never brought to justice. Their names deserve to be remembered: Hannah, Irene, Helen, Mary, Margaret, and Bridie.
The Thames keeps flowing. And the Stripper's identity remains submerged beneath its surface.
