What I know: Sir Charles Warren was the metropolitan police commissioner at the time of the Jack the Ripper Murders. He resigned right before Mary Kelly died and had given an order previously that if another murder occurred, nobody was to enter the scene. This lead to there being a sizable delay entering the crime scene.
My thoughts as to why he is a possibility (highly circumstantial):
-The phrasing of the order is odd given that no other jack the ripper murder occurred indoors.
-The timing of his resignation
-The murders stopping after his resignation and redeployment to Singapore
-He wanted to train bloodhounds to find Jack the Ripper (first to do so), if he was the killer and the dogs tracked him down he would have a reasonable alibi
-Being high-up in the Police would allow him to know the very frequent Police routes of the area and given him an opportunity to survey the area.
problem areas:
-nothing personality wise points to him being the killer
-not a lot of evidence to go on
-older than the suspects described
What I'm wondering: Has anyone done research into him being Jack the Ripper? I tried doing some google searching but can't find anyone accusing him, only referencing his role in the case. If so, is there any evidence I am missing that clearly removes him from the suspect list?
TL;DR: it would be a crazy tv show like twist if the police commissioner was Jack the Ripper but theres some circumstantial evidence that makes me believe its a possibility
Warren's name has been mentioned in connection with the conspiracy theory that posits that the Ripper murders were ritual killings committed by a group of Freemasons that included Sir William Gull, Queen Victoria's personal physician.
This theory was the creation of a writer called Stephen Knight, who published a book setting it out, called Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution, in 1978. The motive, Knight suggested, was that the Ripper victims were women who had come into possession of a dangerous piece of information: that the then heir to the throne, Prince Albert Victor (known as 'Prince Eddy') had embarked on a secret relationship with a Catholic commoner - a tobacconist's assistant called Annie Elizabeth Crook. As a result, Crook had a child, whose existence threatened not only scandal, but also potentially the royal succession. In Knight's theory, this secret leaked as a result of the indiscretions of the woman hired to be the baby's nanny - Mary Kelly, who was the last of the Ripper's victims, and the one most hideously attacked and mutilated. The other women killed in 1888 were friends of Kelly's who, it was feared, might make the story public. And Warren - while not the Ripper himself - was involved in covering everything up out of loyalty to his brother Masons.
Knight's theory went on to form the basis of a well known graphic novel, Alan Moore's From Hell, and the film, starring Johnny Depp, that was based on it. It is not taken seriously by the vast majority of crime historians and 'Ripperologists' who are familiar with the case, since there is practically no proof that any part of it is rooted in fact.
There is an excellent website, Casebook, devoted to the Ripper murders and the social and police history underpinning them, which incorporates a large quantity of very well researched material on Warren and his actual role in the case, as well as offering summaries of the cases for and against all the main Ripper suspects. Other than Knight, though, I'm not aware that any other writer has accused Warren of any involvement in the case.