CLAIMS HE IS JACK THE RIPPER
A SOLDIER CAPTURED BY THE LONDON POLICE MAKES A CONFESSION
The excitement over the latest Whitechapel murder has been followed by a great sensation. An Englishman was arrested on the charge of having murdered the woman whose body was found Tuesday morning in Castle alley, Whitechapel. After being taken into custody, the prisoner confessed that he had killed the women. He said the weapon he used to accomplish his purpose was an ordinary pocket knife. He carried no other weapon. He declared that he lived nowhere, and that he had just arrived from abroad. The prisoner is six feet tall, of fair complection (sic) and carried himself with a military air. His actions indicate that he is insane. While the police are making much of their capture, it is thought by others that though the prisoner may have committed the latest murder, it is not at all probable that he is Jack the Ripper.
He has confessed that he murdered all the women whose bodies have been found in and about the Whitechapel district. He gave the names of his victims, the dates upon which he killed them and all the ghastly and indecent details connected with the terrible crimes. The police believe that he is a lunatic, but that possibly the story he tells is true and that he is the man for whom they have for so long been searching. One of the reasons for thinking that the prisoner may be Jack the Ripper grows out of the evidence in the third of the mysterious murders. In that case alone was there any trace of a probable murderer. A man supposed to be a soldier appeared at an inn, near the place of the murder, covered with blood and much agitated. He tallied with the description of the man last seen with the victim, who was a soldier. It is reported in the military clubs that the prisoner answers the description of the man alluded to, and that he is a private soldier.
