| Jack the Ripper: A Suspect Guide |
This text is from the E-book Jack the Ripper: A Suspect Guide by Christopher J. Morley (2005). Click here to return to the table of contents. The text is unedited, and any errors or omissions rest with the author. Our thanks go out to Christopher J. Morley for his permission to publish his E-book.
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Ludwig, a German hairdresser, was born in 1848, he came to London from Hamburg in 1887/88 and found employment with Mr C.A. Partridge, a hairdresser in the Minories. He lived first in Church Street, from where he was asked to leave on account of his dirty habits, and later at a hotel in Finsbury. He was arrested after threatening eighteen year old Alexander Freinberg with a long bladed knife, while drunk at a coffee stall in Whitechapel High Street, because he disliked the way Freinberg was looking at him. When the police later learned from Ludwig's landlord that Ludwig had supposedly bloodstained hands and had earlier frightened a one armed prostitute named Elizabeth Burns at Three Kings Court, by brandishing a big knife, he immediately became a Ripper suspect.
Ludwig was described as 40 years old, 5ft 6"tall, slightly built, dark complexioned with a grizzled beard and moustache and who walked stiffly, as though something was wrong with one of his legs. While being taken to the police station Ludwig dropped a long bladed knife, which was later recovered, the knife, it later transpired, was an ordinary clasp knife. When searched, a razor and a long bladed pair of scissors were found on his person, however, being a hairdresser this is hardly suspicious. He was still in custody on the night of the double murder, which confirmed that he was not Jack the Ripper.
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