Suspect in the Jack The Ripper murders in London in 1888.

William Gull was a royal physician, and an aide to Queen Victoria. According to a popular theory, Prince Albert (also known at the time as Prince Eddy) had an affair with a Whitechapel prostitute, resulting in the birth of a child. In order to cover up this scandal, the mother was placed into a mental asylum and the child fostered. It was then decided that four close friends of the prostitute in question were likely to have been told of the birth, and so William Gull was asked to despatch these women. Unfortunately William Gull was not as mentally stable as was assumed, and became enthused with his task, ultimately killing 5 prostitutes instead of the originally planned 4. Gull himself lost all grasp on reality and was placed in an asylum, where he died in 1896.

Although it isn't (currently) possible to prove that Gull was Jack The Ripper, it is one of the most widely held theories to date. A forthcoming film, From Hell, will be based on the book of the same name by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell. The name comes from the one 'Ripper' letter thought to be genuine, sent to the police after the fourth murder and entitled 'From Hell'.

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