Jose Laurenco
Laurenco, born in 1862 was suggested as a Ripper suspect by Edward Knight Larkins, a clerk in the British Customs Statistical Department. Larkin's believed that the injuries inflicted on the Ripper's victims were similar to the injuries inflicted by Portuguese peasants on their enemies during the Peninsular war against France, and therefore concluded that the Ripper had to be a Portuguese sailor. Larkin's searched the shipping logs and found three men, Manuel Cruz Xavier, Jose Laurenco and Joao de Souza Machado, sailors from the three ships, The City Of London, The City Of Cork and The City Of Oporto, whom he believed had taken it in turns to commit the murders, depending on which ship was in dock.
When it was pointed out that none of the three men were in town the night Alice McKenzie was murdered, Larkin's added a fourth suspect, Joachim De Rocha.
Dr Robert Anderson perhaps summed up best the official police view of Larkin's theories in a memo to the Home Office, describing Larkin's as, 'A very troublesome busybody'. Laurenco had not sailed with the ship The City Of Cork when it docked on 8 November 1888, therefore there is no evidence that he was in London when Mary Kelly was murdered.
