Seaman
In the book Jack the Ripper The 21st Century Investigation, former murder squad Detective and author Trevor Marriott, suggests to us the possibility that Jack the Ripper may have been a merchant seaman. This theory however is not a new one. Edward Larkins, in November 1888, also made the suggestion that the Ripper could have possibly been a merchant seaman. Marriott unfortunately, unlike Larkins, does not offer us a suspect name or even the name of the ship on which the Ripper sailed. only that several ships, which were in London on the nights of the murders, were German in origin and that one of the crew members (name unknown) may have been Jack the Ripper.
The idea that the Ripper was a sailor able to depart London, and thus the manhunt for him shortly after committing each murder, remains a persuasive possibility. Joseph Lawende described a man he thought looked like a sailor seen with Catherine Eddowes shortly before she was murdered. Other eyewitnesses have also described a suspect said to be shabby in appearance. Unfortunately many ships records are incomplete for the period of the Whitechapel murders.
