The True Identity Of Jack The Ripper

Here's what my brain did to me today.


The identity of the Whitechapel murderer, popularly known as Jack the Ripper, has been a mystery for over a century. Many have tried over the years to prove that one suspect or another was secretly Mad Jack, the sociopathic killer. No one has ever conclusively proven their case.


Until now.


The true identity of Jack the Ripper was, in fact: Muppeteer Jim Henson.


It seems obvious now that it's been pointed out, doesn't it? I bet you feel really stupid and inadequate for not having realized it sooner. Suddenly, life makes sense.

What better cover for a methodical serial killer than to become a beloved family entertainer? No one ever suspects the guy with his arm up Kermit the Frog. Being born decades after the Whitechapel murders was a masterstroke of misdirection. Very clever, Mr. Henson! But not quite clever enough.

Consider: not a single prostitute murder in the Whitechapel district has been attributed to Jack the Ripper since Jim Henson passed away in 1990. There are also no published memoirs of Victorian-era prostitutes recounting tales of meeting Jim Henson. This can only mean that he left no witnesses. Not a single Victorian-era prostitute saw Jim Henson's bearded face and lived to tell the tale.

When this theory occurred to me, I first considered Walt Disney as the possible culprit. I was forced to abandon that path of thought because it hit a little too close to home. I'm really not sure about old Walt.

I have developed an elegant proof of this theorem, but unfortunately this Internet is too small to contain it.

Oh, all right, I'll try to cover the high points. You should be able to fill in the details for yourself. Suffice it for the moment to say that an irrefutable mathematical proof of my theorem exists, wherein we begin by letting X = "Jim Henson" and Y = "Jack The Ripper". Before long, X equals Y. It all hinges on the remainder left when 5 disemboweled Victorian prostitutes are divided by "Gavin McLeod".

As opposed, I suppose, to being divided by the Ripper's sharp instruments.

I would have liked to include some diagrams to support my theory, diagrams being an excellent way to sanitize complex mathematical concepts for the consumption of the unwashed masses. Maybe some pie charts. Everybody likes pie charts. But thinking about that got me to thinking about pie, so I went and looked in the kitchen only to find no pie, but I found some strawberry shortcake shells and some strawberries, but no whipped cream, but we had some whipped cream mix so I mixed that up and had a nice strawberry shortcake and by the time I was finished I had forgotten all about pie and Jim Henson being Jack the Ripper.


Enough rambling. Here's a picture of my son (at left, in camo in case his keenly honed survival instincts compel him to take cover in a wooded area of the mall), Pastor Derek and Homeschooler's daughter (in pink) and two innocent bystanders, mere moments before the situation turned ugly.