Dr. H.H. Holmes

Jeffrey Mudgett believes that his great-great-great grandfather was Jack the Ripper. If his theory is correct, the infamous London serial killer was executed in Philadelphia and is buried in Yeadon.

Mudgett will present his case, The Trial of Jack the Ripper, at Neumann University on Friday, September 26, at 3 p.m. in the Fred P. Meagher Theatre. The event is free and open to the public.

An author and attorney, Mudgett will swear in the audience as a jury for his presentation, unconcerned with besmirching the reputation of his ancestor, Dr. H.H. Holmes, who was hanged at Eastern State Penitentiary in 1896 for killing 27 people in his Chicago hotel.

The killing spree of Dr. Holmes was the subject of Erik Larson's best-selling 2003 book, The Devil in the White City. The 60-room boarding house run by Holmes was constructed to allow the proprietor easy access to his victims, whose bodies were disposed of in a basement kiln or sold to medical schools.

Mudgett's research into the atrocities committed by his ancestor led him to conclude that Dr. Holmes and Jack the Ripper are the same man. The collection of forensic and circumstantial evidence is the content of The Trial of Jack the Ripper and of Mudgett's book, Bloodstains.