Has Jack the Stripper been exposed?

A professor of criminology claims to have identified the serial killer who murdered at least six prostitutes in the 1960s in a crime spree dubbed the ‘Hammersmith Nude Murders’

IT’S arguably the biggest unsolved serial killer case in British history. The murderer known as Jack the Stripper claimed more victims than his notorious Victorian namesake Jack the Ripper during a 1960s killing spree. But the monster was never caught.

Now new information could identify the man behind the “Hammersmith nude murders”.

Evidence collected by David Wilson, a professor of criminology at Birmingham City University and former prison governor, has been handed to the Metropolitan Police, who are considering his findings on the cold case.

Professor Wilson is convinced the perpetrator was Welsh child killer Harold Jones, following a 15-month investigation which is detailed in a TV documentary tonight.

He says he’s found crucial new links between Jones and the murder of at least six sex workers in the then redlight district of west London around Shepherd’s Bush.

The sadistic crimes, which saw the killer strangle and strip his victims before removing their teeth, sparked one of the biggest police manhunts in history. “Lots of people put forward different theories about the identity of the killer,” Professor Wilson says. “But frankly only one really stands out. And if we could prove this theory it has every possibility of delivering to the Metropolitan Police something they didn’t have 50 years ago, and that’s a genuine prime suspect.”

While Jones died of bone cancer in Hammersmith in 1971, many of the children of the victims are still alive today and desperate for justice.

One of the first targets, 30-year-old prostitute Hannah Tailford, originally from Northumberland, was found on February 2, 1964, her body fished out of the Thames at Hammersmith.

She had been strangled, several of her teeth were missing and her underwear forced down her throat.

Her son Steven Sloman, 61, says: “The general attitude then was just ‘Well, it’s just a prostitute’. At the end of the day, whatever happened, she was a mum.

“Justice was not done at the time and I would like them to open the case, find the evidence and maybe come up with closure and say ‘Actu-