Officials in the U.K. believe they have recovered a long-lost facial composite of notorious killer Jack the Ripper after stumbling upon it in the archives of a policing college.
The composite of the serial killer was etched into the handle of a walking cane once owned by famous detective, Frederick Abberline, news.com.au reported Thursday. The cane was reportedly given to Abberline when he was taken off the case — a case that, to this day, remains unsolved.
For years, the cane had been stored at the Police College in Bramshill, Hampshire in the U.K. but was lost after the college shut down in 2015, news.com.au reported. The cane was rediscovered when two staff members were searching through artifacts from Bramshill that had been sent to the College of Policing headquarters in West Midlands, the outlet continued.
Jack the Ripper’s only known facial composite found in archives https://t.co/SDo4VjWyX7 pic.twitter.com/XOWGYL0dvk
— New York Post (@nypost) December 29, 2022
The college’s content creator, Antony Cash expressed his excitement at the find.
“Jack the Ripper is one of the biggest and most infamous murder cases in our history and his crimes were significant in paving the way for modern policing and forensics as it caused police to begin experimenting with and developing new techniques as they attempted to try and solve these murders, such as crime scene preservation, profiling and photography,” Cash stated, according to news.com.au. “This walking cane is such a fascinating artifact which represents such a historically significant time in policing.” (RELATED: Jeffrey Dahmer’s Dad Tells Dr. Phil That He Missed Opportunities To Stop His Son’s Killing Spree)
Cash looks forward to displaying the unique artifact alongside original newspaper clippings of the murders so that the police officers going through the college can see how much police work has advanced since the late 19th century.
