TikTok sleuth busts open 'Jack the Ripper' mystery by identifying a 'creepy, rich, misogynistic artist' as the killer of Victorian London - and you ALREADY know his name

For 136 years, the identity of Jack the Ripper has confounded history buffs.

Some say the killer was Lewis Carroll, the 'Alice in Wonderland' creator, others suspect Winston Churchill's dad — Lord Randolph Churchill.

Others still say it was likely a non-famous local of Whitechapel, East London, where the gruesome slayings occurred in the 1880s.

Now, a TikToker from Tennessee has added a name to the list of suspects.

Kiki Schirr, a perky, freckled redhead, unveiled her theory in a video filmed in the passenger seat of her Hyundai Santa Fe.

Tennessee TikToker Kiki Schirr says a famous French artist could well have been the serial killer

An illustration of a street in Whitechapel, East London, after Jack the Ripper claimed another victim 

It's already clocked up more than 14 million views.

In it, she explains why she thinks French impressionist artist Edgar Degas was the killer.

The painter and sculptor is celebrated for his works of ballerinas, bathing females and prostitutes.

Schirr says Degas' subject-matter reveals more about him than was previously understood.

His obsession with women's bodies makes him a prime suspect for the killer who stalked cobblestoned London by twilight.

'Those are the thoughts that I cannot get out of my head,' Schirr says in her viral video.

'Did this artist get away with murder?'

Her theory casts a sinister shadow on the 'pretty paintings of ballerinas that hang in little girls rooms to this day,' she adds.

'Were they painted by a murderer?'

At least a dozen murders between 1888 and 1892 have been speculatively attributed to Jack the Ripper. 

A self-portrait of Edgar Degas, the impressionist artist who Kiki Schirr now frames as a psychopath 

But only five of those, all committed in 1888, were linked by police to a single murderer.

These so-called 'canonical five' victims were Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Kate Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly.

They're often presented as prostitutes killed while plying their trade, but this is disputed.

At the time, police suspected the Ripper was a butcher, due to the way his victims were killed and the fact they were discovered near to the dockyards, where meat was brought into the city.

Several people have been identified as the serial killer.

But no theory is widely accepted. It's now doubtful the mystery will ever be solved.

Degas is a prime suspect, Schirr says in her seven-minute addition to the enigma.

For one, she says, he lived at the right time.

Born in Paris in 1834, Degas was in his early 50s at the time of the killing spree, she says.

Edgar Degas often focused on women and dancers, who may have been sex workers 

Tennessee's Kiki Schirr has nearly 124,000 TikTok followers and her Jack the Ripper video has been seen more than 14 million times 

At that time, records show, he 'was beginning to really hate women,' she adds.

'He'd always been a bit of a misogynist, but he was degrading into a horrible, awful misanthrope of a person,' she adds.

Victorian cops were searching for a butcher, but Schirr says the murders could also have been the work of a painter.

'Degas was a classically-trained artist, he had attended human dissections, probably multiple times,' she says.

She uses biographical accounts of Degas and his oeuvre to suggest he was a psychopath.

He was 'obsessive about knowing every detail about how a body worked,' she says.

He often compared women to horses and other animals, she adds.

His studies of women in Paris bars in the late 1800s indicated late-night trysts with men, she added.

Oftentimes, Degas' pastel pieces of women bore the 'dark line' of a ribbon 'cut across' their necks, she says — reminiscent of the Ripper's throat-slitting escapades.

One of Jack the Ripper's slashing attacks, as presented in the Police Gazette

She also addresses an anti-Semitic scrawl left in chalk on a wall beside a clue in Eddowes' murder — a key element of Ripper lore.

The language used suggested at a French speaker, she says.

Degas, she adds, was an artist who could well have had a piece of chalk in his pocket.

As well as motive, Schirr says Degas had plenty of opportunity.

He was rich and well-connected, she says.

'He lived in Paris, which was just a short train ride away from London, where the murders occurred,' she adds.

She notes that Degas wrote a 'ton of letters' from southern France at the time of two Ripper slayings.

This was likely Degas 'setting himself up an alibi' through a paper trail, she adds.

The clip went viral, and Schirr has now posted more than a dozen videos about Degas' culpability.

One viewer praised an 'interesting theory' that left them 'genuinely convinced.'

Others said they'd always been uneasy about the 'eerie' quality of Degas' work.

Follower's of Schirr's theory say Degas' ballerina artworks now look 'creepy' and 'eerie' 

'I always thought the ballerina paintings were off-putting, but this now makes sense to why,' posted another.

Schirr has won over fans, but her theory has problems.

She says Paris-bases Degas could take a 'short train ride' to stalk London women.

But the Eurostar rail link between the two capitals didn't open until 1994, after the Channel Tunnel was built.

That's more than a century after the Ripper terrorized Whitechapel.

Still, Schirr's theory is the biggest development in the Ripper saga since last month's revelations of a never-before-seen police file.

The fascinating archive was found by the great-grandson of a detective who worked on the case.

It includes two photographs of Michael Ostrog, an early suspect.

Ostrog, a Russian immigrant, was a petty thief and con artist who spent long periods in prison and in a mental asylum.

However, he was quickly ruled out as the Ripper as it emerged that he was in the lunatic wing of a French prison when the murders took place.

From hell: The infamous serial killer who terrorised Victorian London... but who was he (or she)?

One book named Queen Victoria's surgeon Sir John Williams (above), who had a surgery in Whitechapel at the time, as Jack the Ripper

Jack the Ripper is thought to have killed at least five young women in Whitechapel, East London, between August 31 and November 9, 1888, but was never caught.

Numerous individuals have been accused of being the serial killer.

At the time, police suspected the Ripper must have been a butcher, due to the way his victims were killed and the fact they were discovered near to the dockyards where meat was brought into the city.

There are several alleged links between the killer and royals. First is Sir William Gull, the royal physician. Many have accused him of helping get rid of the alleged prostitutes' bodies, while others claim he was the Ripper himself.

A book has named Queen Victoria's surgeon Sir John Williams as the infamous killer. He had a surgery in Whitechapel at the time.

Another theory links the murders with Queen Victoria's grandson, Prince Albert Victor, the Duke of Clarence.

At one point, cotton merchant James Maybrick was the number one suspect, following the publication of some of his diary which appeared to suggest he was the killer.

Some believe the diary to be a forgery, although no one has been able to suggest who forged it.

Other suspects include Montague John Druitt, a Dorset-born barrister. He killed himself in the Thames seven weeks after the last murder.

George Chapman, otherwise known as Severyn Kłosowski, is also a suspect after he poisoned three of his wives and was hanged in 1903.

Another suspected by police was Aaron Kosminski. He was admitted to Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum and died there.

Dr Thomas Neill Cream poisoned four London prostitutes with strychnine and was hanged in 1892.

Some of the more bizarre theories about who the murderer was include author Lewis Carroll

Some of the more bizarre links include Lewis Carroll, author of the Alice In Wonderland books, who taught at Christ Church until 1881 - which was at the forefront of the Ripper murder scenery.

Winston Churchill's father - Lord Randolph Churchill - has also been named as a potential suspect.

Crime writer Patricia Cornwell believes she has 'cracked' the case by unearthing evidence that confirms the artist Walter Sickert was the prime suspect. Her theories have not been generally accepted.

Author William J Perring raised the possibility that Jack the Ripper might actually be 'Julia' - a Salvation Army soldier.

In The Seduction Of Mary Kelly, his novel about the life and times of the final victim, he suggests Jack the Ripper was in fact a woman.

In February 2019, it was suggested that Jack the Ripper may have been a sinister Dutch sailor who murdered two ex-wives in his homeland and bludgeoned to death two other women in Belgium.

Crime historian Dr Jan Bondeson has named Hendrik de Jong as a prime suspect for the most notorious set of unsolved murders in history.

At the time of the Whitechapel murders, de Jong is believed to have worked as a steward on a ship that made frequent trips from Rotterdam to London, providing him with the perfect means of getting out of the country after his heinous crimes.

He later murdered two of his ex-wives in his native Netherlands in 1893 and bludgeoned to death two women above a pub before attempting to set their bodies on fire in Belgium in 1898.

Police discovering the body of one of Jack the Ripper's victims, probably Catherine Eddowes