Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 18, 2017

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Sketch of William Henry Bury, taken from a February 1889 newspaper

William Henry Bury (1859–1889) was suspected of being the notorious serial killer Jack the Ripper. Hanged for the murder of his wife Ellen, he was the last person executed in Dundee, Scotland. Orphaned at an early age, he was dismissed from his job for theft, and became a street peddler. In February 1889, one month after moving from London to Dundee with his wife, he strangled her with a rope, stabbed her dead body with a penknife, and hid the corpse in a box in their room. A few days later, he presented himself to the local police and was arrested for her murder. This was shortly after the height of the London Whitechapel murders, which were attributed to the unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper. Bury's previous abode near Whitechapel and the similarities between the Ripper's crimes and Bury's led the press and executioner James Berry to suggest that Bury was the Ripper. He protested his innocence, and the police discounted him as a suspect. Later authors have built on the earlier accusations, but the idea that Bury was the Ripper is not widely accepted. (Full article...)

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