Historian Lucy Worsley believes team have solved Thames Torso murder mystery

"Historians believe they have cracked a London murder mystery that has remained unsolved for nearly 140 years. The Thames Torso Murderer struck at least four times killing women at the same time as Jack the Ripper in late Victorian England. He dismembered corpses of his victims before scattering their remains in and around the capital's waterways. Only one of them pregnant prostitute Elizabeth Jackson, in her early 20s, was identified."

"Supersleuth Ms Worsley believes she, fellow historian Sarah Bax Horton and a team of researchers have solved it. She told the Times: I think there's a very compelling case that we've got the guy. It was really important to me to have visited the places where we know the remains of at least three of [his victims] are buried in their pauper graveyards That's honouring people who have got missed out of the traditional way that history's been written."

"In 1889, Crick offered a woman called Sarah Warburton a lift across the Thames. Once on the water, he told her that if she made a noise he would settle you as I have done other women that have been found in the Thames. Warburton was taken to a steamboat under Tower Bridge where Crick assaulted her, but she hit him with a piece of iron and raised the alarm."

At least four women were killed and dismembered in late Victorian London, their remains scattered in and around the capital's waterways. Only one victim, pregnant prostitute Elizabeth Jackson, was identified. A reinvestigation by historians and researchers points to James Crick, a bargeman with a history of violence, as the likely Thames Torso Murderer. Crick allegedly assaulted Sarah Warburton in 1889 after offering her a lift across the Thames; Warburton fought back and Crick was apprehended and convicted on her and Inspector Charles Ford's testimony. Crick served eight-and-a-half years of a 15-year sentence, during which the killings stopped. A possible fifth killing occurred in Vauxhall in 1902. Crick died in 1907.

Read at www.standard.co.uk