Did Robert Paul Encounter Jack The Ripper In Buck's Row?

Robert Paul was a 31-year-old carman, or delivery driver, who, at a little before 3.45 on the morning of Friday the 31st of August, 1888, set off for work.

His journey took him along Buck's Row, a locality that was notorious for attacks on people by the local gangs.

Well aware of its reputation, Paul quickened his pace and headed towards the Board School that towered over the western end of the first section of the thoroughfare.

As he got near to it, a man who had been standing in the road came over to him and urged him to come and loom at a woman who was lying in a gateway.

Paul did so, and saw the body of Mary Nichols, who is now widely believed to have been the first victim of the killer we now know as Jack the Ripper.

The other man was Charles Cross, albeit we now know that his actually name was Charles Lechmere, and, since Lechmere is now a favoured suspect for having been the perpetrator of the crimes, what Robert Paul saw that morning is extremely important in the field of ripper studies.

In this video, using newspaper reports and interviews with Robert Paul, we let him tell us in his own words exactly what happened on that long ago August morning when, on his walk to walk, he stepped into the story of the Jack the Ripper crimes.