True Crime
The Horrific New York Murder that had People Convinced The Ripper had Moved
Carrie Brown, a prostitute, was mutilated with an X carved in her body.
On 24th April 1891, the New York police thought they had a Jack the Ripper murder to contend with. The victim was Carrie Brown, and her mutilated body was discovered in room 31, in a filthy lodging house.
Brown was a self-styled actor, but like the Ripper victims, she had worked as a prostitute. Her profession and the violence in the crime led detectives to believe the Ripper had crossed the ocean.
The New York police department boasted that they would catch the London Ripper in thirty-six hours. They lived up to that promise and arrested a suspect within thirty-two. Had they got the right man, though, and was this the British Ripper?
Ameer Ben Ali
Ben Ali was a middle-aged sailor who had previously committed robbery and vagrancy. He was known to his friends as ‘Frenchy’ due to his accent. The evidence pointed to him; the police stated there was a trail of blood from the murder scene to Ben Ali’s room, in a hotel close.
The hotel proprietor stated that Brown had checked into the lodging house with a man in his thirties of…
