COULD THIS FAMOUS PAINTER HAVE BEEN JACK THE RIPPER?

TikToker Kiki Schirr (@schirrgenius) posted a viral video sharing a theory about the famous artist Edgar Degas and how he may have been the serial killer known as Jack the Ripper.

According to Britannica, between August and November 1888, Jack the Ripper “murdered at least five women—all prostitutes—in or near the Whitechapel district of London’s East End.” The site adds that “Jack the Ripper was never identified or arrested.”

"Edgar was degrading into a horrible, awful, misanthrope of a person that people did not want to be around,” Schirr states.

She says part of her reasoning is because Degas was losing his sight. NIH states that Degas’ vision loss started to become a “serious impediment” in 1870.

Schirr adds that at the time, Degas was “wealthy, well connected, and he lived in Paris, which was just a short train ride away from London where the murders occurred.”

She says that a year later, Degas had a friend named James McNeill Whistler, who allegedly spoke out and “chided him for not coming to lunch any longer.” Schirr says Whistler lived in London which was confirmed.

Next, Schirr says Degas took a two-week trip to Southern France “for two of the murders." At the time, Degas sent letters to all of his most famous friends. 

The National Gallery of Canada confirms that his letters sent from Paris “span the years 1875 to 1912,” during the same time frame the Paris murders took place.

Schirr suggests Degas may have been setting himself up an alibi since the letters he wrote took place at the same time and location as Jack the Ripper’s murders.

Degas was a classically trained artist. He had attended human dissections, probably multiple times,” Schirr says.

“He removed several organs and knew where they were and where to cut in the neck in order to cause death because he had a good grasp on anatomy,”

Then Schirr addresses what she calls Degas’ “obsession with painting ballerinas and women who were not watching.” She believes Degas’ ballerina paintings are “not surprising” when compared to Jack the Ripper’s “MO.”

“Look at how many of his paintings are all about that woman’s body and have no face,” she urges viewers. “Look at all of his pastels where the darkest line on the woman is the line cut across her neck.”

Schirr explains that these are all of the thoughts she “cannot get out” of her head. “Did this artist get away with murder?” she asks. “Did he steal organs?” “The pretty paintings of ballerinas that hang in little girls’ rooms to this day, were they painted by a murderer?”