Jack T. Ripper: Time Travel, John Ritter and the Three’s Company Connection to The Whitechapel Murders

A Case Closed™ Exclusive
by Manny Fatback


Anyone who’s ever wasted time in front of the boob box has to be familiar with the bumbling antics of everyone’s favourite straight-homosexual-chef from ‘Three’s Company’. Who can forget the time Jack Tripper (played by everyone’s favourite nobody, John Ritter) accidentally mistook something for something else and havoc ensued? Yours truly certainly can, and remembering it makes the seventies even more painful. Not only did ‘Three’s Company’ herald the arrival of three marginally talented actors, but it was also the world’s only honestly boring threesome.

Or was it so boring after all?

After receiving season two of ‘Three’s Company’ for a belated first-year AA birthday, I found myself parked on my sofa, a bag of pretzels next to me and a fine bottle of Wild Turkey nestled in the fork of my crotch. After watching back-to-back-to-front episodes of this torturous sitcom, I began to realize just how drunk I was. But as is often the case with gifted and troubled artistes like myself, alcohol began to loosen the constraints of my razor-sharp mind. Questions began to rise faster than the temperature in a fat man’s Speedo.

Questions such as:
1. Why had ‘Three’s Company’ gone off the air when it was still successful?
2. What was important about the lead character’s curious moniker?
3. Were John Ritter’s off-camera antics really caused by drugs and alcohol?
4. Why couldn’t I access the ‘Special Features’ on this DVD?

Sitting bolt upright on my couch, I realized that I was on to something bigger than Kirstie Alley’s diaphragm.


Certainly everyone remembers the running gag in ‘Three’s Company’. Throughout the seasons, Jack Tripper’s dense landlord would confront Jack about the women he lived with and Jack would throw up the shield of homosexuality (a shield used by many men during desperate situations—especially when paternity suits are involved!) Of course, viewers at home knew very well that Jack Tripper wasn’t gay.

So why did he go to such Byzantine lengths to convince people that he was? What was he hiding? Was it his own latent homosexuality? Or was he truly a ‘ladies man’ who wanted to keep his identity secret?

As someone in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ might have said… curioser and curioser.

This was certainly suspicious behaviour, even for a sitcom character. Thanks to my Wild Turkey, I realized that if Jack Tripper had something to hide, might not the same be said for John Ritter? Might that ‘something to hide’ be one of the deepest, darkest secrets that crime has ever known?

As our own panel of Case Closed™ experts might have said… suuuuure, okay.


Setting aside my fine bourbon, I put pen to paper and figured out what I had. I knew that Jack Tripper was a ‘ladies man’ with a penchant for pulling the wool over the eyes of authority. He had latent homosexual tendencies and seemed to want to mask his identity. And most startling of all, the name ‘Jack Tripper’ is very close in both spelling and pronunciation as ‘John Ritter’.

But ‘Jack Tripper’ is also mind-numbingly close to the name of one of the worst serial murderers in British history… JACK THE RIPPER.

Jack Tripper = Jack T. Ripper!

The clues couldn’t have been more clear… or compelling.

Knowing that it would never do for someone as professional as I, Manny Fatback, to go off half-cocked, I began to dig a bit deeper. After flipping on my computer and scrolling through various unsolicited messages and images, I began to research this man who called him John Ritter… and Jack Tripper. A few keystrokes was all it took before the facts began piling up like a reef of dead otters.

Indisputable Fact Number One: Jack Tripper + John Ritter = Jack T. Ripper

Indisputable Fact Number Two: In 1973 John Ritter starred in a movie entitled ‘Stone Killer’ (note the curious use of ‘Killer’ in the title). In this unrememberable role he played the part of Officer Mort. Isn’t Mort awfully close to ‘la mort’, which means death in French? And believe it (*or don’t), John Ritter’s grandfather was French!

Indisputable Fact Number Three: Norman Fell co-starred in ‘Stone Killer’. He was also in ‘Three’s Company’. Doesn’t that tell you enough about the complexity of this conspiracy?

Indisputable Fact Number Four: In 1975 John Ritter had a role in an episode of ‘Barnaby Jones’ which was entitled ‘Prince of Terror’. Terror? And haven’t many Ripperologists claimed that Jack the Ripper was descended from royalty?

Indisputable Fact Number Five: Jack the Ripper was christened ‘Leather Apron’ by nineteenth century scribblers who tracked the killer’s grisly handiwork. Jack Tripper often wore an apron!

Indisputable Fact Number Six: a 1977 episode of ‘Three’s Company’ bore the name ‘Jack The Ripper’!

Putting all these facts together and coming up with a meaty yet suspicious stew, I went to see our resident Jackologist, Dr. Fantastic. As he looked over the mounting evidence, I painted a startling picture for him.

It seems clear to all of us at Case Closed™ that Jack Tripper was, indeed, Jack The Ripper. As horrifying as it seems, this also means that Jack the Ripper was John Ritter. It’s a mystery wrapped in an enigma tucked in a sock and stuffed in a closet. But an intrepid wordsmith like myself was able to break through the mystery and realize the real story.

Sometime in the seventies, John Ritter began travelling back in time to murder prostitutes in nineteenth century London. His latent homosexuality, womanizing and uncertainty about his own identity led him to commit these terrible crimes. Back and forth he went until sometime in 2003 when he made a tragic miscalculation. Something he did in 1888 created a terrible ripple effect in time. John Ritter (aka Jack Tripper, aka Jack The Ripper) disappeared from existence!


So… had my original questions been answered? I pondered them once again as I returned to my thinking juice and the next episode of ‘Three’s Company’.
1. ‘Three’s Company’ went off the air when it was still popular because producers began to suspect that their star was engaged in dangerous off-camera activities (time travel and whore murder among them). The risk outweighed any ratings.
2. Jack Tripper = Jack T. Ripper. How many times do I have to say it?
3. Ritter’s drug and alcohol abuse stemmed from his murderous activities. As his guilt ate him up be turned to substance abuse to help him cope with problems. His absenteeism and lateness could also be blamed on his time travelling!
4. I couldn't access the Special Features on the DVD because there were no Special Features!


Anyone with half a brain (and if readers have half a brain, we here at Case Closed™ are glad to have ‘em) can see the truth behind the charade. While America was laughing it up with the goofball antics of Jack Tripper, London prostitutes were being slaughtered. All in the name of entertainment.

Of course some might say there is one question remaining. How could John Ritter be Jack the Ripper when history books were well aware of Jack’s crimes before John Ritter was born?

The answer is as fine as paint… **retroactive time travel!

So remember… the next time you sit down to watch your favourite TV program, ask yourself this one important question…

Is my favourite actor a time-travelling serial killer?
The answer might surprise you.

CASE CLOSED™

*you probably shouldn't believe it
**this startling phenomenum will be examined in a future installment of Case Closed™

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From the desk of Kipling Glenavon, Case Closed's™ new photos editor:



Resident forensic photographic comparologist, Dr. Fantastic, examined the pictures and inconclusively and undeniably concluded that the sketch may indeed be John Ritter, or someone who looks like him.



In the above two photos, one shows a promo shot from "Three's Company" and the other is of Jack the Ripper at a staff party. But which is which? Could the knife in the left photo hold the key? And, if so, is it for a deadbolt or just a bike lock?