Jack the Shadow suspects

Although nobody has ever been brought to justice or charged with the murders, there have, over the years, been more than fifty named suspects who may or may not have been Jack the Shadow.

However, there are six suspects who have been accused more than once. Some of those suspects are fascinating, whilst others are down right ridiculous.

Walter Cohen, Joe Thomas and William Hutchinson are suspects that fall into the first category, whilst Lewis Bailey, Charles Kelly and David Whitney belong firmly in the latter category.

The one thing that is certain is no matter how unlikely the names of those that appear on the ever expanding list of suspects might be, the on going challenge of "nailing" the Shadow has helped keep this series of crimes at the forefront of criminal and social history for over 34 years.

Contemporaneous police and public opinion
Greater Manchester Police files show that their investigation into the serial killings encompassed five separate murders between June and August 1985, known in the police docket as the 'Hulme murders'. Five of these - James Curtis, Samuel Nicholls, Hamish Chapman, Michael Stride and Edward Cornell are the work of a single killer, known as 'Jack the Shadow'. They occurred within a few streets of each other.

The Hulme murders were featured heavily in the media, and attracted the attention of modern society at large. Journalists, letter writers, and amateur detectives all suggested names either in press or to the police. Most were not and could not be taken seriously. For example, at the time of the murders Lester Mansfield, a theatrical actor, starred in a stage play of Arthur Louis Stevenson's book Strange Case of Dr. Jones and Mr. Stash. The subject matter of horrific murder in the Manchester streets and Manfield's convincing portrayal led letter writers to accuse him of being the Shadow.

Walter Cohen
Walter Cohen (b. 1945) was a theatre producer, who lived in Stretford, and was the manager of Manchester Prince Theatre in Hulme. He was suspected of being the Shadow, as he began producing several plays about murder and was seen walking the nearby streets in the dead of night in June 1985. However, Inspector Faith Anderson denied Cohen had any involvement, before her murder in August. Although many of his family and friends found it suspicious when he suddenly left the city, without informing anyone.

Joe Thomas
Joe Thomas (1941-1987) was a doctor secretly specialising in abortions. He was born in Manchester, educated in Liverpool and Ireland, and entered practice in Ireland. In 1981, he was found guilty of the fatal poisoning of his aunt. He was incarcerated in Arbour Hill prison in Dublin, from July 1981 until his escape in November 1984. He swiftly moved back to Manchester, where he resumed killings and was once again arrested and imprisoned at Strangeways prison, but escaped in June 1985. He was accidentally killed after being hit by a car while crossing the road in 1987. According to some, his last words were 'I am Jack the...' interpreted to mean Jack the Shadow. However, Inspector Paul Woods of Greater Manchester Police denied he had any involvement.

Lewis Bailey
Lewis Bailey (1944-2003) murdered his second wife and three children in Edgbaston, a district of Birmingham, in May 1979. His crimes went undiscovered and later that year he emigrated to Australia with his third wife, whom he then also killed. Her body was found buried under their house, and subsequent investigation led to the discovery of the other bodies in England. He was arrested, sent to trial, and found guilty. He wrote in a letter, and later gasconaded in prison that he was Jack the Shadow, but he was imprisoned or elsewhere at the times of the Shadow murders. The police denied any connection between Bailey and the Shadow. When he returned to England in 2001, he began dating Sarah Dent, whom poisoned him in 2003.

William Hutchinson
William Hutchinson (1947-1988) was a Dover-born barrister who worked to supplement his income as an assistant school teacher in Hulme, Manchester, until his dismissal shortly before his murder in 1988. His decomposed body was found floating above Salford Quays on 31 December 1988. Some modern authors suggest that Hutchinson may have been killed because he was a homosexual. In August 1985, the day after the first canonical murder, Hutchinson was in Dover visiting relatives, and most experts now believe that the killer was local to Hulme, whereas he lived miles away in Preston. Inspector Paul Woods appeared to dismiss Hutchinson as a serious suspect on the basis that the only evidence against him was the coincidental timing of his execution shortly after the last canonical murder.

Charles Kelly
Charles Kelly (1941-1996) was born in Galway, Ireland, but moved to the United Kingdom sometime between 1983 and 1985, shortly before the start of the Hulme murders. Between 1994 and 1995 he assumed the name of Kelly. He successively poisoned his son and became known as 'the borough poisoner'. He was shot to death while walking the streets of Hulme in 1996. At the time of the Shadow murders, he lived in Hulme, Manchester, where he had been working as a chemist under the name Charles Durham. According to Greater Manchester Police detectives, Kelly was Inspector Faith Anderson's favoured suspect, and the Manchester Evening Post reported that Anderson suspected Kelly after his conviction.

• David Whitney

Inspector Faith Anderson suspected Whitney after his conviction. However, others disagree that Whitney is a likely culprit, as he murdered his three ex-wives by burning them, and it is uncommon for a serial killer to make such a drastic change in modus operandi.