On the morning of May 11, 1887, lighterman Edward Hughes made a gruesome discovery when he fished a sack containing a human torso from the River Thames in Rainham. A month later, on June 5, Pierman John Morris discovered a thigh and kneecap close to Temple Pier, while a lower thorax and upper abdomen were found near Battersea Pier.

These body parts were determined to have belonged to the same individual, a woman who would have been around 27 to 29; however, as no head was discovered, she was tragically never identified. These events, which would go down in history as the "Rainham Mystery", took place one year before the first known murder of the serial killer Jack the Ripper. While London was abuzz with the news of this serial killer, more body parts washed up on the Thames; however, neither investigators then nor historians now believe that Jack the Ripper was responsible for these killings.

The first victim of Jack the Ripper, Mary Ann Nichols, was found brutally murdered on August 31, 1888, in Whitechapel. But this would not be the only tragedy to strike the area, as just a couple of weeks later, on September 11, a right arm and shoulder were discovered on the riverbank.

More body parts were discovered in the following weeks, and on October 2, a woman's torso was discovered, followed by a leg on October 17. Once again, no head was discovered, and the victim was never identified.

Although both were active in London, and in the Whitechapel area specifically, it's thought that Jack the Ripper and the Thames Torso Killer were separate individuals, with investigators arguing that their modus operandi were quite different.

The third victim of the Thames Torso killer, Elizabeth Jackson, who was about eight months pregnant at the time of her death, is the only one who has been identified.

Elizabeth's torso was discovered on June 4, 1889. In the following days, more body parts washed up, although, like the others, Elizabeth's head was never discovered.

Following the identification of her body, Elizabeth's boyfriend, John Faircloth, was arrested in Devon under suspicion of her murder. However, he was later released as police discovered he had left London a few days before Elizabeth was last seen alive.

The last of the official "Thames Torso" killings took place in 1889, with the headless and legless torso of an unidentified woman being discovered on September 10. No other body parts were discovered in this case, and neither victim nor murderer were ever identified.

Although these are four "canonical" Thames Torso killings, it has been theorised that two other London murders were the work of this killer - the "Battersea Mystery" of 1873 and 1874, in which two women were found dismembered, and the 1884 "Tottenham Court Road Mystery".

Alongside these, in his book The Thames Torso Murders of Victorian London, R. Michael Gordon, suggested a link between these killings and two more, one in Paris in 1886 and another in London at the later date of 1902.

While the Thames Torso Killer, nor three of his victims, have been identified, historians have certainly theorised about the identity of this brutal killer.

Researcher Sarah Bax Horton has identified waterman and lighterman James Crick as the prime suspect in these cases. This theory has been highlighted further in the recent BBC documentary series Lucy Worsley's Victorian Murder Club.

Although never charged with these crimes, James Crick was sentenced to 15 years in prison for rape and attempted murder in 1889, coinciding with the end of the killer's spree.

He ultimately served a sentence of eight-and-a-half years, which would put him back on the streets of London at the time of the 1902 murder before he died in 1907.