LONDON -- The Jack the Ripper murders are some of the most infamous and grisly, inspiring a number books, movies and TV programmes and now true crime enthusiasts will be able to get a glimpse at some previously unseen artefacts from the case going on display in London.
The killer dubbed Jack the Ripper, who was never caught, is thought to have been responsible for the brutal murders of five, or possibly six, women in East London in 1888. All of the women murdered worked as prostitutes and an all except for one were brutally mutilated.
The artefacts going on display include notes from a senior detective who led the hunt for the killer - in them he names Aaron Kosminski as the main suspect.
Kosminski, a Jewish immigrant who fled persecution in Poland, arrived in England in 1881 living in East London. He ended up dying in an asylum in 1899 and is one of the six key suspects most commonly named as Jack the Ripper.
The artefacts are part of a collection from Scotland Yard's Crime Museum, which is only open to Scotland Yard staff and occasional invited guests, such as Sherlock Holmes author Arthur Conan Doyle, but from October a trove of the gritty items will go on public display at the Museum of London.
Details of the new exhibition announced Thursday revealed the list of artefacts includes the death masks of criminals hanged at Newgate Prison, a gun used in an attempt to kill Queen Victoria, the leather gloves worn by serial killer John Haigh who dissolved his victims' bodies baths of sulfuric acid and an empty champagne bottle left behind by people who carried out the Great Train Robbery in 1963.
"A lot of these objects that we are displaying, they were concerned with murder, they are part of horrific events," said co-curator Julia Hoffbrand. "But many of them are very everyday, and they talk about people's lives."
One item missing from the exhibition is the ricin pellet, lodged on an umbrella tip, that killed Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov on Waterloo Bridge in 1978. Hoffbrand said curators had hoped to include it, but it was not allowed to leave Scotland Yard because the case remains open.
Police are keen that the exhibition, which will run from October 9 for six months, strikes the right tone.
"What we do not want is something that's a macabre police version of going to the London Dungeon," Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt said.
"I would be very disappointed if anyone comes away thinking were are glamorizing any of the people who have committed the offenses in this exhibition," Hewitt said.
Additional reporting from The Associated Press.