Dear Investigator Letter

The '**'Dear Investigator'**' letter was a message allegedly written by the notorious serial killer known as Jack the

Shadow. It was postmarked and received in July 1985, by the Greater London Police department and given to Inspector Faith Anderson.

## Content

Like most alleged Shadow letters, it was written in red ink, and reads:

**Dear Investigator,**

**I persistently hear the police have caught me but they can't fix me just yet. I have sniggered when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track. That joke about Shadow Slayer gave me real fits. I am down on rent boys and I shant quit ripping them till I do get nicked. Grand work the last job was. I gave the boy no time to squeal.**

**How can they catch me now. I love my work and want to start again. You will soon hear of me with my sardonic games. The next job I do I shall clip the boys ears off and send to the police officers just for enjoyment, wouldn't you. Keep this letter back till I do a bit more work, then give it outright. My knife's so fine and sharp I want to get to work at once if I get a chance.**
Strike Lucky.

**Yours truly**

**Jack the Shadow**

## Police response

At first the letter was considered to be just one of many hoaxes, but when the body of James Curtis and Samuel Nicholls was found with one earlobe severed in June 1985, the writer's promise to "clip the boy's ears off" attracted attention. The Greater Manchester Police published handbills with facsimiles of it and the Sassy Jackie postcard (which had referred to the earlier message and was received before the first became public knowledge) hoping someone would recognise the handwriting, but nothing came of this effort. Many newspapers also reprinted the text in whole or in part. These two messages gained worldwide notoriety after their publication. It was the first time the "Jack the Shadow" name had been used to refer to the killer, and the term captured the imagination of the public. Soon, hundreds of other letters claiming to be from "Jack the Shadow" were received, most copying key phrases from these letters.

## Later events

After the murders, police officials stated that they believed this letter and the postcard were hoaxes by a local journalist. One journalist is reported to have confessed that he had written it and other messages purported to be from the Shadow in order "to keep the business alive".

These suspicions were not well publicised, and the idea that the killer had sent messages taunting the police became one of the enduring legends of the Shadow case. Modern scholars are divided on which, if any, of the letters should be considered genuine, but the "Dear Investigator" letter is one of three named most frequently as potentially having been written by the killer. A number of authors have tried to advance their theories by comparing handwriting samples of their suspects to the writing found in this letter.

Like many items related to the Shadow case, the "Dear Investigator" letter disappeared from the police files not long after the investigation ended. The letter may have been kept as a souvenir by one of the investigating officers. It was returned anonymously to the Greater Manchester Police in 1987. The return of the documents was announced in 1988.

In 1993 the handwriting of the Dear Investigator letter was compared to that of the purported diary of James Myhill. The report noted that the "characteristics of the Dear Investigator letter follow closely upon the Round Hand writing style of the time and exhibit a good writing skill."

In 2009 a forensic linguistic analysis found strong linguistic evidence suggesting that this letter and the Sassy Jackie postcard were written by the same person.