By most accounts, there were five victims: all prostitutes brutally slain in and around the city of London during the "Autumn of Terror." The official investigation unearthed relatively little in the way of consistent facts or solid leads. Thirteen vague eyewitness descriptions and three top suspects later, the case was officially closed, unsolved. The year was 1892. To this day, the nameless, faceless murderer is known only by an alias: Jack the Ripper.

In the world of cold cases, the century-old Jack the Ripper case can reasonably be considered in a deep freeze. Yet, a community of amateur gumshoes and dedicated history buffs are still hot on the Ripper's trail. Some people call them crazy, others refer to them as the "Trekkies" of true crime for their analytical bickering and obsessive interest, which has spawned magazines and, of course, conventions. By and large, they call themselves Ripperologists and their place on the Web is www.casebook.org.

Part online research library and part cyber clubhouse, the site is comprehensive to say the least. Estimates on the site claim that if "Casebook: Jack the Ripper" were published in book form it would fill 1,800 pages of text and include some 450 photographs and illustrations. Excluding the 5,000 pages of message board writings, that total is still more than twice the size of the longest Ripper book ever printed.

His truly: A signature thought to be authentic

Obsessive? Maybe. But users proudly see the site's mass as evidence of the historical scholarship that goes on in Ripper circles and as a means to sort fact from fiction. The prevalence of the "cloaked stalker on gas-lit streets" image has led to a phenomenon of misinformation: Jack the Ripper is so well known that most people actually know very little about him.

"People write and say they thought Sherlock Holmes was real and Jack the Ripper was fake," said Stephen Ryder, the site's 24-year-old founder and editor. "They thought he was just sort of a bogeyman."

Ryder, now a Web designer in Virginia, became interested in Jack the Ripper while in high school and launched the award-winning Casebook in 1996 after he received volumes of feedback on articles he posted on the Internet. The site's popularity has steadily increased and now receives up to 5,000 hits per day, according to Ryder.

While the Ripper case and its followers fall into the true crime category, they are realistic about their mission. "I don't think anyone actually thinks they are going to solve the case," admits Ryder. "I see it as an intellectual exercise."

A Poet and a Cross-Dresser, Too

For those new to the case, Ryder's site features a four-page introduction that explains the significance of this mystery, which is considered to be the first prominent serial killer case, and introduces the victims, evidence and methods of the Ripper.

The "Victims" section offers some rather gruesome thumbnail postmortem shots of the five generally accepted victims with profiles of each. There are also contemporary photos of the victims' graves (some bearing stones reading "Killed by 'Jack the Ripper'"). For the completists, there are photos and renderings of 13 other possible victims.

Jill the Ripper?

The investigative fun really heats up in the site's "Suspects" section. To date, there have been a whopping 400 suspects in the Ripper case. Images and extensive profiles of 21 of them appear here. One who figures prominently in a number of theories is Prince Albert Victor, a royal family ladies man.

Another is Lewis Carroll, born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, author of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," who is fingered by one Ripperologist on the basis of supposed confessional anagrams constructed from some of Carroll's writings. There is even a suspect referred to as "Jill the Ripper," a name that takes into account the so-called "mad midwife theory" that Jack was a cross-dresser, or perhaps a woman.

Topping the list of suspects, based on user votes, is James Maybrick, a murdered cotton merchant whose diary allegedly surfaced in 1992 and hinted that he was the killer. "Alice in Wonderland" fans fear not. Carroll places last.

Another hallmark of the Casebook is its reproduction of original source material, notably three letters thought to be from Jack himself among the hundreds received by authorities. The "Dear Boss" letter features the first written reference to the moniker Jack the Ripper. Another, the "From Hell" postcard, inspired the title of last year's feature film of the same name.

If the site is a virtual Ripper library, then the "Press Reports" are its special collection. It features 481 fully searchable articles from 76 newspapers worldwide. Ryder went to seven different libraries to compile the clips and admits spending most of his college days at the University of Delaware at the microfilm reader.

"I think that's quite remarkable the work that has gone into transcribing all the reports," said Paul Begg, author of Jack the Ripper A to Z. A completist himself, perhaps, Begg added, "It is not as comprehensive as one would wish for but it is still a comprehensive resource."

Freaks, Geeks and, Yes, Scholars

The message boards, with hundreds of new posts each day, are proof that the site is also a thriving "community," in the words of one frequent visitor, and has become the "nucleus of the Ripper world." People meet there to discuss Ripper and non-Ripper related topics and, like a gateway drug, the site hooks many people on the more intoxicating realm of Victorian English history.

"A lot of people get interested by the mystery of the Ripper's identity but those who stay get intrigued by many other things," said Begg.

A fellow Ripperologist defends the scholarly pursuit of this community of enthusiasts. "People are quick to look down on you as a psycho for studying this," said Tom Wescott, a technical advisor for a satellite company in Tulsa, Okla., who says he got Internet access for two things: eBay and the Casebook. "We don't heroize Jack the Ripper as a murderer. It is a study of the police, the people, the investigation and the time."

Granted, the subject matter attracts some gore hounds. But they don't make up the site's core audience.

"We do get the blood-and-gore Marilyn Manson people who dress in black, but the people who don't have some sort of intellectual curiosity don't stick around too long," said Virginia school teacher Ally Reinecke, who moderates the site's message boards.

Reinecke is also living proof of the bonds that can form over this morbid subject. She met Ryder in the Casebook chat room and the two are now romantically involved.

While some visitors relish the chance to chat with established Ripper experts on the message boards (think meeting your favorite actor or musician, perhaps) others dislike the sometimes heated exchanges and bizarre ideas that pop up.

"You will run across more crackpots on there than you will find in a lifetime," said W.T. Mosley, a power plant engineer in Texas who often eats breakfast in front of the computer to check the Casebook and looks again at lunch and before bed. "It is extremely addictive. I can feel the pull of the magnet but I am resisting. The message board is bad for my blood pressure."

And what does Ryder have to say about the devotees who haunt his site the way Jack the Ripper stalked the foggy London streets so many years ago?

"They are insane," he says, with a hint of dry humor. "We all are. We are obsessed with a 100-year-old crime that will never be solved."

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