Sue, I totally agree with you. It does seem sick that a murderer should be exalted to such a mythic status. If the identity of Jack The Ripper was ever solved, a multi million pound business would go bankrupt.
So Ripperology is going to continue!
To think that the century which produced rampant exploitation of the poor, oppression of foreign colonies has as its arch-villain a mythic figure who killed five possibly six prostitutes is incredible. Could it be that this exalted mythic status was or is a substitute for the problems of a failing political structure that 19th century Britain found hard to deal with? Hence the internal problems of British society are displaced onto an outsider, a criminal, someone removed from society. The mythic nature of the Ripper and the fact that his crimes are unsolved add to this sense of externality, of distance.
Its interesting to note that Whitechapel features in Charles Dickens 's Pickwick Paper where it is characterised by Sam Weller "as not a very nice neighbourhood".
Thus, the continuing fascination with the Ripper could be thought of as a political pathology that prevents us from seeing the true problems of Victorian and modern Britain.