In an attempt to solve the mystery, Stephen Knight concluded that five women-Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly-were murdered in 1888 to cover up a secret marriage between Prince Albert Victor, and Annie Elizabeth Crook, a working class Irish Catholic girl. Knight's main source, Joseph Gorman (Annie Crook's grandson, Walter Sickert's self-proclaimed son with Annie's daughter Alice Margaret Crook), later retracted the story and admitted to the press that it was a hoax.