So who was Jack the Ripper.

[Red Zeppelin]

For what it's worth, my take on the Ripper is:

- someone local to, or with easy access to, the area.

- someone, given his ability to 'disappear', knew the area like the proverbial back of his hand.

- someone who aroused no suspicion either from the public or the police.

- someone who was probably known to at least some of his victims.

- someone without any previous convictions for violent crime.

- not a 'wife beater' or anyone with 'everyday' violent tendencies but a person who, for reasons we probably still don't fully understand, needed a 'fix' of ultra-violence every so often. This defect was not openly visible to those who knew him.

- someone who perhaps tried to conquer these tendencies: possibly a reason for the long time-lag between Eddowes and Kelly (assuming that the latter was a C5 victim). Perhaps he held off for as long as he was able prior to Kelly.

- physically powerful: even a sick and ill-nourished woman surely has the ability to offer at least some resistance.

- I don't necessarily hold with the theory that all serial killers simply carry on
until they're caught or commit suicide. I think Jack was probably in sufficient touch with reality to 'quit while he was ahead' before he was caught, as I think he inevitably would have been had he continued his killing. I also rather suspect that, assuming Kelly was a Ripper victim, she represented the absolute ultimate in his deranged ambition - what else was there left for him to do to a victim? Eat her, maybe??

Where's all this lead to? I haven't a clue! They're purely my thoughts on the type of person Jack might have been, and if they point towards any known, named suspect then that's just coincidence.

Sorry for the long post.

Cheers,

Graham

Hi Graham,

Wouldn't you say that Joseph Barnett fits your above profile better than any of the other named suspects? He practically ticks all of your boxes.

[Red Zeppelin]

I don't think Barnett killed Mary Kelly. Someone around her apartment would have recognized him and he knew it.

But he was always coming and going. He was already seen with Kelly the night before her death. I don't think this would have been so much of an issue to him.

[Observer]

I think that Jack the Ripper killed Kelly indoors because Kelly took him there. I do not believe that Jack was looking to find a woman he could kill indoors that night.

Your friend, Brad

Sorry to intervene but I fully agree with the above Brad, it was probably top of his wanted list. I bet he couldn't believe his good luck when Kelly told him that she had her own room.

Just my opinion of course, there's also room for the intruder theory as well.

all the best

Observer

[Limehouse]

Hi Graham,

Wouldn't you say that Joseph Barnett fits your above profile better than any of the other named suspects? He practically ticks all of your boxes.

Well, certainly he fits the top four on the list but then so do literally thousands of other men. If Barnett's objective was to kill Mary, why didn't he kill her first? Why kill the others? And why didn't he kill her the night previous to her murder or earlier on the day of her murder? No, I don't favour Barnett at all.

[Observer]

,Hi Graham

- not a 'wife beater' or anyone with 'everyday' violent tendencies but a person who, for reasons we probably still don't fully understand, needed a 'fix' of ultra-violence every so often. This defect was not openly visible to those who knew him.

Someone who perhaps tried to conquer these tendencies: possibly a reason for the long time-lag between Eddowes and Kelly (assuming that the latter was a C5 victim). Perhaps he held off for as long as he was able prior to Kelly.

Someone who possibly expelled all his demons with the destruction of Kelly, and also realising (possibly being interviewed for the crimes) that he could not continue and remain undetected he decided to hang up his knife. Something very similar happened regarding Ridgeway, the Green River killer. The police were homing in on the killer, Ridgeway was interviewed and cleared. Ridgeway had also remarried, making it all the more harder to murder, fact is he gave up his killing for 20 years, unlike Jack he killed again. It would be interesting to search marriages in that area, 25 to 30 year olds.

all the best

Observer

[Natalie Severn]

The reason I have doubts about him being a "local" is that not only the women most obviously in danger but everyone in the East End was on the look out for him.So if he was local in the sense of living there,various "neighbours" would have reported it---in fact we know they did report on their neighbours. Anyone checking in new lodgings would have raised alarm too and if the newcomer began acting at all suspiciously ,someone somewhere would have reported it.
What is particularly surprising is that the prostitutes didnt appear to "know" him, and this was true as much at the time as afterwards when the murders had stopped.
So my view is that while he certainly knew the East End very well, that knowledge was probably from working there or arriving there regularly to sneak round the red light areas and possibly play a peeping Tom when he saw clients being led up dark alleys.I often wonder if this is what happened regarding Kate.Highly aroused still and hotfoot from Berner Street ,he saw Kate leading her mister into Mitre Square and went straight to the secret spot he had for himself to wait and watch there and when her" liaison" was over and the man had moved off he pounced before Katehad time to rearrange her five skirts and three pockets!
He may also have been a regular client,though somehow I doubt this because I for one see Jack as someone who was averse to sex in any normal sense,though he may have had a very prurient turn of mind and enjoyed the outlandish fantasies he had about "laying out women and cutting them up and seeing them "re-arranged ---inside out"!

[rain]

Two doctors, Bond and Monro believed that Alice Mckenzie who was killed 7-16-1889 was killed by jtr.

[Natalie Severn]

Two doctors, Bond and Monro believed that Alice Mckenzie who was killed 7-16-1889 was killed by jtr.

Monro was a chief of police, Rain.

[Graham]

Graham,
What about WM?

Dan,
That almost exactly sums up my thoughts over the past few years after coming to casebook.

As of now, WM it is!

Graham

[rain]

I am so sorry...

[Graham]

Hi Graham,

Wouldn't you say that Joseph Barnett fits your above profile better than any of the other named suspects? He practically ticks all of your boxes.

Dunno, Red. You tell me.

Graham

[Graham]

,Hi Graham



Someone who possibly expelled all his demons with the destruction of Kelly, and also realising (possibly being interviewed for the crimes) that he could not continue and remain undetected he decided to hang up his knife. Something very similar happened regarding Ridgeway, the Green River killer. The police were homing in on the killer, Ridgeway was interviewed and cleared. Ridgeway had also remarried, making it all the more harder to murder, fact is he gave up his killing for 20 years, unlike Jack he killed again. It would be interesting to search marriages in that area, 25 to 30 year olds.

all the best

Observer

Good point! We don't know precisely who the police interviewed as a suspect for the WM. Could have been anyone - dozens, hundreds. Who knows? If the police actually did haul in our killer, and give him a bit of a grilling but nevertheless sent him on his way, maybe he did think, "Sod this - enough's enough!"

Cheers,

Graham

[Graham]

Hi Nats,

I respect your opinions, but speaking purely personally I'm not sure that the WM was the sort of killer who actually got a sexual thrill out of what he did.
But again, who knows?

Cheers,

Graham

[joelhall]

Hi Nats,

I respect your opinions, but speaking purely personally I'm not sure that the WM was the sort of killer who actually got a sexual thrill out of what he did.
But again, who knows?

Cheers,

Graham

i dont believe this either. nor do i think an interrogation would stop this kind of killer. especially given its publicity. someone who can do that to another human being is unlikely to react positively to a bit of a talking to.

joel

[Graham]

i dont believe this either. nor do i think an interrogation would stop this kind of killer. especially given its publicity. someone who can do that to another human being is unlikely to react positively to a bit of a talking to.

joel

Hi Joel,

I think both Ted Bundy and Peter Sutcliffe are on record as saying that they were terrified of being interrogated by the police in case they gave something away. However, both in fact were interviewed by the police yet continued to kill, so maybe our WM was of the same stamp.

Problem is, back in 1888, it didn't really matter how hard the police questioned a suspect; if the suspect held out, there was nothing in the way of forensic evidence, as we know it today, to give the police any assistance. Most times, only a confession would reward the police for their efforts.

Cheers,

Graham