Idolizing the Ripper...

[DarkTaleProductions]

I hope this doesn't sound like an immature post... and if some are offended I apologize.

But do some ripperologist, idolize Jack the Ripper? I know not all do, and that some want to do justice by finding out who killed those innocent women, but I was curious if some on here or some well known ripperologist actually idolize Jack?

[jonwilson]

I know what you mean. Most people are fascinated by Jack simply because of how he killed his victims and the mystery that lingers on, who was Jack the ripper. I am fascinated by Jack. I wanna know why he killed his victims and who he was. Out of all the serial killers I know about, Jack is the most fascinating. So much mystery is surrounded around him. I don't think there is anything wrong with being fascinated or idolizing serial killers as long as you don't become one yourself. LOL

[DarkTaleProductions]

Ah. I understand. Yeah I figure some might be. But maybe some actually have a loathing for prostitutes and feel those women deserve what they got. I don't know, it was just a thought I had earlier, me wondering if some Ripperologist actually idolize the Ripper himself.

[kensei]

I don't like to get confrontational here, but I feel I must speak up loudly on this topic. If "idolize" can be defined as admiration and aspiring to be like someone, I would shudder to think that anyone falling under the term Ripperologist feels that way about Jack the Ripper. Anyone who idolizes the Ripper is not someone I would care to know. He was NOT some kind of anti-hero. He was a degenerate killer of intoxicated women and nothing more. All the trappings of the case- his freak luck in evading capture, the letters, organs stolen, kidney sent in the mail, the myriad of suspects, etc. etc. etc.- do make the story genuinely fascinating. But fascination and admiration are absolutely not the same thing. That was something I felt the need to explain to Mary Kelly as I knelt beside her grave last year while on a solo tour of all the Ripper sites. It is a powerfully emotional spot, that grave in the Leytonstone cemetery, and I guess I felt Mary's spirit would be personally offended at her final resting place being treated as a tourist attraction unless I spoke to her a bit. You put your hand on the grave, and you picture that awful crime scene photo of her in your mind, and the man who put her there comes into sharp focus. Idolize him? Visit the old Buck's Row some time, the Polly Nicholls murder site. The exact spot is filthy now and it was even filthier then. Look at Polly's aged dead face in her photo and read what her injuries were and then imagine the man you suggest as an "idol" kneeling beside her in that awful place and lifting her skirts with one hand with a knife in the other. Does anyone really want to idolize him? Really?

Sorry, but this subject gets me riled up. I concluded my solo Ripper tour at the City of London cemetery and the graves of Polly and Catherine Eddowes. While narrarating the story as I shot video of the place, I concluded by saying that whoever the Ripper was, the person that had put all those women in all those graves had long since gone to his own, "And he is welcome to it."

[Mike Covell]

There are some people that do hold JTR in high regard, you only have to see some of the postings on the facebook groups or comments on youtube to see people, usually young people, leaving comments such as "I Love JTR" or "JTR was the king."

For me, the attraction is not in who Jack was or wasn't but the whole period in British history. The social, political and economic conditions as well as the architecture and general way of life back then are fascinating, and if one is willing to dig a little deeper past the murders you will see this too.

[perrymason]

Anyone who would idolize a killer has some serious issues to deal with themselves, and I can say that Ive never seen a post here that to me suggests that the poster held the killer in high regard in any way, shape or form.

But intensely curious, fascinated, even addicted perhaps to the study itself?, .....I would have to say Yes to that. I would think most if not all the Ripperologists I have had the good fortune to get to know a bit have some or all of those kinds of feelings about the case.

"Ripperologists" for the most part do not dwell upon the images from the crimes, unless its from a need to identify certain objects or shapes or the lighting....but my guess is that some one who would idolize a killer like this might spend the majority of the study time looking at the images.

The real Ripperologist in my opinion is the one that spends hours and hours researching virtually everything about the crimes, the people and the period. The rest of us have the benefit of the data they discover so we can play sleuth.

Best regards

[belinda]

Do I idolise a pathetic,vicious,maniac

NO

[DarkTaleProductions]

The exact spot is filthy now and it was even filthier then. Look at Polly's aged dead face in her photo and read what her injuries were and then imagine the man you suggest as an "idol" kneeling beside her in that awful place and lifting her skirts with one hand with a knife in the other.

I never said or suggested he was my idol. I was simply asking if some people may idolize him or not.

[lynn cates]

Marriott's epithet

Hello Mike. Hear hear. I get really distressed with the details but they are required for the forensic aspects of these 5 cases. (Notice I avoid lumping them together.) And forensic reconstructions are a bloody passion with me.

My own view of the ripper? I prefer the epithet with which Trevor Marriott closes his book--"May he rest in Hell."

The best.
LC

[Celesta]

Idolize?

The answer is not just no, but hell, no!

[JackDaw]

Idolise? Erm, I hope not.


Its just really an interesting mystery really. A part of popular culture that continues to intrigue and fascinate.

[protohistorian]

Anyone who would idolize a killer has some serious issues to deal with themselves, and I can say that Ive never seen a post here that to me suggests that the poster held the killer in high regard in any way, shape or form.

But intensely curious, fascinated, even addicted perhaps to the study itself?, .....I would have to say Yes to that. I would think most if not all the Ripperologists I have had the good fortune to get to know a bit have some or all of those kinds of feelings about the case.

"Ripperologists" for the most part do not dwell upon the images from the crimes, unless its from a need to identify certain objects or shapes or the lighting....but my guess is that some one who would idolize a killer like this might spend the majority of the study time looking at the images.

The real Ripperologist in my opinion is the one that spends hours and hours researching virtually everything about the crimes, the people and the period. The rest of us have the benefit of the data they discover so we can play sleuth.

Best regards

very well said sir. Dave

[The English Gardener]

"Idolize"
verb [with obj.] admire, revere, or love greatly or excessively
{Source: Oxford Dictionary of English}

What attracts most Ripperologists {I'd have thought...} is the enduring allure of a mystery set in a time not quite long enough ago to be beyond the reaches of imagination. Just stretch out your arm a little further and you might... just might... be able to put your finger on a solution. The idea that the lunatic who was behind this should be a figure of reverence {for to "idolise" one must surely also revere} is one which surely is harboured only by those devotees of a world in which the unknown killer can be glamorously clad in white tie and tails and claim to have "given birth to the twentieth century".
In short, those who have a comic-book view of the LVP in general and JTR in particular.
Your original posting by degrees worried and disturbed me. I'd question the wisdom of even asking a question like yours which, if you think about it, is actually quite an insulting one. How sick do you imagine the average "Ripperologist" to be?

[The Grave Maurice]

I hardly even think about JtR as a person since, in my view, he is just an unknown and unknowable despicable killer. I got involved with the topic because my grandfather was born and raised within about a ten minute walk from Whitechapel. He was only a youngster at the time, but the effects obviously stuck with him because he talked to me about it seventy years later, and it piqued my interest.

As someone else mentioned earlier, what intrigues me now are the social, economic, and political aspects of the case, in addition to the architecture of late nineteenth-century London. It all seems, to me, to be a rather innocuous pastime.

Idolize? Nope.

[kensei]

Pleased to see the consensus that's developed here.