The from hell letter

[jonwilson]

Does anyone think that it came from Jack? What are your thoughts on the from hell letter. I read on a website (I don't know if this is indeed true or not) that at the time that the kidney and from hell letter was sent to George Lusk, that the information about the missing kidney wasn't released by the police, so if this is indeed true, it most likely was from Jack or some who knew about the missing kidney.

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Jon,

The missing kidney was news long before Lusk received the kidney. The kidney was too fresh to have been Eddowes, so I don't personally think it was legit.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[corey123]

Kidney

Hi Jon,

I do believe the lusk letter to be genuine.
For a couple of reasons.

1)The letter was wrote in whoevers normal handwriting it was.
2)The letter was not signed "Jack the ripper"
3)He said find me WHEN you can not IF you can.
4)By the writer titling the letter "from hell" shows a demented mind set, reacurrent with a serial killer
5)It was sent with half of a left kidney. Dr.Openshaw declared the kidney to be that of a femal and to be left.
6)The writing style shows dementia and signs of a serial killer.

yours truly

[The English Gardener]

Check out http://forum.casebook.org/forumdisplay.php?f=101 for a thorough going over of the pros and cons. The letter is dealt with quite fully there.
And Corey, I don't follow your logic. None of the reasons you give for believing the letter to be genuine appear are {apart from #2 & #5} anything other than guesswork. And #4 & #6 are exactly the same points, presented from slightly different angles.
There were thousands of letters sent, very few signed "JTR". I wouldn't sign anything "Jack The Ripper" either. Does that put me in the frame?

[jonwilson]

Ok ok, I got something different on another website. Here is what that website said about the Lusk letter.

The Lusk 'From Hell' letter
On October 16, 1888, George Lusk, chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, received in the mail a package containing a jar of wine, in which was suspended half a kidney, and the pictured letter. The letter is referred to as the From Hell letter, and it was notable that one of the kidneys of Catherine Eddowes, killed September 30, was removed. It has been presumed by many that this was Eddowes' kidney, and therefore that the letter was genuine. Whether it was or not, the fact remains that the sender of the letter knew about the missing kidney and as the police did not release that information, it is likely that the letter is genuinely from the Ripper, perhaps alone among all the received letters.

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Jon,

I'm afraid that website is wrong. Everyone in London knew about the missing kidney within 24 hours of the murder. Everyone in the world knew about it within 48.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[lynn cates]

I've been good, Santa

Hello Jon and Corey. It has been said that, IF any letter is from the ripper, it is the "From Hell" letter. But, unfortunately, this dictum is usually followed up by a rejection of the letter as from the ripper. What does that tell us about the "correspondence"?

Of course, I WISH it were true, in the same way that I wish MANY things about the WCM were true like: 1. Liz were done by Jack. 2. Mary Jane were done by Jack. 3. ALL the letters were real; and, 4. my BIG PRIVATE FANTASY: Dr. Stanley were real and the culprit. (Now you know what to get me for Christmas.)

The best, chaps.
LC

[corey123]

Lynn,

It seems you always stand on the notion that "if the population believes it, so should I", which is pure rediculous.
I truly believe the only letter to be written from the whitechapel murderer is the "from hell" letter.
p.s. ha now we do know.

yours truly

[lynn cates]

argumentum ad populum

Hello Corey. No, I don't fall for the argumentum ad populum. My rejection is not based on majority opinion (note: the majority opinion is in favour of both Stride and Kelly); rather, it is based on other reasons.

The best.
LC

[Dave James]

Hi all,
I may be a little late in joining this thread, but I'm trying to catch up after a loooong absence.

I've just finished re-reading 'Jack the Ripper' by Gary Wroe, who was/is a contributor to these boards a few years ago.

The following is his take on the from Hell letter:

Now the From hell author must have been well acquainted with the case in order to have known about the theft of Eddowes’ left kidney. Given this element of specific knowledge, he must surely have been aware that the police, press and public all believed the murderer to be the source of the Dear Boss/Jack the Ripper missive. So why, if he was just another hoaxer – a hoaxer who went to the extraordinary length of obtaining a human kidney to lend his deception plausibility – did he then make no reference to Jack the Ripper, being content merely to ‘sign’ his letter with an enigmatic ‘Catch me when you Can’?

Why? In terms of both common sense and all the available evidence, it seems virtually certain that, unlike any of those claiming to be Jack the Ripper, claiming to have perpetrated a double event, promising in future to inflict all manner of injuries on specific dates and at specific locations, this man was the genuine article. As will become apparent when the psychology of the serial killer is examined in Chapter Six, this predatory subspecies does not take kindly to interlopers and rarely, if ever, regards imitators with anything less than contempt. As such, the From hell author’s vanity precluded any acknowledgement of either the Dear Boss impostor, his mendacious claims, or the monicker under which he had had the temerity to assume responsibility for another’s ‘achievements’. Not to be eclipsed, the real murderer authenticated his letter in the most explicit of terms – by accompanying it with part of Kate Eddowes’ missing kidney. Furthermore, he regained the psychological ascendancy by confirming the tacitly held suspicion that, besides the ghastly butchery of his killing episodes, he had now acquired an even more hideous depravity.

Cannibalism.

All the best
Dave

[AdamWalsh]

Hi all,
I may be a little late in joining this thread, but I'm trying to catch up after a loooong absence.

I've just finished re-reading 'Jack the Ripper' by Gary Wroe, who was/is a contributor to these boards a few years ago.

The following is his take on the from Hell letter:

Now the From hell author must have been well acquainted with the case in order to have known about the theft of Eddowes’ left kidney. Given this element of specific knowledge, he must surely have been aware that the police, press and public all believed the murderer to be the source of the Dear Boss/Jack the Ripper missive. So why, if he was just another hoaxer – a hoaxer who went to the extraordinary length of obtaining a human kidney to lend his deception plausibility – did he then make no reference to Jack the Ripper, being content merely to ‘sign’ his letter with an enigmatic ‘Catch me when you Can’?

Why? In terms of both common sense and all the available evidence, it seems virtually certain that, unlike any of those claiming to be Jack the Ripper, claiming to have perpetrated a double event, promising in future to inflict all manner of injuries on specific dates and at specific locations, this man was the genuine article. As will become apparent when the psychology of the serial killer is examined in Chapter Six, this predatory subspecies does not take kindly to interlopers and rarely, if ever, regards imitators with anything less than contempt. As such, the From hell author’s vanity precluded any acknowledgement of either the Dear Boss impostor, his mendacious claims, or the monicker under which he had had the temerity to assume responsibility for another’s ‘achievements’. Not to be eclipsed, the real murderer authenticated his letter in the most explicit of terms – by accompanying it with part of Kate Eddowes’ missing kidney. Furthermore, he regained the psychological ascendancy by confirming the tacitly held suspicion that, besides the ghastly butchery of his killing episodes, he had now acquired an even more hideous depravity.

Cannibalism.

All the best
Dave

well put - that pretty much sums up how I feel about it also - the "Jack" name was for press fun - our boy isnt into silly little games - he is serious - thusly he requires no silly ghoulish name - just his proven sincerity to us........with a piece of body.

[Garry Wroe]

The other issue, of course, is that the From hell author elected to send his letter to George Lusk. Had he been a hoaxer, one would assume that his primary motivation would have been to generate maximum publicity from the stunt. If so, why did he go to the time and trouble of obtaining a human kidney in order to add plausibility to the hoax, only to send the cardboard box to Lusk rather than the Central News Agency? It makes no sense.

What might be borne in mind, however, is that the murder of Kate Eddowes precipitated a sharp increase in the activities of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee. Indeed, it could be argued that the high visibility and frequency of the Committee’s street patrols provides a cogent explanation for the unprecedented six-week hiatus between the Eddowes and Kelly murders. When one remembers that Lusk’s men also committed themselves to local intelligence gathering, and posted a reward for the killer’s capture, it isn’t difficult to see how an angry and frustrated Whitechapel Murderer might have come to view George Lusk as a major threat – an adversary deserving of some special attention.

On this basis, I continue to view the Lusk communication as almost certainly genuine. I’m led to believe that this is a viewpoint with which ‘the experts’ demur. Well, when I first began researching the Whitechapel Murders, ‘the experts’ were in universal agreement that Liz Stride was a definite Ripper victim and that George Hutchinson was an honest, reliable eyewitness. Enough said.

Best wishes.

Garry Wroe.

[Tom_Wescott]

Let's not forget that the From Hell letter, like the Dear Boss, had it's companion piece. I'm referring to the 'Box of Toys' letter, which DID reference the 'Dear Boss' missives, but like 'From Hell' did not carry a signature. Those who saw it said it was in the same hand as From Hell. This significantly damages the argument that the author of From Hell was trying to distance himself from the Dear Boss letters. If not for the fact that a piece of kidney accompanied it, there'd be no reason at all to assume it was from the murderer. But surely the fact that the kidney was too fresh to have come from Eddowes points more towards a hoax than the real killer?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Sam Flynn]

why did he go to the time and trouble of obtaining a human kidney

I'm not so sure that he did, Garry. The gross anatomy of pig versus human kidneys is rather similar - especially, one would think, with "trimmed-up" specimens; even the microscopic differences are quite subtle, and from what I've been able to ascertain, the differences between the two weren't well-documented until the 20th century. It's quite possible that we've been sold a pup... or at least a piglet.

[joelhall]

Hi Jon,

I do believe the lusk letter to be genuine.
For a couple of reasons.

1)The letter was wrote in whoevers normal handwriting it was.
2)The letter was not signed "Jack the ripper"
3)He said find me WHEN you can not IF you can.
4)By the writer titling the letter "from hell" shows a demented mind set, reacurrent with a serial killer
5)It was sent with half of a left kidney. Dr.Openshaw declared the kidney to be that of a femal and to be left.
6)The writing style shows dementia and signs of a serial killer.

yours truly

as said before, these are all simply guesses, and offer no proof.

last year i was also stuck on the mistaken belief that openshaw declared it to be female, and though of a myriad of reasons why he might say that. needless to say i soon discovere he was not the source of this information so i dropped my arguments (think youll find the thrad somewhere on here).

Hi Jon,

The missing kidney was news long before Lusk received the kidney. The kidney was too fresh to have been Eddowes, so I don't personally think it was legit.

Yours truly,

to be fair, the act it was known doesnt prove it was fake - the killer could have sent it regardless of whether it was a known fact or not.

Tom Wescott

I'm not so sure that he did, Garry. The gross anatomy of pig versus human kidneys is rather similar - especially, one would think, with "trimmed-up" specimens; even the microscopic differences are quite subtle, and from what I've been able to ascertain, the differences between the two weren't well-documented until the 20th century. It's quite possible that we've been sold a pup... or at least a piglet.

agreed. the structures between various parts of humans and pigs are so great ive actually studied some human cardiac anatomy by dissecting pigs hearts (obviously done to a point). i doubt the expertise were available in the 19th century to definitively tell if a kidney was human or not - the best would be an educated guess from an experience anatomist or doctor.

of course the power of suggestion can be powerful - the letter implies it is human so it is the first assumption most people would meet.

regarding sending the letter to lusk - i dont think this in any way implies it could be genuine. i think that sending it to lusk simply would convince people to think this.