Belief

[lynn cates]

rage

Hello Corey. I think you are right that one should choose a model and stick with it. Of course, one may need to modify a few items later.

Concerning rage, do you agree that, of the C5 with Tabram added, Tabram is the most likely rage victim of all? It seems to me difficult to account for the 39 wounds otherwise.

The rage vis-a-vis Kate to explain her facial mutilations is rather a standard explanation. Obviously, it cannot be ruled out just yet.

Cheers.
LC

[corey123]

Hello Phil,

I agree that Lynn's theory is plausable, but that is because it is the only one I have seen that makes much sence. Honestly everything is plausable in a case this old.

Saying something isn't plausable, in my mind, is just being close minded.

[Phil Carter]

When, where and how

Hello all,

Interesting comments all.

In the light of the original question, it is my personal belief that it should be remembered..

(a) when the name "Jack the Ripper" first came to light... It was after C1 and C2.

(b)how that name came to light...through the post, from an anonymous correspondant, and

(c)from whence it came...purportedly from an enterprising pressman.

In conjunction with this, Martin Fido has stated on camera that the Star and the Pall Mall Gazette were the most radical of the newspapers, that the first local elections were fast coming up, they were wanting to have a left-wing radical elected who would highlight the appalling conditions that had been largely ignored , and promoted this. These two newspapers, according to Fido, had incredibly high sales during the period of the murders, because of the lurid and sensationalistic method of reporting the crimes. There seems no doubt that the "idea" was seized upon for the sake of a political point to be made, a man elected and the sales of the newspapers rocketed.

So where does that leave us? What, not whom, is "Jack the Ripper"?

Should Lynn Cates in his arguably well reasoned and plausible surmising be correct, and Ischenscmid be the killer of C1 and C2, and that the general view of Liz Stride's killer not being the serial killer known as "Jack the Ripper" now serioiusly considered, then we are left with the stunning thought (for some) that there are at least 3 killers for the C5.

It makes the great mystery a myth. It makes "Jack the Ripper" a myth. That, I quietly suggest, would not be pleasing to an awful lot of people and their "beliefs" towards one lone serial killer stalking Whitechapel and Spitalfields, murdering and disembowelling the poorest of women.

Even the thought of Stride's killer being different to the other 4 murders, puts the spanner in the works, because the "double event" becomes coincidental.
It means 2 killers killed within an hour on the same night quite close to each other.

It seems obvious to me that the local population would think that it was one madman. The press promoted it. The police promoted it. But what if this is not true? Then the belief in the "Jack the Ripper" as we have been told and presented for many years, is quite simply, a myth. It raises enormous questions as to the police and their methods attempting to catch these murderers. They couldn't catch one murderer... let alone two or three! That, I humbly suggest, doesn't go down well in some quarters, even today.

It would also leave us with the (for some) incredible thought, that arguably the most well-known and infamous killer of all time, didn't exist...

Interesting thread. Thank you for starting this Simon.

best wishes

Phil

[corey123]

Hello Simon,

This question is re-occurent. I honestly see why some here believe there is no "Jack the Ripper", becuase I have been shown why they think it. However, this doesn't disued me from my belief that there was a serial murderer in the streets of Whitechapel in 1888. Yes there were copy cat murders. Yes there were other murders not ascribed to him. Yes there was six murdered women who died in extreamily similar ways. Now if I were a crime investigator and took every closely matched murder in a spree and declare them spererate where would we get?

Some say he didn't kill Eddowes. Why? Because it looked like a rough imitation of another? When did murder become a perfectionist's art? If coupled with the possiblility that Berner st. was a failure, isn't it possible that rage might have weighed upon the success of this? However, I have yet to see this to be tested at the multi-jack camp.

Also, why do we, if the police didn't get the chance, have the right to say anything but what may be possibilities in this case? We don't know. We don't really have any true evidence for either and if any thinks they do then I don't think we would be here right now. All we have is speculation.

Yes I love ripperology, but questions like these only spark heated debate and arguments. I believe if one believes a certain side, then stick with it and not bother the other with it, for we will be the better this way, as I have found out.

Yours truly

[lynn cates]

blinders

Hello Bolo. Blinders indeed!

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

eg

Hello Packer. Excellent examples.

Cheers.
LC

[bolo]

Hello Simon, all,

the question of yours partly coincides with some of my current thoughts on how certain names and ideas of the murderer(s) had an influence on the work of the LVP police and still have on Ripperologists and laymen like me. Most serious researches of the case would probably deny the impact of a fanciful nickname like Jack the Ripper on their thoughts but personally I'm not so sure about that... we're still chasing a single Lustmörder, mostly because it seems to be the general consensus that there's no evidence which would point in another direction.

Yes, the name Jack the Ripper became the common denominator and gateway to a historical period that has more to offer than just a bit of whodunnit but sometimes the mental images it creates seem to be powerful enough to act as blinders.

Regards,

Boris

[packers stem]

Hi Caz
I also suspect that one day people will wonder how previous generations of conspirators managed to fool the minions well into the 21st century.
Don't forget that one was uncovered in Northern Ireland only a few weeks ago after 38 years.I suspect that if we still used similar channels of communication to the previous generations ,the cover would have remained.
Where politics or religion are concerned things can get buried 'for the greater good',it was clearly going on up until at least 1972 and would have been much more common place before hand.
That is the only evidence i have ever witnesses in the ripper murders.
Sometimes alternative solutions are provided and a theory becomes 'thoroughly discredited'.You have to remember they are what they are ,alternative possibilities.
Think of the crop circles.We knew they weren't created by aliens(well most of us anyway) but did any of us seriously believe the alternate explanation by a professor given on tv at the time that 'they were probably caused by a wind vortex'.Nearly fell off my chair laughing.Thankfully the men with the plank of wood and ropes came forward to show that the modern day scientific explanations aren't always the written truth.

[lynn cates]

wow

Hello Fish. What an intelligent and candid post! I thank you but I cannot add a single iota.

Well done (he said, walking backwards and bowing, hat in hand)!

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

I predict . . .

Hello Caz.

"overwhelming evidence that a serial mutilator was active in the district"

Hmmm. Underwhelming, I should think.

And I fully believe that, by 2015, mention of "Jack the Ripper" will be met with guffaws and cries of, "How could people have ever fallen for that one?"

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

audite, audite

Hello Graham. Hear hear!

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

heading

Hello Ruby. Excellent post. If one wishes to use the title "Jack the Ripper" as a heading for a good many disparate events, well, I think it a very good idea. I am all in favour of themes for clusters of happenings.

Cheers.
LC

[Fisherman]

Caz writes:

"I would turn the question round and ask why you are in denial, when faced with overwhelming evidence that a serial mutilator was active in the district, and no evidence for any other rational explanation."

Evidence, Caz, is very hard to come by 122 years later. When I argue that Strides killer would not have been Jack, but instead a probable, as yet unidentified lover/aquaintance of hers, you normally raise the same demand - show me the evidence.

I think that the evidence lies in, for example, her very "unsoliciting" behavior together with Marshall´s man and the fact that she had spoken of a man she lived with in Fashion Street. No proof, of course - nowhere even near it - but it does belong to the testimony and thus the evidence.

This aside, I believe that one factor that must be weighed in when trying to understand the 1888 deeds, is the factor of copycat behaviour. Only today, Swedish newspapers are reporting about a right-wing politician, who was assaulted in his home and had a swastika cut into his forehead. I see little reason to doubt that this action was lead on by Brad Pitt´s figure in "Inglorious Basterds", the Tarantino movie, where this precise action is reproduced in a very graphic manner.
To be honest, I do believe that these kinds of things are much more the products of our society today, than what was the case back in 1888, but I don´t think that we can rule it out categorically nevertheless. Maybe Alice McKenzie is a useful reminder to that end, a woman that most Ripperologists do not ascribe to Jack, but who would certainly have made the list if she had been cut in late August 1888.

A final remark that can be made in relation to the discussion, is that it is interesting to see how those who are very much in favour of just the one mutilating serial killer stalking the East End in 1888, also seem to be fervent defenders of the wiew that Stride was a Ripper killing, whereas the ones who think Jack a myth, more or less, take the other stance. In that regard, I am an anomaly, since I am just as convinced as you are that Jack was very, very real - but I don´t think he killed Stride.

The best,
Fisherman

[Scorpio]

Hello, in an earlier post i stated some of my reasons for believing that a serial murderer was at large in Whitechapel 1888, but now i wonder if a person called Jack the Rippers existence really matters. The women were undoubtedly murdered either by one or various hands, in the greatest city in the world, at the birth of the truly modern era, that is, our era. Whether your interest is forensic,psychological,sociological,historical or enjoy a gossip, its all there.

[caz]

But what about the leading question asked in the first post?

In the absence of any evidence to support the 1888 existence of JtR, "the fiend in human form", what are your reasons in 2010 for wanting to believe in him?

No evidence, Simon?

Wanting to believe?

I would turn the question round and ask why you are in denial, when faced with overwhelming evidence that a serial mutilator was active in the district, and no evidence for any other rational explanation.

Here's a clue - start with the victims and the reaction of the ordinary people to the far from ordinary circumstances of their deaths. They didn't have the term for it yet - serial offending - but they knew what it was.

One day they will look back at 2010 and shake their heads in disbelief that anyone could even have asked the question you pose with a straight face.

Love,

Caz
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