Belief

[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

[lynn cates]

audite, audite

Hello Graham. Hear hear!

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]

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

[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.

[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

[lynn cates]

eg

Hello Packer. Excellent examples.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

blinders

Hello Bolo. Blinders indeed!

Cheers.
LC

[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

[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 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.

[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 Lynn,

Honestly I think all of the murders show a bit of rage in them if you look hard enough.

I don't think picking sides is a good way to go, but rather to keep your mind open to anything and everything.

[lynn cates]

model

Hello Corey. I know what you mean. Often I had wished to see the killer's face as he mutilated in order to see if anger were present--or just clinical coolness and preciseness.

Of course, one should keep an open mind. I think I have. On the other hand, we all have a preferred model guiding us.

Cheers.
LC

[corey123]

Hello Lynn,

You mean a bias. Yes we do.

Also, if you look at the anatomy of it, whether by the hand of one or four men, it seems rage was there. The frenzied stabbing of Tabram, the frenzied slashing of Nichols, the haphazardous cuting of Chapman and Eddowes and of coarse why need I breach upon Kelly?