Was Jack or (were Jack’s) schizophrenic?

[Herlock Sholmes]

He was wearing a loose jacket and he mentions the colour. How do you deduce from that that it was a kind worn by sailors?


I didn't deduce it.

It's just a fact.

Could you at least produce the evidence that the coat that he wore was of a kind worn by sailors please. I’m not saying that it wasn’t because I don’t know, but I’ve seen no actual evidence that it was.

Serial killers aren’t on the look out for victims 24/7. And it’s just an assumption that he returned to London just to kill. He spent extended time in Dorset during the summers. If he’d had some kind of meeting on the 31st (work or cricket-related) that couldn’t be cancelled he’d hardly have cancelled his entire time in Dorset would he? Not when there was a perfectly good train service to get him back in a very few hours.


What you've written resembles a ridiculous conspiracy theory.

How is it like a conspiracy theory to suggest the possibility of the killer using a train?


A man killed five women in the space of ten weeks.

He was careful about when to strike - on average once every two weeks.

Again, how can you possibly know that he was ‘careful about when to strike?’ This is an assumption based on no evidence. You have no way of knowing that the killer was conscious of when to strike. There wasn’t a 2 week gap between Eddowes an Kelly.

More assumptions. How can you possibly know how the killer decided when to strike? Do you think that he compiled some kind of time table? You can’t know what triggered his murders, or how he was thinking, or what he was doing at the time.

What you've written is nonsense.

I didn't say the killer had a timetable.

I said he wandered the streets waiting for an opportunity.

But you said ‘he was careful about when to strike.’ There is no evidence that he was. You’re just assuming it.

He didn't commit a murder while on a trip to Dorset.

You lose credibility when you say things like this. It’s something that you can’t possibly know.



And again your making assumptions. How do you know that Nichols was the first victim? It’s not a proven fact.


I've had this before: Elamarna making the same point to me about Kelly.

As I pointed out before, I haven't noticed such a criticism being made of anyone else here and - before you allege that I'm thin-skinned or hypersensitive to criticism - can you give an example of that criticism being made of anyone else?

You really can’t be serious on this point. Have you read some of the other threads on here? Read the other Druitt threads, read the diary thread, read the Chapman TOD thread, read the Lechmere threads. Everything on here is subject to debate and criticism.

Its worth noting though that you complain about being criticised and yet just in this post you’ve accused me of writing something that sounds like a ‘ridiculous conspiracy theory’ and that I’ve written ‘nonsense.’ I haven’t used this kind of wording with you. I’ve simply said that you’re making assumptions and treating as facts things which are just your opinions. And I’m not complaining about those comments because they don’t bother me in the slightest and yet you get annoyed about criticism and have even talked about moderators stepping in (on another thread)

Now, Anderson and Swanson have been defended steadfastly here against my criticisms of them, and my insistence that they had no case against Kosminski rubbished, but if you think I'm making an assumption that Kelly was the last victim, can you explain why Swanson said no more murders took place after Kosminski was identified?

Why shouldn’t some posters ‘defend’ Anderson and Swanson PI? Those people simply have a different opinion to yourself. This is allowed but you pear to take exception to it.

Ive made no comment about Kelly not being the last victim so I can’t see where your comment comes from.

What about murders that took place after his identification?

What about them? Like everything else they are up for debate. Why is this an issue?

And while you're trying to think of an answer to that, what about Druitt?

How could he have been the murderer if Kelly wasn't the last victim?

I don’t need to ‘think’ about it PI. If Kelly wasn’t the last victim then clearly he couldn’t have been the killer. It’s apparent that you’ve fallen in to this trap that there should be factions. Kosminski-supporters or Druitt-supporters. I’m not trying to prove that Druitt was the killer. I just think that he might have been. Others ‘might’ have been too. We don’t know who the killer was. Neither do you.

You say that no-one knew Sutcliffe was a psychopath and we don't know that Druitt didn't torture animals as a youngster.

That is nonsense.

Sutcliffe came from a terrible, violent background.

Yes but again PI, this wasn’t discovered until after he was caught. Why can’t you understand this point? During the murders no one thought “that Peter Sutcliffe showed signs of being a psychopath as a child so perhaps he’s the killer?”

I read his family history many years ago and it was horrifying.

Druitt came from a line of doctors and was himself a barrister who played cricket.


Of course he didn't torture animals and it's nonsense to suggest it even as a possibility.


Why are you obsessed with Druitt’s job and the utterly irrelevant fact that he played cricket? You sound like one of those at the time of the murders who said that the killer couldn’t possibly have been a respectable Englishman.

Please provide evidence that you have an intimate knowledge of Druitt’s childhood which allows you to categorically dismiss possibilities.


Lawende saw the man from 10 feet away and yet he couldn’t identify him. He didn’t look back after he’d passed either. This is evidence that he wasn’t paying that much attention to them. Everyone knows that street lighting can make darker colours seem lighter. Just ask someone. Ask a police officer. So the lighting could have made the killers hair look lighter than it actually was. You’re basing your whole claim for a suspect around a brief sighting, late at night, just after rain, by a bloke who was passing.



Lawende was considered to be a reliable witness and gave a detailed description.

You keep stressing how ‘reliable’ Lawende was. Yes, it was certainly assumed that he actually saw a man and a woman and that the woman was likely to have been Eddowes but what you pointedly avoid dealing with is the fact Lawende himself said that he wouldn’t have been able to identify the man. This either means that he was for some reason unwilling to get involved or that he didn’t pay much attention to what he looked like.

I said that the identification of Kosminski at the Seaside Home didn't take place and there was pandemonium, even when I pointed out that neither Schwarz nor Lawende had recognised a suspect as being Jewish and yet one of them is supposed to have 'realised' that the man they saw in the Seaside Home was Jewish.

You have a strange interpretation of what constitutes ‘pandemonium.’ Again, I’m sorry to say it but it does appear that you take exception to being disagreed with whilst being quite happy to call other posters comments ‘ridiculous’ or ‘nonsense.’ You shouldn’t take comment/disagreements as some kind of personal slur.

What I would like to know is how you think Lawende or Schwarz, who didn't see their suspects close up - Schwarz being even further away and in a hurry to get away - could identify Kosminski when they saw him in good lighting as the man they had seen in poor lighting.

Im making absolutely no claims about possible witnesses. They are all there to be assessed and individuals will come to their own conclusions. You can’t expect everyone to agree simply because you’ve arrived at your own conclusions.

According to you, Lawende's description is not to be trusted.

All witnesses need to be assessed and not simply accepted or rejected. As the police will tell you, eyewitnesses can be unreliable no matter how reliable they appear at the time.

You say he couldn't even judge the colour of hair.

It is simply a fact that lighting affects colour. You can deny this of course but it doesn’t stop it being a fact.

So how could he have identified Kosminski - or Schwarz, who was even further away in a poorly-lit street, have done so?

We don’t know who the witness was. Why was Schwartz even further away? He walked down Berner Street then crossed the road. How wide to you think that Berner Street was?

You don’t think that Kosminski or Druitt are valid suspects. That’s your opinion which is fine. Many experienced, knowledgeable researchers/ripperologists/writer’s disagree with you. I still can’t see why you get so outraged when people do disagree with you and yet your quite happy to use derogatory comments to others? As I’ve said previously, for all that we know the killer might have been a sailor but you appear to take this as a fact purely because one witness said that he had the appearance of a sailor. For some reason you are unwilling to accept the possibility that lighting affects the identification of colour - which is simply a scientific fact. Especially for a man who appeared to take so little notice of the man’s features that he stated that he would have been unable to identify him. Or that a hat and coat couldn’t have been purchased/acquired anywhere. I have some camouflage trousers, would that make it valid for someone to ID me as a soldier? How many men in Whitechapel would have worn a peaked cap? We should all be wary of overconfidence.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Just a reminder that while we do not as yet know whether Druitt was normal or a psychopath or a schizophrenic or something else, we do know that he was not in perfect mental health in 1888.

How do we know this? Because he wrote it himself in his suicide note. While it is not a direct indication of anything, it's not nothing either.

We know that there was much mental illness in Druitt's family and that a number of relatives committed suicide.

Show me the evidence that any of those relatives were psychopaths!

Show me the evidence that they tortured animals!

That isn't 'nothing', either.

[Herlock Sholmes]

We know that there was much mental illness in Druitt's family and that a number of relatives committed suicide.

Show me the evidence that any of those relatives were psychopaths!

Show me the evidence that they tortured animals!

That isn't 'nothing', either.

There’s no evidence that Druitt liked cheese either so would you say that he couldn’t have eaten cheese. When will you get this? Just because we have no evidence of him being a psychopath doesn’t mean that he couldn’t have been one. Look at Bundy as an example. You’re asking the impossible. If Druitt was guilty and he’d been caught and then interviewed how do you know what they would or wouldn’t have discovered?

[Aethelwulf]

For some reason you are unwilling to accept the possibility that lighting affects the identification of colour - which is simply a scientific fact.

Also, as PI1 seems unwilling to believe fair does not necessarily mean blond and you can have dark hair and have fair facial hair:

William Bury had a dark complexion (39) and dark brown hair (40), but he had a “fair moustache” (41), his facial hair being described as “light sandy-coloured” (42).

Taken from Earp's site - refs 40-42 are there.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

If you really cannot comprehend why I have taken offence at the tone of your comments to me, then I'll send you a list of them.

If you don't like slanging matches, then I suggest you don't start them.

You repeatedly charge that I am making assumptions about Druitt.

I'm not.

I'm making reasonable deductions from everything we know about him and his family.

A history of depression and suicide in a family does not correspond to a history of psychopathy and torturing animals in childhood.

It is quite obvious that Druitt was with his cricket-playing colleagues in Dorset at the time of the first murder.

Suggesting that he may have committed the first murder during that trip to Dorset is fanciful.


Ive made no comment about Kelly not being the last victim so I can’t see where your comment comes from.


You complained - as has become customary here - that I made an invalid 'assumption' that Nichols' was the first murder.

That is nonsense.

Most researchers share my opinion.

As I pointed out, you don't confront them with their invalid 'assumptions', and neither does anyone else here.

And then, you have the nerve to say that I'm hypersensitive.

You have said I'm making an assumption that Nichols' was the first murder and Elamarna complained that I made an assumption that Kelly's was the last murder.

I suppose I could find the comment, but you may have noticed that he hasn't denied it.

What's going on here?

It's somehow controversial when I - but no-one else - adheres to convention and the canonical five?


As for Lawende's evidence: I consider that to be the key to solving the case, or getting as close to it as is possible.

You don't like that.

I didn't notice your shooting down fanciful suggestions about Kosminski directing an anti-Jewish insult at a fellow Jew or dressing in religious garb for a police identification.

That's not provocative in your view.

But when I say Lawende's evidence is reliable, you can't stomach that!

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

There’s no evidence that Druitt liked cheese either so would you say that he couldn’t have eaten cheese. When will you get this? Just because we have no evidence of him being a psychopath doesn’t mean that he couldn’t have been one. Look at Bundy as an example. You’re asking the impossible. If Druitt was guilty and he’d been caught and then interviewed how do you know what they would or wouldn’t have discovered?

Bundy occasionally exhibited disturbing behavior at an early age. Louise's younger sister Julia recalled awakening from a nap to find herself surrounded by knives from the kitchen, and three-year-old Ted standing by the bed, smiling.^[22] Bundy's childhood neighbor Sandi Holt described him as a bully, saying, "He liked to terrify people... He liked to be in charge. He liked to inflict pain and suffering and fear."^[23]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Bundy

Now take a look at Druitt's Wikipedia entry.

Apart from the unfortunate mental illness, it is a biography any of us would be proud of if it were ours.

It is quite obvious that he didn't torture animals as a child nor murder women in adulthood.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Also, as PI1 seems unwilling to believe fair does not necessarily mean blond and you can have dark hair and have fair facial hair:

William Bury had a dark complexion (39) and dark brown hair (40), but he had a “fair moustache” (41), his facial hair being described as “light sandy-coloured” (42).

Taken from Earp's site - refs 40-42 are there.

I don't see the relevance of what you've written.

First, H.S. says the moustache may have looked lighter than it was because of the lighting.

Then he says Lawende's description cannot be treated as reliable because there wasn't enough light!

You wouldn't call that making 'assumptions'?

Now, you say the man's head hair may have been of a different colour from that of his moustache!

Of course, neither of you are making 'assumptions'.

What about the evidence?

The evidence is that the suspect had fair hair and a fair complexion.

[Herlock Sholmes]

If you really cannot comprehend why I have taken offence at the tone of your comments to me, then I'll send you a list of them.

If you don't like slanging matches, then I suggest you don't start them.

Grow up PI and stick to the topic at hand. I’ve said nothing offensive on here. I’ve merely said that you’re making assumptions…..and you are. You are the one using terms like ‘ridiculous’ and ‘nonsense.’

You repeatedly charge that I am making assumptions about Druitt.

I'm not.

I'm making reasonable deductions from everything we know about him and his family.

And of course, your deductions must be correct?

A history of depression and suicide in a family does not correspond to a history of psychopathy and torturing animals in childhood.

No one has said that it does so why do you claim something that no one has suggested. What has been said is that Druitt’s suicide shows mental health issues. We have also said that because there is no evidence of him being a psychopath this isn’t proof that he wasn’t.

It is quite obvious that Druitt was with his cricket-playing colleagues in Dorset at the time of the first murder.

Suggesting that he may have committed the first murder during that trip to Dorset is fanciful.

Simply repeating an untruth wont make it true. You cannot prove that he didn’t return to London just as I can’t prove that he did.


Ive made no comment about Kelly not being the last victim so I can’t see where your comment comes from.


You complained - as has become customary here - that I made an invalid 'assumption' that Nichols' was the first murder.

That is nonsense.

Most researchers share my opinion.

Do they? A poll conducted on here in 2009 said that 69.15% felt that she was a victim whilst 30.85% said that she wasn’t. You are quite free to try another poll and the results might be different of course but I doubt whether the result would be anywhere near as clear cut as you assume.

https://forum.casebook.org/forum/rip...r-not#post3202

As I pointed out, you don't confront them with their invalid 'assumptions', and neither does anyone else here.

What invalid assumptions are you talking about? If your talking about the assumption that most researchers believe that Nichols was the first victim I’ve shown that it is nowhere near as clean cut a you assume.

And then, you have the nerve to say that I'm hypersensitive.

I haven’t called anyone’s suggestions ‘ridiculous’ or ‘nonsense.’ I’ve simply called you out when you’ve made assumptions that aren’t facts but your own assessment.

You have said I'm making an assumption that Nichols' was the first murder and Elamarna complained that I made an assumption that Kelly's was the last murder.

I suppose I could find the comment, but you may have noticed that he hasn't denied it.

What's going on here?

It's somehow controversial when I - but no-one else - adheres to convention and the canonical five?

There’s nothing controversial about it PI but these are not set-in-stone facts. All that has been done is to suggest that you considered that Nichols might not have been the killers first victim. I can’t for the life of me see why you keep getting so uptight whenever someone simply expresses a different interpretation.


As for Lawende's evidence: I consider that to be the key to solving the case, or getting as close to it as is possible.

You don't like that.

Its not about ‘liking.’ Again you take everything so personally. This is your opinion, you are fully entitled to it, but it’s not a proven fact. You appear to believe that it is and that others should simply agree with you. You are in the wrong place for that I’m afraid.

I didn't notice your shooting down fanciful suggestions about Kosminski directing an anti-Jewish insult at a fellow Jew or dressing in religious garb for a police identification.

I haven’t ‘shouted’ anyone down. I have to wonder why you post on a forum for debate where agreement and disagreement goes on when you clearly dislike being disagreed with.

Why don’t you stick to the topic and leave aside the emotional stuff?

That's not provocative in your view.

No it’s not. Not even in the slightest. It’s called having a difference of opinion.

But when I say Lawende's evidence is reliable, you can't stomach that!

What a strange comment. I view Lawende as an honest witness but not an infallible one as you appear to do.

Did Lawende get a close look at the man’s appearance? - He appears to have gotten a general view of his clothing, hat, coat etc. He also mentions his hair colour. But the fact that he said that he wouldn’t be able to recognise him again is proof that he didn’t look too closely or for long.

Can we rely on his assessment of the man’s hair colour? - No we can’t. The fact that lighting can affect our interpretation of colour is just that…..an absolute fact. So to claim that he couldn’t have been wrong is simply untrue.

Can we be certain that he was a sailor because Lawende said that he had the appearance of one? - Of course we can’t. Who knows where he might have got his hat and coat from? How do we know that he didn’t wear other than his normal clothes when he went out to kill?

These are the unknowns which you repeatedly assume to be true. Like your assumption that Druitt was in Dorset on the 31st. Or you’re weird statement that he was somehow too busy to have been the killer.

………

Ill request again that you provide the evidence that the kind of coat worn was known to have been worn by sailors please.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Bundy occasionally exhibited disturbing behavior at an early age. Louise's younger sister Julia recalled awakening from a nap to find herself surrounded by knives from the kitchen, and three-year-old Ted standing by the bed, smiling.^[22] Bundy's childhood neighbor Sandi Holt described him as a bully, saying, "He liked to terrify people... He liked to be in charge. He liked to inflict pain and suffering and fear."^[23]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Bundy

Now take a look at Druitt's Wikipedia entry.

Apart from the unfortunate mental illness, it is a biography any of us would be proud of if it were ours.

It is quite obvious that he didn't torture animals as a child nor murder women in adulthood.

I see no real point in anyone engaging with you if you refuse to use logic and reason. How many times does this have to be said. Druitt was never investigated because he was never caught (obviously he might not have been guilty) No one interviewed his family, his school friends, his adult friends. The Wikipedia biography is all that you have which would be funny if it weren’t so troubling.

You are making assumptions. Again

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

I see no real point in anyone engaging with you if you refuse to use logic and reason. How many times does this have to be said. Druitt was never investigated because he was never caught (obviously he might not have been guilty) No one interviewed his family, his school friends, his adult friends. The Wikipedia biography is all that you have which would be funny if it weren’t so troubling.

You are making assumptions. Again

You write that I 'refuse to use logic and reason' and then claim that I'm hypersensitive!

And of course, what you write is a 'fact', I suppose!

It's not an 'assumption' - is it?

And you're obviously NOT being condescending - are you?

[Aethelwulf]

The evidence is that the suspect had fair hair and a fair complexion.

• There is no reference to hair colour with Lawende's man, only facial hair. I have provided you with an actual example of a real man, stood in a real court room, being described as having a mustache that is a different colour to his hair. Described as inclined to 'sandy' or. ........'fair' with dark brown hair. Fair does not unequivocally mean blond. Therefore Koz could have had a fair mustache and dark hair, as the example I gave you.
• As H said, lighting can make a difference

Simple really, fair does not definitely mean blond, as a necktie and peaked cap does not mean a sailor.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

As I wrote in another post, you claimed that the moustache may have looked lighter than it was because of the lighting, but that Lawende's evidence is questionable because of the poor street lighting.

And you say that I 'refuse to use logic and reason'!



You complained - as has become customary here - that I made an invalid 'assumption' that Nichols' was the first murder.

That is nonsense.

Most researchers share my opinion.

Do they? A poll conducted on here in 2009 said that 69.15% felt that she was a victim whilst 30.85% said that she wasn’t. You are quite free to try another poll and the results might be different of course but I doubt whether the result would be anywhere near as clear cut as you assume.


Excuse me, but I wrote that most researchers share my opinion and your refutation of what I wrote is that only 69.15 percent of them share my opinion!

And you say I'M the one who refuses 'to use logic and reason'!


You appear to believe ... that others should simply agree with you.

What is the point of a remark like that?

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

• There is no reference to hair colour with Lawende's man, only facial hair. I have provided you with an actual example of a real man, stood in a real court room, being described as having a mustache that is a different colour to his hair. Described as inclined to 'sandy' or. ........'fair' with dark brown hair. Fair does not unequivocally mean blond. Therefore Koz could have had a fair mustache and dark hair, as the example I gave you.
• As H said, lighting can make a difference

Simple really, fair does not definitely mean blond, as a necktie and peaked cap does not mean a sailor.

Someone produced a picture of someone who is said to have been Kosminski's brother and it shows him with dark hair and a dark moustache.

That's the evidence so far produced on this forum about Kosminski's likely hair colour.

The evidence about the suspect's hair colour is that it was fair.

In the photograph, Kosminski's brother is wearing a top hat, although I suppose he could have dressed down to look like a sailor.

[The Baron]

Someone produced a picture of someone who is said to have been Kosminski's brother and it shows him with dark hair and a dark moustache.

Wrong.

His brother moustache is pretty fair, and his sister had brown hair, just like one of the reports of Lawende's description of the man he saw with brown hair too.


TB

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

You can tell from that photo that Kosminski's brother had a fair moustache, but Lawende wouldn't know when he saw someone in real life whether his moustache was fair?