How do Suspects compare?

[Phil Carter]

follow up

Hello Simon,

Small world indeed- in the Rip article I did there were some coincidences there too- and I believe I may have put a few out on the boards somewhere.

The mere fact he was playing cricket on one or two of the murder dates (one way down in the west Country) really doesnt help his candidacy either.

Best wishes

Phil

Hello Simon,all,

Evidence of the above is as follows:-

3rd and 4th August 1888 Druitt played cricket at Bournemouth
10th and 11th August he played cricket there too whìch suggests he may have stayed on there after the 4th, which if true, rules him out of the Tabram murder,

On 1st Sep 1888 he played cricket at Canford in Dorset which rather suggests that unless he sprouted wings and flew during the dark of night he couldnt have killed Mary Nichols either,and finally on the 8th Sept 1888 at 11,30am he was playing cricket in Blackheath meaning he was washed, changed, had all his cricket gear with him and raced off after killing Annie Chapman 6 hours earlier.

All this plus the rather odd fact that throughout the ages there is a curious lack of murdering cricketers. They dont go hand in glove, as it were. see my Rip article. Howzat! Out!

Best wishes

Phil

[Jonathan H]

No, arguably, it does help his candidacy because the family and Macanghten (a Cricket tragic) knew all this -- and a humoungus lot more than we ever will -- and yet they couldn't, posthumously, get Montie off.

The extraordinary and instructive new source found by Paul shows that even though there was another 'Ripper' murder in Whitechapel (Coles) Farquharson remained totally un-moved -- it's not 'Jack'. He's dead.

So, even when, apparently, the police are still hunting the Ripper and have arrested and are investigating a seemingly likely suspect (Sadler) the MP knows enough to be serenely certain that it will come to nothing as far as 'Jack' goes, proving himself to be way ahead of general police opinion by about seven years.

If it was all so easy to prove that Montie was delusional, or even just might be delusional (eg. near enough is going to be good enough for an anguished family) they would have exonerated him.

But they couldn't and they didn't.

Rightly or wrongly, Macnaghten went to his premature grave believing, like the MP, that his deceased suspect (as opposed to Anderson's deceased suspect, who was alive) was the Ripper.

For secondary sources to second guess primary sources who conducted the [posthumous] investigation, inevitably including tight cricket schedules, is a really big call to make.

[Wickerman]

The mere fact he was playing cricket on one or two of the murder dates (one way down in the west Country) really doesnt help his candidacy either.

I would hazard a guess Phil that the dire need to return to a normal life, giving himself a tight schedule is all part of the rush. To us, we might think the timing is too tight, but to the killer, his challenge to get back all cleaned up & on the field, therefore establishing some sort of alibi, is all part of the game.

Given the mind-set of a serial killer, I wouldn't rule Druitt out on this point.
Only, if it was impossible to make the game.

Regards, Jon S.

[Phil Carter]

Hi Phil,

A bowler indeed.

Not that I suppose it matters, but at Chislehurst, on July 10th 1884, M. J. Druitt [West Kent] bowled out Robert Leigh Pemberton [Band of Brothers], son of Edward Leigh Pemberton, an original member of the BBs and Assistant Under Secretary at the Home Office during the Ripper murders.

Small world, isn't it?

Regards,

Simon

Hello Simon,

Small world indeed- in the Rip article I did there were some coincidences there too- and I believe I may have put a few out on the boards somewhere.

The mere fact he was playing cricket on one or two of the murder dates (one way down in the west Country) really doesnt help his candidacy either.

Best wishes

Phil

[Simon Wood]

Hi Phil,

A bowler indeed.

Not that I suppose it matters, but at Chislehurst, on July 10th 1884, M. J. Druitt [West Kent] bowled out Robert Leigh Pemberton [Band of Brothers], son of Edward Leigh Pemberton, an original member of the BBs and Assistant Under Secretary at the Home Office during the Ripper murders.

Small world, isn't it?

Regards,

Simon

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Roy, thank you for posting that Mr Birch/Packer piece. It's quite new to me. Would you take that article to mean Messrs Birch and Packer were personally acquainted?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Jonathan H]

To the Wickerman

Quite by accident you have raised a vital aspect of how Anderson, when a chief, knew things.

Of course, it does not apply to the Swanson Marginalia because that is a source composed in retirement. Both Anderson and Swanson were at home, not at an office or a desk when the latter claimed -- for the first time in the extent record -- that the main evidence against 'Kosminski' was a witness, but one who refused to testify.

On the other hand, consider this:

Nobody noticed that Macnaghten seems to know that 'Kosminski' is alive in the madhouse. He knows this at the very least in 1894: see 'Aberconway'.

This is because the modern paradigm was so strong that Macnaghten has not been properly used by researchers on 'Kosminski' (unless you are 'stacking the deck' to make it seem to the lay reader that Mac agrees with his chief that the Polish Jew was at least a major suspect -- but only by including the sources which say this, and not the ones which do not.)

Yet Mac's chief, Anderson -- to whom Macnaghten was his deputy and confidential assistant -- does not know this and supposedly neither does Swanson (see his comments for 1895)?!

Sources by Macnaghten and on his behalf never claim that the Polish suspect is deceased.

But Swanson seems to do this in 1895, and Anderson's son alludes to his father sharing this mistaken belief in his biog. of 1947.

How?

How can Anderson think this if his immediate subordinate does not, and the latter is right?

For that matter how can Anderson (and Swanson?) think that 'Kosminski' was sectioned shortly after the final murder -- the un-named Kelly in the memoirs -- when his deputy knows that 'Kosminski' was out about on the streets for a very long time after that crime (Sims, 1907).

And then he supposedly and very conveniently died, when he was alive until after the First World War?! But convenient for whom?

Secondary sources have never factored in that Macnaghten knows that this suspect is alive, and knows that he was sectioned considerably after the Kelly murder (even in his dodgy Reports(s) what Griffiths will treat as shortly after Kelly is still four or five months!)

On both points Macnaghten is correct and Anderson (and Swanson?) is not.

Again, how?

And of course in 1913 and 1914, Macnaghten goes out of his way to deny the importance of the Polish suspect, or that the Ripper was a Hebrew, or that there was a witness whoc oculd possibly have affirmed in a 'confrontation'.

I think Anderson was always sincere and forthright in his Ripper opinions, and also self-serving and egocentric as sources often are.

To PaulB

We will, as ever, agree to disagree.

For one thing both Anderson and swanson do sahre the delusion that they never investigated w whitechapel murder as one by 'Jack' when they did: McKenzie and Coles, despite what they later came to believe.

For me, the lack of confirmation by other police is decisive that the event never happened (or rather it did, but with Lawende and Sadler). Swanson seeming to concur is, arguably, only repetition not confirmation.

We need another authoritative source, and instead we have Abberline and Reid and Macnaghten and Smith, in differing ways, not confirming it.

On the little we have, the Evans-Rumbelow theory is the best explanation to square the circle, in my opinion.

The new source you found on the MP claims that the police might agree that Sadler is not 'Jack' but not that the fiend is deceased.

Really?

Then when did Anderson decide that the Ripper was, in fact, deceased?

Was it a bit later in 1891?

For his 1892 interview suggests no such thing.

Was it in 1894, when 'Kosminski' first enters the extant record, but not one which was ever sent to the Home Office?

Or, was it in 1895, after Anderson was looking into Grant as the Ripper? What on earth for, if you already knew that 'Jack' was not only sectioned, but long deceased? Why set yourself up with the tabloids like that, if you already knew?

In fact, just after this event, Swanson and Anderson are saying they know.

What if Anderson only found about 'Kosminski' from your insufferably boyish (and cowardly) but dependably mediocre and honest subordinate just after Grant.

I mean, I loathe Mac and he loathes me, but he wouldn't deliberately mislead me, would he ...?

[Phil Carter]

Hello Robert,

It may be worth mentioning here that Montague J Druitt was primarily a bowler.

Best wishes

Phil

[Wickerman]

I guess the AF bundle theory can't be discounted, but surely he would have recognised the publication for what it was and said as much in his evidence, wouldn't he?

Very possibly, and what was this guy doing with a bundle (parcel?) anyway, not delivering papers thats for sure, and the printing office was locked up. All those at the Club were interviewed, no-one had reason to hide the fact they may have spoken to Stride 30 mins before she was killed. It didn't bother Packer, nor Schwartz.

What about Marshall's sighting. He says "middle-aged", but with a life-expectancy around the 50 mark, even for the well-off, what would "middle-aged" have meant in 1888? About 30? Not much more, I suspect, if late 40's was old

We have one example..
"...The man was middle aged, perhaps 35 years;....."
Evening news, 4 Oct. 1888.

Regards, Jon S.

[Wickerman]

That is why I think it more likely that Swanson is repeating what Anderson told him, in one sitting.

All case related information comes across Swanson's desk to Anderson not, from Anderson to Swanson.
Whatever Anderson knew from the street, Swanson was his source.

Regards, Jon S.

[Robert]

If you're a good batsman, then you'll get sunburn, because you will be a long time at the crease and you won't get out. It's only bad batsmen who get out.

I'll s'thee!

[Stephen Thomas]

The quick change artist had a sunburn. Do you get a sunburn playing cricket I wonder?

Well I suppose so Roy, as demon Australian bowler Shane Warne played all his test matches with enough sunblock on his nose to make him look like Coco the Clown.

Don't know

[Roy Corduroy]

There's more. Credit Howard Brown for this scoop. "Mr Burch (sic) the milkman, his son and Packer reported a sighting again in the November 24 Echo.



Yes Mr Birch had sons. Here is the 1881 census household

[Cogidubnus]

Of course the idea of the man having a sunburn might be misleading. His face might have been flushed either through excitement or drink.

Or possibly just naturally blotchy?

Dave

[ChrisGeorge]

In fact there was such a man about in the East End who came to Henry Birch's milkstand and changed clothes out of a black bag the night after the Nichols murder. The same night a woman was attacked near a music hall. (click here)

The quick change artist had a sunburn. Do you get a sunburn playing cricket I wonder?

Roy

I don't necessarily connect this man with Druitt but it might seem as if the police did miss an important clue in this incident. Of course the idea of the man having a sunburn might be misleading. His face might have been flushed either through excitement or drink.

Chris