Jack The Ripper's face??

[Aethelwulf]

Passable on nose and eyes but can't see the hair in either sketch. Reasonable on a sort of 'youthful' look of someone late twenties. A sketch of Bury in August 1888 apparently shows him with just a moustache. The theory is he grew the beard to change his appearance, possibly after the double event (Beadle) but I think more likely after the failed attempt and good description in relation to Farmer.

[Aethelwulf]

Apparently Packer was discredited...

If Packer did sell grapes to the ripper, those sketches go a fair way to explaining how he got away with it. He looks so totally unremarkable and normal that if passed in the street, you wouldn't look twice. He also looks like he could have money.

[mpriestnall]

Apparently Packer was discredited...

[mpriestnall]

A mystery that never was. How ironic.

[Losmandris]

Happy New Year one and all!

I am pretty sure the walking stick plays a small role in the graphic novel 'from hell'. Someone selling them after the double event as 'mad monk' walking sticks. Abberline is presented with one as a bit of a joke at the end? I think? The stick looks just like the one in the novel, so agree don't think it has been hidden for years.

[Dickere]

Not the mystical Whitechapel Shroud is it ?

[mpriestnall]

Just for jolly:

Compare walking stick man to the faces here:

https://forum.casebook.org/forum/ripper-discussions/general-discussion/1251-sketches-in-the-daily-telegraph-6-october-1888

I can see some general similarity especially with the face on the right hand side.

Packer was nobbled!

[Linotte]

It looks like a typical art nouveau-style walking stick to me.

[mpriestnall]

https://www.tmz.com/2022/12/29/jack-...e-image-found/

Hi magoo. Thanks for posting this. This is the best and clearest picture of JTR, sorry, carved-monk-man I have seen.

Cheers!

[mpriestnall]

I believe the walking stick was shown at the JTR Exhibition in Docklands 2008? Some one filmed a little movie of it so one can view around the stick if I remember correctly. I first become aware of the walking stick when Paul Begg posed a question about it on a rippercast many moons ago asking his fellow panelists if any of them thought if the carved figure might depict JTR.

I understand Steven Keogh's new book will be a police style investigation from the view point of Abberline. I may not have got that 100 pct correct. I am intrigued to hear his thoughts on the walking stick. I guess he won't share my view this is JTR!?

[erobitha]

From Keith Skinner:

”If you look in the 2015 edition of the A To Z there is comprehensive and authoritative summary of the background to the walking stick. It wasn't stored at Bramshill but was displayed. When Bramshill closed it was carefully transferred to Ryton and there was never any mystery about its location or miracle about its reappearance.”

[mpriestnall]

Yeah, I had that thought as well. Even if by some miracle it is actually the Ripper there is simply not enough detail to make an identification.

c.d.

One can work backwards and see if someone's candidate matches the two unusual features of the carving: the receding forehead and the even more unusual squint of the right eye. The combination of the two features would be very unusual.

[mpriestnall]

I've long held the belief this is the face of Jack the Ripper.

The right eye appears to be a kind of squint perhaps "strabismus".

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/squint/

Bowyer claimed to see a man at Miller's Court, near or at the time of the murder, with strange or odd eyes. I think I have noted other examples of similar sightings (working from memory).

As there is known to be a genetic connection to the causes of these type of squints, there is a good chance of relatives, descendants also having the condition.

If this is JTR, then Abberline and others knew of the identify of JTR at least by 1892 when he was presented with the cane in question.

A picture of the cane appears in the 2010 version of the A-Z.

[Herlock Sholmes]

That appears to be mystery solved then. Please delete my suggestion about it possibly being the face of Abberline.

Although…..would they have really presented him with a cheapo stick that could be bought from a street vendor?

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

To quote Dan Norder from 2004:

"The face was actually of the mad monk character in The Curse Upon Mitre Square, the penny dreadful sort of thing sold near the scene of Eddowes' death to curious crowds shortly afterwards. The hawkster sold these walking sticks too, so I imagine quite a few people had them, but most are probably long gone by now."