In the beginning...

[The Rookie Detective]

Hi all.

Time for a little nostalgia...

A few questions spring to mind...


When were you first drawn to the case?

What was it that first sparked an interest?

Were there any particular books on the case that you read?

Or any suspects that caught your eye?

Or was it learning about the innocent victims?



For me, it was the 1988 mini series starring Michael Caine and Lewis Collins.

I was only a boy at the time and yet it had a significant impact on me in terms of sparking my interest.

Then 5 years later in 1993, the controversial Maybrick diary was released to the public.

IIRC it was given to me as a present from a family member.

I was interested in True Crime and Unsolved Crimes from a young age and I remember the diary being my favourite book at the time.

It was the combination of the mini series and the diary that got me interested in the case in general.


Please feel free to reciprocate, by sharing your stories...

[Lewis C]

I first learned about the case when I was about 11 when I read about it in a chapter in a children's book called Strange but True. Next was the Star Trek episode, Wolf in the Fold. After that was the late '70s (first?) edition of The Book of Lists, which had a list of possible victims and of possible suspects. This was my introduction to the idea that the victims were prostitutes and that there were multiple possible victims. Being the late '70s, many of the suspects that we have now weren't suspects then. I happen to remember that George Chapman, Prince Albert Victor, Thomas Cream, and "Jill the Ripper" were 4 of their suspects.

I was interested enough in the case to write a paper about it when I was in high school, yet didn't pay a lot of attention to it for many years. I read about it when the claim was made that Eddowes' shawl had solved the case, but again, soon turned my attention to other things. Oddly enough, The Missing Evidence is what really got me continually interested in the case. For awhile, Lechmere was my top suspect, but as I learned more about the case, I realized the shortcomings of the video and the weakness of the case against him.

What especially interests me about the case is that it's an unsolved mystery, and we know just enough about what happened to suggest many reasonable possibilities, but not enough to solve it. That there are multiple reasonable suspects, but no suspect for whom I can say "it was probably him".

Paul Begg's Jack the Ripper The Facts is my favorite book on the case, but I also like Sugden's book and Tom Wescott's Ripper Confidential. But most of my reading is on the computer, either from this web site or old issues of Ripperologist.

What catches my eye about suspects isn't any one in particular, but the large number of reasonable ones. I mean, I think that most proposed suspects aren't reasonable, but even after you throw all of those out, there are still a lot of reasonable ones left.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Mine began a little earlier when I was around 15 which means around 1980 when we were visiting a great aunt. I was a big reader from around 12 onward but from 14 all that I really read was sci-fi and fantasy which I didn’t really stop reading until my mid-twenties. One of the books on my great aunt’s shelf was The Fifty Most Amazing True Crimes Of The Last 100 Years. I seem to recall that she had another volume in the same series called The Complete Self Educator which I had only skimmed through. The true crimes one had a section on Jack The Ripper by someone called Beaumont which ended with a question mark. I found it a haunting story as I read it in a dimly lit back room. She hinted that she would give it to me at some point but the family had a fall out and it never happened. I eventually bought a copy from Ross Strachan in Scotland who I’m sure that a few on here will remember as a seller of ripper books. I still have it.

I then decided to take a detour from sci-fi and get something on the subject of Jack the Ripper so I went to my local WH Smith and found three books on the shelf. I bought one a week. My first ripper book was Summing Up And Verdict by Wilson and O’Dell. My second was Stephen Knight’s Final Solution (a book that I enjoyed reading more than any other that I’ve read) The third was Paul Begg’s Uncensored Facts. From the age of around 18 on I became a bit obsessed with the case buying absolutely every book that my budget would allow. I’ve got over 300 now plus numerous magazines with ripper-related articles, graphic novels, and pretty much every Ripperana and Ripperologist (perhaps one or two missing) These days I buy far fewer. I joined the Cloak And Dagger Club although I only ever managed to attend one meeting which was at The City Darts Pub. The main speaker was Bill Beadle but he wasn’t speaking about Bury on that occasion but something to do with Mary Kelly’s ToD if I remember correctly. I’ve always wondered if any other members attended that same meeting? We may have stood next to each other at the bar. I did drift away from the case for a while but I kept an eye on any developments or interesting new books.

I joined Casebook and JtRForums in 2017 but I don’t know which was first. I don’t know what my first post was on here but my first post on JtRForums was about Charles Cross. It seems a long time ago and I didn’t think at the time that I’d end up having the second highest number of posts! Is Casebook addictive?

As most people on here will know by now the suspect that intrigues me the most is Montague John Druitt. I can’t pinpoint it but I suspect that it was when Farson said something like “it’s the sheer unlikeliness of Druitt that makes him intriguing.” It got me thinking. Whether he was guilty or not Im still convinced that Macnaghten didn’t just pick him because of when he died. I will never claim that he was the ripper because I don’t think that we will ever know who he was but I think that he might have been. So I’ll say that I just think that there might be more there than people think. But maybe not.

Im interested in the victims, the history and the people but I’m not ashamed to admit that it’s still a whodunnit and I want to know who dunnit.

[Enigma]

My interest in the case began as far as I can remember was when I was in my early teens. Which is in the hazy dawn of time. I can't pin point a particular incident. Possibly it may have been seeing a re-run of the Alfred Hitchcock movie "The Lodger". I realize this is a tenuous connection, but at the time I may have thought it was loosely based on or inspired by JtR. My interest was renewed on seeing Stephen Knight being interviewed on television when promoting his book and immediately bought it. I found it an interesting read, but the idea of a group of down and out unfortunates from the East End attempting to blackmail the high and mighty seemed implausible.

I've read the usual standard titles on the case.

As I have said in other threads, I think JtR was Mr U.N. Known who managed to avoid suspicion, even if he was interviewed by police in their door-to-door enquiries.

[Abby Normal]

i remember knowing about jack tje ripper as a little kid. always been intrigued by real life mysteries. always loved horror and monster movies. manson terrified and fascinated me. started really getting into true crime and serial killers when btk was getting solved around 2005. then fascinated and read alot about zodiac. then one day i googled jack tje ripper and read tje wikipedia page. i couldnt beleive there was actual suspects, i had always thought there were none. then i found this website and been hooked ever since.

[Tani]

My mum told me about it briefly when I was very small.

Went from there, not sure why.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Mine began a little earlier when I was around 15 which means around 1980 when we were visiting a great aunt. I was a big reader from around 12 onward but from 14 all that I really read was sci-fi and fantasy which I didn’t really stop reading until my mid-twenties. One of the books on my great aunt’s shelf was The Fifty Most Amazing True Crimes Of The Last 100 Years. I seem to recall that she had another volume in the same series called The Complete Self Educator which I had only skimmed through. The true crimes one had a section on Jack The Ripper by someone called Beaumont which ended with a question mark. I found it a haunting story as I read it in a dimly lit back room. She hinted that she would give it to me at some point but the family had a fall out and it never happened. I eventually bought a copy from Ross Strachan in Scotland who I’m sure that a few on here will remember as a seller of ripper books. I still have it.

I then decided to take a detour from sci-fi and get something on the subject of Jack the Ripper so I went to my local WH Smith and found three books on the shelf. I bought one a week. My first ripper book was Summing Up And Verdict by Wilson and O’Dell. My second was Stephen Knight’s Final Solution (a book that I enjoyed reading more than any other that I’ve read) The third was Paul Begg’s Uncensored Facts. From the age of around 18 on I became a bit obsessed with the case buying absolutely every book that my budget would allow. I’ve got over 300 now plus numerous magazines with ripper-related articles, graphic novels, and pretty much every Ripperana and Ripperologist (perhaps one or two missing) These days I buy far fewer. I joined the Cloak And Dagger Club although I only ever managed to attend one meeting which was at The City Darts Pub. The main speaker was Bill Beadle but he wasn’t speaking about Bury on that occasion but something to do with Mary Kelly’s ToD if I remember correctly. I’ve always wondered if any other members attended that same meeting? We may have stood next to each other at the bar. I did drift away from the case for a while but I kept an eye on any developments or interesting new books.

I joined Casebook and JtRForums in 2017 but I don’t know which was first. I don’t know what my first post was on here but my first post on JtRForums was about Charles Cross. It seems a long time ago and I didn’t think at the time that I’d end up having the second highest number of posts! Is Casebook addictive?

As most people on here will know by now the suspect that intrigues me the most is Montague John Druitt. I can’t pinpoint it but I suspect that it was when Farson said something like “it’s the sheer unlikeliness of Druitt that makes him intriguing.” It got me thinking. Whether he was guilty or not Im still convinced that Macnaghten didn’t just pick him because of when he died. I will never claim that he was the ripper because I don’t think that we will ever know who he was but I think that he might have been. So I’ll say that I just think that there might be more there than people think. But maybe not.

Im interested in the victims, the history and the people but I’m not ashamed to admit that it’s still a whodunnit and I want to know who dunnit.

Doesn’t the mind play tricks on memory. I was convinced that from when I saw The Fifty Most Amazing True Crimes to when I bought the Wilson and Odell book was only a matter of 2 or 3 years at most but it can’t have been because Summing Up And Verdict came out in 1987 with Uncensored Facts coming out a year later. So there was a longer gap before i bought my first Ripper book. My memory is now telling me that I had be interest re-kindle by the ripper edition of the magazine Murder Casebook. So perhaps I was older than I thought when I saw my aunts book?

None of the above is remotely important of course except perhaps as another illustration of how poor we are at estimating periods of time.

[Duran duren]

I have no idea when I first became aware of JtR and the Whitechapel horrors, I was a kid and I feel it was around the time I began my lifelong love affair with Sherlock Holmes, I'm just not sure when or how...maybe some SH story I don't remember anymore?

Like RD, I was in college when the Maybrick diary came out and I remember buying it but even then thinking something smelt really fishy with that book. Then comes marriage/daughter/career/life and I don't remember much cept a book here and a book there.
For me, the interest didn't really expand till the invention of the internet and the ability to not only purchase books from around the world but watch videos dealing with JtR and listening to Ripper historians. My library increased in both print and now kindle or digital.

Around maybe 5 years ago or so I was googling something about AC when i finally discovered Casebook and I was simply blown away...still am actually. To just imagine the sheer amount of knowledge contained in just one website is mind blowing to me. Over the years we have seen Ripper historians pass away but the knowledge they shared is still with us thanks to this website...

HS said it well just earlier when he spoke of how poor we are at estimating periods of time, same way I feel about many "witnesses" to the crimes. As I stated earlier on another thread, I don't do suspects or theories, I just enjoy what so many of you have to say.
Best Regards All...

[Barnaby]

I developed an interest in the case during the 100th anniversary in 1988, when I was 12 years old. Two factors specifically fueled my interest. The first was the Michael Caine mini-series. The second was, of all things, my love of the childhood mystery book series "Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators." A spinoff on these books were anthologies with the name "Alfred Hitchcock" on them, including "Spellbinders in Suspense." (Hitch didn't have anything to do with any of these, but I guess they paid him for his name.) This book had Robert Bloch's Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper in it, and that short story scared the hell out of me and I was hooked every since. So, I came into this through the world of fiction.