What evidence would it take?

[martin wilson]

Hi Rosella,

After watching the recent Lechmere documentary my mate Rob AND his brother were utterly convinced, oddly not by the circumstantial evidence presented but by the photograph of him, which convinced them he looked like the sort of bloke who would do that sort of thing.

Others may require further evidence.

[kensei]

I've been to some of the victims' graves so I thought I'd ask about the prospect of exhumation. I visited the site of Nichols and Eddowes where they have markers but their actual bodies are somewhere underneath the nearby road, and also Mary Kelly's grave where I understand her body is somewhere within a few yards of the marker. I've seen pictures of Stride's grave where it looks like there's probably no ambiguity, and I don't remember the situation on Chapman's at the moment.

If there was a reason to do it to attempt some kind of comparison and someone was to offer to pay for it, how easy or difficult does everyone think it would be to exhume those ladies' earthly remains? Ground penetrating sonar can see where caskets are. Is there enough known such as the appearance of their caskets that would let people know they had the right ones? On Mary Kelly alone I would think there would be enough damage to her skeleton to be sure that it was her.

If such a project were to be attempted, what a furor it would cause!

[Trevor Marriott]

I've been to some of the victims' graves so I thought I'd ask about the prospect of exhumation. I visited the site of Nichols and Eddowes where they have markers but their actual bodies are somewhere underneath the nearby road, and also Mary Kelly's grave where I understand her body is somewhere within a few yards of the marker. I've seen pictures of Stride's grave where it looks like there's probably no ambiguity, and I don't remember the situation on Chapman's at the moment.

If there was a reason to do it to attempt some kind of comparison and someone was to offer to pay for it, how easy or difficult does everyone think it would be to exhume those ladies' earthly remains? Ground penetrating sonar can see where caskets are. Is there enough known such as the appearance of their caskets that would let people know they had the right ones? On Mary Kelly alone I would think there would be enough damage to her skeleton to be sure that it was her.

If such a project were to be attempted, what a furor it would cause!

What purpose would it achieve ?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00KNRE4NY

[AlanG]

Justice for the victims? Perhaps other crimes could be linked to the suspect?

[K-453]

The Ripper case is like a puzzle with many of the parts missing. We don't even know how many are missing - probably more than 50 %. And amongst them are the most interesting ones: fingerprints, DNA, certain documents, witnesses who never came forward. Of the remaining pieces, some may not belong to the puzzle at all - but which ones? The statement of Mr. Cadosh? The Goulston Street Graffito? The whole Stride murder?

So, the Ripper case may teach you Zen Buddhism, but not who Jack the Ripper was.

[K-453]

A time machine.

If time travel was - or will ever be - possible, Jack could not have done his deeds without elbowing a curious crowd aside first.

[AlanG]

I am too sarcastic for my own good apparently!

[Gman992]

The killer being caught in the act

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Hi Rosella,

After watching the recent Lechmere documentary my mate Rob AND his brother were utterly convinced, oddly not by the circumstantial evidence presented but by the photograph of him, which convinced them he looked like the sort of bloke who would do that sort of thing.

Others may require further evidence.

Many people are suggestible and susceptible to the suggestions made by such programmes.

I remember many years ago reading in one of the well-known books on the case of a story related by a contemporary of that time.

He said that his father was out on the nights of the murders and he was sure he was the Whitechapel Murderer.

The authors remarked that his story had a ring of truth.

I also recall reading, I think in the same book, that it should be possible to identify the culprit by finding a suitable suspect and then obtaining his medical records.

How many suspects' medical records have been obtained?

Why would anyone expect them to contain evidence of psychopathy?

Even Kosminski's records declare him to have been harmless.

[JeffHamm]

Hmmm, been thinking about this for a bit. In my view, while it would be great to find things like the missing suspect file, documents detailing who they were observing, who they questioned in detail, and so forth, I'm not sure the "clincher" would be found in such things alone. My thoughts are, if a generally acceptable solution were possible from just those documents then the police would have solved it at the time.

As such, to produce a generally accepted solution (I won't say universally accepted because amongst the unconvinced will be the unconvincable), we would need to find something that leads to the solution by methods unavailable to the police of 1888. DNA would be something of interest, but we would have to know for certain it came from a sample from JtR, and not contamination of some sort. Alternatively, something that links an item to at least one of the victims (again, DNA would probably be the best chain; the shawl would be a good example except the errors in that were substantial, and have been covered elsewhere).

Let's say, for example, in some attic or wall, a box containing a knife, with bloodstains, was found. And that knife had on it blood from a couple of different sources (Kelly would be one, but of course, given we don't know Kelly's family it would be hard to find someone to compare it to in order to know that - so it becomes chicken and the egg - is the blood from a victim, who was Kelly, and her family has been identified through genealogical DNA tracing - or is the blood and knife unrelated to the JtR murders, and the owner had cut themselves? etc). But let's say a 2nd source was identified as blood that can be traced to Eddowes' family, linking the knife to Eddowes' murder (or Chapman, or Stride, or Nichols, doesn't matter which). And if a 3rd source of DNA were found (say, skin cells on handle), which could be traced to a family who in turn had a male relative living in London (somewhere near Whitechapel would be ideal of course) at the appropriate time, then I think that would result in a solution that would gain general acceptance. Obviously, it would have to be pretty clear that there was no contamination concerns, and the providence of the find would have to be beyond reproach, and so forth.

Written confessions, family lore, and so forth, I think would not produce a generally accepted solution. Documents can be forged, and even if not we know that confessions (written or verbal) can be false (particularly if the confessor has any mental health issues that might lead to delusions of being JtR, etc), and so those will always have their sceptics. Family lore is even more prone to such concerns.

In the end, I suspect that something would have to be found that was an undeniable physical link to the crimes themselves, providing us with evidence that the police of 1888 did not have. Any solution based upon information already available to the police of 1888 would, I think, always be considered insufficient by enough people that it would not reach the criterion of acceptance we're talking about because I think the information the police had in 1888 was not enough to solve the case.

- Jeff

[FISHY1118]

Good post Jeff.

[Darryl Kenyon]

I do believe evidence is out there which could point us in the right direction, or even eliminate some suspects. And it is possible that we may end up with just short of compelling evidence against someone . But even if we do, I have a feeling the argument will never truly be satisfied 100 % .

Regards Darryl

[JeffHamm]

I do believe evidence is out there which could point us in the right direction, or even eliminate some suspects. And it is possible that we may end up with just short of compelling evidence against someone . But even if we do, I have a feeling the argument will never truly be satisfied 100 % .

Regards Darryl

Hi Darryl,

Yes, I think that is a more likely situation, that there is still information out there that could clarify some issues, suggest new lines of inquiry, remove some from consideration, and so forth. I was thinking more along the lines of the starting post (what would it take to result in a generally agreed solution), which is a much higher bar to clear.

Anyway, I also agree that I doubt there will ever be a solution, that goes from crimes to JtR's identification, that gets even close to 100% acceptance (even if we exclude those who will never abandon their own personal favorite no matter what comes up).

- Jeff

[Trevor Marriott]

Hi Darryl,

Yes, I think that is a more likely situation, that there is still information out there that could clarify some issues, suggest new lines of inquiry, remove some from consideration, and so forth. I was thinking more along the lines of the starting post (what would it take to result in a generally agreed solution), which is a much higher bar to clear.

Anyway, I also agree that I doubt there will ever be a solution, that goes from crimes to JtR's identification, that gets even close to 100% acceptance (even if we exclude those who will never abandon their own personal favorite no matter what comes up).

- Jeff

And personal favourites are the reason the suspect list is in excess of 100 names, they couldn't all have been JTR.

Perhaps we should concentrate all our efforts on finding out more about the handful of likely suspects.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[John Wheat]

And personal favourites are the reason the suspect list is in excess of 100 names, they couldn't all have been JTR.

Perhaps we should concentrate all our efforts on finding out more about the handful of likely suspects.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

By likely suspects do you mean violent murderers? Eg Bury, Kelly etc