The 120 year old trail is freezing

[perrymason]

I think to imagine a credible case with indisputable facts someday is as Glenn said, less than likely.

What is possible though is to eliminate some of the background noise and subjective suppositions ....I think the discussion boards here is one of the places that can happen. We have the venue, the experts, and access to much of the historical data.

There are things that have been accepted as facts, which are not actual facts...opinions on persons and profiles have been taken as gospel, and a pervasive theme of a single mad killer of 5 has been proven difficult to accept for students... and scholars.

I think what we can hope for is a better understanding of that Fall, not just these few murders, and what may have really gone on there. Maybe no name, or face, but a likely scenario that addresses the shortcomings of an inflexible Canon, and provides a plausible motive, and perhaps individual, for some of the more contentious members of that Canon.

For example....I believe Mary Kelly was not a Ripper victim, and its my belief that some of the evidence we have for that night is suggestive of other possibilities. If one day that could be proven...Id be happy. I dont need a "Jack"....whomever he was he appears to have escaped justice...but I do need to know what really went on.

Best regards all.

[Sasha]

I think to imagine a credible case with indisputable facts someday is as Glenn said, less than likely.

What is possible though is to eliminate some of the background noise and subjective suppositions ....I think the discussion boards here is one of the places that can happen. We have the venue, the experts, and access to much of the historical data.

There are things that have been accepted as facts, which are not actual facts...opinions on persons and profiles have been taken as gospel, and a pervasive theme of a single mad killer of 5 has been proven difficult to accept for students... and scholars.

I think what we can hope for is a better understanding of that Fall, not just these few murders, and what may have really gone on there. Maybe no name, or face, but a likely scenario that addresses the shortcomings of an inflexible Canon, and provides a plausible motive, and perhaps individual, for some of the more contentious members of that Canon.

For example....I believe Mary Kelly was not a Ripper victim, and its my belief that some of the evidence we have for that night is suggestive of other possibilities. If one day that could be proven...Id be happy. I dont need a "Jack"....whomever he was he appears to have escaped justice...but I do need to know what really went on.

Best regards all.

, Michael.

Thank you for your post, Michael. I enjoy reading your blogs because they are always well-reasoned, provocative and yet polite and prove that it is possible to be a gentleman and a scholar.

Like you, the more I read about this period, the more I believe that MJK stands out from the other victims. There could be good reasons for this - as others have explored elsewhere on this site - or, as you propose, she was not a ripper victim. This would be ironic if it proves to be true because, in my opinion, it was the sheer brutality of this particular crime that still shocks the world and make the name "Jack the Ripper" strike fear into people today. Without this crime, I doubt we'd even be talking about it. Wouldn't it be interesting if Jack didn't do it? And it does raise the question, why Mary etc etc? I think these things are worth pursuing - if only to eliminate the possibility as you say.

Kind regards
Sasha

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Good posts by Michael and Sasha here,

I believe those are areas where Ripper - and that for matter matters, even occasional suspect-oriented - research must focus today. That is why I said that studying the smaller mysteries within the mystery, the local history of the East End, genealogical research on people figuring in in the case, research into the problems with the canonization of some victims (like Stride and Kelly) etc. probably learns us more about the case and gives us a better understanding of it, rather than trying to name the killer (something that we most likely never will be able to do anyway).

That is the relevant direction of modern Ripper research, while looking for the killer's identity seems outdated. In all, the police in 1888 - who had access to all first hand information, witnesses and suspects on the case - didn't manage to solve the case and we most likely won't be able to do it today with even less information than they had.

All the best

[Cap'n Jack]

'Tis but modern opinion to opinion that the case was never solved.
The concurrence and conclusion of most senior police officers involved in the case was that the killer was HMP'd to Broadmoor for some other offence.
As I pointed out before it would have been legally impossible to bring him back to court to face further charges once under Her Majesty's Pleasure and protection.
I'd ask a question.
Why do folks think that the 'Sun' newspaper never actually named Thomas Cutbush in their series of articles on Jack the Ripper?
And 'nother one.
Why did Macnaghten keep his response to the series of articles as a private memo; and not respond publicly to the accusations?

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

AP,

"The concurrence and conclusion of most senior police officers involved in the case was that the killer was HMP'd to Broadmoor for some other offence."

I am sorry, but there is not a hint of any of this in the police files or any statement from any important officer involved in the case, so how you came to this conclusion baffles me.

It is perfectly clear in the police files, and in statements from a number of most senior officers connected with the case, that the case wasn't solved and that the identity of the murderer was unknown. There is no doubt about it.
Again - if this wasn't the case, then we wouldn't have a number of different suggestions of suspects from those officials and investigators.
People like Littlechild (with connections to the Special Branch) and Swanson (orobably the one officer who had full insight into all the information needed to solve the case) would no doubt have known and mentioned any such information. Littlechild, on the other hand, mentioned Tumblety. As for Swanson, we don't even know if his reference to 'Komsinski' actually meant that he believed this Jewish alsylum inmate was the Ripper the Ripper - his notes could just as well only be a comment to Anderson's statements in the memoirs about a suspect (one of many), he never actually clarifies that this man was Jack the Ripper.
Anderson's statements, on the other hand, appears in a commercial book (his memoirs) and articles, and are written several years after the events - most likely some sort of personal bragging in order to make himself important in retrospect. By the time that the actually murders occurred, there is not a hint of any suspicion against any suspect more than anyone else.

The case was never solved, AP, and there is no conspiracy.
All we have is personal theorizing and opinions in statements made by SOME senior officrers in retrospect several years after the events, and they are not even unanimous or uniform - in fact, many contradict each other.

Only a brief reading of the police files confirms this. Covering up information and hiding it from the press or general public is one thing but it's hardly likely it would occur internally or such important information in a key case not be visible in internal classified documents. This is the point that is always missed by you or other people who believe that the police knew the identity of the killer or that the case was solved by the police.

All the best

[Sasha]

Good posts by Michael and Sasha here,

I believe those are areas where Ripper - and that for matter matters, even occasional suspect-oriented - research must focus today. That is why I said that studying the smaller mysteries within the mystery, the local history of the East End, genealogical research on people figuring in in the case, research into the problems with the canonization of some victims (like Stride and Kelly) etc. probably learns us more about the case and gives us a better understanding of it, rather than trying to name the killer (something that we most likely never will be able to do anyway).

That is the relevant direction of modern Ripper research, while looking for the killer's identity seems outdated. In all, the police in 1888 - who had access to all first hand information, witnesses and suspects on the case - didn't manage to solve the case and we most likely won't be able to do it today with even less information than they had.

All the best

Thanks Glenn. I like how you approach the subject and hope that our collective contemplation of the subject may reveal some answers in what has become an enigma within a mystery. And if I may be so bold, we have something the police at the time didn't have, less pressure to find a person to nail for the crime - even if he wasn't the killer. I think, and hope, that's important.

My best to you and yours.

Sasha

[Cap'n Jack]

'Jack the Ripper was consigned to Broadmoor by virtue of a warrant of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, acting in the name of the sovereign, and not by means of any judicial process.'
(Sir Robert Anderson. New York Times interview, 1908.)

If the Whitechapel Murderer had been consigned thus to Broadmoor as Sir Robert claims in this interview then there is sound legal argument as to why he would have never been named in any documentation as the Whitechapel Murderer... and this is for the same reason that neither the 'Sun' could name him, nor senior police officers of the time.
An individual who received 'Her Majesty's Pleasure' was actually acquitted of the crime - or crimes - he had committed, passing beyond the jurisdiction of the police and courts, and into the power of the sovereign.
Being acquitted the individual was found not guilty of the Whitechapel Murders, and was therefore legally innocent of the crimes.
To have claimed otherwise, in any form or manner, where this individual was named would have been a clear and direct libel, for he had been acquitted of all charges by the highest legal power in the land, who would not have taken kindly to Her Pleasure being known.

[Scott Nelson]

Careful reading of the New York Times article shows that Robert Anderson said no such thing. It was an assumption of the journalist.

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Thanks, Sasha.
Well you're absolutely right, that we are subjected to less pressure then the 1888 police (I believe the pressure from the newspapers, the general public and political agendas heavily burdened the efforts of the police). We also have another thing, namely more experience in serial killers than they had in those days.
On the other hand, it is my opinion that there simply is too little remaining information in order to prove the guilt of any suspect of being Jack the Ripper. It has gone 120 years and too much time has passed and too much information and evidence have been lost. This s true not only in the Ripper case but in any unsolved case this old.

The best to you too.

------------------

AP,

Are you actually telling me that this 'evidence' or document you've been referring to is a newspaper article?

All the best

[Cap'n Jack]

Careful reading of the New York Times article shows that nobody knows who said anything; I think it fair to say that it was an interview with Sir Robert Anderson where the reporter was quoting his words, as is the normal circumstance in such interviews.
Or does one imagine that the senior diplomat who conducted the interview just made it up as he went along?

'But the most important point of all made by Sir Robert Anderson is the fact that once the Criminal Investigation Department was sure that it had in its hands the real perpetrator of the Whitechapel Murders, it procured from the Secretary of State for the Home Department a warrant committing the man for detention 'during the King's Pleasure' to the great asylum for the criminal insane 5 or 6 years ago.'

That quote leaves no room for error.
Of course there are two possibilities here if we are to believe Anderson.
The first being that all of the prisoners being held under Her Majesty's Pleasure at Broadmoor did in 1901 become free when Her Majesty died, which is why the new king was busy with ensuring that these prisoners were then under 'His Majesty's Pleasure' and would remain in Broadmoor.
The second of course being that there is an unknown suspect out there, arrested between 1901 and 1903 who was sectioned under HMP before he was allowed to plead.

[Cap'n Jack]

This is how it was done.
A Jew. A simple theft. No previous.
No court, or police record.
But the poor bloke gets a life sentence in Broadmoor.
Why?

'HENRY WILLUTZKI, Theft > simple larceny, 21st March 1904.


Reference Number: t19040321-295
Offence: Theft > simple larceny
Verdict: Miscellaneous > unfit to plead
Punishment: Imprisonment > insanity
See original
295. HENRY WILLUTZKI (49) . Stealing a centre piece, the goods of J. W. Benson. Ltd.

MR. ARNOLD Prosecuted.

Upon the evidence of Dr. James Scott, the medical officer at Brixton Prison, the Jury found that the prisoner was insane, and unfit to plead to the indictment. To be detained during His Majesty's pleasure. '

[Scott Nelson]

Are you sure the New York Times piece was in 1908, A.P.? - not 1910?? [March 20th]. Did Senior Diplomat (or "Veteran Diplomat") read Anderson's Blackwood articles and assume that the incarceration of a suspect took place "during the King's pleasure"??

[perrymason]

Hello again,

Thanks Sasha and Glenn for the support, its appreciated.

I do think AP might well have something in his conjecture though, ...the only reason we believe the cases werent solved is because the investigation formally closed in 1992 If I recall correctly, and without a named suspect or prisoner.

Would we have a "Case Closed" if in fact they did incarcerate or institutionalize without a trial? Or would we know of a man who was suspected of being the culprit, but was incarcerated under a different crime....and never released?

What was more important as an investigator....believing you have stopped the killer from further crimes, or telling everyone that you had?

Best regards all

[Cap'n Jack]

Quite right, Scott, it was 1910.
Was not Sir Robert in New York for conference?
I believe that Anderson would have been intimately involved, before his retirement in 1901, with the transfer of dangerous lunatics at Broadmoor from 'Her Majesty's Pleasure' to 'His Majesty's Pleasure'. This had to be prepared before the reigning monarch died, otherwise the dangerous lunatics would have been free to walk the streets.
It is probably while he was reading these case details that he formed an opinion as to the Whitechapel Murders.
Amongst the cases he would have had him front of him in 1901 would have been Thomas Cutbush; and one entertains the suspicion that it was Cutbush's death in 1903 that gave Anderson his time scale in this.
However one has to say that very little time is given to actually testing his theory... that Jack the Ripper was a Jew who had been HMP'd five or six years before 1910.

[Cap'n Jack]

Thank you, Michael, for recognising the point I am trying to make here.
It is simple but appears to be elusive to many.
I think of a certain Max Adler (31) here who was HMP'd in 1902 for a fairly minor offence, and was wondering whether he might be related to the Chief Rabbi of London?
That's not a hot potato, that's a Hiroshima potato.