Could anything every turn up to convince us?

[Fisherman]

Well we've had a diary and DNA.

Doubt you will ever get 90% here convinced.

...meaning that the resistance lies with the posters and not within the material.

[Syrius]

I live in hope of a bricked-up room being discovered that contains either body parts, or documents, or ideally both.

But on the other hand, one of the great attractions of this whole thing is not knowing. As far as I'm aware there's not a massive website dedicated to the crimes of Joseph Vacher, largely because he was questioned, confessed, and the got guillotined...case closed.

Damn interesting if anything did turn up, though.

[Michael W Richards]

I wouldn't be here if I thought that there is no way to make sense of the myth/realities of the cases with a unifying storyline and evidence to support it...but whether it would be accepted by a large number of students as a probable solution or not, it would be nearly impossible in my opinion to prove it empirically.

[jerryd]

A mug shot of William Wallace Brodie surfaced this year, thanks to Debs. I would think digging enough may provide more treasures, similar to Brodie, that may open up dead ends.

[GUT]

Well we've had a diary and DNA.

Doubt you will ever get 90% here convinced.

That something else will ever be found? I would have thought this had a very high probability.

As I said, I highly doubt anything could ever come to light to actually solve the cases. The diary and DNA were perhaps the best shots.. but have failed to measure up to scrutiny as to their authenticity etc. Diaries of murderers are rare as it is. The odds of "Jack" writing one, it surviving and it not having been found already.. well now we are talking nigh on impossible. And DNA is so full of hope.. but time and contamination make this also so improbable as to be probably just a pipedream.

But I think the odds of some more documents, photos, contemporary or memoir accounts or other evidence of the JTR crimes being discovered in the future are very high. Surely there must be a few more bits and pieces out there. Somewhere.

No, convinced of any one solution.

[Azarna]

Doubt you will ever get 90% here convinced.

That something else will ever be found? I would have thought this had a very high probability.

As I said, I highly doubt anything could ever come to light to actually solve the cases. The diary and DNA were perhaps the best shots.. but have failed to measure up to scrutiny as to their authenticity etc. Diaries of murderers are rare as it is. The odds of "Jack" writing one, it surviving and it not having been found already.. well now we are talking nigh on impossible. And DNA is so full of hope.. but time and contamination make this also so improbable as to be probably just a pipedream.

But I think the odds of some more documents, photos, contemporary or memoir accounts or other evidence of the JTR crimes being discovered in the future are very high. Surely there must be a few more bits and pieces out there. Somewhere.

[GUT]

I think it is a hopeful attitude, Azarna. Lost paintings and unknown musical compositions have been found, so who is to say that some document from this case, or a previously unknown newspaper article might not be found, sometime in the future.

As a librarian, I think the digitizing of old documents is an amazing way to link us to the people of past times. I recently decided to sign up with Ancestry.com, and was fascinated to see a copy of Marie Jeanette Kelly's death certificate available for view on the site. Her estimated birth year is 1863, and comments have been added as to her more ordinary name and her murder by Jack the Ripper.
Somehow it helps me to feel more connected to all the people I've read about here.

The digitizing of old documents makes research so much easier to those on the other side of the world, and I guess even to those in the UK, being able to search 100 news reports while sitting in your longe room must allow a lt of people to spend a lot more time in research.

[Pcdunn]

I think it is a hopeful attitude, Azarna. Lost paintings and unknown musical compositions have been found, so who is to say that some document from this case, or a previously unknown newspaper article might not be found, sometime in the future.

As a librarian, I think the digitizing of old documents is an amazing way to link us to the people of past times. I recently decided to sign up with Ancestry.com, and was fascinated to see a copy of Marie Jeanette Kelly's death certificate available for view on the site. Her estimated birth year is 1863, and comments have been added as to her more ordinary name and her murder by Jack the Ripper.
Somehow it helps me to feel more connected to all the people I've read about here.

[GUT]

Well we've had a diary and DNA.

Doubt you will ever get 90% here convinced.

[Azarna]

I have often thought about what evidence possibly could come to light which could solve the crime.. if any.

1 - a confession (diary, memoir or similar) - a long shot, would require Jack to actually write down his deeds, the document to have been preserved somewhere up until now, and for it to have details that convinced us that only Jack could have written it

2 - something modern science can use, but which was useless back then - obviously DNA comes to mind but after all this time issues like degradation and contamination, let alone provenance, would make this quite unlikely (did I hear someone say shawlgate?)

3 - contemporary police records - I have wondered if perhaps, with the benefits of hindsight, whether something such as a police constable's original note book might shed new light on the case. Something that was overlooked at the time but with the improved data storage techniques (we can cross reference things easily now) modern examiners might be able to deduce more from it.

4 - more photos - we have so few pictures of the crimes/victims/crime scenes. Perhaps if other images ever came to light then we could use them to help us understand the situation more. It is unlikely this could lead to a definite solution, but what if an additional MJK image, or a shot of Annie's body in the yard at Hanbury Street turned up? (think "From Hell"s suggestion that amateurs might have taken snaps from rooftops or nearby windows.. it is not impossible...)

5 - later recollections - a memoir of someone involved that sheds new light or suggests new theories (like the Swanson Marginalia)

We have so many disadvantages from this point in time. No living witnesses, many records lost or destroyed, others never taken (no GSG photo etc), Victorian attitudes (accounts toned down for "sensitive ears", bodies moved to make them decent, antisemitism, class bias etc), few original locations still standing, very few contemporary images, lack of records for poor Londoners and so on.

But we do have a few advantages over the policemen of 1888, just a wee few.

We have access to a good chunk of the remaining JTR information via the internet, meaning researchers all over the world can see facsimiles of original documents, correlate reports and compare statement etc in ways that the Victorian police just could not. We also have many excellent books dedicated to every aspect of the subject, in great detail. The police in 1888 could draw on the expertise of quite a small number of men. We can access and utilize vast numbers of people, experts in all sorts of fields, all over the world.

We have over 100 years of other, similar crimes to draw on. We can compare to known killers. We can apply the vast wealth of forensic knowledge gained since 1888 to help assess the meager scraps of evidence we have.

And we have some modern technology that can be used to help us extract additional information that would have stunned our Victorian ancestors. We can create 3d models of places, can track the movement of shadows and clouds to date pictures. We can use computers to analyze vast quantities of records to look for patterns and trends.

Is there something out there that could convince us who the murderer (or murderers) was? It seems rather unlikely but I guess I would like to think there just might be.. one day.

But are there things out there, waiting to be discovered, that will shed a tiny bit of light on one or more of the many sub-mysteries of this case? Oh, I definitely think so. A box in an attic, an old lady leaving a dusty book to a relative, a folder of papers being spotted in a book shop, someone coming forward with a long-dead relatives "weird" belongings.

We may be too far away now to ever be able to solve this mystery. But I am convinced there is still a lot to be learned as we continue to peer through the lens we have turned onto this short moment in time.