2008 Ripper Conference, Knoxville, TN

[Suzi]

Bring on The Camel Song !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
xx

John- Damned sure you're on a winner with Cadosh!!

Adrian- Ripperland at the Xmas do??? It's just WONDERFUL!!!!!!

[Ally]

When the great drunk wears off come in and give us some details!

How much was raised for charity? What was the "new evidence" as described in the pre-conference press release that was presented? And who presented it?

I need a shot of kilted Alan! Did he sing? Did anyone notice his knees?

[Kelly]

I still have a lot of end-of-conference business to attend to, plus taking Philip to the airport today. I'll post properly later, but I just wanted to say...

...how are there so many conference posts by delegates before it was even over? I was too busy attending a conference to post!

[George Hutchinson]

Kelly - what can I say? We are just sooooo wonderful.

To counter Alan's deliberate choice of the worst photos of me he could find (by his own admission) I have one of Alan, kilted, at the banquet. Trust me, this does not look typical Scottish. This is Grayson Perry. And I will most CERTAINLY be posting it when I get home.

I've got five hours before Kelly and Dan take me to the airport so I'm going to look around the town. It is STILL blazing sunshine outside. I had no idea Tennessee was so beautiful. It was not at all like I expected the South to be. I was expecting rednecks in clapped-out pick-ups, dirt, dust and ramshackle old houses. Nope. It's fab - and I've been driven past the world famous Body Farm a couple of times already (no bodies visible, of course!)

Ally - there wasn't any new EVIDENCE at the Conference. There was a lot of things we didn't know about Tumblety that were revelatory and there was, of course, my photo.

Suzi - there are photos of the cat for you. Not quite as ostentatious as they might be if you were present, but there's a few.

PHILIP

[Dan Norder]

How much was raised for charity?

The charity auction was separate from the conference funding auction, and we let everyone know that items will also be available online for bids just to make sure that the great stuff Simon Wood donated will have a chance to raise as much as we can for Jeremy Beadle's favorite charity: Children With Leukaemia. Give us a chance to finish up the remaining loose ends we need to tie up with the hotel and making sure the speakers who are still in town get to the airport alright and we'll post the items up on special threads here.

So far, with the bids already in, we have just under $300 raised so far. We expect at least one of those items -- the limited edition Camille Wolff book with some 40 signatures of Ripperati past and present -- to bring in more bids. On top of that, on the last day Robert McLaughlin graciously donated a signed copy of his very rare book The First Jack the Ripper Victim Photographs to the charity auction, which never got the chance to get bids yet and will most likely do pretty well.

What was the "new evidence" as described in the pre-conference press release that was presented? And who presented it?

There are a variety of things that could qualify, but there were two big completely brand new ones:

The first is the photo Philip has mentioned above, which Philip will reveal to the rest of the world in the way he sees fit. But I can say it's a great photo, and it visually confirms a lot of specifics about a major Ripper crime scene that we could only speculate about previously. In my opinion, it's one of the the most significant discoveries in this field in the last decade or more.

The second was my announcement of some of the results of research Kelly and I made that was helped along by unprecedented access to the personal effects of Dr. Thomas Openshaw through one of his descendants,. This included some never before seen photos and, most importantly, confirmation that Openshaw did, in fact, expressly conclude that the Lusk letter was a hoax by a medical student. (Previous to this we only knew that he denied what some press reports had falsely claimed he said and could only mke an educated guess about what his unstated opinion actually was.) Oh, and not to mention we tracked down the ultimate fate of the Lusk kidney after the Whitechapel murders investigation... More details on all of this will, of course, be published later.

And of course the speakers also gave out a lot of other new and little-known information.

[Suzi]

Some serious multi-tasking went on there Frip!
Safe journey back!- Looking forward to all the pics!!!- (And the words/tune to The Camel Song!!)


Suz x

[Dan Norder]

Ally - there wasn't any new EVIDENCE at the Conference.

You're way too modest sometimes, Philip...

[George Hutchinson]

Ah, I wasn't thinking clearly, Dan.

Another thing that springs to mind was your 1868 ILN finding (the duplicate of which I bought at the auction). I'll leave it to you to say what it is, seeing as you did all the work on it!

PHILIP

[Ally]

This included some never before seen photos and, most importantly, confirmation that Openshaw did, in fact, expressly conclude that the Lusk letter was a hoax by a medical student. (Previous to this we only knew that he denied what some press reports had falsely claimed he said and could only mke an educated guess about what his unstated opinion actually was.) Oh, and not to mention we tracked down the ultimate fate of the Lusk kidney after the Whitechapel murders investigation... More details on all of this will, of course, be published later.

Way decent finds. Kudos to you and Kelly. I look forward to reading the details on that. Any estimation of when it will be published? Although I am sure the major details will be gossiped about, its always better to have a first hand account. Get busy.

[Dan Norder]

Ally,

Thanks. We've been working on it for about a year while we were also planning the conference, but now that that's over we hope to finish it up and get it out by the end of the year.

Philip,

The 1869 Illustrated London News "The Fisherman's Widow" print and the Illustrated London Almanac reprint were discussed briefly (and the former displayed) in this thread earlier this year. The different print by the same name that was in the 1882 book Sea Pictures Drawn with Pen and Pencil was shown in public for the first time at the conference. I consider that whole topic quite interesting as trivia goes, but of course knowing which print it was on the wall would not get us any closer to finding the killer, so it's not part of the "new evidence" I mentioned in a press release that Ally was asking about.

[The Grave Maurice]

So it's a picture of Diemschutz's pony and cart?

Hey! My guess was the closest. I should at least get a photocopy of the picture or summat.

[George Hutchinson]

Nice try. No banana.

Something will be sorted on that front very soon.

I've just got home after a 16-hour journey. England is cold and grey and small and dirty and I miss Knoxville and the sun hugely!

The flight home was easy. The cabin crew were still unfriendly but at least they weren't rude. I'm off to bed in a few minutes to sleep all day as I'm giving a tour tonight.

Dan and Kelly dropped me at the airport a little early, and the wonderful Sherry on check-in advanced my flight to Carolina... and I ended up spending the whole first flight sitting next to Martin, who was booked on that previous flight anyway! He and Karen have adopted me, it seems, and I've got an offer (several, actually) to go and stay with them in Cape Cod. I was just staggered how well we got on.

Knoxville 2008 was a wonderful, wonderful experience. I am so, so glad I went and honoured I was asked to speak. Kelly and Dan did an amazing job. Seamless. It is such a shame that the Global Recession affected numbers.

If you ever go to Knoxville, stay at the Four Points By Sheraton. It was brilliant.

PHILIP

[The Grave Maurice]

It is such a shame that the Global Recession affected numbers.

I think most of us would have booked the trip long before we knew anything about the economic meltdown. The difficulty, for Canadians at least, was that the conference fell on the same weekend as our Thanksgiving Day. My family puts up with a lot, but they wouldn't be too happy about my swanning off to a JtR conference on a fairly major holiday.

Congrats on locating the picture, by the way. A major find. I look forward to seeing it in due course.

[Kelly]

That's an oversight on my own part, and I apologize. I didn't learn about Canadian Thanksgiving until Robert McLaughlin let me know he'd have to leave early on Sunday. Mea culpa.

My biggest concern was making certain it didn't fall on a local football weekend. It turns out every event in town had the same thought and scheduled events the same weekend. We found ourselves in the midst of a Race for the Cure and a Beer Festival on Saturday, much to the surprise of the drive-in delegates!

[Kelly]

Philip will love this!

Dan and I dropped by the hotel today to settle up, and the girl at the front desk recognized us as the conference people and waved at us. When we approached the desk, she said, "We really enjoyed Mr. Hutchinson.