Dear Boss

[Stewart P Evans]

1996

Huh? That's not what you said. You said, 'How can anyone have 'no trouble' accepting Le Grand as Stride's killer?' That's quite a different statement. You're saying that no one would believe Le Grand is Stride's killer, and it IS recorded fact that people HAVE believed him to be so. As for the rest of your post, it was way off the mark.
You were on the Casebook back in 1997? I thought you didn't get involved with the boards for some years after.
Yours truly,
Tom Wescott

I was on the old boards back in 1996 and still have printouts to prove it. I thought Caz first posted in 1998.

[mariab]

Abby Normal wrote:
What are the inaccuracies in Sugden (I own/read it) concerning kozminsky and Stride? I was not aware of this.
As he said.

[Tom_Wescott]

the Dear Boss, from Hell and 1896 letter(last one received) have an air of authenticity for me.

Hi Abby. The consensus at the time (and now) regarding the 1896 letter is that it was written by a different hand than 'Dear Boss', and of course, 'From Hell' is certainly by a different hand.

Regarding Sugden and Kosminsky, John Malcolm published a rather biting but nevertheless spot on article in the third issue of Casebook Examiner detailing the numerous inaccuracies and leaps of logic made by Sugden regarding Anderson and Kosminsky. As for Stride, not a single author to date has been able to give us an accurate write-up on the Stride murder, but Sugden's is certainly one of the better ones.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Abby Normal]

Hello Abby,
I've just received JTR – Letters from Hell and Scotland Yard investigates from amazon.uk too, but there's NO way that I'll be able to read it before several weeks. At any rate, Sugden and The Ultimate will come first, as they're older publications (and Sugden contains inaccuracies pertaining to Kozminsky and Stride). As it happens, my entire (non electronic) lit on Ripperology (consisting of just the 4 aforementioned books, plus Paley and a couple Ripper Notes) is stuck at the foot of a cupboard by my bed, awaiting to be read to completion (as the living room/office is already more or less chock full of stacks of books and materials pertaining to articles and book that await completion too). Sometimes I wonder if it's mentally healthy that I sleep like a baby with all these postmortem photos practically at the foot of my bed...
As for the From Hell letter, it might have been a hoax or (perhaps) authentic. I'm looking forward to absorbing more information pertaining to it.

Hi Maria
The 1896 letter is a pretty fascinating item, as the police actually took the time to compare it to the orginal Dear Boss letter because of the similarities.

What are the inaccuracies in Sugden (I own/read it) concerning kozminsky and Stride? I was not aware of this.

[mariab]

Hello Abby,
I've just received JTR – Letters from Hell and Scotland Yard investigates from amazon.uk too, but there's NO way that I'll be able to read it before several weeks. At any rate, Sugden and The Ultimate will come first, as they're older publications (and Sugden contains inaccuracies pertaining to Kozminsky and Stride). As it happens, my entire (non electronic) lit on Ripperology (consisting of just the 4 aforementioned books, plus Paley and a couple Ripper Notes) is stuck at the foot of a cupboard by my bed, awaiting to be read to completion (as the living room/office is already more or less chock full of stacks of books and materials pertaining to articles and book that await completion too). Sometimes I wonder if it's mentally healthy that I sleep like a baby with all these postmortem photos practically at the foot of my bed...
As for the From Hell letter, it might have been a hoax or (perhaps) authentic. I'm looking forward to absorbing more information pertaining to it.

[Abby Normal]

I wonder when I'll be able to finally read Sugden, The Ultimate, JTR - Letters from Hell, and SC investigates plus tons of related threads, so as to stop being considered a newbie. If things keep going as crazy as this professionally, I won't be able to engage in my “reading list“ before December, possibly even not before the Xmas holidays. But if the French start striking and demonstrating like crazy again, as they just announced in the news today, I might need to change my planning, resulting in more free time for Ripperology. Leave it on da French to decide...

Hi maria
I Am reading Letters from Hell now- just got from Amazon. Get it-very fascinating. After perusing the many received letters-IMHO the Dear Boss, from Hell and 1896 letter(last one received) have an air of authenticity for me.

[mariab]

I wonder when I'll be able to finally read Sugden, The Ultimate, JTR - Letters from Hell, and SC investigates plus tons of related threads, so as to stop being considered a newbie. If things keep going as crazy as this professionally, I won't be able to engage in my “reading list“ before December, possibly even not before the Xmas holidays. But if the French start striking and demonstrating like crazy again, as they just announced in the news today, I might need to change my planning, resulting in more free time for Ripperology. Leave it on da French to decide...

[Tom_Wescott]

So you can see that the ‘idea’ I was talking about is the one which has us all ‘accepting Le Grand as Stride’s killer’ - as if that is recorded fact.

Huh? That's not what you said. You said, 'How can anyone have 'no trouble' accepting Le Grand as Stride's killer?' That's quite a different statement. You're saying that no one would believe Le Grand is Stride's killer, and it IS recorded fact that people HAVE believed him to be so. As for the rest of your post, it was way off the mark.

I remember her coming onto the boards as a newbie, now that is going back a bit.

You were on the Casebook back in 1997? I thought you didn't get involved with the boards for some years after.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Stewart P Evans]

Newbie

No blame, Maria. Caz has been on the boards longer than myself (which pretty much means longer than ANYONE), so she knows the thread to not go off topic has yet to be created...
Tom Wescott

I remember her coming onto the boards as a newbie, now that is going back a bit.

[mariab]

Caz wrote:
If the plan was to spread rumours that would fool the press and the public into believing the police were fools, he did a fair job of it - despite Packer’s poor performance. But it makes no sense as a plan by Stride's killer to fool the police if they knew the rumours were false.
Hello Caz,
I'm not the one who's convinced that Le Grand murdered Stride. I'm prepared to go as far as considering it a possibility, especially with Pipeman's description ressembling Le Grand's. But since we don't even know if Schwartz' testimony was truthful, there is a serious probability that Pipeman never existed. My first suspicion pertaining to Le Grand is, like you said, that he spread the rumors to promote the WVC, for financial gain, and for hate of the police. And I absolutely believe that he ought to be researched very thoroughly, as well as Joseph Aarons.
On the other side, in the possibility that Le Grand might have murdered Stride himself, Le Grand's motivation for muddling the waters DOESN'T necessarily require to make sense. Things that assailants of such caliber do usually don't make much sense, even if their motives for acting are identifiable.
And by the way, I'm looking forward to reading your editorial in Examiner 4.

[caz]

There's no idea here, it's recorded fact. Le Grand fit the description of Pipeman...Le Grand clearly succeeded in gaining the compliance of Packer and the two sisters. The four of them together created a case for a man to have been seen with Stride prior to her murder. The entire event was believed by the police then and researchers now to have been fictional. This is documented history, Caz, so I fail to see how you can regard it as preposterous. Perhaps you're not a curious person, but I am, and I was struck by this years ago, wanting to know WHY Le Grand made this effort.

Here is my original point again, Tom (ie not the edited version you chose to quote and respond to):

How can anyone have 'no trouble' accepting Le Grand as Stride's killer? The idea is beyond preposterous - a stranger who is Pipeman's lofty double succeeds in squeezing fruit-based lies from at least three bogus witnesses, to put a mythical grape-buying suspect in his place, and they all fall in with his plans, just like that?

So you can see that the ‘idea’ I was talking about is the one which has us all ‘accepting Le Grand as Stride’s killer’ - as if that is recorded fact.

If it were recorded fact, I doubt you would have needed to fanny about all this time, gathering 'evidence' for the prosecution. Your ‘idea’ involves Le Grand being Pipeman, being Stride’s killer, and coaxing lies from an assortment of strangers to put a mythical suspect in his - ie the murderer’s - place. It’s Hutch and Lewis’s lurker all over again. If the descriptions matched because they were one and the same, with Le Grand doing for Stride and Hutch for Kelly, they were both taking a helluva chance, putting themselves under the spotlight like this, with the risk that someone would recognise them from the scenes of crime. And for what? Pipeman was never positively identified as far as we know, and nor was Lewis’s lurker.

Believe me, I have asked myself - and you - WHY Le Grand would have ‘made this effort’ if he had been guilty of murdering Stride, and I’m still coming up empty. It makes perfect sense, however, if his game was promoting the need for vigilance committees and private detectives - ie men like himself and his sidekick - by making the police appear incapable of doing the job without them.

Caz, I apologize. We got from the “Dear Boss“ letter to Le Grand via the Lusk letter and kidney, for which some people (not necessarily me) suspect the WVC (as in Joseoh Aarons and Le Grand) to have been involved in a scheme, so the discussion was indeed related.

I know how you got to Le Grand, Maria, but there is a separate thread for the Lusk letter, and none of this was related to the Dear Boss discussion - unless Le Grand was supposed to have had a hand in that letter too.

Caz, regarding Le Grand (whom I've never claimed to consider as the “main“ Ripper suspect), somebody DEFINITELY squeezed fruit-based lies from at least three bogus witnesses to put a mythical grape-buying suspect in his place. Only, as almost always with such schemes, it didn't quite fall in with the way it was planned.

See my response to Tom. Regardless of the precise role played by Le Grand in spreading the grape rumours, you don’t know that it was DEFINITELY to put a mythical suspect ‘in his place’ - not at all. You don’t know where Le Grand’s ‘place’ was when Stride was being murdered, any more than I do or Tom does.

If the plan was to spread rumours that would fool the press and the public into believing the police were fools, he did a fair job of it - despite Packer’s poor performance. But it makes no sense as a plan by Stride's killer to fool the police if they knew the rumours were false.

The bone I had to pick concerned Tom's bold assertion posted to this thread. But I would have picked it regardless of where he chose to post it.

Consider it picked - now back to Dear Boss!

Love,

Caz
X

[Tom_Wescott]

No blame, Maria. Caz has been on the boards longer than myself (which pretty much means longer than ANYONE), so she knows the thread to not go off topic has yet to be created. She evidently has a bone to pick at present. I'm happy to answer any and all questions about Le Grand, or whatever, regardless of the thread.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[mariab]

Tom Wescott wrote:
You're an observant woman, Caz, so I know you must have recognized that I was directly responding to a post from Maria regarding her hopes for my book. In fact, I generally don't post about Le Grand at all unless it's in response to someone else's post, or happens to be quite on topic.
Wow, Tom, give all the blame to me – I can totally take it. (Isn't there even a song sung by Rita Hayworth in some movie called like that?)
Caz, I apologize. We got from the “Dear Boss“ letter to Le Grand via the Lusk letter and kidney, for which some people (not necessarily me) suspect the WVC (as in Joseoh Aarons and Le Grand) to have been involved in a scheme, so the discussion was indeed related. Still, it's all totally my responsibility, so, give it to me people, all together!
Caz, regarding Le Grand (whom I've never claimed to consider as the “main“ Ripper suspect), somebody DEFINITELY squeezed fruit-based lies from at least three bogus witnesses to put a mythical grape-buying suspect in his place. Only, as almost always with such schemes, it didn't quite fall in with the way it was planned.
I assume that the “Red Demon“ thing is something similar to the “Saddam“/“Mephisto“ thing – and not so much like the “Maria Birchwood“ thing.

[Tom_Wescott]

Er, I thought this was the Dear Boss thread. Or was Lofty Le Grand lurking behind that one too? Quit with the Ben/Hutch impressions, will you Tom? Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery but you will end up flattery on your face if you are not careful.

You're an observant woman, Caz, so I know you must have recognized that I was directly responding to a post from Maria regarding her hopes for my book. In fact, I generally don't post about Le Grand at all unless it's in response to someone else's post, or happens to be quite on topic.

The idea is beyond preposterous - a stranger who is Pipeman's lofty double succeeds in squeezing fruit-based lies from at least three bogus witnesses, to put a mythical grape-buying suspect in his place, and they all fall in with his plans, just like that?

There's no idea here, it's recorded fact. Le Grand fit the description of Pipeman...Le Grand clearly succeeded in gaining the compliance of Packer and the two sisters. The four of them together created a case for a man to have been seen with Stride prior to her murder. The entire event was believed by the police then and researchers now to have been fictional. This is documented history, Caz, so I fail to see how you can regard it as preposterous. Perhaps you're not a curious person, but I am, and I was struck by this years ago, wanting to know WHY Le Grand made this effort. My curiosity led to the discovery that he was a bonafide Jack the Ripper suspect. Perhaps I missed something, but has YOUR personal curiosity and research led to the discovery of a new suspect? Can any of my regular naysayers make that claim? I think not. This is why posts such as yours (and the many like it) come off as making the author look quite petty.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[D.B.Wagstaff]

Or . . .

Perhaps, to heighten the suspense? Or maybe the letter is a hoax and the writer has no idea when the next murder might take place, so he asks them to hold back on releasing the letter until the next murder takes place, to muddy the waters a bit.