Best solution?

[Roy Corduroy]

It was the Metropolitan Police who did the promoting, by enlarging the JtR correspondence to poster size and splashing it across London.

And everyone bought it—hook, line and sinker.

I always thought the Metropolitan Police were using it as a clue. By publicizing it they were hoping to get a response from the public which could lead to apprehension of the murderer. You know, police work. What police do. Like the way the Unibomber Manifesto was printed in full in the press, leading to the arrest and conviction of Ted Kaczynski. His brother read it and recognized it as Ted's rant.

You make is sound like the police knew the 'Ripper' correspondence was a put-on the moment they saw it, but went ahead anyway publicizing it. Is that what you are suggesting, Simon? Police knowingly put out fraudulent posters? Intentionally misleading the public at that time? Their evil plot to lie, cheat and obsfucate was already hatched pronto.

Roy

[Wickerman]

I can't imagine anyone truly believing that Chapman's murder was a one-off, or likewise, Eddowes murder, following directly after Chapman's, was another one-off.
Unlike Tabram, Stride, McKenzie & Coles, which can be readily seen as singular occurrances, right or wrong.

It would require a uniquely creative argument to have one murderer do what he did to Annie Chapman, and for what reason?, and to never kill again.
Likewise, for what rational reason would anyone do that to Eddowes but, never kill again?

If the perceived increase in mutilations is real, we are being asked to believe that four strangers murdered Nichols, Chapman, Eddowes then Kelly, in measured furiosity.

Regards, Jon S.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Bridewell,

Only if you believe Scotland Yard was exceedingly gullible.

Regards,

Simon

[Simon Wood]

Hi Caz,

Your lovingly condescending tone tells me that you believe the Jack the Ripper mythos to be sacrosanct and not to be meddled with.

That's cool with me. So let's make a deal. You keep the faith whilst I look for the truth.

Regards,

Simon

[Bridewell]

Hi Bridewell,

It was the Metropolitan Police who did the promoting, by enlarging the JtR correspondence to poster size and splashing it across London.

And everyone bought it—hook, line and sinker.

Regards,

Simon

Hi Simon,

Doesn't that just mean that, at the time, they bought it, hook, line and sinker along with everyone else?

Regards, Bridewell.

[caz]

That there was no JtR is best illustrated by the contradictory reports of his fate.

Dead, committed to an asylum, doing a stretch in prison, got away from London, dead again, back in an asylum, fled to America, committed suicide, about to meet the hangman . . . the list of anecdotal rumours goes on and on, each attributable to various police sources.

Er, Simon, wouldn't that be more easily explained by the fact that the Whitechapel murders stopped and nobody was ever caught, leading to as many theories about the killer's fate as there are today about his identity?

If you see this as an indication that there was a whole series of JtRs, who mysteriously all committed murder in the same time frame, picking the same victim type in the same tiny area of town, you might as well suggest that one of the killers died, one ended up in an asylum, one went to prison, one left London, one sailed to America, one topped himself and one was hanged for other murders. This would presumably be your explanation for not one of these murders being solved using the tried and trusted police methods that tended to clear up one-off murders for tangible motives.

I have abandoned any search for a non-existent serial-killing JtR and am instead concentrating on what might really have been going on in the East End of London at the time, which involves why this mythical personage was so heavily promoted by the police.

Well yes, there's not a lot of point in searching for the 'non-existent', so I hope for your sake that all these separate killers actually existed, and this new mystery you are concentrating on turns out to have some substance.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hi Lynn,

Where do I start?

Permit me. If we take the canonical five and one slayer, we must explain why Liz is not mutilated and Polly has organs intact. The best we can come up with is the deus ex machina, "Oh, well, he was interrupted."

The best is more than adequate in the circumstances. It would have been a bloomin' miracle for any murderer to have lingered moments longer with any one of the victims without someone coming upon the scene. This wasn't exactly happening far from the madding crowd.

We must explain why we are/are not looking for a thief--Polly was not pilfered, Kate was.

No killer is a robot, and no two crimes by the same hand are ever identical. I expect if Bundy had not been caught you could have pointed to differences in every single one of his murders and argued against a lone killer for all. In any case, how do you know something was not taken from each Whitechapel victim, without necessarily being missed? If by 'pilfered' you mean the organs, then Polly was not pilfered, but Annie was.

Also we can propose a weak but barely passing suspect like Barnett as the killer of "MJK" without the silly attempts to explain why he HAD to kill Kate.

Or we can go with the police verdict at the time that Barnett could safely be eliminated. No explanation needed as to why a serial mutilator might have killed Kate and MJK. It would have been rude not to, when they were handing their vulnerability out on a plate.

It is what Mr Evans reminded us of in his "Ultimate Companion"--keep seriality in the back of your mind but treat each as a case in itself.

Absolutely fair enough, except that some profess no interest in exploring seriality as a phenomenon, and have banished it entirely from their mind, allowing no comparisons to be made with the WM.

Serial killing? No, not even one serial killer in the Autumn of 1888--unless the torso killer were such.

I rest my case.

Love,

Caz
X

[Simon Wood]

Hi Bridewell,

It was the Metropolitan Police who did the promoting, by enlarging the JtR correspondence to poster size and splashing it across London.

And everyone bought it—hook, line and sinker.

Regards,

Simon

[Abby Normal]

Hi Jon,

You appear to be suggesting that, whilst the persona of JtR may have been fiction, a "serial killer" operating independently of the name was hard at work.

That's a rose by any other name.

Try setting the Whitechapel murders mystery into the context of there having been no common perpetrator.

I promise that it will prove to be an illuminating experience.

Regards,

Simon

Simon/all
or perhaps the opposite and also illuminating experience of placing ALL the unsolved murders, including the torso murders, into the context of there being a common perpatrator.

Leaving the police/gov/royal conspiracies out of the picture, consider the following.

If you beleive there are several, or seperate killers for each/most of the WC murders-do you also beleive there are seperate killers for each/most of the torso murders? If not-whats the difference? They are both a series of unsolved murders.


Whats more probable- that there are a gaggle of murderers running around killing women of the same class at the same time or just two seperate serial killers operating? Take it one step further-Is it more probable that two serial killers are operating at the same time (at a time when serial killing was extremely rare) or one man perpetrating both the WC and Torso murders?

[Bridewell]

I have abandoned any search for a non-existent serial-killing JtR and am instead concentrating on what might really have been going on in the East End of London at the time, which involves why this mythical personage was so heavily promoted by the police.

Was this "mythical personage" not in fact promoted in letters to the police, rather than by them?

Regards, Bridewell.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Caz,

What's it all about?

If I knew that I'd probably be stonkingly rich and peeling you a grape on some sun-kissed tropical island.

However, back in the real world, it has become fairly obvious [to me at least] that there was no lone JtR to catch and bring to justice. Just as there was no lone homicidal maniac known as Leather Apron, a myth squashed in quick-smart time following the murder of Annie Chapman, the real game-changer in the Whitechapel mystery.

That there was no JtR is best illustrated by the contradictory reports of his fate.

Dead, committed to an asylum, doing a stretch in prison, got away from London, dead again, back in an asylum, fled to America, committed suicide, about to meet the hangman . . . the list of anecdotal rumours goes on and on, each attributable to various police sources.

Imagine if two or more of these police sources had agreed.

Somebody might have demanded to see their evidence.

And so the Ripper mystery rumbled on inconclusively until such time nobody really cared any more and the matter of his identity became little more than a cosy parlour game.

I have abandoned any search for a non-existent serial-killing JtR and am instead concentrating on what might really have been going on in the East End of London at the time, which involves why this mythical personage was so heavily promoted by the police.

Therein, I believe, lies the real answer to the mystery behind the Whitechapel murders.

Regards,

Simon

[lynn cates]

utility

Hello Caroline.

"I have seen no attempts to explain the reasoning behind this speculation, or to provide any real evidence that a serial mutilator was not abroad in Whitechapel. Serial killing was and is a rare enough phenomenon as it is, but we are being asked to consider something that would apparently be unique in the long history of crime."

Permit me. If we take the canonical five and one slayer, we must explain why Liz is not mutilated and Polly has organs intact. The best we can come up with is the deus ex machina, "Oh, well, he was interrupted."

We must explain why we are/are not looking for a thief--Polly was not pilfered, Kate was.

Also we can propose a weak but barely passing suspect like Barnett as the killer of "MJK" without the silly attempts to explain why he HAD to kill Kate.

It is what Mr Evans reminded us of in his "Ultimate Companion"--keep seriality in the back of your mind but treat each as a case in itself.

Serial killing? No, not even one serial killer in the Autumn of 1888--unless the torso killer were such.

Cheers.
LC

[caz]

I agree Jon. I've been asking this ever since the first converts began to appear, suggesting these 'unfortunate' murders could more easily be solved if we presumed each was by a different hand, and presumably committed for a variety of motives.

I have seen no attempts to explain the reasoning behind this speculation, or to provide any real evidence that a serial mutilator was not abroad in Whitechapel. Serial killing was and is a rare enough phenomenon as it is, but we are being asked to consider something that would apparently be unique in the long history of crime.

What's it all about? Nobody ever actually says.

Love,

Caz
X

[Wickerman]

Hi Jon,

You appear to be suggesting that, whilst the persona of JtR may have been fiction, a "serial killer" operating independently of the name was hard at work.

I've always accepted, right or wrong, that at the very least three victims fell by the same hand.

Try setting the Whitechapel murders mystery into the context of there having been no common perpetrator.

I promise that it will prove to be an illuminating experience.

I think that interpretation only creates more problems, too many killers in the same area emulating a pattern. Or lets ask the question, why should that perspective make things easier to understand?

What is the benefit to having a dozen different killers from Smith through to Coles?

Regards, Jon S.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jon,

You appear to be suggesting that, whilst the persona of JtR may have been fiction, a "serial killer" operating independently of the name was hard at work.

That's a rose by any other name.

Try setting the Whitechapel murders mystery into the context of there having been no common perpetrator.

I promise that it will prove to be an illuminating experience.

Regards,

Simon