Lusk Letter sent to George Lusk of the vigilante committee

[curious]

Obviously we are not dealing with somebody with a normal mind so it is hard to try and predict our killers state of mind and his motives.

And I think that is your answer. IF the real killer was responsible for any of the letters/communications I suspect that in his mind he was being very explicit and thought anyone should be able to "get it."

Communication between two friends or family members is sometimes a tricky thing. How much more so between someone like JtR with his mental state and strangers?

curious

[Abby Normal]

And I think that is your answer. IF the real killer was responsible for any of the letters/communications I suspect that in his mind he was being very explicit and thought anyone should be able to "get it."

Communication between two friends or family members is sometimes a tricky thing. How much more so between someone like JtR with his mental state and strangers?

curious

Bingo!

[JTRSickert]

I had a question: If we assume that the letter writer was , in fact, JTR this brings a question to mind: Why would he choose the recipient to be George Lusk and his Whitechapel committee?

While Lusk did, in fact, use his committeee to help keep the streets safe and assist the police in any way possible, he of course was not a policeman and would not know how to conduct an investigation to find the murderer. And yet, the killer chose to write to him and not one of the main policemen on the case (Abberline, Reid, Swanson, or any of the PCs on the beat).

My personal opinion is that JTR viewed Lusk as his "nemesis," someone from his own local neighborhood who was attempting to stop him in his "work," Does anyone have a different interpretation?

[Damaso Marte]

Well, who was the press at the time depicting as the leader of the investigation and of the various anti-ripper activities? If I were the killer and I had no pre-existing biases, I'd target whoever was most salient in the papers.

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi JTR and Damaso,

That's a question that used to be asked a lot but for some reason isn't any more. Why Lusk? He was not a big player at the time. In fact, he's only so well known to us now because of the letter. Basically, he sat around writing letters asking for donations and petitioning for an award. It doesn't make sense that either the Ripper or a hoaxer would choose to waste a human organ (difficult to obtain no matter who it was!) on Lusk.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[JTRSickert]

Hi JTR and Damaso,

That's a question that used to be asked a lot but for some reason isn't any more. Why Lusk? He was not a big player at the time. In fact, he's only so well known to us now because of the letter. Basically, he sat around writing letters asking for donations and petitioning for an award. It doesn't make sense that either the Ripper or a hoaxer would choose to waste a human organ (difficult to obtain no matter who it was!) on Lusk.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

So Tom, in your opinion, do you believe the package he received was authentic, or just another hoaxer wasting everyone's time?

[c.d.]

It could have been from somebody who was hassled or roughed up a bit by one of Lusk's people being a bit overzealous. As Damaso stated, if the individual who took offense at how he was treated didn't know the name of the particular person who hassled him, he might have seen Lusk's name in the paper and determined that his treatment came at Lusk's direction.

c.d.

[Sam Flynn]

if the individual who took offense at how he was treated didn't know the name of the particular person who hassled him, he might have seen Lusk's name in the paper

A survey of all the London newspapers shows how often Lusk's name was in the press leading up to (and after) the 16th October 1888. He'd received quite some coverage in mid-September, and his profile was again on the rise in the days before he received the From Hell letter.

[Tom_Wescott]

So Tom, in your opinion, do you believe the package he received was authentic, or just another hoaxer wasting everyone's time?

I'm not sure it was either, Sickert. And it might have been both. And Sam Flynn's post in part supports my conclusion, though I suspect his purpose in going to the trouble of creating that graph was to create an argument that Lusk was a high profile person. And compared to Joe Blow or Bob Smith, he certainly was. But compared to the police, the Star, and the CNA which had received the Dear Boss letter and proved they could get maximum publicity from it, Lusk was a non-entity.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Sam Flynn]

And Sam Flynn's post in part supports my conclusion, though I suspect his purpose in going to the trouble of creating that graph was to create an argument that Lusk was a high profile person.

I don't believe that Lusk was "high profile" at all, but - as the graph shows - he was certainly in the papers at various times during the "Autumn of Terror". The graph also shows there was a slight spike in terms of Lusk's being mentioned in the papers in the very days that led up to the creation of the From Hell letter. Anybody reading the Ripper coverage in the press at that time (surely a significant percentage of the population) would have known about Lusk and his Vigilance Committee.

[Tom_Wescott]

Do you know why there was a 'spike' in the couple of days prior to receipt of the kidney?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Sam Flynn]

Do you know why there was a 'spike' in the couple of days prior to receipt of the kidney?

Not offhand, Tom, and I'm not overly concerned either. All I'm saying is that somebody seeking a target for a jolly hoax could easily have learned about Lusk from the newspapers.

[Tom_Wescott]

Not offhand, Tom, and I'm not overly concerned either. All I'm saying is that somebody seeking a target for a jolly hoax could easily have learned about Lusk from the newspapers.

Yes. They could have learned about Albert Bachert as well. Or the CNA, police, etc. So...why Lusk? And those who saw the 'Box of toys' postcard sent around Oct. 9th believed it from the same hand as 'From hell'. We then have a hoaxer who sent a postcard that Lusk failed to report and publicize. So why then send a kidney that might meet the same fate?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Sam Flynn]

Yes. They could have learned about Albert Bachert as well. Or the CNA, police, etc. So...why Lusk?

Well, it might have been Bachert or anyone else, I suppose. Perhaps "Lusk" is simply where the pin landed.

[Damaso Marte]

The media narrative is related to a point I've made repeatedly in Maybrick diary threads. The vision people have today is of the Ripper and Abberline being involved in a two person chess game a la Holmes and Moriarty. I think this is an utterly modern view and that somebody on the ground in 1888 would not have thought of Abberline as "the" investigator, but rather as just one out of many and I don't think even the most salient. I don't think any of the major letters were addressed to him, no?

It would be interesting to step in the shoes of an 1888 newspaper reader and see who he identifies as the major anti-ripper leaders.