The GOGMAGOG-letter

[GUT]

For me, testing new thoughts, asking questions and trying hypotheses is important. Even if you think it is "fallacious" and "without foundation". That is no problem for me.

Big difference between asking questions, testing thoughts, trying hypotheses

AND

I think I have found the killer

and then refusing to disclose anything to support your find.

[John G]

Metaphorically speaking there's probably a mllion and one possible interpretations. Methinks this thread is starting to get a little too Delphic, and even a bit surreal!

[Pierre]

It's more along the lines of the Yarmouth letter than a Dear Boss then, if the interpretation has legs. Both letters predicting the same event - strange. Maybe there's more.

You are right. He wrote in this letter that he would kill "two Norwich women before closing time" and tried to get the police to go looking for him in the lodging house in 14 Dorset Street when he was going to kill Mary and Elizabeth just on the other side of the street.

That letter was written the same day as the GOGMAGOG-letter, on November 5th. He wanted the police to go searching for him in the area around Millerīs Court. It was his first murder indoors in Whitechapel, so he knew the adress and was planning the murder. Having the police looking for him outside is part of his high risk MO.

The letter is also using the same kind of metaphorical language. "Either of the Piers" is meant to be "Either of the Pubs". He would be sitting in Britannia and see the police coming in looking for him. And "before closing time" means before closing the streets for Lord Mayorīs Show.

Thanks for reminding me of this letter.

Regards Pierre

[Pierre]

Where to start, in no particular order:

"About the letter from Tennyson now. We donīt know if this letter was published earlier. Lord Tennyson had a lot of letters published in the press over many years. But we do know that his drama Queen Mary was played in the theatre in the 1880īs. So people knew about this play."


David,gives a date for the publication of his private letters, yet you say you don’t know it was published before this, does not that devalue the interpretation.
Of course not because you then in the above give the impression that it not important anyway, because of the play.
It was part of your interpretation of the letter! now you are cutting it free.

GREAT RESEARCH


It is just a letter and perhaps nothing more. Perhaps my wife is right and this letter means nothing. So who cares? It has nothing to do with the ID of the killer. But I think it is worth trying some interpretations.

"David can not know if Prater heard any noise at her door that night. And using that as an example to destroy my post about GOGMAGOG is not very intelligent. David seems to think that the killer would make noises trying to force Praterīs door if he wanted to kill her."


Now the killer would not know that the door was barricaded until he tried to open it would he?
Surely trying to force it would make some noise, if nothing else it would disturb the cat, which we know disturbed her that night when she heard the cry.
Or are you suggesting that was him trying to get into her room, surely not?

She never mentioned hearing a noise like that, either at the inquest or to the press or Police, so you are saying because she never denies it it could happen?


Do you think the killer was stupid, Steve? And do you think David is smarter than him? Or perhaps you are the smartest, Steve? The hypothesis of the cat. It has struck me. Congratulations on your thinking. But then again, it was just a cat, wasnīt it? A kitten. And kittens do things like that without being disturbed by killers, donīt they?

"There can be one detail in the letter pointing to him, but that is all. For me, this letter has a very low validity and reliability."

The detail is as I understand it that he used a Latin word. that really strong evidence!

If it is so weak why publish it?

No, my friend. It is another very small and insignificant thing. Not the latin.

"My simple answer to that is that you canīt know that, David. Have you been reading the Greek church fathers? Are you familiar with gnostic texts or even the Dead Sea Scrolls? I am. Have you been reading modern greek language, even political texts? They are full of metaphors. Are you also familiar with the use of metaphors in letters from other serial killers? I think you would enjoy reading them. "

Does not matter what you have read, there are no metaphors in the letter, show us one,please.
Like normal you try and deflect the question by using a similar sounding response but which really says nothing


Perhaps you will be able to find a metaphor in the letter yourself tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.

"David also writes about the 1320 feet. Well, David, your playing with numbers is just another way of refuting everything I write at any price. And this is your usual strategy. That is why you are usually ignored".

No Pierre, talking about the numbers is showing that the numbers you use are not actually in the letter. YOU KNOW THAT. And I said that.
And of course you response is to attack the man, not the evidence. You always do this!
why have you not answered what has been said about the 1320 Feet?


You say "the numbers are not actually in the letter". If you were the killer, Steve, and were going to commit a murder, would you write the actual adress in a letter to the editor? No. You would use other words. Metaphorical words. Expressions sounding quite normal. And the point David is making is that this a very normal letter. There is nothing strange with it.

So why can we interpret this letter about Lord Mayorīs Day as giving the adress to the next crime scene and to two women by the name of Mary and Elizabeth? I am just wondering. Just asking.

And I am also remembering the Lord Mayor calling the killer "a mad dog" in the press before this letter arrived to the editor.

Regards Pierre

[Pierre]

Well, Pierre, if the GogMagog letter has in your opinion 'a very low validity and reliability' then why bother to post it here?

Your arguments about this letter being connected to the Whitechapel killings and JTR have been proven to be fallacious and without foundation. To tell you the truth I am absolutely gobsmacked that you have the gall to come back here and still argue the point. It's getting absolutely ridiculous.

Hi Rosella,

Because I find the letter intriguing and worth a try. Nothing has been proven. David doesnīt know anything more than general knowledge about Lord Mayorīs Show, things everybody can read in the British Newspaper Archive or Wikipedia. He is just arguing like everybody else here or to speak with Steveīs words: He only has "an opinion".

A lot of people here have the case as a hobby. I donīt. And so I donīt care what anyone thinks about me or what I write. For me, testing new thoughts, asking questions and trying hypotheses is important. Even if you think it is "fallacious" and "without foundation". That is no problem for me.

I go all the way with interpretations, test them and then usually put them in the garbage bin. There is nothing strange with that. I have done that a lot during the short time I have been looking at this case.

I think I have found the killer and so I take interest in many things concerning the murders. Even in stuff you consider absolutely ridiculous. So please, think what you will. I wish you luck with it.

Regards Pierre

[David Orsam]

Response to Pierre

David refused to accept this and started saying that I was lying about the wordings in the letter, although I pointed out to him several times that the exact wordings of the address and name was not in the letter, since they were metaphorical. So he based his accusation of me being a liar on his own false interpretation of what I was writing. Anyone who reads that thread can see it if they read it honestly.

Have I Called Pierre a Liar?

As usual, Pierre is confused and unable to correctly interpret written English. I have never accused him of lying or of being a liar.

What I accused him of doing was of falsely representing the contents of the letter to this forum.

A false representation can be made deceitfully, in the knowledge that it is untrue, but it can also be made recklessly (not caring whether it is true or not), negligently or innocently.

So the fact that I have accused him of making a false representation is not equivalent to me calling him a liar. By saying that I called him a liar, Pierre has simply added another false representation to his list of false representations.

The False Representation

That Pierre did falsely represent the contents of the letter is nothing more than an established fact.

His first mention of it, on 18 September, was as follows:

'He wrote a letter to the editor in a paper not signing it "Jack the Ripper" where he gave the exact address to one of the murder sites.'

The exact address to one of the murder sites is not to be found in the letter so that was undoubtedly a false representation.

The Metaphorical Language

Pierre's misrepresentation was left uncorrected for almost two months until, on 13 November, he told Abby Normal:

"I have found such a letter (unknown by ripperology) in the press. He uses a metaphorical language and gives the adress to Millerīs Court, the name of Mary Jane Kelly, her room number and the date of the murder".

This was the first mention of "metaphorical language" - and it took me some further questioning to establish that Mary's name and address were supposed to be in this "metaphorical language" - but it is to be noted that in no language is the address of Miller's Court, the name of Mary Jane Kelly, her room number or "the date of the murder" stated in that latter.

As I have already said, the letter is not written in any form of "metaphorical language". It is written in plain English. What Pierre should have said was that the letter contains some random cryptic clues which, when solved, purport to reveal certain hidden meanings buried within it. He did not say that, so Pierre again falsely represented both the language of the letter and its contents.

A Further Misrepresentation

It may be noted that, in response to questioning from me, there was, on Pierre's own account of the letter, a further misrepresentation by Pierre on 13 November when he said (bold added):

"He gives the name and adress in a metaphorical language. The rest is plain English. He doesnīt sign it Jack the Ripper. He uses another name. It was published in two newspapers."

Pierre is now trying to tell us that more of the letter is in "metaphorical language" than simply the name and address. Thus, we have 'cavalry of the smartest", "Let Paterfamilas" and "I can promise them a pleasant one" all supposedly meaning something other than their meaning in plain English (or Latin as the case may be) - although in the case of the latter, we are now told for the first time that this is in "ironical language".

I am amused, incidentally, that "I can promise them a pleasant one" is arbitrarily reversed by Pierre into "I can promise them a terrible one" even though the two supposed murders were going to be in Spitalfields while the Lord Mayor's Show would be totally unaffected in the City of London, so it was a wholly empty promise if the author was the killer.

Interpretation of the GOGMAGOG Letter

1. Tennyson

It is astonishing that Pierre is unable to provide any evidence whatsoever that Tennyson's private letter to his wife of 1861 was in the public domain in 1888.

His claims that "we don't know if this letter was published earlier" and that "Tennyson had a lot of letters published in the press" are disingenuous in the extreme.

It was a very short private letter and there is absolutely no reason to suppose it was ever published before Tennyson's death.

If the author of the letter could not have known about Tennyson's letter, and the readers of that letter in the newspaper could not have known about it, then the supposed "clue" in the letter which is meant to "hint" at Tennyson fails to be a clue at all which means that we cannot even begin the tortuous route from the gilt coach to Tennyson's plays to "Queen Mary" to Mary Kelly.

The fact that Tennyson's "Queen Mary" was played in the theatre during the 1880s becomes utterly irrelevant considering that we now know that there is no mention of, or allusion to, Tennyson in the GOGMAOG letter.

2. 13 Miller's Court

Apparently Pierre thinks that the reference to "nearly a quarter of a mile" is so obviously a reference to 13 and 20 Miller's Court that the fact I disagree demonstrates that I refute everything he writes "at any price" (whatever that means).

Even if a quarter of a mile is supposed to be converted to 1320 feet, the only way to get to "Miller's Court" - having first eliminated the word "nearly" for unexplained reasons - is to change Quarter of a Mile to Quart of a Mile, reverse this to Mile Quart while removing the words "of a", then change Mile to Mille then Mille to Miller's (for no obvious reason that I can see) then change Quart to Court. It's a classic example of knowing the outcome you want to achieve and stretching words and meanings to reach that outcome.

3. 20 Miller's Court

Pierre says "David can not know if Prater heard any noise at her door that night". Well yes I can actually. In her testimony at the inquest, Prater said that she heard a cry of murder but that:

"I heard nothing else whatever and went to sleep again and woke at 5 o'clock".

For the killer to have discovered that he could not open Prater's door due to the two tables, it is obvious that he would first have had to attempt to open it. I don't see how it would be possible for this to have been done silently - in fact I imagine it would have been rather noisy - yet Prater said she heard "nothing else whatever" during the night.

The Purpose of the Letter

Pierre told me on 14 November:

"My impression is that he is taunting the police and giving them a clue as to where he is going to commit his next crime. That is why he is writing in a metaphorical style. He wants to see if the police can figure out his message."

Difficult to see how the impenetrable cryptic puzzles as imagined by Pierre could ever have given anyone a clue as to where the killer was going to commit his next crime and why the killer could possibly have thought that the police could "figure out his message".

Silly Games

At the start of the OP, Pierre said "Craig has done a great job searching for the metaphorical letter". From his posts on the forum I know that Craig has been asking questions about this letter since 15 November. What I find baffling is why Pierre did not simply tell Craig that the letter was in the LDN and Evening Standard of 6 November 1888. Why did Craig have to do "a great job" of searching for it if he was in private correspondence with Pierre?

It's utterly ridiculous. Craig has somehow managed to drag enough clues out of Pierre to find the letter but it is indicative of someone playing silly games. What the psychological reasons are behind it I would not like to say - perhaps he likes having power over others - but there is not a single reason why Pierre could not have posted the text of that letter on this forum from the outset and we could have discussed it sensibly then.

The quotation marks

In my post I said:

"Pierre has omitted the quotation marks around "the children""

It wasn't a criticism, just an observation so that I could explain what I thought the significance of them might be.

Pierre says in response: "I didnīt omit them".

So where are they then?

Oh, hold on, he is blaming someone else.

"I published Craigīs transcript and did not see they were omitted".

Well that means they were omitted.

Pierre expressly stated in the OP in bold: "I publish the text of the GOGMAGOG letter here".

Pierre posted the text of the letter so Pierre omitted the quotation marks. He could have checked the text for himself but didn't.

It's of no consequence at all of course - and I don't care for one second that the quotation marks were omitted or who omitted them - but the fact that Pierre goes into defensive overdrive by telling me that he would like to post Craig's private message to him to prove that it wasn't his fault is remarkable and, it has to be said, hugely amusing.

Has Pierre Called Me a Liar?

The answer is yes!

Thus, "My conclusion is that David will go on telling lies about what I write and what I say".

It goes without saying that I have never told lies about what Pierre has written and said. I have been careful to quote his exact words in many posts. He just doesn't seem to like being challenged.

[MysterySinger]

It's more along the lines of the Yarmouth letter than a Dear Boss then, if the interpretation has legs. Both letters predicting the same event - strange. Maybe there's more.

[MsWeatherwax]

Pierre,

My fascination with Jack and his victims comes from my personal interest in abnormal psychology, so I've done a fair bit of reading on historic and modern serial killers.

Genuine question: you mention other serial killers who have used metaphor in letters that they've written. Could you expand on this a little? I'm interested in which killers you're referring to.

I'm genuinely trying to understand where you're coming from, because at the moment I'm lost.

[Elamarna]

Where to start, in no particular order:

"About the letter from Tennyson now. We donīt know if this letter was published earlier. Lord Tennyson had a lot of letters published in the press over many years. But we do know that his drama Queen Mary was played in the theatre in the 1880īs. So people knew about this play."


David,gives a date for the publication of his private letters, yet you say you don’t know it was published before this, does not that devalue the interpretation.
Of course not because you then in the above give the impression that it not important anyway, because of the play.
It was part of your interpretation of the letter! now you are cutting it free.

GREAT RESEARCH


"David can not know if Prater heard any noise at her door that night. And using that as an example to destroy my post about GOGMAGOG is not very intelligent. David seems to think that the killer would make noises trying to force Praterīs door if he wanted to kill her."


Now the killer would not know that the door was barricaded until he tried to open it would he?
Surely trying to force it would make some noise, if nothing else it would disturb the cat, which we know disturbed her that night when she heard the cry.
Or are you suggesting that was him trying to get into her room, surely not?

She never mentioned hearing a noise like that, either at the inquest or to the press or Police, so you are saying because she never denies it it could happen?


"There can be one detail in the letter pointing to him, but that is all. For me, this letter has a very low validity and reliability."

The detail is as I understand it that he used a Latin word. that really strong evidence!

If it is so weak why publish it?


"My simple answer to that is that you canīt know that, David. Have you been reading the Greek church fathers? Are you familiar with gnostic texts or even the Dead Sea Scrolls? I am. Have you been reading modern greek language, even political texts? They are full of metaphors. Are you also familiar with the use of metaphors in letters from other serial killers? I think you would enjoy reading them. "

Does not matter what you have read, there are no metaphors in the letter, show us one,please.
Like normal you try and deflect the question by using a similar sounding response but which really says nothing





"David also writes about the 1320 feet. Well, David, your playing with numbers is just another way of refuting everything I write at any price. And this is your usual strategy. That is why you are usually ignored".

No Pierre, talking about the numbers is showing that the numbers you use are not actually in the letter. YOU KNOW THAT.
And of course you response is to attack the man, not the evidence. You always do this!
why have you not answered what has been said about the 1320 Feet?

Sorry who says David is ignored?

by whom? if you mean you that is obviously not true is it?



Sure this will get the normal response back

[Craig H]

Just following on from Pierre's post above .....

I followed up on Pierre's original posts that his suspect wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper which provided evidence about the upcoming murder.

We bounced back to each other by email until found the GOGMAGOG letter. Sorry I missed out the quote marks on "the children" in my transcript.

As mentioned above, my interpretation of the letter is it was just a playful letter by an organiser of the procession which supports some of ideas from David about the recent history behind the event.

While I don't agree with Pierre's interpretation on this one, I still like the amount of discussion his posts provoke. The recent work on. prater' stairs is a good example of this.

Merry Xmas to all

Craig

[Rosella]

Well, Pierre, if the GogMagog letter has in your opinion 'a very low validity and reliability' then why bother to post it here?

Your arguments about this letter being connected to the Whitechapel killings and JTR have been proven to be fallacious and without foundation. To tell you the truth I am absolutely gobsmacked that you have the gall to come back here and still argue the point. It's getting absolutely ridiculous.

[GUT]

Bravo (and Season's Greetings) to David Orsam-- posts such as your long one re the GOGMAGOG letter are why I love reading Casebook, and have done so regularly over the past year.

who Pierre claims to have on "gnore" but answers all the same.

More BS from ole Pierre me thinketh.

[Pierre]

I happened to see Davidīs post before I logged in and shall answer it.

The first part of my answer concerns David. The second part of it concerns the GOGMAGOG-letter.

I have no problems with Davidīs own writings but he has been trying to destroy everything I write here. It has been done systematically and therefore his answers to me have not been correct. When I first discussed the contents of the GOGMAGOG-letter with him he was asking me repeatedly if the actual address of Millerīs Court and the actual name of the victim was in it. I told him I thought they were written in a metaphorical language.
David refused to accept this and started saying that I was lying about the wordings in the letter, although I pointed out to him several times that the exact wordings of the address and name was not in the letter, since they were metaphorical. So he based his accusation of me being a liar on his own false interpretation of what I was writing. Anyone who reads that thread can see it if they read it honestly.

Now, this is what David writes about what he has been up to and how he wishes to describe that:

Pierre stopped speaking to me on 16 November when, in my thread "A New Theory as to the Killer's Identity", I accused him of falsely representing the contents of this very letter to the forum by stating that it contained Mary Kelly's name and "exact address" written in "metaphorical language".
“As you can see, he is still trying to make everyone believe that I have lied since he pretends to not understand what I mean when I say “exact address”. Of course 13 20 Millerīs Court is and exact address, two actually, but it could have been written in a metaphorical language in the letter to the editor.“

In many posts I have emphasized that I hope I am wrong about who I think Jack the Ripper was. The GOGMAGOG-letter is a source where I could easily be proven wrong about the hypothesis that it was written by the killer. But it can certainly not be used to prove my theory of the killer wrong since it is not a part of the data sources giving the identity of the killer.

David also writes:

“We can now see why Pierre was so worried and indeed why he did not post the contents of the letter until someone else found it (well done Craig!).”

Actually, I am very worried. But not about the GOGMAGOG-letter. I am worried about being right about the killer. So David has once again twisted reality to fit his purpose to destroy everything I write here.

And I can assure you David, that Craig could not have found the letter without my help. If I had not wanted Craig to find it, he would not have found it. Ask Craig about our correspondence. I could also post the whole correspondence here for you if you like, given that Craig would allow that if I were to ask him about that first.

My conclusion is that David will go on telling lies about what I write and what I say. So it really doesnīt matter what I write, he will try to destroy it anyway. And it is time consuming to write back over and over again to answer his accusations. Naturally it is a part of his strategy, so knowing this, I have chosen to ignore him.

Now, the GOGMAGOG-letter. I have stated many times that I am not certain about this letter. I have also written that it is not a part of my theory about the killerīs identity. I found the letter long after I had found who I think was the killer. There can be one detail in the letter pointing to him, but that is all. For me, this letter has a very low validity and reliability.

David writes:

“The first thing to note about the letter is that, even by Pierre's reading, it is not written in any form of "metaphorical language". There are no metaphors in there.”

My simple answer to that is that you canīt know that, David. Have you been reading the Greek church fathers? Are you familiar with gnostic texts or even the Dead Sea Scrolls? I am. Have you been reading modern greek language, even political texts? They are full of metaphors. Are you also familiar with the use of metaphors in letters from other serial killers? I think you would enjoy reading them.

And then David is writing:

“And of course Pierre can't quite tease the number 13 on its own out of 1320 feet so he has to imagine that the killer was after Elizabeth Prater too, but was prevented by her barricading her door, even though she never so much as heard her door rattle that night.”

David can not know if Prater heard any noise at her door that night. And using that as an example to destroy my post about GOGMAGOG is not very intelligent. David seems to think that the killer would make noises trying to force Praterīs door if he wanted to kill her.

David then gives the background to the letter, which is good. That year (1888) the Lord Mayorīs Show was changed and reorganized and people had opinions about the show.

But this background can exist even if the letter is written by the killer.
David also says that I have omitted two quotation marks. I didnīt omit them. I published Craigīs transcript and did not see they were omitted. I have the letter in my inbox and can post it to you David, with Craigīs permission of course. Ask him, and I will do it.

David also writes what he thinks the author of the letter is doing: responding to criticism. And then he writes:

“So when Pierre says of GOGMAGOG's letter, other than the passages underlined by him, "The rest is just nonsense talk to get the message through to the smart police", he is talking nonsense himself because the letter is accurately describing what was going to be in the parade.”

Well, if I was the killer, I would use the common ideas in my time about Lord Mayorīs Show to hide my own message. So the context should be what people in that time thought about the show and what the killer would want to say in the letter. That is the specific context which I have postulated for the letter, not saying that that context is a fact but an hypothesis.

About the letter from Tennyson now. We donīt know if this letter was published earlier. Lord Tennyson had a lot of letters published in the press over many years. But we do know that his drama Queen Mary was played in the theatre in the 1880īs. So people knew about this play.

David also writes about the 1320 feet. Well, David, your playing with numbers is just another way of refuting everything I write at any price. And this is your usual strategy. That is why you are usually ignored.

Pierre

[Pcdunn]

Bravo (and Season's Greetings) to David Orsam-- posts such as your long one re the GOGMAGOG letter are why I love reading Casebook, and have done so regularly over the past year.

[GUT]

Well, you got me there GUT. You know the hearth has it's secrets...."

Jeff

G'day Jeff

But as FBD would say, home is where the hearth is.