Misread?

[waitawhile]

The message found supposedly read 'The Jewes are not the men etc' I believe this is not the case and the writing actually said 'The Jurors are not the men etc'. If this were written in cursive writing in a hurry (as it must have been if the writer did not want to be caught) this error could easily have been made.

All jurors in 1888 were men, as women were not allowed to be on juries until 1919. This, I believe is why it says 'men' and not 'people'

Maybe the writer had been convicted of some crime earlier and was ranting against the Jurors.

[Hunter]

Hello Waitawhile,

Welcome to the boards. Since the police couldn't even copy the words down correctly, anything may be possible. But, as ambiguous as the classic interpretation of the message seems to be, a message refering to "jurors" would be even more so and if indeed, written by the killer, may lead to his idetification by reference to being tried before.

If written by JTR, the "Juwes" comment would tie into the ethnic tension of the time and the preponderance of Jews in the area.

Use of the word "men" was simply a generic term to imply a group as a whole before political correctness sought to "de-gender" such terms.