Did Jack kill more than three?

[Phil H]

After many decades of accepting (rather without question) Macnaghten's "canonocal" five (with occasional queries about including Tabram), I seem to have become more iconoclastic recently.

I now believe that there is at least one other candidate for the murder of Liz Stride (her lover Kidney) and on balance am minded that such a solution to that killing fits the circumstances of the (literally) bloody night better than if she is viewed as a victim of the Whitechapel murderer.

[To me the question of whether it is credible that two murderers were at work on the same night, is answered by the fact that there was at least one other domestic murder that very night (though elsewhere in London). Further, the so-called "torso killer" was also at work pretty much in parallel with "Jack". Thus I don't regard coincidence as a real objection.]

Kelly I have also come to question - with long thought the manner and place of the killing just don't seem to fit the Nichols/Chapman/Eddowes pattern. The mutilations appear to me to be more personal - and while I don't at this point find Barnett a credible suspect, Joe Flemming just might be.

Tabram I now rather associate with Smith, as the possible victim of a group assault.

But I do believe that, in time, other attacks or killings may emerge (or new evidence/perspectives on known ones) earlier than Nichols in which we may see Jack's apprentice hand.

But none of this is set in concrete - it is just one of the models that I hold up for review from time to time, but the one I think fits best just now.

I am interested in any possible Fenian connection with these crimes, and hope that the SB registers might one day be opened to scrutiny. If they are, then i think we may find ourselves looking at the whole case through a different filter.

I don't know what the connection might be - but I I am fascinated by the hint that Eddowes and John Kelly might have been informants. MJK's mysterious antecedents - even the savagery of her ending - might also fit with a "cover" identity in a Fenian context. I think that Macnaghten's comments about the killer being a man involved in an attempt to kill Balfour, the involvement of so many policemen with "secret" backgrounds (Munro, Anderson, Littlechild) is curious, and a "cover-up" might explain the oddly muddled attempts by Anderson and Macnaghten to put on record alleged names that just don't seem to fit and are to an extent mutually contradictory.

Only time will tell, but for the monent, I think he may just have killed THREE.

Phil

[judyj]

Did Jack kill more than three?

Hi Phil

You do indeed make some very good points although I am not sure I go along with the Fenian connection, what would they gain by it?

But I truly feel that there was more than one person who knew who he was, including the police, however I feel that Anderson was more of a blowhard rather than the position he took of knowing who Jack was.

One thing I noticed about the high officials, those in charge that very few of them had any experience as police officers or investigators. Many joined during the rampage and some after. I would put more money on those who were involved in police work and had HANDS ON experience with the East End and the ripper in general. Those whose goal it was to stop the killings as opposed to those who was only interedted in being known as the person who caught the ripper.
julie

[Jimi]

Not Martha?

Hi All
My take on Jacks possible victims would be-:
1. Possibly Alice Mckenzie, all the marks of an early victim
2. Martha Tabram, i have just read Swansons 1888 report stating `wounds to the throat`which definetly makes me suspect Jacks work.
3. Mary Ann Nicholls
4. Anne Chapman
5. Catherine Eddowes
6. Mary Kelly Even though this murder makes my fave. suspect harder, i can`t ignore the fact that as an escalation murder it so fits Jacks pattern.

Hi Judyj
May i ask what makes you think Marthas date from the regiment was her killer? At 1.50 Elizabeth Mahoney returned to her rooms at no. 47 and saw no-one on the landing. Doesn`t this imply that Martha had left and returned later with another mark,possibly,(probably)Jack who murdered her?
Keep Well
Jimi

[lynn cates]

Alice

Hello Jimi. I was under the impression that McKenzie died in 1889--after the C5.

Cheers.
LC

[Jimi]

Sorry

Hi Lynn
Nahhhh!! They just took a long time finding the body!
I actually meant Annie Millwood, sorry about that.
Keep Well
Jimi

[Phil H]

In answer to the question about my previous post, I don't understand the Fenian connection either - it just seems there could be one. Maybe a Fenian agent went berserk and the police/Government knew or suspected (especially if he was in their pay) and needed to keep it quiet.

As an example, imagine if a leading IRA member had done something similar right as the Good Friday agreement was close to being finalised. Would the authorities have been extra-sensittive, maybe tried to cover things up?

I also realise that although I mentioned precursor murders in my earlier postl, I didn't cover the later ones.

I am torn here - both Pipe-Clay Alice and Cole bear some of the hallmarks of Jack - the former in particular (there are signs that the killer was disturbed as he probed with his knife prior to mutilating). Cole might have been killed by Sadler, but I don't find all the evidence adds up to that conclusion (though it's not a murder I have studied in depth).

IF (I emphasise the IF) those later two killings were not Jack's work but the work of another man, then there was another potential serial killer in embryo even as Jack worked. This undermines the whole argument about the "canonical" 5 being the work of a single killer because it implies that:

* two men with similar drives were around at the same time, and thusnot all the 5 need be assigned to one assailant on grounds of reason;

* if McKenzie and Coles were killed by two different hands (the latter if by Saddler, almost a domestic as Stride could have been) then it is reasonable to question the double event

* if Coles and McKenzie were killed for different reasons (the latter perhaps a copy-cat) then the idea that "there-was-no-JtR-he-was-an-invention-of-the-press" surely comes into the frame - allowing several killers to be at work almost in parallel - serial, domestic, casual and copy-cat!

Frankly I don't know what to make of it - so on balance I'll say its 50/50 with a possibility that both might have been by the same hand as Nichols, Chapman and Eddowes.

Phil

[lynn cates]

OK

Hello Jimi. OK, I got it.

Thanks.

Cheers.
LC

[Abby Normal]

milwood-possibility
smith-possibility
Tabram-probable
nichols-definite
chapman-definite
stride-definite
eddowes-definite
kelly-definite
coles-possibility
Mackenzie-possibility

IMHO of course

[judyj]

Did Jack kill more than three?

Jimi

Hi, re Tabram
Unless I am mistaken he was the last person we know of that saw Martha alive. A policeman in the area prior to the discovery of her body stopped this guy's friend from the regiment and inquired what he was doing, he said he was waiting for his friend. Was he waiting long? We don't know, did he actually meet back up with him, we don't know.

Sounds like he spent sometime with her, to me at least. And than there's the sword or bayonet wounds. Not everyone carried this type of weapon.
There are very few of the witnesses that I would put my money on, especially when you consider the darkness due to lack of street lights and the time of day when it was normally dark, and the fact that many people are not very observant
julie.

[judyj]

Hi Abby
I myself, would never consider Smith as a victim of JTR, She told everyone that she was attacked by 3 or 4 guys.
If 1 man assaulted me I would want the police to know everything I could remember about him, there were a lot of street gangs around at the time and prostitutes were favourite targets I'm sure.

Unless you are going with the royal conspiracy,feniens and various other groups, we would be referring to Jack the rippers not a single man.
regards julie

[Abby Normal]

Hi Abby
I myself, would never consider Smith as a victim of JTR, She told everyone that she was attacked by 3 or 4 guys.
If 1 man assaulted me I would want the police to know everything I could remember about him, there were a lot of street gangs around at the time and prostitutes were favourite targets I'm sure.

Unless you are going with the royal conspiracy,feniens and various other groups, we would be referring to Jack the rippers not a single man.
regards julie

Hi Julie
I included smith as possible JtR victim as in he was part of the gang that assaulted her and/or was the actual one (of the gang) that caused her fatal injury.

[Jimi]

More than 3

Hi Judyj
May i start by saying i only state the following to rectify any misconceptions you may have regarding Martha`s murder.
P.C. Barret accosted a loitering soldier at 2a.m. in wentworth street, basically on the corner of George yard. He questioned him and let him leave.
Later he could not pick this soldier out of a line even though he had a good description of him.
At 1.50 a.m. Joseph and Elizabeth Mahoney returned to there home in George Yard buidings and saw nothing on the landing. If the loitering soldier or his mate commited the murder they would have still been on the landing.
Then Elizabeth Mahoney went straight back out to buy their supper. So, 3 times in what ,20 minutes ,elizabeth mahoney crossed that landing and saw nothing?
Inspector Reid stated martha was killed between 2 a.m. and 4.50 a.m. and Dr. Killeens time of death at the inquest was 2.30 a.m.
Dr. killeen didn`t state that the weapon WAS a bayonet only that ONE wound could have been inflicted by a different weapon,POSSIBLY a bayonet or a dagger, all of the other wounds could have been inflicted by an ordinary penknife.
Keep Well
Jimi

[judyj]

Hi Abby

Point taken

julie

[judyj]

If I discount the Possible bayonet/ sword and discount the soldier who went with her I would definately include Martha as a JTR victim.
The loitering soldier was the friend of the soldier who went with Martha, unless I have read wrong.
I don't think the police or the doctors had the ways and means to "Accurately" state the time of death.

I don't think I have any misconceptions, but I may very well be wrong,

regards julie

[Defective Detective]

The interesting thing to me is that most people who discount Macnaghten's canonical five on the grounds of 'excessiveness' - in other words, those who might be called 'Ripper minimalists' - don't seem to realize that Macnaghten himself was a minimalist. The press at the time of the Nichols murder regarded hers as the third (or even fourth) of a series: "Fay", Smith, and Tabram had all been connected to Nichols in the papers before Chapman's body was cooling on the cobblestones. Macnaghten discounted the theory that Nichols was a continuation; the press during the murders supported that idea. If anything the Ripper minimalists ought to recognize Macnaghten as being generally supportive of their line of thought.

I myself have doubts only about Stride, and there the placement of Catherine Eddowes' apron next to a message that seemingly references Stride's murder site saves her in the list for me. I'm quite unsure on Tabram, and the rest I discount.

However, I do not discount the possibility that there were murders in the 1880-85 period that, if examined in hindsight, might stick out to us. The earliest noncanonical murder which is still sometimes linked to the Ripper, that of Fairy Fay, occurred less than a year before that which is the last almost-universally accepted Ripper murder in Mary Kelly. Why is this? It seems to create a cage around the year 1888, which some adventurous souls permit to be opened from the front but almost none from the back. Is it inconceivable that the Ripper may well have had a few practice runs in the year 1886, or 1885, or 1884? Why aren't we looking backwards, rather than speculating about poor Carrie Brown in her hotel room? Why must the Ripper have been a spree killer, when so many other modern serial killers - BTK is only the most extreme example - space out their killings over years and decades?