Coincidence?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Btw Herlock. The post above in no way does justice to all the information that links the Cleveland Street Scandal players with the Whitechapel murders. I would grossly derail this thread, which I will not do. I just wanted to point out, there is a lot of research out there that can be found that one can draw their own conclusions about the two cases. Abberline was involved in both cases. He had a good idea about who the killer was, I have a feeling.

Thanks Jerry. Interesting posts. I’ve read about The Cleveland Street Scandal of course but in nowhere near the depth that you obviously have. You should begin a thread on the subject. I admit to having an in-built resistance to conspiracies (perhaps brought about by listening to many of the wackier ones) but is certainly be interested to hear more about connections between CS and the ripper murders.

[Herlock Sholmes]

What people call a thoroughly discredited story , is in fact a thoroughly researched theory which stands up today , just as it did when it was written in 1976 .

Obviously we’ve been through this before. You have your opinion of course but I have to say that, in the other thread, I repeatedly asked you to make good your claim to be able to rebut and show the flaws in Simon’s research but you repeatedly refused do so. If I recall correctly, Simon himself even offered to discuss his research rebutting Knight’s story in a pm with you but, as far as I know, you never took him up on the offer. So Knight presented the story, many points have been made in rebuttal but nothing has been presented in defence.

The final point of course Fishy is that it’s worth pointing out how many people who have a knowledge of the case actually support the Knight theory. As far as I can see, on this Forum, it appears to be only you. You are fully entitled to do so of course but it makes it difficult when you try and present it as a solid theory. Pretty much everyone rejects it.

[Michael W Richards]

I don’t see it as clairvoyance Michael. Coincidences do occur and some of them a truly remarkable when we read about them but they are coincidences none the same. Even if Eddowes knew Mary Kelly (and we can't dismiss this possibility) then this still doesn’t imply any kind of conspiracy just that she might have given the name of an associate because it came to her mind easily. The fact that she was with John Kelly also has to be at least suggestive of a reason why she chose that surname.

Just for the jolly...what if Kate knew Mary and knew someone was looking for her. What if that is something Kate is including in her sales pitch..."I can tell you where she is, and Ill keep my trap shut about what I know about you, for the right money....". Her using those names might help someone look into what happened to her if she is killed doing this, might be a trail for someone to find the people who killed her. She might be telling us that what she did when she was killed involved Mary.

[Enigma]

The OP posed the question asking us to give our opinion that were the murders of Eddowes and Kelly a coincidence or were the murders a result of a conspiracy resulting from mistaken identity from a similarity of names, aliases, used by the victims, leading to the murder of Kelly.

I have already given my opinion in this thread that coincidence is more likely than than a plot to kill a number of innocent victims to hide the identity of the intended target. Others have pointed out that the presumed similarity of names is not in evidence. As another correspondent has pointed out above, if one was intending to disguise the intended target of a murder, then the killing would be done earlier in the sequence and not at the end. Particularly when there was was an increasing level of mutilation of the victims.

The conspiracy theory is reminiscent of Agatha Christies' novel The ABC Murders.

[FISHY1118]

Obviously we’ve been through this before. You have your opinion of course but I have to say that, in the other thread, I repeatedly asked you to make good your claim to be able to rebut and show the flaws in Simon’s research but you repeatedly refused do so. If I recall correctly, Simon himself even offered to discuss his research rebutting Knight’s story in a pm with you but, as far as I know, you never took him up on the offer. So Knight presented the story, many points have been made in rebuttal but nothing has been presented in defence.

The final point of course Fishy is that it’s worth pointing out how many people who have a knowledge of the case actually support the Knight theory. As far as I can see, on this Forum, it appears to be only you. You are fully entitled to do so of course but it makes it difficult when you try and present it as a solid theory. Pretty much everyone rejects it.

Ive said all along in regards to Simon's theory , just another ripper book om afraid , probably not worth the paper it was written on, he knows it . There see how easy it is to say . Im sure if knight was alive he would probably say the same thing. Sure he might have made some errors with dates and places , However the original story was confirmed by two sources many years apart who never new each other , enough said . The Sickert story is a complex one ,many dont do the research required to understand it, thats why they reject it . Its a pity Simon didnt choose to to prove knights/sickert work true.Imagine what he also might have found.

[packers stem]

Just for the jolly...what if Kate knew Mary and knew someone was looking for her. What if that is something Kate is including in her sales pitch..."I can tell you where she is, and Ill keep my trap shut about what I know about you, for the right money....". Her using those names might help someone look into what happened to her if she is killed doing this, might be a trail for someone to find the people who killed her. She might be telling us that what she did when she was killed involved Mary.

Interesting how many people went to ground.
We know Conway and his sons waited over two weeks but before Eddowes identity was known the police were apparently making exhaustive enquiries looking for a Kelly in Dorset Street !
You'd think following no help at no 6 ,as written on the ticket , McCarthy's shop would have been the next port of call ?

[Losmandris]

Hi Herlock,

You are correct. There is a lot we have yet to discover regarding evidence in this case, which makes it difficult to form any substance that is conclusive. I will say, however, there is a lot to look at in the form of links to the Cleveland Street Scandal and the Whitechapel Murders. And yes, some of it involves "what ifs" and possibilities. But, it is far from nothing approaching real evidence. I know you dislike the term "conspiracy". The Cleveland Street scandal was one, big conspiracy. That is a fact. There were many high ups covering up for the men involved in the scandal.

One question I asked myself long ago regarding Mary Jane Kelly was, why did the high ranking official from the Post Office attend the crime scene? This peaked my interest in the Cleveland Street Scandal and The Dublin Castle Scandal of 1884. Both these cases involved post office officials and telegraph boys. Matter of fact, one young man was involved in both. He escaped testimony from one only to be heavily embroiled in the other. His name, Jack Saul. He was Charles Hammonds one time lover and right hand man. Saul was interviewed several times by inspector Abberline regarding the scandal. He was a key witness in the trial of Ernest Parke.

Speaking of scandals and conspiracies, it was Abberline himself that either became the scapegoat or purposely dragged his feet in issuing a warrant for the arrest of Charles Hammond. The result, Hammond escaped to America with a register book full of the names of the important men that regularly visited his house. Many attempts were made to procure this list of names while Hammond was in America. For obvious reasons. One man, a detective from London, made up a false claim that landed Hammond in a Seattle prison. He was later pardoned. Another man, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune (Micajah Fible) was successful in purchasing many of the documents in Hammonds possession. When Fible was dropped off to leave back to Chicago, he was never seen alive again. His body was found washed ashore. Hammond ended up with the documents and was the last person to be recorded seeing Fible alive.

So, in short, there were a lot of people turning a blind eye to the scandal. Jack Saul stated in his testimony in the Parke trial that the police were kind to him but turned their heads to more than just him. Why is it so hard to believe in cover ups in 1888 Whitechapel? The house on Cleveland Street was in operation well before the Whitechapel murders. For all intents and purposes, the scandal ended with Veck and Newlove being committed for trial on the 11th of September, 1889. The day after the discovery of the Pinchin Street torso. From there, the murders seem to end in both camps. Ripper and torso.

I think there is a big difference between covering things up in regard to protecting people's names in a sex scandal and some grand conspiracy surrounding a serial killer. Is there any other serial murder case that has generated so many conspiracies? I am sure if you looked hard enough you could find a whole loads of coincidences, say with the victims or the evidence with Ted Bundy or Jeffery Dalmer. Does anyone create some grand conspiracies there? I don't think so.

I just don't see any difference between JtR and say the Yorkshire Ripper. Whoever he was, he was probably the lorry driver equivalent of his day, a faceless nobody. No links to the establishment, no cover up to protect someone, just some sad loner. Of course we all love a good story and like to read stuff into things but sometimes we should step back and look for the simple truth.

Tristan

[Herlock Sholmes]

Ive said all along in regards to Simon's theory , just another ripper book om afraid , probably not worth the paper it was written on, he knows it . There see how easy it is to say . Im sure if knight was alive he would probably say the same thing. Sure he might have made some errors with dates and places , However the original story was confirmed by two sources many years apart who never new each other , enough said . The Sickert story is a complex one ,many dont do the research required to understand it, thats why they reject it . Its a pity Simon didnt choose to to prove knights/sickert work true.Imagine what he also might have found.

Do you consider this to be fair minded? To dismiss a researchers findings without actually reading it? To call someone’s work - not worth the paper it was written on - based on nothing? Simon did actual research that proved that Knight didn’t just make errors; he lied. There was evidence available to him at the time which he left out of his book because it was inconvenient to his theory. How can this kind of behaviour be dismissed or defended? How can a writer maintain credibility like this? How many obvious and major errors can you ignore to continue to support the unsupportable?

You keep talking about people not researching the subject properly and that it’s such a complex story. There’s nothing complex about it. It’s a fairly simple tale and I have to ask what actual research have you done on the subject apart from reading Knight, Fairclough and Overton-Fuller?

This sentence is very telling:

. Its a pity Simon didnt choose to to prove knights/sickert work true.

You don’t choose to prove what is true or not. You follow where the evidence leads. You have done what everyone else has done over the years. You read Knight (as we all did) and loved the story and wished it were true. The difference is that the rest of us looked at the actually facts and read writers who had done proper, unbiased research and saw that the story is transparent nonsense. You chose to ignore the evidence so that you could continue to support the theory. You simply refuse to properly debate the subject which speaks of a lack of confidence in it. Every question posed to you has been ducked and dodged with the subject being quickly changed.

You have every right to believe what you want but this Forum is for discussing and debating the case so why don’t you begin a thread where you lay out your case for Knight’s Theory. Surely if you have researched the subject so deeply and you have such confidence in the theory it should be able to withstand scrutiny?

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

The story relied on the 'testimony' of Joseph Gorman, who publicly stated that he made it up?

[DJA]

What was her name, then?

Kelley.
Wife of William Kelley.

[packers stem]

I think there is a big difference between covering things up in regard to protecting people's names in a sex scandal and some grand conspiracy surrounding a serial killer. Is there any other serial murder case that has generated so many conspiracies? I am sure if you looked hard enough you could find a whole loads of coincidences, say with the victims or the evidence with Ted Bundy or Jeffery Dalmer. Does anyone create some grand conspiracies there? I don't think so.

I just don't see any difference between JtR and say the Yorkshire Ripper. Whoever he was, he was probably the lorry driver equivalent of his day, a faceless nobody. No links to the establishment, no cover up to protect someone, just some sad loner. Of course we all love a good story and like to read stuff into things but sometimes we should step back and look for the simple truth.

Tristan

The simple truth here though is that there are no comparable serial killers to JTR .... not in any way shape or form.

There are good reasons in this case as to why some of us widen our options.

If you are convinced that joe public could cut out and remove a kidney in darkness at a roadside ,that is a far greater stretch of imagination than any cover up or conspiracy but you see ,you do have to believe it ,however far fetched it may appear ,otherwise the whole serial killer narrative collapses ....

As a side note, I do wish people wouldn't use the word 'grand' , it is no more than an attempt to pour scorn on the idea that conspiracies exist at all whereas in reality ,they do ,always have done and will continue to do so .... it's spotting what is or what isn't covered up that's the issue.

We're not David Icke .... we have real reasons when we suggest things are not as they should be .
This includes the torsos incidentally, which ,the Whitehall one at the very least, was linked in my view.
Not linked in the way that Fish believes I hasten to add

[DJA]

In the Cleveland Street Scandal,60,count them ....... 60 toffs who were facing two years hard labor and the loss of employment,prestige,etc.

Crikey,anyone remember the Christine Keeler/Profumo scandal in the early 1960s!

That eclipsed the earlier "John Vassal" case.

60 I tell ya!

[Herlock Sholmes]

The simple truth here though is that there are no comparable serial killers to JTR .... not in any way shape or form.

There are good reasons in this case as to why some of us widen our options.

If you are convinced that joe public could cut out and remove a kidney in darkness at a roadside ,that is a far greater stretch of imagination than any cover up or conspiracy but you see ,you do have to believe it ,however far fetched it may appear ,otherwise the whole serial killer narrative collapses ....

As a side note, I do wish people wouldn't use the word 'grand' , it is no more than an attempt to pour scorn on the idea that conspiracies exist at all whereas in reality ,they do ,always have done and will continue to do so .... it's spotting what is or what isn't covered up that's the issue.

We're not David Icke .... we have real reasons when we suggest things are not as they should be .
This includes the torsos incidentally, which ,the Whitehall one at the very least, was linked in my view.
Not linked in the way that Fish believes I hasten to add

Jack the Ripper was transparently a bog standard serial killer. All this nonsense about whether he could have cut out and removed a kidney is just a white noise of deliberate obfuscation. How can this be less believable than the ludicrous notion of someone or some group of people carrying mutilated corpses around the East End and depositing them at pre-arranged locations. The suggestion of keeping our minds open is an admirable one but not so wide open that any amount of foolishness can fall in and take root. Yes he could have removed a kidney. He did remove a kidney. We have no way of knowing his level of medical skill or anatomical knowledge because we don’t know who he was. So unless every single medical expert tells me that this was absolutely, categorically impossible then remove a kidney he did.

Ive heard numerous hints of conspiracy but no one appears to want to put forward a cogent suggestion of what they think occurred. It’s all hints and nudges arrived at by spotting coincidences or possible errors. This is not ‘thinking-outside-of-the-box’ as some claim. I’ve no doubt that some genuinely believe in conspiracy but I can’t help thinking that for some this is an agenda. There is zero evidence for a conspiracy. If some believe that there is then they are free to produce their version of what they believe happened and not a patchwork of riddles.

Jack The Ripper was a serial killer who killed and mutilated prostitutes in the street (apart from one - who he would have had no way of knowing had her own room) This is what the evidence tells us. We don’t need fairy stories.

[packers stem]

Jack the Ripper was transparently a bog standard serial killer. All this nonsense about whether he could have cut out and removed a kidney is just a white noise of deliberate obfuscation. How can this be less believable than the ludicrous notion of someone or some group of people carrying mutilated corpses around the East End and depositing them at pre-arranged locations. The suggestion of keeping our minds open is an admirable one but not so wide open that any amount of foolishness can fall in and take root. Yes he could have removed a kidney. He did remove a kidney. We have no way of knowing his level of medical skill or anatomical knowledge because we don’t know who he was. So unless every single medical expert tells me that this was absolutely, categorically impossible then remove a kidney he did.

Ive heard numerous hints of conspiracy but no one appears to want to put forward a cogent suggestion of what they think occurred. It’s all hints and nudges arrived at by spotting coincidences or possible errors. This is not ‘thinking-outside-of-the-box’ as some claim. I’ve no doubt that some genuinely believe in conspiracy but I can’t help thinking that for some this is an agenda. There is zero evidence for a conspiracy. If some believe that there is then they are free to produce their version of what they believe happened and not a patchwork of riddles.

Jack The Ripper was a serial killer who killed and mutilated prostitutes in the street (apart from one - who he would have had no way of knowing had her own room) This is what the evidence tells us. We don’t need fairy stories.

Prove it .
Find a similar case .

Two men can carry a body a few feet from an empty house ..... I can guarantee you that is possible.


Find me a similar case of a killer removing organs, outside, in darkness in apparently a few short minutes .
There is no evidence whatsoever, other than opinion ,that what happened to Eddowes could possibly occur on the spot other than blind faith that you are dealing with some sort of super human phantom killer.

To me ,this is what is ludicrous..... not two fellas carrying a dead body, that happens every day


Take all the time you need

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Prove it .
Find a similar case .

Two men can carry a body a few feet from an empty house ..... I can guarantee you that is possible.


Find me a similar case of a killer removing organs, outside, in darkness in apparently a few short minutes .
There is no evidence whatsoever, other than opinion ,that what happened to Eddowes could possibly occur on the spot other than blind faith that you are dealing with some sort of super human phantom killer.

To me ,this is what is ludicrous..... not two fellas carrying a dead body, that happens every day


Take all the time you need

I do agree, in all the C5 the timing is nothing short of tight. And skilled surgeon, accomplished butcher or total chancer, the mutilations and removal of organs merits questioning. But equally, in those tight timeframes, two accomplices moving a body without leaving any trail? Without being seen? Without later pinning the blame on each other? Not an everyday occurrence.