Why a Cover-Up could be possible...

[Herlock Sholmes]

There was a reference by MacNaghten to Druitt being 'sexually insane' was there not? How would describe that innuendo? The medical training is yet to be proved I agree. Suicide back then was regarded as a social stigma for many families that had members who committed it. His name would not be of much value to use.

I’ve always thought that it’s worth asking the question: why did a man (Mac) with all the resources that he had at his disposal for naming any dead criminal or any caged lunatic to be added to Ostrog (criminal) and Kosinski (lunatic) on his ‘better suspect than Cutbush’ list, did he select a man who wasn’t a criminal and had no history of violence? Not only that but he was related by marriage to one of his best friends in a society where the upper classes stuck together and we’re keen to have it understood that the killer was from the lower part of society. It’s also worth mentioning that Mac’s good friend Monrovia felt that Mackenzie was a victim so why name a suspect who died before her? It might have been Farson who said something about that Druitt’s apparent unlikeliness as a suspect being what makes him intriguing and what makes me wonder if he might actually have been guilty?

[Astatine211]

It's just kinda annoying most of the documents which served as the basis for the origin of the royal conspiracy and many others ended up 'missing' or destroyed. If we still had them we could disprove almost all the conspiracies once and for all.

Also I want to know what happened to Dutton's Chronicles of Crime which were supposedly taken away by detectives. I assume they probably got destroyed in WW2.

[seanr]

I don’t buy the Fenians committing the crimes as some kind of terrorist act, personally. When the first crime was committed, it can’t have been expected to have led to the case it did and terrorism would surely be more impactful hitting at high society, not through attacking societies most vulnerable.

I don’t rule out the possibility of a conspiracy of sorts though. The truth could be way more mundane than a grand conspiracy would suggest. With no-one actively setting out to cover up the murders but prioritising not upsetting an apple cart and the solution to the murders not being properly pursued.

Some have cited a possibility that John McCarthy was a police informant on the Fenians. It’s also been suggested the lodging house keepers may have profited from criminal enterprise, such as the sale of stolen goods on the premises and prostitution. The evidence for such may be scarce but it is not non-existent. It’s not a great leap from that to local police having been bribed (which has also been suggested) to not ask too many questions of some. Or police preferring to leave the established criminal powers in place in a ‘better the devil you know’ or even a ’they keep the violence among the criminal class’ kind of philosophy, not entirely unknown policing tactics (even if rarely acknowledged) - and especially where a high profile informant may be involved.

With the Daniel Morgan murder back in the news today and the undisputed complicity of some in the police force in that case (as just one example), I don’t think it outside the realms of possibility that some could have looked the other way when it came to cold bloodied murder.

I don’t know if it could be proved, though.

[seanr]

There has always been a theory, which some researchers have advanced for many years. They suggest that Irish terrorist group the Fenians, who in addition to causing major disruptions in London by bombing buildings in 1888, was also behind some or all of the Whitechapel murders, in an attempt to force a major breakdown in the forces of law and order in London. I was later able to advance this theory following the examination of another Metropolitan Police file from The National Archives. This is recorded under MEPO 18/1. The file in question is a crime record book, which contained details of internal police memos and files relating to enquiries and investigations. Some of these entries related to the Whitechapel murders although the dates of the files referred to and the entries are un-dated. One such entry read: “Whitechapel Murders suggested complicity of Irish Party.” This entry related to an original file numbered 93867.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

For people who like to see patterns (and a conspiracy theory is usually a network of patterns) there's the suspicious death of Douglas Pyne MP of the Irish Party just a few days after the murder of Mary Kelly.

[Wickerman]

There was a reference by MacNaghten to Druitt being 'sexually insane' was there not? How would describe that innuendo? The medical training is yet to be proved I agree. Suicide back then was regarded as a social stigma for many families that had members who committed it. His name would not be of much value to use.

It is necessary to know what it meant in the late 19th century, not what it means today.
Much like being called Gay in Victorian times has a quite different meaning today.
One researcher obtained several 19th century quotes, I think one of them came from a medical source, but the meaning of 'sexual insane' at the time was akin to being over-sexed today, purely a heterosexual charge.

As has already been pointed out, some have theorised Druitt might have been homosexual as he was a teacher at a boys school. However, when we look at the school records we see several female kitchen staff & servants at the school.

[drstrange169]

>>Monro just needed the suspect to NOT be a middle class well-respected Englishman.<<

As a Scotsman, I suspect Monroe would have been very happy for it to have been an Englishman!

[erobitha]

>>Monro just needed the suspect to NOT be a middle class well-respected Englishman.<<

As a Scotsman, I suspect Monroe would have been very happy for it to have been an Englishman!

Maybe. But as the man with overall control of the de-facto intelligent services of the time, he would not want to be the one that did not prevent a socialist revolution of the workers and the poor. That would not be good for the CV.

[caz]

I’ve always thought that it’s worth asking the question: why did a man (Mac) with all the resources that he had at his disposal for naming any dead criminal or any caged lunatic to be added to Ostrog (criminal) and Kosinski (lunatic) on his ‘better suspect than Cutbush’ list, did he select a man who wasn’t a criminal and had no history of violence? Not only that but he was related by marriage to one of his best friends in a society where the upper classes stuck together and we’re keen to have it understood that the killer was from the lower part of society. It’s also worth mentioning that Mac’s good friend Monrovia felt that Mackenzie was a victim so why name a suspect who died before her? It might have been Farson who said something about that Druitt’s apparent unlikeliness as a suspect being what makes him intriguing and what makes me wonder if he might actually have been guilty?

Hi Herlock,

It's usually argued that Macnaghten must have had very good reason [via that private information] to suspect Druitt, because it would have been counter-intuitive to finger an Englishman of his class and profession for the murders. While I'm not doubting that Mac saw Druitt as a likely suspect, because of the timing of his suicide and the family suspicions about his 'sexual insanity', I'm just wondering if he elevated him to the top of his list because he wasn't the usual foreign/Jewish/dirt poor criminal type suspected by others in authority, and wanted to show his judgement wasn't affected by the kind of blind prejudice that could have led others down the garden path. Was he in fact trying to be 'woke'?

We know that psychopaths can come from all sections of society, and I suspect we only see fewer examples of serial killers from the middle classes and above, because they are in a minority to begin with.

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

It's usually argued that Macnaghten must have had very good reason [via that private information] to suspect Druitt, because it would have been counter-intuitive to finger an Englishman of his class and profession for the murders. While I'm not doubting that Mac saw Druitt as a likely suspect, because of the timing of his suicide and the family suspicions about his 'sexual insanity', I'm just wondering if he elevated him to the top of his list because he wasn't the usual foreign/Jewish/dirt poor criminal type suspected by others in authority, and wanted to show his judgement wasn't affected by the kind of blind prejudice that could have led others down the garden path. Was he in fact trying to be 'woke'?

We know that psychopaths can come from all sections of society, and I suspect we only see fewer examples of serial killers from the middle classes and above, because they are in a minority to begin with.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

Thats a fair point. Maybe he was trying to show that he wasn’t wedded to ‘the old established theories?’

[Mark J D]

... Irish terrorist group the Fenians, who in addition to causing major disruptions in London by bombing buildings in 1888...

-- Could you (or someone else) possibly let me know the dates/places of these 1888 bombings? I can only see references to a campaign that ended years earlier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenian_dynamite_campaign

Thanks!

M.

[Meet Ze Monster]

I don't subscribe to the conspiracy theories in general. The Royal conspiracy, the Masons, the Fenians etc. But I think there is some room for doubt or suspicion in this case which is worth discussing.

It's that small margin of doubt that interests me as a scholar rather than a subscriber.

Firstly, we all know how incredibly slight the time frame was between murder and discovery of body. Despite a growing police presence, in the wee silent hours, the killer had no apparent trouble avoiding capture. If there was any cover-up at all, the possibility of the police actually allowing their target to scarper could be argued. It's not difficult to see how doubt could occur over how much the police might have known and what orders they were given. This is just silly speculation of course. The killer's incredible escapes do leave one scratching their head at times.

But in a non-conspiratorial world, he simple got lucky and evaded capture by wits and fortune alone. End of. But let's not forget too that Jack was a ceremonial slaughterer. There is a question mark over whether his work was intentionally ritualistic or the post-mortem mutilations and organ removal had no significance beyond his maniacal mind. But in response to the cover-up thing, yes the story of the Masonic rites killings has possible echoes in the killers style. And the argument that the poor were being fed inflammatory, anti-semetic rhetoric to deflect attention away from the growing class divisions, certainly sounds plausible - especially given what the media is like now. But in the absence of good, reliable data these speculations should only really be discussed as part of the huge fabric of Ripperology. They exist and they can make for interesting discoveries and, man, they are so much more interesting than the ridiculous Royal conspiracy.

[packers stem]

There has always been a theory, which some researchers have advanced for many years. They suggest that Irish terrorist group the Fenians, who in addition to causing major disruptions in London by bombing buildings in 1888, was also behind some or all of the Whitechapel murders, in an attempt to force a major breakdown in the forces of law and order in London. I was later able to advance this theory following the examination of another Metropolitan Police file from The National Archives. This is recorded under MEPO 18/1. The file in question is a crime record book, which contained details of internal police memos and files relating to enquiries and investigations. Some of these entries related to the Whitechapel murders although the dates of the files referred to and the entries are un-dated. One such entry read: “Whitechapel Murders suggested complicity of Irish Party.” This entry related to an original file numbered 93867.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Ties in with the special branch entries on William Magrath, Trevor

You can hardly be "said to be connected" to a serial killer unless a direct accomplice or family / friend.
In either case the name of the killer would have to be known

[Damaso Marte]

Generally speaking, my low faith in human competence precludes me from believing in most conspiracy theories. However, given how the GSG was erased for fear of inciting a pogrom, it is not altogether implausible to me if the police had concluded that the Ripper was a Jew or an Irish Republican, they might have not announced so publicly...especially if the suspect was already dead, in an asylum, or imprisoned for some other offense.

It's still a simpler explanation to say that they simply didn't know who the Ripper was at all.

[Paddy Goose]

It's usually argued that Macnaghten must have had very good reason [via that private information] to suspect Druitt, because it would have been counter-intuitive to finger an Englishman of his class and profession for the murders. While I'm not doubting that Mac saw Druitt as a likely suspect, because of the timing of his suicide and the family suspicions about his 'sexual insanity', I'm just wondering if he elevated him to the top of his list because he wasn't the usual foreign/Jewish/dirt poor criminal type suspected by others in authority, and wanted to show his judgement wasn't affected by the kind of blind prejudice that could have led others down the garden path. Was he in fact trying to be 'woke'?

Was he in fact trying to be 'woke'?

Melville
Matters

[mpriestnall]

Melville
Matters

Leonard Matters.