Why did Macnaghten deny Cutbush as a serious suspect?

[Celesta]

Hello Nats,

It seems that the Memorandum was a CYA report, in response to what they feared would be an official and public response to the Sun coverage, of Cutbush, as has been stated, but why was it necessary to give alternatives to Cutbush? To give the memorandum more weight? In hindsight, did they see Cutbush, as a serious enough candidate for JtR that they thought they needed to deflect attention from his activities, by nominating the other three characters? It just seems very CYA to me, whether there was or wasn't a cover-up.

Clearly, Cutbush was a bona fide nutcase. We know several women were attacked, but without JtR's mutilating style. This makes me continue to wonder about Cutbush and at least three women.

[Stewart P Evans]

Ripperana

One of the main reasons numbers of Ripper researchers have overlooked or totally dismissed Thomas Cutbush as a serious suspect over the years is because of Macnaghten"s comments about Cutbush in his memorandum.It is a strange piece of work ,from the Chief Constable CID ,both in its draft form of the Aberconway report and in its official version of 1894.
Moreover, it has never been clear exactly who it was composed for, though it certainly seems plausible that it was put together as a result of The Sun newspaper"s series of sensational articles of February 1894 in which they virtually named the Ripper as being Thomas Cutbush, and it seems likely that it was prepared for the Home Secretary or another ministerial dignitary to have in case of further questions on the matter arising in the House of Commons.

Norma, As I have pointed out in the past, Macnaghten reported to the Assistant Commissioner (Crime) and the Chief Commissioner, ergo it was they whom this 1894 report was intended for.

The reason for it is clearly as a response to the high-profile press reports in the Sun newspaper which, obviously, raised questions for the police. One assumes that the information was required to be at hand should there be a question from the Home Office. In the event it would seem that the Sun reports did not have the impact that it was at first assumed they would have. It would appear that interest quickly died down and the report was never required but stayed on file. This would seem to be the only explanation for it being located in MEPO 3/141.

The first detailed look at Cutbush as a suspect was by Nick Warren in Ripperana No. 4, April 1993. In this five-page essay Nick Warren states that Cutbush suffered from hypochondriacal delusions, labouring under the impression that he had contracted syphilis. "In nineteenth century terms he was clearly 'insane' suffering from Syphilophobia. His subsequent deterioration, once confined in the Criminal Lunatic Asylum at Broadmoor indicates that he was in fact psychotic, a victim of schizophrenia, or true mania."

Nick Warren looks at the nature of Cutbush's offences, the police evidence (upon search of the house), his history following arrest and concludes with a list of three possibilities as to Cutbush's status as a Ripper suspect. In all a very interesting and informative article that presented the most information available at that early date on Cutbush.

[The Good Michael]

David,

I'd agree with that. He sort of loses his credibility with Ostrog a bit. In my mind, Cutbush is a copycat of sorts that didn't have quite the fortitude to really do what the Ripper did.

Cheers,

Mike

[DVV]

Hi Mike,
I'd rather say that Druitt and Kosminski are more likely suspects than... Ostrog.

Amitiés,
David

[The Good Michael]

"Why did Macnaghten deny Cutbush as a serious suspect?"

Because he is an unlikely suspect. It seems to me that you are suggesting a cover-up. There's nothing that I've read that puts Cutbush above Druitt or Kosminski, or even on their level.

Mike

[DVV]

True, there's almost nothing about Cutbush in Begg, Sugden, etc. That's frustrating.
But the same authors neglect Kelly, Bury, Grainger etc as well.

Amitiés,
David

[Natalie Severn]

Yes Ap, none of these CID Chiefs provide any actual---or even "circumstantial "evidence to back up what they write,and with Chief Commissioner of the City Police, Major Smith, abhorring Sir Robert Anderson"s "reckless accusations" about "low class Polish Jews" and Sir Melville Macnaghten ,marking out a single male barrister/teacher who had been sacked from his teaching post at an all boys school, it certainly looks as though prejudice got the better of factual evidence or reason.

[Cap'n Jack]

Thanks Natalie, you say the nicest things.
But as I said in the 1990's it was a clever piece of disinformation, so clever that it still works today, and a sublime number of writers and researchers still cling to that daggy old memo as if it were the ultimate mantra.
We have solid evidence now to compare to Macnaghten's memo, and it is about time that folks around here reacted to that solid evidence rather than a daggy memo that truly reflects the institutionalised racism and sexism of the senior serving officers of the Met Police in the LVP.
I am personally pissed off with hearing that the killer was a Russian or Polish Jew, or a gay Catholic barrister.
He was a white protestant from a good family.

[Natalie Severn]

One of the main reasons numbers of Ripper researchers have overlooked or totally dismissed Thomas Cutbush as a serious suspect over the years is because of Macnaghten"s comments about Cutbush in his memorandum.It is a strange piece of work ,from the Chief Constable CID ,both in its draft form of the Aberconway report and in its official version of 1894.
Moreover, it has never been clear exactly who it was composed for, though it certainly seems plausible that it was put together as a result of The Sun newspaper"s series of sensational articles of February 1894 in which they virtually named the Ripper as being Thomas Cutbush, and it seems likely that it was prepared for the Home Secretary or another ministerial dignitary to have in case of further questions on the matter arising in the House of Commons.
For a long time,the dismissal of Thomas Cutbush by serious researchers was fairly automatic,and it continued throughout the 1990"s despite the case against Thomas Cutbush being reopened by AP Wolf, in his perceptive and compelling analysis of Cutbush in ,"Jack the Myth", available here on Casebook thanks to AP"s kindness and generosity.
However the recent availability of some of the Broadmoor files on Cutbush has highlighted the danger to women in particular and society in general that Thomas Cutbush had represented .We are now given factual proof that Thomas Cutbush continued to be considered ,long after stabbing women in the streets of Kennington in 1891, to be a violent,unpredictable man.Indeed,it is quite clear from the few files that have been made available, that from the moment he was admitted to Broadmoor in 1891 until his death there in 1903 he presented as a fearsome and dangerous patient, almost certainly suffering from delusions of persecution and likely to have been a paranoid schizophrenic----certainly therefore someone who "could have been" Jack the Ripper.This was after all a man who expressed in violent language a desire to "rip up" his minders and anyone else who crossed his path ,who threw out vicious punches unexpectedly wounding a warder minding his own business and engaged at the time in a conversation with another person .A man whose records in the institution are profoundly different and a complete contrast to, for example, those of Aaron Kosminski about whom we have no record of any violent act apart from him once picking up a chair and using threatening language to one of the staff--and this in an institution for the "milder imbecilic "-not Broadmoor for the criminally insane .

And yet,------- Aaron Kosminski,along with Montague Druitt and Ostrog were named in the memorandum as "more likely than Cutbush" to have been JtR----.Something doesnt make sense here,particularly since the memorandum is full of confusing innaccuracies about the ages occupations and institutionalisations of his various leading suspects.