Why did Macnaghten deny Cutbush as a serious suspect?

[Cap'n Jack]

Heavens, Chris, don't go blue in the face on my account... red will do very nicely.

[Natalie Severn]

You are showing a great deal of bias and prejudice regarding the Sun Newspaper Chris,if I may say so, and since you are someone so keen on "evidence" can I ask first of all what "evidence" you have for your views on The Sun?

Also as you are a man ready to dismiss Cutbush"s knife attacks in the street on two women [two that we definitely know of ] as falling far short of what the Whitechapel murderer did and --- er ----how do you know what else the Whitechapel murderer did --?--? --? -I take it your thinking on it is very like Macnaghten"s on this matter?
In other words was the paranoid schizophrenic Thomas Cutbush, who like Napper was later to be detained in Broadmoor for life for these offences to women, just a sort of harmless nutter or was he working in a zigzag along the same path as Napper-one step forward two steps back-depending on the message from above?

---BTW can I have your opinion on why you think Thomas Cutbush was sent to "Broadmoor"an institution for the criminally insane and considered a danger to others ? Why not Colney Hatch or Leavesdon where Kosminski was sent for example----did Kosminski"s asylum notes say he was a danger to others or not?

----- Are you seriously saying that a paranoid schizophrenic who had deliberately bought knives in Houndsditch / The Minories in 1891 with the intention of carrying out knife attacks on women ---- and psst---who did,actually carry out knife attacks on them, was " no big deal" - just "someone" sticking knives in girls bottoms-bit of a chuckle really all that?




---Would you too conclude,like one understands Macnaghten appears to conclude in his memorandum, that the arresting officer and the courts of law who considered these knife attacks to be "malicious woundings" were acting a bit over the top ,making a fuss over nothing sending him to Broadmoor over them?


.......Can you tell us whether you think the threatened attack on his doctor in his surgery at Westminster Bridge Road-as per Macnaghten"s 1894 memorandum-was in the same vein----ie when Cutbush had crept up behind his doctor, drawn a gun on him and threatened to kill him-was that just Cutbush at 30 playing cowies and inguns sort of thing?



Thanks
Norma

[Chris]

AP

I could consider the case of Colin Pitchfork until I was blue in the face, but it would have absolutely no bearing on the factual accuracy of the Sun reports about Cutbush - or indeed on the seriousness of Cutbush's crimes.

[Chris]

I had forgotten about the Edalji case!Nothing remotely resembling "crime evidence" from Macnaghten there!

Except that if you read what Macnaghten actually wrote about this, you'll see that he didn't "condemn" Edalji as Sara claimed.

In fact he explicitly said that his previous opinion that Edalji was guilty had been founded on inadequate facts and was possibly quite erroneous!

[Cap'n Jack]

Chris
I would ask you to consider the Pitchfork case that I have posted elsewhere, and then to tell me what you make of man who has thousands of victims for his anti-social behaviour and then suddenly murders and mutilates one of them; then returns to his 'normal' anti-social behaviour for two years and four months before murdering and mutilating another victim?
Pitchfork's anti-social behaviour - exposing himself to young girls - would have been considered a fairly soft and ridiculous crime at that time, much like poking women in the rear with a toy dagger in the LVP one imagines?
You win my 'Macnaghen Prize Cup' of the year.

[Natalie Severn]

Surely the point Natalie keeps making, imo quite properly, is that the case of Napper makes it impossible to rule out Cutbush on the grounds that his *known* attacks on women were far short of the Whitechapel mutilations?

Imo the Napper case throws most previous assumptions based on signature and related profiling concerning JtR into the air. In the context of what we know now about criminal behaviour, I can't see that McNaughton's ideas on the case can be of much help to us in any direction.

Personally I'd be inclined to dismiss McNaughten's opinion on anything anyway, given he was willing to condemn George Edalji for cattle mutilations on the grounds of his 'criminal' physiognimy! The poor guy may have had a little uncorrected astigmatism in his eyes but he looks a sensitive and thoughtful man, to my eyes!

Yet another eg of a senior Plod seeing what he wants to see
I think he dismissed Cutbush purely because this possibility didn't fit in with his already preconceived ideas

Thankyou Sara---you make some very necessary points at this juncture.
I had forgotten about the Edalji case!Nothing remotely resembling "crime evidence" from Macnaghten there!

[Chris]

Surely the point Natalie keeps making, imo quite properly, is that the case of Napper makes it impossible to rule out Cutbush on the grounds that his *known* attacks on women were far short of the Whitechapel mutilations?

It may be impossible to rule him out - it's impossible to rule out most of the population of England in 1888. The question is what evidence there is against him. And the answer is, precious little.

If you're going to write things like "When I looked at Napper's sullen arrogant face staring insolently into the camera lens, on his way back to Broodmoor, I saw Cutbush looking back at me", I really think that's a question you should consider.

[Sara]

Surely the point Natalie keeps making, imo quite properly, is that the case of Napper makes it impossible to rule out Cutbush on the grounds that his *known* attacks on women were far short of the Whitechapel mutilations?

Imo the Napper case throws most previous assumptions based on signature and related profiling concerning JtR into the air. In the context of what we know now about criminal behaviour, I can't see that McNaughton's ideas on the case can be of much help to us in any direction.

Personally I'd be inclined to dismiss McNaughten's opinion on anything anyway, given he was willing to condemn George Edalji for cattle mutilations on the grounds of his 'criminal' physiognimy! The poor guy may have had a little uncorrected astigmatism in his eyes but he looks a sensitive and thoughtful man, to my eyes!

Yet another eg of a senior Plod seeing what he wants to see
I think he dismissed Cutbush purely because this possibility didn't fit in with his already preconceived ideas

[Chris]

-----it was clearly getting late when I wrote that----perhaps a better way of putting it would be that Macnaghten appears to have "accepted" the Sun"s "story" while "refuting" their conclusions about Cutbush being the Ripper.

Obviously he didn't accept that the Sun reports were factually accurate in what they said about Cutbush, any more than he accepted that Cutbush was the Ripper.

I am a bit at a loss over what you are saying over Thomas Cutbush.Are you saying Thomas Cutbush was not paranoid,that he was not locked up in Broadmoor because he was violent and a danger to women ?

Clearly he was sent to Broadmoor as a criminal lunatic. How dangerous he was to women is not very clear to me. That was why I was asking about the nature of the injury to Johnson. From the information Robert linked to, the wound seems to have been a rather superficial one. Obviously he could not be allowed to go round sticking knives into women's bottoms, but equally obviously it's a world away from what was done to the Ripper victims.

The other thing I am saying is that I am extremely sceptical about the accuracy of the Sun reports, except where they can be backed up by proper contemporary evidence, for the reasons I've given.

[Natalie Severn]

Natalie

You claim Macnaghten "endorsed" the Sun's claims?

Bizarre.

-----it was clearly getting late when I wrote that----perhaps a better way of putting it would be that Macnaghten appears to have "accepted" the Sun"s "story" while "refuting" their conclusions about Cutbush being the Ripper.

Clearly Chris, Macnaghten had no understanding whatsoever about the vagaries of where a paranoid schizophrenic"s psychosis might take him.
He is convinced instead that the Ripper"s killings were performed by a "sexually" insane killer----whatever that may mean.
Robert Napper, the "virgin rapist" and murderer of Rachel Nickell, Samantha Bissett and Jazmine ,has the same baffling illness as Thomas Cutbush and stalked women,committed violent gruesome and frenzied murders them while on other women he committed acts which included non-penetrative rape, unsolved knife attacks that police now believe he got away with ,all these police,its worth noting were, like Macnaghten, off on leads that led them away from their killer,rather than towards him-----and stubbornly refusing to accept that the " Jack the Ripper style killing" of Samantha Bissett had anything to do with the killing of Rachel Nickell etc.
I am a bit at a loss over what you are saying over Thomas Cutbush.Are you saying Thomas Cutbush was not paranoid,that he was not locked up in Broadmoor because he was violent and a danger to women ?

[Chris]

Natalie

You claim Macnaghten "endorsed" the Sun's claims?

Bizarre.

[Natalie Severn]

Chris,

But Macnaghten also endorsed The Sun"s statements by replying to them the way he did in his 1894 memorandum.The fact that he didnt "agree"" with The Sun"s "conclusions" that Thomas Cutbush and the Whitechapel murderer were one and the same is neither here nor there in our argument.
Labouchere too endorses the Sun"s "statements" but finds their evidence inconclusive despite all their efforts!
But the Hospital for the criminally insane,Broadmoor,where Thomas was incarcerated after his 1891 knife attacks on the two women we know about, totally confirms that Thomas Cutbush was the dangerously insane individual the Sun discusses, and as such he could indeed have been Jack the Ripper.The Sun doesnt prove he was,nor do the Broadmoor files so far anyway----but the files have begun to reveal a character such as The Sun described in those articles ---and such a character, by way of his violent eruptions and paranoid psychosis,could have been the Ripper.
BTW, The Sun wasnt the only paper -there were several other accounts in different newspapers at the time.

[Chris]

Natalie

If your approach is to accept every word of the Sun reports as true because Henry Labouchere "had no quarrel we know of with" them, I'm not sure whether much more can usefully be said.

I would be sceptical about anything I read in the press about the Whitechapel Murders, unless it was backed up by proper contemporary evidence. These Sun reports are much more problematical than most. But to each their own ...

[Natalie Severn]

I believe the MP Henry Labouchere,was a man of integrity.He had no quarrel we know of with the Sun"s accounts as such ,having seen with his own eyes the evidence Inspector Race apparently laid before him.The problem he had was with the circumstantial nature of the material on Cutbush.Likewise ,it appears, Macnaghten-he doesnt deny what the Sun is saying dont forget---and this is important,because he dismisses the cutouts Cutbush did,he dismisses the "malicious wounding" ie the knife attacks of the young women----he dismisses them as mere jabs? Then why was Cutbush brought before a court?Why was he sent to Broadmoor -a hospital for the criminally insane?
No Macnaghten I am sure ,simply refused to see The Ripper as anyone other than picture he had in his mind of a man whose murders "intensified" with each killing---therefore such a man wouldnt have gone in for such lesser knife attacks three years later.But that is to misunderstand the ebb and flow of paranoid schizophrenia and its varied manifestations.Thomas Cutbush,in Broadmoor, was considered a very dangerous patient.That isnt The Sun talking----its some of the information we now have on him from the recently released files.

[Robert]

Hi Chris

I don't mind being a Cutbusher, but "Cutbushite" has an unhappy termination.