Why did Macnaghten deny Cutbush as a serious suspect?

He's the only one who stabbed women though.
That helps.

Point taken AP, and I agree with the line between those lines, it takes a certain type to cut people I think. We might differ though on what "cut" really means in these cases, because for me, stabbing is tentative, unless it is specifically to kill. A single stab in the heart for example.

Thanks for the mention of the Broadmoor archives Stephen, I had forgotten that announcement here a while back.

I didnt mean to leave the impression he is not a good profile suspect in my opinion, only noting that the recent explosion on him seemed of interest in and of itself,... until I read Stephens post anyway.

Best regards all.

[Cap'n Jack]

He's the only one who stabbed women though.
That helps.

[Ben]

It is ironic, I guess, that the suspect whose candidacy Macnaghten was vehemently arguing against is actually more plausible (IMO) than at least two of those named in his memoranda. But no, I'm afraid I wouldn't class him as a top suspect; just one of the slightly better ones out of a poor bunch.

Cheers,
Ben

[Stephen Thomas]

It seems to me that in the past two years here there has never been the interest in Cutbush that there is today.......
I am wondering why he is on the map so prominently lately.

Hi Michael

It's because of the recent opening of the Broadmoor archives.

There has never been much interest in Cutbush as a suspect, hardly any in fact, even here on Casebook thanks to the hypnotic effect of that Macnaghton memorandum, a distinctly dodgy document if ever I saw one.

Cutbush has to be the top named suspect to my mind.

No-one else even comes close, apart from Kosminski of course.

IMHO.

It seems to me that in the past two years here there has never been the interest in Cutbush that there is today....multiple threads,...different facets of the case to be made against him.... to me it has the same level of interest as I have with the Druitt chats, or the Diary threads...in that, what is being done is to view comments and articles from a different perspective only....nothing new is really being added...and I believe that without anything new to cause such a perspective change, the big picture is remaining unaltered. At least with Cutbush it doesnt have to be retrospective realizations, like is needed with Druitt.

Nasty little men are not uncommon, and in what could easily be described as the epitome of a nasty man haven, he is still among the ones that fit some features.

Not technically on thread, but I am wondering why he is on the map so prominently lately.

Best regards all.

[Natalie Severn]

Well we all dance to different drums on here WK!
I like the way you see Cutbush.I mean whatever else he was a poor demented soul---

[White-Knight]

I'm very respetful of Tom's candidacy ,Natalie. I can see what you mean now though. I personally think Tom may have been descended into full blown schizoid episodes in the missing period.although I accept that the sun reports from which that is based are largely unsubstantiated. .before that period he is gathering speed, as it were getting dismissed for various deluded and homicidal acts and obsessively repeating the same paranoid delusions about the doctor and so on and after it he descends,again if we are to believe the Sun, eventually, into the speechless wreck described in the Broadmoor visit. no effective meds for schizophrenic paranoia in the lvp ..indeed no real diagnosis in the first place..Rest assured , I think he was more than capable, possibly increasingly devoid of his original/ real personality in a sense, spending increasing time under his particular delusions and in paranoia. Interestingly whilst looking at Broadmoor I found the modern criteria for diagnosing psychopathy..Tom could, from what is said in the files and the sun reports, at different points qualify for all these modern labels. very, very ill and nast I'd say..the files do ,as you say,suggest that much at least ..We may not know where he was before Broadmoor or in the sense of him being JTR who he was or exactly what he did but I think we can have a fair idea of what he was going through. And thats all very suggestive. And nasty.

I'm frustrated too, believe me. even posted AP specifically on the missing period in case I'd missed anything.Which I haven't.

I'm new here though.I can see how you would think what you did.
I aint no Trevor.I certainly aint no Cannucio!

no axe to grind.
just fascinated by 'beating the tom-tom', as AP might say..

didn't you know, apparently we are in the AP posse you and me!?

bit patronizing. lol. no disrepect to AP.

so as the leading Cutbushian might say himself,

'BANG A DRUM!'

all the best,

WK.

[Natalie Severn]

White Knight,
I think it was mostly to do with the way Thomas Cutbush has been treated so far, that had me thinking here we go again! Anyone interested in Thomas Cutbush already has these missing years to deal with -between July 1888 and March 1891,when he was either flying through town in his night gown, acting the wierdo with a young couple in Camden,or up before the beak for stabbing women and being found unfit to plead and sent to Broadmoor in 1891.We dont know where he was or what he was doing in the Autumn of 1888,or any part of 1889 or 1890.We dont even have a date for the Westminster Bridge Road threatening behaviour episode with his doctor.Damn it!
Cheers
Norma

[White-Knight]

I am aware of Tom's history as described in The Sun, The Myth and the Broadmoor files, Natalie, though are you sure of an actual attack on an orderly? I thought he made some vicious threats but it was a fellow inmate he punched in the face and his mum he bit wasn't it?he wanted to attack them though, that seems to be in the files... Anyway as we both know the list of Tom's victims could be much longer than that which you provide here.

It was Mac I think a bit of a joke, albeit a bad one. worse than mine by the look of it.

Not Tom.very sick.very nasty.My chief suspect infact. apart from 'who'.

sometimes people deal with the dark side in different ways.

some use humour

still.. I'm new here..it was a crass and rather facile post.I'm sorry you found it offensive..I assume you did.. I've been hitting it hard lately..biblical slaughter and schizophrenia research ain't light reading.
I was tryin' to lighten up.

wrong subject, wrong place I guess.

Apologies again,


W.K.

[Natalie Severn]

Its not particularly funny White Knight-someone creeping up behind you and stabbing you with a knife in the street and causing hemorrhage,shock etc......

In anycase I think the way Cutbush was presented in 1894 was so far from the truth.Its as though they wanted to "laugh off" [and therefore " diminish"] these knife crimes.
Thomas Cutbush was very mentally unbalanced--actually a vicious little sicko with a thoroughly ghoulish interest in women much of the time---studying their anatomy and making wierd diagrams of them being "disembowelled" as well as these knife attacks on young women in the streets .He also wrote strange letters to his doctors accusing them of trying to kill him and actually threatened to shoot one of them with a gun he had taken to the doctors surgery.I dont think the doctor "laughed it off"
He callously left an old man for dead after deliberately pushing him down a stone staircase for annoying him,and attacked a female relative with a knife held at her throat .None of them thought him a joke.
He also seems to have terrorised his warders at Broadmoor with his unexpected vicious attacks on them.

[White-Knight]

how's this?..

Sir M:yes, some asylum or other, oh,.. do you think its important which one do you ? aah, no I don't really think so....no..no..no...not really...why..you plannin' a visit?.. no...it doesn't matter which one...., its just a simple little loony bin,..for a simple little loony... well.. you have to put them somewhere don't you?,..there's a lot of them about these days,yes streets are littered with 'em, eating off the pavement some of 'em, but no,no, I really can't be bothered to remember which one, I might do later...when I get the port out.. and I might write it all down... that's a good idea... yes splendid..I'll do that..yes... mind you... in a few years I'll probably have papers everwhere... I'll have to have a good clear out ...yes ..a good clear out...yes......, and then I'll probably accidentally chuck some of them on the fire ..or did I do that already? mmmm...............do you know,..I can't remember!... oh well ,doesn't matter........ Now, where was I?, oh yes, no..not the ripper no, not little Tom Tom...but good he went in there, yes ,good he went in .., very good, for the best ...yes.....but very sad for the family though ..yes.....very sad....oooh, those poor women, how they must have suffered...how did they sleep at night? ooof ..I can't imagine...what!!? .....I mean...you couldn't walk the streets at night ,no... couldn't walk the streets..yes it was for his own good yes , put him away they did yes, of course, it was for a very long time .......well, the bottoms of the nation simply wouldn't be safe would they?....no....stop it, no, stop messin' about...if that nutter was strolling about the place nobody's posterior would be safe would it? ...no..., flippin Sun..poking and prodding about like that! no, nobody's derrier in any state of safety whatsoever...no....

(Aside): Particularly mine!


From, Up Whitechapel!
Sir Frankie Howerd as Sir Melville Macstrappon
or Kenneth Williams..I'm not fussy!

o.k,.. after the tumbleweed........................................ ...

1.Have I overstepped the line yet?
2.Cap'n, I do declare, I strongly suspect you are quite right!

W (in a seventies sit-com mood tonight) K.

[Cap'n Jack]

Most don't mention it, White Knight, but Mac did build a cut-out clause to his meandering Memo, and it is this I think where he scratches at a very simple truth:
'as a possible alternative, was found to be so hopelessly mad by his relations, that he was by them confined in some asylum'.

As I firmly believe happened to Tom Tom, bang a drum.

[White-Knight]

thanks for those replies Natalie and Cap'n Jack, and hello Simon ,(interesting cuttings) and Mort!....very frustrating Cap'n those hidden months.. yes i was aware of the basic lack of soundness of the claims in the memo,Natalie, it was the level of disingenuity that interests me most ,having had a slightly 'cosy' notion myself that though Mac was deflecting from Cutbush ,it was more from ignorance and prejudice than knowing conspiracy. I'm still not completely sure but i'm heading towards conspiracy the more I think about that sentence, those missing months, and the picture painted of his character by cuttings like the one provided by Simon.
Mort ,as a look into the kind of killer JTR (and Tom) may have been, have you checked out the aforementioned Jack The Myth?.. very convincing on the question of 'type' or 'kind of killer',the problem of 'type' and linking the 'JTR type', such as that may be, to schizophrenia, and to Tom. I thought so anyway!

Capn'..the checking you mentioned...sounds like a route to me...I'm no researcher, unfortunately , but if I did find the time, how /where would I even start, or does the fact that I'm even asking the question really reveal a level of ignorance that makes it redundant to ask? officers assigned to convalescent /safe house duties...cross reference to those working for relevant parties..would we/you anyone have knowledge of the cross reference seems a starting point? i.e; likely directory of potential rank and files who MAY have been assigned such a duty..(must be a ton of coppers in that fold) ..and surely if the conspiracy holds, such activity would have been buried (or burned!?) very deeply. Where to start?

As a different by-line, another research possibility ? and probably for another thread, what do we know of the (four?) orderlies Tom Tom is said to have so springily dodged? part of the conspiracy at that point do folkses think? I want names named ! I guess I'll be lucky....plus....I work in care, and have been trained in restraint techniques (so don't mess with me ,right?) -did our orderlies share the luxury of any relevant training of the time? what was the level of known 'technique'? a quick koshing perhaps? I like the idea of Tom the urban freestyler and on the face of it, its a remarkable bit of escapology, cunning and guile to re-emerge fully dressed to join the throng ,but the gloss could be taken off the start of the jolly a bit if he was under the watchful auspices of say, Mr Baraclough on 'Porridge'.

still beating the tom-tom.. (thanks Roy!)

WK.

[Natalie Severn]

Its not a "definitely ascertained fact" that the ripper did get a "thrill" from his killings.He may have killed under a delusion that he had to do "God"s work" and "clean up the streets" or because he had a paranoid delusion about women who had tried to sell their bodies to him ---or had actually sold their bodies to him and had passed on an std to him in the transaction,causing him to develop an obsessive need for revenge by pulling out the reproductive organs of "unfortunates".
A fairly common punishment in Afghanistan for example is to mutilate and remove the genitals of the enemy and push them down the throat.I doubt the culprits are sexual serial killers. It happened too ,to the overthrown Prime Minister of Afghanistan some years back, when the Mujahadeen overthrew the secular government of Afghanistan .It happened only the other day when its alleged "vigilantes' murdered a convicted child molester and then mutilated his genitals,and left his caravan looking like Mary Kelly"s room must have looked.
Thomas Cutbush didnt only stab women in the streets.He made other violent attacks one of which was when he tried to cut the throat of a female relative.

[Cap'n Jack]

'What Macnaghten outlined in the quote I gave above is a precursor of profiling and a basic understanding of signature killings that was put into practical use by the FBI's behavioural unit and NCVAC in the latter end of last century.'

And which the FBI has very publicly disassociated themselves from this very year in dramatic fashion.
They have also recently stated that to see sexual motives in crimes which have no sexual motives at all is much like pissing on the dog that barked up the wrong tree.
Which is exactly what you do here.