Why did Macnaghten deny Cutbush as a serious suspect?

[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.

[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]

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.

[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

[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]

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

Amitiés,
David

[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

[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.

[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]

Alternatives

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.

I think that the three alternatives were named to show how easy it was to retrospectively nominate someone, especially someone with mental problems, as the Ripper. As we know Macnaghten admitted there was nothing by way of proof against anyone.

[Cap'n Jack]

Stewart
did Ostrog and Druitt have serious mental health issues?
Ostrog has always struck me as a determined, cunning and quite daring criminal who knew his onions and appeared to be able to cope with any situation or hardship. I fear the only hard evidence against him being that he was a rotten johnny foreigner.
Druitt on the other hand appeared to have been a whimsical soul, perhaps suffering from repressed feelings of homosexuality, which perhaps drove him to committ suicide... but surely that doesn't mean he was suffering from some form of mental illness that might cause him to kill people and rip them apart?
Surely it is not unusual for the whimsical soul to take his own life, but extremely rare for such a soul to take another life?
I believe the body of a retained fireman was found in the Thames around the same time as Druitts?
Retrospectively speaking he could have been Jack the Ripper.

[Stewart P Evans]

Suspects

Stewart
did Ostrog and Druitt have serious mental health issues?
Ostrog has always struck me as a determined, cunning and quite daring criminal who knew his onions and appeared to be able to cope with any situation or hardship. I fear the only hard evidence against him being that he was a rotten johnny foreigner.
Druitt on the other hand appeared to have been a whimsical soul, perhaps suffering from repressed feelings of homosexuality, which perhaps drove him to committ suicide... but surely that doesn't mean he was suffering from some form of mental illness that might cause him to kill people and rip them apart?
Surely it is not unusual for the whimsical soul to take his own life, but extremely rare for such a soul to take another life?
I believe the body of a retained fireman was found in the Thames around the same time as Druitts?
Retrospectively speaking he could have been Jack the Ripper.

AP, what I said was 'someone with mentals problems' which, clearly, Druitt had as he committed suicide. Ostrog apparently attempted suicide and displayed (possibly feigned) signs of insanity in court and was detained in the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum in early 1888.

Macnaghten, of course, described Druitt as 'sexually insane' and Ostrog as having been 'detained in a lunatic asylum as a homicidal maniac'. As we are discussing Macnaghten's citing of these other men as 'more likely' suspects than Cutbush then, obviously, whether or not they actually had 'serious mental health issues' is not relevant to the argument. Kosminski, of course, was a lunatic detained in an asylum.

Druitt's name had been linked to the Ripper crimes by Macnaghten's 'private information' and Ostrog had been linked as a result of his release from the asylum before the murders, in March 1888, his being wanted at the time of the murders and his whereabouts unknown. We are merely providing an explanation as to why Macnaghten cited these persons, and these are the reasons.

[Celesta]

I think that the three alternatives were named to show how easy it was to retrospectively nominate someone, especially someone with mental problems, as the Ripper. As we know Macnaghten admitted there was nothing by way of proof against anyone.

That's true; he didn't. So it would have been just as easy for the Sun to nominate Cutbush, or some other unstable person, as it was for Macnaghten to promote Aaron and company. As it turned out, they didn't need to release the Memorandum because there was not the hoopla about Cutbush that they anticipated could happen.

[Natalie Severn]

"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

Mike,
I was not suggesting a cover up,though I assume there must have been concern regarding the stress a fellow police chief,viz Supt Charles Cutbush,would have suffered among his collegues in the Commissioner"s office at Scotland Yard,especially since Macnaghten makes specific mention of Thomas Cutbush being his nephew.
No,it is much more to do with the lack of attention to the nature and severity of the illness Thomas Cutbush suffered from ,and that has been "minimised" over the years,together with his random stabbings of women in the streets of London,that gives me cause for concern.
But I will address this more fully in another post.
Best
Norma

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Stewart,
Thankyou for your response.I totally agree with you about the reason Macnaghten composed his memorandum and it is very helpful that you have reiterated it here.
Thankyou also for telling me about the Ripperana article. I did not know that Nick Warren had written at any length about Thomas Cutbush in that magazine,which I believe he edited,I only knew about the information provided on casebook,The Sun"s 1894 articles on him where they named him as The Ripper[virtually],and ofcourse AP Wolf"s book on him entitled "Jack the Myth".
However , the research that Nick Warren carried out in 1993, Stewart, would not have been informed by the recent snippets we have had revealed through glimpses of the recently accessed Berkshire Record Office Files during the last few weeks.Moreover,as I understand, only three of the files on him -out of some twenty files that exist on him- have so far been made accessible,and yet these snippets tell me all I need to know,to confirm for me that Thomas Cutbush could indeed have been Jack the Ripper.
Indeed just one of these snippets is suffice,and that is that he was considered "a danger to others",which if you recall, Aaron Kosminski"s records did not consider him to be.
Now I have worked in the Art Therapy section of a large psychiatric hospital in the North West.There were patients there who suffered from the kind of paranoid delusions Thomas Cutbush is said to have suffered from viz,imagining doctors to be trying to poison them and most were fairly harmless as Aaron Kosminski was recorded as being.However,where it was written that a patient was a danger to others,as was the case with Thomas Cutbush,great care was taken to protect others from the consequences of a "lapse".In one particular case,a man of thirty who was making excellent progress with some of the modern drugs now available,was allowed to go home for the weekend.Without warning he went into the shed,found an axe and chopped his wife"s head off.
Another case ,happened more recently in North Wales.Another man who had been considered of some danger to others had been allowed day release,while making excellent progress taking his medication,but upon release he had stopped taking it.He suddenly took himself off in his car to the beach ,some thirty miles away, where he came across an old man walking his dog,--- a complete stranger to him.Without any hesitation he took out a knife and stabbed the poor old man to death in a frenzied stabbing.Usually such killings are called "command killings" because the person who carries them out believes themselves to be under instruction ,or "hearing voices" from a higher power such as God,instructing the person to carry out a killing,stabbing,mutilation.The person often has a number of obscure quotes from the Bible to support the "act"----and such quotes often include material referring to "sexual sin" and ,where it is women who are injured or sometimes their murder victims ,there is often a reference for the need for the "reproductive organs" to be removed and" thoroughly cleaned of sin"- that type of thing often seems to haunt the psychotic episodes of those diagnosed as dangerously insane.Its also worth remembering that the manifestation of the psychosis can vary from one episode to the next, so on one occasion he believes himself to have to go out and remove women"s organs,whereas on another occasion he may be "instructed" to turn all the gas taps on and blow up all the flats in his block---an actual event prevented from tragedy just in the nick of time by fire brigade and police!
Anyway,I am pretty certain Thomas Cutbush experienced " psychotic episodes" and far from being a harmless "imbecile" he was in truth a very dangerous man indeed which was why he was a lifer in Broadmoor and not a milder mental patient such as those who found themselves sent to Colney Hatch or Leavesdon. Certainly he can not be readily dismissed as Macnaghten appears to have done,but then perhaps Macnaghten knew nothing about Thomas Cutbush,apart from what he read in the Sun National Newspaper!

Best

Norma


Celesta,
I hope the above explains what I am talking about.