Seaside Home?

[Stephen Thomas]

A WRONG ONE???????????????????

CAN YOU CLARIFY THAT SITUATION

The Definative Story is and was the story of the Jack the Ripper autumn of terror..

The last 12 minutes of which deals with suspects...and is probably the only TV program in History that avioded being forced into naming someone as Jack the Ripper........No mean feat

So perhaps you would like to explain yourself??????????

Yours Jeff Leahy
Producer / Director

PS the Definitive Story was writen by Paul Begg and John Benett neither of whom think Kosminski was Jack the Ripper and two people in whom, despite I might disagree with them. I have untmost confidense and respect in their own personal opinions.....these guys are giants

I see that the Merlot has kicked in, Jeff. Sleep well.

[Jeff Leahy]

Thanks Mike

To Jeff

I think that's a very good point. Why would Druitt even leave Blackheath? T
o kill harlots, let alone keep returning to the East End -- actually to the even more narrow 'evil quarter mile'?

Hi Jonathon

Well ideas have been put forward. And as no doubt Caz will point out serial killers like Colin Ireland (no relation to Mungo) Do travel but its so rare as to be off the scale............(but then the JtR murders were)


But yes, if you have a theory that places Druitt in teh East end then give me a PM might be a story?

Yours jeff

[Jeff Leahy]

I see that the Merlot has kicked in, Jeff. Sleep well.

No it has not. The definitive Story was a conceived program that went back to basics for a wider audience. The identity of the killer was never the rezondettera (cant spell that) but we did have a clear USP which was going back to basics and avoiding myth..

And I think Paul and John did that rather well...

My personal opinion on the identity of JtR has nothing to do with that story which I delivered to channel as a professional PD.

And there will be announcement soon about the next story....not JtR related at all....I'm hopefully a professional TV PRODUCER first and foremost..

Again top respect to Paul and John.....Jeff

[Jeff Leahy]

Jeff,
By "the wrong one" Stephen meant his conclusion that I believe Kosminski to be the Ripper, which was the wrong one, the wrong conclusion, and he has very graciously apologised for it. There's nothing for him to explain.
Paul

To be honest as someone who knows you well I've always been confussed about this...but I dont think I am anymore...

Your perspective is always entertaining and.....lets just say 'HOT'

Trust you are well and in my usual respect for everything you say,,,write..advance..Jx

[Jeff Leahy]

I see that the Merlot has kicked in, Jeff. Sleep well.

Are you excusing yourself or Me?

Sounds like someone is uncomfortable defending themselves Jx

[Abby Normal]

Sincere apologies, Paul. It was an impression that I'd had from your posts particularly since Jeff's film was shown and obviously a wrong one. I had no right to write what I did.

(I blame the amber nectar)

PWI (posting while intoxicated) is an embarrasable offence. I sentence you to
one gin and tonic.

*A friendly reminder from your local internet police*

[Jeff Leahy]

Theres a 'Blue Nun' requirement here in the UK after nine PM in the evening

[PaulB]

To be honest as someone who knows you well I've always been confussed about this...but I dont think I am anymore...

Your perspective is always entertaining and.....lets just say 'HOT'

Trust you are well and in my usual respect for everything you say,,,write..advance..Jx

Yes, it has been made abundantly clear to me that it is necessary to draw the distinction between believing a conclusion to be the most important for investigation and believing that the conclusion is right. I can and do believe that for several reasons Kosminski takes priority over other suspects, but that priority is as much to do with removing Kosminski from the frame as it is to keeping him in it. Which we ultimately do will emerge from a proper analysis and understanding of the sources, and hopefully from the emergence of new information, but that won't be achieved through a faulty analysis of the sources, such as dismissing them because they lack confirmation in the severely depleted official files, or dismissing the story because it seems improbable. The fact that it seems improbable is what alerts us to a need for caution, it isn't in itself justification for dismissing the source (for example).

[Jeff Leahy]

Yes, it has been made abundantly clear to me that it is necessary to draw the distinction between believing a conclusion to be the most important for investigation and believing that the conclusion is right. I can and do believe that for several reasons Kosminski takes priority over other suspects, but that priority is as much to do with removing Kosminski from the frame as it is to keeping him in it. .

I agree that keeping an open mind to any new information, whether that information points towards or away is indeed important.

I think the point I was trying to get at is at some point despite the sources we have, we also need to consider the individual balanced against what is known about the crimes. Age, geography, locality, class, opportunity, metal state, physical ability and so on and so fourth. So historical sources while important arn't the only consideration to make.

Which we ultimately do will emerge from a proper analysis and understanding of the sources, and hopefully from the emergence of new information, but that won't be achieved through a faulty analysis of the sources, such as dismissing them because they lack confirmation in the severely depleted official files, or dismissing the story because it seems improbable..

Yes I agree totally.

The fact that it seems improbable is what alerts us to a need for caution, it isn't in itself justification for dismissing the source (for example).

Again a great point. If the Sea side home story was more probable it would, in a bizarre way, seem more unlikely.

While your point about awaiting new information is frustratingly true.
I guess in the mean time people will continue to debate and try and make sense of what little is known at present.

My interest in Kosminski as a suspect has always been more balanced towards the illness he suffered from rather than the man himself.

Trust you are well and enjoying the morning sunshine

Yours Jeff

[Jonathan H]

To PaulB

Your work in this field is of the very highest standard and manages to be both cautious, in the best sense of that term, and yet also entertainingly judicious; using rigorous reason -- without fear or favour -- to machete the reader through a formidable jungle of fraud, hyperbole, wishful-thinking and imaginative over-reach.

It was reading your brilliant chapter on Macnaghten, a model of fairness and itchy dis-satisfaction with this enigmatic source, which led me to see if there was a way of countering your incisive argument that Mac, in what we have, knows no more about Druitt -- that was accurate -- than what was in PC Moulson's report on the recovery of his body from the Thames.

You can imagine how I must have felt when I realised that the source you had somewhat given short shrift, George Sims, arguably a Mac source-by-proxy, provided clear evidence that Mac did have post-Moulson knowledge, which meant that either he met with a Druitt, or he read the same articles on Druitt's death as we do now.

William Druitt was frantically trying to find his missing sibling, and this becomes the 'friends', in Sims, trying to find the 'demented doctor' after he 'vanished' from his place of residence, post-Millers Ct.

To just read the 1889 press accounts, which Macnaghten could have done -- at a minimum -- after being tipped off by M.P. Farquharson is enough to discover that Montague Druitt killed himself three weeks after the Kelly murder, that he was 31, that he was a surgeon's son, a barrister, a teacher at a small boys school at Blackheath, and that he was a cricketer of some note.

I quite appreciate that you do not share my tear-stained ecstasy about this alleged breakthrough, the equivalent of finding a dead Yeti in my backyard. That I am simply elevating an insignificant titbit to the level of a Biblical revelation, but about that we must, as usual, respectfully disagree (sorry, Jonathan, it's just a big, dead rat ...?)

[Stephen Thomas]

Yes, it has been made abundantly clear to me that it is necessary to draw the distinction between believing a conclusion to be the most important for investigation and believing that the conclusion is right. I can and do believe that for several reasons Kosminski takes priority over other suspects, but that priority is as much to do with removing Kosminski from the frame as it is to keeping him in it. Which we ultimately do will emerge from a proper analysis and understanding of the sources, and hopefully from the emergence of new information, but that won't be achieved through a faulty analysis of the sources, such as dismissing them because they lack confirmation in the severely depleted official files, or dismissing the story because it seems improbable. The fact that it seems improbable is what alerts us to a need for caution, it isn't in itself justification for dismissing the source (for example).

A quite superb post there, Paul. I learned the Scientific Method many years ago in my student days (though it was in London in the mid to late 60s and I don't remember too much about it) but I do know that anyone who puts forward a theory is obliged to try to disprove it.

For what it's worth I agree that Kosminski is the best 'named' candidate but there are just too many other things that have to rule him out IMO.

Stephen Thomas BSc

[Jeff Leahy]

For what it's worth I agree that Kosminski is the best 'named' candidate but there are just too many other things that have to rule him out IMO.:

OK? Name them.. Jeff

[Roy Corduroy]

Mac did have post-Moulson knowledge, which meant that either he met with a Druitt, or he read the same articles on Druitt's death as we do now.

Because he wrote MJ Druitt was a doctor, I find it unlikely Melville Macnaghten met with a Druitt.

Roy

[Jonathan H]

'Son of a Surgeon'

To Roy

Yes, I see what you are saying. You've gone right to the nub of the remarkably fragile old paradigm.

The reason I do not agree is that in the one source under his own name for public consumption Macnaghten did not write that the un-named Druitt was a doctor, or even hint at such a thing ('Laying the Ghost of Jack the Ripper' 1914).

In the version of his Report which was filed, and therefore might have been viewed by Macnaghten's political masters, he writes that Druitt was 'said to be a doctor ...', meaning that he does not know that he is a doctor it is just hearsay: he might or might not be a doctor -- and he wasn't.

In the alternate version of the same document, the one which was anonymously disseminated to the public, Macnaghten has Druitt as a middle-aged doctor. But his cronies would have balked at anything less than definite biog. info., and yet the same literary puppets are putting it out that the doctor had concerned pals, which is really a way of concealing that the fiend had family. If they are all so anxious to hide the family -- why not their deceased member too? As a Dr. Jekyll figure?

We have to believe that a police boss known for an extraordinarily retentive memory could recall correctly the tiny detail of the train ticket found on the murderer's water-logged corpse, but then proceed to get wrong -- due to poor recall powers -- his age, vocation and when he took his life? Is that really likely?

Macnaghten was known for his discretion and compassion. To tell Sims all he did was to expose the dead doctor and his relations and/or friends to potential public ruination. It's totally out of character! Unless Mac knew the profile was semi-fictitious, and they were not in danger? Otherwise we have to believe that by an incredibly lucky accident the surviving Druitts were protected by the anomalous failure of Mac's marvellous memory.

We also have to believe that Macnaghten, the 'action man' obsessed with the Ripper, could not even be bothered to read up on Druitt's death and learn something accurate about this posthumous suspect?

Plus, Farquharson knows that Druitt is not a doctor himself, but the 'son of a surgeon'.

[Roy Corduroy]

Because he wrote MJ Druitt was a doctor, I find it unlikely Melville Macnaghten met with a Druitt.

The reason I do not agree is that in the one source under his own name for public consumption Macnaghten did not write that the un-named Druitt was a doctor, or even hint at such a thing ('Laying the Ghost of Jack the Ripper' 1914).

In the version of his Report which was filed, and therefore might have been viewed by Macnaghten's political masters, he writes that Druitt was 'said to be a doctor ...', meaning that he does not know that he is a doctor it is just hearsay: he might or might not be a doctor -- and he wasn't.

Let me clarify what I was saying, Jonathan. Yes, I am referring to the Report. Where he wrote MJ Druitt was 'said to be a doctor ...' - which makes if very unlikely he actually met with a member of the Druitt family prior to February 1894.

Unless prior to 1894 either he spoke to the family, but did not bother to ask what Monty did for a living. Or he did learn from the family that Monty Druitt was a barrister/schoolteacher, but either forgot, or knowingly changed that when taking pen to paper in his official report.

Surely none of those options are attractive.

If you are suggesting he met with a member of the Druitt family after 1894 in the intervening twenty years before his memoir was published, that's a different story.

Roy