Conspiracy to suppress the identity of JTR?

[Cogidubnus]

Even if we were to accept that, and that alone, were the case, if the suppression/evasion was by means of a series of acts of very dubious legality, connived at by a number of authorities, is that not very close to the dictionary definition of a conspiracy anyway?

Cheers

Dave

[APerno]

Mary Kelly so often becomes the epicenter of conspiracy theories. Was it because she was the most brutalized; because she was last; because she was the prettiest; because she doesn't fit with the others; or because we know the least of her? I guess she just makes for the best story. But that poor girl . . .

[Cogidubnus]

Mary Kelly so often becomes the epicenter of conspiracy theories. Was it because she was the most brutalized; because she was last; because she was the prettiest; because she doesn't fit with the others; or because we know the least of her? I guess she just makes for the best story. But that poor girl . . .

Yes she does seem to attract this sort of attention - and I agree that what happened to the poor woman was abominable - but I was consciously avoiding the traditional Fenian and other theories, suppressing my sympathies, and attempting, sans emotive appeal, to approach this from the standpoints of the unique (in this series of killings anyway) features of the choice of mortuary, and therefore the coroner, (one more co-operative than Baxter perhaps?), the very obvious guillotining of the evidence, the failure to even establish a full identity, and the rush to burial without apparent attempt to contact the family...

Cheers

Dave

[seanr]

I say I don't know. I consider ideas such as the Royal Conspiracy to be absolute total tosh. Although there clearly was organised crime in Whitechapel and I'm not alway comfortable with how that organised crime seems to interact with the policing of the time.

Based on surprising facts in completely unrelated cases where police corruption did exist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Daniel_Morgan), I do think it is possible corrupt police frustrated the Ripper investigation. If it occurred, it seem most likely the corruption protected people connected to organised crime who may have potentially become suspects.

Possible, but how likely? - certainly far from proven. I just don't know.

[Damaso Marte]

I suppose it's possible that if Kosminsky was the Ripper the police may have conspired to prevent this from becoming known, to prevent antisemitic violence in the East End. No other conspiracies seem plausible to me.

[Simon Wood]

At 3.00 pm on Friday, 9th November 1888, Mary Jane Kelly’s body was still in Room 13, and the witnesses had yet to be let out of Millers Court. Robert Anderson and various doctors were in attendance. The police had barely begun their investigation, yet four hundred miles away in northern Scotland the press had been telegraphed by Central News, informing them that ‘the fiend’ had struck again.

Aberdeen Evening Express, 9th November 1888—

“The Central News, telegraphing at three o’clock, says:-

“Present indications go to show that the woman murdered in a lodging house, in a court leading from Dorset Street, Spitalfields, fell victim to the man who has already made himself a terror to the East End of London. On this occasion, however, the fiend has departed from his usual method, inasmuch as the crime was committed, not in the open streets, but in a room in a lodging house. This should afford a more definite clue in tracing the murderer than has been given in any of the previous cases.”

Anybody smell a rat?

[Wickerman]

No, not over here, anyone else?

[Wickerman]

In the early afternoon edition of the Star, certain details were already being published.
No-one left the court, but reporters were covering the scene from the rooftops.

Another of our reporters writes :- The murder was not discovered till about half past eleven. The excitement arose in the neighborhood the instant the report was spread. All kinds of reports are flying as to the nature of the crime. It is certain that the woman's head was nearly severed from the body, and others state that the body has been disembowelled. The police, however, refuse to supply information of any kind to certain of the reporters, and guard the entrance to the court where the crime was committed as carefully as if the murderer were still confined within its precincts.

The court itself, which our reporter and artist got an opportunity of viewing from the roof, is one of those miserable little alleys where none but those compelled to live in its stifling atmosphere ever enter. The house where the woman spent her last night is in keeping with its surroundings.
Star, 9 Nov. 1888.

The Central News could have been up there too.

[Ginger]

Thos. Bowyer obviously left the court, or the police couldn't have learned of the crime.

[FISHY1118]

Dont kid seanr the royals have been covering up there crimes for centuries, you just haven't done your homework yet . Bit like most people who refuse to see whats right in front of them because it does not fit their narrative.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Dont kid seanr the royals have been covering up there crimes for centuries, you just haven't done your homework yet . Bit like most people who refuse to see whats right in front of them because it does not fit their narrative.

Or people like you that ignore the mountains of genuine, meticulous, indisputable research and evidence that easily disprove these childish and discredited theories.

[Wickerman]

Thos. Bowyer obviously left the court, or the police couldn't have learned of the crime.

True, but Bowyer & McCarthy together reported the crime, and returned to the Court with the Inspector.

For the Central News to have learned of the crime they would have to been told by Bowyer, or McCarthy at the station or on the street somewhere. Yet no-one knew about it so how would they meet?
This leaves the Central News reporter going to the station after learning of the crime to get info. but, as the Star said, the police are saying nothing, only referring all reporters to Scotland Yard.

[Ginger]

True, but Bowyer & McCarthy together reported the crime, and returned to the Court with the Inspector.

For the Central News to have learned of the crime they would have to been told by Bowyer, or McCarthy at the station or on the street somewhere. Yet no-one knew about it so how would they meet?
This leaves the Central News reporter going to the station after learning of the crime to get info. but, as the Star said, the police are saying nothing, only referring all reporters to Scotland Yard.

Dr. Bond was sent for. The photographer (a private individual, so far as I know - not a policeman) was sent for. Both of these, I think, were summoned before the door was forced. Sugden, relying upon Dew's account, has Bowyer going alone to the police station. That seems plausible to me, as McCarthy had his shop to think of. If his wife or someone kept the shop open during the investigation (it fronted on Dorset St. I think), then I'd imagine every customer knew all the gory details by the time they left. If his shop was closed on a Saturday (a prime business day, as many workers were paid Saturday noon), that too would help spread the news.

In the end I don't think closing off the court was so much to keep information from the outside world, as it was to make sure that the police got to talk to all of the witnesses before they had talked to anyone else and had their stories contaminated, and to keep people from wandering about the crime scene spoiling evidence. I'm sure there must also have been, at least initially, a hope that the Ripper was still within the court.

[Simon Wood]

It had been six weeks since the so-called double-event. Memories are short. People weren't sitting on the edges of their seats, waiting for the "Ripper" to strike again.

So why did the police automatically assume that Millers Court was the work of the "Ripper," a 'fact' they were happy for the newspapers to broadcast in quick-smart time?

[Wickerman]

Dr. Bond was sent for. The photographer (a private individual, so far as I know - not a policeman) was sent for.

Yes, the photographer is believed to have been Joseph Martin, but we have no suggestion that the photographer was kept waiting, so likely the door was open by the time he arrived.

.... Sugden, relying upon Dew's account, has Bowyer going alone to the police station. That seems plausible to me, as McCarthy had his shop to think of.

Why wouldn't you use the inquest testimony?

https://www.casebook.org/official_documents/inquests/inquest_kelly.html

Far more reliable than Dew's 50 year old memoir.

If his wife or someone kept the shop open during the investigation (it fronted on Dorset St. I think), then I'd imagine every customer knew all the gory details by the time they left. If his shop was closed on a Saturday (a prime business day, as many workers were paid Saturday noon), that too would help spread the news.

In the end I don't think closing off the court was so much to keep information from the outside world, as it was to make sure that the police got to talk to all of the witnesses before they had talked to anyone else and had their stories contaminated, and to keep people from wandering about the crime scene spoiling evidence. I'm sure there must also have been, at least initially, a hope that the Ripper was still within the court.

There were plenty of hands at No.27 to look after the shop, two families of McCarthy's lived there.
All that aside, it is clear there were plenty of opportunities for a Central News reporter to gain some insight to the murder long before 3:00pm.