Signature Analysis and Bury's Murder of Ellen

[Boggles]

there were significant numbers of streetwalkers within close striking/escaping-distance in Poplar, without Bury having to go the extra mile

Yet he did, as in trial transcript his wife found him drinking in a whitechapel pub, just before he beat her up.
It may be that his wife having friends/contacts in the trade he preferred Whitechapel. I suspect when whitechapel got too hot for him, either due to a Kelly witness, or (my own pet theory) the Farmer assault, he sold his cart and switched to poplar. Though an early victim Ada Wilson lived a few streets away from him.

[Cogidubnus]

Bury owned a horse and cart. He was sufficiently mobile to make the Whitechapel area his killing ground.

As I've asked before (and never had adequately answered), so where did he park the horse and cart, (on at least four occasions), so's it didn't get stolen - which generally if left unattended it would've been...oh and how did he afford it...

All the best

Dave

[Wyatt Earp]

Dave, no one knows where Bury parked his horse and cart. In Beadle's 1995 book, Jack the Ripper: Anatomy of a Myth, he writes, "George Yard itself was an ideal place to park a pony and cart whilst he was in Whitechapel and Spitalfields" (p.168). But again, no one knows.

[Abby Normal]

Dave, no one knows where Bury parked his horse and cart. In Beadle's 1995 book, Jack the Ripper: Anatomy of a Myth, he writes, "George Yard itself was an ideal place to park a pony and cart whilst he was in Whitechapel and Spitalfields" (p.168). But again, no one knows.

Hi Wyatt
What I find extremely interesting is that not only did bury exhibit post mortem mutilation targeting the abdomen and sexual organs, which is extremely rare, he tells the police that he didn't want to be arrested as jack the ripper.

The fact that he's the one that brings up jack the ripper is very interesting (and very odd)to me.

[Cogidubnus]

And the very fact he mildly gave himself up to the police, after having a week to escape, is very odd to me too...JtR managed to elude the police with seconds to spare, but not this guy...

And this is in an age where it was all too easy to disappear from one place and reappear with a different identity elsewhere merely by the expedient of introducing a new name...hello I'm Fred Trumpshott from Devizes...etc...

[Wyatt Earp]

And the very fact he mildly gave himself up to the police

This is nonsense, Dave. Lt. Parr states no such thing in his trial testimony.

[Cogidubnus]

So did he attempt to flee?No.. Was he violent or resistant? No... Did he not visit the Police Station? Yes entirely voluntarily...

Hence I feel justified in stating that he mildly gave himself up to the Police

[Wyatt Earp]

So did he attempt to flee?No.. Was he violent or resistant? No... Did he not visit the Police Station? Yes entirely voluntarily...

Hence I feel justified in stating that he mildly gave himself up to the Police

No, visiting a police station is not the same as giving oneself up. Familiarize yourself with Parr's testimony. Bury reported the death of his wife and he said that he feared being apprehended as the Ripper. He did not confess to anything, he did not "give himself up." This is nonsense.

[Abby Normal]

No, visiting a police station is not the same as giving oneself up. Familiarize yourself with Parr's testimony. Bury reported the death of his wife and he said that he feared being apprehended as the Ripper. He did not confess to anything, he did not "give himself up." This is nonsense.

Hi Wyatt
You have to admit it was a pretty lame attempt, No? and he did end up confessing. Polar opposite to the ripper's elusiveness.

That being said if Bury was the ripper(and I think he is a very viable candidate) I could chalk it up to him basically losing it mentally and the fact that he now has a murdered wife on his hands- in his residence no less-quite different than being able to just skidaddle at the first sign of trouble or when he was finished with the victim when they were strangers out on the street.

[Wyatt Earp]

Hi Wyatt
You have to admit it was a pretty lame attempt, No? and he did end up confessing. Polar opposite to the ripper's elusiveness.

Who would have predicted that the elusive California coed killer would call up the police and confess to murdering his mother? But that's exactly what Ed Kemper did. You don't know how things are going to end with these guys, Abby. It's an enormous mistake to point to how Bury's saga ended as a basis for doubting he was the Ripper.

What do I think of Bury's actions? I think he was trapped, I think he had no good escape options, and I think he tried to bluff his way out. It was not what I would describe as a well-executed bluff.

[Abby Normal]

Who would have predicted that the elusive California coed killer would call up the police and confess to murdering his mother? But that's exactly what Ed Kemper did. You don't know how things are going to end with these guys, Abby. It's an enormous mistake to point to how Bury's saga ended as a basis for doubting he was the Ripper.

What do I think of Bury's actions? I think he was trapped, I think he had no good escape options, and I think he tried to bluff his way out. It was not what I would describe as a well-executed bluff.

Hi Wyatt
Fair enough.

Like I said, if he was the ripper, I could see at least part of the Not well executed bluff being due to him basically unraveling mentally.

Your comparison to Kemper is a valid one IMHO and another would be how Bundy unraveled-lost it so to speak-by the un bundy like frenzied attack in the sorority house that led to his demise.

Its bee said (confirmed?) that Bury had syphilis. Perhaps this was affecting him mentally. what do you think?

[Wyatt Earp]

Its bee said (confirmed?) that Bury had syphilis. Perhaps this was affecting him mentally. what do you think?

This is what Macpherson wrote in his book: "As to which disease it was, we cannot say for sure, although gonorrhoea may seem more likely than syphilis. James Martin testified that Bury had told him 'he [i.e. Bury] had the venereal disease very bad in May last.' Martin also stated that Bury had admitted that he gave it to his wife...About this time, Ellen Bury also told Kate Spooner that she had 'the bad disorder'" (p.49). There's no firm basis for bringing vd into Bury's mental state.

[curious]

Hello Curious,

This comment about the Evans family connection between Bury and Eddowes rather leapt out at me.

I'm putting the finishing touches to a novel that sees Bury and Eddowes cross paths three months before her death, and I wasn't aware of this possible family connection.

William Beadle, in his book on Bury, states Evans was both the maiden name of Catherine's mother and Bury's maternal grandmother, both living in Wolverhampton, but 'whether there was a family connection I have not been able to discover.'

Are you getting it from here, or is there another source for a definite family link between them?

Thanks in advance.

Hello, Andy,
My apologies for taking so long to answer. I am rarely on site anymore and don't recall an email for this thread.

From the beginning, Bury has interested me. When I read in Beadle's book about the same family name and Wolverhampton, I was very interested -- especially in light of the fact that Kate is the only victim for whom there is a story in which she says she knows who the Ripper is.

Now, Kate was so much older than Bury, I don't think they were in Wolverhampton at the same time. She had left with Thomas Conway before he arrived, if I recall correctly.

However, I suspect that Bury was always a bad'un and that folks around him, family and neighbors, knew that.

When I tried to look the families up on Ancestry.com, I did not find information going back far enough to learn whether Kate and Bury were related or not.

HOWEVER, the two families lived very close to each other (IF I am recalling that correctly). It seems to me, just a block or two apart. Visits home or family letters could very well have kept Kate up-to-date on Bury's shenanigans.

There's enough of a thread there that I find it picks at my mind.

Just curious -- in your book, how do you have them meeting?

curious

[curious]

Hi Wyatt
You have to admit it was a pretty lame attempt, No? and he did end up confessing. Polar opposite to the ripper's elusiveness.

That being said if Bury was the ripper(and I think he is a very viable candidate) I could chalk it up to him basically losing it mentally and the fact that he now has a murdered wife on his hands- in his residence no less-quite different than being able to just skidaddle at the first sign of trouble or when he was finished with the victim when they were strangers out on the street.

Hi, Wyatt, Dave, Abby,
While I like Bury for the Ripper in many ways, his going to the police has been a major factor in my doubting him.

It has just come to me to wonder if his move had anything to do with his going to the police.


I agree that he would have reacted very differently to killing his wife in their home than he would to a woman in the street.

But could arrogance have played a role? He moved from London, center of the universe, where he outwitted the cops. Surely there's no way the police in podunk Dundee would be any smarter, would ever figure him out.

I can see him thinking that -- big city folks today think that all the time about everyone and everything unfortunate enough to live in the boonies.

I can see Bury thinking that if the London bobbies couldn't figure it out, there was no way the jokers in Dundee would be able to see through him.

anyway, just thinking . . .

Hope everyone has a terrific Saturday.

curious

[Andy Conway]

Hello, Andy,
My apologies for taking so long to answer. I am rarely on site anymore and don't recall an email for this thread.

From the beginning, Bury has interested me. When I read in Beadle's book about the same family name and Wolverhampton, I was very interested -- especially in light of the fact that Kate is the only victim for whom there is a story in which she says she knows who the Ripper is.

Now, Kate was so much older than Bury, I don't think they were in Wolverhampton at the same time. She had left with Thomas Conway before he arrived, if I recall correctly.

However, I suspect that Bury was always a bad'un and that folks around him, family and neighbors, knew that.

When I tried to look the families up on Ancestry.com, I did not find information going back far enough to learn whether Kate and Bury were related or not.

HOWEVER, the two families lived very close to each other (IF I am recalling that correctly). It seems to me, just a block or two apart. Visits home or family letters could very well have kept Kate up-to-date on Bury's shenanigans.

There's enough of a thread there that I find it picks at my mind.

Just curious -- in your book, how do you have them meeting?

curious

Hi Curious, and thanks for responding.

I came to William Beadle's book feeling that Bury was an unlikely suspect, and was only interested in how a suspect with a link to Birmingham might aid my fiction (having created a series of historical novels that explore Birmingham under the guise of a time travel saga).

But the more I read Beadle's book, the more convincing Bury became.

You're right, Catherine was 17 years older than Bury, but they came from the same corner of Wolverhampton, and they do share that Evans name in their families, so there's a tantalising possibility they might have been related.

And if Catherine really did claim to know the killer (I appreciate this is debateable), might she have known Bury all too well?

That's certainly an angle I'm exploring in my novel.

My novel introduces them as two people who already know each other from Whitechapel, but I've so far avoided the issue of how they first met. I'm tempted to add a last minute edit that hints at the family link.