William Bury: Jack the Ripper

[The Rookie Detective]

Geddy,

This is the post that I said I'd make in the Polly's Skirts thread.

The main reason why I lean toward Bury being the strongest suspect is that he's one of the few reasonable suspects that is known to have killed someone, and his known murder is similar, though not identical, to the Ripper murders. He strangled his wife, and many of the Ripper's murders are thought to have begun with strangulation. He also mutilated his wife to a degree. When he told the police about her death, he mentioned Jack the Ripper. He lived in the general area of Whitechapel at the time of the Ripper murders, and moved away shortly after the Kelly murder. After he moved away, graffiti referring to Jack the Ripper appeared on his new house.

I'm sure you'll be able to find additional reasons in this thread.

I agree that Bury ranks very highly on the potential suspect list.

Another interesting point is that it appears that while Bury was sitting in his cell it was communicated from the Police in Dundee and put to the Police in London that Bury may have been the Ripper.
However, it seems that after a relatively short time period the police in London seemed to have concluded that they didn't suspect he was the Ripper; that is, certainly not whle Bury was sitting in his cell waiting to be hanged
.
Once Bury was Hanged, I have no idea whether the police began to suspect him posthumously, but its a possibility.



RD

[Newbie]

Insane is very unlikely.

JtR would not be considered insane by the legal system today ..... he very clearly demonstrated that he knew what he was doing was a punishable act, if caught.
A weird, violent sociopath .... but very sane.

I'm curious if anyone knows anything about the records kept by the inspectors who visited Bury
in Dundee. I assume nothing .....which would be a shame.

Aethlewolf says that they thought Bury likely to be the Ripper?

One assumes that they checked out people who knew his activities in London: that they didn't just show up in Dundee asking probing questions into his personality.

Just knowing the types of questions they ask would be very interesting.

[Lewis C]

Geddy,

This is the post that I said I'd make in the Polly's Skirts thread.

The main reason why I lean toward Bury being the strongest suspect is that he's one of the few reasonable suspects that is known to have killed someone, and his known murder is similar, though not identical, to the Ripper murders. He strangled his wife, and many of the Ripper's murders are thought to have begun with strangulation. He also mutilated his wife to a degree. When he told the police about her death, he mentioned Jack the Ripper. He lived in the general area of Whitechapel at the time of the Ripper murders, and moved away shortly after the Kelly murder. After he moved away, graffiti referring to Jack the Ripper appeared on his new house.

I'm sure you'll be able to find additional reasons in this thread.

[Scott Nelson]

We can't say the knife wouldn't have been dropped next to where he was staying because nobody knows what went through the mind of the killer, particularly if he was insane.

Insane is very unlikely.

Oh...OK.

[Aethelwulf]

Is it possible that the removal of her rings might have been because he intended to dump her body Wulf and that they might have been a means of identification by someone that knew her? Or perhaps he he just saw them as something that he might have been able to sell at some point if he was desperate for cash?

I think he probs wanted them for pawn money, although I'd note those two cheap rings he had stashed. Ellen said she went out to visit her sister with her nice stuff to stop him pawning it. I was more thinking how callous he was, noting total lack of empathy and total callousness is a marker of a physcopath. He didn't mind living with her body, he didn't mind going back once she was cold and cutting her groin area, he didn't mind smashing her into that box breaking her leg, perhaps he washed her body a bit, there is the game of cards on the box with the body, though as said don't know source. Taking her stuff. He was totally callous. What sort of person was in kelly's room, slicing her up? Callous and cold beyond what is hard to believe.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Some other aspects of Bury's behaviour that look a bit odd perhaps.

1. Did he partially wash her body?

First medical report Templeman & Stalker: There were a few dried coagula in the left groin. There was no other appearance of blood in the region, except at the lower part of the left side of the abdomen and the upper half and inner side of the left thigh and this presented the appearance of having been partially removed by washing.

2. He appears to have taken some of her possessions. I can't see Bury going in for earrings, lockets and brooches. The finger rings might be Bury's, his neighbours said he wore a gold finger ring and jet finger ring:



There were also the two cheap rings of very inferior metal found in his trunk. It is these that some have suggested could have come from Chapman.

Living with a dead body for a number of days doesn't seem to have bothered him. Potentially washing part of the body, taking her possessions, returning to her body sometime later to inflict the groin cuts. All sounds a bit unsavoury. There is also the supposed game of cards using the chest with the body in as a table, but I don't know the source of that claim.

Is it possible that the removal of her rings might have been because he intended to dump her body Wulf and that they might have been a means of identification by someone that knew her? Or perhaps he he just saw them as something that he might have been able to sell at some point if he was desperate for cash?

[Abby Normal]

Insane is very unlikely.

bingo

[Fleetwood Mac]

We can't say the knife wouldn't have been dropped next to where he was staying because nobody knows what went through the mind of the killer, particularly if he was insane.

Insane is very unlikely.

[Aethelwulf]

Some other aspects of Bury's behaviour that look a bit odd perhaps.

1. Did he partially wash her body?

First medical report Templeman & Stalker: There were a few dried coagula in the left groin. There was no other appearance of blood in the region, except at the lower part of the left side of the abdomen and the upper half and inner side of the left thigh and this presented the appearance of having been partially removed by washing.

2. He appears to have taken some of her possessions. I can't see Bury going in for earrings, lockets and brooches. The finger rings might be Bury's, his neighbours said he wore a gold finger ring and jet finger ring:



There were also the two cheap rings of very inferior metal found in his trunk. It is these that some have suggested could have come from Chapman.

Living with a dead body for a number of days doesn't seem to have bothered him. Potentially washing part of the body, taking her possessions, returning to her body sometime later to inflict the groin cuts. All sounds a bit unsavoury. There is also the supposed game of cards using the chest with the body in as a table, but I don't know the source of that claim.

[Aethelwulf]

We can't say the knife wouldn't have been dropped next to where he was staying because nobody knows what went through the mind of the killer, particularly if he was insane.

Serial killers do indeed do weird things.

[Scott Nelson]

We can't say the knife wouldn't have been dropped next to where he was staying because nobody knows what went through the mind of the killer, particularly if he was insane.

[Aethelwulf]

The Coram knife was dropped next to a brothel (#254) where David Cohen was known to have stayed before his arrest.

I suppose that is the thing with suspects, there is an angle for pretty much everything. In this example, the location of the building is important for Cohen (though would he have dropped the knife next to where he was staying?); in the Bury case the actual building is irrelevant and the horse detail is possibly relevant (though would he have dropped the knife so close to somewhere he could see a constable?).

[Scott Nelson]

The Coram knife is particularly interesting because unless the knife was used on the horse itself i.e. someone stabbed the horse to make it drop, then I can see no explanation as to why the knife should be there, especially considering the timing/date.

The Coram knife was dropped next to a brothel (#254) where David Cohen was known to have stayed before his arrest.

[Aethelwulf]

That's what I said the day after the double event. Yes I made a mistake in the original post, so the idea of it being deposited that night doesn't work, as I said in the follow up to your query. As I said it is still of relevance for reasons listed above market. Change your user name to St Mark JD who never makes mistakes (coz he just parrots Stowe and fishy). Tool. Not like you have a wild fantasy that you have an avatar specially made up you freak.

Let me apologise mark I shouldn't have said that (I'd had a few early shandies and was a bit pissed TBH). Yes you are right it was the wrong date (Beadle does point the date out in his essay as well and I didn't notice). As I said though I believe it is still of potential interest for Bury. He did travel by horse and cart and I doubt he treated that horse well. The knife seems to have appeared around the time this horse fell down and Bury was known to be away for stretches, so this could have been him about to head off somewhere. In that Wouster letter about the lost knife the writer also claims to have been in the crowd watching the blood being washed away, so he could still have been about. The doctors seem to have thought however unlikely, it could have made the injuries.

[John Wheat]

It's the night following the 'double event'. It's 24 hours after the killings. And people on here are fantasizing wildly.

M.

Yes fantasizing about a suspect with a very similar M.O. to the C5 as opposed to for example a witness that found a body.