Assessing the case against W.H.Bury

[Sam Flynn]

Bill Beadle's new book concerning Bury is out on 1st January 2009

He'll have to go some to improve on his first book, John. (And I mean that )

[johns]

Bill Beadle's new book concerning Bury is out on 1st January 2009 according to this website---> http://www.borders.co.uk/book/jack-t...asked/1097412/

It will be more like the 5th January I imagine.

John

[Mrsperfect]

Thanks Sam!

Regards

Eileen

[Sam Flynn]

I'm curious to learn more Sauniere!

...the chapter in question was written by William Beadle, Eileen. If you've got Beadle's Anatomy of a Myth already, you won't learn anything new from it.

[Mrsperfect]

I'm curious to learn more Sauniere!

Regards

Eileen

[sauniere]

In a book called 'the mammoth book of jack the ripper' a good case is put forward for bury being the ripper. I think he is one of the more likely suspects.

[Mrsperfect]

Fact or Fiction?

There is no mention anywhere that Bury confessed to the hangman. James Berry the hangman's memoirs were serialised and they were published after his death (in 1913) in Thomson's Weekly News in 1927. Berry's full account of the execution of Bury is given there.

Stewart

I would like to know your opinion of the Newmarket journalist Ernest A Parr who wrote to the Secretary Of State for Scotland on 28th March 1908 (20 years after Bury's trial) referring to a document in which there was a full confession by Bury of the Ripper crimes please?

Regards

Eileen

Ref: page 187 Euan Macpherson's book on Bury

[Mrsperfect]

I'm Not Surprised Stewart.................

There is no mention anywhere that Bury confessed to the hangman. James Berry the hangman's memoirs were serialised and they were published after his death (in 1913) in Thomson's Weekly News in 1927. Berry's full account of the execution of Bury is given there.

I believe Bury took his secret to the grave with him. After he realised they were going to hang him (for his wife's murder) anyway, he wasn't going to satisfy them and admit to being JtR, was he? That would mean they won!

What made him think he was so special that they wouldn't hang him?

What else?

Regards

Eileen

[Sam Flynn]

Hi John,

A man who is a proven pyschopath

A proven wife-murderer, certainly, and there's some evidence that points to psychopathic characteristics in his behaviour. It's tricky to diagnose mental illness at a distance of 120 years, however, so we can't say that he was a "proven psychopath", unless he was diagnosed as such at the time.

who moved to London shortly before the Ripper murders moved out at the first opportunity after the Ripper murders

He moved to London in Autumn 1887, got married there in April 1888. He left London for Dundee, with his wife, nearly three months after Mary Kelly's murder.

proceeded to strangle his wife then mutilate her gentitals and stomach.

A handful of stab-like wounds, and one cut of about a few inches in length, which pales into insignificance alongside even Polly Nichols' murder, let alone those of Chapman, Eddowes or Kelly. Or even Tabram's, for that matter.

in the process ripping out twelve feet of her intestines through the hole in her stomach

This didn't happen, I'm afraid. He squashed Ellen into a box, as a probable result of which a small section of her bowel protruded out of one of the abdominal cuts.

has to be considered as an etremely strong candidate.

This is debatable, at least inasmuch as the evidence shows that, compared to the even the least horrendous of the eviscerating murders of Jack the Ripper, Ellen Bury got off extremely lightly.

[John Wheat]

Talking Sense

Mrs Perfect talks alot of sense if you ask me. A man who is a proven pyschopath who moved to London shortly before the Ripper murders moved out at the first opportunity after the Ripper murders proceeded to strangle his wife then mutilate her gentitals and stomach in the process ripping out twelve feet of her intestines through the hole in her stomach has to be considered as an etremely strong candidate.

Also Bury is either a copycat killer or Jack the Ripper as the chalk confessions were obviously his however there is a major floor with Bury being a copycat killer. Copyat killer's tend to confess to the murders of the murderer there copying at any opportunity if Bury was a copycat killer then why did he not clearly confess all to the police?

[Mrsperfect]

The Dewsbury Incident

G'day Johns

I would also like to know more about the Dewsbury angle, I believe one of our Casebookers (Will?) unearthed info that Bury was up on charges in Dewsbury for vagrancy.

It was my understanding that this was independent of the newspaper article I referred to in my previous post. It's the small piece of Bury's early life that we don't really know about, isn't it?

Wouldn't it be interesting if he was a horse slaughterer there?

Regards

Eileen

[johns]

Hi all

The one "aspect" of the Bury case I would love to find some evidence of (apart from High Definition footage of him murdering half a dozen women in 1888 ) is the "Dewsbury Business"

I put "aspect" in inverted commas because I don't think Bury being in Dewsbury has ever been proved. Only conjecture as far as I know.

It was in Dewsbury that Bury allegedly slaughtered horses too.

[Mrsperfect]

Like I said Sam..........

we're to be pitied!

Yes Martin, I thought the same about Bill Beadle's book. It shows Bury had 'opportunity' and as Bill Beadle is a copper's son, (not to mention a member of Mensa) this smart cookie didn't look on Bury as simply a wife murderer.

I believe he mentioned Bury 'going berserk' when he went home the night that Chapman was murdered. (I would also like to know his source for this snippet of info, Sam).

We know Bury was new to London in Oct 1887 because a news report from the Express and Star (a Black Country paper) dated Wednesday 13th February 1889 stated:

'During the summer of 1887 Bury made a living as a hawker, selling items such as lead pencils and toy rings on the streets in Snow Hill, Birmingham'.

I suspect Bury would have left London sooner, if he didn't have to convince his wife to go to Scotland with a violent drunkard of a husband. Perhaps she wanted to spend Christmas in familiar surroundings? He was in a hurry to get his hands on what was left of her money, sooner rather than later.

I have to disagree, the knife fetish is more than conjecture. Ellen told her sister Margaret, (who testified that Bury slept with the knife under his pillow) and when confronted with the evidence, (by Ellen) Bury denied putting it there....... on more than one occasion!

I see Bury's transport in a different light. He had the ability to frequent places those on foot may not. A horse and cart stabled nearby was a way of storing another set of clothing, without attracting attention. This was also a reason for Bury to be in the area, (sleeping off a night's drinking) using the cart as a convenient bed, when he was too drunk to ride home. I would imagine water for his horse would have been handy for washing off blood etc

We're making progress I feel..........when I first joined Casebook there was no evidence of Bury frequenting Whitechapel at all. It was thought he was in Wolverhampton at the time of Tabram's death. Both of these assumptions were laid to rest (by Johns, Casebook member).

This proves we have the luxury of time on our side, who knows what information may come to light in the future................ even after 120 years!

Regards

Eileen

[fido]

As I remember Bill Beadle's very good book, he makes a very interesting topographical case about Bury's potential access to and movement to and from the Ripper murder sites.
All the best,
Martin F

[Sam Flynn]

Sam Flynn knows he's simply a wife beater/murderer?

That's what he was, as far as we - and the Law - know, Eileen.

Everybody knows it's a mere co-incidence that Bury simply cruised into London prior to the Tabram murder

Do we know that?

and cruised out again just after the last one.

Mid/end January 1889 is not "just after" - it's "more than two months after".

Relocating to Scotland where, low and behold, another murder victim was discovered!

Another domestic murder victim was discovered, indoors, by a man who turned himself into the police.

It's a mere co-incidence that he was known to have had a drink in Whitechapel

We have witness testimony relating to ONE instance of Bury being in a Whitechapel pub. Whitechapel is a large district, and Bury lived in another district on the far eastern side of Whitchapel - most of the Ripper murders occurred in the western part of Whitechapel, or in Spitalfields.

He had a horse and cart

Which gets around the fact that he lived two to three miles away from the action, but unfortunately introduces a "clip-clopping" factor, the absence of which in the C5 murders - Diemschutz apart - needs to be explained.

and the opportunity to explore the terrain.

We could claim the same for him and a hundred thousand others.

We won't even talk about his knife fetish

No, let's not - on the basis that it is only conjecture.

he slept with a penknife under his pillow

Perhaps he was keeping a dream diary, Eileen