Is Bury the best suspect we have?

[Abby Normal]

i thought "Murry" was barons nickname for an unknown killer ghost?

[Ms Diddles]

Hi Ms D.

I don’t know what research has been done on Murray but he was mentioned in a letter from the Governor of HMP Newcastle on October 5th 1888.

(It appears to have been sent in request for information about someone called Duncan or possibly Donkin who had confessed to the Whitechapel murders)

Sir, re Whitechapel Murders

I have today had my attention called by a man named Murray – a Solicitor’s Clerk of Newcastle – to a paragraph headed “A Strange Story”, which appeared in a local Newspaper on Tuesday last (vide copy enclosed) The person to whom the “Story” refers I have reason to believe is a man who was twice committed to this prison, particulars of whose previous convictions are enclosed, showing his description at that time. He was educated at college for the medical profession, but he turned out wild & lived more or less a dissolute life. His wife obtained a divorce from him and since then he is known to have frequented the low parts of London, being very impecunious. His manners
manners and address are those of a gentleman, and his anatomical knowledge is said to be considerable. It may be that the recent horrible murders committed in London are the work of the person to whom I refer, & were he found I could identify him as being the man who was twice in my custody. I give you these particulars as it appears to me that the man to whom I refer should be traced, and the same coming forcibly before me today I have felt it my duty to put you in possession of them for the information of the Home Office if you should think it well to place them before that department.

I have the honor to be, Sir, Your obedient Servant [FMTooley(?)]

Governor R.S. Mitford Esq Prison Commissioner Whitehall London S.W.

Murray was clearly a Newcastle man so I’m unsure how it’s known that he frequented the ‘low parts of London.’ It doesn’t state why he was incarcerated twice.

Thanks for this, Herlock!

I've not seen it before, so Murray is a new one on me!

[Herlock Sholmes]

Intriguing stuff, Baron!

I'm not at all familiar with Murry as a suspect.

He's not ringing any bells with me at all (but then I do have a tendency to read stuff and then immediately forget what I've read)!

Do you have any pointers?

Am I to take it that you are rating him over Cross and Koz these days then?

And yes, I do indeed recall the elimination by beard hypothesis!

Hi Ms D.

I don’t know what research has been done on Murray but he was mentioned in a letter from the Governor of HMP Newcastle on October 5th 1888.

(It appears to have been sent in request for information about someone called Duncan or possibly Donkin who had confessed to the Whitechapel murders)

Sir, re Whitechapel Murders

I have today had my attention called by a man named Murray – a Solicitor’s Clerk of Newcastle – to a paragraph headed “A Strange Story”, which appeared in a local Newspaper on Tuesday last (vide copy enclosed) The person to whom the “Story” refers I have reason to believe is a man who was twice committed to this prison, particulars of whose previous convictions are enclosed, showing his description at that time. He was educated at college for the medical profession, but he turned out wild & lived more or less a dissolute life. His wife obtained a divorce from him and since then he is known to have frequented the low parts of London, being very impecunious. His manners
manners and address are those of a gentleman, and his anatomical knowledge is said to be considerable. It may be that the recent horrible murders committed in London are the work of the person to whom I refer, & were he found I could identify him as being the man who was twice in my custody. I give you these particulars as it appears to me that the man to whom I refer should be traced, and the same coming forcibly before me today I have felt it my duty to put you in possession of them for the information of the Home Office if you should think it well to place them before that department.

I have the honor to be, Sir, Your obedient Servant [FMTooley(?)]

Governor R.S. Mitford Esq Prison Commissioner Whitehall London S.W.

Murray was clearly a Newcastle man so I’m unsure how it’s known that he frequented the ‘low parts of London.’ It doesn’t state why he was incarcerated twice.

[Herlock Sholmes]

im really surprised at all the negativity around Bury for the ripper. Especially the loser nobody reasons. I mean its practically a description from central casting. and fbi profile of a local avg joe. most serial killers end up being like that.

gein, dahmer, rader, suff, chikitilo, kemper, Brant etc etc.

kemper even unravelled at the end like bury, killing his mother and her friend and then turning himself in. So did brant, killing his wife and niece and then hanging himself.

Bury is exactly the type.

Me too Abby. It sounds like someone has read a book on Ted Bundy and has assumed that all serial killers are highly intelligent, good looking, well-dressed, sophisticates. I scent an ‘eliminate at all costs’ agenda going on which is difficult to understand as it gets us nowhere. Do we really need to keep repeating that we don’t know who this guy was?

[John Wheat]

im really surprised at all the negativity around Bury for the ripper. Especially the loser nobody reasons. I mean its practically a description from central casting. and fbi profile of a local avg joe. most serial killers end up being like that.

gein, dahmer, rader, suff, chikitilo, kemper, Brant etc etc.

kemper even unravelled at the end like bury, killing his mother and her friend and then turning himself in. So did brant, killing his wife and niece and then hanging himself.

Bury is exactly the type.

I totally agree with this Abby. Bury was an average Joe loser type.

[C. F. Leon]

Is Bury the best suspect we have?

Dear God, by the Blessed Saint Abberline, I hope not...

[Abby Normal]

The Torsoman and the Ripper had distinct enough signatures that I believe they were separate killers. Santa Clara, California of the 1970s had a population of less than 1/50th the population of Victorian London, yet it had serial killers Edmund Kemper, Herbert Mullin, and John Frazier.

hi fiver
in fairness, california in the 70s was the serial killer capital of the universe. of all time. while violence was high in victorian london murder was rare, and Serial Killers rare as hens teeth.

there were so many serial killers in california in the 70s, some even had the same nickname. lol

[Abby Normal]

im really surprised at all the negativity around Bury for the ripper. Especially the loser nobody reasons. I mean its practically a description from central casting. and fbi profile of a local avg joe. most serial killers end up being like that.

gein, dahmer, rader, suff, chikitilo, kemper, Brant etc etc.

kemper even unravelled at the end like bury, killing his mother and her friend and then turning himself in. So did brant, killing his wife and niece and then hanging himself.

Bury is exactly the type.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Bury is up there for me, but I'm also not entirely convinced that our man is on that list that we have been lumbered with.
Bury, Chapman, Kelly, Kosminski, Levy, for me.

I'm more of the opinion these days that "Jack" was seriously into his necrophilia-type fetishes, along the lines of Gein and Dahmer, with a little Peter Kurten thrown in.

Something triggered this lust for the killer, and helped him realise where his passions were, like roadkill for a young Dahmer and pig butchering for a young Gein.

Jack was probably also a guy like Francois Bertrand, and that other French necrophiliac whose name escapes me, that "played" around with a corpse, a very Mary Kelly looking corpse at that!

I'd be interested to know whether there's anything in Bury's past that can shed light on anything along those lines... Being around a knackering shop, a mortuary, a cemetery, etc...

Obviously it won't happen, but it'd be fascinating to find.

The suspect list, IMHO, isn't great. The trouble is that "the Ripper" was so utterly alien to the press and the police as well as the public, I honestly feel he went completely under the radar. I feel he was questioned, but that was about it. I don't put much stock into the C5, or the Ripper letters.

I hope I'm making sense, I've had a few...

Making perfect sense Mike. I’m no Bury expert but I’m fairly sure that we don’t have any record of him having any connection to Knackering, Butchery, mortuary or cemetery work although it’s perhaps not impossible that he might have done something in those lines on a casual basis as he lived a fairly unsettled life I think.

As you suggest at the start of your post there’s every chance imo that he’s yet to be named. I have a fairly short list of 4, with another small group of ‘less likely but possible imo.’ There’s just no way to narrow it down and one problem is that there only a very few that we can definitely dismiss due to them having an alibi. An example is Cross. I’m convinced that he wasn’t the killer but we can’t dismiss him with an alibi.

[Mike J. G.]

Bury is up there for me, but I'm also not entirely convinced that our man is on that list that we have been lumbered with.
Bury, Chapman, Kelly, Kosminski, Levy, for me.

I'm more of the opinion these days that "Jack" was seriously into his necrophilia-type fetishes, along the lines of Gein and Dahmer, with a little Peter Kurten thrown in.

Something triggered this lust for the killer, and helped him realise where his passions were, like roadkill for a young Dahmer and pig butchering for a young Gein.

Jack was probably also a guy like Francois Bertrand, and that other French necrophiliac whose name escapes me, that "played" around with a corpse, a very Mary Kelly looking corpse at that!

I'd be interested to know whether there's anything in Bury's past that can shed light on anything along those lines... Being around a knackering shop, a mortuary, a cemetery, etc...

Obviously it won't happen, but it'd be fascinating to find.

The suspect list, IMHO, isn't great. The trouble is that "the Ripper" was so utterly alien to the press and the police as well as the public, I honestly feel he went completely under the radar. I feel he was questioned, but that was about it. I don't put much stock into the C5, or the Ripper letters.

I hope I'm making sense, I've had a few...

[Herlock Sholmes]

Well, so much for the idea that JtR had intimate knowledge of Whitechapel streets, and could effectively navigate in the dark.

I never said that he did. Some do though. I see no mystery in any of the rippers escapes at all. He just left the scene. Luck might have come into it to some extent.

Okay, I'll bite.

Why was Bury so fetched with Whitechapel? Why was he always wandering into Whitechapel to commit the murders?
Bethnell Green was an equally lovely hell hole, was closer, and had plenty of prostitutes - Bow also offering these amenities.
The entire police force was mobilized against you in the Whitechapel area, and yet you insist on doing your killings there - good heavens, why?

The entire police force was mobilised against whoever Jack the Ripper was and yet he continued to kill in that area. It’s no less likely for Bury to have operated in that area than any other suspect.

What was he doing along Buck's row at 3:30 am, some 3 hours after the pubs had to close by law? Hanging out in the train station?

Who knows?But someone was in Bucks Row 3 hours after the pubs had closed. It’s no less likely to have been Bury than anyone else.

And why was he getting sauced up near Berner street Saturday night before stumbling out of some pub and killing Liz Stride .....

We don’t know that he did.

Bow had no pubs? Maybe the plan was to make the 45 minute walk from Bow, get smashed and then head on out for the killing spree.

Did Peter Sutcliffe kill on his doorstep? Did Ted Bundy stick to a small area? How can we presume to know what a serial killer was thinking at the time. Surely you can’t be suggesting that no one living outside of that small killing zone could have been the killer? Killing in a confined area where you live increases the likelihood of the killer not just being seen but seen and recognised.

The city of London was closer to the crime scenes and had plenty of violent, wife beating drunks with miserable childhoods to your heart's content. Sift through a list there and you're as likely to find the Ripper as with Bury.

True enough.

If you can't answer these questions, imagining Bury as JtR is absurd.

I have answered them. I’ve also never said that Bury was the ripper but calling him ‘absurd’ just because he didn’t live in that confined area is…absurd.

[John Wheat]

The Torsoman and the Ripper had distinct enough signatures that I believe they were separate killers. Santa Clara, California of the 1970s had a population of less than 1/50th the population of Victorian London, yet it had serial killers Edmund Kemper, Herbert Mullin, and John Frazier.

But did they all use strangulation? The Post I was originally responding too suggested that Bury might have killed Rose Mylett but was not the Ripper. Mylett was killed by strangulation which of course the Ripper used.

[Fiver]

It amazes me when people propose that there were loads of serial killers running about a small area of London at the time. This is highly unlikely.

The Torsoman and the Ripper had distinct enough signatures that I believe they were separate killers. Santa Clara, California of the 1970s had a population of less than 1/50th the population of Victorian London, yet it had serial killers Edmund Kemper, Herbert Mullin, and John Frazier.

[John Wheat]

Well, so much for the idea that JtR had intimate knowledge of Whitechapel streets, and could effectively navigate in the dark.

Okay, I'll bite.

Why was Bury so fetched with Whitechapel? Why was he always wandering into Whitechapel to commit the murders?
Bethnell Green was an equally lovely hell hole, was closer, and had plenty of prostitutes - Bow also offering these amenities.
The entire police force was mobilized against you in the Whitechapel area, and yet you insist on doing your killings there - good heavens, why?

What was he doing along Buck's row at 3:30 am, some 3 hours after the pubs had to close by law? Hanging out in the train station?
And why was he getting sauced up near Berner street Saturday night before stumbling out of some pub and killing Liz Stride .....
Bow had no pubs? Maybe the plan was to make the 45 minute walk from Bow, get smashed and then head on out for the killing spree.

The city of London was closer to the crime scenes and had plenty of violent, wife beating drunks with miserable childhoods to your heart's content. Sift through a list there and you're as likely to find the Ripper as with Bury.

If you can't answer these questions, imagining Bury as JtR is absurd.

I think you'll find some serial killers kill slightly away from there home rather than for instance the street they live in. It's important to note Bury owned a horse and cart so getting to Whitechapel would have been easy.

[Newbie]

JtR, the first commuting serial killer. His real buzz was taking the Great Eastern Railway before the killings.