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Originally posted by John Winsett
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But with respect, with any murderer apprehended if there is a similar murder afterwards you will think "blimey, we were wrong". What do you expect them to do, NOT assume it is a Ripper attack, and not invest time in it? Look at Sutcliffe - part of the reason for believing the Ripper tapes was that they alluded to a murder in Preston which we now know Sutcliffe didn't commit. However, it was reasonable at the time to suspect they were by the same hand. Imagine Anderson when MacKenzie was found... "He's still out there, and I was so sure... Oh, wait, look at the evidence. This wasn't Ripper, therefore I'm still convinced we have our man". Nailing Cohen or whoever, didn't stop prostitute murders in Whitechapel, but it did, I believe, catch the man responsible for the Ripper killings. Even if you're 99% sure, it's right to keep an open mind. -
I just posted this on Howard Brown's site.
A poster emailed me with a follow-up question about the cigar shop at 254 Whitechapel road. My response:
The most significant part of the Cohen piece in the Ripperologist 130 was missed by almost everybody. In 2001, Mark King wrote a short article in the no. 35 issue, titled “Hyam Hyams.”
This piece explored spatiotemporal and family relationships between the Levy, Lewis and Lyon families living on Mitre Street and their possible relationship to one of the Mitre Square witnesses, Joseph Hyam Levy. Although King wrongly concluded that a Hyam Hyams living at no. 29 Mitre Street was the same one that later went to Colney Hatch Asylum in 1889, his research into other household relations on Mitre Street, including those to Joseph Levy and his wife Amelia (nee) Lewis, has been largely overlooked.
In the mid-nineteenth century, Ann and Barnett Levy, cigar and orange dealers, lived with their four children, John, Samuel, Lewis and Fanny, at no. 29 Mitre Street. By 1888, all of the siblings, except Fanny, had moved from this address (she had actually married, lived at no. 24 for a time, was widowed and had returned to no. 29 before the 1880s). Samuel lived at nos. 17 and 23 in the late 1840s to 1850s before moving to 39 Middlesex St. (next to Joseph H. Levy’s father, Hyam). By 1888, he is living back on Mitre Street, a few doors away, at no. 20 as an orange seller. Lewis Levy lived across the street at no. 8 Mitre Street in the 1860s. It was behind this house that Eddowes’ mutilated body was discovered in Mitre Square. In the 1891 census, Lewis Levy can be found living at no. 5 Sion Square. In the 1870s and 1880s, Lyons, Lewis and Levy families were living at numbers 16, 17, 19, 21, 24, 25, 29, 30 and 34 Mitre Street.
In the 1880s, no. 254 Whitechapel Road was a cigar shop, headed by the same John Levy who had earlier lived at 29 Mitre Street. John’s cigar shop, was not only the address of the later brothel raid involving David Cohen in November-December 1888, but was also located next door to no. 253, the address of a Mrs. Norah Christmas’ laundry. It was on the doorstep of this address where one Thomas Coram found a knife wrapped in blood-stained cloth at 12:30am on 1 October, 1888, the day following the murders of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes. It seems that John Levy was an elderly man by the late 1880s and he was letting his cigar shop be used as a brothel by Gertrude Smith and Mary Jones.
Now the incredible "coincidence" is that Mark King mentioned the 254 Whitechapel Road address in his article – because it was next to the laundry where Coram found the blood-stained knife and because John was one of the children of Barnett and Ann Levy, as thus had connections back to Mitre Street, where he once lived and where his sister, Fanny, still lived. But then, more than a dozen years after King’s article was published, it is also discovered that the cigar shop address turns out to be the location of the brothel where David Cohen was found – certainly unknown to Mark King at the time he did his research. So this same address emerges from modern research into two seemingly unrelated events. Or, maybe they are related?
The brothel/cigar shop address was also a short block south of Fieldgate Street, right above Sion Square. The Goad image in the article didn’t quite show enough area to the south, but the north ends of Plummers Row, Yalford and Greenfield Streets terminate there.
Additional family relationships on Mitre Street and the vicinity not discussed in King’s article are explored here:
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Well, there was always a suspicion that Joseph Hyam Levy saw more than he admitted to.
Maybe we are beginning to join up the dots and will find we have a new JEWISH witness to consider.
Fascinating, thank you.
PhilComment
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Jtr - Jacob the Ripper
I also find this fascinating.....Tracy, King and others have done someFascinating, thank you.
great research concerning Levy's etc..
If you suggest Joseph Levy saw his cousin Jacob at Mitre Square
a whole new Pandora's box opens up...
By the way, Jacob Levy was 5'3"........3 inches higher than the woman!
GregComment
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J T R
Hello Scott. Nice work.
I have said elsewhere that Levy is perhaps the least bad suspect for a solo "JTR."
Cheers.
LCComment
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Brilliant work, Scott, just superb!Comment
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Does this mean you think that Levy didn't exist?Originally posted by lynn cates View Post
I won't always agree but I'll try not to be disagreeable.Comment
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I wander . . .
Hello Colin. Thanks.
No, it just means that at least he wandered the streets and was a butcher. Cohen is interesting too. Both MUCH superior to the usual fare.
Cheers.
LCComment
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Nice one Scott !!
Nice one Scott !! hope your on one congrattulation's
All the best,
Niko
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