Assessing Cutbush

[Abby Normal]

Hi Caz,

I agree that living next door to a victim would have been a disadvantage, but I think that if he had lived a couple of blocks away, that could have been far enough to give him anonymity. And the murders were far enough from each other that he had to have lived more than a couple of blocks from some of the victims.

good point lewis.

Dennis Rader even targeted a victim that lived on his street, blocks away.
And Imho the ripper was probably local and knew the immediate area intimately, I dont think he could have pulled off tje double event without that knowledge, although I dont rule out an "outsider" like Druitt.

[Abby Normal]

John Hainsworth obviously revealed enough information that you were able trace the reference to Cameron. I am one of the people who has known about this incident for a number of years; since I am writing a modest monograph on the subject, I kept it to myself. It has since been independently discovered by a least one other researcher.

I must admit that John is playing it fast & loose in claiming the barrister was arrested, and that Cameron was an "East End sex worker." That's overstating the facts as I know them.

However, I don't think this incident sails as blissfully away into the breeze as you wish to imply. When dealing with criminal matters, knee-jerk skepticism can be just as sterile as knee-jerk gullibility--perhaps more so.

Correctly interpreted, the police were looking for a barrister at the end of 1888 who was said to be 'sexually insane'--who (according to Macnaghten's 'private information') was suspected by his own family of being involved in the Whitechapel Murders. Macnaghten was distantly related to the Druitts and no doubt received a great of private information in his position, so his assertion is credible. I can't help noticing that most people who bash Macnaghten seldom spell his name correctly.

Meanwhile, here we have an unnamed barrister who--lo and behold--is mentioned in a knife attack on a prostitute the previous year, 1887. The 'coincidence' strikes me as rather interesting.

No, there is no definite evidence that this was Druitt--that I know of---but what other barristers were being sought as Jack the Ripper within the next 13 or 14 months?

Can you name one?

When I came across this attack, I did indeed think of MJD because it would neatly explain why the police may have taken him seriously as a suspect a year later if his name had come up in this earlier investigation.

We don't know where Cameron picked up her client, but from descriptions given, she must have walked with three or four hundred yards of Kings Bench Walk---possibly less--where Druitt had chambers.

I don't dismiss it out of hand, particularly because I think historians have done a poor job when it comes to Druitt.

As for the victim 'denying that her attacker was a barrister" you are mispresenting the facts. She claimed her attacker WAS a barrister--and later retracted it. That's considerably different than what you're claiming.

So, perhaps you'd be better off asking yourself why victims sometimes retract their statements. Is it always because they were lying or mistaken? Is there not sometimes a very different explanation?

RP

nice post and research RJ. Its also interesting that its a knife wound to the neck, but a non fatal non mutilating attack, which with the later ripper murders would fit well with what we know about serial killers and escalation as the attacks continue.

[Lewis C]

good point lewis.

Dennis Rader even targeted a victim that lived on his street, blocks away.
And Imho the ripper was probably local and knew the immediate area intimately, I dont think he could have pulled off tje double event without that knowledge, although I dont rule out an "outsider" like Druitt.

Thanks Abby, and that's about where I am. I think he probably knew the area very well and most likely lived at least on the outskirts of Whitechapel/Spitalfields/eastern London, but I'm also open to the possibility that he lived as far away as Druitt did.

[mklhawley]

I asked Jonathan and Christine for any comments they wanted to make about R. J. Palmer's points - see below:


My mistake Roger; I was mis-remembering the proximity of this sex worker's attack to Druitt's kill-zone rather than his primary place of work. Your correction of course makes it more likely to be Druitt, not less.

But I stand by Druitt either being arrested and questioned over this incident, or during late 1888 a detective found this victim again and asked for the name of the barrister.

This is because somehow Montague Druitt's name came to police attention and onto a list of possible Jacks yet was considered a relatively low-grade prospect.

This would then make sense of Macnaghten's cryptic revelation in his 1914 memoirs that some of Druitt's particulars - e.g. of an incriminating nature - came to Scotland Yard's attention in 1888, but the definitive (and posthumous) evidence only did so "some years after" (e.g. starting with but not limited to Dorset Tory MP, Henry Farquharson's London leak in 1891).

Since Macnaghten was not a conceited egotist like Anderson his public comments in 1913 - repeated several times - that had he been on the Force in 1888 (as he should have been, no thanks to Warren whom he mercilessly skewers in the same memoir as a dangerous thug) he would have caught "Jack the Ripper" are bizarre.

Why? What possible difference would it have made his being there in 1888?

It does make sense, however, if the name of one of Dr Robert Druitt's nephews was on a suspect list Mac pored over in 1889.

In 1914, Macnaghten regretted making this public comment and tried to claim in his memoir's very brief intro that he had never said such a thing; it was supposedly made up by a lying reporter (despite the brevity of this intro Mac mentions "Jack the Ripper", and juxtaposes the killer with cricket).

Christine discovered that in Feb 1887, Druitt had unsuccessfully defended a child-murderer in Poole who was hanged (the man had confessed so no surprise). In court Druitt had mounted a blistering defense; he had tried to shift the blame onto his client's wife who was a part-time sex worker (the child victim in question was the issue of such a professional liaison) and the mother of the murdered child. So ferocious was Druitt's public attack on her character as a "fallen women" that even though her husband was convicted, she had to leave town for her own safety.

Then there is the failed attack on a woman so similar to the cowardly attack on the sex worker near Druitt's chambers: Ada Wilson

This is the summary of that non-fatal crime on this site derived from a range of newspaper accounts. As with the victim at first claiming it was a "barrister", Wilson too - understandably - is trying to evade admitting she is a sex worker surprised by a monstrous client.

"On March 28, 1888, while home alone at 19 Maidman Street, Wilson answered a knock at the door to find a man of about 30 years of age, 5ft 6ins in height, with a sunburnt face and a fair moustache. He was wearing a dark coat, light trousers and a wideawake hat. The man forced his way into the room and demanded money, and when she refused he stabbed her twice in the throat and ran, leaving her for dead. It is reported that nearby neighbours almost captured the man, but he found his escape."

This description, like Lawende's, matches Druitt - at least generically - with the suggestive detail of the reddened face, e.g. presumably due to his regular sporting activities.