Did The Ripper Wear "Cricketing Shoes" ?

[anna]

Hi Chris,
I'm still trawlin' through the locals of the time,to find any snippet that might help.
Wonder if there's a report on Ostrog's fiasco...bet there is,as we have all the gossip,court news and records in the papers and also all the actual court records stored here,aswell.I presume he was in court in Woolwich?
ANNA.

[Ben]

Hi Anna,

While there's no direct evidence of Druitt being out of London at the time of the murders, it's also true that whenever he crops up on the record between 3rd August and 1st September, he can only be placed in Dorset, a time period which meshes up extremely well with a standard public school holiday. This, to me, reinforces the likelihood of Druitt staying in Dorset for the duration of that period. Certainly, the suggestion that he could have popped back to London between those dates is long sea miles away from an inference that he actually did.

Best regards,
Ben

[anna]

Actually having now read Chris's report of the trial in General Discussion,I now know where he is referring to.
They are not talking about the general cadet quarters.This building they are talking about was like an annex.It is accross the road from the parade ground,down at the Military Academy.It still stands.It now makes sense when he says about stairs,and that he ran accross the common.He is still on a main route to Blackheath,more in a straight line than if he were nearer to Charlton..about twenty minutes away from the heath.That road leads out onto the Shooters Hill Road,he would do a sharp right at the Police Station and go straight on towards Blackheath.
Not an obvious place for someone to be,unless they have business in that particular area,as it is not in the town centre.

[Chris]

Certainly, the suggestion that he could have popped back to London between those dates is long sea miles away from an inference that he actually did.

I don't think anyone has claimed otherwise.

But to say that "he was in Bournmouth at the time of the murders" is simply wrong.

[Ben]

But to say that "he was in Bournmouth at the time of the murders" is simply wrong

Wrong to claim that it has been established as fact, certainly.

Here's a link to a previous discussion on the topic, if anyone is interested:

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=320

[anna]

Hi Ben
Thanks for that information.
As I say,there is still a lot of local information for me to go through to see if I can fill in any gaps with Druitt.

[Chris]

Wrong to claim that it has been established as fact, certainly.

I think just plain wrong will do, considering we know he was in Blackheath a few hours after Chapman's murder.

[Ben]

Right you are, Chirs. I had the 3rd August to 1st September time frame in mind from re-reading the earlier thread. We know for certain than he wasn't in Dorset for the duration of the murders.

[Uncle Jack]

But to say that "he was in Bournmouth at the time of the murders" is simply wrong

Well, I didn't actually state that as a fact, I actually wrote:

he was in Bournmouth at the time of the murders, as far as I am aware

Obviously that was what I thought. As far as I was aware, he was in Bournemouth but you have to forgive my assumptions as I am fairly new to the JTR case. But putting aside the whole cricket alibi, there is still very little evidence to suggest Druitt was the ripper. To say that he is one of the main suspects in the JTR murders, he has one of the weakest cases, in my opinion. Apart from the fact that he committed suicide after the murders (which is probably for reasons other than he was Jack) there is nothing to base an assumption that he was the Ripper, as far as I can see.

[Graham]

Well, I didn't actually state that as a fact, I actually wrote:

he was in Bournmouth at the time of the murders, as far as I am aware

Obviously that was what I thought. As far as I was aware, he was in Bournemouth but you have to forgive my assumptions as I am fairly new to the JTR case. But putting aside the whole cricket alibi, there is still very little evidence to suggest Druitt was the ripper. To say that he is one of the main suspects in the JTR murders, he has one of the weakest cases, in my opinion. Apart from the fact that he committed suicide after the murders (which is probably for reasons other than he was Jack) there is nothing to base an assumption that he was the Ripper, as far as I can see.

Hi Jack,

As you know, Druitt was named by Macnaghten as one of his three Whitechapel Murder suspects, and as Macnaghten was a very senior police officer closely concerned with the Case (although not when the murders happened) it's not easy to discount out of hand what he said. He also alluded to some 'private info' that Druitt's own family suspected him; but what this 'private info' was, and its source, we'll probably never know. Druitt is certainly not the weakest case - how about Lewis Carroll, for example?

Cheers,

Graham

[Uncle Jack]

Druitt is certainly not the weakest case

Sorry Graham, should have put it better. I meant I find him one of the weakest out of the list of main suspects, IE the police suspects.

how about Lewis Carroll, for example?

Definately the weakest there, lol. There is more chance of the escaped ape theory being the solution than Lewis Carroll, lol

[Chris]

As far as I was aware, he was in Bournemouth but you have to forgive my assumptions as I am fairly new to the JTR case.

Fair enough. I was only concerned to keep the facts straight, particularly as "Druitt's alibi" is an old chestnut that turns up fairly regularly.

For what it's worth, I think all the named suspects have to be viewed as unlikely, though it would be interesting to know more about why some of them - particularly Kozminski and Druitt - were suspected by the police.

[Roma]

That's right, Chris : the police may have known things that we'll never know... I think Macnaghten had good reasons to suspect Druitt, but what were these reasons ? It'll be hard to find them out !

[Ben]

Hi Roma,

Problem is; what might have seemed like "good reasons" to an 1888 official unaccustomed to serial killers may not appear terribly "good" to a modern commentator. That said, whatever those reasons were, they clearly weren't that impressive to other contemporary police officials, especially those working the case at the time.

Best regards,
Ben

[Chris]

Problem is; what might have seemed like "good reasons" to an 1888 official unaccustomed to serial killers may not appear terribly "good" to a modern commentator. That said, whatever those reasons were, they clearly weren't that impressive to other contemporary police officials, especially those working the case at the time.

By Macnaghten's account, those reasons, whatever they may have been, did not come to the attention of the police until several years after the murders:
Although, as I shall endeavour to show in this chapter, the Whitechapel murderer, in all probability, put an end to himself soon after the Dorset Street affair in November 1888, certain facts, pointing to this conclusion, were not in possession of the police till some years after I became a detective officer.