Does anyone believe MJD was murdered?

[Jonathan H]

The sound, historical argument which I subscribe to is that a respectable, Victorian family 'believed' or 'suspected' that their late member -- already a tragic disgrace for taking his own life -- was also the Whitechapel Assassin.

That is quite a leap?

Not only does such a belief go against the class bias involved but also the obvious bias of a [Tory] family not wanting to add to their anguish and sorrow by entertaining that their late brother/cousin/nephew was also a multiple murderer -- no less than the fiend.

Within a couple of years the family's terrible secret leaked to their local MP, an upper class Tory, and it becme his 'doctrine' -- and 'a good many' believed whom he told -- though he too would have had both a class and political-partisan bias to dismiss it as mad gossip.

Around the same time the MP passed on this story to a fellow Etonian, fellow Gentleman, fellow Gentile, fellow Anglican, and fellow officer of state, an Assistant Chief Constable, and Druitt became the top cop's preferred suspect for the rest of his life, commenting in 1913 that he had a very clear idea of his identity. In the latter's memoirs he devoted an entire chapter to the Ripper mystery claiming that there was no mystery as far as he was concerned and that the un-named Druitt was the only suspect worth mentioning.

None of this is legal or forensic evidence of guilt. They may have all been wrong, of course. Yet it is a 'sound' historical argument because all these pillars of Victorian society are adopting an opinion totally at odds with their expected bias, regarding class, religion, and family.

[Mayerling]

I have to agree that the evidence for suicide or murder is weak - as weak as the proof offered by Sir Melvin that Monty was the Ripper. But we have to keep digging into the poor guy's life to fully appreciate what it had become (or to approximate what it had become) by December 1888.

I keep thinking of similar problem cases. Louise Le Prince, the Englishman who designed the first successful motion picture camera (no it was not Edison, nor the Lumieres, not Muybridge - a murderer by the way, nor Friese-Green - despite Mr. Donat's wonderful movie performance). Le Prince was approaching bankruptcy in 1890, and went abroad to try to raise capital. He vanished on a railway journey in France. An excellent account of this tragedy,THE MISSING REEL, was published 20 years back. I recommend it.
Le Prince is also in Wikipedia. The author of THE MISSING REEL never could find the reason for Le Prince's disappearing (just theories of suicide, despair and starting life over, and murder by some competitor - Edison maybe?). But he did not apparently know that a photograph of a man whose body was fished out of the Seine at the time resembled Le Prince to some extant. This is mentioned in the article in Wikipedia. Which again makes me wonder where poor Monty's photograph (taken when he was fished out of the Thames) is.


Another suicide or murder Victim was Rudolph Diesel. Facing bankruptcy in the manufacturing of his great innovative engine, Diesel went to England in 1913 to discuss selling rights to it to the British navy. He vanished on the trip over the channel in a steamer (his body briefly turned up, and some belongings of the inventor were retrieved before it floated away again, thus enabling identification. It has been usually considered that he killed himself in a fit of deprssion, but he may have been killed by an agent of the Kaiser's military machine to prevent his business sale from going through.

Jeff

[Mayerling]

I'm Bond, Montague Bond

I noticed the comment about Monty as a spy who got offed either for spying for an enemy nation on the Thorneycroft works or by an enemy nation for spying on them (possibly spying on the Thorneycroft works). Anything is possible, but the mention of Bismarck (whom Monty once denounced in a planned debate as morally a curse on the world) is odd.

Otto von Bismarck was in Berlin and Germany most of 1888. I can's see the middle aged Chancellor coming secretly to London and its environs to personally oversee either the killing of five prostitutes on the East End or a barrister and teacher who bore a small resemblence to HRH Prince Eddy. However he had no reason to love England in 1888.

1888 was the year of the three Emperors, like 1841 and 1881 were the years of the three United States Presidents. The Germans saw aged Kaiser Wilhelm I die in March 1888 of old age (he was 91). His son Frederick III succeeded, but was dying of cancer of the throat. Bismarck did not like Frederick (a liberal) so he did not really care, but the Empress Victoria (daughter of Queen Victoria, and aunt of Prince Eddy) sent for a Harley Street expert on cancer, Dr. Morell Mackenzie to save Frederick. Mackenzie operated on the Prince and thought he had removed the cancer (he removed most of the larynx). But within weeks the cancer returned. The Crown Prince and Bismarck moved to make sure Frederick was denuded of most power. The Emperor died in June 1888, and Wilhelm II became Emperor. If Bismarck felt relief at this it vanished in two years when Wilhelm II dismissed the old pilot.

Bismarck was quite ruthless when he wanted to be. In 1886 one of his leading royal critics, Ludwig II of Bavaria, was in an asylum after being overthrown by his ministers. They replaced him with an even more insane brother named Otto, putting an uncle in charge as regent. Ludwig supposedly (there is some question about this) died of a heart attack or drowning after killing his therapist, Dr. Gudden, by drowning him in a lake, and then trying to swim away in the lake in an escape. It has been suggested that agents of Bismarck may have been responsible, as Ludwig (a Wittelsbach) was close to the Austrian Empress Elisabeth, and her son Rudolf (who died at Mayerling in January 1889, also under odd circumstances that lead to suicide or murder theories).

Anyway, it did not pay to be an enemy of Bismarck - and plenty of people felt that he did get rid of several high ranking ones. And one, in 1886, was a possible drowning victim.

Jeff

[caz]

Hi Jeff,

Good to see you posting again!

The trouble with people known to suffer from depression, or with any other reason for contemplating suicide, is that they make great potential murder victims. There is much less surprise and suspicion when they 'disappear' or are found dead. But care does still have to be taken by the murderer to make it look like a convincing case of suicide, with nothing to suggest foul play.

I suspect that the true story about Monty is more likely to be a very sad but also very personal one, concerning his private life, than one full of drama and consequence for the wider world.

Conversely, when the cut-up body of an MI6 codebreaker is found in a suitcase at his posh Pimlico address, oozing the red stuff, it is almost impossible not to imagine that his job must have had everything to do with it and a sensational story that could affect us all will be lurking beneath the surface. Who is willing or able to believe that this private man may have died as a consequence of his very private life, or that only one individual alive - who may not even have known what the dead man did for a living - might actually know what happened and why?

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/domestic_politics/family+aposdistressapos+as+mi6+probes+dead+spy+vetting/3755877

Love,

Caz
X

[Mayerling]

Caz, I know little about clinical depression, but could somebody with the condition become suicidal if he felt he failed somebody?

Everything about Monty is in the air - there is too little to build on. But suppose he was aware that he had failed to save somebody - somebody who was dead as a result in a particularly horrible way. Could that have set him off.

[caz]

Hi Jeff,

Sorry for the delay in responding. Like you, I feel there is too little to build on when it comes to Monty's own untimely death.

If he had clinical depression, I would imagine that virtually anything - or nothing at all - could have 'set him off' on his final journey to the Thames, although his note - if genuine - did indicate a fear of going like 'mother' and making himself a burden on others. He felt it better for everyone if he were to die - which for me has a ring of truth to it. He was at such a low point that he imagined his life was of no value to anyone and that ending it would be a selfless gesture. But what external factors, if any, helped him to reach that painful conclusion are anyone's guess.

As a side note, serial killers don't tend to dwell on what they could do about the negative effects they are having on other people.

Love,

Caz
X

[Graham]

Purely out of interest, does anyone have an idea of how many suicides or suspected suicides were fished out of The Thames in an average year during the LVP?

Graham

[Scorpio]

I do.

How does someone drown themselves by placing a couple of bricks in their coat pockets?

Once you start to drown and survival mode kicks in you would just take them out and resurface again.

I do not believe that you have a survival mode when you suffer from clinical depression. If someone can repeatedly slice there own throat, they can drown themselves quite easily, stones or no stones.
Scorpio.

[Robert]

Virginia Woolf put stones in her pockets and drowned herself.

[Jonathan H]

How about he killed himself because his double life as a respectable barrister and a bloodthirsty killer was coming unravelled?

That whilst police were completely unaware of him as the fiend, he had suffered some kind of meltdown -- which led to his confessing to a Church of England minister.

This meant he faced either incarceration like his mad mother, or the disgrace to the family of an arrest, trial and execution -- or he could take matters into his own hands and make his last victim himself.

After the Kelly atrocity, Montie waited a couple of weeks until he had fulfilled his commitment to his brother, over a civil case for the Tory party -- which they won -- and then topped himself in the Thames, hoping that his body would not be found, and it would be thought he had fled abroad?

[Johnr]

An Interesting Disussion

A refreshingly interesting discussion of Duitt's life and various possible scenarios in connection with it.

I dream of the day some incredibly dogged Casebook sleuth or sleuthess produces more information concerning the life of poor Montague Druitt.

Like Jonathan the very unlikely candidacy of MJD. Secretly nominated by a senior police bureaucrat in the days when "class" was a form of social apartheid and a vehicle for great hypocricy....was one of the considerations which made me select him as one of my chief possible suspects.

Religion and education played a great part in the life of the Druitt family.

Let's imagine for just one minute that Montague John Druitt WAS Jack the Ripper ( and other than after-match slumming expeditions to the music halls and colourful pubs in the East End, I can suggest no evidence for MJD knowing the East End. Oh, perhaps an as-yet uncovered bigger connection with the Oxford graduates involvement with worker university settlements in the East End)...

BUT: If MJD's involvement DID have a religious hatred of low class East End prostitutes dimension, is there any significance in the fact the first canonical Ripper murder occurring on August 31st?

This is, in fact St Cuthberga's Day. She was the patron of Wimborne Minster in Dorset!

The Druitt family donated money to install windows in Wimborne Minster in memory of MJD's father, William. One of these windows shows St Cuthberga.

Secondly: And again this is just surmise for lack of knowledge:
At MJD's funeral very few locals or others attended. One person there was a Mr HOMER. He was a Dorset or Hampshire relative. A pig farmer of great success.

Bizarre Theory: In anatomical theory, the closest other animal to the human, is the pig.
QUESTION: Could we locate evidence of young school-boy Montie holdaying on his uncle's pig farm, and - in the pragmatic and slightly cruel habits of the Edwardian farmer, let young Montie have a go at slaughtering a pig? Just for Jollies! One could imagine the young farm hands chortling at the efforts of this smooth-handed young "Master".

None of this is based upon fact.Well not the last bit. Just my two cents worth.

JOHN RUFFELS.

[Mayerling]

August 31st, according to the Wikipedia, was the birthday of both Caligula and Commodus. The latter was a vicious fellow who enjoyed being a gladiator on occasion. Sort of like playing cricket at a later date.

Jeff

[Jonathan H]

Actually the argument against Druitt being the Ripper has always hung by a remarkably slender thread, that is once Montie fell from favour as the chief suspect [as dogged researchers were more drawn to Anderson/Swanson/Kosminski whilst, simultaneously, the general public were misled by the ludicrous myth of the 'Royal Watergate'].

The argument against Druitt's candidacy hinged on Macnaghten being both foolish and callous; an administrative hooray-henry.

Was this really ever much of an argument when compared to all the other sources, regarding this police chief, which claimed he was discreet, competent, diligent, hands-on -- and really did have an excellent memory?[For example, Macnaghten correctly remembers an obscure detail like the train pass found on Druitt's corpse, in the unofficial version of his Report, but neither Druitt's correct age nor profession -- though he does not commit himself to either 'mistake' in the official version]

In 2008 this very thin reed was brutally severed by the identification of MP Farquharson because it rendered redundant what Mac's fading memory or discreet machinations did, or did not do, with this 'private information' about Druitt which came his way, unofficially, from a fellow gentelman.

For it could now be established -- 'in all probabaility' to use Mac's preferred expression -- that 'belief' in Druitt's guilt pre-dated Macnaghten, and thus he was not confusing the drowned barrister with some other, unknown medico who died -- or suicided -- at the same time [though I think Mac did, much later, fuse Druitt with Tumblety for Sims' sake].

At the end of his distinguished career Macnaghten is just as certain as Anderson, and they both cannot be right about their choice for the fiend -- though they can certainly both be wrong.

[Mayerling]

I would not be thoroughly harsh on Sir Melville (as I might on Anderson). MacNaghten arrived at Scotland Yard months after the destruction of Mary Kelly, and unless one accepts Alice MacKenzie and Francis Coles as two other Ripper Victims he arrived after the crime wave was over. Then came Cutbush, and Sir Melville must have been really upset - the whole unsolved mess of 1888 revived in 1894 on his watch!

In that period there were at least two London murder cases that were fully as fascinating and famous (or infamous) as the Ripper, and in both the killer was caught. I am referring to the Pearcey - Hogg tragedy of 1890, and the crazy James Canham Read murder of 1894. Forgotten today, Read murdered his sexual victim at Prittlewell, in what was supposed to be a well planned murder scheme. Like most of them it fell apart. He fled (after adding to his crimes by embezzling several thousand pounds from is employer) and hid with yet another girlfriend in the country. Scotland Yard were able (after two weeks) to track down Read. He was tried, found guilty, and executed (as was Mrs. Pearcey).

With two big news crimes closed to their credit under his watch, one can imagine MacNaghten was furious about having to return to the worst bungled major crime of recent date when he was not even there. I suspect that MacNaghten just wanted to be on record with a solution that cleared the improbable "Renwick Williams-like" Cutbush, and showed that he could have solved the earlier case. Even if he was totally wrong, he certainly stands out in place of Anderson - the latter did not name anybody. MacNaghten named three suspects, and even if none are correct we can at least find them now.

Jeff

[Johnr]

Yes, Jonathan and Jeffrey,

Macnaghten certainly was keen to preserve the reputation on the London Metropolitan Police.
Thanks for all those retals of the two other crimes Jeffrey. I was not aware of that background, but it certainly makes sense of what Macnaghten was trying to do.
You point out that whilst the JTR murders did not occur on Macnaghten's watch, he was alert to the need to clamp down on damaging press speculation that the Cutbush slashings were the resumption of the work of JTR.
Thus dampening down any public out-cryto allocate scarce police resources to investigate a crime M. was convinced was over.

And Jonathan,
I agree that Macnaghten's attempt to tidy up the loose ends of the Ripper murders, albeit after they were over, suggests a sensativeness about Scotland Yard's reputation in the press.
You have frequently pointed out that any solution or suggested solution was restrospective by the police.

It was a huge gamble to say publicly that the Ripper murders were over, and this is why, I think, the police took no chances with the Cole murder and the Alice Mackenzie murder.

So, yes, Macnaghten was trying to clear up a case he had not been involved with. He kept the album of gory photographs in his drawer.
My presumtion is that he could not come out and publicly nominate his prime suspect(S) for the murder after retrospectively reviewing the evidence. And was more than aware of the legal dilemma of naming a suspect who had never been given due process in court.

JOHN RUFFELS.