Does anyone believe MJD was murdered?

[Grim]

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.

[Mort Belfry]

Doesn't that more answer why he would put bricks in his pockets? To hamper this "survival mode"?

[Grim]

Doesn't that more answer why he would put bricks in his pockets? To hamper this "survival mode"?

Even if his coats were filled with bricks then he could just take his coat off and resurface. Doesn't sound like much of a suicide to me.

Perhaps the vigilance committee caught up to him or maybe his family were shamed and decided to end his life and make it look like a suicide.

[Barnaby]

People jump off bridges and commit suicide all of the time. What percentage of them load themselves down beforehand? It does seem odd.

[aspallek]

I don't see any compelling reason to belive he was murdered.

[Mike Covell]

I don't really have an opinion of wether he was or wasn't the murderer, as I have not really studied him closely enough to make a decision.

I leave that upto fantastic researchers like Andrew Spallek, who globe trot just to research this interesting fellow.

[Nemo]

One of the theories says that Druitt was possibly killed and put in the water after at least a couple of days (due to the levels of composition I think)

The stones would only be to weigh the body down

If his murder is linked to patrons of the "Osiers" - Then his body was found within yards of where it was placed in the water

[Johnr]

For Sir Melville Macnaghten, - the "hands on" Assistant Commissioner some years after 1888 - it seemed clear as day that Montague Druitt " topped himself ".
Macnaghten reasoned that the awful glut of savage mutilation wrought by the Ripper upon his final Millers Court victim turned his mind and thus led to his taking his own life.
Whilst insufficient proof of this theory survives to this day, Druitt still remains for me a most unlikely, and thus, intriguing suspect in the Ripper murders.
If Druitt was the Ripper, and if as Macnaghten theorised, his appetite for savagery led to his mind snapping and then his killing himself, I believe it would be very difficult for us to piece together Druitt's actions and thoughts on that fateful last day.
Consider the fact he was dressed up to the Nines ( including kid-skin gloves); carrying a large amount of money; and then waded into The Thames in freezing cold temperatures in the overcast rainy day or pitchblack of night.
I still think the sight of a smartly dressed "toff" lurching towards the surging river dragging heavy stones in his top coat would have been an extraordinary
image to go out on.I hope his mind had gone by that stage.
The point I am trying to make is that, if his mind had gone and he died by his own (insane) hand, it would be very difficult to reconstruct his final hours : his thinking, motives and actions.
And equally difficult to reconstruct a case for his murder. JOHN RUFFELS.

[Nothing to see]

Oh please. Druitt drowned himself. Deal with it.

[mrmajester]

The one thing that has always puzzled me about Druitt's death is why did he buy a return train ticket?

[Nothing to see]

The one thing that has always puzzled me about Druitt's death is why did he buy a return train ticket?

Hey, it puzzles you, not me. I'm gonna kill myself but..maybe, I'm not so sure.

If I decide not to kill myself, I'll need to get back.

Makes sense to me.

[Grim]

Oh please. Druitt drowned himself. Deal with it.

Yeah sure, I hear of suicides all the time where people wear coats filled with bricks then jump into a river.

[Robert]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Woolf#Death

[Roy Corduroy]

...then waded into The Thames in freezing cold temperatures in the overcast rainy day or pitchblack of night.

Hi Johnr,

Here's a place. The steps that lead to the river at the end of Black Lion Lane, W6. - Roy

[ChrisGeorge]

Even if his coats were filled with bricks then he could just take his coat off and resurface. Doesn't sound like much of a suicide to me.

Perhaps the vigilance committee caught up to him or maybe his family were shamed and decided to end his life and make it look like a suicide.

But that is suicide, mate. He didn't just make it look like suicide, it was suicide. He ended his own life, in the scenario you mention.

However--

Would anyone like to entertain the thought that Montague John Druitt could have been either working for British intelligence or as a spy for Germany or some other foreign power? After all, his body was found off Thornycroft's Torpedo Factory, which made torpedo destroyers for navies around the world. There might have been deeper waters to MJD than we know, and that could be part of the mystery about him.

Just putting the cat in among the pigeons.

All the best

Chris