Is it plausible that Druitt did it?

[Carrotty Nell]

MJD is on paper just about the most implausible suspect on these boards. He did not live in the murder district, he played cricket six hours after one murder, was in Dorset the day after another, and in Dorset a few days either side of another. He did not even behave like a man wallowing in guilt and remorse in the brief window between Miller's Court and his suicide.

However the most senior figure at Scotland Yard who had access to all the case files regarded Druitt as the strongest suspect even at the expense of nasty pieces of work like Kosminski and Ostrog. McNaghten's suspicion about Druitt would even have offended against his probable Victorian beliefs in criminality being inherent to the lower classes not the educated and middle classes. It is not particularly productive to argue whether Druitt was or was not or could or could not have been in Whitechapel on any night. Were a visitor's book from Toynbee Hall to surface with MJD's signature in it half the members of this message board would spend the next 20 years trying to prove it was a fake.

In spite of everything arguing to the contrary he was McNaghten's prime suspect. That makes him the most plausible suspect on this board.

[aspallek]

The case was never closed because there was no evidence against Druitt or any other suspect. Furthermore, there was obviously disagreement among various police officials as to who the best suspect was. Macnaghten himself was not sure Druitt was guilty, in spite of the "private information" he possessed. For these reasons, the case was left open even after the active investigation ceased and thus when additional murders occurred the question was always asked whether this could be another Ripper murder. This is merely responsible policing. It is not the police eliminating a suspect.

All this being said, we don't know when the "private information" about Druitt came to police (whether Macnaghten's or someone else) attention. It may not have been until after the MacKenzie murder. Sir Melville makes reference to "certain facts" that were not in police possession until several years after he joined SY. Clearly, this would be after the McKenzie murder. But we don't know that the "certain facts" are the same thing as the "private information."

We do know, however, that a certain Member of Parliament was making the claim in early 1891 (just before the Coles murder) that JtR was the "son of a surgeon" who had committed suicide after the last murder. Although certain other details do not seem to fit Druitt, the description is too close not to be Druitt's, especially when one considers where this MP was from. He was in a position to be very well acquainted with the Druitts and their associates.

That's all for now.

Hi Folks,

Im just curious as to why routing is being suggested, when its clear from the Police records that Alice McKenzie's death re-surfaced the Ripper fears, ...as in he wasnt dead yet. I'm obviously not in any way convinced Druitt even belongs on a suspects list, maybe on a list of men around 35 who killed themselves just after the killing spree ended..and I know of at least 2 that fit that category..Im just always fascinated by the desire to pin something on this guy regardless, because of some suggestive notes an investigator was revealed to have made.

Also, I think its got to be considered as most likely that Jack the Ripper was a local man, with perhaps a job that leaves his nights free, particularly on Holidays or Weekends.

My best regards all.

[Ben]

He needn't have been a cool calculator, Lars. Just someone who wanted to steer himself in the rght direction as soon as possible, which would have been immediately after leaving Mitre Square. I can't quite envisage "blind panic" propelling him into an erroneous and dangerous direction to quite such an extent. If blind panic played a role, it would probably have caused him to bolt directly for his "bolt-hole", and get off the streets as quickly as possible.

[detective abberline]

Mitre Sq

It was her apron. Now that's a fact no-one can dispute. i've never thought it likely he'd stop and write graffiti on a wall. But he did pass through there.
Cheers

[Mr Poster]

hi ho

Or else he didnt think at all and just ran in a bit of a panic to get anywhere but Mitre Sq.

This picture of our cool calculator stopping to wipe his knife and write some graffiti is most likely nonsense and the apron was most likely thrown away as he struggled to divest himself of anything to connect him to Miter Square in his haste. The kidney probably ended up in the street too, eaten by a dog. Or a Kosminskey perhaps.

Unless someone has evidence for our mans deliberately plotting his course as he conducted his Exodus From MItre Square? As opposed to just scarpering. Like criminals do.

p

[aspallek]

I suppose we are just going to disagree on this. I was going to give several more reasons to justify my view but I don't think there is any point.

[Ben]

Two or three blocks is not an unreasonable distance at all.

It is a little bit unreasonable, Andy, for reasons Gareth suggested.

He wouldn't simply have been heading eccentrically in the wrong direction for an unneccesary length of time. He'd be heading in the direction of two police forces trafficking between two crime scenes and two police stations (Leman and Commercial Street), and even then he'd need to head back West at a time when a police presence in and around Mitre Square would have increased considerably. Rather than heading into danger and potentially trapping himself in the worst possible location, it was surely - surely - better to head West as soon as he possibly could after emerging onto Duke Passage.

More likely, he bolted for the heart of the murder district because he lived in that general direction.

[Sam Flynn]

I am at a loss as to your point given that mine was made addressing the fact that our man could have travelled into Whitehcpale to do his deed.

Hello MrP,

The point is... why Whitechapel, especially? We have to account for the slum areas, not exactly bereft of impoverished prostitutes (examples in red circles - Greenwich, Deptford, Rotherhithe, Bermondsey, Ratcliff, Poplar, Stepney ), that intervened between Blackheath (black rectangle, bottom right corner) and the Ripper's "orbit" (blue ellipse), its imaginary axis running just North of Whitechapel High Street.

[aspallek]

Sam --

The point is that the killer heard the PC approaching and so he took off in essentially the opposite direction, fleeing for safety, until he reached the relative safety of the doorways on Goulston Street. Two or three blocks is not an unreasonable distance at all. I doubt he even thought about H Division being re-inforced at the moment. He just wanted to flee in a direction that was not blocked by a PC at that instant. Others agree on this point, Stewart Evans, for one.

Actually, as is the case with many of these arguments, one's own point can be used against one's premise. If the killer did live within H Division territory and he knew that H Division was heavily reinforced and on alert after Stride's murder, would he knowingly head for home at a time when he could be observed and recognized returning home immediately after a Ripper murder? That doesn't sound too smart to me, either! That's the problem. We are very limited in our ability to use logic when considering a killers individual movements because there are so many factors that come into play -- especially the factor that deranged killers do not always act logically.

[Mr Poster]

hi ho SamF

Five miles to a Victorain IS nothing. But I am at a loss as to your point given that mine was mde addressing the fact that our man could have travelled into Whitehcpale to do his deed. The distance of crims to any arbitrary point has nothing to link it to his house....perhaps his place of work was the location you describe or he was able to purchase some other thing that he wanted there. The fact that all were in cluster may equally represent the probability (spatially) of his being accosted by a whore on any night he worked late and was walking home or whatever.

As to his trajctory after Eddowes.....somehow I doubt he stopped to think "I better not go that way into the recntly reinforced H division area". I imagine his route was determined primarily by his being right or left handed which is the thing that determines which way we are most likely to turn at a T junction when legging it in what must have amounted to a fairly pell mell journey to get away from the crime scene.

p

[Sam Flynn]

This is most likely irrelevant to where the killer lived, or at least as likely to be irrelevant as not. Virtually being caught red-handed (literally!), the killer would merely have fled in the quickest and safest direction available to him.

Heading North up Mitre Square, East across Duke Street, then two or three blocks further East into reinforced "H" Division territory hardly sounds safe or quick, for someone whose intended destination lay elsewhere, Andy. It was a positively daft trajectory for someone to have taken if they had a bolt-hole West of Mitre Square, or in its more immediate vicinity.

[Ben]

Not for that long though, Andy, and especially if his intended direction was West. Obviously, the approach of PC Watkins would have ruled out an escape via Mitre Street, but he could easily have bolted left or right on Duke's Place and righted himself, rather than continuing to head eccentrically in the wrong direction!

Best wishes,
Ben

[aspallek]

Added to which he clearly headed East of Mitre Square after dispatching Eddowes, into the heart of the murder district, as opposed to West.

This is most likely irrelevant to where the killer lived, or at least as likely to be irrelevant as not. Virtually being caught red-handed (literally!), the killer would merely have fled in the quickest and safest direction available to him.

[Sam Flynn]

5 miles to a Victorian man was nothing.

Indeed so, MrP - which begs the question of why most of the Whitechapel Murders occurred within less than half a mile of the Brick Lane/Wentworth Street junction.