Is it plausible that Druitt did it?

[dougie]

JOHN,
a pretty fair assessment of things in my opinion,an excellent post and one that i doubt any fair minded person might argue with.
regards
and please do present your assessment,i, for one would be interested in seeing it.

[aspallek]

Andy,

Please, just read my post a little more carefully, eh?

Sorry, Graham, I have absolutely no idea what this means. If I misread you post and replied inappropriately I am sorry. I thought you were bemoaning the notion that Druitt's name is being dragged through the mud. My point is that as a result of the research (and discussion) what may well emerge could exonerate him and clear his name.

[aspallek]

Hi Andy,

You did say:

"The closest I can come is the apparent placing of him at Cannon Street Station repeatedly during that time period"

Well that sounds like a definitely ascertained fact to me . I see you have now changed that to circumstantial evidence, that's fair enough as that is all it is, and not very good circumstantial evidence at that, but that's my opinion.

And I'm not the one to chastise you. I sat back and let tell a member to 'ignore the last page' of me and Philip's book, which wasn't very nice but I rose above it. And then you thanked Dougie for bringing some 'sanity' to this thread. So I am sorry you don't like hearing opinions which are contrary to your own. I've had my say so there is no need for me to post on this thread again.

Rob.

Am I imagining it or did you and I not have a very cordial PM discussion after I raised my objections? I thought we were OK on this.

First, in the quote of my earlier post that you cite I purposely used the word "apparent." I was not and am not stating an ascertained fact that Druitt was repeatedly at Cannon Street Station. The preponderance of evidence strongly suggests it, however. He was "apparently" there, is what I said. Why would he stay on a train and endure annoying delays only to alight at a station (Charing Cross) no closer to his chambers than Cannon Street? No proof, but rather strong evidence. Again, I presented much of my evidence on the old boards and the full picture is about to come out in my Ripper Notes article. Otherwise I would give full details here. Maybe you will disagree with that evidence. That's fine, too. How you can say "the apparent placing of him at Cannon Street" sounds like "a definitely ascertained fact" is beyond me.

Second, when I made a comment to another poster about "skipping the last page" or some such remark, it was obviously tongue-in-cheek and I believe I even included a smiley.

Third, the post to Dougie about "sanity" had nothing to do with you or Philip or either of your posts. I wasn't even thinking about either of you when I wrote that. Furthermore, it was obviously not meant literally and also had a smiley. This comment was a bit of relief that someone was seeing my point rather than misunderstanding me. I didn't think it was an inappropriate comment but I am sorry if it offended you.

I am not the one who keeps bringing this up. On the basis of publicly known evidence, I strongly disagree with Philip's statement about Druitt's alibi on the last page of your excellent book. I take it rather personally because it in essence regards me as a fool for researching a suspect who is depicted as having an air-tight alibi. Philip says he consulted a reliable source who gave him that information. But how can the rest of us evaluate that?

What I say now, I am saying with the utmost respect for you and Phil and without and sarcasm or facetiousness. If such evidence exists, please bring it into the public forum so that we can evaluate it. If the evidence is sound, GREAT! We can clear poor Montague's name once and for all. If he has an air-tight alibi for at least one canonical murder, I will drop him to the status at least of "highly unlikely suspect" in my mind, an alibi for two canonical murders and I will eliminate him.

I don't think I have been rude to Rob and Phil and I certainly have not meant to be.

Ed.- After re-reading your post, Rob, it occurs to me that you were perhaps being ironic with regard to my "apparent" placing of Druitt at Cannon Street sounding like a definitely ascertained fact, in which case I don't really know how to respond except to say that I never claimed to have ironclad proof. If you aren't convinced by the curcumstantial evidence that he was there, which I consider to be quite strong, so be it. I don't even think it is critical to the case against him. Clearly he had access to the East End.

[Johnr]

My "scenario" for MJD on the other thread.

Thanks for your kind words Dougie,
In keeping with the firm rules laid down on this new Forum site, I have taken
my brief summarised theoretical scenario over to the "Reasons Why?" thread.
JOHN RUFFELS.

[caz]

Is there any serial killer, before or since, who chose as his victims those above or below his social status? This is a question - not a challenge.

Cheers,

Graham.

Hi Graham,

It’s a good question.

But even if the answer is a resounding “No!” it will only tell us about identified serial killers. As always, the unidentified ones remain unidentified for a potential host of unidentified reasons - including perhaps their ‘choice’ of victim.

The problem here is that an unidentified killer of strangers may ‘choose’ victims who are above, below or equal to his social status for more complex reasons than their class alone, although that could also have its own relevance. What ‘social status’ did a late Victorian prostitute have, whether she earned a good living in the West End, or barely managed to scrape one at all in the East? The clap has no class and I assume it itches just as badly for a toff or a pauper. Similarly, the serial killer who attacks prostitutes because they make the most convenient, easily available and vulnerable victims, is unlikely to be thinking of their social status, so much as where they can quickly be picked up and taken to with the least amount of fuss and bother. While a toff may have wanted his prostitutes as wholesome as his money could buy, his priorities would arguably have changed if he wanted one to rip up rather than get all cosy with.

If young Monty had never used a prostitute anywhere before the middle of 1888 (and he may have done, of course), I have doubts as to whether he would have had sufficient confidence to take on the likes of Polly, Liz, Kate or Mary on their home turf. The man most likely to get away with serial murder, it seems to me, is the one who picks on those whose habits in general or situation in particular are not alien to him.

Age, appearance, social status, race, gender and sexuality may all be incidental to the familiarity Jack already has with the behaviour of potential victims. Thus a gay psychiatric nurse, who planned a campaign of murder in recent years at the age of 50 (and wrote about it in his diary ), targeted other gays looking for comfort on Hampstead Heath. In this instance the potential victims would all have been male, gay, available and vulnerable. But in any other respect they could have come in all shapes and sizes and from royalty downwards.

Hi All,

I also think that if Monty had been Jack, his suicide note would have reflected more self pity, more self absorption, and possibly some attempt to shift the blame for his fate onto others. On the contrary, he seems to have had other people’s welfare in mind, saying he was afraid he was going to end up like mother (who was hardly comparable with a serial killer!) and thought it would be best for all concerned if he were no longer around. If this was all a lie, it’s not the kind of lie I see Jack needing or wanting to tell. Why write a note at all? Jack had his own interests in mind, and at most he may have imagined he was doing the world a favour by sticking around to kill prossies for as long as poss.

I didn’t get time to catch up with the Druitt threads before they were lost, so I missed everything from about the beginning of February. Has there been any clarification yet from Philip’s source regarding these supposed alibis for Monty? It doesn‘t appear so. It must be terribly frustrating for Andy et al to go on researching his life and death if there really is secret squirrel evidence out there that conclusively eliminates him as a suspect.

Love,

Caz
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[Ben]

Hi all,

If a serial killer's crimes are closely clustered and within easy walking distance of eachother, he will invariably have a bolt-hole within that "close cluster", and this holds true especially for the LVP, when transport availaility was limited. Since the area under scrutiny was populated, in the main, by the proletariat, it's more than likely that the killer was one of their number. It wouldn't make sense for a "toff" living some distance away from the murder locale to keep commuting into the same prozzie hot-spot each time, especially when police presence was stepping up after each murder. There were plenty of other prostitute-populated domiciles in London.

Those angling for an upper-class suspect (for whatever reason) tend to refer very often to the practice of "slumming" and argue that everyone did it all the time, but in reality, most slummers wouldn't have been familiar with the district (often a guide was required), and those that did tended to make for the bawdy music halls as opposed to the Northen end of Commercial Street where the lowliest lived. Anyone seeking an East End prostitute need only have waited in Aldgate for the working girls to come to them.

Best regards,
Ben

[caz]

Anyone seeking an East End prostitute need only have waited in Aldgate for the working girls to come to them.

Er, I'm not quite sure what your argument is here, Ben.

Jack was seeking suitable victims in the area to rip up, wasn't he? So he 'need only have waited in Aldgate' for the working girls to come to him.

If he did anything beyond that, he did more than he needed to do - in your own opinion.

Which means you can try to fence him in as much as you like - but he won't necessarily go.

Love,

Caz
X

[dougie]

[QUOTE=caz;2210][LEFT]


Hi Graham,

It’s a good question.

But even if the answer is a resounding “No!” it will only tell us about identified

Hi All,

I also think that if Monty had been Jack, his suicide note would have reflected more self pity, more self absorption, and possibly some attempt to shift the blame for his fate onto others. On the contrary, he seems to have had other people’s welfare in mind, saying he was afraid he was going to end up like mother (who was hardly comparable with a serial killer!) and thought it would be best for all concerned if he were no longer around. If this was all a


Love,

Caz
X
we dont know EXACTLY what was in the suicide note,so maybe his note did reflect those very sentiments...and perhaps more...
regards

[Ben]

Hi Caz,

Prostitute killers are invariably prostitute users, that's how they build up a knowledge of their haunts, and of where the most suitable locations are. If he was a toff with a taste for East End prostitutes before he became slashy in one oddly specific location, he wouldn't have had any reason to seek out the prostitutes where they lived and build up a knowledge of their residential area in the process. They'd come to him.

Best regards,
Ben

[caz]

No Dougie, we don't know the exact wording of the suicide note. But we can only try and interpret what we have, and unless there is any reason to believe that what we have is virtually the opposite of what Monty actually wrote, or that he directly contradicted himself within the same note by adding stuff that has not survived, I think we have to accept this was no blame-shifting, "poor me" exercise.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hi Caz,

Prostitute killers are invariably prostitute users, that's how they build up a knowledge of their haunts, and of where the most suitable locations are. If he was a toff with a taste for East End prostitutes before he became slashy in one oddly specific location, he wouldn't have had any reason to seek out the prostitutes where they lived and build up a knowledge of their residential area in the process. They'd come to him.

Best regards,
Ben

I agree with the first part. But Jack didn't seek out the prostitutes where they lived - unless you have evidence that Polly lived in Buck's Row or the nearest main road; Annie at 29 Hanbury St or the nearest main road; Liz in Berner St, or Kate in Mitre Square or the nearest main road. And who says Jack even sought out Mary where she lived, and didn't just bump into her on a main road - not necessarily on the night she died - and learned about indoor services on offer?

You're arguing against yourself here, Ben. Anyone choosing to use the services of cheap prostitutes by picking them up on the main roads could have used the exact same method when picking them up to murder and mutilate them. Their social status doesn't need to enter into it.

Love,

Caz
X

[Ben]

It's doubtful that all the victims were solicited on the main arterial thoroughfares. Polly Nichols probably encountered her killer that way, but the same cannot be as easily argued with Stride and Chapman. And the idea of a toff "commuting in" to patrol the same roads each time when he could just as well "commute" to other prostitute locations in London to avoid an increasing police presence, runs contrary to experience and common sense.

Cheers,
Ben

[Mr Poster]

hi ho

Prostitute killers are invariably prostitute users, that's how they build up a knowledge of their haunts, and of where the most suitable locations are.

perhaps. But in the LVP killing prostitutes in the East End does not necessarily mean a prostitute user was doing it (inferred from his "knowing" where their haunts were) as, unlike today where they may frequent certain busstops or whatever....the entire East End was a heaving mass of them and it hardly took a certified "user" to figure out where to find them.

Unless someone wants to argue that the thousands of them in London's East End only hung around in one or two specific (and only known to users) streets.

In which case it must have been extremely crowded.

p

[Ben]

the entire East End was a heaving mass of them and it hardly took a certified "user" to figure out where to find them.

Absolutely, Lars, but no "outsider" needed to expend any effort looking for prostitutes, especially if he was Mr. Fancy Pants swanning in from the West End. It would have been a case of plonking your cab in the area of Aldgate (where Kelly herself was reported to have ventured) and waiting for offers. It wouldn't have been "extremely crowded" for the simple reason that Whitechapel was not the Prostitute Centre of London it is often imagined to be, and you had prostitutes aplenty in the West End.

Thanks for reading my post.

[caz]

Ben, Ben, Ben.

If Jack was a user of prostitutes before he started ripping them up, chances are he didn't pick London roads or locations at random for either activity, but got used to a limited number of roads in a specific area or areas, which provided exactly what he wanted. That holds true whether he lived or worked in those same roads or further afield. All he then had to do was adapt his behaviour once he got the women alone. If the heat was too much for a man who didn't live locally, after just a handful of murders, the same would surely hold true for one who did. And whoever he was, he stopped operating in Whitechapel before he got buckled.

So what was stopping your local nobody from finding prostitutes in other areas just as easily as you believe an outsider would have done when the police presence increased? In Romford even. Or was yours excused walking?

Your argument that an outsider would definitely have done this, that or the other, while a local would not, doesn't sound like it's based on sound enough logic to me. And it's certainly not based on statistics for unidentified serial killers, as Jack was.

Love,

Caz
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