Richard Walter and an Alleged 'Secret' Letter of 1888 at Scotland Yard

[ChrisGeorge]

Hello all

Check it out!

"Richard Walter and an Alleged 'Secret' Letter of 1888 at Scotland Yard" on my Casebook blog, just posted. This follows up a report on the same matter in Ripperologist No. 123 where I quote an email I received from Walter following revelations he made at the Jack the Ripper conference at Drexel University in Philadelphia on October 28-29, 2011.

Best regards

Chris

[Steven Russell]

Does this gentleman expect to be taken seriously with the old "I've been given priveleged information that XYZ but cannot reveal my source" routine?

Best wishes,
Steve.

[ChrisGeorge]

Now discussing the letter and the whole story in the chat room. See button on top of page. Yes the tale is dubious, Stephen, I will grant you that.

Chris

[Jonathan H]

Nonsense like gives the historical truth a real kick in the gonads!

Just as Macnaghten's paramount position is trying to be resurrected -- by me, unworthy as I am -- this nothing-hoax will no doubt 'discredit' that chief, and that's chief's claim to have 'laid' to rest 'the ghost' of the fiend 'some years' after' he killed himself, all over again.

It's even an embarrassingly and tiresomely outdated hoax: Druitt as the gay lover of Eddie; the police hunting Druitt in 1888, and so on.

God almighty, are we never be free of the ghost of that Dickensian hustler Joseph Sickert (whom Cornwall, remarkably, had never heard of her in her book about his alleged father).

[Phil Carter]

Hello all,

For me, an obvious falsie. The story of the Uncle and the 2nd suicide attempt could not have possibly been in any "secret letter".. so where would the SY man have gotten his infornmation from as he makes no mention of any other written thing from the SY archives..he doesnt even refer to a Druitt file?

So the story is a made up thing. I suspect around the time of the Howells/Skinner story..or just after..re Apostles.

I feel that this Walter has been led on here, and when confronted by knowledgable Ripperologists, saw he was in too deep, shut up like a clam and backed out sharpish. He doesnt know enough about the case himself to have invented the story. Someone played the man big time. Oh what a merry tangle we weave... some people get a kick out of playing silly childish games like this.

best wishes

Phil

[Jonathan H]

Druitt was an Oxonian and could never have been in the Apostles.

I suspect that the detail about Druitt allegedly hurling himself in the river twice, has been inspired by the Roman Polanski thriller, 'The Tenant', from 1976 (he directed the uneven film and plays the lead).

The protagonist has to throw themselves out of a window a second time, after the first attempt fails.

[Steven Russell]

Hello all,

I feel that this Walter has been led on here, and when confronted by knowledgable Ripperologists, saw he was in too deep, shut up like a clam and backed out sharpish. He doesnt know enough about the case himself to have invented the story. Someone played the man big time. Oh what a merry tangle we weave... some people get a kick out of playing silly childish games like this.

best wishes

Phil

I reckon Phil has it dead right here.

Best wishes,
Steve.

[ChrisGeorge]

Hello all,

For me, an obvious falsie. The story of the Uncle and the 2nd suicide attempt could not have possibly been in any "secret letter".. so where would the SY man have gotten his infornmation from as he makes no mention of any other written thing from the SY archives..he doesnt even refer to a Druitt file?

So the story is a made up thing. I suspect around the time of the Howells/Skinner story..or just after..re Apostles.

I feel that this Walter has been led on here, and when confronted by knowledgable Ripperologists, saw he was in too deep, shut up like a clam and backed out sharpish. He doesnt know enough about the case himself to have invented the story. Someone played the man big time. Oh what a merry tangle we weave... some people get a kick out of playing silly childish games like this.

best wishes

Phil

Hi Phil

Your view coincides with mine, that someone at the Met evidently fed RW the story and he is just relating what he was told. The person who told RW all this might themselves have received it second hand from a colleague at the Yard. And so it goes on.

Chris

[ChrisGeorge]

Druitt was an Oxonian and could never have been in the Apostles.

I suspect that the detail about Druitt allegedly hurling himself in the river twice, has been inspired by the Roman Polanski thriller, 'The Tenant', from 1976 (he directed the uneven film and plays the lead).

The protagonist has to throw themselves out of a window a second time, after the first attempt fails.

Hi Jonathan

Thanks for your thoughts on this matter. The possible link of the double attempted suicide to the plot of the 1976 Polanski thriller might be true, I suppose. If so, it might be another indication that the story recounted by Richard Walter is an old one that circulated or was believed by one or more people at the Met.

All the best

Chris

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

An affair with Druitt, nights out with prostitutes and a secret marriage to a Catholic girl.

Phew! PAV was a busy boy.

Regards,

Simon

[The Grave Maurice]

Your view coincides with mine, that someone at the Met evidently fed RW the story and he is just relating what he was told. The person who told RW all this might themselves have received it second hand from a colleague at the Yard.

I think that is a very reasonable explanation. RW didn't strike me as someone who would invent a story. He seems honest enough, although remarkably uninformed about the Ripper case. It makes perfect sense that he would be fed the story by an equally uninformed person and run with it. There's definitely no question that RW likes to be the centre of attention and appear to hold knowledge that we mere mortals are not privy to.

[lynn cates]

well done

Hello Phil. I believe you have deciphered that one.

Good work.

Cheers.
LC

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi All,

An affair with Druitt, nights out with prostitutes and a secret marriage to a Catholic girl.

Phew! PAV was a busy boy.

Regards,

Simon

Hello Simon

As I related in the article in Ripperologist no. 123 when I reported on this subject in "A Sensational Letter of 1888" and the story that Richard Walter told at Drexel about Druitt and PAV, Walter remarked that it was well known that PAV was a "sexual Disneyland."

All the best

Chris

[Limehouse]

So, the story goes that Druitt took revenge on 'the prostitues that had given PAV syphilis' - what all of them had given PAV the pox? Has it been established that any of the women killed had syphilis? And why is it always assumed that it was the women who carried the pox? How did they catch it then?

I also find it hard to believe that a Royal Prince would switch from having sex with a nice, clean, sober (we presume) chap, in favour of a collection of possibly rather smelly and drink-sodden old (not Kelly)women. It's fantasy in the true Gothic style. Instead of a vicious and cold-blooded killer, we have the image of a poor tortured soul, seeking revenge for some imagined wrong inflicted on self/lover/member of family by diseased and immoral women.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Chris,

I shall read your article with interest.

A secret vault at Scotland Yard, eh? I love melodramatic plot devices.

Could this be what it contains?

Rocky Mountain News, 17th January 1892—

"It is understood that the death of a Catholic priest in the East End of London has placed some important revelations in the hands of the police. There can be no doubt that the priest, under the seal of confession, died possessed of information that might have led to the arrest of the murderer or murderers of the wretched women known as "Jack the Ripper's" victims. That the priest had qualms of conscience regarding the sanctity of confession, even in connection with such atrocities, is evinced by the sealed packet he left behind him addressed to Sir Edward Bradford, chief of London's police department. On the package was inscribed, in the dead priest's handwriting, 'This is to be opened after my death - my lips must never reveal it.'

"Beyond the above, carelessly mentioned by a garrulous official who has since been severely reprimanded for his indiscretion, no further information can be obtained from the police. Whether it will lead to the detection of the Whitechapel fiend is a problem difficult to solve . . ."

And just four days after Prince Eddy turned up his toes. Cue conspiratorial music.

Catholic priest. PAV's secret marriage to a Catholic girl.

You could make a best-seller out of ingredients like these.

Regards,

Simon