druitt getting the sack

[Mayerling]

You emigrated, Jeff?

http://murderpedia.org/male.R/r/read-james-canham.htm

What can I tell you Robert? I happened to find a web dealing with Stepney Murders and gave details to several. Read's case is unjustly forgotten these days - it is a guide on "how not to commit a perfect crime" because every idea of the killer comes back to bite him when he is captured. I wish a full scale study was done of it.

But still my question remains - Sir Melville is shown to be a smart detective and self appointed guardian angel of the name and reputation of the Druitt family in the fascinating theory advanced by Jonathan. I wonder if there is any evidence that Sir Melville behaved the same way towards any other suspected killer in any non-Whitechapel murder case from the 1890s to the days before World War I began.

Jeff

[pinkmoon]

Good post graham .what I like about druitt as a suspect is that he is one of only so called suspects who's life seems to going down hill at the time when all the murders started also he lived alone so he would have some where to stash human organs.this story about murderer killing himself after last murder also been a toff fits in nicely.

[Graham]

Druitt's as good a suspect as any, and better than some, and fair play to Dan Farson for first identifying him as a suspect.

However - and these points have been raised before but stand raising again - the only documentary source of evidence against Druitt is Macnaghten. And Mac said he destroyed a lot of documents relevant to the Ripper Case. Of course, he got Druitt's profession wrong, and also the date of his disappearance, which he said was 10th November 1888. Probably no big deal, but perhaps these points do demonstrate that Mac's memory was not as infallible as some would believe. The 'private information' that Mac alludes to is of course from an origin completely unknown (or so I believe); it could have come from anywhere, including the celebrated West of England MP. Mac also said that it was alleged that Druitt was 'sexually insane', a term which in Victorian times could refer to a masturbation habit. or homosexuality, or both. It has been suggested many times that the reason Druitt got the bullet from Mr Valentine's school was that he was taking liberties with the pupils. As good a reason as any, I'd say.

As far as I'm aware, the only other possible reference to Druitt's being a Ripper suspect is down to G R Sims, who stated in The Referee magazine in 1903 that the man found drowned in The Thames was one of three possible suspects for Jack, and that the police were looking for him at the time his corpse was dragged out of the river. Sims also adds that Druitt was suspected not only by Scotland Yard, but also by his friends. Why should the police be looking for Druitt at the time prior to his disappearance? Because of goings-on at Mr Valentine's school, or because they thought he was the Ripper?

Due acknowledgment to my (old) copy of 'The Jack The Ripper A-Z' for confirmation of some of the above, most of which I've dredged from my memory.

G

[Robert]

You emigrated, Jeff?

http://murderpedia.org/male.R/r/read-james-canham.htm

[Mayerling]

Hi all,

I have been following Johnathan's intriguing theory for the last few months, and I have to admit it is not a bad one. The basic idea is that Sir Melville kept changing his story to fit recent side events - all to try to keep the name of Druitt unknown and unrecognizable, and to do this to protect the innocent Druitt family from potential social infamy.

There is one thing I am curious about. Sir Melville was with Scotland Yard for a quarter century. Aside from protecting Druitt's name and his family, did Sir Melville ever do anything of a similar nature elsewhere?

I have thought about this carefully and conclude that I don't know enough to say he did or did not - and yet there was a case in 1894 that suggests he wouldn't do it normally.

In 1894 a woman named Florence Dennis was shot and killed by her lover James Canham Read in the village of Prittlewell near Southend. She was pregnant, and Read (a married man with children, but also a lothario) decided to kill her, trying to hide any contact with Florence over a period of six or more months, using letter drop off locations to avoid mail being sent from his postal zone.

Read fled when he was aware that his planning was for naught (Florence's sister, Mrs. Ayriss, was aware Florence was seeing Read at Prittlewell, and sent him a telegram informing him she knew). Read kept in touch with a brother, while he hid with a second "wife" he bigamously married. The police were watching the brother, and through this they tracked down Read. Eventually Read was tried, convicted, and hanged.

Read left a nightmare amount of social destruction behind him:

1) Mrs Ayriss was married and had to admit she had an affair with Read - leading to her divorce.
2) Read's wife and children were socially and economically ruined by the crime.
3) Read's second "wife"'s father suffered a fatal heart attack due to the strain of his daughter's disgrace.
4) Read's brother, guilt ridden that the police found James though his own carelessness, committed suicide.

There is no evidence that Sir Melville ever lifted a finger to try to protect all these victims of secondary damage from the results of the crime. Perhaps because they were not from a good country Tory family, like the Druitts?

Jeff

[Mayerling]

Not in these enlightened days, but many a corpse went on trial in olden days, perhaps most famously The Cadaver Synod where the body of Catholic Pope Formosus, was exhumed and brought to the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome during January of 897. The dead body sat in a chair in Papal Court while debate raged over Formosus' alleged misconducts. The body was found guilty and his decisions as Pope declared null and void.

Can't imagine cross examining a corpse. "Formosus, wrap one for yes, twice for no. Now, didst thou..."

Hi Raven,

In the Curia Court there is a moment's silence. The instructions are recited again, and suddenly there are THREE raps, and a spectral voice saying, "Sorry, I just don't know!".

Jeff

[Wickerman]

Surely macnaughton would have made some basic enquires about druitt after he received his private information

If I was Macnaghten, I would, but his private information is hearsay and not regarded as police evidence.
The police need to conduct their own interview, they do not respond to hearsay.

Suppose, for arguments sake, one of Druitt's relatives had seen him the day after the Kelly murder with a heart in a glass jar. Something he never owned before, and the fact they knew he was out late on all the nights of the murders, and that he was once caught cleaning a case of surgical knives.

A bottled heart was not located in his room, the knives had belonged to his father, Druitt is dead, what does Macnaghten do to verify that evidence exists the police could use?
Macnaghten had the means to send a detective to investigate on a private basis, so the press would not find out, that is always possible - nothing being found.

If Macnaghten's source was a letter, the author may not be in a position to produce tangible evidence, only opinion, so he kept the letter private.
He knows legally, and perhaps morally, that the law has no case to pursue.

I'm only suggesting that the overall scenario is not impossible, but also we have nothing with which to show any of it could not be true.
Such is the position with much in this case

[lynn cates]

Dim

Hello Robert. Thanks.

Quite. Or, you may wait for really difficult interrogation from--(drum roll, please):

INSPECTOR DIM!!!!!!

Cheers.
LC

[Robert]

I certainly don't rule Druitt out. I just think that, with the exception of the confidential memorandum, if Macnaghten had really wanted to protect the Druitt family then the correct thing to do, when people came a-calling, would have been to say "I have a very good idea who the murderer was, but I will never reveal his identity or any details about him, and I would be obliged if you would cease writing about it. However if you do write about it, you will receive no assistance from me."

[pinkmoon]

Surely macnaughton would have made some basic enquires about druitt after he received his private information

[Robert]

You can cross-examine an insane corpse :

"You're not dead. You only think you're dead."

[lynn cates]

Today's lecture . . .

Hello Raven.

"Can't imagine cross examining a corpse."

Ah! You should try lecturing to about three dozen of them at a time. (heh-heh)

Cheers.
LC

[Wickerman]

I have an open mind on the subject however I'm swayed a little towards druitt because the story that runs through my family that originates from my great grandparents who were children at time of jack the ripper and lived in Whitechapel was that the locals were lead to believe by local police that murders had stopped because murderer had drowned himself in Thames after last murder and was a toff

It is necessary to quantify what a local East Ender determines a Toff to be.

Druitt is an interesting suspect because of the number of researchers who have devoted years in an attempt to uncover his background, yet not one of them have unearthed anything to rule him out.

If we compare him with Kozminski, we have two candidates which appear to represent both ends of the spectrum.
Druitt, the Well-dressed suspect, often described in the vicinity, and Kozminski, the rough-looking, perhaps the BS-man or Blotchy character.

Druitt though was the right age at 31, not so Kozminski at only 23.

If we use age estimates suggested by witnesses for the victims, in each case the victim, until positively identified, was thought to look younger than their actual age.
This indicates that an estimate of the killer suggested to be between 28 and 35?, suggests the killer should not be younger than suggested, but if anything, as with the victims, he is older.
Which is another strike against Kozminski.

Given that Druitt had a busy schedule, juggling his work as a barrister, his fill-in job as a teacher, and a cricketing schedule, it is noticeable that nothing has surfaced to rule him out as a suspect, that he had to have been elsewhere.

With Kozminski we have no idea what he was doing throughout the spate of the murders.

That said, there is still no known reason to promote either one as a Ripper suspect, for that we rely on the opinions of those who make the claim years later. How valuable these latter opinions are is the issue for us.

Speaking for myself, due to the above reason's, Druitt cannot be ruled out.

[Paddy]

Her Husband was.....

Reverend Charles William Norman Ogilvy married Hon. Emily Priscilla Maria Ponsonby, daughter of Charles Frederick Ashley Cooper Ponsonby, 2nd Baron de Mauley of Canford ....

Pat.........................

[Paddy]

Additional to Lord Ogilvy post.....

Re: Post 18 page 2.......See attached a later news report about the drunk man at Blackheath

Then see this listing for Emily Ogilvy in 1891 with her parents Lord and Lady De Mauly
Emily Ogilvy 1842 Cranford, Dorset, England Daughter Langford, Oxfordshire

Probably nothing but a coincidence? I love them !

Pat