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I started this thread just so that I could respond to a post by PI when it was pointed out (correctly) that any discussion of Druitt was sidetracking the topic of the thread.
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Posted by PI. My responses are emboldened.
I think that what it comes down to is that unless I can prove that Druitt was not the Whitechapel Murderer, in particular that he could not physically have been in Whitechapel when Nichols was murdered, then he remains a suspect.
Druitt was named as a suspect by Macnaghten and later others. Whether you think he’s a suspect or not is neither here nor there PI. He’s already been named so we can’t un-name him. You can say that you think that he’s a weak suspect of course but he cannot be eliminated by facts. I can only name around 3 suspects out of around 200 that can be eliminated by facts. The rest can only be ‘eliminated’ in the opinion of the individual.
I cannot do either of those things, but fail to see why Druitt should even be considered a suspect.
Druitt is a suspect because he was named as such by the Assistant Chief Constable of the Met. Anyone named by such a senior police officer should be of interest to anyone interested in the case PI. We should be wonder what evidence Macnaghten saw that led him to name Druitt in the first place and not simply dismiss him out of hand because we aren’t in possession of that information. This is the only fair approach. An assumption that Macnaghten was lying isn’t because it makes no sense.
Large numbers of people may have been on holiday at that time - including Walter Sickert in France - and physically capable of being in Whitechapel instead.
Does that make them suspects?
No. no one has ever made such a claim. I don’t for a minute suspect Sickert of being involved but that still doesn’t mean that I can make unproven claims simply to dismiss him.
Macnaghten wrote about private information.
Maybe if we could see it, we would laugh at it.
Or maybe we wouldn’t. Do you honestly think that the Assistant Chief Constable of the Met would name Druitt as a likely suspect on the basis of ‘laughable’ evidence PI? Seriously? Of course it’s entirely possible that he felt that the evidence was persuasive but Druitt wasn’t actually the killer. Maybe he overestimated the strength of the evidence? Maybe the evidence was misleading? But surely you can see that we shouldn’t dismiss something when we don’t know what it was? Wouldn’t that be just as wrong as someone saying “well Macnaghten saw evidence so Druitt must have been guilty?” All that I’ve ever suggested PI is that we should keep and open mind on Druitt.
Druitt did not live with his family at the time of the murders, so how could Macnaghten have received convincing information from Druitt's relatives that pointed to his guilt?
How do you know that the private information wasn’t a confession? Or that when Druitt was with his brother he didn’t let something slip?
The problem here is that your expecting me to try and fill in every singly gap in our knowledge about Druitt and when I can’t you’re taking as further evidence of innocence.
Abberline dismissed the idea that Druitt could have been the Whitechapel Murderer.
The retired Inspector Abberline.
Druitt was obviously tall, as fearsome fast-bowlers invariably are - far taller than the suspects reported by witnesses.
We don’t have Druitt’s height. From photographs he doesn’t look excessively tall and as Jeff has pointed out, we have to be wary of eyewitnesses on these kind of estimations.
When I made this point previously, someone said that they knew of a fast bowler who was not tall.
West Indies fast bowler Fidel Edwards was 5’ 5” tall, Dale Steyn was around 5’ 8” I believe, Sri Lankan Lasith Malinda was 5’6/7” but most are taller. Some are very tall. People in general weren’t as tall in those days.
It is always the same: every point in favour of the so-called suspect is dismissed on the ground that somewhere there is an exception that goes against him.
Its not the case PI. It’s the case that we should state things as conclusive if they aren’t. Which is done repeatedly.
He had a dark moustache, unlike the suspect seen by Lawende.
In none of the photographs that we have of Druitt can his moustache be describes as particularly dark. In some it’s virtually non-existent. Very thin looking.
And I have to say again PI what I’ve said to you numerous times but you simply won’t accept. It’s just a proven, scientific (and I have to say it….very obvious) point that light can have an effect on our perception of colour. I real,y don’t know why you’re so resistant to this PI because it’s simply a fact. There are numerous studies online which will confirm this.
I suppose if I say that he obviously was not the man seen by Schwartz, someone will retort that there's no proof that Druitt never got drunk and threw women about.
Your simply making things up. Clearly the man seen by Schwartz was unlikely to have been Druitt. Druitt just can’t be described as stocky or particularly broad shouldered. So unless he was wearing layers of misleading clothing then I’m quite happy to say that BS man was extremely unlikely to have been Druitt.
Druitt does not need to be posthumously proven innocent.
I have never made such a claim. All that I’ve ever said is that we cannot exonerate him based on provable evidence. This in no way means that he was guilty of course.
What is needed is some serious reason to suspect him - and some reason to think that he would commit a murder during a cricketing tour in Dorset.
We have no need for a motive. Motives are never known until after the murderer is caught. We can’t just guess them or assume them. And PI you really shouldn’t exaggerate. Druitt wasn’t on a cricketing tour. I believe that we only have evidence of 2 games? He was on holiday in Dorset during which time he played some cricket. There is a difference.
And if he did return to London because of some kind of urge how can any of us deny this possibility? How can we know how a serial killer might think. If we wrote a book on the strange behaviours of serial killers I’d suggest that it would be a weighty tome. And as I’ve speculated, he might not have returned purely to kill. We simply have no way of knowing. He might not have gone to London because he might not have been the killer. But he might have. And we simply can’t prove that he didn’t.
If that was his intention, why is it that the next time he played cricket, he did so hours after the murder, at a time when his cricketing could not provide him with an alibi?
But your starting from a false point PI. No one is suggesting that Druitt went down to Dorset just to provide himself with an alibi for the murder. This was your own suggestion I seem to recall. Of course he wouldn’t have done that.
……
PI, we disagree of course but there is a difference between our two positions. I’m perfectly willing to accept that Druitt might have been innocent but you appear absolutely unwilling to accept even the possibility that he might have been guilty. But to completely dismiss Druitt as a suspect we have to assume that MacNaghten simply plucked Druitt’s name out of thin air. I don’t think that this is remotely likely..in fact I’d call it unlikely in the extreme. So for me we have 2 possibilities - that Macnaghten saw his private info but Druitt wasn’t guilty or that he saw his private info and he was guilty. Can we be so absolutely certain that Druitt couldn’t possibly have been guilty? So certain that we say that Druitt should be eliminated? If we are interested in the case why should we abandon a possibility however unlikely to any of us as individuals.
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Posted by PI. My responses are emboldened.
I think that what it comes down to is that unless I can prove that Druitt was not the Whitechapel Murderer, in particular that he could not physically have been in Whitechapel when Nichols was murdered, then he remains a suspect.
Druitt was named as a suspect by Macnaghten and later others. Whether you think he’s a suspect or not is neither here nor there PI. He’s already been named so we can’t un-name him. You can say that you think that he’s a weak suspect of course but he cannot be eliminated by facts. I can only name around 3 suspects out of around 200 that can be eliminated by facts. The rest can only be ‘eliminated’ in the opinion of the individual.
I cannot do either of those things, but fail to see why Druitt should even be considered a suspect.
Druitt is a suspect because he was named as such by the Assistant Chief Constable of the Met. Anyone named by such a senior police officer should be of interest to anyone interested in the case PI. We should be wonder what evidence Macnaghten saw that led him to name Druitt in the first place and not simply dismiss him out of hand because we aren’t in possession of that information. This is the only fair approach. An assumption that Macnaghten was lying isn’t because it makes no sense.
Large numbers of people may have been on holiday at that time - including Walter Sickert in France - and physically capable of being in Whitechapel instead.
Does that make them suspects?
No. no one has ever made such a claim. I don’t for a minute suspect Sickert of being involved but that still doesn’t mean that I can make unproven claims simply to dismiss him.
Macnaghten wrote about private information.
Maybe if we could see it, we would laugh at it.
Or maybe we wouldn’t. Do you honestly think that the Assistant Chief Constable of the Met would name Druitt as a likely suspect on the basis of ‘laughable’ evidence PI? Seriously? Of course it’s entirely possible that he felt that the evidence was persuasive but Druitt wasn’t actually the killer. Maybe he overestimated the strength of the evidence? Maybe the evidence was misleading? But surely you can see that we shouldn’t dismiss something when we don’t know what it was? Wouldn’t that be just as wrong as someone saying “well Macnaghten saw evidence so Druitt must have been guilty?” All that I’ve ever suggested PI is that we should keep and open mind on Druitt.
Druitt did not live with his family at the time of the murders, so how could Macnaghten have received convincing information from Druitt's relatives that pointed to his guilt?
How do you know that the private information wasn’t a confession? Or that when Druitt was with his brother he didn’t let something slip?
The problem here is that your expecting me to try and fill in every singly gap in our knowledge about Druitt and when I can’t you’re taking as further evidence of innocence.
Abberline dismissed the idea that Druitt could have been the Whitechapel Murderer.
The retired Inspector Abberline.
Druitt was obviously tall, as fearsome fast-bowlers invariably are - far taller than the suspects reported by witnesses.
We don’t have Druitt’s height. From photographs he doesn’t look excessively tall and as Jeff has pointed out, we have to be wary of eyewitnesses on these kind of estimations.
When I made this point previously, someone said that they knew of a fast bowler who was not tall.
West Indies fast bowler Fidel Edwards was 5’ 5” tall, Dale Steyn was around 5’ 8” I believe, Sri Lankan Lasith Malinda was 5’6/7” but most are taller. Some are very tall. People in general weren’t as tall in those days.
It is always the same: every point in favour of the so-called suspect is dismissed on the ground that somewhere there is an exception that goes against him.
Its not the case PI. It’s the case that we should state things as conclusive if they aren’t. Which is done repeatedly.
He had a dark moustache, unlike the suspect seen by Lawende.
In none of the photographs that we have of Druitt can his moustache be describes as particularly dark. In some it’s virtually non-existent. Very thin looking.
And I have to say again PI what I’ve said to you numerous times but you simply won’t accept. It’s just a proven, scientific (and I have to say it….very obvious) point that light can have an effect on our perception of colour. I real,y don’t know why you’re so resistant to this PI because it’s simply a fact. There are numerous studies online which will confirm this.
I suppose if I say that he obviously was not the man seen by Schwartz, someone will retort that there's no proof that Druitt never got drunk and threw women about.
Your simply making things up. Clearly the man seen by Schwartz was unlikely to have been Druitt. Druitt just can’t be described as stocky or particularly broad shouldered. So unless he was wearing layers of misleading clothing then I’m quite happy to say that BS man was extremely unlikely to have been Druitt.
Druitt does not need to be posthumously proven innocent.
I have never made such a claim. All that I’ve ever said is that we cannot exonerate him based on provable evidence. This in no way means that he was guilty of course.
What is needed is some serious reason to suspect him - and some reason to think that he would commit a murder during a cricketing tour in Dorset.
We have no need for a motive. Motives are never known until after the murderer is caught. We can’t just guess them or assume them. And PI you really shouldn’t exaggerate. Druitt wasn’t on a cricketing tour. I believe that we only have evidence of 2 games? He was on holiday in Dorset during which time he played some cricket. There is a difference.
And if he did return to London because of some kind of urge how can any of us deny this possibility? How can we know how a serial killer might think. If we wrote a book on the strange behaviours of serial killers I’d suggest that it would be a weighty tome. And as I’ve speculated, he might not have returned purely to kill. We simply have no way of knowing. He might not have gone to London because he might not have been the killer. But he might have. And we simply can’t prove that he didn’t.
If that was his intention, why is it that the next time he played cricket, he did so hours after the murder, at a time when his cricketing could not provide him with an alibi?
But your starting from a false point PI. No one is suggesting that Druitt went down to Dorset just to provide himself with an alibi for the murder. This was your own suggestion I seem to recall. Of course he wouldn’t have done that.
……
PI, we disagree of course but there is a difference between our two positions. I’m perfectly willing to accept that Druitt might have been innocent but you appear absolutely unwilling to accept even the possibility that he might have been guilty. But to completely dismiss Druitt as a suspect we have to assume that MacNaghten simply plucked Druitt’s name out of thin air. I don’t think that this is remotely likely..in fact I’d call it unlikely in the extreme. So for me we have 2 possibilities - that Macnaghten saw his private info but Druitt wasn’t guilty or that he saw his private info and he was guilty. Can we be so absolutely certain that Druitt couldn’t possibly have been guilty? So certain that we say that Druitt should be eliminated? If we are interested in the case why should we abandon a possibility however unlikely to any of us as individuals.
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