What makes Druitt a viable suspect?

[PaulB]

Tumblety had been in London some considerable time before his arrest. if there had been any "real suspicion" then the police had ample opportunity to arrest him on suspicion. Thats what the police do with suspects !!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not save them up and then wheel them out in a belated press interview.

Not all this claptrap that has been banded about that after his arrest for the gross indecency they arrested him in connection with the murders, or they arrested him for the murder, and then arrested him for the gross indecency offences, that one is a nice fit for those who want to prop up Tumblety. They had a warrant for his arrest for the gross indeceny. They did not need a warrant to arrest him for the murders.

If he was a likely suspect then they had the opportunity to arrest him. There is nothing in official records to show that was ever done, and no one ever mentions it being done, so where is the evidence to make Tumblety a suspect? On what we know I would struggle to even describe him as a person of interest.

What Littlechild told to the press mirrors the MM debacle, because what Littlechild told the reporter was also littered with errors as was The MM, yet you and others have been sucked in all of these years by these false trails made by the outdated opinions given by these senior officers.

I note that Insp Reid who was head of Whitechapem CID at no time does he mention any suspects. now if all these senior officer were all singing from the same songsheet why doe he not corrobotare any of them. In fact he dismisses what they said in later years.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

All of which is utterly irrelevant. It's all your opinion, it's what you deduce, it's what you have decided is 'claptrap' (a conclusion others may not share), and it could all be right or it could all be wrong. But the point is that it is what you think, but what matters is what Littlechild thought and why he thought it. That's what we are trying to understand.

You actually wrote, 'if there had been any "real suspicion" then the police had ample opportunity to arrest him on suspicion'. Setting aside what you mean by "real suspicion", if there was no 'real suspicion' against Tumblety, why did Littlechild say that Tumblety was among the suspects and was a 'very likely' one? Are you saying that Littlechild lied? Or that he was an idiot? What exactly are you saying?

You wrote, 'On what we know I would stuggle to even describe him as a person of interest' - but that is precisely the point I made! Why don't you try reading posts and answering them instead of just endlessly repeating your opinions. I wrote, 'So by the definitions used by the modern police, Tumblety wasn't a 'suspect' and probably wasn't even a 'persom of interest'.' I then asked, 'But how would 21st century police terminology classify Tumblety if we had all the information available to Littlechild?' That's the question you need to address, but the fact is that you don't have all the information available to Littlechild so on the basis of what we know, yes, you're correct, but what seems to be beyond your ability to grasp is that you know almost nothing and how you therefore choose to classify Tumblety is meaningless.

What must have become perfectly obvious to everyone is that you are interested in pushing your opinions and you are more than shamelessly willing to argue any old tosh, from supporting an argument in a book you haven't read to daming Littlechild's opinion without knowing the evidence on which it was based.

[PaulB]

I didn’t say you were but you and Trevor are pushing for police terminology to be used rather than common English and I still can’t understand what either of you think that adds to the whole matter.

And which also involves judging the evidence/reasons which makes possible the categorisation of the 'suspects' according to 21st century terminology when we don't know what the evidence was.

[Wickerman]

Gut,
They called persons suspects because they had proof.Now tell me the proof against Druitt.The family had suspicions.Tell me what those suspicions were.

If they had "proof", he would become the accused, wouldn't he?
Anyone who is suspected (a suspect) is one who needs to be investigated to obtain proof, surely?

Though there does seem to be some confusion here between a police suspect, and a person suspected by the public.

[Trevor Marriott]

And which also involves judging the evidence/reasons which makes possible the categorisation of the 'suspects' according to 21st century terminology when we don't know what the evidence was.

But you cannot prove that the evidence was nothing more than idle chit chat between friends. You cant readily accept that whatever MM was told was anything other than that, and if that were the case, he cannot be a suspect but a person of interest, irrespective of MM referring to him as one. Victorian crime investigation and how they viewed what they were told is totally different from today's world of police investigations.

All the tv documentaries and books out on the Ripper have all been done with a view to identifying the killer of killers. they have not been done as historical exercises. they have assessed and evaluated the facts from 1888, why do you have to be different and want to go down the historical route, what is it going to prove that an conventional modern day investigation cannot. I would say nothing, other than to distort the facts by referring to newspaper reports that may or may not be correct, and outdated opinions by senior officers whose opinions have no corroborative evidence in support.

Time to drop the saying "They said it so there must be something in what they said"

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Herlock Sholmes]

But you cannot prove that the evidence was nothing more than idle chit chat between friends. You cant readily accept that whatever MM was told was anything other than that, and if that were the case, he cannot be a suspect but a person of interest, irrespective of MM referring to him as one. Victorian crime investigation and how they viewed what they were told is totally different from today's world of police investigations.

All the tv documentaries and books out on the Ripper have all been done with a view to identifying the killer of killers. they have not been done as historical exercises. they have assessed and evaluated the facts from 1888, why do you have to be different and want to go down the historical route, what is it going to prove that an conventional modern day investigation cannot. I would say nothing, other than to distort the facts by referring to newspaper reports that may or may not be correct, and outdated opinions by senior officers whose opinions have no corroborative evidence in support.

Time to drop the saying "They said it so there must be something in what they said"

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

What we can say though is this. Is it at all likely that Sir Melville Macnaghten, the Assistant Commissioner Of The Metropolitan Police would write a memorandum destined for his superiors containing information which he obtained via idle chit chat? It’s pathetic even to imply such a thing.

Then we can ask - is there anything that we know about Macnaghten which might lead us to suspect that he might have been dishonest? No there’s not.

And so we have a statement from the number two policeman in the country claiming that he had good reason to consider Druitt a likely suspect.

Ok, is it likely that a family would, just for jollies, make up a story about one of their own being the most loathed man in the country? I think that one can be discounted don’t you?

And if Mac was going to pick someone to add to his list purely because of his convenient TOD then why didn’t he avail himself of any dead criminal or lunatic he could find? Why pick someone from the upper classes; someone whose movements would have been easy to trace which would increase the chances of him being easily exonerated?

So what exists that makes it the correct thing to do to simply dismiss Macnaghten and Druitt? I can answer this in one word.

Bias.

[Trevor Marriott]

What we can say though is this. Is it at all likely that Sir Melville Macnaghten, the Assistant Commissioner Of The Metropolitan Police would write a memorandum destined for his superiors containing information which he obtained via idle chit chat? It’s pathetic even to imply such a thing.

Then we can ask - is there anything that we know about Macnaghten which might lead us to suspect that he might have been dishonest? No there’s not.

And so we have a statement from the number two policeman in the country claiming that he had good reason to consider Druitt a likely suspect.

Ok, is it likely that a family would, just for jollies, make up a story about one of their own being the most loathed man in the country? I think that one can be discounted don’t you?

And if Mac was going to pick someone to add to his list purely because of his convenient TOD then why didn’t he avail himself of any dead criminal or lunatic he could find? Why pick someone from the upper classes; someone whose movements would have been easy to trace which would increase the chances of him being easily exonerated?

So what exists that makes it the correct thing to do to simply dismiss Macnaghten and Druitt? I can answer this in one word.

Bias.

I am not suggesting totally dismissing him, what I am saying that it is unsafe to put to much weight on his suspect assessment of Druitt, without there being any corroboration, and clearly it didnt get to his superiors otherwise we would have read about it from their memoirs etc. So that must be another minus when assessing its evidential value, and Druitts suspect status.

Hearsay evidence is unsafe and unreliable !!!!!!!!!

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[PaulB]

But you cannot prove that the evidence was nothing more than idle chit chat between friends. You cant readily accept that whatever MM was told was anything other than that, and if that were the case, he cannot be a suspect but a person of interest, irrespective of MM referring to him as one. Victorian crime investigation and how they viewed what they were told is totally different from today's world of police investigations.

You cannot prove anything about the evidence either. However, you are judging the evidence and basing a conclusion on it, despite the fact that you don't know what it was.

The whole point is that in order to categorise the 'suspect' by the 21st century terminologies of 'person of interest' or 'suspect' you have to be able to assess the evidence, which in these cases you are unable to do because you don't know what the evidence is. You are therefore pre-judging the evidence, which you are not entitled to do.

Today's world of police investigation is totally different from Victorian crime investigation and we are trying to understand Victorian crime investigation, the language Victorian crime investigators used, and what they meant by it (as well as a whole load of other things such as the influences upon them, how they may have judged people and things, morals, and so much more). That's why this isn't a cold case investigation.

All the tv documentaries and books out on the Ripper have all been done with a view to identifying the killer of killers. they have not been done as historical exercises. they have assessed and evaluated the facts from 1888, why do you have to be different and want to go down the historical route, what is it going to prove that an conventional modern day investigation cannot. I would say nothing, other than to distort the facts by referring to newspaper reports that may or may not be correct, and outdated opinions by senior officers whose opinions have no corroborative evidence in support.

The TV documentaries and books are not all concerned with the identity of the murderer, and even those that are mostly recognise that we're dealing with an historical event. What do you imagin "assessed and evaluated the facts" means? Have you the slightest idea of what 'source analysis' means? How do you suppose the facts from 1888 can be assessed and evaluated without knowing what they meant in 1888? The often quoted opening from L.P. Hartley's The Go-Between - 'the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there' - is so often quoted because it succinctly makes clear that the past cannot be treated like it is the present.

What realising that 1888 is history means is that people will not apply modern thinking, modern ideas, modern morals, modern beliefs, modern experiences, and so on to what people did in the past. It means that hopefully you will understand what people in the past meant by the words they used, not meanings somebody in the 21st century wants to apply to them.

As has been explained to you, but typically to which you have paid no attention whatsoever, the dearth of other source materials means that we are forced to turn to newspaper reports and other such sources for a great deal of the information. We wouldn't know anything about the inquests if it wasn't for newspaper reports, for example. No sources are unquestioningly accepted, as you seem to think.

'and outdated opinions by senior officers whose opinions have no corroborative evidence in support.' It's about time you grasped the fact that those opinions don't require corroboration; they were senior officers making what they considered to be a statement of fact. Their office was such that they expected - and indeed, probably tacitly demanded - to be believed. Had those superior to them wanted further information, they would, presumably, have provided it. From our perspective, the lack of corroboration is why we are largely unable to draw any hard and fast conclusions.

Time to drop the saying "They said it so there must be something in what they said"

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

We'd be better off if you realised it was time to stop saying "They said it, but it meant nothing at all. Forget about it." Anyway, Trevor, instead of wasting everyone's time by trying to change the topic, why not have a bash at trying to answer the points in my previous post, such as, 'if there was no 'real suspicion' against Tumblety, why did Littlechild say that Tumblety was among the suspects and was a 'very likely' one? Are you saying that Littlechild lied? Or that he was an idiot? What exactly are you saying?' Or, ''But how would 21st century police terminology classify Tumblety if we had all the information available to Littlechild?' (asked twice now).

[Wickerman]

But you cannot prove that the evidence was nothing more than idle chit chat between friends....

Making a serious accusation to your superior that someone might be Jack the Ripper, is idle chit-chat?

You cant readily accept that whatever MM was told was anything other than that, and if that were the case, he cannot be a suspect but a person of interest, irrespective of MM referring to him as one.

But, the reverse must also true. Because he was called a suspect (and we know he was) must mean there was more to his suspicions than you claim.

Victorian crime investigation and how they viewed what they were told is totally different from today's world of police investigations.

Agreed, but we have to credit them with using common sense. Regardless how advanced modern technology in crime fighting has become, we still turn to analysis to arrive at a conclusion, and that requires common sense.

[PaulB]

I am not suggesting totally dismissing him, what I am saying that it is unsafe to put to much weight on his suspect assessment of Druitt, without there being any corroboration, and clearly it didnt get to his superiors otherwise we would have read about it from their memoirs etc. So that must be another minus when assessing its evidential value, and Druitts suspect status.

Hearsay evidence is unsafe and unreliable !!!!!!!!!

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Hearsay evidence may be unsafe and unreliable, but when it is all you've got...

There is no corroboration (other than what we have or think we have) and there probably never will be. But there are things we can do to get around that. You should know what they are if you are going to comment on it.

Which superior's memoirs do you imagine would have mentioned Druitt? Anderson's? Well, hardly likely. So who else?

[Herlock Sholmes]

I am not suggesting totally dismissing him, what I am saying that it is unsafe to put to much weight on his suspect assessment of Druitt, without there being any corroboration, and clearly it didnt get to his superiors otherwise we would have read about it from their memoirs etc. So that must be another minus when assessing its evidential value, and Druitts suspect status.

Hearsay evidence is unsafe and unreliable !!!!!!!!!

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

No it’s not!!!

You cannot make such a positive statement. Have you never heard hearsay evidence which turned out to be absolutely correct? Of course you have.

Again, what evidence do you have that the specific conversation that Lawton allegedly had with Feigenbaum actually happened? You have nothing except Lawton’s word which you appear to accept as gospel. So why don’t you credit Macnaghten in the same way? Lawton was even quoting the words of a compulsive liar!!! Yet you still don’t find that in any way unreliable!!!

This is bias.

Who do do I think is more likely to have been truthful Macnaghten or Lawton? Mac every time.

[Trevor Marriott]

You cannot prove anything about the evidence either. However, you are judging the evidence and basing a conclusion on it, despite the fact that you don't know what it was.

The whole point is that in order to categorise the 'suspect' by the 21st century terminologies of 'person of interest' or 'suspect' you have to be able to assess the evidence, which in these cases you are unable to do because you don't know what the evidence is. You are therefore pre-judging the evidence, which you are not entitled to do.

Today's world of police investigation is totally different from Victorian crime investigation and we are trying to understand Victorian crime investigation, the language Victorian crime investigators used, and what they meant by it (as well as a whole load of other things such as the influences upon them, how they may have judged people and things, morals, and so much more). That's why this isn't a cold case investigation.



The TV documentaries and books are not all concerned with the identity of the murderer, and even those that are mostly recognise that we're dealing with an historical event. What do you imagin "assessed and evaluated the facts" means? Have you the slightest idea of what 'source analysis' means? How do you suppose the facts from 1888 can be assessed and evaluated without knowing what they meant in 1888? The often quoted opening from L.P. Hartley's The Go-Between - 'the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there' - is so often quoted because it succinctly makes clear that the past cannot be treated like it is the present.

What realising that 1888 is history means is that people will not apply modern thinking, modern ideas, modern morals, modern beliefs, modern experiences, and so on to what people did in the past. It means that hopefully you will understand what people in the past meant by the words they used, not meanings somebody in the 21st century wants to apply to them.

As has been explained to you, but typically to which you have paid no attention whatsoever, the dearth of other source materials means that we are forced to turn to newspaper reports and other such sources for a great deal of the information. We wouldn't know anything about the inquests if it wasn't for newspaper reports, for example. No sources are unquestioningly accepted, as you seem to think.

Of course they are how often do we see on here researchers relying on inquest reports to back up a theory

'and outdated opinions by senior officers whose opinions have no corroborative evidence in support.' It's about time you grasped the fact that those opinions don't require corroboration; they were senior officers making what they considered to be a statement of fact. Their office was such that they expected - and indeed, probably tacitly demanded - to be believed. Had those superior to them wanted further information, they would, presumably, have provided it. From our perspective, the lack of corroboration is why we are largely unable to draw any hard and fast conclusions

Of course they need corroboration to be regarded as a proper suspect, far to easy for anyone asked in conversation who they thought the killer could have been, what would any answer be worth without corroboration sweet FA. You cant make a singular statement of fact without corroboration. A statement of fact would be Mary Kelly was killed in Millers Court that can be proved.

We'd be better off if you realised it was time to stop saying "They said it, but it meant nothing at all. Forget about it." Anyway, Trevor, instead of wasting everyone's time by trying to change the topic, why not have a bash at trying to answer the points in my previous post, such as, 'if there was no 'real suspicion' against Tumblety, why did Littlechild say that Tumblety was among the suspects and was a 'very likely' one? Are you saying that Littlechild lied? Or that he was an idiot? What exactly are you saying?' Or, ''But how would 21st century police terminology classify Tumblety if we had all the information available to Littlechild?' (asked twice now).

That is a good question about what prompted Littlechild many years later to make that statement. Especially when there in nothing in official records to support that. Littlechild was not involved in the investigation, there is nothing that has come to light from Littlechild in The Special Branch files to back up his suspicion in fact the only mention of Littlechild and a ripper suspect from those files is the following "Chief Inspector Littlechild’s entry read, “Suspect O’Brien & The Whitechapel Murders” No mention of Tumblety at all.

And not to mention the errors in what he wrote to Simms

You and others are putting to much emphasis on what MM wrote and what Littlechild wrote, and not to mention Abberlines mention of Chapman. The senior officers giving their own personal opinions. and nothing to back it up both pre their statements or after. no record of any of them ever being interviewed, or each suspect being mentioned by any of the others. They have created fasle trails and you and other have been sucked in.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Trevor Marriott]

Hearsay evidence may be unsafe and unreliable, but when it is all you've got...

Then you treat it with caution and try to corroborate it. If you cant corroborate it then you fall back with treating it with caution. Not continue to regard the hearsay as good evidence, especially with MM who it would seem got it third hand.

There is no corroboration (other than what we have or think we have) and there probably never will be. But there are things we can do to get around that. You should know what they are if you are going to comment on it.

Which superior's memoirs do you imagine would have mentioned Druitt? Anderson's? Well, hardly likely. So who else?

Considering Anderson's position the only suspect he mentions is the mythical witness to the mythical ID parade.

I am talking about all those other senior officers in particular Monro who were involved in all of this, who by the use of different phrase at different times say the police didn't have a clue. Not well, we had some likely suspects but didn't have the evidence to arrest them even though they were good likely suspects. They didnt even have to name them something like that would have given us a bit more encouragement.

Abberline 1903
“We have never believed all those stories about Jack the Ripper being dead, or that he was a lunatic, or anything of that kind” “Scotland Yard is really no wiser on the subject than it was fifteen years ago. It is simple nonsense to talk of the police having proof that the man is dead.

He didnt make his statement citing Chapman as a possible suspect for the WM until after Chapman had been hanged. Surely if he had strong suspicions he could have made them known earlier and Chapman could have been interviewed in prison, It seem nothing was done, otherwise he would have mentioned it. So this is another example of just how these officers came to give these opinions, and having given them it seems nothing was done thereafter, and they were full of bull and bluster years later when spoken to by the press etc.

Insp Reid
February 4th 1912
“I challenge anyone to produce a tittle of evidence of any kind against anyone. The earth has been raked over, and the seas have been swept, to find this criminal ' Jack the Ripper, always without success. It still amuses me to read the writings of such men as Dr. Anderson., Dr. Forbes Winslow, Major Arthur. Griffiths, and many others, all holding different theories, but all of them wrong.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[harry]

To me,if there is only one killer,all you need is one suspect.A person,who,when all information, evidence,and proof is taken into consideration,appears to be the most likely to have killed.Todate we have,and I think I am correct,in the ripper killings, scores of persons claimed to be suspects..A farcical situation,as Trevor has pointed out.
To reduce that number we do need a different terminology,and person of interest serves very well.It doesn't delete a person from being a subject of discussion,but it does allow a person to be discarded where the information and evidence is insufficient.All the more reason when we do not know what the evidence was,as in the case with Druitt.
Wickerman,
Where there is proof,a person can certainly be accused of being suspect.Whats your point? Perhaps you can supply the proof that makes Druitt a suspect.
I have suspicions that George Hutchinson lied.Does that make him suspect? No! If I could prove those suspicions,the situation could change.To me he is a person of interest.
Druitt's family had suspicions.If those suspicions could be proved the situation could change.To me he is a person of interest. At least in the case of Hutchinson,I can outline the reason for my suspicions.Can anyone give the reason forDruitt's family suspicions?

[rjpalmer]

He didnt make his statement citing Chapman as a possible suspect for the WM until after Chapman had been hanged. Surely if he had strong suspicions he could have made them known earlier and Chapman could have been interviewed in prison

Trevor. Uh, actually...

Abberline accused Chapman in the Pall Mall Gazette on March 24th and March 31st, 1903. Chapman wasn't hanged until April 7th. I already made this point sometime back on this thread, so I guess my posts aren't being read.

It's fairly clear that Scotland Yard didn't take the old Inspector's musings very seriously and thus halt the hanging. So it doesn't appear that Abberline's suspicions were weak; it appears that those at the Yard were unimpressed by his arguments. If they investigated them at all.

[Wickerman]

...
Wickerman,
Where there is proof,a person can certainly be accused of being suspect.Whats your point? Perhaps you can supply the proof that makes Druitt a suspect.

That sounds more confrontational than helpful.
My interest in Druitt is because he fits, in my view, some of the suspect descriptions. He also fits the profile given by Dr. Bond, though how Bond arrived at such a conclusion I cannot say.

Druitt is not at the top of my list. Two unknown individuals occupy 1st & 2nd place.
First is the Smith suspect in Berner St., (and I think the man seen at the Bricklayers Arms, and the man described by Packer, is the same man), and 2nd is the Britannia-man (or BGB as some call him), from the Kelly murder.

These two suspects (or possibly three/four?), may all be the same man, and, this might be Druitt. However, my 1st & 2nd suspects both have an awkward gait, which doesn't really fit our cricketing Druitt.
So, thats where I stand.

I have suspicions that George Hutchinson lied.Does that make him suspect? No! If I could prove those suspicions,the situation could change.To me he is a person of interest.

I have no horse in this race - Suspect vs Person of Interest.
I agree there are far too many suspects in this case, but.....if a policeman tells us someone was a suspect, then we are in no position today to change that designation, in every case. The term was used rather liberally in the late 19th century so when someone like Ostrog is labelled a suspect I give that less credence because of what we know about him.
However, we know very little about the comings & goings of Kozminski & Druitt throughout the spate of the murders to say with any certainty that these were not true suspects.

Druitt's family had suspicions.If those suspicions could be proved the situation could change.To me he is a person of interest. At least in the case of Hutchinson,I can outline the reason for my suspicions.Can anyone give the reason forDruitt's family suspicions?

This might be splitting hairs but the suspicions of friends, relatives or neighbors does not constitute labeling someone a suspect. Only if the police take up the complaint can we make such claims.
I might identify a person of interest because I am only a private citizen, but it is not proper in my view for a private citizen to label anyone a suspect.
To my mind being a suspect means there is tangible evidence, even circumstantial evidence, which requires more thorough investigation. A private citizen can only identify a person of interest.