What makes Druitt a viable suspect?

[Wickerman]

Jon,
Why do you mention circumstantial evidence?Have I suggested there is any?

Harry, you mentioned 'suspicions', and 'without proof'. Isn't that circumstantial evidence?

[harry]

Jon,you tell me.Mac mentioned suspicions.Mac mentioned lack of proof.Ask him.

[Wickerman]

Jon,you tell me.Mac mentioned suspicions.Mac mentioned lack of proof.Ask him.

Harry, so Mac. had circumstantial evidence, but isn't that what has been said all along?

[Phil Carter]

The argument isn't even that Druitt was a good suspect. It is, as you say, that we don't know what the evidence against him was and therefore can't assess it. But Macnaghten did know what the evidence was and clearly found it persuasive. In our ignorance of the evidence, and without evidence that Macnaghten was likely to committ himself on poor or anecdotal evidence, how can we therefore therefore assess the evidence? Or, for that matter, categorise a person as a 'person of interest' or a 'suspect'?

Good morning Paul

I've just read this carefully, twice.
OK.. The first line is unequivocal..

"The argument isn't even that Druitt was a good suspect."

He therefore cannot be classed a a good suspect. Or a bad one for that matter.

The 2nd line dissects the first to make the picture clear..

"It is... That we don't know what the evidence against him was and therefore can't assess it."

One problem, dealt with below, us the assumption there WAS any "evidence against him".

That's all pretty clear. We do not know of any evidence, If any, to assess Druitt as a good, bad or even existant suspect. Only MM purportedly had any kind of knowledge. Whether this knowledge is infact evidence, is clearly the problem. We are in danger of over defining MM's words here.. Those both for and against Druitt as a suspect.

You then say that MM "did know" what the "evidence" was. Well, you define it as evidence but as we don't KNOW what exactly MM knew, or not, we cannot define it as evidence. Knowledge is the better and more appropriate term, I feel. One cannot assume evidence based on unknown knowledge of the contents. Its that simple.

You then argue that we cannot catagorise Druitt as either a "person of interest" or "suspect" based on the above argument. But you have assumed that MM's knowledge was "evidence "...

Therefore, using the same parameters of judgement, I say, "how can we catagorise MM's knowledge as "evidence" as it is unknown to be such, and therefore how can we class it as MM did, as persuasive?

Clearly, the same rules apply.

We cannot seriously take the MM account as reliable if we cannot even catagorise it as "evidence" purporting to either a "suspect" or "person of interest".

We can only catagorise this as "knowledge" that is unverifiable.

Some call that "heresay", do they not?



Phil

[rjpalmer]

Hi Simon.

Isn't Farquharson the fly in your soup?

Best wishes,

RP

[harry]

Jon.
Mac states there was no proof against anyone.My dictionary defines proof as'Evidence that establishes the truth'.So,there was no evidence,circumstantial or otherwise.Mac's claim,not mine,and Mac was writing as much about Druitt as of anyone else.

[harry]

Jon,
Just curious,but what is your definition of 'Circumstancial evidence',and how does it fit with what MM writes?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Phil,

. You then say that MM "did know" what the "evidence" was. Well, you define it as evidence but as we don't KNOW what exactly MM knew, or not, we cannot define it as evidence. Knowledge is the better and more appropriate term, I feel. One cannot assume evidence based on unknown knowledge of the contents. Its that simple.

But we aren’t defining that evidence, Macnaghten did and he was the one that saw it.

.
You then argue that we cannot catagorise Druitt as either a "person of interest" or "suspect" based on the above argument. But you have assumed that MM's knowledge was "evidence "...

We have no reason to suspect that Macnaghten didn’t feel that his knowledge was evidence. We can’t assess that evidence ourselves of course.

.
Therefore, using the same parameters of judgement, I say, "how can we catagorise MM's knowledge as "evidence" as it is unknown to be such, and therefore how can we class it as MM did, as persuasive?

We aren’t classing it as persuasive. We are simply saying that Mac felt that it was persuasive. So we have the ACC of The Met saying that he’d seen evidence that made Druitt a likely suspect.

[Trevor Marriott]

Phil,



But we aren’t defining that evidence, Macnaghten did and he was the one that saw it.



We have no reason to suspect that Macnaghten didn’t feel that his knowledge was evidence. We can’t assess that evidence ourselves of course.



We aren’t classing it as persuasive. We are simply saying that Mac felt that it was persuasive. So we have the ACC of The Met saying that he’d seen evidence that made Druitt a likely suspect.

There is nothing to show he saw anything in the form of direct evidence. The inference drawn from what he wrote was that it was nothing more than hearsay, and his conclusion he came to as result of that, and the old profiles of the killer from 1888 he was aware of.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Herlock Sholmes]

There is nothing to show he saw anything in the form of direct evidence. The inference drawn from what he wrote was that it was nothing more than hearsay, and his conclusion he came to as result of that, and the old profiles of the killer from 1888 he was aware of.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

The inference that Macnaghten came to his conclusion partially based on old profiles is your own interpretation and not based on fact.

On his retirement Macnaghten spoke of destroying his documents and that there was no longer any record of the secret information that had come into his possession. If we are interpreting then we can interpret this as meaning that something tangible might once have existed.

Of course we don’t know what that evidence was so we are left with 3 choices:

1. Accept without question that the evidence was valid.

2. Dismiss it out of hand as unreliable.

3. Consider this important because it came from Sir Melville Macnaghten.

You appear to choose 2 whilst I choose 3.

Because we we don’t know what Macnaghtens evidence was we cannot confirm or dismiss it. But the mere fact that it came from him makes it important and to dismiss it we either have to challenge Macnaghten’s honesty or intelligence/gullibility. From what we know of him appears to have been an honest, intelligent man so I can see no valid reason for dismissing him.

Why do you distrust Macnaghten’s statement and yet you are quite happy to accept an uncorroborated statement when proposing your own suspect?

[mpriestnall]

Hi Herlock,

Macnaghten’ favoured Druitt (but dimissed by Abberline)
Anderson favoured Kosminski
Littlechild favoured Tumbelty.

Which one was the best suspect and why?

Martyn

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

Macnaghten’ favoured Druitt (but dimissed by Abberline)
Anderson favoured Kosminski
Littlechild favoured Tumbelty.

Which one was the best suspect and why?

Martyn

Hi Martyn,

I think it’s just down to how we as individuals interpret what we know. I accept them as suspects because they were suspected. I personally find Druitt the most compelling of the named suspects whilst accepting that there’s no evidence apart from Macnaghten. In general the way I view Druitt is this:

Obviously he was named by Macnaghten who maintained his opinion to the end.

I see no evidence that Macnaghten was either a liar or the kind of person that would just take a piece of random gossip and put it into a Memorandum. So this points me toward the suggestion that Macnaghten genuinely believed what he’d written.

I see no reason to believe that the Druitt family would have made up a story about one of their own being Jack the Ripper. Or why anyone else might have made up such a story.

If Macnaghten was simply compiling a list of likelier candidates than Cutbush then, with all the resources available to him, he could have picked any unknown, virtually untraceable dead criminal or lunatic, yet he chose a well-to-do Barrister/Schoolteacher who might easily have had an alibi should anyone have looked into it. He might also have chosen someone that died after Mackenzie to convince those that believed that she was a victim. So we have Kosminski (a lunatic) Ostrog (a criminal) and Druitt standing out like a sore thumb.

When Mac said that from private info Druitt’s family believed him guilty we might have asked what were the chances of him having any kind of connection to Druitt’s family. Connections did exist though.

At a time when family honour was so important and there was a morbid fear of shame or scandal it’s difficult to believe that Mac would have named a man connected by marriage to one of his closest friends.

If we accept (and of course, not everyone does) that Kelly was the final victim then Druitt’s suicide explains the cessation of the murders.

Other issues are - Druitt’s sacking and strange suicide. Farquharsen. The priest’s Confession. William Druitt’s memoir. HL Fleet’s statement that there was a rumour current that the killer lived in Blackheath (maybe something leaked from the school?)

We cannot eliminate Druitt (of course this applies to the vast majority of suspects too.)

He was in his thirties and physically fit.

His description is very similar to possible sightings (unlike Tumblety for example)

If The Ripper had anatomical knowledge it’s far easier to see how Druitt might have gained this knowledge than most other suspects.


Im certainly not saying that he was definitely guilty Martyn but for me there’s easily enough there to make him the most intriguing suspect.

[Simon Wood]

Hi RJ,

Diner: Waiter, there's a fly in my soup.

Waiter: Don't worry, Sir, he won't drink much.

Ta-Da!

I put no importance in the Farquharson story, coming as it did amongst Montagu Williams' Portuguese cattleman story, a Ripper scare at Doncaster, the committal of Aaron Kosminski, and Shifty-Nib Swanson [thank you, Bruce, it still makes me laugh], investigating Francis Coles as the latest Ripper victim and going as far as to get Joseph Lawende to try to identify Sadler as the man he had seen in Church Passage.

It was a busy time for the Ripper. If he was dead, Coles could not have been a Ripper murder, so why were the police barking up the wrong tree. Or, if Sadler was the Ripper, all the other stories were just so much moonshine.

With the exoneration of Sadler, the mystery was reset to its default position and the game continued right up until the 1895 investigation of William Grant [Grainger] as the Ripper, by which time, of course, Melville Macnaghten had penned his memorandum which fingered three more likely lads as the Ripper, one of whom had received £10 compensation for false arrest from the Metropolitan Police.

This pandemonium of nonsense is hard to take seriously.

One final point. The Pall Mall Gazette and other newspapers reported that the Farquharson story was broken by the "London Correspondent of the Nottingham Guardian."

In 1891 there was no Nottingham Guardian.

There was a Nottinghamshire Guardian and there was a Nottingham Daily Guardian. Consulting the British Library newspaper archive, I found that the story appeared in the Nottingham Evening Post. The Nottingham Journal reprinted a piece from the Nottingham Evening News which called for the transfer of control of the Metropolitan Police from the Home Secretary to the London County Council.

Diner in Chinese restaurant" Waiter, this chicken is rubbery.

Waiter [bowing]: Ah, thank you very much.

Regards,

Simon

[Abby Normal]

Diner: waiter there's a fly in my soup

Waiter: no there's not

[PaulB]

Good morning Paul

I've just read this carefully, twice.
OK.. The first line is unequivocal..

"The argument isn't even that Druitt was a good suspect."

He therefore cannot be classed a a good suspect. Or a bad one for that matter.

The 2nd line dissects the first to make the picture clear..

"It is... That we don't know what the evidence against him was and therefore can't assess it."

One problem, dealt with below, us the assumption there WAS any "evidence against him".

That's all pretty clear. We do not know of any evidence, If any, to assess Druitt as a good, bad or even existant suspect. Only MM purportedly had any kind of knowledge. Whether this knowledge is infact evidence, is clearly the problem. We are in danger of over defining MM's words here.. Those both for and against Druitt as a suspect.

You then say that MM "did know" what the "evidence" was. Well, you define it as evidence but as we don't KNOW what exactly MM knew, or not, we cannot define it as evidence. Knowledge is the better and more appropriate term, I feel. One cannot assume evidence based on unknown knowledge of the contents. Its that simple.

You then argue that we cannot catagorise Druitt as either a "person of interest" or "suspect" based on the above argument. But you have assumed that MM's knowledge was "evidence "...

Therefore, using the same parameters of judgement, I say, "how can we catagorise MM's knowledge as "evidence" as it is unknown to be such, and therefore how can we class it as MM did, as persuasive?

Clearly, the same rules apply.

We cannot seriously take the MM account as reliable if we cannot even catagorise it as "evidence" purporting to either a "suspect" or "person of interest".

We can only catagorise this as "knowledge" that is unverifiable.

Some call that "heresay", do they not?



Phil

Phil,
One thing you don't do is define what you mean by 'evidence'.

'Evidence' is the information or facts upon which a conclusion is based or upon which the validity of a proposition is tested. Evidence can be good or bad.

As far as Macnaghten is concerned, from what is known about him he does not seem the sort of man who would have who would have concluded that Druitt was the murderer unless he had what he considered to be good reasons. If you have evidence that this was not the case, by all means present it, but the current assessment of Macnaghten is that he did have evidence. We don't know what it was.

Nobody is suggesting that Macnaghten’s account is reliable. We don't know what the evidence was, so we can't say whether it was reliable or not.

I don't know what the information was that Macnaghten seems to suggest had been received by the police at one time or another, and I don't know what was investigated or what was confirmed, or whether anything was investigated or confirmed, so I don't know whether the evidence available to Macnaghten was hearsat or not. And neither do you. Of course, Macnaghten's account may be hearsay to us, but what it is to us is of no interest or relevance. And even if it was hearsay, that doesn't mean it was incorrect. A lot depends on the reliability of the source, and we don't know who the wource(s) was or how reliable he/she was.