What makes Druitt a viable suspect?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Herlock,

Not all policemen, and not all the time.

But certainly when talking about the identity of the Ripper.

Regards,

Simon

[Wickerman]

The Aberconway version of the memoranda was Macnaghten's personal paper, but it related to an official document, so we should be careful about any suggestion that his papers were distinct from his official work.

I'm aware there is some disagreement as to which came first, but don't those who believe the Aberconway version came first, take it to be the draft for the Memorandum?
However we view these two documents, neither contain evidence, and that is what I believe Mac. is referring to when he says he destroyed all his papers. He is referring to all the supporting documents, the Memorandum is just the conclusion, devoid of evidence. He (claims to have) destroyed all the paperwork he received which led him to this conclusion.

I think Scotland Yard would have made inquiries into a dead man if he was seriously suspected of having committed the Ripper murders. It would be important to be as certain as possible that the Ripper was dead and unable to kill again.

But how would they know where he was on all the nights in question if they can't talk to him?
How could they check for any alibi if he were to claim innocence?
I just can't see them doing it. All they can do is confirm the Vicar's story of a confession (hearsay), and any private suspicions the family might have had. Mac. already had this.
They couldn't even check where he stayed for physical evidence as these suspicions only surfaced months, if not years later.
They already know whether any more murders have taken place, too much time has passed.

[Takod]

if i define my way into the box, i am in the box! of course the box! whatever will i do, it must be the box... the box i defined

astute as always

[Herlock Sholmes]

I am not Simon but here is my position:

The contemporary police officers were dealing with a murderer who had the skill and circumstances to commit at least 11 different murders (Tabram, Mackenzie, the C5, and the 4 Torso killings), and possibly even more than that without being caught in the contemporary circumstances of what said police officers were capable of, and that this murderer had the luck to never be placed on an official contemporary police list of who they suspected to be responsible for the crimes in such a way that would result in their behavior and actions being more closely scrutinized.

Using that description of the situation, Druitt could not have been the Ripper as he goes against not 1 but 3 critical details in my description.

I am willing to consider suspects where 1 of the details in my description need to be false for them to have been the ripper, but not those that require 2 details to be false, let alone 3.

The 4 details are highlighted in color.

The Green, Blue, and Yellow details need to be false for Druitt to be the Ripper. The Red detail can not be proven either way, but I will admit that it would probably be true in the case of Druitt.

Red is no great issue as Druitt was the son of a surgeon and so might easily have gained at least anatomical knowledge

Blue and Green - have you missed any other Victorian murders to ascribe to the ripper? You can’t just rope in potential murders in order to disqualify him. If the c5 is correct then there’s no issue with Druitt and until you can categorically prove that the ripper killed Tabram, Mackenzie, Coles and the Torso’s then the point is moot.

Yellow - is it impossible that a murderer could escape either detection or the attention of the police?

Druitt cannot be dismissed. In the top three suspects without a doubt and the best in my opinion.

[Takod]

Druitt cannot be dismissed. In the top three suspects without a doubt and the best in my opinion.

I don't dismiss Druitt at all as I have no reason to, but the top three? I can understand why he's your guy but I don't get the elimination of some of the others regarding the top three.

[Stacker]

Skill basically meant ability to commit the murders effectively without his victims being able to defend themselves, and without him being caught within the act due to a witness getting a good look at him because he did not notice them approaching until it was too late. Druitt had the skill based on that criteria.

Circumstances basically meant that there was an obvious way of the Ripper going about his escape route after his crimes. Druitt rather clearly lacked it (here is a quote from the official casebook suspect page):

It is generally accepted that the Ripper was an inhabitant of the East End (Sugden), but Druitt had little or no experience in or around the area of Whitechapel. He was living at 9 Eliot Place, Blackheath during the murders. But could that address have been used as a "base" for the murders?

Sugden cites contemporary train schedules in order to disprove this theory. According to him, there was no all-night train service between London and Blackheath. The last train leaving Blackheath in 1888 left at 12:25 AM and the earliest leaving London for Blackheath was at 5:10 AM. Although for the Nichols (3:40 AM), Chapman (5:30 AM) and Kelly (4:00 AM) murders the Ripper may have been able to jaunt over to the station and take a train back to Blackheath with very little time wasted waiting for the first train to arrive, this does not hold true for Stride (1:00 AM), Eddowes (1:44 AM) or Tabram (2:30 AM). If the Ripper had killed them and needed to take a train back to Blackheath, Sugden claims, he would have to remain in the area for "perilous hours" just asking to be detected. Still, he admits, the killer could have remained in a common lodging house for some time, although a respectable man such as Druitt in such a place would seem suspicious.

Tom Cullen (personal addendum, does anyone know if this person is a member of the casebook forums), noted Druittist, argues that Druitt's known chambers at 9 King's Bench Walk could have been used, as they are within walking distance of the East End. Yet Sugden again refutes this, citing the Ripper's known movements on the night of the double murder. King's Bench Walk was west of Mitre Square (site of the second murder), and yet the killer is known to have gone north-east directly after killing Eddowes and dropped her apron in Goulston Street. Would the killer have risked detection by entering the lion's den northward if he had indeed planned to find refuge to the west?

One of the most often quoted sources of evidence against Druitt, however, is his documented cricket schedule during the murders. On Friday and Saturday, August 3 and 4, Druitt was in Dean Park, Bournemouth. He was there again on August 10 and 11 playing the Gentlemen of Dorset. Tabram was killed on Tuesday, August 7. Would it not make sense that Druitt would have stayed in the region of Bournemouth if he was playing two consecutive weekends?

Furthermore, Druitt was known to have played for Canford, Dorset, against Wimborne at Canford on September 1st, the day after Nichols' murder. On September 8th (day of Chapman's murder) Druitt played at 11:30 AM against the Brothers Christopherson on the Rectory Field at Blackheath. This provides no conclusive evidence against Druitt, but it does seem unlikely that he could have killed Chapman at 5:30 AM and had time to catch a train to Blackheath, remove his bloodied clothes, was up, eat breakfast, and be on the field by 11:30. Especially considering that he would probably have been prowling the streets the entire night before (Sugden).

We have already agreed about the fact that the 11 murders that I believe are almost certainly Ripper Murders cannot apply to Druitt, but we disagree on the relevance of the issue.

With being placed on an official contemporary police suspect list, 1 would assume that he would then be investigated to see if the suspicious was verifiable. Based on the circumstance part, there would be rather obvious methods for the police to verify his whereabouts on the days of the murders if he were actually the murderer, and so the police would have been able to prove that he was the ripper if they suspected him of it and he was actually the ripper.

[Simon Wood]

Tom Cullen died in 2001, aged 88.

[PaulB]

I'm aware there is some disagreement as to which came first, but don't those who believe the Aberconway version came first, take it to be the draft for the Memorandum?
However we view these two documents, neither contain evidence, and that is what I believe Mac. is referring to when he says he destroyed all his papers. He is referring to all the supporting documents, the Memorandum is just the conclusion, devoid of evidence. He (claims to have) destroyed all the paperwork he received which led him to this conclusion.

That is basically what I am talking about. I imagin that Macnaghten could have found himself in trouble if he was admitting to having destroyed official documents, files of case papers and so on, but his own paperwork - drafts, notes, copies of documents, and so on - would have been his to destroy and some would have seen it as commendable.

But how would they know where he was on all the nights in question if they can't talk to him?
How could they check for any alibi if he were to claim innocence?
I just can't see them doing it. All they can do is confirm the Vicar's story of a confession (hearsay), and any private suspicions the family might have had. Mac. already had this.
They couldn't even check where he stayed for physical evidence as these suspicions only surfaced months, if not years later.
They already know whether any more murders have taken place, too much time has passed.

It depends on when the private information was received as to whether or not anyone could be reasonably certain that the murders were over. Investigating the past of a dead suspect would be no different from investigating the past of a dead suspect, and they wouldn't have been looking to gain a conviction, just checking to see if the evidence referred to in the private information supported the conclusions based on it and if it could be strengthened. If the information in the private information was persuasive, it is to be hoped that the police would have simply shelved it as a curiosity, not in a case of this magnitude.

[Trevor Marriott]

Red is no great issue as Druitt was the son of a surgeon and so might easily have gained at least anatomical knowledge

Blue and Green - have you missed any other Victorian murders to ascribe to the ripper? You can’t just rope in potential murders in order to disqualify him. If the c5 is correct then there’s no issue with Druitt and until you can categorically prove that the ripper killed Tabram, Mackenzie, Coles and the Torso’s then the point is moot.

Yellow - is it impossible that a murderer could escape either detection or the attention of the police?

Druitt cannot be dismissed. In the top three suspects without a doubt and the best in my opinion.

If the police suspected that all the murders both before and after the C5 were the work of the same killer then Druitt is eliminated, and to corroborate his elimination we have statements from other officials both police and medical who support that belief that some of the later victims were the work of the same killer, plus the front sheet of the Scotland yard file on the ripper which sets out all the murders.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Trevor Marriott]

That is basically what I am talking about. I imagin that Macnaghten could have found himself in trouble if he was admitting to having destroyed official documents, files of case papers and so on, but his own paperwork - drafts, notes, copies of documents, and so on - would have been his to destroy and some would have seen it as commendable.



It depends on when the private information was received as to whether or not anyone could be reasonably certain that the murders were over. Investigating the past of a dead suspect would be no different from investigating the past of a dead suspect, and they wouldn't have been looking to gain a conviction, just checking to see if the evidence referred to in the private information supported the conclusions based on it and if it could be strengthened. If the information in the private information was persuasive, it is to be hoped that the police would have simply shelved it as a curiosity, not in a case of this magnitude.

But if the police did know the identity of the killer, and that he was either dead or incarcerated in an asylum why did they not go public with a statement to that effect. Abberline in 1903 makes a valid observation !

"I am, and always have been, in the closest touch with Scotland Yard, and it would have been next to impossible for me not to have known all about it. Besides, the authorities would have been only too glad to make an end of such a mystery, if only for their own credit."

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Fisherman]

As a general rule, for a candidate to be perceived as viable for the killings, he must tick one or both out of these boxes:

1. He was suspected by the contemporary police, or

2. He has a record of violence to his name.

Interestingly, no suspect seems to answer to both of these descriptions, its either or. In Druitt´s case, its a matter of MacNaghten naming him in his memoranda as belonging to a group of there men who MacNaghten though all made better bids for the killers role than Thomas Cutbush.

It is also claimed that one or more individuals in Druitt´s own family harbored suspicions against him. This is not something that has been corroborated, though.

All in all, it makes for a very thin accusation act, but - as is always the case with the "suspects", regardless which category they belong to - it cannot be decisively proven that Druitt was NOT the killer, and so his candidacy remains.

My own take on things is that no serious doubt can be entertained that the Ripper and the Torso killer were one and the same, and so Druitt cannot have been our man if you ask me. He was long dead when Liz Jackson had her abdominal wall cut away in flaps, just as Annie Chapman and Mary Kelly had suffered the same fate the year before. He was long dead as Jackson had her uterus cut out, just as Annie Chapman, Kate Eddowes and Mary Kelly had the year before. He was long dead as the killer of Jackson took Jacksons ring from her finger, just as the killer of Annie Chapman had done the year before. He was long dead when the heart was cut out of Jacksons body, just as Kellys heart had been taken out the year before.

The one thing about Druitt that was not dead was the idea that he would have been the canonical Ripper. That suggestion lives on, although I think the case evidence effectively quashes it.

That's my five cents, and it is not aimed to "hijack the thread" or anything suchlike, its just a reminder of what the case evidence actually looks like.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Skill basically meant ability to commit the murders effectively without his victims being able to defend themselves, and without him being caught within the act due to a witness getting a good look at him because he did not notice them approaching until it was too late. Druitt had the skill based on that criteria.

Circumstances basically meant that there was an obvious way of the Ripper going about his escape route after his crimes. Druitt rather clearly lacked it (here is a quote from the official casebook suspect page):



We have already agreed about the fact that the 11 murders that I believe are almost certainly Ripper Murders cannot apply to Druitt, but we disagree on the relevance of the issue.

With being placed on an official contemporary police suspect list, 1 would assume that he would then be investigated to see if the suspicious was verifiable. Based on the circumstance part, there would be rather obvious methods for the police to verify his whereabouts on the days of the murders if he were actually the murderer, and so the police would have been able to prove that he was the ripper if they suspected him of it and he was actually the ripper.

I’m sorry but of this remotely comes close to dismissing Druitt.

On Tom Cullen, I believe that Simon actually met him during his own research?

[Herlock Sholmes]

If the police suspected that all the murders both before and after the C5 were the work of the same killer then Druitt is eliminated, and to corroborate his elimination we have statements from other officials both police and medical who support that belief that some of the later victims were the work of the same killer, plus the front sheet of the Scotland yard file on the ripper which sets out all the murders.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

And so we can pick and choose when the police are being honest and competent and when they are being dishonest and useless?

[PaulB]

But if the police did know the identity of the killer, and that he was either dead or incarcerated in an asylum why did they not go public with a statement to that effect. Abberline in 1903 makes a valid observation !

"I am, and always have been, in the closest touch with Scotland Yard, and it would have been next to impossible for me not to have known all about it. Besides, the authorities would have been only too glad to make an end of such a mystery, if only for their own credit."

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Trevor,
Unfortunately, you keep throwing out these problems, you take no notice of the answers, and throw out more problems. Until you can convincingly demonstrate that Macnaghten invented Kosminski and the 'many circs' that made him a good suspect, you have to allow that Kosminski was a suspect. And until you can convincingly demonstrate that Anderson invented from whole cloth an identification that he couldn't have substantiated if he'd been called upon to do so, you have to accept that there was an identification.

The simplest solution is that others did not think the eye-witness identification was as positive as Anderson believed and did not accept that the murderer had been caught

There was a suspect called 'Kosminski' and 'many circs' made him a good suspect. If you want to claim that Macnaghten made that up, do a thorough assessment of Macnaghten's writings and demonstrate with examples that Macnaghten invented suspects like that. Nobody would have gone public with anything unless there was 100% agreement.

On the other hand, if those who knew about the identification were 100% agreed that 'Kosminski' was guilty, there must have been a reason why they didn't make it public.

As for Abberline, I'm sure he did stay in contact with Scotland Yard, but you know as well as I do that once you've left a team, it's hard to get back in.

I bet there are lots of criminals Scotland Yard would absolutely love to identify, but there are laws that prevent the identification of without a conviction.

[PaulB]

If the police suspected that all the murders both before and after the C5 were the work of the same killer then Druitt is eliminated, and to corroborate his elimination we have statements from other officials both police and medical who support that belief that some of the later victims were the work of the same killer, plus the front sheet of the Scotland yard file on the ripper which sets out all the murders.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Trevor,
Could you help me to get a better handle on what you are saying and identify the 'the front sheet of the Scotland yard file on the ripper which sets out all the murders' that you are often referring to? Ta.