What makes Druitt a viable suspect?

[Harry D]

Have to admit, Druitt has never really appealed to me as a suspect. I'm just wondering what it is about him that leads certain Ripperologists to hang their hat on him being the Ripper? Prima facie, it comes down to the Macnaghten memo and the time of his death. But Macnaghten gets even the most basic details about Druitt wrong, so how much stock can be put in his words? Does Druitt fit any of the witness descriptions? Did he even possess the kind of skill required for the murders? Can he be placed at Whitechapel when the killings took place?

[pinkmoon]

When sir Melville wrote about Druitt he sated that the police didn't suspect him of been jack the ripper but his own family did which is odd why would an educated family think such a thing.William montys brother had no problem in telling the inquest that their mother was in a mental institution and that Monty had been sacked from his teaching job because he had got into serious trouble why share this news with anyone unless he wanted the coroner to form an opinion that these were the reasons for montys suicide not something else the something else might well have been the fact that Monty was jack the ripper.I think the fact Druitt lived alone is very important and also having a father who was a doctor might mean druitt had an understanding of anatomy and could at one stage of his life attempted to study medicine one last thing to consider sir Melville states that Druitt was from a fairly good instead of a good or excellent family so something had put him of them a bit also by naming Druitt he wasn't to botherd about hurting the family could he have been annoyed that Druitts family never contacted the police about their concerns over Monty.

[John Wheat]

Nothing.

[Jonathan H]

Everybody has a right to their opinion.

But there are things persistently written about Druitt and Macnaghten that are arguably quite off-track.

Druitt does not first appear in the extant record with the 'memo' but in the 'West of England' MP articles of 1891--albeit un-named.'The accusation emerged from the region in which he had grown up, e.g. from 'his own people'.

Macnaghten, arguably, does not make mistakes about his chosen suspect in the de-facto third version of his report: his 1914 memoirs, e.g. not a doctor, not middle-aged, not a mental patient, and not a suicide instantly after Kelly.

Druitt did not die at the 'right' time but at the wrong time: two years too early. Macnaghten had to pretend that police knew at the time hat Kelly was the final victim, actually she was made the final victim by the timing of Druitt's sucide, not the other way round.

The so-called errors by Mac make sense when you realise this was information he disseminated to the public via cronies. It could not contain completely accurate data because this would expose the Druitt family and trigger a potentially ugly libel suit if it was insinuated that they knew their member was a maniacal killer and they had done nothing. Such an accurate leak would also expose the Yard to embarrassment: they had not known of this man until years after he killed himself.

Druitt broadly resembles the man seen by Lawende with Eddowes. This seems to have been the witness the police used for confrontations with two Ripper suspects-- both Gentile sailors. Though Macnaghten and Sims went to great lengths to deny this and bury this witness sighting, Guy Logan's 1905 opus, 'The True History of Jack the Ripper', has it's Druitt figure--Mortemer Slade--seen by just such a witness with this victim.

The 'North Country Vicar' of 1899 claims the fiend went to the East End for charitable purposes. Oxonians, of which Druitt was one, were part of a social reform movement who went to the abyss to try and bring some education and help.

[Damaso Marte]

Druitt is in every single book ever written about Jack the Ripper and he is everyone's first favorite suspect before they learn more about the case. When I was a boy I thought Druitt did it too.

But then I grew up. Some haven't.

[mklhawley]

But then I grew up. Some haven't.

Well, that's a nasty shot. ...and you back this up with?

[Varqm]

With Druitt it's mostly gossip and it could have been's. Don't policemen and/or MP's also succumb to gossip?

[sepiae]

a nope

Hi Harry D, everyone.

I also never liked him as a suspect, though there's quite a bunch of them that can make one wonder. I think there's both dis- and advantages in being separated by 126 years. No need to mention all the disadvantages, I trust. The advantages are much fewer in number, one of them being we're not caught up in the frenzy. And who's to say that police, now as then, cannot be caught in it.
If someone is implicated by family, this will probably be always be taken quite seriously by the police. It alone shouldn't make any policeman, senior or not, not that convinced. Anything beside the memorandum is lost to us, which might lead us to the conclusion that there was something of significance, while this might be all there is. In the end, what Macnaghten states is that he'd have 'little doubt but that his own family
believed him to have been the murderer.'
Back then all together might have appeared somewhat damning: mental illness in the family, suicide some time after the murders [if a suspect has your attention a month, a year even can seem as closely after as a week], sacked from his job for what might have been 'unsavory' reasons, a vague resemblance with some witness descriptions, an alleged solitary, perhaps, for that time, slightly deviant life. Today we might still make a note of all that, but it isn't implicating. So we're left with Macnaghten's private information, which was, to what we know, 3rd hand: it appears he didn't hear it from family members directly, but from an intermediate source.
So what about family-information? It's no better to me than any other source implicating. Family can have a lot of ideas about one of its members, particularly when it's acting different. Family is not automatically closer/closest.
Particularly not if the person in question might be gay - I'm not 100% certain about Druitt's sexual orientation, but quite a few aspects seem to lead to this conclusion - anyone knows the age of his pupils? Because that'd make the difference between being gay or a paedophile [not the same]. Macnaghten calls him 'sexually insane'. That was often euphemism for 'homosexual'. If Druitt was gay, then that already is a big brick into the glasshouse of his candidature.
Add to this how narrow the time was at least in one case between murder and cricket game - sure, in principle he could have made it, which would put him into impressive shape - I admit I still don't understand cricket well enough to know how good your shape's got to be.
Jonathan H, - '[...]by Lawende with Eddowes. This seems to have been the witness the police used for confrontations with two Ripper suspects-- both Gentile sailors' - if you refer to Sadler and the earlier witness/suspect confrontation [seaside or elsewhere], it has been convincingly pointed out, here, in some of the podcasts and elsewhere, that it is unlikely that Lawende had been asked to view suspects as a witness twice, due to his refusal of signing his name to it the first time; as much as I like him as a witness [he's the only witness I'd call a good witness without hesitation], it'd be 'positively identifying the 1st time but refusing to make it official, then being asked a 2nd time with another suspect, despite the 1st having been positive, and refused to go on record - could be, but not likely.
As far as the errors in the memorandum are concerned, I do take them seriously, later corrections notwithstanding - in the least it shows that Macnaghten was actually quite removed from the suspect, all information being not merely 2nd but 3rd hand. Perhaps we're a little too impressed with Druitt featuring as a 1st on his little list, which might mean absolutely nothing where compared with those following. Let's not forget that the chief purpose of the memorandum was to disqualifying Cutbush, those names were stated as being more likely in comparison.
Once named and investigated, by the police but more so by others, a name ever so often grows.

[sepiae]

p.s.
I should add that we of course don't know whether Macnaghten's reference to Druitt's 'sexual insanity', which might very much have meant 'being gay' had anything to do with Druitt losing his position.

[pinkmoon]

People don't just committ suicide for no reason Druitt seems to have everything to live for he had a good career money coming.Away from work he was certainly very busy with his cricket so what ever caused him to take his life must have been serious .

[David Andersen]

People don't just committ suicide for no reason Druitt seems to have everything to live for he had a good career money coming.Away from work he was certainly very busy with his cricket so what ever caused him to take his life must have been serious .

He thought he was becoming like Mother.

[Jonathan H]

Everybody has a right to their opinion.

But there are things persistently written about Druitt and Macnaghten that are arguably quite off-track.

Druitt does not first appear in the extant record with the 'memo' but in the 'West of England' MP articles of 1891--albeit un-named.'The accusation emerged from the region in which he had grown up, e.g. from 'his own people'.

Macnaghten, arguably, does not make mistakes about his chosen suspect in the de-facto third version of his report: his 1914 memoirs, e.g. not a doctor, not middle-aged, not a mental patient, and not a suicide instantly after Kelly.

Druitt did not die at the 'right' time but at the wrong time: two years too early. Macnaghten had to pretend that police knew at the time hat Kelly was the final victim, actually she was made the final victim by the timing of Druitt's sucide, not the other way round.

The so-called errors by Mac make sense when you realise this was information he disseminated to the public via cronies. It could not contain completely accurate data because this would expose the Druitt family and trigger a potentially ugly libel suit if it was insinuated that they knew their member was a maniacal killer and they had done nothing. Such an accurate leak would also expose the Yard to embarrassment: they had not known of this man until years after he killed himself.

Druitt broadly resembles the man seen by Lawende with Eddowes. This seems to have been the witness the police used for confrontations with two Ripper suspects-- both Gentile sailors. Though Macnaghten and Sims went to great lengths to deny this and bury this witness sighting, Guy Logan's 1905 opus, 'The True History of Jack the Ripper', has it's Druitt figure--Mortemer Slade--seen by just such a witness with this victim.

The 'North Country Vicar' of 1899 claims the fiend went to the East End for charitable purposes. Oxonians, of which Druitt was one, were part of a social reform movement who went to the abyss to try and bring some education and help.

[Harry D]

Hello, sepiae.

Word to the wise, paragraphs are your friend.

For me, if there's enough reasonable doubt linking Druitt to the crime-scenes , then he's not a viable Ripper suspect. Furthermore, this theory that Druitt committed suicide from the trauma of MJK's overkill doesn't wash with me. How many known serial killers throughout history have actually offed themselves when they're not either imprisoned or on the run? Why invent such an unlikely scenario when we already have a working one, i.e. he was depressed over the scandal of losing his job, and fearing he'd end up like his mother, killed himself?

Jonathan H, - '[...]by Lawende with Eddowes. This seems to have been the witness the police used for confrontations with two Ripper suspects-- both Gentile sailors' - if you refer to Sadler and the earlier witness/suspect confrontation [seaside or elsewhere], it has been convincingly pointed out, here, in some of the podcasts and elsewhere, that it is unlikely that Lawende had been asked to view suspects as a witness twice, due to his refusal of signing his name to it the first time; as much as I like him as a witness [he's the only witness I'd call a good witness without hesitation], it'd be 'positively identifying the 1st time but refusing to make it official, then being asked a 2nd time with another suspect, despite the 1st having been positive, and refused to go on record - could be, but not likely.

Personally, I don't think Lawende was much of a witness, given that by his own admission he wouldn't have been able to recognise the man if he saw him again. If he was used, then it was obviously in the faint hope that something might jog his memory. I have also my doubts as to whether he was really the witness involved in the reputed ID'ing of Anderson's Polish Jew. The consensus appears to be that it was a toss-up between Lawende or Schwartz. I disagree.

If it was anyone who witnessed the Ripper, I'm more inclined to say it was Joseph Levy. As you quite rightly point out, Lawende wouldn't have been used in the Sadler ID if he had already identified the Ripper at the Seaside Home and refused to testify. Joseph Levy saw enough of the couple to make a passing comment about "those sort of characters" and believed that the square should be put under surveillance. Along with this generally shifty behaviour, this suggests to me that he had a good look at the man with Eddowes that night.

[Jonathan H]

To Harry D

If there was serious doubt linking Druitt to the crime scenes, then his family, an MP, a police chief and a famous true crime writer would not have believed he was the Ripper.

From two newspaper accounts it appears that Joseph Lawende was used in 1891 and 1895 to confront Ripper suspects: Tom Sadler and William Grant, respectively.

The 'Seaside Home' confrontation almost certainly never happened. It only enters the extant record in 1910 when Anderson can be shown to have \n unreliable memory. The location-event is a mis-recalling by either Anderson and/or Swanson of the Sailor's Home that was part of the Sadler affair--the sailor was apparently "confronted" with a Jewish witness, e.g. Lawende.

[sepiae]

paragraphed. promise.

Hello, sepiae.

Word to the wise, paragraphs are your friend.

For me, if there's enough reasonable doubt linking Druitt to the crime-scenes , then he's not a viable Ripper suspect. Furthermore, this theory that Druitt committed suicide from the trauma of MJK's overkill doesn't wash with me. How many known serial killers throughout history have actually offed themselves when they're not either imprisoned or on the run? Why invent such an unlikely scenario when we already have a working one, i.e. he was depressed over the scandal of losing his job, and fearing he'd end up like his mother, killed himself?



Personally, I don't think Lawende was much of a witness, given that by his own admission he wouldn't have been able to recognise the man if he saw him again. If he was used, then it was obviously in the faint hope that something might jog his memory. I have also my doubts as to whether he was really the witness involved in the reputed ID'ing of Anderson's Polish Jew. The consensus appears to be that it was a toss-up between Lawende or Schwartz. I disagree.

If it was anyone who witnessed the Ripper, I'm more inclined to say it was Joseph Levy. As you quite rightly point out, Lawende wouldn't have been used in the Sadler ID if he had already identified the Ripper at the Seaside Home and refused to testify. Joseph Levy saw enough of the couple to make a passing comment about "those sort of characters" and believed that the square should be put under surveillance. Along with this generally shifty behaviour, this suggests to me that he had a good look at the man with Eddowes that night.

Hi Harry D,

sorry about the lack of paragraphs, they sometimes get lost in the rush

linking/suicide:
I absolutely agree there [perhaps you misunderstood me?]. The original question at the start of this thread what could have possibly linked the man in the minds of people in the 1st place, which is what I was trying to answer.
For me personally Druitt is a terrible suspect.

Lawende:
actually, and this will sound a lil funny, but I'd more inclined to trust a witness saying precisely that than one who claims an exceptional memory - after all, it was not an encounter that seemed to ask for making a mental note.
[note the paragraph] Memory is quite an unreliable thing, and anyone admitting to that finds more credit with me. Somewhere people do understand this, just look at the general lack of trust in Hutchinson's observations [though there's more than one reason for this lack].
Preferring Levy, well, alright, but they've all seen them, and Levy's remark alone doesn't make him a better witness. In the very least it was Lawende on record with an actual description.