What makes Druitt a viable suspect?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Simon,

Of course we’ve only come to consider Druitt because he was mentioned by Macnaghten 6 years after the murders ceased. I’m not suggesting that Druitt wouldn’t have remained an unknown figure without him. I don’t understand though why the fallback position tends to be that all police officers or people in any kind of authority where either corrupt or incompetent?/ Isn’t it simply possibly that Macnaghten did hear that Druitt’s family suspected him of being the ripper? Why would he be so desperate to exonerate Cutbush that he’d name someone from a highly respectable family when he could no doubt have chosen some incurable lunatic and told the public “we’ve got him?”

[Takod]

We've only come to consider Druitt because he was mentioned by Macnaghten 6 years after the murders ceased.

Answers the thread original post very succinctly!

Isn't it simply possibly that Macnaghten did hear that Druitt's family suspected him of being the ripper?

I don't see why it isn't possible, but I think this answers the below quote if it is the case.

Why would he be so desperate to exonerate Cutbush that he'd name someone from a highly respectable family when he could no doubt have chosen some incurable lunatic and told the public "we've got him?"

Because telling the public that offers up an even bigger kettle of fish of "If you 100% have him, why not hang him anyway?"

If the public learned that the police had their man, it would be a firestorm of appeals for justice - yet to police, changing the laws to hang a man who has been dealt with in due process is not in the job description. Knowing that Jack is an incurable lunatic is clearly evident by the crimes themselves and keeping him off the streets and keeping public order takes priority.

These possible answers neither scream incompetence nor corruption.

[rjpalmer]

Hi Simon,

as you are already aware (you mention it your book) Fred Abberline claimed in his 1903 interview that a report of a young doctor found drowned in the Thames 'shortly after the last murder' was 'forwarded to the Home Office.' Does this not imply that a report predating Macnaghten was submitted, or are you suggesting that Abberline is referring to the Macnaghten Memo itself, and, in turn, this memo was created for the eyes of the Home Office?

Correct me if I am wrong, but Abberline retired roughly a week after Ground Hog's Day, 1892, so seeing this Home Office report dating to 1894 would seem somewhat unlikely, would it not?

I thank you in advance for any reflections.

5.5 earth rattler last week at the ungodly hour of 1 a.m., but my china was already cracked, and possibly in more ways than one, so no worries.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Herlock,

February 1894.

Kosminski was alive in a mental institution.

Ostrog had a cast-iron alibi, which Scotland Yard would soon acknowledge.

Druitt was the perfect suspect.

He was dead.

Regards,

Simon

[JeffHamm]

Jeff, from memory weren’t Druitt’s chambers at Kings Bench Walk? This is 15 minutes walk from Whitechapel.

Yes, but I thought that was closer to a 45 minute walk than 15? It's also in the opposite direction of apparent travel from Mitre Square to Goulston Street, so I wasn't considering that as a link to Whitechappel.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

I dont really see the point of this Baron.

In effect, what you’re saying is: “ one only needs to accept two propositions that are only accepted by a very small minority of those interested in the case and, bingo, Druitt is innocent.”

As for having nothing more going for him than Ostrog then I’ll ditto post #130.

No one can seriously put Ostrog in the same league as Druitt when it comes to suspects.

The C5 are the cases most people associate with JtR, and those were McNaghton's picks too. However, the general modern view that JtR was responsible for the C5 and no others is largely due to that's how the early books were written. That linkage wasn't questioned for quite some time, and once people started questioning it, they were fighting against a well established pre-conceived notion. We have to remember that at the time, McNaghten argued it was the C5, Dr. Bond also argued for all the C5 but also concluded that McKenzie was by the same hand (so C5+1), Dr. Phillips excluded Eddowes (curiously, not Stride), McKenzie and Cole (well, to be clear, he expressed serious doubts about Eddowes), and Abberline, Anderson, and Dew all included Tabram with the C5. The apparent consensus today on the C5 is more reflective of the choice made in the earliest books and how that has been adhered to than it does with any consensus at the time of the murders. While many argue that Tabram was stabbed and not slashed, she did have one abdominal wound that was a 3 inch slash to the abdomen - and if she was the first victim, that may be the seed from which the later mutilations grew (just saying it's not really that much out of the pattern as it may appear at first).

I'm not saying we all have to agree if there were 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8 victims, but I think a survey indicating most consider just the C5 is reflective of the texts and is something that is well worth reconsidering by anyone interested in this topic.

- Jeff

[Simon Wood]

Hi RJ,

1903 was a busy time.

In advancing their respective theories, Abberline and Sims both cited a report sent to the Home Office. Major Griffiths did not mention such a report in his 1898 book; but as he, Abberline and Sims all repeated the “drowned doctor” error it becomes apparent that, one way or another, the source of their bogus information was the Macnaghten memorandum.

Kulia i ka nu’u.

Simon

[JeffHamm]

Hi Simon,

Of course we’ve only come to consider Druitt because he was mentioned by Macnaghten 6 years after the murders ceased. I’m not suggesting that Druitt wouldn’t have remained an unknown figure without him. I don’t understand though why the fallback position tends to be that all police officers or people in any kind of authority where either corrupt or incompetent?/ Isn’t it simply possibly that Macnaghten did hear that Druitt’s family suspected him of being the ripper? Why would he be so desperate to exonerate Cutbush that he’d name someone from a highly respectable family when he could no doubt have chosen some incurable lunatic and told the public “we’ve got him?”

This is a good point being made here. I'm going to use the term person of interest (POI) rather than suspect, just because the latter tends to be associated with strong indications of guilt, while the former tends to evoke the notion of "worthy of looking into.". I think McNaghten's list should be considered a list of POI's more worthy of investigation than Cutbush (in McNaghten's opinion) rather than a list of "suspects" if one takes the latter term to mean people against which they had substantial evidence. I don't for a moment think McNaghten "made up" anything. I have no doubt Druitt was brought to his attention as a POI, and part of what made him a POI was some sort of rumour or suggestion that his family had suspicions (whether or not they did would be something that would require verification, etc). The police were looking for people released from asylum's at the time of the murders, which is why Ostrog would have been a POI at the time, and since they never located him, he would have remained so. Similarly, Kosminski. McNaghten was writing a memorandom not for public consumption (it was headed "confidential" after all), and so naming of a few of the POIs (he indicates that there were many homicidal maniacs under suspicion at one time or another, and then goes on to list his 3 in a way that seems indicative that he's listing 3 but could list more yet that would just belabor the point he's making - that Cutbush is far less worthy of investigation than others, etc).

While McNaghton does lean towards Druitt, he also points out that as time goes by his preference for Druitt has grown, and this to me sounds like "well, Druitt is dead and there's been no more JtR murders so as more time goes by and no further murders have occurred, that seems to fit, etc" (McNaghten did not include McKenzie or Coles). He ends with indicating that the truth once lay at the bottom of the Thames, which is more or less saying that "I don't know, but I have my suspicions, but since there's no real evidence my suspicions cannot be confirmed or rejected because that would require Druitt's input, and he's dead". I get the impression McNaghten is being very open in this last bit by admitting his suspicions about Druitt are just a "gut feeling" and not something derived at from a trail of solid evidence and he's admitting he could very well be wrong. But regardless, the purpose of the memorandum was to respond to the story in the Sun about Cutbush, not to demonstrate that the JtR murders had actually been solved - I think he's even making it clear that his list of POI's is not intended as saying they were solved. It's also why McNaghten just relied on his memory of these 3 POIs and didn't go back and consult the details about them, the purpose wasn't to present 3 solutions or "prime suspects", just to illustrate there were POIs better than Cutbush.

In short, Druitt is a POI because 1) he was brought to McNaghton's attention at some point by someone, possibly because of nothing more than rumors and gossip and 2) he died after Kelly's murder, which fit with McNaghten's view of the end of the JtR murders.

As a solution to the JtR murders? No, probably not a great solution. His life has been looked at pretty closely because he was listed as a POI and so far, nothing has come up that links him to the crimes, and some information has come up that while not exonerating him completely, has left his candidature on pretty thin ice.

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

February 1894.

Kosminski was alive in a mental institution.

Ostrog had a cast-iron alibi, which Scotland Yard would soon acknowledge.

Druitt was the perfect suspect.

He was dead.

Regards,

Simon

Hi Simon,

Cant argue with that.

It doesn’t prove that Druitt wasn’t a genuine person of interest though and couldn’t Macnaghten have found some pauper lunatic who died just after Kelly? Obviously the memorandum was confidential but he must surely have known that it’s contents would have become known? How could it hope to refute Cutbush if no one ever saw it? If the Druitt family didn’t believe that he might have been guilty isn’t it possible that they might have taken legal action? The stigma of suicide and insanity and the Victorians loathing of scandal might have kept them quiet but wouldn’t Mac have been taking a risk? I don’t know.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Herlock,

Macnaghten aside, there is no way to finger Druitt as a Ripper suspect.

By the way, the memorandum wasn't entirely confidential. Macnaghten leaked a name-redacted verion to Major Arthur Griffiths for his November 1898 book, and it wasn't until two months later that George R. Sims first punted the "drowned doctor" theory and stuck with it right to the end.

Sims got it from Griffiths, who got it from Macnaghten. The story was an old hand-me-down.

As for Cutbush, he was never a serious suspect. The 1894 Sun story was elaborate fiction. In March there was to be a general election, and T.P. O’Connor, a political bruiser, was unscrupulously using the unnamed Thomas Hayne Cutbush, incarcerated at Broadmoor in April 1891 for jabbing girls in the buttocks, as a political tripwire with which to trigger an inquiry into the Whitechapel murders, an inquiry which would have exposed the deception of Jack the Ripper and embarrassed the Tory party, during whose watch the Whitechapel murders had taken place. The story was countered with a shaggy dog account of Inspector Race and a Chinese dagger.

And so, just in case anyone asked [which I don't believe they ever did] Macnaghten set down a scenario in which the Ripper evaded prosecution by [1] incarceration in a mental institution, [2] death by drowning, and [3] a homicidal maniac whose "whereabouts at the time of the murders could never be ascertained.”

Eight months after the memorandum Michael Ostrog proved that during the latter part of 1888 and early 1889 he had been in a French prison. The police paid him £10 in compensation for false arrest, but five years later in 1898 Macnaghten did not remove him from his list of three suspects.

Do not look to the higher echelons of Scotland Yard or the Home Office for the truth. You'll be wasting your time.

Regards,

Simon

[Michael W Richards]

Hi Herlock,

Do not look to the higher echelons of Scotland Yard or the Home Office for the truth. You'll be wasting your time.

Regards,

Simon

I don't know why more posters don't follow that simple advice Simon, they assume truth from sources that were professional liars.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I don't know why more posters don't follow that simple advice Simon, they assume truth from sources that were professional liars.

To assume truth would be just as potentially misleading as it would be to assume lies. Is it reasonable to make a blanket accusation of dishonesty against everyone in authority? A healthy scepticism is required of course but if we always assume the conspiracy theorist attitude of “Well they would say that wouldn’t they?” then through dogmatism we are potentially ignoring things that could be important. How can we be certain the Macnaghten wasn’t a decent, honourable man? He might or might not have been.

As far as questions go, why didn’t Macnaghten just mention Kosminski and Ostrog (or as I said earlier in addition to some other caged lunatic too?) Why mention the son of a respected surgeon? We all know how keen the Victorians were for maintaining the social order and avoiding scandal. With a host of unknown, unnamed individuals to throw under the bus as potential suspects he chooses the Winchester and Oxford educated son of a surgeon Montague John Druitt. Why?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Herlock,

If Macnaghten was such a decent, honourable man, why was he still punting Ostrog as a Ripper suspect in 1898?

Regards,

Simon

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

If Macnaghten was such a decent, honourable man, why was he still punting Ostrog as a Ripper suspect in 1898?

Regards,

Simon

Hi Simon,

It’s a point that I can’t dispute of course. I’m not trying to suggest that Macnaghten was whiter than white or that anyone in authority was but we can’t assume that everything he did was corrupt or incompetent. Macnaghten was part of an eastablishment determined to preserve the status quo. An establishment which would have been horrified at the suggestion that the ripper might have been a gentleman. Ostrog and Kosminski were expendable. Their reputations being attacked would never have caused a ripple but Druitt’s would. Much more than a ripple. I still can’t see why he needed to use Druitt as a tool to dispute the Cutbush story when he would have had far less controversial ‘suspects’ to name.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Herlock,

I'm not suggesting that everything Macnaghten did was corrupt or incompetent, but why did he suggest in his original memo that Thomas Hayne Cutbush was the nephew of Superintendent Charles Cutbush of Scotland Yard's Executive Branch—an assertion which is demonstrably false—but excised the relationship from the subsequent Aberconway version?

Regards,

Simon