What makes Druitt a viable suspect?

[The Baron]

Exactly, which is why I am not sure the drown doctor in the Thames referred to by Abberline was actually Druitt.

Why did he mention December 1888 if it was not Druitt ?!

Who else was connected to that month?!


The Baron

[Wickerman]

Hey HS
do you know who said this:

the police were looking for him(druitt) alive when he turned up dead? or something to that effect.

Do you think that quote implies they knew the name of who they were looking for at that point?

Druitt's suicide wasn't national news, the police may not have been aware of it.

I think if Druitt had been a police suspect while alive then a Scotland Yard detective would have been at the inquest, as they were at all the other inquests. Therefore, his suicide would have had more national coverage. As none of this transpired then I feel sure Druitt wasn't on their radar until after he died.

[seanr]

I'd be less specific, a report was sent to the Home Office about a doctor's suicide in the Thames, we just have no name for this doctor.
I'm not so sure we should assign this paragraph by Abberline to Mac's Confidential Report.

I agree with this, 'doctor who committed suicide' is vague enough that I'm less confident than others this automatically mean Druitt. I even consider other possibilities.

The police had already followed up on one local rumour and used it as the basis of a suspect with the whole Leather Apron incident (had there ever been any direct evidence against a man nicknamed 'Leather Apron').
I consider it possible the 'doctor who committed suicide' was another myth like 'Leather Apron' or 'high up official/ member of the Royal family the powers that be must protect'. As the police had followed up quite heavily on the 'Leather Apron' thing, the may have also investigated the 'mad doctor' story. This 'lead' may have been what was discussed with the Home Office in 1888/89.
Ultimately, of all the suicides in London in the right dates, Druitt may have fitted the rumour best. The key different between Pizer and Druitt being that Druitt was dead and unable to answer the case. It's just about plausible, and only requires Macnaghten to be as credulous as the police had already proved themselves to be with 'leather apron'.

Or even in a more extreme potential interpretation, the 'Home Office report' could even be Abberline's faulty memory of the Macnaghten Memoranda itself.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Why did he mention December 1888 if it was not Druitt ?!

Who else was connected to that month?!


The Baron

Druitt, whose father was a .........

[Herlock Sholmes]

Why does it have to be so sinister, when there is a simple and plausible explantion for the actions of the police., that was they were simply treating him as a missing person, and not a murder suspect which is what the police do when they get a report of someone going missing they contact friends, relatives and work colleagues etc.

Now prove that to be wrong, and at the same time provide evidence that the police had him on the radar as a murder suspect !

Remember the saying put up, or shut up !

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Druitt’s colleagues and friends contacted William about Monty being missing. Why no mention of anyone contacting the police?

[seanr]

Either the evidence implicating Druitt came to Macnaghten years after he became a detective officer or the police had them prior to Druitt's suicide and they were trying to trace him in 1888. Both of those statements cannot be true.

[Wickerman]

Why did he mention December 1888 if it was not Druitt ?!

Who else was connected to that month?!


The Baron

He talks about "a students body".

[Wickerman]

Hi Abby,

Maybe, This was a journalist phrase or wording, means, the police were looking for him alive (Jack) when they found him dead (Druitt)


The Baron

Yes but it's difficult to see it that way when we read the context....

But prior to this discovery the name of the man found drowned was bracketed with two others as A Possible Jack and the police were in search of him alive when they found him dead. In the case of this chopped-up and semi-cooked woman, the best clue to the murderer might be the establishment of the victim's identity

That said, if we look at the previous paragraph Sims may well be talking about a different list of suspects because the list Sims refers to is not a personal list like Mac's, but an active police list of suspects.

".......they had reduced the only possible Jacks to seven, then by a further exhaustive inquiry to three, and were about to fit these three people's movements in with the dates of the various murders when the one and only genuine Jack saved further trouble by being found drowned in the Thames, into which he had flung himself, a raving lunatic, after the last and most appalling mutilation of the whole series."

Or is Sims just ad-libbing because he cannot remember the correct details (this was 1902 afterall)?

[seanr]

How do we explain away the scratches? Why would the killer waste valuable time in such a situation making pointless scratches to Mackenzie's abdomen. These were deliberately done and were not due to the killer being interrupted. This sounds to me like a killer who cuts the throat of a woman that he can possibly be linked to in some way and so he tries to make it look like a ripper killing for obvious reasons. He makes one small cut then a longer one that's not deep then some scratches (not necessarily in that order of course) This sounds to me like someone that just can't go through with any serious abdominal mutilation. And this after Miller's Court? And we can't blame interruption because the time taken for the two cuts and the scratches would have given the killer ample time for deeper mutilations.

To frame what a copycat crime usually looks like it's handy to use known examples. One particular example which may be illuminating was the case of 'copycat' of Walter White from the popular TV show 'Breaking Bad'. A dealer in Kansas was found to be selling crystal meth which had been coloured blue (as it is in the TV show)... and that's it.

In relevant 'copycat' murders, in 2008, a weak minded pervert was convicted of murders supposedly inspired by an attempt to become a 'modern Jack the Ripper'. He had picked up two women on two separate occasions from the Whitechapel area, one of whom was a sex worker, and murdered them in his home. He disposed of the bodies and they have, to my knowledge, yet to be found. The police secured the conviction based on blood evidence found in the perpetrator's home.
Even though the it was noted part of the pervert's sick desire was to emulate Jack the Ripper, the actual technique and approach to the crime was totally different.

The 'carbon copycat' (to coin a phrase) used to explain away the discomforting similarities between the attack on Alice Mackenzie and the previous crimes, would it seems be somewhat unique in criminal history - I'm not aware of a case like it.

So, to the scratches... we don't know why the killer did them. We don't actually know what the intentions of the mutilations were. The reasons you provide are supposition.

Alice was found in the Whitechapel/ Spitalfields area close to where the previous crimes had been and again with a killer who somehow avoided being seen by beat officer by the thinnest of time margins. Beyond that within the medical evidence we do have evidence of the killer setting up to right side of the body in order to inflict the mutilations exactly the same approach the medical evidence suggests the killer took with Kate Eddowes. Again we have the skirt drawn up, and a long wound along the abdomen, not as deep sure but the same 'style' of injury as inflicted on poor Kate and then there's the two cuts to the throat, the same technique as the 'Ripper's' throat injuries.

And I'm not sure it's the same man but a 'copycat' just seems too convenient, the sheer number of similarities and commonalities with the previous crimes are difficult to explain away.

We might make assumptions of why the killer made the mutilations the way he did, but they are all supposition. For all we know, he maybe only wanted to inflict lighter mutilations after the previous crimes and avoid getting his hands dirty. He might have lost his longer knife at some point and decided to make do with shorter, blunter one. It's all supposition.

[Phil Carter]

Hello all

I ask again.. From which origin has the assumption (I call it that as I can find no proof) come about that Druitt jumped from a bridge?

Thank you all

Phil

[Wickerman]

Hello all

I ask again.. From which origin has the assumption (I call it that as I can find no proof) come about that Druitt jumped from a bridge?

Thank you all

Phil

Phil, part of the problem might be, where did you read he jumped from a bridge?

[Wickerman]

Another aspect on the frequency of suicides...

Once a fortnight (every two weeks) someone jumps off Waterloo Bridge.
The police even made provisions by keeping on hand bath tubs of hot water and dry clothes both male & female.


Leicester Chronicle, 27 Apr. 1889.

[Wickerman]

The 'carbon copycat' (to coin a phrase) used to explain away the discomforting similarities between the attack on Alice Mackenzie and the previous crimes, would it seems be somewhat unique in criminal history - I'm not aware of a case like it.

I'm not sure anyone set out with the intent of murdering a stranger in such a way as to make it look like the work of someone else.

When I talk about 'copy-cat', especially in the McKenzie case, I mean someone assaulted a woman for whatever reason and slit her throat. Only after he realized what he did does he think to try make it look like something it isn't. Make some marks on the body to make it appear like the previous Ripper murders.
It's a last minute desperate attempt to cover his tracks or deflect the police towards the wrong assumption.
I'm not suggesting something planned right from the start.

[harry]

A much more rational and workable theory,to my way of thinking,is that the ripper's brain gave way altogether after his awful glut in Millers Court,and that he then committed suicide,or as a less likely alternative, was found to be so hopelessly insane by his relatives,that they,suspecting the worse,had him confined in some lunatic asylum.
No one ever saw the Whitechapel murderer,and no proof could in any way ever be brought against anyone.
From private information,I have little doubt but that his own family suspected this man of being the Whitechappel murderer.It was alledged that he was sexually insane.

Those are MM's recollections.So it is only a theory of MM on what could have happened not something based on evidence,for as he writes there was no proof that could be brought against anyone.He only believes his(Druitt's)family suspected him (Druitt) of being the whitechapel murderer.MM does not say he,Druitt,was suspected by anyone else.Nor does he indicate a knowledge of the family's suspicion,of why he was suspected, who alledges the sexual insanity,or where the private information came from.
And people still wish to treat Druitt as a suspect? What happened to the 'Considered innocent untill proven guilty' Yes I know this is not a court of law but nevertheless the principle of innocense should be respected,as should the producing of evidence.

[JeffHamm]

There have been copy-cat murders. The Tylenol Poisonings, for example, were mimicked (a woman killed her husband, got a way with it, but his death was ruled natural; the insurance payment would have been larger if not, so she placed poisoned pills in stores, to copy the Tylenol case, and then asked that her husband be re-examined for poison, which was found, but eventually led to her arrest). Heriberto Seda was intentionally copying Zodiac. The crime scene at Jeffrey McDonald's case was a copy cat version of the Manson family, with people debating whether it was McDonald or intruders who were doing the copy cat side of things of course.

Anyway, the first and last of those listed are of the sort described by Wickerman in post 1363, post-offense behaviour trying to mis-direct investigations. Heriberto Seda, though I don't know much about him, sounds much more like someone emulating an offender from the start, rather than trying to after the fact stage things.

Regardless, neither is common, and when it does occur, the majority of those are of the "post-crime attempt to misdirect" sort. I've not found an example of someone emulating a mutilation murderer post-offense in order to misdirect, but if they did, I could see Wickerman's argument holding - it would be a lot harder to do than most could handle, and a few minor cuts might be the most they could bring themselves to perform.

- Jeff