Did he mean Montie

[GUT]

The Gundagai Independent and Pastoral, Agricultural and Mining Advocate

4 June 1913

'JACK THE RIPPER.'

Interviewed after his return from Scotland Yard, Sir Melville Naughton (sic) said he was aware of the identity of 'Jack the Ripper,' who committed suicide in 1888.

[Mayerling]

The Gundagai Independent and Pastoral, Agricultural and Mining Advocate

4 June 1913

It looks like he may have meant Montie. Problem is that we need to know more about the actual interview. One questions how good an interview it was if the last name of Sir Melville was misspelled. Of course that could be an editorial error.

Jeff

[GUT]

It looks like he may have meant Montie. Problem is that we need to know more about the actual interview. One questions how good an interview it was if the last name of Sir Melville was misspelled. Of course that could be an editorial error.

Jeff

G'day Jeff

Been doing a bit of digging since stumbled on this while looking for something else [not related to the Ripper], it looks as if it was just a reprint from cable on Mac's retirement and the talk that I think we are all familiar with.

The reason I think that is that when I found this I looked at other papers [online] from around the same date and a few carry the more "traditional" and fuller account.

[Jonathan H]

Sorry, I missed this thread.

Yes, Macnaghten meant Montie Druitt. Here it is in more detail:

Washington Post (Washington, D.C.)
4 June 1913

FATE OF JACK THE RIPPER

Retiring British Official Says Once Famous Criminal Committed Suicide
London Cable to the New York Tribune
The fact that "Jack the Ripper", the man who terrorized the East End of London by the murder of seven women during 1888, committed suicide, is now confirmed by Sir Melville Macnaughten, head of the criminal investigation department of Scotland Yard, who retired on Saturday after 24 years' service.

Sir Melville says:

"It is one of the greatest regrets of my life that "Jack the Ripper" committed suicide six months before I joined the force.

That remarkable man was one of the most fascinating of criminals. Of course, he was a maniac, but I have a very clear idea as to who he was and how he committed suicide, but that, with other secrets, will never be revealed by me."

Here is another, found by the late Chris Scott:

Pittsburgh Press
6 July 1913

Following out his observation regarding the necessity of the ideal detective "keeping his mouth shut," Macnaughton (sic) carried into retirement with him knowledge of the identity of perhaps the greatest criminal of the age, Jack the Ripper, who terrorized Whitechapel in 1888 by the fiendish mutilation and murder of seven women.

"He was a maniac, of course, but not the man whom the world generally suspected," said Sir Melville. "He committed suicide six months before I entered the department, and it is the one great regret of my career that I wasn't on the force when it all happened. My knowledge of his identity and the circumstances of his suicide came to me subsequently. As no good purpose could be served by publicity, I destroyed before I left Scotland Yard every scrap of paper bearing on the case. No one else will ever know who the criminal was - nor my reasons for keeping silent."


It was startling for the reporters at this 1913 farewell press conference as Macnaghten had never before publicly commenetd on the Whitechapel case and it was not known that he was behind the Griffiths' and Sims' revelations about the Drowned Doctor Super-suspect.

For example, in the same year Jack Littlechild wrote to Sims, in Sept, and did not know who Dr D. was, or that this suspect was not Dr T. , or that he originatecd with Macnaghten and not Anderson.

At that press conference Macnaghten revealed almost noting about Druitt, nor even that it was the same suspect as the one Sims had been hustling since 1899.

But he did reveal one aspect that he seems to have regretted.

He said that he took up his police duties "six months" after the Ripper had killed himself (he does not even say how the chief suspect destroyed himself).

This was, in fact, correct to the day: Decemeber 1st 1888 to June 1st 1889.

But in his memoir the following year Macnaghten retracted this bit, right at the start of his book. He wrote in the Preface that such a comment was made up by an "enterprizing" reporter.

That way he can alter the date of the suspect's likely suicide; from Dec 1st 1888 to Nov 10th 1888--the day the resignation of the man he despised even more than Anderson, Sir Charles Warren, was accepted.

If you put together all of the 1913 press articles we can make the following provisional conclusions:

-The murderer killed himself and his other identity as a serial murderer was a secret.

-This secret came to Mac alone, and he with-held it from fellow officers of state.

-There were other critical secrets involved, which he would never reveal.

-Alleged documentation proving the guilt of this posthumous suspect were not official, ergo they were his possession to keep or to destroy.

-When he retired the secret of the Ripper's true identity would exit with him.

My theory is that his claim to have destroyed his papers (patently untrue) was to reassure the surviving Druitts that they had nothing to fear by the retriement of their 'protector'--and as it turned out they didn't.

[GUT]

Thanks Jonathan, when I first posted it hadn't jelled that it was his retirement "speech" once I realised that it was clear that he was talking about Druitt.

[Jonathan H]

To GUT

What I was trying to point out was that other writers have asserted that Macnaghten's ignorance of the true facts about Montague Druitt can be shown by his erroneous claim, in 'Days of My Years', that the killer topped himself the day after the Kelly murder (or thereabouts).

A broader examination of the sources shows that the police chief likely knew that Druitt killed himself on December 1st 1888, because of his comment the previous year at his farewell press conference to that effect (e.g.
it happened six months before he joined the Force, on June 1st 1889).

To conceal the date of the un-named Druitt's self-murder, Macnaghten made a point of denying in the Preface of his memoirs that he had ever said such a thing (he blames an "enterprising" journalist) so that he can alter the timing to early November 1888 (or thereabouts).

That allows him to bury Druitt whilst simultaneously having a dig at the loathed Sir Charles Warren, whose resignation was accepted that very day: Nov 10th 1888.