A Question of Known Suspects

[D.B.Wagstaff]

Hi folks!

I've been lurking about reading the forum threads for a couple of years but I very seldom post as I enjoy reading the views of those far more knowlegible than I.

There are a couple of questions I have that I thought might be worthy of discussion - in view that the evidence against any of the known JtR suspects is circumstantial at best - so let's hear the opinions of seasoned Ripperologists:

To what extent, say 1%-100%, are you certain Jack was one of the suspects known to us on the forum?

To what extent - same numbers apply - are you certain murders attributed to Jack were, in fact, committed by the same person?

I await your opinions with great interest.

Wagstaff

[Limehouse]

Hi Wagstaff,

Great post. With reference to how certain I am that the murderer was a suspect already mentioned here - well I don't go for the 'glamorous' suspects such as Sickert, Royalty or suchlike so I am 89% certain that the killer was a local man unknown to us. However, I have recently been taken by arguments and theories in favour of Thomas Cutbush.

As for whether the murders were committed by the same person - well in depends on which murders you mean. I lean towards the canonical five, but have a few small nagging doubts about Stride. I am 99% certain that Eddowes, Chapman, Nicholls and Kelly were killed by the same person. I don't believe Emma Smith or the torso victims were victims of 'Jack' and I am unsure about Tabram and the two ladies killed after Kelly.

[DarkPassenger]

About 60% sure the killer is someone we do not know. 39.9% sure he is in the suspect list, and .1% sure his name is actually Jack Ripper.

[mariag]

Funny you should say that about the name, DP.

I've had a suspicion for a while now, that I've posted before about the killer's name.


Of the named suspects the only one I have and credence for is Cutbush. I don't think there's any doubt that he was a paranoid schitzophenic. I have some experience with this through a relative who has had the disease for over 30 years.

One of the things that these people do is to look for "clues" to verify their delusions. If Cutbush heard God or whoever urging him to rip up women, the very fact that his name was CUT BUSH may have seemed like an omen to him ( assuming of course that the word "bush" had the same idiomatic meaning in the LVP that it does now). He would have seen it as an affirmation that he was indeed chosen to do this work.

It's a little thing but it nags at me.

[kensei]

I'd say I'm over 90% on all of the C5 as well as Martha Tabram being the work of one man, and more than 50-50 on many of the other possible victims both before Tabram and after Kelly. I would even assign some small percentage to the torso victims, for the simple reason that it's difficult to conceive of more than one such monstrous aberation occurring in the same place at the same time, even in crowded London. Serial killers, thankfully, are very rare.

On suspects, the question reminds me of the Michael Caine Ripper movie in which Abberline seems to assume that the killer must be one of the people he's met during the course of his investigation. There's a high likelihood that JTR has never been named- what percentage I couldn't guess. I reject most of the suspects most often named, but some of the lesser known ones intrigue me, William Bury and James Kelly to name two. (Though I realize that neither of them could have killed all the victims I alluded to above.)

[DarkPassenger]

It's never clear why he ripped them up - I agree, looking at the evidence, that sexual gratification for once seems a little too obvious and not in keeping with the mutilations. I would probably go for delusional psychosis.

[Mascara & Paranoia]

I think Jack was a complete unknown (to us). The suspects are good for conspiracy theories and romanticizing the case or for pure coincidences (which the JtR case has scores of), but realistically I think the killer was most probably a local man.

As for the motive, I can think of a couple but the most likely one:

It's easy to find the sexual component to the murders but thinking outside that particular box, all the victims (aside from Mary Kelly) were in the same age group as to be possible 'mother figures'. Now think of the organs taken away by the killer; uterus and womb. They're reproductive organs. Eddowes' kidney, assuming the Lusk letter was genuine, could've been taken for the purposes of frightening and/or antagonizing the vigilance committee for making his work a little bit harder (and botching one or two 'jobs' up; I think Chapman's murder was the only clean kill that worked as closely to how he anticipated). I'm not sure whether for sure Kelly's heart was actually taken or not.

I don't like settling for clichés, but the 'Jack had an abusive prostitute mother' is a good plausibility. Going by witness descriptions of the men (probably different, but remember Jack must've had more than one pair of clothes) seen in the victims' company on the night of their murders, the majority are half their age.

[FutureM.D.]

?

As far as the victims go I think we can be certain beyond any reasonable doubt that Nichols, Chapman and Eddowes were done by the same hand. I don't know how so many people still believe that Stride was a Ripper vicitm, and how so many believe Kelly was not; particularly given the self-contradicting logic that is applied. "Of course Stride was a Ripper victim, he was simply interrupted by Diemschulz and didn't have time to mutilate!" (Then with the next breath) "Kelly couldn't possibly be a Ripper victim because she was SO mutilated and it took so much time that it must have been more personal!" By these standards the only true JTR victim must be Nichols, because every single victim was mutilated more then the one preceding them (excluding Stride in this arguement). If someone does know of one please correct me, but I have been unable to find a single instance in which a jilted lover has killed his lover, spent a prolonged amount of time butchering them and then posed the corpse to shock those unfortunate enough to find it (something he seemingly did with the others as well). Not to mention we're talking about an area, all be it a very crowded one, that is the same size as Vatican City. It's a stretch to believe that a seperate sexual sadist was living in the area, who a: kept relatively the same day, time and time span between killings as the Ripper b: had (despite kellys age) the same victim base c: cut the throat in the same manner and d: eviscerated, mutilated and removed organs from the victims; lived in the same area as the Ripper. And yes, he more than likely killed more than the cannon.

As far as suspects go, take your pick between any white male between the ages of 25 to 35 5'5 170lbs with a moustache and dark(er) complexion, with a history of sexual and physical abuse, abscent father and history of mental illness in Whitechapel. And SOLELY based upon the ethnic composition of the area, most likely an Eastern European Jew.

P.S. can someone explain to me how a repeat killer who mutilates, the face, breasts and genitals of women and only women, is not sexually motivated in this act?

Please forgive my rant, but I had to get this off my chest

[kensei]

Hello Future M.D.

I agree with your main points- these were indeed sexual lust murders, and it is unlikely that more than one such aberant predator was on the loose in the same place at the same time. I also agree that Mary Kelly was indeed a Ripper victim.

I disagree with you however on Liz Stride. I think the Double Event hypothesis holds together quite well. I visited London three months ago and did a very thorough solo Ripper tour, and as the Stride location to Mitre Square took me a brisk 14-minute walk I found that there was no problem chronologically, plus the descriptions of the suspects by the witnesses Schwartz and Lawende are quite similar, basically a man in a dark overcoat and a "deerstalker" or "peaked" cap (same description given by Elizabeth Long in the case of Annie Chapman).

[D.B.Wagstaff]

Thanks, for the replies - they provide food for thought. Personally, I don't think it's likely Jack (as we call him) is a known suspect and I think the C5 were probably (but not certainly) the work of the same killer, but it gets pretty iffy after that.