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I’ve been rereading an essay by my friend John Hainsworth about M.J. Druitt and it has somehow got me rethinking the Sadler affair, and its potential importance in understanding the theories of Anderson, Macnaghten, and others.
It seems to me that Scotland Yard’s belief in Sadler’s guilt in the Coles and (possibly) Mackenzie cases (as indicated by the Macnaghten memo and Swanson’s protracted interest in the drunken sailor), might equate to a caveat in regards to the Druitt and Kozminski theories.
Let me explain.
If Scotland Yard deeply suspected Sadler of having killed Mckenzie and Coles (and some senior officials apparently suspected this) it would put them in an awkward position legally.
Prosecutors fear one thing: alternative theories.
Yet, any potential prosecution of Sadler for the Coles and Mackenzie cases would be on dangerous footing as long as there was still a theoretical murderer on the loose called “Jack the Ripper.”
Why? Because Sadler’s defense team would be able to quickly prove that Sadler was NOT ‘Jack the Ripper'---for the simple reason that he was in the Mediterranean in the Autumn of 1888.
Thus, after 1891, the ghost of Jack the Ripper had to be ‘laid to rest,’ in order to successfully implicate Sadler in the latter crimes. On an emotional level if nothing else.
And lo, both the Kozminski and Druitt theories seem to have risen, spectre like, out of the events of 1891. Indeed, the timing has always struck me as oddly fortuitous.
So, in brief, the Sadler affair not only put Scotland Yard into a position of having to come up with a credible solution to the crimes of 1888 , but a solution wherein the suspect would have been necessarily unavailable to have committed the attacks on Mackenzie and Coles----if not, the Sadler defenders had a very credible ‘alternative theory’ at their immediate disposal: namely, don’t even think of pinning these crimes on our bloke, you lot, for it was surely Jack the Ripper still roaming the streets of East London.
Of course, I’m overstating the principle for rhetorical effect, but the belief in Sadler’s guilt could have been a conscious (or subconscious or merely emotional) factor in the subsequent rise of the Druitt theory. Less so with Kozminski.
Or so I theorize.
RP
It seems to me that Scotland Yard’s belief in Sadler’s guilt in the Coles and (possibly) Mackenzie cases (as indicated by the Macnaghten memo and Swanson’s protracted interest in the drunken sailor), might equate to a caveat in regards to the Druitt and Kozminski theories.
Let me explain.
If Scotland Yard deeply suspected Sadler of having killed Mckenzie and Coles (and some senior officials apparently suspected this) it would put them in an awkward position legally.
Prosecutors fear one thing: alternative theories.
Yet, any potential prosecution of Sadler for the Coles and Mackenzie cases would be on dangerous footing as long as there was still a theoretical murderer on the loose called “Jack the Ripper.”
Why? Because Sadler’s defense team would be able to quickly prove that Sadler was NOT ‘Jack the Ripper'---for the simple reason that he was in the Mediterranean in the Autumn of 1888.
Thus, after 1891, the ghost of Jack the Ripper had to be ‘laid to rest,’ in order to successfully implicate Sadler in the latter crimes. On an emotional level if nothing else.
And lo, both the Kozminski and Druitt theories seem to have risen, spectre like, out of the events of 1891. Indeed, the timing has always struck me as oddly fortuitous.
So, in brief, the Sadler affair not only put Scotland Yard into a position of having to come up with a credible solution to the crimes of 1888 , but a solution wherein the suspect would have been necessarily unavailable to have committed the attacks on Mackenzie and Coles----if not, the Sadler defenders had a very credible ‘alternative theory’ at their immediate disposal: namely, don’t even think of pinning these crimes on our bloke, you lot, for it was surely Jack the Ripper still roaming the streets of East London.
Of course, I’m overstating the principle for rhetorical effect, but the belief in Sadler’s guilt could have been a conscious (or subconscious or merely emotional) factor in the subsequent rise of the Druitt theory. Less so with Kozminski.
Or so I theorize.
RP
Sink the Bismark
Cheers RJ
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