Did Jack the Ripper even exist?

[perrymason]

Dude.. Its no use arguing with them. It appears they think they are smarter than the average homicide detective. Or even the above average homicide detective. Or even MacNaghten!

You can be assured MacNaghten was using the correct methods of detective work when he first determined and then proclaimed there were only 5 murders and 5 only that are attributed to JTR.

Heres Macnagten at his best...and its solely based on speculation written when the murders were occurring....because he wasnt assigned until 1889......

"I have a very clear idea who he was and how he committed suicide..." (Daily Mail) and "Although...the Whitechapel murderer, in all probability, put an end to himself soon after the Dorset Street affair in November 1888, certain facts pointing to this conclusion, were not in possession of the police till some years after I became a detective officer." (Days of My Years, 1914)".

He does everything but say Montague Druitt....and the only evidence that links him to the crimes are hints his family thought so by investigators notes...and that he killed himself weeks after the last Canonical death.

I would think its in anyones best interest to evaluate the Canonical Group based on "evidence that links"...not opinion that suggests.

When you can answer what the actual evidence is that was used by Macnagten and Bond to conclude that Liz Stride was murdered by the man that killed Polly, or the one that killed Annie...or the one that killed Kate or Mary....then you will be the first in history to do so.

Best regards

[Mitch Rowe]

MacNaghtens opinion on a suspect doesnt really matter. Just like Abberlines opinion. They didnt know so they filled in the blanks themselves.

As far as the physical evidence that links the crimes it is very simple You just start figuring out what the chances are that two specific events could happen with two different killers. Now the chances that two murderers are going to cut completely right round the neck. Two killers are going to leave two notches in each victims neck. And that two killers are going to remove three flaps of belly skin from each victim is soo astronomically high that when these three clues are multiplied by each other I say it becomes impossible to conclude that AC and MJK were not killed by the same person.

No one has ever challenged Pollys inclusion so I wont say anything.
Eddowes has not been challenged either.

Stride was killed abt 45 minutes before Eddowes and since no one has challenged Eddowes inclusion then one must conclude it is 99.999% probable that Stride was killed by JTR.

So far I havent heard a single credible argument concerning Stride that has even come close to discounting Stride on the basis of the physical evidence.

[perrymason]

Stride was killed abt 45 minutes before Eddowes and since no one has challenged Eddowes inclusion then one must conclude it is 99.999% probable that Stride was killed by JTR.

So far I havent heard a single credible argument concerning Stride that has even come close to discounting Stride on the basis of the physical evidence.

Thats quite a statement, since all the physical and circumstantial evidence suggests she had one of two arteries severed completely, she may have been cut while falling, she has a witnessed altercation almost on her murder site 15 minutes before she is found, and she is on her side, without anything being disturbed since she was "lain gently down"...in a yard that has been testified as empty since 12:40am.

Your first statement is about how I envision the police must have concluded she was a Ripper victim, retroactively, after they had some proof the Ripper killer was likely out that particular night, with Kates murder.

There is not one single shred of evidence that ties Elizabeth Stride to any Canonical Victim other than she died by knife after midnight and she was a homeless that night...(by choice that night,...she had earned doss that afternoon),...Unfortunate. The only "link" is the one you mentioned...she was killed on a Ripper night.

Cheers Mitch

[Cap'n Jack]

I wouldn't cheer Mitch, I'd rather boil the idle fellow's head in a bucket of water.
Talk about drowning in your own vomit.

[Mitch Rowe]

The only "link" is the one you mentioned...she was killed on a Ripper night.Cheers Mitch

She was killed 45 minutes before Kate. Soo.. regardless of ANY physical evidence the chances that she was killed by someone other than the same person who killed Eddowes is VERY VERY slim indeed. I belive there is more corroborating evidence to include Stride but it need not be mentioned as the timing says it all.

[Tom_Wescott]

Michael,

What evidence did Bond and Macnaghten use to conclude that Polly, Chapman, and Eddowes were slayed by the same hand? I'm you would agree this is just as important and vexing a question, if not moreso, since at least one of Bond's colleagues (Phillips) saw good reason to believe that Eddowes was slain by an impostor.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Cap'n Jack]

You'll all be perfectly aware then that a man called Johnson was charged with stabbing two unfortunates in the space of a few minutes the night before the attack on Stride and Eddowes?

[Mitch Rowe]

You'll all be perfectly aware then that a man called Johnson was charged with stabbing two unfortunates in the space of a few minutes the night before the attack on Stride and Eddowes?

And the point? Are you saying this man Johnson killed Stride or Eddowes? Or that johnson was only guilty of one of the murders he was accused of?

The fact is if you walk into a convenience store and see two people dead by murder you assume they are connected unless evidence proves otherwise.

So far I have heard no one say that the first attack on world trade center was actually an accident as first assumed and that the second attack was actually an attack but unrelated to the first accident.

[Sam Flynn]

She was killed 45 minutes before Kate. Soo.. regardless of ANY physical evidence the chances that she was killed by someone other than the same person who killed Eddowes is VERY VERY slim indeed.

I once worked out the odds to be of the order of tens of thousands to one. Sounds scary, but you'll find scarier odds in a poker game, or at a lottery draw - yet people still win.

The average human brain is too-readily thrown by large numbers. The mind is optimised for handling ordinary, day-to-day information, so something "extraordinary" can distort our perception and make that something appear to be significant. It might not necessarily be the case, however.

For example, interplanetary distances seem absolutely huge to us, but they are mere baby-steps compared to the distances of interstellar space. Even these are dwarfed by the distances between galaxies, and these appear minute when one considers the distances between clusters of galaxies.

It's precisely the same issues with "bigness" that cloud our judgment of the likelihood of events - double, or otherwise - and it is because of this that we are too easily swayed by the "Coincidence Imp" (to borrow Bob Hinton's nice image from another thread).

[Mitch Rowe]

I hear ya Sam!
There are more similarities that can also be plugged into the formula if one wishes to argue the matter. Anyone has any right to challenge anything in these cases. The "evidence" is so scant and unreliable I fear almost anything could have happened.

If indeed Stride was not JTRs victim then Eddowes is probably the key. If JTR is showing us who these women are to him then he is showing something different with Eddowes. My reasoning is that JTR was interrupted and that Eddowes was just a stand in for Stride. Simple enough. But not so simple when Stride is eliminated. Something is wrong with Eddowes situation.

Since Polly is probably JTRs first victim I dont give much credit when establishing a pattern for JTRs behavior. On the other hand when I look at Annies and Mary Janes murders I see clear patterns emerging.

If Phillips says something is different when compared to AC or even MJK or even some points about Pollys death then Im inclined to agree.

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

And the point? Are you saying this man Johnson killed Stride or Eddowes? Or that johnson was only guilty of one of the murders he was accused of?

I think AP:s point is quite clear, although your rather limited analysing skills seem incapable of grasping it. Namely that coincidences do happen.
And believe you me - since I started researching murder cases I have come across much stranger coincidences than the ridiculous "45 minutes" you seem so eager to put forward as proof.

Fact remains, as Michael says: Stride "only" had her throat cut and in a less severe manner, and regardless of any explanations you try to create for it, she lacks the other hallmarks of the Ripper. The only reason to include her in the canon is that she was an unfortunate (one of a thousands) and murdered the same night as a Ripper murder took place. If the Eddowes murder hadn't happened, sahe wouldn't have been considered a Ripper victim more than Sarah Browne was.

I am prepared to give Stride a benefit of a doubt and I admit I go back and forth in deciding to include or not including her, but I find your rather arrogant, ascertained approach - stating her inclusion in the canon as a fact - rather questionable and hard to take seriously.

All the best

[Mitch Rowe]

I think AP:s point is quite clear, although your rather limited analysing skills seem incapable of grasping it. Namely that coincidences do happen.
And believe you me - since I started researching murder cases I have come across much stranger coincidences than the ridiculous "45 minutes" you seem so eager to put forward as proof.

Fact remains, as Michael says: Stride "only" had her throat cut and in a less severe manner, and regardless of any explanations you try to create for it, she lacks the other hallmarks of the Ripper. The only reason to include her in the canon is that she was an unfortunate (one of a thousands) and murdered the same night as a Ripper murder took place. If the Eddowes murder hadn't happened, sahe wouldn't have been considered a Ripper victim more than Sarah Browne was.

I am prepared to give Stride a benefit of a doubt and I admit I go back and forth in deciding to include or not including her, but I find your rather arrogant, ascertained approach - stating her inclusion in the canon as a fact - rather questionable and hard to take seriously.

All the best

Ok then.. Find out why JTR switched gears. My "arrogance" is precisely so because the facts support them. By not including Stride as a JTR victim one is ignoring the facts and continuing on a hunch. Thats all it ever will be. Whats so arrogant about that?

[perrymason]

Michael,

What evidence did Bond and Macnaghten use to conclude that Polly, Chapman, and Eddowes were slayed by the same hand? I'm you would agree this is just as important and vexing a question, if not moreso, since at least one of Bond's colleagues (Phillips) saw good reason to believe that Eddowes was slain by an impostor.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Hi Thomas,

Its a vexing question is right, and by your phrasing its clear that you cannot see physical evidence within those 5 murders that would lead to such a conclusion either.

We have a type...an Unfortunate. Now that we've narrowed down the potential targets to around 35,000, how do we know which Unfortunates Jack actually kills? Or does he kill them all? Well...no...not unless the killer who killed and chopped up a woman in August of 1888 was also him. And hes not 3 or 4 men, so that rules him out for Emma,....he cuts women open in their midsections once they are lying down and mortally wounded by severe throat cuts,...doesnt sound like Marthas killer to me....and the same Canonical co-conspirator Bond thinks Alice should be excluded because her killer didnt show anatomical knowledge or knife skills.....

That 2 Unfortunate murders happened that night is rare, they didnt have 730 Unfortunate murders happening annually there...but there were also non-Unfortunate related knife attacks that same night.

So other killers are attacking/killing Unfortunates with a knife staring as early as the Spring of 88 and may have continued doing so right up until Polly is murdered. That changed the killers profile, thats a new entity.... and if you remove Liz Stride from a Canon she cannot be proven to be a part of anyway, you have three, consecutive, increasingly invasive and abdominally focussed attacks.

Since there is no evidence that links all 5 to a single killer, shouldnt the ones that most obviously share motivations and methods be linked before even considering which of the murders missing those elements still may have been him anyway?

And for the record, Im not 100% myself on Kate either. Way too many cops in that story.

Best regards Tom

[Cap'n Jack]

'Wouldn't you say that the greatly increased police presence in the area for 4 months of 88 means you would expect to see a FALL in the numbers?'

Well CB, the police officer in charge of the Suffolk prostitute murders has just admitted that by increasing police numbers on the streets of Ipswich during the spree killings he actually encouraged more prostitutes to walk the streets as they felt safer with the increased police numbers... three more were to die after that.

[perrymason]

'Wouldn't you say that the greatly increased police presence in the area for 4 months of 88 means you would expect to see a FALL in the numbers?'

Well CB, the police officer in charge of the Suffolk prostitute murders has just admitted that by increasing police numbers on the streets of Ipswich during the spree killings he actually encouraged more prostitutes to walk the streets as they felt safer with the increased police numbers... three more were to die after that.

I think also relevant AP, unrelated to the increased police numbers was the fact that social reformers like Charrington had seen to the closing of some 200 brothels during 87 and 88..more women were on the streets than in previous years by essentially their eviction from safe houses.

I forget...was it Anderson who suggests locking up all the prostitutes at a certain hour for their own protection? I had a good chuckle at that one. Lock up the victims so the streets can be clear for the killer to roam and find some new victim category to abuse.

Best regards AP