Contemporary vs. New Suspects

[Barnaby]

Should we (at least) initially give greater weight to suspects named at or near the time of the killings? Is this a bias worth keeping? Or has it hindered the search for the Rippper?

[kensei]

In regards to James Kelly and William Bury, I would say the answer to your first two questions is yes.

[tnb]

It depends how much has passed down to us, in my opinion. For example with Bury we can see why the suspicion fell on him at the time, and it has since been shown that they felt his an unlikely candidacy. It does not appear that the contemporary police had anything more on him than we know now, and so we can make that call, one way or the other. I know Bury has his supporters still, but my point is that atleast they have knowledge of the police opinions as to his candidacy at the time on which to test their theories.

With regard to Druitt, for example, however, we have to admit that we are missing knowledge from the time - the 'private information' - and so while his candidacy on the basis of the info we do have looks very rocky, I think we have to give some weight to it on the basis that we know the police at the time took it seriously (or at least some of them), and that they did so having more information than we do.

It's a bit like Donald Rumsfield's whole thing of 'known unknowns' and 'unknown unknowns' (badly put but he did have a point). Information into Fogelma, for example, is an 'unknown unknown' - it may exist but we don't know if it did or not. Hence (in my opinion) we cannot base anything on the fact it might have. Druitt however is a case of a 'known unknown' - we know there was more, but we do not know what it was.

My point is, if Druitt had never been mentioned at the time and came along as a 'new' suspect, I think we would all throw him out pretty quickly, as the evidence we possess is pretty shoddy. However, we know there once was more, and that there must have been a reason within that for the police to take him seriously. In this case, his contemporaneity gives him a trump card. Which doesn't mean I think he was the murderer, of course!

Of course, we can't throw out all the new suspects, because it is quite possible that the murderer was completely unknown to police at the time. The problem is that almost anyone alive at the time could be guility, as we have so little to go on! Contemporary police suspicion at least acts as some degree of filter.

Kelly is a fascinating suspect, as a 'new'ly uncovered suspect but who it has since emerged was on the police 'radar' at the time - therefore we have the two 'trump' cards in one - 1) a reason, with modern critical thinking, why he could be a viable suspect and 2) a suggestion that the police at the time had similar thoughts. It is barely a hunch, but I personally feel that if we are ever to stumble upon the right name (I don't think we would ever know, or prove it, 100 percent however, anyway) it will be with someone who fits both those criteria. Although not necessarily Kelly.

[curious]

In many serial killing cases, the actual murderer has been questioned by the police, then released because they didn't think he was the killer.

I suspect that would very likely be the case with Jack the Ripper, so someone who was questioned (if we knew them all) would appear most likely to me -- just based on history as I know it.

curious

[tnb]

curious - I have to agree. That is kind of what I was getting at, that if we ever were to find some damning 'new' evidence, that looking back I wouldnt be surprised to see their name popping up somewhere. It would certainly be a strong indication we may be on the right track.

Not necesarily questioned as a suspect, but perhaps somewhere on the periphery - a name dropped a couple of times in a house-to-house record, or a rather eager witness...

Then again, that is the sort of wild surmising which leads to some, ahem, interesting Hutchison threads every now and then!