Endless Speculation?

[clair]

Given the absence of hard evidence linking any of the suspects we know to the murders, what is the probability that the real JtR was someone completely unidentified and unidentifiable?

[Oldsen]

I would say of about...

99.9999999999999999999999%

...more or less.

[Phil Carter]

Hello Clair,

Fair point indeed. An example of how little we actually DO know is the revelation in the so far little gleaned ledgers.. with the name of one "Magrath" being suspected of being tenuously linked to the murders.

Like many, I wondered...who?? Thanks to Chris and others, we know a little more about the man, but as yet, we cannot find too many links apart from the fact that he was an Irish artist. So who he knew, and what connection there was, is as yet unknown.

So your point is a valid one indeed.
One can, on the same basis ask, if JTR was a one murder person, X5, or more for one person. I have an odd feeling there is something very different about this....

best wishes

Phil

[clair]

Hi Phil and Oldsen,

According to C.J. Morley in Jack the Ripper: A Suspect Guide the list of suspects over the years is around two hundred!

As Macnaghten wrote in his Memorandum of 1894, "many homicidal maniacs were suspected, but no shadow of proof could be thrown on any one". Abberline and then ex-Chief Commisioner Henry Smith, writing in 1903 and 1910 also admitted "Scotland Yard is really no wiser on the subject than it was fifteen years ago" and "Jack the Ripper beat me and every other police officer in London...I have no more idea now where he lived than I had twenty years ago".

So chances are we (and our predecessors) have all been barking up the wrong tree, and we are (collectively) no closer to solving the mystery than we were at the start?

[Phil Carter]

Hello Clair,

Barking up the wrong tree...barking wrong...barking mad..

All theories and theorists combined could be labelled such.

I still fancy something a bit different here.. who knows eh?

best wishes

Phil

[Simon Wood]

Hi Clair,

At 21.14 PST on Monday 12th July 2010 we are closer than ever before to barking up the right tree.

Keep the faith.

Regards,

Simon

[clair]

Not a shadow of proof.

Hello again Phil,
No doubt a plausible case could be built up for your man, but all the theorizing about the identity of JtR goes from the suspect to the crimes, not the other way round. How can this method lead to anything other than a purely speculative result?

He might be Jack, but then so could at least half the population of Whitechapel! There is just no hard evidence to distinguish your suspect as the real JtR from anyone else we might put in the frame.

[Adam Went]

Severin Klosowski. There you go, just like that, case solved.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Phil Carter]

Hello Clair,

I can promise you that Magrath is not my "suspect"... because I haven't got a suspect (singular). I personally think that it looks like a 2-1-2 or a 2-1-1-1 for the infamous C5. i.e. 3 or 4 different murderers. I think that the concept of "JTR" is different. Thats just a personal opinion, without any names. As for William Magrath, relatively little is known of him, as yet.

Adam, That's a very good Tommy Cooper impersonation....

best wishes

Phil

[Abby Normal]

Given the absence of hard evidence linking any of the suspects we know to the murders, what is the probability that the real JtR was someone completely unidentified and unidentifiable?

I would say 60%. I have also wondered if he was not someone who was a real suspect but possibly a peripheral name that has come up in the many writings on JtR(such as a PC, doctor, minor witness, minor suspect, etc).

"but all the theorizing about the identity of JtR goes from the suspect to the crimes, not the other way round. How can this method lead to anything other than a purely speculative result?"


Because one can follow up on the threads that might arise from a suspect based theory that might lead to some valuable research "nuggets" and ultimately (hopefully) concrete evidence.

[clair]

Hi Abby,

I would say 60%. I have also wondered if he was not someone who was a real suspect but possibly a peripheral name that has come up in the many writings on JtR(such as a PC, doctor, minor witness, minor suspect, etc)..

Okay, but I'm just wondering what your reason is for thinking there is a 40% chance that Jack was one of the suspects we are most familiar with here, or some other identified/identifiable individual.

"but all the theorizing about the identity of JtR goes from the suspect to the crimes, not the other way round. How can this method lead to anything other than a purely speculative result?"

Because one can follow up on the threads that might arise from a suspect based theory that might lead to some valuable research "nuggets" and ultimately (hopefully) concrete evidence.

No doubt you could find some supposed links to the crime for any one of a large number of individuals, but chances are these are merely coincidental. Since the potential suspect pool is so large, it would be surprising if the method of working backwards from suspect to crimes produced even a 'shadow of proof'.