William Grainger

[Fleetwood Mac]

Hello to all.....

I'm curious.....

a) Has much research gone into William Grainger? In particular...has anything been uncovered that makes him unlikely?

b) Why doesn't he get much of a mention on this board considering what his attack and conviction?

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance.

[Adam Went]

Hey FM,

There's a section about Grainger in Stan Russo's "Jack the Ripper Suspects" book, if you have a copy? He was arrested for stabbing a woman in Spitalfields in 1895 - as we know, in those days, any such crimes were immediately met with suspicion of the perpetrator being JTR, Grainger is just one among many in that regard. According to Russo's section on him, it's never been proven that Grainger was even in London on the dates of any/all the murders, and also, that particular stabbing was quite different in it's method from the way JTR operated....all in all, just sounds like Grainger is another one of those fringe suspects that comes up now and then for being suspected as JTR by the press and a few others for similar, but unrelated crimes.

Cheers,
Adam.

[RJM]

Grainger is one of those few individuals that was known to be violent towards prostitutes, being convicted for a knife attack on Alice Graham in 1895, and serving seven years of a ten year sentence for it.

A) His whereabouts in 1888 is unknown. He is more likely to have been in Cork during 1888 than London. This doesn't help the case for him as the Ripper.

B) Not that many hard facts are known about the life of William Grainger, which somewhat limits the discussion about him. I seem to recall that Nick Connell located some newspaper articles on him, contributing to what little is known. I think Chris Scott located his correct date of birth as well. He would have been 28 at the time of the killings.

I would love to know more about him as well.

Robert

[Chris]

There's quite a bit of information about Grant/Grainger on this thread:

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=770

Regarding his viability as a suspect - on the minus side, the crime for which he was convicted doesn't appear to have borne much resemblance to the Ripper's, and Kebbel, his erstwhile solicitor and chief public accuser, got some of his basic facts badly wrong. But on the plus side, the police evidently took him seriously enough to trace his previous movements in detail, and if the Pall Mall Gazette report can be believed he was identified by a Ripper witness, presumably Lawende.