Let's narrow down some Ripper 'facts'

[Malcolm X]

Are we talking about memoirs here?

If we are talking about contemporary opinion I think we have Mrs Long's "foreigner" to thank for that, though she was not sure.
No indication from the suspect descriptions in Berner St., nor Mitre Sq.
Hutchinson could have been playing up to the already established fear, making Astrachan appear more Jewish than he really was.

Regards, Jon S.

yes, or he could have seen a foreigner only, whatever the case he definitely paints this person in a very poor light, on purpose, which is reflected in the tabloid illustrations later on.

after all, he accuses this guy of murder, when in fact, he might only have been a client.....e.g ``he did not look like someone that could kill another person``..... he doesn't say Jew, but he does say Petticoat Lane and i quote below :-

From 1882, a wave of Jewish immigrants' fleeing persecution in eastern Europe, settled in the area. The chapels, which had previously served the Huguenot community, were adapted as synagogues. Many Jewish relief societies were founded to aid the poor.[5] Jewish immigrants entered the local garment industry and maintained the traditions of the market.

so yes, his description is antisemetic and so is that Graffiti

[Malcolm X]

I agree with this. The body parts werent flung around willy-nilly. The body parts were placed where he wished to place them. Am I correct in saying the removed organs(minus heart) were all on the bed and not placed on the table? On the table was placed only flesh. Is this correct?

we used to argue about this so many times, on the table is the flesh/skin from her thighs/ her stomach, but according to others, quite a lot of flesh is missing, because that pile on the table doesn't look large enough for them.... not sure, but if so i think Bond/Phillips and also the police would have mentioned this.

[jason_c]

we used to argue about this so many times, on the table is the flesh/skin from her thighs/ her stomach, but according to others, quite a lot of flesh is missing, because that pile on the table doesn't look large enough for them.... not sure, but if so i think Bond/Phillips and also the police would have mentioned this.

Malcolm, thanks for the reply. Yes, I vaguely remember some of the old arguments. I couldnt remember what the consensus was.

[Malcolm X]

Malcolm, thanks for the reply. Yes, I vaguely remember some of the old arguments. I couldnt remember what the consensus was.

i think i used to argue with Glen Larson ? he thought that the blanket behind the flesh was her thighs and buttocks, this was years ago, Jane Coram used to post in too

[Supe]

Guys,

The argument that the roll of material on the table was flesh was advanced by Dan Norder, who must have thought Kelly had been a fat lady in a circus. He even claimed to see a vulva among the rolls and folds. Also, he said he had a team of medical experts to back him up, but amazingly Norder never seemed to have the time or inclination to post their "findings." Most everyone else, including Jane, disagreed.

I think, Malcom, you are referring to Glenn Andersson, who championed the majority opinion.

Don.

[Errata]

Well, a victim murdered in a Jewish club, Jews alluded to near to the ONLY clue ever left behind him by the killer, and the whole police divided on this very question.

That it doesn't matter in your opinion does not matter that much, then, don't you think ?

That's not what I meant. First of all, no victim was murdered in a Jewish club. Near a socialist club that was by a large majority Jewish, yes. And the fact that the police were divided on it doesn't make it significant. It just meant the police were divided on the issue.

Whether or not the killer was Jewish would have mattered at the time, when they were looking to arrest someone. If they knew he was Jewish but did not know his identity then that knowledge would serve them. It would cut down significantly on the places that he was possibly living and working. It would give them several avenues of information they could pursue, I mean, it's even possible they could line up all of the Jews of the appropriate age and sex and question them. It would take awhile, but there were maybe 50,000 Jews in the city, probably about 40k of those in the East End. 20k were male, maybe 10k in the right age range. More than three quarters of those could be dismissed with alibis for one of the murders... Okay. It would take a long while. But it was possible.

At a 130 year remove, if we knew he was Jewish but we did not know his identity, it wouldn't help us at all. While it would mean we could exclude a vast majority of the population, there would still be several thousand we could not exclude, and have no way of excluding because the records don't exist and we can't question them. Never mind all of the people who would not be excluded that we never even heard about or even know existed. If he was Jewish, it evidently did not inform his technique or his motive, so nowadays, it doesn't matter. It might have helped the cops catch him then, but it doesn't help us catch him now.

Personally, I don't think he was, but just because small immigrant populations are pretty good at policing their own, and the history of the Jewish people suggests that we are exceptional at that. I think if he was part of a tiny, tightly knit minority there never would have been a third or fourth, etc. killing. He would have been immediately dealt with. And given the amount of trouble the Jews got for these murders, there is no way even is own relatives would have tried to spare him. Especially his relatives really.

[DVV]

Hello Don

I think, Malcom, you are referring to Glenn Andersson, who championed the majority opinion.

Yes, excluding MJK from the canon was one of Glenn's pet hobbies.
A complete nonsense in my opinion, but I'm very proud to hold a copy of his book. It's wonderfully edited and illustrated, and Glenn is certainly a readible writer. Not sure I'll learn Swedish, though.

[DVV]

Errata, whatever you argue, "facts are stubborn", as Lenin would have said.
Once again, it's not about police memoirs, it's about a track that was seriously considered in 1888, and that still is in 2012 ripperology. Hence Rob's recent book, for example.

Again, the fact that he was a Jew or not has a great impact on the whole Ripper story and on how we read into events and into witnesses testimonies (Lawende vs Hutch, etc). It could explain why he was never caught (Anderson), it leads to an interpretation or another of the GSG and of "Lipski !"

Hold on and think it twice. It really matters.

Those who insist it's only important in Police memoirs or for Anderson's theory should have a look at the marginal note in Swanson's report (19 oct), and at Moore's interview 1889.

It was a serious track that wasn't based on the idea that "his people" knew but protected him.

[DVV]

And the fact that the police were divided on it doesn't make it significant. It just meant the police were divided on the issue.

The very fact that the police were divided on the issue, apparently from constables to the Home Office (see the marginal note in Swanson's report), makes it very important, I'm afraid.

[Malcolm X]

Guys,

The argument that the roll of material on the table was flesh was advanced by Dan Norder, who must have thought Kelly had been a fat lady in a circus. He even claimed to see a vulva among the rolls and folds. Also, he said he had a team of medical experts to back him up, but amazingly Norder never seemed to have the time or inclination to post their "findings." Most everyone else, including Jane, disagreed.

I think, Malcom, you are referring to Glenn Andersson, who championed the majority opinion.

Don.

oh yea that's right, sorry, so many years ago now, the trouble with his theory is, you can see the pattern on the material quite clearly, all these guys have left the forum, this arguement dragged on for ages.

Glenn was the one that said that MJK was a copycat, yes i think so, i definitely remember argueing with him, i liked him but with this theory he went off the rails a bit.

you loose a massive amount of memory when your father dies of Cancer, it knocks you for six, it's like a quiet manic depression !
you forget names, dates, the time of day, but i'm starting to recover now.

[DVV]

Yes Malcolm, Glenn was nice ("The Swedes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing", if you remember).

Sorry to hear your father has passed, mate, sincerely.

[Ben]

Unskilled does not mean without sufficient knowledge, because clearly he had the knowledge.

I'm afraid that isn't clear at all, Jon. In fact it argues against the weight of contemporary medical opinion. There's certainly no evidence that the doctors examining Eddowes' body saw evidence of surgical skill, or that they concealed it from the media in order to prevent a backlash against their profession.

You must admit the comment has no value. How could Sequeira possibly mean that the killer did not intend to take the organ? - he took it!

He said that the killer had no design on any particular organ, which means he could have been fumbling around with his hands and knife for something of interest, and came away with the uterus and kidney without necessarily knowing that they were. His comment in this regard has tremendous value as it argues the polar opposite of Brown's judgment. Drs. Saunders, Phillips and Bond (who studied the notes) agreed with Sequeira, not Brown. He wasn't making a political statement (which wasn't his concern), and any opinion proffered as to what might have been done with the organ thereafter would have been completely irrelevant to the autopsy.

You say the kidney was extracted in the "correct manner", but we know it wasn't. The easiest way to access the kidney is behind the patient or victim's back, i.e. not the way the killer went about it. It was also the quickest way, and time was very much of the essence. Even if the killer was the most experienced surgeon in the land, it would have made no sense whatsoever to fuss about protecting fatty membranes and renal arteries just because it accorded with procedure. Some will protest that the kidney is unlikely to be found by chance, but those protesters often fail to take into account the fact that he was operating in the abdominal cavity of a tiny woman. He didn't have a great deal of visceral options.

Somehow I think those are your words not theirs. There is only one tool a butcher would use, no other is strong enough, the boning knife.

But the whole point is that the killer didn't need to attack the bone itself. If he had any experience at all in butchery, he would have attempted to separate the vertebrae that are attached to the column by mere cartilage. Even I know that, and yet the killer decided to forgo this option and hack away at the much thicker bone instead. It is utterly impossible to accept that the killer could have had the slightest experience in butchery.

Didn't half the women in Whitechapel have black bonnets, black jackets and black skirts?

No, and dark attire can obviously vary quite considerably in terms of pattern and fit, and the fact that Eddowes’ clothing was dark would not prevent it from being distinctive. The fact that Lawende thought they were the same and not merely "similar" carries considerable weight, and when considered along with the location of the couple and time of the sighting, we're left with a highly probable sighting of Kelly and her killer. I don't say definite, but highly probable. Moreover, it is clear that the police thought along similar lines, with Lawende being perhaps the only witness used in subsequent suspect identity attempts. It would mean, of course, that the killer was in all probability a shabby nondescript, but that's the boring reality we should all embrace.

All the best,
Ben

[lynn cates]

not Jewish

Hello Errata. I agree that it is highly unlikely that a Jewish person would have participated in theses crimes. After all, as has been pointed out beginning in 1888, there is a strong aversion in Jewish culture and religion towards blood and mangled bodies.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

vertabrae

Hello Ben.

"If he had any experience at all in butchery, he would have attempted to separate the vertebrae that are attached to the column by mere cartilage."

Which was precisely what happened in the Chapman case. And it was 2 boning knives that Mary claimed Jacob was carrying when he wandered the streets of London.

Cheers.
LC

[Ben]

Hi Lynn,

But isn't it curious that this wasn't what happened at Miller's Court, where the killer had presumably more time and more light? If the killer had a boning knife on him at the time, the chances of failure at decapitation were nil.

All the best,
Ben