Jacob Levy updated

[tji]

Hi Dave/Greg

Errata, I agree with you wholeheartedly...it's altogether impressive...I do believe Tracy and Jimi have, between them, identified a serious ripper suspect here (one that, at the very least, should be regarded more seriously than the Sickerts, PAVs, Dodgsons, and other garbage that clutter up this site!)

This is good news, a real show stopper it would certainly be.....

I'm not sure why people are talking about courts of law and downplaying circumstance - since as you pointed out Tracy - there is no hard evidence against anyone. Koz, Druitt, Tumblety, Chapman, all a big Zero.

I don't care if we call this fellow a suspect or a person of interest, to me he's a captivating dude and one I'd like to learn more about....

Tracy and Jimi have done very well and hopefully aren't done yet..

.

Thanks guys - great posts - if I do say so myself


Tracy

[Errata]

My objections to Levy as a suspect are philosophical in nature, not because I prefer someone else, or I think Levy is innocent, or even that I think the research on him is incorrect.

I don't think Jack was ever even remotely suspected. While he wasn't the first serial killer, he was the first in what we would consider to be the modern forensic era. The police had no idea that sadists and psychopaths have a habit of injecting themselves in an investigation. A concerned neighborhood leader, a friendly guy at the bar... whatever. And Jack could not remotely function or even kill if he seemed mad. People feared the mad the way they feared rabid dogs. And some people can keep a tight reign on their crazy, but not those suffering from a physiological brain ailment, like Neurosyphilis or Schizophrenia.

But having said all that, there are some anomalies in the life of Jacob Levy. He clearly wasn't well, but he stole for no real reason, was institutionalized for a persistent condition that in him was not persistent, and his uncle clearly didn't do him any favors by ducking an identification of a Ripper suspect. Now, any number of people make a cluster of bad decisions that makes them look guilty of something they are not guilty of, but Occam's razor says that in this case, there should be a single condition that precipitates all of those decisions. In other words, what made him steal is what made him crack, and is what caused his uncle to refuse to make an identification. And yes, him being a serial killer could be that, but there are other reasons. Fear of a common threat is one (which is what made me wonder about the gangs in the area), hatred can do it (feuds especially), institutional paranoia which was pretty common at least in Eastern European Jews.

And the theft may have been an example of a well known phenomenon with people in the early stages of certain mental illnesses, but that's a whole other thing.