Criteria for plausibility

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Fish, that was a nice long post. I'm not sure what you were going on about though. I think the original question would be on what grounds SHOULD a writer name a suspect, and on what criteria would he be a viable suspect, versus a Van Gogh kind of thing, which based on the feedback the author has received, is not considered by many Casebookers as being viable.

I personally think Charles Cross is a more viable suspect than Michael Ostrog, but would also have to concede that Michael Ostrog was a near contemporaneous suspect, whereas I've seen no proof that Cross was. I would put Cross about in the same category as Hutchinson. Both were witnesses who are now viewed by suspicion by modern commentators. The difference is, there's a rather wide agreement in the field that Hutchinson was suspicious, to one degree or another, whereas there's an equal amount of agreement that Cross did not in any way behave suspiciously.


As for your contention that a suspect should be linked to specific 'murder spots', then you've once again got Hutch, along with Barnett, Le Grand, and a host of others.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Simon Wood]

Hi Lynn,

A very nice analogy. The pieces from five or more jigsaw puzzles all mixed up in one box.

Hi Tom,

The Easter Bunny is a more viable suspect than anyone thus far named.

Regards,

Simon

[Michael W Richards]

I personally think Charles Cross is a more viable suspect than Michael Ostrog, but would also have to concede that Michael Ostrog was a near contemporaneous suspect, whereas I've seen no proof that Cross was.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Hi Tom,

Just a semantic point on the above....anyone at liberty in London was more viable than Ostrog because we now know that he was in jail at the time of the murders. Who was named in contemporary terms means very little without evidence to support the claim.

That he was named even though incarcerated seems to indicate that some "named" suspects were mere guesses, not the result of evidence obtained through investigative efforts.

Cheers Tom

[Fisherman]

Tom W:

" that was a nice long post. I'm not sure what you were going on about though."

Then I will explain it to you! I think that people´s personal preferences will govern what they deem good criteria of plausibility, meaning that the thread won´t take us anywhere practically speaking, whereas I think there is every reason to believe that we do not necessarily have to settle for merely a theoretical discussion about plausibility levels. There is useful, tangibale evidence, directly connected to the murder cases - instead of a connection to the very differing hunches of the different policemen involved - that we can look at instead.

"I think the original question would be on what grounds SHOULD a writer name a suspect, and on what criteria would he be a viable suspect."

It would! Which is why I said that you chose useful criteria. But the approach as such is a bit lofty, as far as I´m concerned; that was what I tried to convey in my post. Plus, of course, when we try to do it this way, we will - instead of opening up new possibilities and areas of research - minimize the focus. And that is only good as long as it works. Problem is, it has not worked the last 124 years, has it? And one of the reasons would be that this suggested approach of yours actually disregards a guy like Lechmere.

" I would put Cross about in the same category as Hutchinson."

I would do that too, practically speaking. They are the same type of bid, but one good and one bad such.

"The difference is, there's a rather wide agreement in the field that Hutchinson was suspicious, to one degree or another, whereas there's an equal amount of agreement that Cross did not in any way behave suspiciously. "

Ah - but that is about to change, I think. Anyways, NONE of the people that have been chosen as candidates because they were "suspicious" have proven applicable in the end, in spite of all that hard work that has gone into researching them.
But Lechmere is another thing! For here, research HAS turned up that he used an alias. Research HAS turned up that the murders were strewn around paths he would arguably have used on a daily basis, more or less,. Research HAS turned up that he was a societal descender, coming from a rich family, and quite possibly feeling justified to harbour a wish to get back at the low-lifes among which he lived his life. Etcetera.

When it comes to Hutchinson, not a iota has surfaced - if we are to listen to the so called Hutchinsonians. If you listen to me, however, it is practically proven that Toppy was the witness, meaning that we know a lot about the man - nothing of which is even remotely suspicious.

So the two may well have been looked upon the wrong way in both cases. The "suspicious" guy was seemingly the good guy, whereas the "good" guy was quite possibly the one that SHOULD have been suspected!

"As for your contention that a suspect should be linked to specific 'murder spots', then you've once again got Hutch, along with Barnett, Le Grand, and a host of others."

... none of whom can be even loosely connected to more than one site at best, whereas Lechmere ticks the Tabram box, the Nichols box, the Chapman box, the Stride box, the Kelly box, the MacKenzie box and the Pinchin Street torso box. I make that seven, just like the deadly sins ...

All the best, Tom!
Fisherman

[TomTomKent]

I had no idea this thread would cause this kind of discussion. I expected a few people to point out where I was rong, nudge me in a more sensible direction and be done. Four pages later Im impressed at how much more sensible the rest of you are than me...

[Fisherman]

I´d protest against that view, TomTom - the thread is a perfectly sensible one, and one that must be perused every now and then. I only try to point to the circumstance that we have, over the years, more or less forgotten that we may try a strictly practical approach to the identification matter at times. If we never try to make use of the evidence in that fashion, we will potentially miss out very badly on useful opportunities to find our man.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Wade Aznable]

Jonathan,
thank you very much for your kind and extensive explanation, I'll get all 2012's Ripperologist as soon as possible to see the original material.

Wade

[Wade Aznable]

TomTom,
I actually found this thread and your question extremely useful. Actually, it was a question I myself have been asking myself for a while, especially when I stumble upon something I do NOT like in the field - Masonic Conspiranoids, Vincent Van Sloughs, Star Lautrekkers and Walter Scarpettas. Come to think of it, there's a lot I don't like!

The "plausibility" criteria you and others listed in this thread make a suspect much more serious than others. For instance, as far as I'm concerned, and to mention two of the people who wrote in this very thread, Tom Wescott's and Fisherman's suspects (who, if I remember properly, are respectively Le Grand and Cross/Lechmere? I apologize if I'm mistaken), in my view are both really, extremely plausible suspects, regardless of my personal opinion - and of my personal "suspect".

Sorry for the ranting and the double post!
W

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Fish. Our exchanges have merely proven what we and everyone else already know. It's fair game when it comes to suspects! I was merely posting where I think one should start. As for this approach 'not working after 124 years', I'm not sure what you mean, unless all the police suspects have been proved innocent, ala Ostrog, and me none the wiser. I should also point out that Le Grand wasn't known to be a police suspect until I started looking at him and other researchers got on the chase, and this was very, very recent, proving there's more to learn about suspects out there. My point is NOT that people like Cross shouldn't be looked into...they most absolutely should be...I think the question is should we call them a suspect, let alone dub them the Ripper, before the research is done?

Hi Wade, good to meet you. And yes, you seem to know your stuff.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Fisherman]

Tom W:

"Our exchanges have merely proven what we and everyone else already know. It's fair game when it comes to suspects!"

It is!

"As for this approach 'not working after 124 years', I'm not sure what you mean, unless all the police suspects have been proved innocent, ala Ostrog, and me none the wiser."

What I meant was actually something quite different: that nothing much has been dug up and presented adhering to any of the police suspects that really would make me raise an eyebrow. Simon Wood put it differently on another thread when he said that no contender had the upper edge on the Easter bunny so far ...

I would not go as far myself, but I WOULD state, one again, that going by your criteria would let Lechmere slip under the radar, and on HIM much has been dug up that is of very great practical applicability, as opposed to the rest of the bunch.

"I should also point out that Le Grand wasn't known to be a police suspect until I started looking at him and other researchers got on the chase, and this was very, very recent, proving there's more to learn about suspects out there."

I know that, Tom, and I agree - there IS much to learn about the people of that age and place.

"My point is NOT that people like Cross shouldn't be looked into...they most absolutely should be..."

You know I agree on that score.

"I think the question is should we call them a suspect, let alone dub them the Ripper, before the research is done? "

"People like Cross", you mean? But there are no other people like Cross - he is an individual, and each claim for suspect status must be treated individually and not as a matching against criteria like the two you suggest. And in Cross´case, he is - as far as I can tell - way ahead of for example Le Grand. You´re the doc when it comes to our Danish marauder, but I feel pretty sure that you cannot tie him to seven murder spots in the way Cross/Lechmere can be tied! Nor can you place him alone with one of the victims. You can of course point to the fact that he changed names, but in all honesty, I think that by 1888, Le Grand would have forgotten what he was called in the first place

I don´t know exactly what kind of interest the police took in Le Grand, but if you allow me to take a shot, my guess would be that they looked at his past, realized that he had been dealing with prostitutes and seemed willing enough to apply violence, and therefore the cops would have felt a need to look into him. Taken together with his masquerading as a private eye in the Ripper case, I´d say that was enough to raise suspicions.

You have more on him, I realize that, but is it of any real weight? We shall see! I am going to sponsor you by buying the book, so I feel at liberty to demand useful goods when it comes to Le Grand.

Finally, I do hope that you are not of the opinion that I have dubbed Lechmere the Ripper at this stage. I have not. I have just gone over the evidence and found something that may well point to guilt on his behalf, something that has not been picked up on before as far as I know.

I´m anxious to hear what you have to say about it. Maybe you will elevate Lechmere to suspect status even, who knows?

All the best, Tom!
Fisherman

[curious4]

To Wade

What I meant was that 'Aberconway', the nickname for the unofficial version of Mac's Report, or memo-- so named after Lady Christabel Aberconway, his daughter who preserved it -- was mostly, though not entirely published in 1965 by Tom Cullen in 'Autumn of Terror'.

It took until a recent issue of 'Ripperologist' magazine for the entire source to be published, though the relevant sections had been available for decades. Nevertheless, the full version contained bits and pieces which were also pertinent -- and arguably backed my 'case disguised' theory.

The filed, official version of Mac's Report, which is significantly different, first appeared in 1966 in Robin Odell's 'Jack the Ripper: In Fact and Fiction'. At least the relevant sections about the suspects.

In 1975, Don Rumbelow gained access to the complete version of this source and published it in 'The Complete Jack the Ripper', an excellent work -- which openly wondered in what order these two, non-identical twins were composed?

Part of the entrenched, arguably redundant, paradigm is the assumption that 'Aberconway' is a rejected draft and the official version is Mac's considered and definitive opinion. That the official version was known to other senior police figures.

There is no evidence for this assumption. It is a long-standing inference, not unreasonable, but which can be shown to be probably mistaken (eg. Littlechild has never heard of 'Dr D', Abberline says he knows but all of his information about the drowned suspect is wrong, Anderson makes no comment what-so-ever about Druitt yet believes in a parallel deceased suspect -- who isn't -- and so on).

More likely is that the official version was mothballed in 1894 and seen by nobody until 1966, while the unofficial version was composed in 1898 and is the definitive opinion for Macnaghten had that opinion disseminated to the public by credulous cronies (a politically bipartisan press offensive too, as Major Griffiths was a Tory and George Sims was a Liberal).

Macnaghten's chapter in his 1914 memoirs, 'Laying the Ghost of Jack the Ripper', is clearly his own adaptation of 'Aberconway' -- and therefore the de-facto third version of the same document. It is very instructive for what he leaves in and for what he leaves out, and for what he confirms and for what he debunks.

It is, in my opinion, Mac's definitive testimony about the case because, 1) it is his only public opinion under his own knighted name, and 2) because of the way it more accurately matches other primary sources than its twin predecessors regarding Scotland Yard's 1888 to 1891 Ripper investigation -- and about Montague Druitt.

Hello Jonathon,

The insanity in Druittś family seems to have been on the female side - and in women of "a certain age", so the likelihood of Druitt being affected by it seems small. Before the advent of modern medicines many women were seriously affected mentally by the menopause.

I do have my doubts about the Druitt story. If he killed himself after "a glut", why wait weeks to do it? Can we even be sure that the body pulled out of the Thames was Druitt at all. It was badly decomposed and identified only be the papers on it. And that is strange in itself - not that the body had papers on it, but that it still had a fair amount of money in the pockets after being pulled out of the river by a waterman. Any money on a corpse was generally considered a "perk of the job" - Dickens comments on the fact that anyone fished from the river generally had his pockets turned inside out. After the Princess Alice disaster, watermen were paid for every body recovered and were caught taking bodies from the beach and claiming for them a second time. Not very nice men on the whole.

Could Druitt have been a scapegoat? He seems to have been a particularly stable man. By the way, Jekyll and Hyde refers to alcoholics, not the mentally ill.

Best wishes,
C4.

[Bridewell]

I feel pretty sure that you cannot tie him to seven murder spots in the way Cross/Lechmere can be tied!

Hi Fisherman,

The evidence ties Cross/Lechmere to the place where Polly Nichols was found, because he found her. My recollection is that the links to the other sites amount to speculation based on the route he is likely to have taken to work etc.

My criteria would have to include evidential links to murders sites. Speculative links are not worthless, because they may lead to the discovery of evidence, but a speculative link should not be afforded the same value as an evidential one. There is an evidential link to only one murder site where Cross/Lechmere is concerned.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Ben]

The difference is, there's a rather wide agreement in the field that Hutchinson was suspicious, to one degree or another, whereas there's an equal amount of agreement that Cross did not in any way behave suspiciously.

Exactly, Tom.

And despite amusing proclamations that this is "all about the change", I would put all my worldly goods that it will never change, ever. The Cross theory went down very badly indeed because his proponents tried to replicate what was done relatively successfully with Hutchinson. The latter is quite simply the more "popular" and more frequently discussed person of interest for very good reason, and no succession of long repetetive posts is about to change this (almost certainly permanent) state of affairs. Contrary to a recent fascinating assertion, it is not "proven", or anywhere close to being so, that "Toppy" was the real George Hutchinson. He is a very unlikely candidate, and has always been considered so in the mainstream ever since his dubious appearance in the Ripper and the Royals. It would be interesting to see if the Toppy-touters fancy picking that fight up again on this, quite unrelated, thread!

All the best,
Ben

[Garry Wroe]

Finally, I do hope that you are not of the opinion that I have dubbed Lechmere the Ripper at this stage. I have not.

That's odd, Fisherman. I distinctly recollect your recent assertion that you were just about to place a noose around Cross's neck.

[Sally]

That's odd, Fisherman. I distinctly recollect your recent assertion that you were just about to place a noose around Cross's neck.

Hmm. Yes, I seem to recall that too. I'm waiting with baited breath for this repetitively promised revelation. Perhaps soon?

Contrary to a recent fascinating assertion, it is not "proven", or anywhere close to being so, that "Toppy" was the real George Hutchinson. He is a very unlikely candidate, and has always been considered so in the mainstream ever since his dubious appearance in the Ripper and the Royals

Really? And there I was thinking it was a done deal....

Alas for poor old Hutch, he's appears to be something of a threat to the Cross 'theory'. Will his troubles never end?