Jacob Isenschmid's alibi

[Dan McKee]

Has anyone attempted to poke holes in Jacob's Isenschmid's otherwise watertight alabi for the latter murders? The reason I ask is because, if the murders were committed by the same man and if the witness descriptions amount up to anything at all then Mr. Isenschmid sounds as credible a suspect as anyone I've come across. If only it wasn't for his ironclad alibi of being institutionalised at the time.

[Scott Nelson]

Lynn Cates wrote on Issenschmid, essentially saying he could have killed Nichols and Chapman. It was in a past issue of the Ripperologist magazine (sorry I don't have the number).

[seanr]

You may be interested in this article I found where one of Ischenschmid's descendents did some research into him and his later life, if you haven't seen this before: http://ftfmagazine.lewcock.net/index...ripper-suspect

You may also be interested to learn the pub his wife claimed he drank at, but the landlady denied knowing him (and also denied anyone ever drank in her pub but regulars she knew, so he couldn't possible have been there) was the City of Norwich. Ran by Frederick Gehringer, who was probably the father of Frederick Gehringer, lodging house keeper and 'some sort of crime lord'. It's possible the landlord also kept lodging houses as I've found a reference to him owning 18 George Street in 1886 and selling it to Daniel Lewis. 18 George Street was the house Emma Smith was staying in when she was murdered. She was murdered on the street corner next to the City of Norwich.
Martha Tabram was murdered in a street directly in front of the City of Norwich. Tabram was staying at 19 George Street when she was murdered.

I consider the possibility Isenschmid was involved in the Gehringer criminal gang, if the gang in fact existed.

[Dan McKee]

You may be interested in this article I found where one of Ischenschmid's descendents did some research into him and his later life, if you haven't seen this before: http://ftfmagazine.lewcock.net/index...ripper-suspect

You may also be interested to learn the pub his wife claimed he drank at, but the landlady denied knowing him (and also denied anyone ever drank in her pub but regulars she knew, so he couldn't possible have been there) was the City of Norwich. Ran by Frederick Gehringer, who was probably the father of Frederick Gehringer, lodging house keeper and 'some sort of crime lord'. It's possible the landlord also kept lodging houses as I've found a reference to him owning 18 George Street in 1886 and selling it to Daniel Lewis. 18 George Street was the house Emma Smith was staying in when she was murdered. She was murdered on the street corner next to the City of Norwich.
Martha Tabram was murdered in a street directly in front of the City of Norwich. Tabram was staying at 19 George Street when she was murdered.

I consider the possibility Isenschmid was involved in the Gehringer criminal gang, if the gang in fact existed.

Would a gang allow someone as unstable as Isenschmid to be a member? His wife makes him sound utterly bonkers.

[seanr]

I don't have much to really think that Isenschmid was part of the Gehringer gang, I've not even been able to find definitive proof to satisfy me there definitively was a Gehringer gang, although credible historians have suggested there was.

But there a few weird things I mull over, in addition to the first two murders (Smith, Tabram) being so close to The City of Norwich and the possible connection of Gehringer to the lodging house on George Street which, if true, had recently been sold by Gehringer to Daniel Lewis.

Isenschmid seems to have had two nicknames, 'The Mad Pork Butcher' and 'Leather Apron'. The 'Leather Apron' may have been what he called himself to the women (I think likely the prostitutes) of Holloway, I'm not sure if they called him that or he told them he was the Leather Apron of Whitechapel. If it's the second, then maybe this is quite threatening behaviour towards the women. Might also be akin to go around saying 'I'm Jack the Ripper, I am' and some sort of harmless but disturbing mental delusion.
I'm not sure who called him 'the Mad Pork Butcher' but this name is either one of total derision or a gang epithet of one's violent reputation - like 'Mad' Frankie Fraser.

The second point I wonder about, Isenschmid had the habit of declaring himself 'the King of Holloway'. An absurd name to call oneself and again, perhaps a harmless delusion. Yet I'm struck by the tale about Gehringer which Fiona Rule relates, that Gehringer used to have himself carried around his lodging houses in a sedan chair, a totally mad image to me but also similar in grandiose behaviour to be a King. Perhaps Isenschmid was in fact modelling himself on behaviour he had observed and admired from a gang leader.

Those two are weak musings, which I simply wonder about. This third point is, to me, much stronger. Mary Isenschmid told Sqt Thick that Jacob regularly drank in Whitechapel at a pub run by Gehringer, the name in the records was related slightly wrong, but the identification is accurate enough and Thick knew which pub it was from this description. I am inclined to believe Mary Isenschmid. She can't have made up this detail and she must have got the name from somewhere.
Yet Mrs Gehringer denies knowing Isenschmid. She even goes one further and states that only regulars drink in the pub, implying she knows everyone who drink there and Isenschmid cannot possibly be one of them. If I believe Mary Isenschmid, what Mrs Gehringer says cannot possibly be true. I find the point about only known people drinking in the 'public house' implausible.
Thick then interviews several Germans he knows in Whitechapel (and by Germans, do we in fact mean German gang members known to Thick?) all of whom deny knowing him.
It is like a gang clamming up and refusing to co-operate, even as the police are searching for a man in connection with some horrible murders.

A potential point against is in trying to research German gangs, I came across details of the 19th century Ringvereine gangs, who would probably refuse to co-operate with the police on anything.

Nonetheless, I don't believe Mrs Gehringer and I do believe Mary Isenschmid which leaves me to wonder, why did Mrs Gehringer deny all knowledge or even the potential to have knowledge about Isenschmid?