How the Ripper could have died

[RavenDarkendale]

I suppose "how JtR died" would depend which suspect you support. Many we know when, where, and how they died. But perhaps he was someone nobody suspects?

It would be just desserts if JtR had been killed by one of the "unfortunates" he preyed upon. Wouldn't that be both ironic and dramatic?!

Picture this: Jack chooses his target and takes her to a desolate spot. The usual positioning and preparation for the act take place. Jack then places his knife to the woman's throat. She whips aside, snarls, "Oy! Not this girl, guv'ner! 'ere, take this you -----!" She stabs him repeatedly. Sadly, this did not happen...

[Phil H]

Alas Raven, it has to be consigned to the same bin as

Jack was an alien

Jack was a time traveller

Jack was [van Gogh - or insert the artists' name of your choice]

And Jack was Jill

Jack was the Loch Ness monster, and:

All five women were killed by a single hand

Shame really.

Phil H

.

[Phil H]

Perhaps - but not necessarily. She may have let her killer in, if she knew him. She may have left the door on the latch - she was apparently drunk after all; Blotchy may not have shut the door properly when he left, etc. - numerous possibilities. [My emphasis.]

Yes possibilities. No more than that, and all require us to accept coincidence, etc etc.

Just as acceptable to say it was someone she knew and trusted - Fleming (if you are so sentimentally attached to Barnett) - he was ksaid to abuse Kelly either physically or verbally, but she still saw him.

The differences between the MJK killing and the other Ripper murders (excluding Stride, whom I surmise was also killed by a different hand) are legion. None of the others were indoors, the mutilations are different (not just greater) the attack appears to be more personal; there are enigmas over the fire; and the time of death. I have mentioned already the question of access and egress.

I am completely happy with you having your own views, but please don't use them to try to replace mine. parallel them, if you will. I will bow to fact, not opinion.

Phil H

[RivkahChaya]

Well, the title isn't "This is how JTR died," it was more, here's a possibility. I lean toward the "He isn't any of the major suspects, and may be someone we've never heard of," although I'm not married to that, and won't bat an eye if someone finds definite proof for James Kelly, or Nathan Kaminsky/Aaron Cohen. I might have a party, but I won't bat an eye, if you get the difference.

It was just an idea. I cook a lot from scratch-- real scratch, not mixes-- because we are vegetarians, and keep kosher, and I'm the main cook in the house, and I nick myself pretty regularly, even though I have pretty good hand-eye coordination, and an no one's definition of a klutz. I just got to wondering how it was that JTR managed not to nick himself, and then wondered if perhaps he did, and what that implied, in terms in 1880s medicine.

I mean, maybe someone is going to find out that Prince Eddy didn't actually die as a result of the influenza pandemic-- rather, he had sepsis after cutting his hand, umm, somehow, battled it for a long time, but eventually developed pneumonia, and died. The doctor wrote influenza, because the family thought there'd be talk of some kind, even if they weren't sure what. I'll be eating crow in that case, because I've always said that anything involving royals is automatically crackpot and wrong.

That last paragraph isn't to be taken seriously. But, it's also possible for someone to have had a bad infection from a cut, and eventually recovered, or had an amputation.

But saying "That depends on who he is," is certainly true, and I'm not one for begging questions; however, if anyone happens to come across a record of a death from sepsis after a knife cut around Dec. 1888, of someone in London, I think it would be worth finding out where that person was during the previous fall.

[Sally]

Yes possibilities. No more than that, and all require us to accept coincidence, etc etc.

Well yes, obviously, since we don't actually know what happened.

Just as acceptable to say it was someone she knew and trusted - Fleming (if you are so sentimentally attached to Barnett) - he was ksaid to abuse Kelly either physically or verbally, but she still saw him.

Agreed - and I'm not attached to Barnett by the way, sentimentally or otherwise. I like facts myself, and the facts are that he was interrogated, had an alibi and was cleared of any suspicion. That's all.

The differences between the MJK killing and the other Ripper murders (excluding Stride, whom I surmise was also killed by a different hand) are legion. None of the others were indoors, the mutilations are different (not just greater) the attack appears to be more personal; there are enigmas over the fire; and the time of death. I have mentioned already the question of access and egress.

But with respect, Phil, other than the indisputable fact that Kelly was killed indoors and the others weren't, the rest is a matter of opinion insofar as whether those differences that you see hold any particular significance. In other words, is the relationship causal? Or casual? We can't know for a fact, so must rely on personal opinion.

I am completely happy with you having your own views, but please don't use them to try to replace mine. parallel them, if you will. I will bow to fact, not opinion.

I'm not trying to replace anybody's views, Phil - I'm simply expressing my own, always led by the facts. I have no personal commitment to any suspect or theory whatsoever, but I can and do apply logic and look for hard evidence to support my views.

[Sally]

I suppose "how JtR died" would depend which suspect you support. Many we know when, where, and how they died. But perhaps he was someone nobody suspects?

Good point Raven. I suppose I was assuming this was a speculative thread based on the premise that Jtr is still undiscovered.

Of course, he/they may not have died at all - at least, not directly after Kelly. If for example the victims were the consequence of conspiracy, no death would be necessary to explain the end of the murdering.

[RivkahChaya]

None of the others were indoors

I think it's easy to overemphasize the significance of this. It is possible that JTR didn't know Kelly had a room when he approached her. He may have been prepared for another street killing, and had a sudden change of plans upon finding out she had a room, and was willing to take him there. It could be entirely coincidental that Kelly was killed indoors.

The fact that Kelly had a room, and the other woman did not, I don't think, can be fairly figured into the killer's MO, since we don't know if he knew that, in any of the cases, whether we are talking about one killer or two. To say that MJK's killer knew she had a room, and therefore must have known her, is question begging.

[RivkahChaya]

I suppose I was assuming this was a speculative thread based on the premise that Jtr is still undiscovered.

That was my intent, but I thought I didn't need to state it, since obviously, if he was known, then we did know how he died. But I did say "Could have died," not "Did die."

Like in the GSG thread, where the OP asks everyone to assume that JTR did write the graffito. I'm participating in that thread in good faith, even though I don't think the killer, whoever he was, did write it.

This thread has gone in another direction, which is fine with me. I thought maybe if I put the idea out, someone might know something specific, or have access to hospital records, and find something, but I guess not. Most ideas aren't going to pan out, but negative results are still results.

[Phil H]

I mean, maybe someone is going to find out that Prince Eddy didn't actually die as a result of the influenza pandemic-- rather, he had sepsis after cutting his hand, umm, somehow, battled it for a long time, but eventually developed pneumonia, and died. The doctor wrote influenza, because the family thought there'd be talk of some kind, even if they weren't sure what.

Why pick on poor old, well-meaning Eddy?

Even if he did die of a blood-disorder it does not connect him to JtR - so why mention him?

I'll be eating crow in that case, because I've always said that anything involving royals is automatically crackpot and wrong.

As i commented in an earlier thread, the royal family were quite comfortable with euthanasia in the case of Eddy's brother George V. That was an assisted death, illegal and involved killing the King, so probably constituted treason! Yet the royal family did not make it a state secret and it emerged quite naturally 20 or so years ago from the papers of the royal physician, Lord Dawson. Some of the same people were involved (Queen Mary had been Eddy's fiancee). So if no big deal in 1936, why in 1892?

Compared to Eddy, his father, the Prince of Wales lived from around 1860 until his accession, a highly dissolute life, had multiple mistresses, was lampooned in the continental press and appeared in court in a divorce and gambling cases. No one bumped him off, no one killed those he consorted with. Even mentioning a royal conspiracy is IMHO almost equivalent to saying one is insane.

The royals ARE capable of being ruthless, in their way (as the treatment of Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson demonstrates) but neither Edward nor his wife were killed despite the embarrassment they caused and their almost-treasonable activities during the war. They were shunned.

So no, in my view (and I have studied this in some depth) if the royals had put Eddy away they would have been neither secretive about it, nor murderous. His nephew, Prince john, who was epileptic, lived apart from the family for many years until his death in (I think) 1919, on the sandringham estate. He was a loved member of the family, had personal difficulties, and was known about - though, in the convention of the times, not mentioned in the press. I my view, had it been necessary, something similar would have been done with eddy - but he died, conveniently.

Phil H

[RivkahChaya]

Wow, you are really literal.

[Phil H]

I just regard the "royal conspiracy theory" as so much unsupported bilge, that I'll try to knock it down whenever it raises its head!!

Phil H

[RivkahChaya]

I just regard the "royal conspiracy theory" as so much unsupported bilge, that I'll try to knock it down whenever it raises its head!!

Phil H

I totally agree; that's why I used that example, because I figured anyone who knew anything would figure that it was tongue-in-cheek.

However, in your knocking, if you get a spare, I'll try to pick up the last pin for you. Just let me know.

[RavenDarkendale]

Alas Raven, it has to be consigned to the same bin as

Jack was an alien
.

Considering the definition of the word "alienist" he might just have been an alien, that is, mentally ill. And the popular view that "he had to be a foreigner, no Englishman would commit such a crime" would also label him "alien".

All five women were killed by a single hand

Shame really.

Phil H

.

I have always found it amazing that there are so many questions as to how many victims there were. Officially, MacNaghten says, Five and five only, preceding to name the five canonical murders: Polly Nichols, Anne Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Cathrine Eddows, and Mary Jane Kelly. But some say four only, dismissing Elizabeth Stride, and some say six and include Martha Tabram. (This is my view). Some add even more, one before Martha Tabram, Emma Smith, and at least two-- usually Alice MacKenzie and Francis Coles after Mary Kelly.

[RivkahChaya]

I have always found it amazing that there are so many questions as to how many victims there were.

That's nothing. No one knows how many victims the Zodiac had, because in one of his last letters, he said he was going to continue to kill, but not label his victims anymore, and there's no way to know whether he carried out that threat, plus, there is an early murder victim very much in the style of two of his later victims, who police "credit" him with.

Also, the "Boston Strangler" was probably a myth. There were two very distinct sets of stranglings happening in the Boston metropolitan area (which is very big and densely populated), which had little in common, other than the victims lived alone (at least, for the time being-- IIRC, one was a widow, still in the apartment she had shared with her husband, and one was a young woman between roommates), and appeared to have let the killer into their apartments willingly. The stranglings didn't happen over exactly the same time period, but they overlapped. Plus, there were three deaths that were different, but were included: one was the rape of an old woman who had had a heart attack during the rape, and two were women who were raped and stabbed, one who was also badly beaten (and had the look of "domestic" all over it, if you ask me).

Albert DeSalvo confessed to the stranglings as part of a plea bargain, when he was actually under arrest for something else. It was an idea that originated with his highly overrated attorney, F. Lee Bailey, the man who squandered all the public sentiment in Patty Hearst's favor, and got her sentenced to 35 years for bank robbery.

Henry Lee Lucas topped them all, though. When he should have been on death row, he sat in relative comfort, and minimal security, in Texas, of all places, where his sentence had been commuted (if you know anything about Texas, you know that a Texas commutation is about as rare as a New Yorker without an opinion) so that police all over the country could come and have him confess to open cases, just so they could close the books. He confessed to over 300 murders, but no one is actually sure he killed anyone; at most, he was responsible for an accidental death, and illegal disposal of the body thereafter.

[Cogidubnus]

Numbers...

So how many killing's did Harold Shipman accumulate...He was convicted of 15, but 50? 100? 150? 200? 250? 300? The more you look into it, the more the numbers burgeon...In many respects he makes JtR look like an amateur...and nobody is really sure why...yes there are a few cases where greed provides a clue, but many, many, more where that motive is lacking...

All the best

Dave