Is Jack someone we have never heard of?

[HelenaWojtczak]

Does anyone else on this forum believe that Jack the Ripper could be someone who has never been identified, named, suspected or written about?

Helena

[Steven Russell]

I think that's quite likely. Or certainly as likely as any of the named suspects being the Ripper.

Best wishes,
Steve.

[martin wilson]

More than likely,and he died unmarried and childless,no diaries,letters,memories handed down through the generations, a nobody who no one noticed and made nothing of himself,apart from leaving an astonishingly baffling case.
All the best

[Fleetwood Mac]

Does anyone else on this forum believe that Jack the Ripper could be someone who has never been identified, named, suspected or written about?

Helena

Logically, it's likely that he hasn't been named.

Looking at all of the suspects, there is not much of anything to actually connect them to the crimes, beyond personal views based on second hand stories, so the chances are that they didn't do it.

The only suspects that are connected, some of these being loosely connected, are:

1) Kosminski - ID'd.
2) Grainger - caught red handed in the area.
3) Sadler - a good suspect for a Ripper like murder.

I personally would like to know more about Grainger, and I'm curious as to how many other women were attacked with abdomen targetted after his detention at Her Majesty's pleasure. Would also like to know more about Sadler and Cutbush.

But, really, at this juncture, only Kosminski is a good candidate, assuming you have faith in the authorities, i.e. Swanson and associates. So, one person versus a teeming mass of people?

[Limehouse]

I think this is very likely. I feel strongly that the killer was someone who knew the area well, was able to blend into the background but also able to engage the women and gain their trust. I think these factors, and that he was able to strike and depart so swiftly are the reasons why he was never caught.

[Esther Wilson]

I think it is very likely as well.

[HelenaWojtczak]

What a shame that "person unknown" isn't an option on the casebook poll?

Here is the poll:

http://www.casebook.org/suspects/suspect_av.html

Maybe "person unknown" would have come top, or near the top?

Helena

[Phil H]

I agree that a person unknown is quite likely. (To the extent that we are talking about the man who killed at least Nichols, Chapman and Eddowes - I believe now that both Stride and Kelly were probably killed by other hands.)

We seem to have reached an impasse on the named police suspects: Druitt, Kosminski and Ostrog - with them either ruled out or questions about their validity as suspects and the motives behind naming those men are now equally questionable given the evidence we have.

I do think - given that both Swanson names Anderson's "Ripper" as "Kosminski" (without using a forename but with quite a lot of circumstantial detail) that more may remain to be discovered about who/what they meant. I think that as Martin Fido speculated years ago, there may have been some misunderstanding or confusion - or more than likely that we are somehow not reading what is said correctly. My current thinking is that "Jack" was someone similar to (if not actually) Aaron Kosminski.

None of the other leading suspects persuades me, either those mentioned at the time or since. I do see some merit in the current discussion of a Irish/Fenian link/involvement, in which case the Kelly murder might be linked

As others have said, we may now never know - although I think somewhere in the records of workhouses, the police or Special Branch, a hospital or similar archives, there may be clues. Recall what Mr Rumbelow unexpectedly came across not so long ago. As happened in 1988 (with the photos) maybe one day a purloined Met Police suspect file will be returned to the National Archives that will shed some light in an otherwise unseen corner, or as with Tumblety a hitherto unmentioned name. we know that there were many more files than now remain, we know many were there until the 1980s than now remain - so there may be hope.

But on balance, I think Jack was and will remain an unknown.

Phil H

[HelenaWojtczak]

Hi Phil

If one man didn't kill all the victims, there must have been several men roaming the streets slashing and eviscerating women. I suppose this has been discussed ad nauseum on other threads, but it still amazes me that this can be the case.

Helena

[Rubyretro]

Does anyone else on this forum believe that Jack the Ripper could be someone who has never been identified, named, suspected or written about?

Helena

I think that it's a very good option..certainly 'unknown' is up amongst my favourite suspects.

However, these were crimes committed in the open air (except Kelly), and where there are people coming and going. In each case there are witnesses
in the pertinent time frame.

I believe that witnesses are notoriousy unreliable, nevertheless the chance has to remain pretty good that 'Jack' is someone who's name or description is known to the case.

[Phil H]

Well, Helena,

We know there was at least one "domestic" on the night of Stride's murder (which I increasingly believe was also a "domestic").

The "torso murderer was active, and (if different) whomever murdered the possessor of the "Pinchen St torso". Was there perhaps some rivalry or competition going on?

Then we have the non-canonicals like Tabram, McKenzie and Coles - so others are often accepted as having murderous thoughts in the same time-frame.

I don't think that the idea of the "Ripper" being concocted by the press is entirely to be dismissed. Even the police may have got caught up in the same assumption. Some suspects may have been written off because they could not have killed one of the women - Barnett say - which was taken as exhonerating him from all.

It is why I don't entirely rule out Lechmere for three of the deaths. (Not that I am arguing that he is my suspect - before the Spanish Inquisition fall on me!). I don't have a suspect, I just try to keep an open mind.

Phil H

[Fleetwood Mac]

We know there was at least one "domestic" on the night of Stride's murder (which I increasingly believe was also a "domestic").

Just out of curiosity, how many 'domestics' happen out on the street?

I'm amazed by this line of thinking.

The number of murders in Victorian London were few. It would be a fair old twist of fate in the event two murderers were operating within half an hour of one another in the same area: considering the number of murders in London in that period.

It may be a tantalising clue in that he may have been going home. It seems to be accepted that his lust wasn't satisfied and he sought out another victim. It isn't necessarily so. He must have had a lot of fruitless nights, so he was capable of calling it a day.

[Wickerman]

Does anyone else on this forum believe that Jack the Ripper could be someone who has never been identified, named, suspected or written about?

Helena

I'm aghast, we appear to have a consensus on something!
Well done you've actually found something we can all agree on.

I think it also shows that the well known and well worn suspect list does not include one convincing theory to identify Jack the Ripper (hint, hint)

Yes, he is still out there, lurking in the shadows, forever to remain a nameless shapeless figure..

Regards, Jon S.

[Barnaby]

I will spoil the consensus mainly because I hate the idea that we all might agree on something.

I will give the police and a century of Ripperologists a bit of credit and speculate that maybe the Ripper's name appears somewhere on these boards. And I find it a bit disconcerting that we have such passionate debate about suspects yet most readily concede that the Ripper was an unknown. Then why do we argue? What is the point?

[Phil H]

A good point, Barnaby. We would never have lighted upon Kosminski if Anderson, Macnaghten and Swanson hadn't spotlighted him. In 1888 the East End was full of Aaron Kosminski's (and even more eccentric individuals) as the surviving testimonies and reports confirm. (The question is, of course, whether the police of the day had any genuine reason for suspicion of their suspect.)

Why do we argue? because part of the attraction of the JtR case, for some (certainly for me) is the intellectual game of seeing whether the pieces of the jigsaw that remain to us, can be arranged to make some sort of picture (or part of one). I have never been a criminologist (in the sense of being interested in other cases) and the details of the murders fairly revolt me, but the challenge of trying to see through the fog and understand what happened in 1888 and kept my interest since around 1968 and in a serious(ish) way since 1972.

When I first started to read about the case (sitting under the statue of "Uncle Jack" in the reading room at the National Library of Wales), the files were still closed. There was then a reasonable expectation - especially since the Aberconway draft had been unearthed - that the files would contain a name or names of genuine suspects. That has proved not to be true. But there are plenty of other issues to be addressed and the quest has advanced our knowledge - for instance in the question of the motives and integrity of the senior police officils, which would never have been so years ago.

As to outdoor "domestics" - my meaning was that Stride was killed by someone she knew (as I think was clear).

If Kidney had been arrested and sentenced for her murder we'd accept that such a case had occurred, so why not speculate on that now, as a possibility. I like to challenge my own intellectual "certainties".

Phil H