Could we prove any suspect guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt?"

[Jonathan H]

To Mr. Holmes

If you mean a 'credible suspect' from the point of view of evidence which could stand up to either science or in a court of law, then nobody is a credible suspect. There is no such evidence against anybody now, and perhaps not then either -- at least not after Druitt coolly took his own life.

On the other hand, from the point of view of historical methodology [provisional] arguments can be mounted for the probable guilt of certain police suspects because of what those policeman, who were there, claimed about them.

Since those significant police figures mostly chose different suspects, then that leaves two possibilities; they were all wrong, or one was right and the others wrong. A comprehensive theory has to plausibly explain why the other police were mistaken or did not agree.

For example an argument like this:

Sir Robert Anderson, the dedicated, pious and incorruptible head of CID, is likely to be the best source, and his opinion is backed by Donald Swanson, the modest, dependable operational head of the case.

Sure, Sir Melville Macnaghten (who was not there in 1888) did not agree with their choice of 'Kosminski' but he seems to have been misinformed about his own preferred suspect, Druitt, so that makes him, arguably, a less reliable source. Scoffing field detectives such as Abberline and Reid were not privy to the closely held knowledge about the Polish Jew suspect, and so their dismissals of this suspect can in themselves be dismissed.

This nutshell summary above can all be countered (Anderson thought his suspect was deceased whereas Macnaghten knew 'Kosminski' was still alive; Anderson mistakenly thought his suspect was 'safely caged' after 'mere weeks' on the prowl, whereas Macnaghten arguably knew it was a long, long time before he was sectioned) and the veracity of such alternate, competing arguments -- or lack of -- is in the eye of the beholder.

I argue that Montague Druitt is the best Ripper suspect, unlikely as he seems, because claims about his guilt apparently came from his own lips. The family of lawyers and doctors judged him not to be delusional but 'Jack', as posthumously did an MP, the people he told, and Sir Melville, a police chief. They had familial, class, and institutional prejudices-pressures to get the deceased Druitt off the hook, and yet each judged that they could not.

He was 'Jack'.

Could all these different people have been mistaken?

Sure, but that also seems unlikely.

Also, Druitt has nothing to do with 'anatomical knowledge' and Macnaghten made no such claim in his memoirs.

Also, the timing of Druitt's suicide was excruciatingly inconvenient -- eg. embarrassingly it did not fit -- as the murderer probably killed McKenzie (and maybe Mylett and the Pinchin St. Torso?) and, as late as Feb 1891, Frances Coles. The latter was thought by certain police (arguably Swanson) to be the true, final victim of Jack the Ripper.

When Mac found Druitt in 1891 his self-murder was too early. It would mean that poor Mary Kelly, all the way back in Nov 1888, was the final victim of this murderer. As he writes in his memoirs, they had been chasing a phantom (whom he 'laid' to rest).

Some will never absorb the notion, explicit in the primary sources of 1888-1889-1890-1891 (and Mac in 1914), that the timing of Druitt's suicide cemented the canonical victims and not the other way round.

[Sherlock Holmes]

MJD was very briefly a surgeon in training before becoming a barrister. So briefly he didn't say so on his resume (therefore it's unlikely you'll find anything saying so)

Regards
Holmes

[Phil H]

MJD was very briefly a surgeon in training before becoming a barrister.

Can you please provide a source for that assertion please.

Phil H

[Jonathan H]

To Holmes

It has been speculated that Druitt was briefly a medical student. But there is no surviving evidence that he took a medical course.

Nor does Sir Melville suggest such a thing in his memoirs.


Another poster is completely misleading you.

It has been known since 2008 that belief, rightly or wrongly, in Druitt's guilt did not originate with Sir Melville Macnaghten in 1894, but in Dorset in 1891 where some members of the Druitt family still lived.

Belief in his culpability leaked from members of this [Tory] family to the local Tory MP Henry Farquharson. He told so many people that it leaked to the press -- who trod carefully because of the libel laws. It is a compelling theory that he is the unidentified source of Mac's 'private information' (they were both upper class members of the ruling elite, and Old Etonians).

Two days after the MP story broke, Frances Coles was murdered and this seemed to well and truly dispose of the politician's 'doctrine'. Instead a local journalist asked him if he still adhered to his theory, in the wake of another 'Jack' murder, and he was adamant -- the fiend was long dead and could not have killed Coles.

Within seven years when this story was reshaped and relaunched to the public by impeccable writers with top police contacts as the 'drowned doctor'; apparently the police now agreed with the MP (by then dead) that the Ripper had taken his own life in late 1888 and Coles was not a Ripper victim, and never thought to be except by the tabloids.

Do not be misled.

Druitt as a suspect began before Mac, as the latter admitted in 1914.

The timing of his self-murder was initially inconvenient, humiliatingly so, hence the need by Sir Melville to hustle the Edwardian public with the institutionally, self-serving propaganda that the 'police' knew, at the time, that Kelly was the final victim -- and knew at the time that the dead Ripper was fished out of a river just before he could be arrested.

I urge you to check out 'The West of England MP -- Identified' on the dissertations section.

[Phil H]

It has been known since 2008 that belief, rightly or wrongly, in Druitt's guilt did not originate with Sir Melville Macnaghten in 1894, but in Dorset in 1891 where some members of the Druitt family still lived.

But Jonathan - MJD is and has been a "suspect" ONLY because he was mentioned by MM.

YOU may wish to believe that you have found MM's source - you MAY have - but suspicion on the part of his family does not make him a contemporary suspect until he is mentioned by police.

Given your expertise on Druitt I am grateful for the clarification on the surgical/medical point.

Sherlock Holmes - Jonathan is VERY eloquent and very determined in his Druitt theories, but that is all they are at this point - HIS THEORIES.

Phil H

[Jonathan H]

To Phil H

That's all wrong.

Belief began with his family, who were later shielded as 'friends' for public consumption.

A person does not have to be a suspect in a crime only when a police-person jots it down?

Of course Sir Melville agreeing with what others were already asserting gives it an official imprimatur (though Farquharson was technically an officer of the state too).

But here comes the rub.

Montague Druitt was never a 'police' suspect; he was the suspect of a policeman, Sir Melville Macnaghten from 1891.

But there is no evidence that his identity was communicated to any other policemen, or to the Home Office.

Hence Abberline's and Reid's and Littlechild's puzzlement, or scoffing or outright dismissal of the alleged 'drowned doctor' solution, and dismissed as a press beat-up, eg. by Sims.

In Sims we see that the 'friends' of the 'doctor' conferred with the cops after the asylum veteran vanished, and before he was fished from the Thames. In reality, I believe the older brother conferred with Mac over two years later ('some years after ...')

The overall is that the family 'believed' and it was the MP's posthumous 'doctrine' and the police chief's posthumous certainty about 'that remarkable man'.

Plus, it is not my theory -- it's that of a police-primary source who was there (there in 1891, to investigate when the 'secret information' first surfaced in Dorset).

[Phil H]

I know how fervently you uphold your conviction - and I respect that, Jonathan.

But many people may be suspected privately of many things - without any evidence. I'm sure the police, in any murder enquiry receive many tip-offs from private individuals about people of whom they are suspicious - neighbours, family, colleagues etc etc. But that does not mean they are REAL suspects, nor that the police do not dismiss most out of hand or with minimum enquiry.

The fact is that without MM's memorandum we would not know of Druitt and he would not be a suspect in this case. the press pieces about the MP have always been there, but were not regarded as important.

It remains the fact that there is not a SINGLE SHRED of real evidence connecting Druitt to the murders - all is hearsay and circumstantial. Nor is there a single fact about his life that unmistakeably points to his having murdered anyone.

Finally, MM's motives in writing his piece are unknown and at this stage unknowable. We know he got this facts wrong but we don't know why - was it his reliance on memory or something more devious?

We know he suspected Ostrog and described him in terms that were inappropriate and wrong.

If MM was seeking to deflect attention either from a potential police embarrassment (Cutbush - who is himself a suspect); or from some more "political" issues (Balfour's assassin) then it calls into question his belief in the three suspects he names - he drew them from thin air it would seem. Kosminski - whom he knew to be in Anderson and swanson's sights; Ostrog (a name he had perhaps heard of vaguely as wanted); and a third who might fit the requirements - MJD; all to deflect attention from Cutbush (prima facie given his opening remarks).

No, I don't see a case to regard Druitt as a suspect that is credible nor demonstrable except by unsubstantiated theorising. For the same reasons, I doubt Kosminski unless more information emerges.

You may well be right, but not IMHO opinion on the basis of what we know now and not on the vague maunderings of a back-bench MP.

Phil H

[mklhawley]

The fact is that without MM's memorandum we would not know of Druitt and he would not be a suspect in this case. the press pieces about the MP have always been there, but were not regarded as important.

I don't get it. Here's a guy (MM) who was privy to the entire Whitechapel murder file and all of the evidence that we today do not have access to -including the police during the murders-, and you just outright reject him. Maybe the reason why they were lost then and we are lost now is because of rejecting the thoughts of the one man in the perfect position and at the perfect time to figure it out. ...and I'm a Tumblety guy!

Sincerely,

Mike

[Phil H]

I certainly DO NOT reject Macnaghten. I have consistently taken the stance that we cannot reject what he says precisely BECAUSE of who he was and where he sat.

BUT - he made mistakes, and his three suspects don't add up for the reasons I have given. His motivations are also impenetrable AT THIS STAGE.

What I have done is what any reputable historian would do in regard to evidence/sources. I have studied it critically (in the literary sense, not the negative) and set out my concerns with the conclusion that Druitt be put on a back burner until and unless more information becomes available.

I have over the years posted a good deal on MM and Druitt - I was once a Druittist myself in the 70s. I also hold MM in high regard. But it is clear that we cannot simply accept what he says at face value, any more than we can what Anderson and Swanson said, given what we know.

Phil H

[Jonathan H]

That's all wrong too:

If we only had the MP stories that would still be a suspect to those in-the-know, we would just not have his name or a police assessment of its viability.

Mac came to the Druitt tale late and the drowned barrister never became a 'police' suspect.

Yet he committed himself to this suspect for the rest of his life.

The MP stories were only refound in 1991, 2008, and 2011. Farquharson was only identified in 2008. These are not sources which appear in nearly all secondary sources -- nor do, in some, Mac's memoirs!

Farqhuarson is not vague, it is that the newspapers reporting his tale had to be circumspect for fear of libel.

Just because we have no evidence which connects Druitt to the murders does not mean that Sir Melville did not, let alone the killer's own family.

Especially since no case needed to be mounted against Druitt as he was beyond earthly justice.

'Kosminski' and Ostrog probably came from Mac to Anderson as the former knows that he was alive, and long at large before being sectioned.

Ostrog he knew was not really a doctor but a thief who feigned mental illness -- and who had stolen from his beloved Eton -- so what does that tell us about him supposedly thinking Druitt was a medico too?

In his memoirs he dumped those sidekicks completely -- they are nothing.

We have caught up with him about Ostrog and, arguably, Aaron Kosminski too.

You have every right to say you know more than a primary source who was there, but it's a big call.

Druitt, unlike 'Kosminski' and Ostrog, begins in the extant record prior to the Mac Report(s).

[Jonathan H]

Plus, he wrote the Reports because of the Cutbush near-scandal in 1894, and the Dorset tale might spill out again.

[Phil H]

Yet he committed himself to this suspect for the rest of his life.

So where did Balfour's assassin come in and why did MM mention him?

It is, you know, quite plausible that MM "invented" a suspect (based on some flimsy tittle-tattle) so he had something to talk about if asked by his cronies - and which would avoid him mentioning a more sentive suspect 9whomever that might be).

For that matter, the whole thing could have been a sustained joke at the expense of Anderson (though I doubt that).

At the end of the day no one can point to a single indisputable fact linking Druitt to the crimes - we are entirely reliant on MM's words. YET MM gets things wrong and his other two suspects don't add up to much (as far as we know). So why should we place any faith in his views on Druitt?

Just in case there is any misunderstanding - Druitt, Kosminski and Ostrog must remain suspects because they were named as such by senior figures at the time - but i do not see them as strong candisates unless or until more information becomes available.

Phil H

[Iain Wilson]

Just in case there is any misunderstanding - Druitt, Kosminski and Ostrog must remain suspects because they were named as such by senior figures at the time - but i do not see them as strong candisates unless or until more information becomes available.

Too true.

The fact that they were mentioned by a senior police source (however (un)reliable he may have been) means that they have to be considered suspects, and this lends them more credence than other candidates that people have screamed "RIPPER!" at over the years.

However, unless we can dig up some more compelling evidence (and people who devote themselves to this pursuit deserve to be applauded) they have to sit - as Phil put it - on the back burner.

[mklhawley]

Too true.

The fact that they were mentioned by a senior police source (however (un)reliable he may have been) means that they have to be considered suspects, and this lends them more credence than other candidates that people have screamed "RIPPER!" at over the years.

However, unless we can dig up some more compelling evidence (and people who devote themselves to this pursuit deserve to be applauded) they have to sit - as Phil put it - on the back burner.

I certainly agree with this Iain, and the recent discovery of the Tory MP Henry Farquharson's comments falls quite nicely into Jonathan's conclusions. To me, that's impressive to see new information support an older idea.

Sincerely,

Mike

[Jonathan H]

The theory that because Mac seems to play around with data depending on his audience -- and the drowned doctor is just as much like Tumblety and/or Dr. Jekyll as Druitt -- means that he is an unreliable source is fair enough.

I respect that theory.

The reason I disagree with it is because Druitt, though un-named, appears in the meagre extant record as a Ripper suspect predating Mac's interest in him.

As Mac admits in his memoirs; eg. the source for the public under his own name wherein he arguably does not get things wrong about Druitt.

Poor Dan Farson fruitlessly trekking through outback Aussie towns for his 'holy grail' source to 'prove' Druitt's guilt -- a cousin source which never existed -- while the more ruthless Tom Cullen simply used a McCormick hoax (about Backert claiming the police were stood down after Druitt was fished from the river) to bridge the sympathetic obits. of 1889 with Mac's certainty in the 'Aberconway' Papers of 1894 (or 1898). But it was false.

Yet there was a bridging sources in the extant record, the articles referring to the 'West of England' MP, but you needed the time and the resources to find them, and reporters working to tight deadlines often do not have either.

The un-named Druitt emerged suddenly in 1891 out of Dorset among 'his own people', as Mac writes in his memoirs (though the location is with-held).

That predates Mac.

It emerged once and so it could do so again -- and perhaps did so with the 'North Country Vicar' of 1899. But Mac via Griffiths got in first, and then Mac via Sims quashed the clergyman for good.

The Balfour element is arguably a red herring and a dead end.

Sir Melville Macnaghten never thought that the Ripper was a terrorist or the leader of an Irish plot, and the one secondary source which claims that he did is extremely weak and unconvincing for reasons already outlined -- and which you have ignored.

Historical methodology teaches us that lone sources -- especially secondary ones -- which go strikingly against the grain of all other primary sources, on an aspect or issue, are to be treated with great scepticism.

Of course you're an ex-Duittist are you not, to use a vulgar term (it's really just being a Jack the Ripperist) so it's a bit like the problem with ex-smokers?