The Ripper : A Discharged Inmate Of The Asylum

[Howard Brown]

The following excerpt may be found in an article I just located...it may be worth discussing here.

The entire article may be found on The Forums :

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?p=190498#post190498

Black & White
London
October 1st, 1910
*****************

The released lunatic, under the stress of a fancied wrong or in a sudden fit of homicidal mania, has proved another object lesson in the madness of letting him loose upon the world without the slightest provision being made for that after-care which, in such cases , is of the first necessity.

There is no need to labour the point. It leaps to the eyes of every thinking man or woman.

Many of the mysterious cases that baffle our police and remain mysteries are crimes of insanity committed by lunatics who have been released from control and allowed to go at large without the slightest attempt at supervision. The whole series of Whitechapel atrocities were committed by a man who had been discharged from an asylum.

George R. Sims

[c.d.]

Professor Brown,

Haven't addressed you for a while. Glad to see you posting here. Thanks for the article. I am going to have to make it over to the JTR Forums one of these days.

c.d.

[Howard Brown]

CD:

You're very welcome ...hope it will create some discussion here.

It's interesting to read Sims, who I understand was an adherent of Macnaghten's position on the identity of the Ripper, make this statement, isn't it ?

In an issue of The Referee ( January 22nd, 1899 ) he refers to the "drowned doctor".

Yet here, 11 years later, he makes this unusual statement.

[Wickerman]

Considering Anderson's opinion was serialized in Blackwoods in March 1910, and no doubt Sims was familiar with this latest revelation, by October of the same year Sims perhaps felt this was an official consensus and could repeat what he had read?

Regards, Jon S.

[lynn cates]

Druitt?

Hello Howard. Any chance this could refer to Druitt? I think I remember a snippet/post where he was thought to have been briefly in an asylum before 1888.

Cheers.
LC

[Hunter]

Yes, it apparently was Druitt; just another piece of misinformation regarding the suicidal "doctor."

[Fisherman]

The following excerpt may be found in an article I just located...it may be worth discussing here.

The entire article may be found on The Forums :

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?p=190498#post190498

Black & White
London
October 1st, 1910
*****************

The released lunatic, under the stress of a fancied wrong or in a sudden fit of homicidal mania, has proved another object lesson in the madness of letting him loose upon the world without the slightest provision being made for that after-care which, in such cases , is of the first necessity.

There is no need to labour the point. It leaps to the eyes of every thinking man or woman.

Many of the mysterious cases that baffle our police and remain mysteries are crimes of insanity committed by lunatics who have been released from control and allowed to go at large without the slightest attempt at supervision. The whole series of Whitechapel atrocities were committed by a man who had been discharged from an asylum.

George R. Sims

There´s that in-and-out-of-an-asylum reference again. This was, according to Griffiths, Anderson´s stance, was it not - that the crimes were perpetrated by a man who was "temporarily at large".

And even if Druitt did have the odd contact with some asylum pre -88, it does not seem to be him it is spoken of here. Sounds like a much more sinister character to me - some sort of bogey man ...

The best,
Fisherman

[Hunter]

It was Druitt.

[mklhawley]

Great find Howard, and excellent replies. Love it.

Mike

[Abby Normal]

The best candidate for this would be James kelly. Eventhough he escaped just prior to the murders and not discharged. Of the viable candidates which one had just prior to the murders been in an asylum?

[Errata]

Didn't asylums shave the heads of their patients to prevent lice, etc? If I recall correctly (and I may not) it was a way people identified recent asylum releases (and released prisoners) which would make the guy somewhat noticeable until his hair grew out.

[Hunter]

Folks, read Sims' Dagonet column from February 16, 1902, transcribed here on Casebook. I'd post the link but I'm on a cell phone.

[Wickerman]

Folks, read Sims' Dagonet column from February 16, 1902, transcribed here on Casebook. I'd post the link but I'm on a cell phone.

Excuse me for stepping in...

Frequently this outburst - or, rather, this recurrence - of mania means a murder - sometimes a massacre. The homicidal maniac who shocked the World as Jack the Ripper had been once - I am not sure that it was not twice - in a lunatic asylum. At the time his dead body was found in the Thames, his friends, who were terrified at his disappearance from their midst, were endeavouring to have him found and placed under restraint again.
16 February, 1902.

I was not convinced that this was a good argument because I was not aware Sims had his facts right, had Druitt actually been in an asylum, ever?

Regards, Jon S.

[Hunter]

No, Jon. Sims did not have his facts right, but he was under the impression that the 'drowned doctor' had been in an asylum. Many of the 'facts' about Druitt, as we know, were not facts.

[Howard Brown]

Cris:
Thanks for mentioning the 1902 article which Wick posted...I had not seen that either. Without the 'drowned doctor" rigamarole, I thought that Sims might have flip flopped on the Druitt theory...considering it was put out in 1910....a few years after he began mentioning that scenario in the press.
If this was the sort of information Sims had been fed, one can imagine what Macnaghten had been lead to believe.

Mike H :
Thanks for the kind remarks.
Here I thought it was something new, but as I now see, Sims had mentioned both the released lunatic and drowned doctor in one place....the article Cris mentioned.