where do you stand?

[Phil H]

But when Macnaghten came into his post, Anderson and Swanson were still there, much more au fait with the material and the case than he - etc etc. Why give precedence to Mmover them?

As anyone who has ever worked in an office (I am speaking generally not of police work) knows, working on a case while it is in progress gives you much more colour, intimacy with the material and sense of development than can ever be achieved by anyone who comes along later.

Think of this: if the Swanson marginalia had been on the file in the 1890s in place of the MM; and if Cullen and farson had been given sight of a manuscript copy - we would have been discussing Kosminski for years.

Then, when the MM emerged in the 1980s we would have been as sceptical about that (MJD and ostrog) as some now are of DSS's marginalia.

I see no reason to rate MJD above AK (or someone of the same or a similar name)

Phil

[Nic1950]

Hi

The only suspects that I am concentrating on are the ones who died, were incarcerated or moved from the area (possible) not long after Kelly's murder. I find it impossible to believe that the murderer can just stop after Kelly, so based on that there are a few good ones to look at.
Thanks
Nic

[mklhawley]

I'll comment on two suspects, who should still be taken seriously:

Francis Tumbley –

I have more faith in Scotland Yard than many, especially at the peak of the murders in November 1888 when their investigation was more complete than at any other time prior to this. Since they were not allowed to discuss the case publically, their actions at this time speak loudly. Here’s what we do know. The only suspect Anderson ever stated by name during the peak of the murders was Tumblety, when he contacted US Chiefs of Police for anything on him. Inspector Andrews was sent to North America with Anderson’s approval specifically for Tumblety. Chief Inspector Littlechild was clearly privy to his old boss’ actions, since he stated Tumblety was ‘a likely suspect’, and we now know that Littlechild’s division was certainly involved in the Whitechapel murder investigation. We also know that Scotland Yard’s file on Tumblety began in the mid-1870s, and by 1888, the file was extensive. They knew the character of Francis Tumblety well enough to take him seriously.

More to come!


Montague John Druitt –

I believe Melville MacNaghten was in the perfect position and at an appropriate time to have reviewed the entire investigation (records we cannot see) AND to have learned through hindsight.


Sincerely,

Mike

[Abby Normal]

Pizer certainly did admit being "Leather Apron" in court, but something about the story doesn't jive for me.

If some of the police knew that Pizer was known as "LA" from the start, why didn't they say so?

Phil

They did. In a police report written on 8/31/88 and again on 9/7/88 on the polly Nichols murder they reference "Pizer alias Leather Apron".

[Phil H]

That's pretty doubtful, though. I don't actually think the killer of Coles and Mackenzie killed any of the C5, not Tabram, and I don't think there is any crossover between JTR and the torso murders.I just wonder whether Mckenzie might not have been the work of the same hand as Polly and Annie, but FRAILER - weakened or less confident - psychologically, medically, physically? Complicated by being disturbed.

The wounds remind me of Nichols' somewhat.

Phil

[RivkahChaya]

1) the three most plausible suspects (if any)?
i. Someone we have never heard of.
ii. A Jew with a name similar to "Kosminski," but not the Aaron Kosminski, about whom so much has been written.
iii. James Kelly, the one person among modern suspects who we know actually did commit a murder, and who doesn't have any glaring problems about him, like being in Scotland, Joliet prison, or dead, during the time of some of the murders.

2) which victims were"Jacks" work?
The most I am willing to say I am certain of, is that Polly Nichols and Annie Chapman were killed by the same person. Since I do not believe any of the letters are authentic, and therefore no actual killer gave himself the name "Jack the Ripper," I am hesitant to say whose victims are "Jack's." I think it is fairly likely that the person who killed Nichols and Chapman also killed Eddowes and Kelly, so I guess we can call him Jack the Ripper. Alternately, I can believe that one person killed Nichols and Chapman, and another Eddowes and Kelly, in which case, I'm also open to the possibility that the killer of Nichols and Chapman killed Martha Tabram. They can be JTR1 and JTR2. I don't think the person who killed Stride killed anyone else who is on the radar, but if he did, then it is probably just Coles and Mackenzie. That's pretty doubtful, though. I don't actually think the killer of Coles and Mackenzie killed any of the C5, not Tabram, and I don't think there is any crossover between JTR and the torso murders.

3) most plausible identity of Leather Apron who harrassed women in the area?
I don't know enough about this to comment, although in regards to it not being John Pizer, see below.

4)) which if any letters came from the killer?
None. However, I think the two sent to the Central News Office were done by reporters, and while they are not by the exact same person, they are in the same style of handwriting, so I think they were written by at least two people, together, who either worked for the same paper or news service, or had known each other for a while, maybe in school. The handwriting is similar enough, that they are probably close in age, and went to school in the same area, or else work for the same person, who wants them to write a certain way.

Pizer certainly did admit being "Leather Apron" in court, but something about the story doesn't jive for me.

I think that was a language confusion thing. He didn't realize he was being asked if he answered to the nickname "Leather Apron," and thought he was just being asked if he used a leather apron in his work, which he did. Maybe he thought he was being asked if it were somehow appropriate to call him "Leather Apron," and he said "yes," because he did wear one, and wasn't fully aware that the nickname already belong to someone notorious, and that by saying that yes, it could be applied to him, he was essentially admitting to the crimes, which he did not commit, not the murders nor the extorting of money from prostitutes.

[John Wheat]

1. William Henry Bury

2. Martha Tabram, Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Liz Stride, Catherine Eddowes, Mary Kelly.

3. John Pizer

4. None of them.

[miakaal4]

Hi All, good question this, my own response is, perhaps boring.
James Maybrick alone.
All five "known" + two others.
So many Leather Aprons around then I think several blokes.
The two "Yours truely" letters, don't know about the others.
Cheers.

[RavenDarkendale]

Three Top Suspects?

I can honestly say the probability lies that he was interviewed by the police, as many were, but not actually named by them.

That said, I always liked Druitt for the killer, but I have come to doubt it. None of the named suspects here on casebook are solid enough for me.

Victims?

Tabram, Nichols, Chapman, Eddows, Mackenzie, Coles, and possibly some who were never discovered until much later. As the killer struck in out of the way corners, behind fences and walls hiding the deed (and the prostitution) some may have lain in an odd corner only to be found after enough time that identity was impossible and even cause of death difficult. Only a possibility.

If Leather Apron wasn't Pizer, it was someone very like him

As for the letters, possibly the Dear Boss letter. The reams of other letters were done by people who just wanted to stir the muck and some were undoubtedly the work of newspaper men wishing to cash in on the murder mystery. I say the Dear Boss letter only because many serial killers contact police or papers with their stories, so perhaps one or so of the letters was actually written by JtR.

[Phil H]

Thanks, Jon. Much appreciated.

I'm afraid I left the "toff" camp years back.

If you look at the historiography of Ripper studies, there are a series of "waves":

Matters (c 1929) to Farson and Cullen (60s) - The Toff/doctors

Knight (post watergate) 70s etc - Conspiracy

1987/88 (the centenary) - Kosminski and a local man.

2000ish -celebrity suspects

Today -no one is sure/post modern deconstructionism.

Over the years I have come to perceive the "trends" in Ripper suspects as reflecting social and cultural issues of the day.

But the idea of the "toff" though visually iconic, strikes me as rather like the idea that aliens created Egyptian or Sumerian civilisation because the locals weren't capable. When in Egypt I asked local guides about the reactions to von Daniken, Hancock etc. They were all very angry at the implied insult to their own people. Half-jokingly, I think East Enders could take similar offence to the idea that an "outsider" has to come in to be the first serial killer, that he could not emerge from local alientation, urbanisation etc.

The same is true about celebrity suspects - easy for the dilettante to research because so much material exists. Much more difficult to research a member of the great unwashed. But look at the results that come from the work being done by Scott Nelson, Rob House and others on Kosminski and recent articles that have opened up new avenues of thought and possibility.

I conclude that I was right to abandon the "toff" suspects when I was in my salad days. Not, of course, that one can just reject Druitt because he is a contemporary suspect, but nothing Jonathan and others have argued comes near to convincing me that he is our man.

Phil

[Wickerman]

Though in my opinion the real JtR would feel more at home among the Druitt's social class, than the Kosminski, Blotchy, types.

Jon - without trawling back though ALL your previous posts, could you explain briefly the reasoning behind that opinion?

Thanks

Phil

Hi Phil.
I'm not sure I could be brief, its a mixture of contemporary opinion (Dr. Bond was one), witness statements, people seen in the vicinity, etc. I don't claim to know anything no-one else has access to. Much of how we view the case has to do with what we are inclined to accept as reliable.
My views are just as likely to be shot full of holes as anyone else seeing as how we all lack proof.
I just can't satisfy myself that the actual killer has been identified by name.

Regards, Jon S.

[Jonathan H]

I agree, Wickerman.

I would go further and argue that the top hat toff, though a visual cliche, also stands in for the core truth: for the original and likely solution to the 'mystery'.

1)

To certain police it was no longer a mystery, and several of them said so in public.

We cannot get closer than these police primary sources, which contradict each other -- requiring a persuasive theory as to why?

Anybody who argues that this is all quite simple and straight-forward does not appreciate what a difficult knot this is to untangle. This is often the case with historical sources which are fragmentary and influenced by competing pressures, egos and agendas.

No compelling source has ever turned up outside those police sources pointing to a likely suspect they missed -- say a diary for example -- and so it is a question of judging, from this distance, whether one or more of the significant police figures are reliable enough as historical sources to be able to say that since they were convinced, they were professionals and they were there then likely it was solved by one of them.

That leaves Dr. Francis Tumblety (Littlchild -- who is arguably far less definitive than the others) Montague Druitt (Macnaghten -- who was as certain as you could be about an entirely posthumous suspect) Aaron Kosminski (if his fictional doppelganager 'Kosminski' is he -- advocated very firmly by Anderson and arguably by Swanson too though only in private) and George Chapman (Abberline, who concedes that this convicted murderer was not a contemporaneous suspect to 1888).

Tumblety, Druitt, Kosminski and Chapman.

Of these I subscribe to the [revisionist] theory that Macnaghten is the most reliable source, which leaves Druitt as the last suspect standing.

This argument has been rejected by all experienced researchers as unconvincing, fatally relying, it has been said, on too much [novelistic] conjecture.

2) Since Macnaghten believed it was Druitt, from 'secret information' only received 'some years after', he was forced into accepting Kelly as the final victim rather than Coles, and that took out McKenzie and Mylett too.

But if he was wrong then 'Jack' as an unsuspected killer could have done them all: from Smith to Coles. Eliminate Macnaghten as a relibale source and other victims should come back into play: Tumblety could have done Tabram and Kosminski could have done McKenzie, and so on.

3) 'Leather Apron' is likely an urban myth fuelled by the tabloids.

4) No letters were by the murderer and, though Mac claims in his memoirs that the [un-named] Druitt wrote the graffiti, I think he was simply being polemical against Anderson and his Jewish suspect (for example to make this work he has to clean up the spelling of 'Jews').

I think that there was nothing of a literary nature contributed by the real killer, including the graffiti (and Macnaghten does not claim that it was the 'only clue' left behind in his internal report(s) ). Macnaghten also claims that it was he who identified the reporter who faked the 'Dear Boss' letter in about June 1890.


On the other hand, the revisionist theory that there was no single murderer who could be designated as 'Jack' is also fair, as is that the police sources all cancel each other out -- at least not without harder surviving evidence clarifying their judgments.

[bolo]

1) I don't find any of the known suspects very plausible.

2) Most probably Polly, Annie, Kate and perhaps Martha Tabram. Liz looks like the victim of an assault by a different hand to me (and not just because of the missing mutilations) and Kelly... well, I'm inclined to say that she was slaughtered by someone she knew and who either went to extreme lengths to let it look like a Ripper killing or was very much irate, or both.

3) Jack Pizer?

4) None.

Regards,

Boris

[Phil H]

Though in my opinion the real JtR would feel more at home among the Druitt's social class, than the Kosminski, Blotchy, types.

Jon - without trawling back though ALL your previous posts, could you explain briefly the reasoning behind that opinion?

Thanks

Phil

[Wickerman]

1) the three most plausible suspects (if any)?

None mentioned by name, to date.
Though in my opinion the real JtR would feel more at home among the Druitt's social class, than the Kosminski, Blotchy, types.


2) which victims were"Jacks" work?

Without doubt, Nichols, Chapman, Eddowes, and Kelly.
With a close possibility of Ada Wilson, an outside possibility of Liz Stride, and a remote possibility of Martha Tabram.


3) most plausible identity of Leather Apron who harrassed women in the area?

With Pizer not being sure himself, then neither am I.


4) which if any letters came from the killer?

None!

Regards, Jon S.