where do you stand?

[RavenDarkendale]

Why do we assume it had to be a "toff" OR a local? Maps of the time show houses of well-to-do families surrounded by the teeming doss houses of the unfortunate class. Why couldn't it have been a local who was fairly well off?

I think it goes to people's biased perception of how things should be rather than how they are. At the time of the murders people wanted to believe a foreigner (Jew) committed the crimes because they didn't want to accept that an Englishman could do the unthinkable deeds. The locals wanted to believe it was a "toff" (after all many wealthy including Prince Eddy frequented brothels in the East End) because they couldn't believe any local person could had committed such horrible murders. The "toffs" wanted to believe a local, because they refused to accept that a person of gentle breeding could be a secret monster.

The truth is that serial killers can range from drifters like Henry Lee Lucas, to the well-to-do like HH Holmes, wealthy enough to design and build his own hotel, to nobility like Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed . Peerage, wealth, circumstances of life, etc. none of this matters to a serial killer mentality.

Some who suffer sever trauma as kids become monsters, others rise above the mess and become productive citizens. There have been Monarchs who were monsters, and many who ruled justly and kindly. There have been wealthy people who do their best to help lower classes and those who think they should learn their place. There have been pious religious leaders who taught peace. love, acceptance, and forgiveness and then many who were ruthless with those that did not agree with them.

A serial killer knows no boundary that he or she cannot cross.

[lynn cates]

words

Hello Jonathan. Good reasoning.

"with the Royal Watergate saturating culture like a thin film of vomit"

Hmm, I knew there was a reason i liked you--it's your way with words, in stating the truth.

Cheers.
LC

[Damaso Marte]

I am confident that the killer's name has never been posted anywhere on this website. I am inclined to think that the killer was a local, though one in a strong enough financial position to own multiple hats (not sure how expensive of a habit multiple hat ownership would have been in 1888)

For the sake of argument, I am a "defender of orthodoxy" on this forum and hew to the C5. However, I could with equal ease be convinced that Stride was killed by a different hand, or that McKenzie or Tabram were killed by the same hand as the C5. I would be much, much more hesitant to drop Kelly/Eddowes or to accept Coles.

I don't know anything about Leather Apron, so I will decline to answer that question.

I think that all of the letters are hoaxes.

[Fisherman]

Monty:

Why the change to bold font? It gives the impression you have lost your composure and are shouting at me, am I to conclude that?

Not at all, Monty. I just find it easy to show whoīs saying what that way. I could let you have the bold text if you wish?


"You stated an untruth."

I did? Where and when? Are you perhaps saying that I stated something that cannot be proven, something that I simply believe to be the truth? If so, you need to word it a bit more carefully.

"You were the one who used the word 'people'. I never stated you were referring to a specific person either. Wasnt quoting you so yeah, its wise to skip that part."

Hmm? How else would I word it? "People" in general that were not look into are people that we stand a chance of getting a fuller picture of than the police did back then if they did not look into them.
Somehow, you seem to think that I was speaking of somebody specific - which I was not.

As you do not hold the full facts regarding Cross what the Police did or did not know of him at the time, you cannot have an understanding of the situation as it was then. Therefore hindsight does not exist.

I disagree, as you may have seen. The material allows us to reflect on it in hindsight to a useful extent. And that works quite well although we all know that we lack full knowledge - as did the police back then.

What you provide is your own view on Cross, based on your own knowledge of what happened.

What we all do, Monty, is to provide our views of the case, based on our respective knowledge what happened. I donīt see that as a problem - I see it as a healthy basis for the type of discussions these boards are meant for.

Monty, who really doesnt care how uninteresting this is for you, he is just concerned with the blantent attempt to mislead the readership again.

"Blatant", you mean? It saddens me that you should say something like this. Since I disagree, I can only conclude that you are somewhat unbalanced, so letīs stop this exchange before it descends into nothing but unsubstantiated accusations. The boards can do without it.
I must therefore tell you that any further posts from you along the lines you are employing now, will remain unanswered by me.

Any form of caserelated discussion, though, is something I much welcome.

Your choice, Monty.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Rubyretro]

Good idea for a thread -

I would say:

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

I can only think of two (in no particular order of merit)

a) Kosminski - a local man
b) An unknown local man

Beyond that, whilst there may be sufficient circumstance regarding many of our current 'suspects' to allow us to speculate, that's all there is - not enough for me.

2) which victims were"Jacks" work?

Probably all of them up to Kelly, including Emma Smith etc. Even the Ripper ha to start somewhere. Subsequent to that, Alice McKenzie perhaps.

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

John Pizer.

4)) which if any letters came from the killer?

I don't think any of them did.

Gosh, I'm with Sally, right back on the first page, but with the exception of the inclusion of 'Kosminski' amongst the suspects.

Otherwise, in reply to Monty's assertion that the Police involved in the case at the time were better qualified to judge the suspects than 'we' are today; That would suppose that :
a) 'we' are incapable of learning, by ourselves, from all the many case histories of serial killers which have become public between 1888 and the present day. In other words, all those cases taught us nothing and were worthless.
b) professional studies analysing serial killings involving mutilation which have been made available between 1888 and the present day, are worthless
c) the worldwide sharing of information and opinion, which we know today, is worthless.

I can't go with the opinion that our collective shared superior experience and trained analysis of it is worthless. I think that it has got to be worth more than the opinions of a policeman , on the ground at the time, which were formed by very limited knowledge of the wide subject.

Fishy is right.; experience tells us that it isn't Mr Red or Mr Black that is generally the culprit, it is Mr Grey...

[Monty]

Monty:

"Again, you misquote me. Which is a regular thing with you Ive noted. However with regards this topic you have no hindsight."

Eh - I did not quote you at all, Monty.

"So basically you have taken an obscure news clipping and coupled it with Andersons quote? Having read the case file, and I assume you have also, and taken in the exstensive news reports I have read, it is quite clear that the Police as a whole were not concentrating solely on a 'maniac'."

I canīt remember saying that they did. But Iīll skip the "you misquote me thing", and just state that what I DID say was that "the police worked from the assumption that the killer would very probably be a maniac BEFORE they had any true leads" (and thatīs a direct quotation). This however does not preclude that they may have maintained other leads too - in fact the "very probably" is a manner of saying that I think that this was their favoured track of investigation, whereas they kept an eye open for other possibilities too. We KNOW they suspected men that were absolutely not maniacs on the surface, Monty, so you will be correct there.
As for "obscure" news clipping, that brings us to your next statement: "Thats an assumption on your part."

And on we go:

"To state they did not look into the 'people' we have looked into is unproven as you were not there at the time."

But when did I say so, Monty? I have not specified any person at all, I have merely said that they only knew a lot about the ones they took a look at, whereas there is every opportunity that we may find out more today about people they did not research back then.
Once again, I will not say that "you misquoted me", since I find that only evokes bad blood. You misunderstood me, though.

"Therefore you do not hold the full facts and have no ground to stand on when trying to understand the situation as it stood in 1888."

Welcome to THAT particular club, Monty!!

"Ergo, there is no hindsight to maintain. It cannot be done."

Sorry, Monty, but I think that is just nonsense. Of course we may with hindsight see that for example Lechmere should have been researched better, at least to the degree that they found out who he actually was. Hindsight also tells us that the GSG should not have been erased, that Nichols should not have been stripped and washed before the examination etcetera.

But each one to his own, eh?

The best,
Fisherman
who really thinks this is growing more and more uninteresting - letīs drop it!

Christer,

Why the change to bold font? It gives the impression you have lost your composure and are shouting at me, am I to conclude that?

Yeah, you didnt, apologies. You stated an untruth.

You were the one who used the word 'people'. I never stated you were referring to a specific person either. Wasnt quoting you so yeah, its wise to skip that part.

Sorry, Monty, but I think that is just nonsense. Of course we may with hindsight see that for example Lechmere should have been researched better, at least to the degree that they found out who he actually was. Hindsight also tells us that the GSG should not have been erased, that Nichols should not have been stripped and washed before the examination etcetera.

As you do not hold the full facts regarding Cross what the Police did or did not know of him at the time, you cannot have an understanding of the situation as it was then. Therefore hindsight does not exist.

What you provide is your own view on Cross, based on your own knowledge of what happend.

Monty, who really doesnt care how uninteresting this is for you, he is just concerned with the blantent attempt to mislead the readership again.

[Phil H]

I don't understand why people's theories over the years that he was one or the other (however outlandish or 'outdated' some might appear on the surface to be) can affect any of the possibilities in any way, or give more weight to some and less to others.

Because Caz, we all have our individual ways of seeking to explain or tease out what lies behind these crimes.

One aspect of the discussion centres on the reasons why Anderson and Swanson went for a low class immigrant from the locality, while MM and Littlechild preferred "outsiders" from a higher social class. If we are to understand them, we have - to an extent - to enter with and seek to appreciate their thought processes.

I believe "Jack's" social class - given that we are talking about the heavily class conscious high Victorian period - is very relevant to how he may have worked, attracted victims, to descriptions given by witnesses, to motivation and to where he went went he was done.

But all that is just my humble opinion, of course.

Phil

[caz]

Suspects? No really good ones at all. The police at the time were working on the assumption that JtR was at the very least visibly disreputable and/or eccentric, and quite possibly some sort of obvious maniac or monster, and the general public presumably thought so too. As we now know, he is far more likely to have been a thoroughly respectable and inoffensive member of the community whom nobody would suspect, and who for this reason could easily explain away things like coming home with bloody clothes by telling his wife he'd had a nose-bleed.

So you're most likely looking for a shopkeeper or clerk with no criminal record or obvious signs of insanity who was never suspected by anybody. If that's the real solution, then the only giveaway is likely to be that this person died round about the end of 1888 - not really a lot to go on, therefore JtR's real name has probably never appeared in police records or any book on the subject.

Even the best recent suspects are suspected because they were conspicuous enough for the police to notice them. Francis Tumblety was caught with a rent-boy, which to the Victorian mindset made him a depraved pervert capable of anything. Contemporary sources show that senior officers in the case considered "sexual insanity" to include homosexuality and masturbation, both of which might in their opinion turn you into a serial killer! Tumblety is also known to us because he was pathologically driven to seek attention, wandering around in ludicrous fake military uniforms of his own invention. And the only death he was definitely responsible for came about through a quack medical procedure that went wrong. This guy was a megalomaniac gay snake-oil salesman who couldn't be inconspicuous to save his life, so of course the police noticed him! The real JtR is the guy they didn't notice, so neither did we.

Excellent observations, Mad Dan. I can see nothing wrong with your reasoning.

I tend to think too many people over the years have visualised the ripper at one extreme or the other (by class, wealth, appearance, outward behaviour, sanity and so on), when there are no good reasons for doing so. He was just another human being, who only allowed his darkest side to emerge when he was alone with a victim. Beyond that we cannot know a thing about his actual status in society, where he came from, when and why he stopped, because nobody saw him in the act of murder.

It's always possible that he was a toff dressed down, or a very poor local man (aside from the huge middle ground), so I don't understand why people's theories over the years that he was one or the other (however outlandish or 'outdated' some might appear on the surface to be) can affect any of the possibilities in any way, or give more weight to some and less to others.

Love,

Caz
X

[Fisherman]

Monty:

"Again, you misquote me. Which is a regular thing with you Ive noted. However with regards this topic you have no hindsight."

Eh - I did not quote you at all, Monty.

"So basically you have taken an obscure news clipping and coupled it with Andersons quote? Having read the case file, and I assume you have also, and taken in the exstensive news reports I have read, it is quite clear that the Police as a whole were not concentrating solely on a 'maniac'."

I canīt remember saying that they did. But Iīll skip the "you misquote me thing", and just state that what I DID say was that "the police worked from the assumption that the killer would very probably be a maniac BEFORE they had any true leads" (and thatīs a direct quotation). This however does not preclude that they may have maintained other leads too - in fact the "very probably" is a manner of saying that I think that this was their favoured track of investigation, whereas they kept an eye open for other possibilities too. We KNOW they suspected men that were absolutely not maniacs on the surface, Monty, so you will be correct there.
As for "obscure" news clipping, that brings us to your next statement: "Thats an assumption on your part."

And on we go:

"To state they did not look into the 'people' we have looked into is unproven as you were not there at the time."

But when did I say so, Monty? I have not specified any person at all, I have merely said that they only knew a lot about the ones they took a look at, whereas there is every opportunity that we may find out more today about people they did not research back then.
Once again, I will not say that "you misquoted me", since I find that only evokes bad blood. You misunderstood me, though.

"Therefore you do not hold the full facts and have no ground to stand on when trying to understand the situation as it stood in 1888."

Welcome to THAT particular club, Monty!!

"Ergo, there is no hindsight to maintain. It cannot be done."

Sorry, Monty, but I think that is just nonsense. Of course we may with hindsight see that for example Lechmere should have been researched better, at least to the degree that they found out who he actually was. Hindsight also tells us that the GSG should not have been erased, that Nichols should not have been stripped and washed before the examination etcetera.

But each one to his own, eh?

The best,
Fisherman
who really thinks this is growing more and more uninteresting - letīs drop it!

[Monty]

Hindsight is good enough for me to avoid dropping it, at any rate, Monty. I think we need to couple that hindsight to the material we have, courtesy of police and press mainly, from 1888, and we will be fine.

Again, you misquote me. Which is a regular thing with you Ive noted. However with regards this topic you have no hindsight.

In fact, that is what I do when I say that I think that the police were of the meaning that they probably needed to look for a maniac. My hindsight tells me that there is a difference inbetween how we look upon serialists and how they perceived them - and then I add an article from the Dublin Express, dated in December 1888, saying that "detectives have recently visited all the registered private lunatic asylums and made inquiries as to the inmates recently admitted." I then couple this to Andersonīs statement from 1892 that it was "impossible to believe" that the killings could be those of a sane man, and that they must instead be those of a "maniac revelling in blood". What Anderson says here is that although there were both sane people and maniacs around, there was no need to fear that a sane man lay behind the murders.

So basically you have taken an obscure news clipping and coupled it with Andersons quote? Having read the case file, and I assume you have also, and taken in the exstensive news reports I have read, it is quite clear that the Police as a whole were not concentrating solely on a 'maniac'.

As for your excellent friend and you and your agreement on the superior knowledge of the police as opposed to us, Iīd like to join that club if I may. However, it should be weighed in that the knowledge the police amassed about people, was a knowledge that stretched only to the ones they saw reason to look into. I therefore have no hesitation to say that we may well know a lot more about the people they did NOT decide to look into. In hindsight, thatīs not a bad thing.

Thats an assumption on your part. To state they did not look into the 'people' we have looked into is unproven as you were not there at the time. Therefore you do not hold the full facts and have no ground to stand on when trying to understand the situation as it stood in 1888.

Ergo, there is no hindsight to maintain. It cannot be done.

Monty

[Jonathan H]

To Fisherman

Sure that's possible.

In my opinion all the primary sources put together lead me to the theory that Anderson never heard of any Polish or Jewish suspect of any note -- except Pizer -- until 1895, when Macnaghten briefed him about 'Kosminski' at about the same time that a prime Ripper suspect (Grant) was perhaps positively identified by a Jewish witness (Lawende) and yet nothing happened. Swanson then refers to a suspect who is deceased.

I also accept R. J. Palmer's [tentative] theory that Anderson's need for Mylett to not be a victim was because he was still hoping that Tumblety was the likely fiend, but he had hightailed it abroad by then.

The McKenzie murder exonerated Tumblety, but the Macnaghten-Druitt-centric timeline from 1898 (in public) of Kelly as the last victim brought the Irish-american back into contention, at least for Littlechild.

To Mad Dan

In his 1914 memoirs, Macnaghten defines sexually insane as a person who gains erotic pleasure from either committing acts of ultra-violence or watching such sadism. Mac put it on file that Druitt was definitely sexually insane, so of course his family 'believed' he was the Ripper.

[Mad Dan Eccles]

Suspects? No really good ones at all. The police at the time were working on the assumption that JtR was at the very least visibly disreputable and/or eccentric, and quite possibly some sort of obvious maniac or monster, and the general public presumably thought so too. As we now know, he is far more likely to have been a thoroughly respectable and inoffensive member of the community whom nobody would suspect, and who for this reason could easily explain away things like coming home with bloody clothes by telling his wife he'd had a nose-bleed.

So you're most likely looking for a shopkeeper or clerk with no criminal record or obvious signs of insanity who was never suspected by anybody. If that's the real solution, then the only giveaway is likely to be that this person died round about the end of 1888 - not really a lot to go on, therefore JtR's real name has probably never appeared in police records or any book on the subject.

Even the best recent suspects are suspected because they were conspicuous enough for the police to notice them. Francis Tumblety was caught with a rent-boy, which to the Victorian mindset made him a depraved pervert capable of anything. Contemporary sources show that senior officers in the case considered "sexual insanity" to include homosexuality and masturbation, both of which might in their opinion turn you into a serial killer! Tumblety is also known to us because he was pathologically driven to seek attention, wandering around in ludicrous fake military uniforms of his own invention. And the only death he was definitely responsible for came about through a quack medical procedure that went wrong. This guy was a megalomaniac gay snake-oil salesman who couldn't be inconspicuous to save his life, so of course the police noticed him! The real JtR is the guy they didn't notice, so neither did we.

Victims? The usual ones, minus Liz Stride, but possibly plus Martha Tabram.

Leather Apron? Pre-existing urban myth exploited by the nasty little bully Pizer (and possibly like-minded others), never dreaming that he'd accidently connect himself with real murders, thus a complete red herring.

Letters? All fake. Even if not, the best-known ones are so doubtful (especially if Liz Stride was killed by someone else) that any authentic letters are buried in a mass of hundreds of fakes, and probably unidentifiable.

[Fisherman]

Now we have a very interesting and well-written article in the current 'Ripperologist' by Scott Nelson which argues for a rethink of Cohen as the Ur-Polish Jew suspect, and I tip my top hat to his revisionist efforts.

Hi Jonathan!

A suggestion: When Rose Mylett died, a host of doctors agreed that she had been killed by means of ligature.
Anderson, however (on Monroīs request) went to Poplar and dissed the doctors totally. He confidently stated that Mylett had died from natural causes.
Doctor Bond, who was sent for, had a look at Mylett and agreed with the other medicos - she had been manually strangled.
In stepped Anderson, with no medical education at all, and told Bond to look again. Which the latter gentleman did, suddenly realizing that Anderson had been right all along; Mylett had fallen over in a drunken stupour and choked on her own collar.
So they needed proof that there was alcohol in Mylett. Dr Brownwell had looked for alcohol and found none, but a second examination was made - guess by whom and on whoīs bid? - and lo and behold, there was whisky in Myletts stomach, all of a sudden!

So Mylett would NOT have been killed by Jack, according to Dr Anderson.

Why the need to diss the possibility that she was Jackīs? And how could Anderson be so confident?
Dd that have anything to do with Mylett dying on the 20:th of December, 13 days after Aaron Davis Cohen was taken off the East End streets and taken to the workhouse? Did that ID process take place between the 7:th and the 20:th, assuring Anderson that they had their man?

And this December month is the same month that the Dublin Express stated that the asylums were being vaccuumed for possible perpetrators of the killings, mind you ...

It is a tantalizing bid, I think.

I have not read Scott Nelsons article by the way. If he throws forward the same suggestion, Iīm sorry to reiterate it.

The best
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

What I am saying is that the police worked from the assumption that the killer would very probably be a maniac BEFORE they had any true leads...

Did they Christer? What is this assumption based on?

Last nighy I had a very interesting telephone conversation on this very subject of the arrogance of the modern researcher with an excellent researcher in the field. Our opinions supported each others in term that the Police of the day were in a far better position to pass judegement on suspects that any modern researcher when considered at that particular moment in time.

Hindsight is great, however not completely reliable.

Monty

Hindsight is good enough for me to avoid dropping it, at any rate, Monty. I think we need to couple that hindsight to the material we have, courtesy of police and press mainly, from 1888, and we will be fine.

In fact, that is what I do when I say that I think that the police were of the meaning that they probably needed to look for a maniac. My hindsight tells me that there is a difference inbetween how we look upon serialists and how they perceived them - and then I add an article from the Dublin Express, dated in December 1888, saying that "detectives have recently visited all the registered private lunatic asylums and made inquiries as to the inmates recently admitted." I then couple this to Andersonīs statement from 1892 that it was "impossible to believe" that the killings could be those of a sane man, and that they must instead be those of a "maniac revelling in blood". What Anderson says here is that although there were both sane people and maniacs around, there was no need to fear that a sane man lay behind the murders.

As for your excellent friend and you and your agreement on the superior knowledge of the police as opposed to us, Iīd like to join that club if I may. However, it should be weighed in that the knowledge the police amassed about people, was a knowledge that stretched only to the ones they saw reason to look into. I therefore have no hesitation to say that we may well know a lot more about the people they did NOT decide to look into. In hindsight, thatīs not a bad thing.

The best,
Fisherman

[Jonathan H]

After 1973 and TV's 'Jack the Ripper' the case began to split onto divergent paths.

To the general public, and parasitic pop culture, it was something to do with Royalty, or a Royal-state cover-up.

Whereas for serious researchers it was more likely to be one of the police suspects.

Don Rumbelow, a fine writer, brought out 'The Complete Jack the Ripper' in 1975 and it published, for the first time, the official version of Mac's memo in its entirety.

But the implications of Mac writing that Druitt might not be a doctor but was definitely sexually insane was arguably missed by Odell and then by Rumbelow.

Worse no bridging source between Druitt's death and his emergence on an internal list of suspects could be found, and so Rumbelow tried four possible bridges, all of which are untenable as they violently clash with other primary sources: eg. the McCormick-Dutton-Backert hoax and the Stephen White hoax among them.

With Sims, and the implications of Sims lying mostly dormant, the MP article totally buried and unknown and the Mac memoirs sidelined, the theory of a forgetful, unreliable Mac had become the entrenched wisdom (later Druitt would be recast as a tragic homosexual, his suicide totally disconnected, even as a possibility, from the Whitechapel crimes)

It is no wonder that diligent researchers, with the Royal Watergate saturating culture like a thin film of vomit, also felt that the drowned not-a-doctor was a dead end, and thus moved across to rehabilitate Macnaghten's loathed rival, Sir Robert Anderson.

Martin Fido's ground-breaking discovery was not just that he found Aaron Kosminski but that he did not find him where he was supposed to be: sectioned in March 1889 (according to Mac's Report(s), and insistently implied by Anderson's various bits and pieces after 1895, and by the Swanson Marginalia

This was one of the reasons Fido rejected the real Aaron Kosminski as Anderson's (and Swanson's) Polish Jew suspect: because it was way too long a gap between Kelly's murder and the suspect being 'safely caged' (which had hardly 'cut short' his reign). You would never know that from Anderson's comments and writings that the gap was over two years.

Hence David Cohen seemed more likely, to Fido, because he fit Anderson's timeline, and was demonstrably violent to the point of a public danger.

The focus on the police sources and mundane asylum records was a healthy corrective to Prince Jack and Dr. William Gull and all that tosh.

Now we have a very interesting and well-written article in the current 'Ripperologist' by Scott Nelson which argues for a rethink of Cohen as the Ur-Polish Jew suspect, and I tip my top hat to his revisionist efforts.