OK whos your favored suspect/s and why?

[Aethelwulf]

There is plenty of circumstantial evidence Bury was Jack.

Some points, there may be others I have missed:

1. Opened victim's abdomen, mutilated privates in an almost identical way to Eddowes; engaged in further stabbing and cutting (piquerism). Notable stabs to the groin, similar to tabram
2. Strangulation, strongly suspected in ripper murders
3. Chalk messages in a good school boy hand with spelling and grammar errors. Same vertical blocky structure as reported for GSG. Sister in law testified Bury could write in several different hands.
4. Early hours of the morning murder, burned victims clothes in fire (Kelly)
5. Presence/absence in east end consistent with timing of murders
6. Suspicious departure from east end at the right time
7. Missing from home on the murder nights and behaving suspiciously, known to visit whitechapel
8. Police thought he had the opportunity to commit the crimes so must have been located close by (at the other address(es) he was using)
9. Police though he looked like the man talking to Kelly and two other witness descriptions
10. Fits many aspects of physical description
11. Very close fit to the FBI profile of the killer
12. Caught a sexually transmitted disease and passed to his wife, suggest use of prostitutes
13. Numerous examples of misogynistic behaviour
14. At some level, police thought he was the killer
15. Contemporaries described him as 'cunning' and he would 'conceal his temper before people'
16. There is also that seemingly anomalous 5.30 am ToD for Chapman. There is an example of Bury up and about at 5.30 am wandering the streets on a dark winter morning repeatably punching his wife in the face.

I certainly can't think of another suspect who you can say did anything like this. There is the case for the 'unknown suspect', but that would mean dismissing a perfectly viabale suspect for what are always poor reasons. There are issues, but they are in no way deal breakers. Also, as I said before, the police investigated Bury objectively and certainly believed he was the killer. They obviously considered any differences and didn't rate them.

Obviously, any credible assessment of suspects should begin with the only suspect that actually mutilated a woman with the same signature as the ripper. In a case like this with such rare characteristics, form for a similar crime should be a key factor. Strangely, it is never considered to be important though.

It is worth repeating this important point: Bury, the only known sexually motivated murdered on the suspect list, was missing from his lodgings on the nights in question - he is in the east end, his exact location isn't known but he must be very near the crime scenes as he was thought to have had the opportunity to commit the crimes.

[DJA]

[John Wheat]

Where is the evidence to support any suspect ever mentioned. Bury for instance?

There is plenty of circumstantial evidence Bury was Jack.

[Mike J. G.]

Plainly, when it comes to actual evidence for any suspect, all we really have is circumstantial evidence. There's some interesting characters, imo, and Bury is certainly one of them, but he's not the only one. As for the diary, if that's evidence that Maybrick was the Ripper then the bible is evidence of God, if you're easily taken in by such things and seek the easy answers. All my opinion, of course. Y'all do you.

[Iconoclast]

Where is the evidence to support any suspect ever mentioned. Bury for instance?

Easily answered as there is self-evidently only one candidate ever proposed for whom we have actual, concrete evidence to support (or deny) his candidature.

Every single one of the rest are mere indolent naval-gazing irrelevances because there is literally not a jot of reason to argue for or against.

"I'm Jack ..." (croak) does not a Whitechapel murderer make, by the way.

Ike

[Mike J. G.]

Hi! I think there is a misunderstanding with what I intended to bring across. There are monsters in human form out there, luckily they are very few in number across our globe. Souls even Luzifer does not want, but even those beings without any piece of humanity left in them have some reaction to the sins they commit. Not necessarily loss of the rest of their sanity, it can be the laughter you mentioned or wharever, but never nothing at all.
In the Ripperīs case we have a very quick ratcheting up of the savagery of his murders. What he did to Mary Kelly is well beyond the moral event horizon, there had to be a reaction. Be it ultimate pleasure, horror at himself in a moment of clarity, the wish to repeat it soon, sating the urges inside him, satisfaction at a job "well done", who knows.
Jack succeeded with what he did and with how quick he became worse, there is no chance in hell he would stop after Kelly. But there have never been crimes in London again you could lay at his feet without serious doubt. So he either really lost his last sanity, died from whatever reasons or - changed the way he killed because he knew there was no way he could top this series and get away with it.

It's possible, I guess we'll never really know for sure and all we can do is speculate.

Looking at some well-known serial killers, though, we can see that many of them lacked any significant remorse, and likely would've continued to kill if given half the chance. Some people just enjoy killing, oddly enough.

The thing with "the Ripper," whoever they were, is that they didn't seem to be as engrossed in the actual killing of the victim, as evidenced by the speedy manner in which the poor women were dispatched. Killing just seemed to be the first hurdle to be overcome so that the murderer's real goal could be fulfilled, which in this case was the postmortem mutilation.

[Iconoclast]

This is the sort of question asked by those who know diddly-squat about the subject.

Hi Simon,

Trust you're well.

If it isn't necessarily a question asked by those who know next to **** all about the subject, it's certainly one confidently answered by those who appear to know **** all about the subject.

Cheers,

Ike

[mpriestnall]

Where's the evidence of this?

Where is the evidence to support any suspect ever mentioned. Bury for instance?

[John Wheat]

The police (Warren, Anderson, Swanson, Macnaghten etc) knew who JTR was but never named him IMHO.

Where's the evidence of this?

[mpriestnall]

The police (Warren, Anderson, Swanson, Macnaghten etc) knew who JTR was but never named him IMHO.

[Enigma]

I have always thought it was an unknown who never came under suspicion as the most likely perp.

I still think this, though the aardvark theory does begin to have traction with me.

[John Wheat]

I have to say you are a funny guy! Saying I write fantasy gibberish, when just reading the pathological report of Eddowes and reading about typical surgery techniques of the late 19th century show that I am right. The Ripper went for her kidney like a surgeon or medic of the time would! The same steps and way into the abdomen as they would have done during a surgery back then! Besides, in Mitre Square it was near total darkness, to filet a human open in such a sequence and timeframe alone shows some skill.
That is an undeniable fact of the Ripper "Saga"! Bury on the other hand was not even capable of the signature throat slash.

Bury was a working class local though. In that he lived in the neighbouring Bow at the time of the Ripper murders.

[John Wheat]

Yep.

He strangled her with a rope and stabbed her with a penknife.

A month later he turned himself in and confessed.

The Ripper may well have used a ligature so hardly a point against Bury. By confessed do you mean the chalk confessions?

[Aethelwulf]

Wynne Weston-Davies who posted here as Prosector agrees.

It's just an opinion, by someone who wasn't there at the time and didn't see any of the bodies. You like it though because it supports your Sutton fantasy. Just like the way you latch on to Elizabeth Long like a rabid dog, because she is the only witness who, if you close your eyes and stand upside down, could very, very remotely be said to have given an age estimate that is vaguely close, but still way out, from Sutton. It's a full on rubbish theory. Oh hang on, I forgot about your glorious IQ! ha ha!

[DJA]

I have to say you are a funny guy! Saying I write fantasy gibberish, when just reading the pathological report of Eddowes and reading about typical surgery techniques of the late 19th century show that I am right. The Ripper went for her kidney like a surgeon or medic of the time would! The same steps and way into the abdomen as they would have done during a surgery back then! Besides, in Mitre Square it was near total darkness, to filet a human open in such a sequence and timeframe alone shows some skill.
That is an undeniable fact of the Ripper "Saga"! Bury on the other hand was not even capable of the signature throat slash.

Yep.

He strangled her with a rope and stabbed her with a penknife.

A month later he turned himself in and confessed.