Rating The Ripper.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I’m not suggesting that this is a massively important topic but the question has arisen recently about how we as individuals and as a group rate the named suspects. Many of us of course would add the very real possibility that the killer has yet to be named and possibly never will be and so all that we can currently do is look at the suspects that have been named so far and assess them without bias.

This isn’t straightforward of course because any criteria that is used in a ‘ripper suspect tick box exercise’ can be disputed. An example would be the criteria ‘local knowledge.’ Many would see this as a ‘requirement’ but it might be questioned whether this was really a prerequisite of being the killer? Anatomical/medical knowledge is another example of a criteria that has been disputed for years with no resolution as far as I can see. And if anatomical/medical knowledge was required what level did it need to be? Medical training, slaughterman/butcher level, amateur study?

So even if we apply a tick box exercise we will still get disputes about the validity of the criteria. So what would be a minimal requirement to get someone onto the first rung of suspecthood.

1. No issue with age or physical fitness - So not an old man or a child or someone with one leg (or a parrot on his shoulder for that matter)
2. Sex - Although the possibility of a female Jack has been raised I’d suggest that the vast majority would dismiss the suggestion outright. Jack was a man.
3. Location - No alibi for at least the canonical five (although of course a case can be made for non-canonical victims with this being again down to personal interpretation.) Access to the area is an obvious one too but we shouldn’t dismiss travel/transport although I’d suggest that someone living in Edinburgh at the time of the murders could be safely eliminated (or France in the case of Van Gogh)

I know…very basic but these are the minimum and very obvious requirements. Then we get to the reasons why someone would become of interest to us in the first place.

1. Violence - I would narrow that down to knife-related violence as opposed an habitual brawler or a wife-beater (although both would be worth noting). Either a knife murderer or someone that had attacked a woman with a knife. If we are being totally unbiased though it would have to be said that we couldn’t entirely dismiss a prospective suspect if number 4 was absent. As far as I’m aware Peter Sutcliffe had no record of violence. A tendency to violence isn’t always known or apparent. I’d still suggest though that someone that had simply threatened someone with a knife or cut someone in a fight would rank lower than someone who had used a knife during a murder.
2. Mental health issues/Insanity - Another debatable point because we don’t always know what’s going on beneath the surface. Killers can appear perfectly normal, sane people (Ted Bundy would be an example) But if a suspect had mental health issues this would at least raise an eyebrow as to how this might have manifested itself as it can often lead to violent/abhorrent behaviour.

Basically if we had a violent knife wielder with mental health issues alarms bells would understandably ring. Taken individually a knife-wielder would rank higher than someone with just known mental health issues. Grey areas everywhere.

Finally I’d add…


6. Police interest - Of course this one is also debatable because the police can dismiss a guilty man as easily as they can wrongly suspect an innocent one. And then of course we have those first named a period after the events (like Druitt and Kosminski) and those who were looked at at the time (like Bury and Grainger)

A case might be made for adding a - 7. ‘A connection to prostitutes’ or, something that would rate higher, 8. ‘had a hatred of prostitutes or of women in general.’


Another complication would be how do we rate each of the individual points. Is 4 more valid that 5 for example?

I’m certain that I will have missed valid points but I just wanted to illustrate the difficulties when we assemble lists. Which of the above ‘boxes’ definitely needed a tick? I’d say only 1, 2 and 3 and these are no help in rating suspects, only in eliminating the non-starters. So we are left with the task of assessing and evaluating 4, 5 and 6 and these are far from straightforward when applied to our named suspects as for most have them we have the problem of information which is no longer available to us.


So to sum up, my point is that using the above (to whatever extent you agree or disagree) we would be left with an extremely small pot of suspects worth giving a second thought to based on what we currently know. Or another way of putting it might be ‘people worthy of further investigation who cannot be eliminated.’ As opposed to ‘people who cannot be eliminated’ but who have none of the above.

Most suspects would get a tick for boxes 1, 2 and 3. Then we have to look at the rest, including my numbers 7 and 8.


I’d suggest that if we applied the above then William Henry Bury would come out on top but I’m certainly not saying that he was the ripper. He just seems to tick the most boxes. On a recent thread asking for best and worst suspects of the 8 that posted 6 had Bury high up. So if there’s anything that I feel confident in stating it’s that in any list of suspects Bury would have to come at or very close to the top.

[Darryl Kenyon]

Violence - I would narrow that down to knife-related violence as opposed an habitual brawler or a wife-beater (although both would be worth noting). Either a knife murderer or someone that had attacked a woman with a knife. If we are being totally unbiased though it would have to be said that we couldn’t entirely dismiss a prospective suspect if number 4 was absent. As far as I’m aware Peter Sutcliffe had no record of violence. A tendency to violence isn’t always known or apparent. I’d still suggest though that someone that had simply threatened someone with a knife or cut someone in a fight would rank lower than someone who had used a knife during a murder.

Hi Herlock
I believe Sutcliffe hit a woman on the back of the head with a stone in a sock in 1969 before his murderous spree started . Later on he refined this to hitting his victims on the back of the head with a hammer before he killed them.

When looking at Jack this could be important as you rightly point out about attacks on women with a knife pre murder spree. I would like to add possible attempted strangulation of a female as part of his history before his first murder.

Regards Darryl

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock
I believe Sutcliffe hit a woman on the back of the head with a stone in a sock in 1969 before his murderous spree started . Later on he refined this to hitting his victims on the back of the head with a hammer before he killed them.

When looking at Jack this could be important as you rightly point out about attacks on women with a knife pre murder spree. I would like to add possible attempted strangulation of a female as part of his history before his first murder.

Regards Darryl

Hi Darryl,

Young girl out in the countryside I believe and wasn’t there an incident where he was driving in a car with a friend and he jumped out and struck a woman? Am I imagining that? Anyway they didn’t believe the young girl because he had a Yorkshire accent unlike Wearside Jack. The thing is though that if the police had looked at Sutcliffe (unaware that he’d done that) they would have asked around and I’m guessing that no one would have said that he was a violent man. The hidden life.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I’m not suggesting that this is a massively important topic but the question has arisen recently about how we as individuals and as a group rate the named suspects. Many of us of course would add the very real possibility that the killer has yet to be named and possibly never will be and so all that we can currently do is look at the suspects that have been named so far and assess them without bias.

This isn’t straightforward of course because any criteria that is used in a ‘ripper suspect tick box exercise’ can be disputed. An example would be the criteria ‘local knowledge.’ Many would see this as a ‘requirement’ but it might be questioned whether this was really a prerequisite of being the killer? Anatomical/medical knowledge is another example of a criteria that has been disputed for years with no resolution as far as I can see. And if anatomical/medical knowledge was required what level did it need to be? Medical training, slaughterman/butcher level, amateur study?

So even if we apply a tick box exercise we will still get disputes about the validity of the criteria. So what would be a minimal requirement to get someone onto the first rung of suspecthood.

1. No issue with age or physical fitness - So not an old man or a child or someone with one leg (or a parrot on his shoulder for that matter)
2. Sex - Although the possibility of a female Jack has been raised I’d suggest that the vast majority would dismiss the suggestion outright. Jack was a man.
3. Location - No alibi for at least the canonical five (although of course a case can be made for non-canonical victims with this being again down to personal interpretation.) Access to the area is an obvious one too but we shouldn’t dismiss travel/transport although I’d suggest that someone living in Edinburgh at the time of the murders could be safely eliminated (or France in the case of Van Gogh)

I know…very basic but these are the minimum and very obvious requirements. Then we get to the reasons why someone would become of interest to us in the first place.

1. Violence - I would narrow that down to knife-related violence as opposed an habitual brawler or a wife-beater (although both would be worth noting). Either a knife murderer or someone that had attacked a woman with a knife. If we are being totally unbiased though it would have to be said that we couldn’t entirely dismiss a prospective suspect if number 4 was absent. As far as I’m aware Peter Sutcliffe had no record of violence. A tendency to violence isn’t always known or apparent. I’d still suggest though that someone that had simply threatened someone with a knife or cut someone in a fight would rank lower than someone who had used a knife during a murder.
2. Mental health issues/Insanity - Another debatable point because we don’t always know what’s going on beneath the surface. Killers can appear perfectly normal, sane people (Ted Bundy would be an example) But if a suspect had mental health issues this would at least raise an eyebrow as to how this might have manifested itself as it can often lead to violent/abhorrent behaviour.

Basically if we had a violent knife wielder with mental health issues alarms bells would understandably ring. Taken individually a knife-wielder would rank higher than someone with just known mental health issues. Grey areas everywhere.

Finally I’d add…


6. Police interest - Of course this one is also debatable because the police can dismiss a guilty man as easily as they can wrongly suspect an innocent one. And then of course we have those first named a period after the events (like Druitt and Kosminski) and those who were looked at at the time (like Bury and Grainger)

A case might be made for adding a - 7. ‘A connection to prostitutes’ or, something that would rate higher, 8. ‘had a hatred of prostitutes or of women in general.’


Another complication would be how do we rate each of the individual points. Is 4 more valid that 5 for example?

I’m certain that I will have missed valid points but I just wanted to illustrate the difficulties when we assemble lists. Which of the above ‘boxes’ definitely needed a tick? I’d say only 1, 2 and 3 and these are no help in rating suspects, only in eliminating the non-starters. So we are left with the task of assessing and evaluating 4, 5 and 6 and these are far from straightforward when applied to our named suspects as for most have them we have the problem of information which is no longer available to us.


So to sum up, my point is that using the above (to whatever extent you agree or disagree) we would be left with an extremely small pot of suspects worth giving a second thought to based on what we currently know. Or another way of putting it might be ‘people worthy of further investigation who cannot be eliminated.’ As opposed to ‘people who cannot be eliminated’ but who have none of the above.

Most suspects would get a tick for boxes 1, 2 and 3. Then we have to look at the rest, including my numbers 7 and 8.


I’d suggest that if we applied the above then William Henry Bury would come out on top but I’m certainly not saying that he was the ripper. He just seems to tick the most boxes. On a recent thread asking for best and worst suspects of the 8 that posted 6 had Bury high up. So if there’s anything that I feel confident in stating it’s that in any list of suspects Bury would have to come at or very close to the top.

I just noticed a **** up in my numbering. I’ve gone 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 6, 7, 8. The second 1 and 2 should have been 5 and 6 of course.

[Georgeb]

Hi.

Looking at number 6 and the police. It would appear the ways to get caught at the time were red handed or by someone informing on you. Would an informants evidence alone be enough to convict? If that were the case would the Ripper not have been arrested on the informants word and at least charged. I know there was gossip, rumour and innuendo but no-one clearly informing. Therefore the police seem completely in the dark.

[Tani]

Hi.
I know there was gossip, rumour and innuendo but no-one clearly informing. Therefore the police seem completely in the dark.

One of the issues I can see with this is that many people in the know may be such because they themselves are part of the criminal underworld. There may be a toss up between informing police about a possible lead or being found under suspicion or arrested oneself for admitting engaging in illicit activities. There were many pimp types who were known to be violent to prostitutes, taking a cut of their earnings etc. If this is you and you have dirt on the Ripper, you aren't much likely to come forward.

It sounds very cynical, but we must also remember people like Emma Smith, who failed to tell police officers about her attack even though walking right past them on her way home and to the hospital. This could be because she was attacked by pimping types who thought she owed them money, and didn't want to out herself to police. There are some very complex factors at play which may make one reluctant to go to police; the East End had a bad relationship with the coppers in general, so I wouldn't be surprised if a few of them were just spiteful. We can also look at how George Lusk was treated if one presumes From Hell a hoax, which I think it is.

[Lewis C]

Hi Herlock
I believe Sutcliffe hit a woman on the back of the head with a stone in a sock in 1969 before his murderous spree started . Later on he refined this to hitting his victims on the back of the head with a hammer before he killed them.

When looking at Jack this could be important as you rightly point out about attacks on women with a knife pre murder spree. I would like to add possible attempted strangulation of a female as part of his history before his first murder.

Regards Darryl

Hi Darryl, I agree that since strangulation is part of what the Ripper did, someone known to have done that should raise suspicion. I wouldn't limit that or knife violence to pre-murder spree though, because some suspects are known to have one or both after the Ripper murders (Bury, Deeming, Cutbush, Grainger, and probably Chapman).

[Lewis C]

On location, there are many different cases for different suspects, so I would consider it on a case by case basis. Several suspects are known to have lived in the Whitechapel area at the time of the murders. Some other cases:

MJ Druitt: Didn't live in the Whitechapel area, but was close enough that he could have commuted. But would his distance have meant that he was unlikely to know the area well enough to have done what the Ripper did?

James Kelly: Escaped from a London asylum just before the murders began, so he easily could have been in Whitechapel at the time of the murders, but we don't know where he was.

William Grainger: We don't know where he was during the murders, but he was in Ireland shortly before they began and shortly after they ended.

Robert Mann: was in Whitechapel at the time, but lived in a workhouse at the time, which likely would have restricted his freedom of movement too much for him to be a viable suspect.

Donston Stephenson: Was in Whitechapel at the time, but in a hospital, so it's questionable whether he could have discreetly absented himself from the hospital and returned after each murder without raising suspicion.

Walter Sickert: Was in France for at least part of the period when the murders occurred. Could have gone back and forth from England and France, but there's no evidence that he did.

Carl Feigenbaum: Mostly lived in the US at the time, but being a sailor, traveled to various places, which might possibly have included London.

[Geddy2112]

Oooo I love a long Herlock Sholmes opening post... will read and get to you, thanks.

[Geddy2112]

No issue with age or physical fitness - So not an old man or a child or someone with one leg (or a parrot on his shoulder for that matter)

Yes, I would suggest the murderer was quite strong and able to overpower potential victims with ease. Age… 30s or 40s. I think 20s is too young and not had enough ‘life experience’ to shape his ‘vendetta/motive.’

Location - No alibi for at least the canonical five (although of course a case can be made for non-canonical victims with this being again down to personal interpretation.) Access to the area is an obvious one too but we shouldn’t dismiss travel/transport although I’d suggest that someone living in Edinburgh at the time of the murders could be safely eliminated (or France in the case of Van Gogh)

Not a huge believer he was an outsider, possible of course but I’d be inclined to think they lived in the Whitechapel area and not using transport as the victims would be more spread out.

Violence - I would narrow that down to knife-related violence as opposed an habitual brawler or a wife-beater (although both would be worth noting). Either a knife murderer or someone that had attacked a woman with a knife. If we are being totally unbiased though it would have to be said that we couldn’t entirely dismiss a prospective suspect if number 4 was absent. As far as I’m aware Peter Sutcliffe had no record of violence. A tendency to violence isn’t always known or apparent. I’d still suggest though that someone that had simply threatened someone with a knife or cut someone in a fight would rank lower than someone who had used a knife during a murder.

No recorded history is not an absence of history. He probably mutilated animals in his youth or experimented in other ways. This is of course a more modern indication as in Victorian times kids were working in their teenage years not able to nip off to the fields for a spot of camping and cutting of animals.

Mental health issues/Insanity - Another debatable point because we don’t always know what’s going on beneath the surface. Killers can appear perfectly normal, sane people (Ted Bundy would be an example) But if a suspect had mental health issues this would at least raise an eyebrow as to how this might have manifested itself as it can often lead to violent/abhorrent behaviour.

Goes without saying he would have had mental health issues. However this is a very wide range of conditions which to be fair is still not totally understood today. Again since no issues are recorded does not mean there were no issues.

Police interest - Of course this one is also debatable because the police can dismiss a guilty man as easily as they can wrongly suspect an innocent one. And then of course we have those first named a period after the events (like Druitt and Kosminski) and those who were looked at at the time (like Bury and Grainger)

Like above there might have been Police interest but not necessarily recorded Police interest. He might have had the clip around the ear a few times from the beat copper etc.

Over all a great OP. Like most things Ripper wise it’s a different kettle of fish today and the way the Police and People in general reacted and behaved is not the same nowadays. Hence it makes it difficult to judge what the Victorian Police might have been considered ‘interesting.’ Been showing the missus Life on Mars TV show recently and she was in fits of laughing claiming you could not do that nowadays and that is only 50 years ago not 130 years ago.

[Herlock Sholmes]

What I’m currently doing, just as an exercise for what it’s worth (very little i should imagine) is that I’ve created my own tick box points system. I’ve now started to go through the suspects in CJ Morley’s weighty book, assigning points as per my list to leave each suspect with a score. I’m not using every suspect in the book because some are just drunks who have claimed to have been the ripper or men who have ‘scared’ women. I’m only on the C’s so far.

[Geddy2112]

Excellent methodology Herlock. It's always good to look at visual data as opposed to written data so to lessen the chances of misinterpretation.

I’m only on the C’s so far.

When you get to the CR's you can stop

[Herlock Sholmes]

Excellent methodology Herlock. It's always good to look at visual data as opposed to written data so to lessen the chances of misinterpretation.



When you get to the CR's you can stop

It’s tempting Geddy