Rating The Suspects.

[GBinOz]

There's a much bigger puzzle if thats the case George, ......TIME.

Now then Fishy. Try to refrain from attempting to be inscrutable and elaborate.

Cheers, George

[The Rookie Detective]

Hello Paul,

Sugden does a nice job of discussing this very issue in his The Complete History of Jack the Ripper. After a very thorough analysis involving game times, train schedules etc. his conclusion is that Druitt cannot be ruled out based on his cricket match. Memory is fuzzy but there is evidence he did play.

c.d.

Francis Thompson was also obsessed with cricket and often bunked off his anatomy classes to go and watch his beloved Lancashire play at Old Trafford.

He favoured cricket over cadavers.

[FISHY1118]

Now then Fishy. Try to refrain from attempting to be inscrutable and elaborate.

Cheers, George

Sure thing George ,but I thought it was obvious given what we know about Chapmans murder and what Phillips said how long it would take him to inflict all her injuries. Now compare that to Eddowes 7 to 10 mins tops to do what was an obvious medical technique / procedure, which murder with all the said injuries should have taken more time ?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Was Druit playing cricket somewhere when one of the murders were committed.
If my memory serves me well it was pretty much drawn to a conclusion that If he was at cricket then he couldn’t be Jack.
No one produced conclusive evidence that he was or was not at said cricket match.
So inconclusive evidence to his where abouts for a particular murder but he’s allowed in.
who’s setting the bar here , what are the rules ?

The reality is Paul that the evidence of the cricket match doesn’t even approach exonerating Druitt and can safely be dismissed as such. People tend to jump on any old excuse to try and dismiss Druitt and the fact that it doesn’t do so is the cause of annoyance. The game finished early (most likely due to rain) and only around 90 or so runs were scored in the two innings that they managed to play. We don’t know what time the game started but when researchers checked train times it was obvious that he could have got to London. For all that we know he could have left the ground by 2pm.

Then we have ‘likelihood’ with people saying well why would he have travelled all the way back to London to murder? Firstly, if guilty, he was a serial killer and serial killers don’t think as we do, so we can’t claim to know what was in a persons mind or how he would or wouldn’t behave in any given situation. Secondly, Druitt was a Barrister, he was Treasurer of the Blackheath Club, he was a schoolteacher. He would have had appointments and meetings to attend. So as Druitt was going to Dorset for a summer break during which time he had agreed to play cricket for a local team what does he do? Postpone his entire holiday for a week and let the team down? Or go to Dorset, play the game, and return by train for his meeting. It could have been the case that he intended to return on an early train on the 31st for a midday appointment but when the game finished early he decided to go to London that evening to avoid an early start. We just don’t know, but to try and dismiss Druitt on these grounds is feeble to say the least.

There’s one other thing that we did find out though Paul. After researching the cricket matches it no appears that, despite what DJ Leighton wrote, Druitt no longer has an alibi for Tabram either.

[GBinOz]

Sure thing George ,but I thought it was obvious given what we know about Chapmans murder and what Phillips said how long it would take him to inflict all her injuries. Now compare that to Eddowes 7 to 10 mins tops to do what was an obvious medical technique / procedure, which murder with all the said injuries should have taken more time ?

Hi Fishy,

I'm not sure that we know so much about Chapman's murder. Phillips said that he estimated around 15 minutes to visit the injuries upon Chapman. But he also said that he thought those injuries were inflicted under the cover of darkness. Fifteen minutes is a long time to be exposed in broad daylight subject to an amphitheatre of potential witnesses.

That said, I agree that the time generally supposed for the Eddowes injuries seems to be insufficient. Resort has to be made to either Trevor's theory, to which I am not opposed, or that the perpetrator was skilled and very experienced in dissection procedures. I believe that this level of required competence exceeds that possessed by popular named suspects.

Cheers, George

[The Rookie Detective]

Hi Fishy,

I'm not sure that we know so much about Chapman's murder. Phillips said that he estimated around 15 minutes to visit the injuries upon Chapman. But he also said that he thought those injuries were inflicted under the cover of darkness. Fifteen minutes is a long time to be exposed in broad daylight subject to an amphitheatre of potential witnesses.

That said, I agree that the time generally supposed for the Eddowes injuries seems to be insufficient. Resort has to be made to either Trevor's theory, to which I am not opposed, or that the perpetrator was skilled and very experienced in dissection procedures. I believe that this level of required competence exceeds that possessed by popular named suspects.

Cheers, George

I'm inclined to agree George.

It would seem likely that between murders, the killer was actively learning and progressing his particular skill set, which would in turn imply that he was actively working as either a butcher or a doctor/surgeon.
It have always seemed to me that the killer was learning as he went along; hence the level of progression between Chapman and Eddowes.

I would even go so far as to suggest that any women who went missing between Chapman and Eddowes, may have been kept captive in a bolt hole somewhere, and then dispatched accordingly so that he could practice on their bodies between murders.

He may have kidnapped women, and then used their bodies for practice for when he went out on the streets for real; hence my belief that he may have also been the Torso killer.

Macabre, but a viable hypothesis IMO.