Favoured Suspect...

[Damaso Marte]

I don't think the Ripper's name has ever been posted on Casebook. The crop of suspects we have is not especially strong, with many of the "premier" suspects like Druitt not even being placeable in Whitechapel at the time of the killings.

[Mortis]

Hi Mortis

I think it's widely recognised that the Ripper strangled his victims it's what the evidence suggests in a number of the C5. So I'm putting too much emphasis on strangulation and post mortem mutilation. Which is what happened to 4 of the C5. That's not logical at all. Post mortem mutilation is also extremely rare. Bury matches the psych profiles of the Ripper extremely well maybe you should look at the actual psych profiles? Bury was not just a drunk who beat his wife he also murdered her. Actual murder is not as common as you claim. I believe William Beadle found that in two the years leading up to the Whitechapel murders there were relatively few murders in Whitechapel in his book Jack the Ripper Unmasked.

Cheers John

We know with at least 90% certainty that he didn't strangle Stride and MJK. The rest is up to debate, but generally speaking, given that no sound was ever heard and the absolute blitz type attacks, choking them out doesn't make much sense. But that is another can of worms entirely. Anyway, even if you presume all or most of them were strangled, the difference between Bury's wife and what Jack did is extreme. Bury garroted her. In fact he specifically brought a rope to do it. Jack's victims show no signs of this. Post mortem mutilation might be rare, but not exactly during period of JTR. There were many more victims in Whitechapel post-C5 that showed signs of Jack's MO because the guy created something of a legend for himself and many other killers tried to emulate him. but none exactly fit the MO of the original 5. Bury included. Also, I never claimed murder is common, only that the resemblance in which how Jack killed his victims to what Bury did to his wife holds little similarity. Not that it has any relevance to Whitechapel, he killed her in Dundee. If we take the whole UK at the time, I'm pretty sure there were a number of murders even outside of Whitechapel carrying some form of mild mutilations. Doesn't mean they were Jack.
[QUOTE=Abby Normal;n842102]

"the majority of the victims were big women" ?

As in fat. With the exception of Eddowes and Stride. Well, Philips described Stride as 'fairly nourished'', but I'm not sure what that would mean exactly in Victorian speak.

My main problem with Aaron as a suspect is that the case against him is mostly that someone with last name was who Anderson and Swanson thought was the culprit, and was one of Macnaughton's top 3 suspects, and there are good reasons for thinking that Aaron was probably the Kosminski that they were referring to. Beyond that, Aaron was just a young man that lived in the area, and a lunatic, if one believes that JtR was a lunatic. So it mostly comes down to how significant are the Kosminski references by contemporary policemen. I think they're enough to make him one of the top 10 suspects, but not enough to make him the top suspect.

Aaron wasn't 'just' a young man. He is described as hypersexual (it's heavily implied he masturbated in public), paranoid schizophrenic, carrying hatred for women and threatening his sister with a knife. This basically nails him down to a tee with what Jack would most likely be given the nature of his crimes. You look at any other similar killers to Jack and you'll find much of the same abnormal behavior.

The questions regarding Aaron is that he is young to be the Ripper and also how 'sane' exactly was he in 1888 other than the dog report in 1889. Otherwise as far as Ripper suspects he's as good as they can come... which is not saying much. And I want to express here that I'm not defending Aaron as a great suspect, not at all. As I said - I think pretty much every named suspect that we have is pretty bad, and I think the Ripper was someone who went under the radar, but Aaron is to me the blueprint of what the Ripper most likely was. Just older, more experienced and more in touch with his marbles.

[spyglass]

Hi all


Just wanted to touch base and get a general picture of the Status Quo...


Question...


Do you have a favoured suspect, or are you on the fence?


It would be interesting to see what percentage of members have a suspect they favour and those who don't have one.



RD

I have had many favoured suspects over the years but after reading and studying I constantly changed my mind leaving me now with none.

For me There are just to many doubts and cant understand how anyone can have a favourite and stubbornly stick to it whatever.

I have a favoured theory ....but that's it.

Regards

[DJA]

1,440 × 864

[Fiver]

I have no favorite/favored suspect; however, I suspect that The Ripper was quite possibly some unnamed individual that was overlooked during the investigation, or possibly never even suspected at all. While I would love for the Ripper to be some maniacal Harley Street surgeon, replete with top hat and cape, I'll settle for him being someone familiar with human anatomy, say a mortuary assistant/failed medical student. I would be very disappointed if The Ripper turned out to be some common laborer, like a butcher. I agree with Sugden when he opined, "I doubt we will find our man amongst the laboring poor."

Having said that, here is a list of who I am confident was not The Ripper (and I could be wrong....)

1. Ostrog (why he is even on the list is beyond me. We need to expunge just about anything Melville McNaugten has to say about the matter).

2. Walter Sickert (Patricia Cornwell has clearly documented mental illnesses and is an erratic individual. Her opinions my be safely ignored.)

3. Lewis Carroll (What in the actual F%$#??? Whoever came up with him must have been smoking some goooooood stuff!)

4. Kosminski (At the time of the murders, he was clearly a pathetic paranoid schizophrenic, living partly in the streets and eating food from the gutters. His mind was FUBAR at the time, hardly a likely punter for the poor victims. I think he can be safely dismissed.)

5. Druitt (ol' Melville couldn't even get his occupation or age correct! He was likely a homosexual who got involved with his students, was discovered, then topped himself in the Thames.)

6. Prince Albert Victor/Dr. Sir William Gull/John Netley (the Royal Conspiracy needs to disappear along with Melville and Cornwell!)

7. Dr. Tumbelty (I originally liked him a lot, and he is a better suspect than the aforementioned here, but he was too tall and too flamboyant to be ol Jacky. Too bad, because otherwise he would have done nicely.)

8. George Chapman (Even great detectives like Abberline can make mistakes. Chapman could have done it, but I'm not feeling him. Still possible, though.)

9. Michael Bruneio (This is my real name, and I must go on record and state that I am tired of being accused of these heinous crimes!! (Not by anyone here; you're all lovely!) I have an alibi, being born 80 years after these crimes, but that's not good enough for some people!!

Agreed on all points. I'm also sure that any theory involing a conspiracy is wrong. A folie a deux is unlikely, but not impossible, any more than that is laughable.

[Fiver]

Do you have a favoured suspect, or are you on the fence?

1) U N Owen
2) David Cohen
3) George Capel Scudamore Lechmere.

[Lewis C]

While I cannot definitively rule out anyone, I am satisfied that Kosminiski was wayyyy too far gone mentally to have the wherewithal to commit the murders. Druitt is a suspect of convenience, and I find it far more likely that he killed himself for the reasons I listed above. Chapman is the strongest of the lot, and while most murderers do not change MOs so drastically, it does happen.

You wrote: "I think that being suspected by the top police of the time counts for something." These men were suspected by the top police administration of the time! Abberline dismisses Druitt and (I believe) Kosminiski, and so did many of the other detectives on the ground. I'll take their street smarts and "ground truth" over the opinions of "desk jockeys" like Anderson and MacNaughton any day of the week and twice on Sunday! Hell, Melville wasn't even working for the Metropolitan Police at the time of the murders! And when he did, he still managed to get Druitt's age and occupation wrong! When I was in Corrections, I worked for people like this and they were clueless. I'll bet money neither Anderson nor MacNaughton ever laid their hands on a criminal in their lives. Well, maybe Anderson did....but the point is, ground truth counts for a lot. For example: if you want to know what's going down in the mean streets of the barrio, who do you consult? The mayor??? As I have belabored this point so often before: we need to discard the writings of MacNaughten and go back and see what the detectives on the streets thought.

I don't think that it matters that Melville worked for the Met Police at the time of the murders. He joined shortly after, and they wouldn't have thrown the evidence away in the intervening time. I do agree that he got a lot of things wrong. I can accept lower level police being at least as good at weighing the evidence as the upper level police provided that the lower level police knew all of the evidence, but I'm not sure that that's a case. And do we have verifiable evidence about what well-informed lower level police believed (if there is such a thing)? If so, I would say that's an underexplored area of Ripperology.

[Lewis C]

Aaron wasn't 'just' a young man. He is described as hypersexual (it's heavily implied he masturbated in public), paranoid schizophrenic, carrying hatred for women and threatening his sister with a knife. This basically nails him down to a tee with what Jack would most likely be given the nature of his crimes. You look at any other similar killers to Jack and you'll find much of the same abnormal behavior.

The questions regarding Aaron is that he is young to be the Ripper and also how 'sane' exactly was he in 1888 other than the dog report in 1889. Otherwise as far as Ripper suspects he's as good as they can come... which is not saying much. And I want to express here that I'm not defending Aaron as a great suspect, not at all. As I said - I think pretty much every named suspect that we have is pretty bad, and I think the Ripper was someone who went under the radar, but Aaron is to me the blueprint of what the Ripper most likely was. Just older, more experienced and more in touch with his marbles.

I don't remember any source implying that Kosminski masturbated in public, and I think that the only source for him having a great hatred of women is Macnaughton, who got a few things wrong. JtR may or may not have been a paranoid schizophrenic, but I'll grant that since that's a definite possibility, and most people aren't paranoid schizophrenics, Aaron being that does increase the probability of him being the culprit to at least some degree.

[John Wheat]

[QUOTE=Mortis;n842150]

We know with at least 90% certainty that he didn't strangle Stride and MJK. The rest is up to debate, but generally speaking, given that no sound was ever heard and the absolute blitz type attacks, choking them out doesn't make much sense. But that is another can of worms entirely. Anyway, even if you presume all or most of them were strangled, the difference between Bury's wife and what Jack did is extreme. Bury garroted her. In fact he specifically brought a rope to do it. Jack's victims show no signs of this. Post mortem mutilation might be rare, but not exactly during period of JTR. There were many more victims in Whitechapel post-C5 that showed signs of Jack's MO because the guy created something of a legend for himself and many other killers tried to emulate him. but none exactly fit the MO of the original 5. Bury included. Also, I never claimed murder is common, only that the resemblance in which how Jack killed his victims to what Bury did to his wife holds little similarity. Not that it has any relevance to Whitechapel, he killed her in Dundee. If we take the whole UK at the time, I'm pretty sure there were a number of murders even outside of Whitechapel carrying some form of mild mutilations. Doesn't mean they were Jack.

As in fat. With the exception of Eddowes and Stride. Well, Philips described Stride as 'fairly nourished'', but I'm not sure what that would mean exactly in Victorian speak.

Aaron wasn't 'just' a young man. He is described as hypersexual (it's heavily implied he masturbated in public), paranoid schizophrenic, carrying hatred for women and threatening his sister with a knife. This basically nails him down to a tee with what Jack would most likely be given the nature of his crimes. You look at any other similar killers to Jack and you'll find much of the same abnormal behavior.

The questions regarding Aaron is that he is young to be the Ripper and also how 'sane' exactly was he in 1888 other than the dog report in 1889. Otherwise as far as Ripper suspects he's as good as they can come... which is not saying much. And I want to express here that I'm not defending Aaron as a great suspect, not at all. As I said - I think pretty much every named suspect that we have is pretty bad, and I think the Ripper was someone who went under the radar, but Aaron is to me the blueprint of what the Ripper most likely was. Just older, more experienced and more in touch with his marbles.

But there is evidence a ligature was used in a number of the C5. Again why would Bury go to town on Ellen Bury his wife not a random victim who couldn't be traced back to him?

[Mortis]

I don't remember any source implying that Kosminski masturbated in public, and I think that the only source for him having a great hatred of women is Macnaughton, who got a few things wrong. JtR may or may not have been a paranoid schizophrenic, but I'll grant that since that's a definite possibility, and most people aren't paranoid schizophrenics, Aaron being that does increase the probability of him being the culprit to at least some degree.

I would argue 'solitary vices' pretty clearly implies masturbation. But Macnaughten wouldn't know that if it wasn't done as a public display. Also, generally speaking, what reason Macnaughten has to lie? The main reason why I suspect JTR might have been a paranoid schizophrenic is because his MO is very similar to the types of killers that suffer these delusions. He didn't care to instill fear in his victims, nor did he seek any attention for his crimes (that we can be absolutely certain of). What he wanted was to destroy the body with ever increasing escalation that culminated with Kelly. Those type of killers usually fit with people suffering from delusions and hallucinations.

But there is evidence a ligature was used in a number of the C5. Again why would Bury go to town on Ellen Bury his wife not a random victim who couldn't be traced back to him?

Is there? There's no ligature marks on any of the victims' throats. As far as Bury goes, you're implying that he believed he was going to get away with it. But a person believing he's going to get away with it is certainly not someone who is going to mutilate his wife. I don't know what Bury was thinking in those days, but none of it fits with the Ripper. He was either an idiot of immense proportions and thus highly unlikely to be the Ripper or he was vying for attention. My 2 cents is given the nature of him constantly trying to bring attention to himself being the Ripper, it's the latter. And if we're being honest here, he was probably both.

[John Wheat]

I would argue 'solitary vices' pretty clearly implies masturbation. But Macnaughten wouldn't know that if it wasn't done as a public display. Also, generally speaking, what reason Macnaughten has to lie? The main reason why I suspect JTR might have been a paranoid schizophrenic is because his MO is very similar to the types of killers that suffer these delusions. He didn't care to instill fear in his victims, nor did he seek any attention for his crimes (that we can be absolutely certain of). What he wanted was to destroy the body with ever increasing escalation that culminated with Kelly. Those type of killers usually fit with people suffering from delusions and hallucinations.


Is there? There's no ligature marks on any of the victims' throats. As far as Bury goes, you're implying that he believed he was going to get away with it. But a person believing he's going to get away with it is certainly not someone who is going to mutilate his wife. I don't know what Bury was thinking in those days, but none of it fits with the Ripper. He was either an idiot of immense proportions and thus highly unlikely to be the Ripper or he was vying for attention. My 2 cents is given the nature of him constantly trying to bring attention to himself being the Ripper, it's the latter. And if we're being honest here, he was probably both.

I disagree completely. You presume far too much about the Ripper. It's important to note that Bury mutilated Ellen's abdomen some time after strangling her. I'm suggesting this was because he just couldn't help himself.

[Lewis C]

I would argue 'solitary vices' pretty clearly implies masturbation. But Macnaughten wouldn't know that if it wasn't done as a public display. Also, generally speaking, what reason Macnaughten has to lie? The main reason why I suspect JTR might have been a paranoid schizophrenic is because his MO is very similar to the types of killers that suffer these delusions. He didn't care to instill fear in his victims, nor did he seek any attention for his crimes (that we can be absolutely certain of). What he wanted was to destroy the body with ever increasing escalation that culminated with Kelly. Those type of killers usually fit with people suffering from delusions and hallucinations.

Mac's belief about masturbation may have been gotten from someone who lived with Kosminski or someone who talked to him. Would he have called it solitary if it were in public? I didn't say that Mac lied, but there's no question that Mac was mistaken about some things. I think that most likely these mistakes weren't intentional, which would mean that he wasn't lying.

A point that I should have made in my previous post is that Swanson and Macnaughton referred to "Kosminski", but never "Aaron Kosminski", so it could be that Aaron wasn't who they had in mind when they referred to "Kosminski", so we would need another source besides them to be sure that a particular fact is true of Aaron Kosminski.

[Mortis]

I disagree completely. You presume far too much about the Ripper. It's important to note that Bury mutilated Ellen's abdomen some time after strangling her. I'm suggesting this was because he just couldn't help himself.

No offence, John, but you seem utterly obsessed with Bury as a suspect. That's fine and all, but it's also completely fine by me not to find him credible. I also wouldn't say I'm presuming anything. Going on by pure and simple facts Bury's murder of his wife doesn't even match the Ripper killings. Not in the way she was killed, not in the mutilation part of it, not in the messages.

Mac's belief about masturbation may have been gotten from someone who lived with Kosminski or someone who talked to him. Would he have called it solitary if it were in public? I didn't say that Mac lied, but there's no question that Mac was mistaken about some things. I think that most likely these mistakes weren't intentional, which would mean that he wasn't lying.

A point that I should have made in my previous post is that Swanson and Macnaughton referred to "Kosminski", but never "Aaron Kosminski", so it could be that Aaron wasn't who they had in mind when they referred to "Kosminski", so we would need another source besides them to be sure that a particular fact is true of Aaron Kosminski.

Could be. But that in itself is public exposure if he's masturbating in front of someone in the house, isn't it? I also wouldn't know if he'd call it solitary or otherwise because Victorian speak is seldom easy to understand. For all we know the bloody chap might have been drinking too much at home. As far as Macnaughten goes, I would presume he interviewed him considering he was one of the prime suspects. On that note, yes we can't be sure about anything with Kosminski, it's entirely possible that he was talking about some other Kosminski, but it matches to Aaron as we know him. But that's the thing. We know seldom of Aaron, we don't know anything about how he was in 1888 (we only have his brief encounter with the police in 1889 and most of the information comes after he has completely lost his mind.

[John Wheat]

No offence, John, but you seem utterly obsessed with Bury as a suspect. That's fine and all, but it's also completely fine by me not to find him credible. I also wouldn't say I'm presuming anything. Going on by pure and simple facts Bury's murder of his wife doesn't even match the Ripper killings. Not in the way she was killed, not in the mutilation part of it, not in the messages.


Could be. But that in itself is public exposure if he's masturbating in front of someone in the house, isn't it? I also wouldn't know if he'd call it solitary or otherwise because Victorian speak is seldom easy to understand. For all we know the bloody chap might have been drinking too much at home. As far as Macnaughten goes, I would presume he interviewed him considering he was one of the prime suspects. On that note, yes we can't be sure about anything with Kosminski, it's entirely possible that he was talking about some other Kosminski, but it matches to Aaron as we know him. But that's the thing. We know seldom of Aaron, we don't know anything about how he was in 1888 (we only have his brief encounter with the police in 1889 and most of the information comes after he has completely lost his mind.

Hi Mortis

I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

Cheers John

[Holmes' Idiot Brother]

I don't think that it matters that Melville worked for the Met Police at the time of the murders. He joined shortly after, and they wouldn't have thrown the evidence away in the intervening time. I do agree that he got a lot of things wrong. I can accept lower level police being at least as good at weighing the evidence as the upper level police provided that the lower level police knew all of the evidence, but I'm not sure that that's a case. And do we have verifiable evidence about what well-informed lower level police believed (if there is such a thing)? If so, I would say that's an underexplored area of Ripperology.

I must respectfully disagree and say that it certainly does matter that MacNaughton did not work for the police at the time of the Whitechapel Murders. I say this with regard to not only my own experiences in law enforcement, but also through other far more erudite and experienced sleuths, and the word of the day here is: Perspective. MacNaughton had none, and I have my doubts that Anderson had any either. And by perspective I'm referring to the totality of the evidence tested against experience. For this reason alone I am much more apt to take the word and opinions of detectives such as Abberline over any administrator, for reasons I have listed before. Abberline worked the East End of London for fourteen years; he knew every street, every nook and rookery, and most importantly, he likely knew (or at least knew OF) every criminal in the area. There's a reason they brought him back to Whitechapel. In contrast, up until 1888, MacNaughton was.....managing his family's tea estates in India. This man never laid hands on a criminal or knew their ways; he was appointed via cronyism. Up until that appointment, Melville spent most of his days passing the port! See where I'm going with this?

As far as upper vs. lower level police competencies, please keep in mind that the police force was a relatively new thing in society, and modern methods and forensic techniques were wholly unknown. I believe both high and low officers did the best they could operating in the circumstances of the time. I believe Sugden noted objections to the MacNaughton Memorandum by actual detectives. They may not have thrown evidence/case notes away at the time the case was ongoing, but you can bet money they did some time after the case had gone cold; no sinister conspiracies at work, they merely needed the room for more pressing cases.