Top Jack the Ripper Suspects

[GUT]

He discovered the body smart ass what any detective worth his salt would take a look at and also said he saw her a day before her murder. Was ex military like a large percentage of serial killers are. Local man, would have known Mary's recently single condition as mcarthys lackey as well as her broken window as a way to get into her room.
Debra arif recently discovered a direct newspaper quote where he said he was in the court the night she died.

So put that in your little laughing emoticon and smoke it and read up on the less known articles of the case Einstein.

Boy somebody's tetchy today.

[Abby Normal]

That's interesting, Abby. I don't think I've ever seen Harry Bowyer put forward as a suspect. Maybe I haven't been around long enough?

He discovered the body what any detective worth his salt would take a look at and also said he saw her a day before her murder. Was ex military like a large percentage of serial killers are. Local man, would have known Mary's recently single condition as mcarthys lackey as well as her broken window as a way to get into her room.
Debra arif recently discovered a direct newspaper quote where he said he was in the court the night she died.

So put that in your little laughing emoticon and smoke it and read up on the less known articles of the case Einstein. : )

[Jonathan H]

To J6123

Fair enough, and I personally do not think Tumblety was the killer -- because Sir Melville Macnaghten did not. Alone among the Victorian police he would not have been impressed with the homosexual angle, e.g. such a vile creature would be capable of anything.

On the other hand, Tumblety was not just gay but reportedly a misogynist, though he himself denied this (for what his denial was worth).

[J6123]

I think that Tumblety is a much, much stronger suspect than Aaron Kosminski.

Tumblety was apparently homosexual. Why would somebody commit serial sexual murder against the sex they aren't interested in? This, and other things, possibly makes him an even weaker suspect than Kosminski.

[Jonathan H]

To Gut

Fair enough, but I think that Tumblety is a much, much stronger suspect than Aaron Kosminski.

This is because he was a police suspect in 1888, Scotland Yard wanted samples of his handwriting from both coasts of the US, they sent Inspector Andrews to do a background check on him in Canada, and his ambiguous shadow falls across the subject in the Edwardian era:

George Sims' certainty that it was a middle-aged doctor; his 1907 claim that the second-best theory is that of an American; Littlechild's letter to Sims in which he has been told by somebody that the doctor has taken his own life; his initial 'exoneration' because of the McKenzie and Coles murders; and finally his own bombastic interview of 1889 in which he provides no alibis whilst admitting he knows the East End very well.

Kosminski has nothing going for him on this scale and, arguably, has much against him. Her does not even enter the extant record as a Ripper suspect until 1894 (by a senior police officer who ultimately utterly rejected him) and not by the senior cop who advocated him until 1895.

The same could be said of Druitt because he was already deceased and Mac was reliant on second-hand evidence. I believe this evidence came from the man to whom Druitt had confessed, but it was still harder to quantify than a living suspect (nonetheless, Macnaghten, at some risk to his own career, committed himself to a suspect who was, to some extent, his own reflection staring back at the Old Etonian -- rather than a local nonentity or an Irish-American scoundrel).

[J6123]

1. Anonymous (had a mental illness, was paranoid and delusional, was maybe guided by a voice)

2. Aaron Kosminski

3. David Cohen

Kosminski and Cohen are my two chosen suspects, with Kosminski being the stronger suspect of the two. I am not saying I think Kosminski was the Ripper, just that he is a good suspect compared to others, based on Anderson and Swanson, and what we have learnt about him.

The case against David Cohen is weak and circumstantial, but i would say the case against many others is non existant. [PHP][/PHP]

[GUT]

To Gut

Fair enough, but I was looking at it from the perspective of the end of Edwardian Era, e.g. when opinions have settled.

By then or thereabouts Swanson has written the Marginalia and Littlechild has expressed the opinion, to Sims, that Tumblety had never been cleared of suspicion

In 1913 and 1914 Macnaghten committed himself to the publicly un-named Druitt as not only the best suspect, but the only one worth mentioning--because to him he was the one.

G'day Jonathan

But that's why I'd be inclined to swap your 2 and 3.

[Jonathan H]

To Gut

Fair enough, but I was looking at it from the perspective of the end of Edwardian Era, e.g. when opinions have settled.

By then or thereabouts Swanson has written the Marginalia and Littlechild has expressed the opinion, to Sims, that Tumblety had never been cleared of suspicion

In 1913 and 1914 Macnaghten committed himself to the publicly un-named Druitt as not only the best suspect, but the only one worth mentioning--because to him he was the one.

[GUT]

3. Aaron Kosminski -- Sir Robert Anderson and Donald Swanson

And whilst later downgraded by the good man placed by Macnaghten in the group of three "more likely".

[Jonathan H]

We can only get as close as the top cops of the day and their competing opinions-theories:

1. Montague John Druitt -- Sir Melville Macnaghten (plus Tory MP Henry Farquharson, plus the writer George R. Sims)

2. Dr. Francis Tumblety -- Jack Littlechild and Walter Andrews (plus, arguably, Sir Melville Macnaghten, and, arguably, George R. Sims)

3. Aaron Kosminski -- Sir Robert Anderson and Donald Swanson

[Bridewell]

Hi Kaitlyn,

I tend to see "Blotchy Face" (like "Broad-Shouldered Man" and "Pipe Man") as descriptions rather than suspects - because we don't know (even assuming they all existed) who they were.

If I have to nominate suspects I would include Kosminski (but not because of that bloody shawl!), simply because he was in the frame contemporaneously and I am one of the few who thinks that the Seaside Home account (by Swanson) records an actual event, albeit perhaps somewhat distorted in the telling.

Jacob Isenschmidt cannot be discounted for the Nichols and Chapman murders; nor can Barnett for Kelly's.

I suspect, though, that when we all meet up in the afterlife (if there is one) the Ripper (if there was one man responsible for all the murders) will be someone none of us has ever considered - such as Joseph William Haines, a butcher who ended his days as an alcoholic distillery carman. (Must get that Rip article done!)

[Harry D]

That's interesting, Abby. I don't think I've ever seen Harry Bowyer put forward as a suspect. Maybe I haven't been around long enough?

[Abby Normal]

I'm doing a report for a class of mine about Jack the Ripper. I wanted to include some suspects, just so everyone has an idea of some of them.

My question, however, is who are YOUR top three suspects for Jack?

I'll probably end up tallying them up and deciding which ones to use.

It'd mean a lot to me if you participated!

Thanks.

Kaitlyn

1st tier
1. Blotchy
2. George Hutchinson
3. Chapman

4. William Bury
5. James Kelly
6. Aaron Kosminsky



And far down

2nd tier
Druitt, tumblety, Barnett, Fleming, Puckridge, lechmere, le grande, Richardson, Harry bowyer, John mcCarthy, Jacob levy etc.

3rd tier
royal conspiracy, sickert, maybrick, the Easter Bunny etc.

[SirJohnFalstaff]

I don't have a pet suspect. My fascination for the case doesn't go in that direction.

I'm more impressed by the "everything that could possibly go wrong did go wrong". I think the police was competent, and the efforts were gigantic. But they were also victims of political struggles, media bashing, and were just obnoxiously unlucky.

This sais, if the man seen by Mrs Fiddymont after Chapman's murder isn't Issenschmid, then this guy is my favorite.

[GUT]

1. Unknown #1

2. Unknown #3

3. Because I don't accept that the police were total idiots those suspected, but not cleared by contemporary police officers.