Top Jack the Ripper Suspects

[mechanicalcannibal]

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

[barnflatwyngarde]

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

1. The blotchy faced man seen entering Millers Court with Mary Jane Kelly.

2. Montague John Druitt.

3. Aaron Kosminski.

If you want to know my reasons for choosing the blotchy faced man as my No 1 suspect, check out the following post:

Message Boards - Victims - Mary Jane Kelly - How Drunk Was Mary?

Good luck with the project Kaitlyn.

[mechanicalcannibal]

1. The blotchy faced man seen entering Millers Court with Mary Jane Kelly.

2. Montague John Druitt.

3. Aaron Kosminski.

If you want to know my reasons for choosing the blotchy faced man as my No 1 suspect, check out the following post:

Message Boards - Victims - Mary Jane Kelly - How Drunk Was Mary?

Good luck with the project Kaitlyn.

Thanks for your list. I did check out your thread!

I'm currently reading it.

Kaitlyn

[John Wheat]

1. William Henry Bury

2. Unknown Local

3. James Kelly

Cheers John

[Harry D]

1. Jacob Levy

2. William Henry Bury

3. Does "Joe Bloggs" count?

[Ghost]

Oh no, Kaitlyn, you don't know what you've just gotten yourself into! Why do I have a feeling this is going to end up in a Lechmere Special.

I'm not nearly as versed in Ripperology as others here. So I'm still sorting it out. But right now, I'll go with

James Kelly, Aaron Kosminski, Unknown resident at 214 Dorset (my left field choice).

[GUT]

Why do I have a feeling this is going to end up in a Lechmere Special.

Please please be wrong.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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?

[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!)

[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

[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]

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.