What Mystery?

[Jonathan H]

Edwardian sources claim that the Ripper mystery was solved but that insurmountable circumstances made it impossible to provide either a legal or even an official finality. Accept confirmation by an official:

Like this source:

"The Washington Post", June 4th 1913

FATE OF JACK THE RIPPER

Retiring British Official Says Once Famous Criminal Committed Suicide
London Cable to the New York Tribune.

The fact that "Jack the Ripper", the man who terrorized the East End of London by the murder of seven women during 1888, committed suicide, is now confirmed by Sir Melville Macnaughten [sic], head of the criminal investigation department of Scotland Yard, who retired on Saturday after 24 years' service.

Sir Melville says:

"It is one of the greatest regrets of my life that "Jack the Ripper" committed suicide six months before I joined the force.

That remarkable man was one of the most fascinating of criminals. Of course, he was a maniac, but I have a very clear idea as to who he was and how he committed suicide, but that, with other secrets, will never be revealed by me."

And this complementary source:

"The Sheffield Evening Telegraph", June 2nd 1913,

“The head of the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard, Sir Melville Macnaghten, who retired on Saturday, has one great regret--that he joined the Department six months after “the Whitechapel murderer committed suicide, and I never had a go at him" . As Sir Melville joined the force on May 24, 1889, 'Jack the Ripper' apparently ended his life in the previous December, at the close of the year in which he murdered seven women in the East End of London ...”

That second reporter has it spot on--the unidentified Montague Druitt likely killed himself in early December 1888. In his memoir the following year, Sir Melville re-scrambled the egg: he denied he had ever said he was six months too late (some "enterprising" reporter supposedly came up with that one). This denial allowed the retired chief to write that he joined the Force on June 1st (which is exactly six months after the date of the Ripper's self-murder) whilst claiming that the fiend killed himself in early or mid-November 1888 (but not immediately after his "awful glut".)

I am asking why this solution is not widely accepted as even a possibility on these Boards?

Is all this ongoing debate into the 21st Century, about trying to solve it and come up with new suspects, perhaps somewhat redundant?

[GUT]

The biggest problem with MM was all the "facts" he gets wrong.

[GUT]

"The Washington Post", June 4th 1913

FATE OF JACK THE RIPPER

Retiring British Official Says Once Famous Criminal Committed Suicide
London Cable to the New York Tribune.

The fact that "Jack the Ripper", the man who terrorized the East End of London by the murder of seven women during 1888, committed suicide, is now confirmed by Sir Melville Macnaughten [sic], head of the criminal investigation department of Scotland Yard, who retired on Saturday after 24 years' service.

Even that bit contradicts what he says in his memorandum about 5 and only 5.

[Jonathan H]

To GUT

I would counter-argue that since Macnaghten was absolutely consistent in sources by him and by proxies on his behalf about there being only five victims, then we can safely surmise he did not say seven victims in 1913.

The reporter added that number, since details about the victims had perhaps not come up at this farewell press conference. Seven is in fact correct if you add, or dimly recall, or find a clipping in your files about McKenzie and Coles. Macnaghten does not seem to have divulged hardly any details about the "remarkable man" who took his own life, such as when or how he did himself in.

Nor revealed his "other secrets". What were they?

It must have been startling when the Ripper came up at all since Sir Melville Macnaghten had never before been associated with the Whitechapel horrors in the public mind. He was there, nonetheless, on the Force for Ripper suspects Druitt (posthumously), Kosminski (at least his being sectioned), suspects Sadler and Grant, and their confrontations with probably the same witness, plus the McKenzie, Pinchin St and Coles murders.

We know what those reporters did not. Affable Mac had been manipulating information about the case for fifteen years, and had not destroyed either the filed or non-filed version of a report which named the suicided suspect.

In the non-filed version Mac was disseminating information that had to be a mixture of fact and fiction due to reasons of propriety and discretion (which also allowed him to fib that the police were about to arrest the mad doctor, a claim he did not repeat in 1913 and which he pointedly denied in 1914).

The filed version of his report, which again asserts the deceit that Druitt was a suspect in 1888--among a multitude of deflections and distortions--nonetheless sees him not committing himself to the drowned man being a doctor (it was only hearsay) but rather committing himself to Druitt gaining sexual pleasure from violence and that his family "believed" he was the killer (not just suspected).

Macnaghten's memoir does not repeat that Druitt was a doctor or middle-aged, and explicitly denies he was a suspect whilst alive, or for years afterwards. Nor does he tell us how he killed himself (in another part of his book he does, however, align himself with pal George Sims' drowned doctor, but, by implication, does not agree with Sims' timing of instant suicide).

I don't see any errors, only information constantly and deliberately reshaped depending on the audience of the moment. In other words I see lies not 'errors'.

If Mac had written, or allowed Griffiths and Sims to write, that the Ripper was a young barrister and schoolmaster who drowned himself in the Thames on Dec 1st 1888 then the entire Druitt clan would have been ruined, even if Montie had not been named. At the very least the men's careers in the law, the church and the army would have been stunted. Fellow members of the so-called better classes would have avoided them on the street as if they were Typhus-carriers.

Is there nothing else but these alleged errors that prevents it from being a viable solution? I did not say a definite solution, just a viable one.

[andy1867]

Edwardian sources claim that the Ripper mystery was solved but that insurmountable circumstances made it impossible to provide either a legal or even an official finality. Accept confirmation by an official:

Like this source:

"The Washington Post", June 4th 1913

FATE OF JACK THE RIPPER

Retiring British Official Says Once Famous Criminal Committed Suicide
London Cable to the New York Tribune.

The fact that "Jack the Ripper", the man who terrorized the East End of London by the murder of seven women during 1888, committed suicide, is now confirmed by Sir Melville Macnaughten [sic], head of the criminal investigation department of Scotland Yard, who retired on Saturday after 24 years' service.

Sir Melville says:

"It is one of the greatest regrets of my life that "Jack the Ripper" committed suicide six months before I joined the force.

That remarkable man was one of the most fascinating of criminals. Of course, he was a maniac, but I have a very clear idea as to who he was and how he committed suicide, but that, with other secrets, will never be revealed by me."

And this complementary source:

"The Sheffield Evening Telegraph", June 2nd 1913,

“The head of the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard, Sir Melville Macnaghten, who retired on Saturday, has one great regret--that he joined the Department six months after “the Whitechapel murderer committed suicide, and I never had a go at him" . As Sir Melville joined the force on May 24, 1889, 'Jack the Ripper' apparently ended his life in the previous December, at the close of the year in which he murdered seven women in the East End of London ...”

That second reporter has it spot on--the unidentified Montague Druitt likely killed himself in early December 1888. In his memoir the following year, Sir Melville re-scrambled the egg: he denied he had ever said he was six months too late (some "enterprising" reporter supposedly came up with that one). This denial allowed the retired chief to write that he joined the Force on June 1st (which is exactly six months after the date of the Ripper's self-murder) whilst claiming that the fiend killed himself in early or mid-November 1888 (but not immediately after his "awful glut".)

I am asking why this solution is not widely accepted as even a possibility on these Boards?

Is all this ongoing debate into the 21st Century, about trying to solve it and come up with new suspects, perhaps somewhat redundant?

From the same paper 10 years ago............

"Sheffield Wednesday .In Europe in 5 years"


Don't believe owt you read in The Sheffield Telegraph lol

[Jeff Leahy]

Even that bit contradicts what he says in his memorandum about 5 and only 5.

Actually its rather interesting that MacNaughten only counted five while Swanson numbered Seven...however both men appear to have believed that Kelly was the last murder..

In fact general police department opinion seems to think the MacKenzie wasn't a Ripper victim, as were not Millet or Coles.

My personal opinion is that MacNaughten favoured Druit from Private info, and was there fore working largely from that, source memory rather than a file (Hence the odd error on Druit being a doctor) but that he had the Kozminski file infont of him and was therefore correct and more accurate about Kozminski.

Yours Jeff