The worst suspect

[gnote]

The worst suspect in terms of plausibility has to be the Duke of Clarence.

For the person i'd least like it to be i can't really think of anybody. I would just like to see it solved regardless if it turned out to be a famous philanthropist or my great great grandfather.

What i would be disappointed in is if somehow proof came forward naming the Ripper but there was little to no additional information about him outside of what one could glean from census records.

[John Wheat]

Anyone who wasn't the Ripper. So Crossmere, Hutchinson, Barnett, Stephenson, Sickert, Tumblety etc.

[RivkahChaya]

It would be a gut punch for me if it turned out to be a woman, but I really doubt this for a lot of practical reasons.

[Ginger]

I think someone did once, in at least pretended seriousness, suggest Queen Victoria herself as the Ripper, which is just so insane on so many levels it boggles the mind. As a general class of suspect, that whole 1970s obsession with the idea that it had to be someone famous and/or titled has always been jarring to me. That line of speculation seems to me to be based more on the perverse appeal of tearing down the great and the good (so trendy in the '70s) rather than on any reasonable suspicion.

That being said, the arguments for some crusader against poverty having committed the crimes to get the East End cleaned up (I've heard both Dr. Barnardo and the Rev. Barnett mentioned in this context) are at least interesting, if completely unlikely. I can't imagine either of those men being willing to sacrifice a life for their cause.

All reason and logic aside, if I can ever come up with a superficially plausible theory of how Adolf Hitler was actually Jack the Ripper, I'm writing a book myself.

[GUT]

It would be a gut punch for me if it turned out to be a woman, but I really doubt this for a lot of practical reasons.

Why would it be a gut punch.

There have been plenty of Nasty women through history.

[Jack Whicher]

To be fair, silly as most suspects are, Dr Barnardo is one of the few suspects who visited the common lodging houses and spoke to one of the victims.

J H Scott did so on an almost daily basis starting in 1888. He went out at night to look or prostitutes/poor women and offered them a bed at his church. He had tea with them at the workhouses. He visited them in their homes. He gave them free medicine.

Contemporary media noted that almost all the victims were "well known" to the clergy.

[Rosella]

^^If the Rev Scott was known for doing so much good among the poor, Jack, why do you believe him to be a serial killer?

[RivkahChaya]

Has anyone ever seriously proposed W. Somerset Maugham as a suspect? I know he was only 14 in 1888, but that is supposed to be the age at which Ted Bundy committed his first murder.

I don't think Maugham did it, but I can see the theory unfolding, and it's at least as promising as the "Prince Eddy" theory, and way better, IMO, than the "Lewis Carroll" one.

[DJA]

^^If the Rev Scott was known for doing so much good among the poor, Jack, why do you believe him to be a serial killer?

Appears he now has him entered in "The Worst Suspect" category.

Perhaps we misunderstood the original posts

Perhaps it's a shotgun approach.

Who knows?

[Karl]

^^If the Rev Scott was known for doing so much good among the poor, Jack, why do you believe him to be a serial killer?

Why would the two be mutually exclusive? Serial killers are just as three dimensional as the rest of y... I mean, us.

[Patrick S]

The worst suspects - in my view - have always been the 'celebrity' suspects. Van Gough. Sickert. Carroll. The Royal Conspiracy that, for some reason, seems to inspire every movie made about Jack the Ripper. Those are what I'd call my tier one worst suspects. My second tier is comprised of witnesses, persons associated with the case. Barnett. Cross. Mann. Hutchinson. These suspects, in my opinion, represent the same kind of lazy thinking: that the killers name is known to everyone and always has been, that the only person who could have been Jack the Ripper had to have been famous or associated with the case in some way. Pull a name off a page or from a history book. There! You have Jack the Ripper. It's like someone from the US traveling to Austrailia and having someone ask them, "Oh! Do you know Tom Brady?" Uh. No. There are a bunch of people who are not famous who live there too, though. I know a bunch of them.

[Karl]

The worst suspects - in my view - have always been the 'celebrity' suspects. Van Gough. Sickert. Carroll. The Royal Conspiracy that, for some reason, seems to inspire every movie made about Jack the Ripper. Those are what I'd call my tier one worst suspects. My second tier is comprised of witnesses, persons associated with the case. Barnett. Cross. Mann. Hutchinson. These suspects, in my opinion, represent the same kind of lazy thinking: that the killers name is known to everyone and always has been, that the only person who could have been Jack the Ripper had to have been famous or associated with the case in some way. Pull a name off a page or from a history book. There! You have Jack the Ripper. It's like someone from the US traveling to Austrailia and having someone ask them, "Oh! Do you know Tom Brady?" Uh. No. There are a bunch of people who are not famous who live there too, though. I know a bunch of them.

I agree completely. I give your post my official seal of approval.

[curious4]

He would have had trouble getting away from school, and in chatting them up with a stammer.

C4

[Abby Normal]

I agree completely. I give your post my official seal of approval.

Hi Karl, Patrick
I disagree somewhat about the killer being not associated with the case. The annals of serial crime are littered with killers who at one time where witnesses, persons of interest, suspects etc. and were only caught later through unrelated reasons.

I think there is at least a 50/50 chance the ripper was a name associated with the case as a suspect, person of interest or even witness.